Several good things have happened:

* I am up to date on Soul Eater manga and am thrilled to have new manga experience. Stein is way cool in this one.

* Fruits Basket is nearly finished and I love it.

* I had a teaching observation and instead of being satisfactory with elements of good, I am now good with elements of excellent. Mmm, pleasure. Having been the 'crap one' for ages it's nice to have something to celebrate in that. I'm still the crap one of the department but I am a little less crap than before.

* I joined a gym. I know some of you will be rolling on the floor laughing at this but it has a pretty pool, I get a discount and it has a rowing machine I can knock the crap out of. Equally, I fancy doing marking on the cross trainer. It has nothing to do with the steam room, sauna or jacuzzi ... honest... truly. Truth telling I have become remarkably unfit with all the sit down marking I've been doing and my classes are behaving at the moment, so I haven't actually needs to stand and do circuits repeatedly of the classroom threatening at will.

* The flat is kind of tidy and a good portion of our washing is done. This is quite a miracle as washing happens to be something that

* Due to sheer luck I have managed to angle a few more free periods this week. Don't you just love sports days! All I have to do is watch 11 year olds throw heavy frisbees and giant plastic twigs around. Much better than trying to get coursework out of year 10

* I'm on top of my reports, which is very cool (just 15 more to write! ... If I can get exam cover on Wednesday I could get that completed).

I haven't updated for a while and I really have no excuse of why aside from being busy working and sleeping.

I hadn't quite realised exactly how much sleep I get through on the holidays. In schooldays I get up at 6:30 and all of a sudden on holiday it's like a flipped switch and I'm dead until 9:00-10:00 and still managing nap in the afternoons.

My biggest thing over these last two weeks has been the almost constant marking I've been doing - there's been so much, and now we have the wonder that is report season. Actually I should really stop whinging about this because everyone else probably has it just as bad or possibly worse.

In other news, it seems highly unlikely that K-chan will be made redundant, something we are both pleased with and some enough can start looking for a house. We are both agreed on really, really, really wanting a garden, especially when the weather has been so glorious. It was sat in the punts yesterday baking relentlessly whilst trailing toes in the water, and earlier in the week on the parents patio that I realised I want a nice garden with a patio or decking to sit out in and enjoy the nice weather. So far the nearest we have got is stealing next doors front garden to hang the washing out in.

It probably doesn't bother our neighbours as currenty:
- We have never seen them leave the house
- All the lights are always on
- Yet all blinds and curtains are tightly shut.
- The gardens are over growing
- Six months of phonebooks and yellow pages are outside.
- They have never mowed the lawn and yet take the milk in every Tuesday (I have only seen a single hand reach out and take it)

The conclusion fomr K-chan's mum is that it's a cannabis factory, any other ideas. We tried posting a letter through but the mysterious hand only snatched it throguh and we didn't get a peep.

Only seven weeks until proper holiday in Cornwall and everything.

Oh by the way N.Yorks peeps are you likely to be around week of the 27th July - particularly the Monday?

We went to Ikea today, driving all the way to Milton Keynes to do so.  Shows the lengths we will go to to get a funky bookcase (it's black with white snowflakes printed on it). K-chan has never been to Ikea before and was pretty stunned by the maze-quality and sheer level of crowds. However he did seem appreciative of the Weird Stuff(tm) being marketed and we found humour in those people trying to make their house look individual by copying everyone else.

On Saturday we went to London for the day with the intention of getting Fortnum and Masons coffee (K-chan's one addiciton being very good coffee, I cannot begrudge him this as I spent God-Knows-How-Much on books and manga) and heading  to Portbello Road to pick up and pay for our antique wall clock (a memory of K-chan's grandfather).

We found Portobello absolutely rammed with every kind of tourist, being fobbed off with all kinds of cheap tat(tm) and taking pictures of the "Don't take pictures" signs and the Clock Guy who wasn't terribly keen when we went in until we mentionned that we were serious and then he couldn't do enough for us. We have one compeltely cleaned and re-conditioned clock being hand-delivered next week and we sat in a bar in Kensington making Yorkshire War Cries at the price of the drinks we had.

And that's it really, our interesting life. Comes to something when the higlight of our weekend was putting our dvds into order of genre and ensuring that when two genres are next to each other the two films next to each have to be linked in some way. Actually, we did have on achievement in making what was, quite possibly, the best salmon fillet ever on Friday night. Yes, I know, total win.


Oh and we saw the Wolverine film on Thursday, my rating was about a 5 out of 10. Not bad with enjoyable bits in places but also accompanied by some quite appalling CG in places and nowhere near enough Gambit. We had one cool moment and then ... nothing ... plus the completely absent bayou accent that every little girl loved in the early 90s.

I am writing this at school because once again my battery is flat. Stupid me left the side-lights on after I actually checked to make sure they were off ... and then most likely switched them on again.

I'm being such a spazz at the moment and even more annoyed because RAC will take an hour to get here. I'm twenty minutes away from Cambridge and on the M11 - not like it's the Outer Hebrides or something. Jesus. I would jump start the wretched thing myself if I had the other car to jump start from but sadly there's no other teacher's cars around or at least cars that have teachers connected to them and nearby.

Annoyed now ... deliberately check and just completely fudge it... and I said the car was fine this month as well.

God knows what will happen if I get a pet ... probably overfeed it or something

Still no RAC .... where are you.

There's a piece of sandwich in my keyboard. Interesting.

Getting stressed at work - as per usual, although now it is invading my sleep which completely sucks.

Now for some people insomnia is a way of life and I have to say that I am quite comfortable coping with insomnia (my kind is the kind where the quality of the sleep is not the issue so much as the actual getting off to sleep) however, four days on the trot is just not on, so we have that to deal with.

Have been invited to apply for the Second-in-Department post that is coming up. Burst out laughing. I am spazzy enough as it is, I need no help to go more mental. The current S.I.D is pushing both me and colleague to apply saying that women really don't push themslves forward enough and that I'm perfectly capable. I disagree. I hemorrage paper, am completely disorganised despite filing cabinets and calendars to help me otherwise.

... not to mention it would be the professional equivalent of being a pheasant taking a stroll across the M1 at 5pm on a Friday.

Although I will ask - is anyone else creeped out by the new morning after pill advert? Pink, sparkly and "oh well you messed up!" attitude. Now I'm all in faovur of the morning after pill but even I found it a little tasteless.

Oh and of the two media classes, it was two of my groups that were the highest ... slightly smug ... I will post the film openings before long.

Total random musings ...

We are pondering on house-buying-related shenanigans. w00t

Today I have:

- Gone independently to a large garden centre and bought herbs for the kitchen and narcissi and violas for the single square foot of garden and hanging basket we have.
- Also thought 'ooh that's nice' about a solar powered light.
- Gone to Waitrose and bought something thinking 'that would be so useful in so many dishes'.
- Driven back from said Waitrose with the Best of Enya in the car.
- Made cookies for K-chan and his work as well as having a little batch for at home.
- Worn a stripey apron.
- Made a 'nice pot of tea'
- Done the washing up
- Potted my herbs and planted my narcissi.
- Had a nice bath to the Sofia Symphonic Orchestra

Remark from msn friend "Always the same when K-chan goes back to work in the holidays, you turn into Bree Van Der Bloody Camp"

Maybe she's right

Sometimes I wonder exactly what I spend my time doing.

I was chatting to a friend online the other day and she reviled her whole exciting life or travelling abroad, meeting friends, making progress, networking, restaurants and more company perks that you can shake a stick at. What surprised me however was that she did a lot of overtime and with the travelling but still managed to go out clubbing once a week and meet up with friends in the pub or at her house at least twice a week and attend a book club.

How? At the end of the working day, I’m barely conscious, let alone able to stir myself into doing something else productive aside from poking K-chan and occasionally feeling motivated enough to clean the flat.

It comes to something when napping actually ranks fairly highly on my list of afternoon activities. I have come to relish coming in from work for a little hour/half hour shut eye.

Fairly convinced that there is another version of me skittering around Gloucester/York/Cambridge who is fantastically thin, glamorous, winning teacher of the year awards and driving a car that didn’t need jump starting last Thursday Evening after the dozy driver left her lights on all day and broke the battery. Her name is probably Jewel, Betty, Teacake … or Monster Munch.

In other news our neighbour has gone slightly dippy. To say nothing of the random Dyson on the front doorstep … The random wooden bedstead being hurled out of the front door to lie on the lawn in bits … or the cat with the inexplicable name of Busta Rhymes (our Iori) … and a dog that is NEVER walked or let out. On Sunday night he took out a large pile of twigs and general leafery onto the other side of the road where there is an electricity sub station, piled it high, doused it in petrol and set it alight.

Clever Boy. Only thing is is that it’s only the petrol that is burning and gusting everywhere and the only thing that managed to burn to a cinder was one of his slippers (that was sat rather sadly in the considerably-charred and noticeably not-much-smaller pile of twiggery).

This isn’t the only weird neighbour we have. We have the guy beneath us who doesn’t know the meaning of the word … quiet … He has slammed his own front door so hard that he has broken the blind in front of it. He stomps about like an elephant in hobnails and more to the point he is cranky. He doesn’t like the idea of us having our recycling box in our backyard (which we have to share despite him maintaining it’s his).

… so we were rather amused when he got his mower out this week and accidently ploughed through his predecessors beautiful mini flower bed with a wild orchid growing in it. The Scandinavian insults were rather loud ^_^

This is no doubt the first in a long line of nutty neighbours. Next door apparently live there but they haven’t yet left the house.

It's a funny thing but I'm quite unhappy at work at the moment but it's all down to things that are apparently designed to make things better ... that disgusting word initiatives .

We are muddling up our year 11 groups into sets for six lessons out of sync in order to give them FOCUSED teaching. At the moment they are scared, confused and trying to work out what each of them are predicted and instead of planning for six lessons I am planning for nine. I am supposed to be observed at some point to help me progress but nothing actually has happened. We have to enter our grades directly onto the school system but we have no server yippee. ANyway enough of that.

I'm guessing I feel like this because I'm ill. Stuck down by a March cold/cough etc. Problem is I either get them mildly and they last for weeks or I get them for ten days and get completely felled back them. This is a felling one.

I have a limited voice range at the moment and glugging water bottle after orange juice bottle. The ironic thing was I thought it was just a chest infection. Oh no, I couldn't be allowed to get away with that, this morning woke up with a subsidary branch of the River Cam diverting to my nose. Excessively annoying.

Although I have to say that it's not the dripping nose, the constant coughing up of things, the tissues, the lack of voice that annoys me. It's the no sense of smell or taste

I have been ridiculously ill this school year so far. Four days off! (two burns outs, one gone voice and one no sleep for three days) Ridiculous. I will simply muddle through this one.

In other news I saw Watchmen with the Elite Geek Force. *no spoilers* I gave it a 7.5. A very well-chosen soundtrack and very nice cinematography in the film. The guys who created it have done so like a precious baby and the sets appear painstakingly crafted (loads of little things to please the geek squad ^_^). It sticks almost rigidly close to the original, practically lifting the script and sets from the graphic novel itself. The effects are extremely good and the CGI isn't too obvious which is always good (the updating of the costumes was also welcome, I don't think I could have taken the original costumes seriously).
I was glad to see that they didn't stick to child-friendly it as what has happened in earlier adaption films, however in places they went to the opposite extreme almost crossing into ultra-violence. After a while it began to be violent for the sake of being violent (in particular, the angle grinder was unnecessary). What else lacked marks for me was that, despite the actors being good there was a certain lack of character depth which I didn't feel there was in the graphic novel. Chracters motivations can across as a little flat and it was almsot if we could have sacrificed a little of the time dwelt on the plot in order to have more rounded characters.
So all in all worth a watch but ensure you don't kick over your large coke, like I did. wh00ps

Back to attempting to plan ... without seeing double

We have OFSTED this week.

School's gone mad with prepations and it's taken me four hours to plan five lessons ...

I has a headache and nasty case of RSI in the left wrist and can't wait for summer holidays.

Beginning to understand what Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei was going on about.

I wish I could hide under the covers for a whole three days.

The question is ... do I have another snow day?

BBC say yes and flag up the school ... woo ... completion of creative writing marking. C'est magnifique!

The only thing I am getting sick of is the news people whinging about how much revenue we have lost/how everyone does it better than us/why is Britain such epic flail/schools should be ashamed about their obsession about health and safety.

In a country where free time and holidays are scarce, people are having breakdowns due to work pressures and economic demands, holidays away cost more than ever and grossly inflated prices in school holidays you'd think one/two days off would be a blessing.

But no, the news was full of parents and various adults whinging that their precious offspring would have to play in the snow (dear god ...), that they couldn't go to work (!) and they almost crashed the car because it was so icy. Nothing about the fact that we hardly ever (as in every decade or so) get this kind of snow. The great kind that doesn't immediately soak into your gloves, makes everything look pretty and you can pack it into a really great snowman that won't melt for days. Oh no, we can't have that ... that would be like pretending eveyrthing's alright.

I'm getting fed up of the news in general actually.

I got the following email today: "Hye Miss here's my creative im off to make a snowman!". My year 10s, 11s and 12s had the chance to finish their coursework, go party in frozen rain and try to break their wrists in time for the exams. Not an every day occrurence.Their beleaguered teacher stayed in bed until ten, marked creative coursework, played in snow and generally recovered and now feel up to the rest of the term, better than drugs I say.

In other news ... someone save me from the Les Mis soundtrack ... it's taken over my life.