Saturday, April 28, 2007

Back to School

I started my final placement recently, so for the next 5 weeks I'll mostly be pretending to be a teacher, and trying to look like I know what I'm doing. (This is a running theme in my life - I pretend this alot. Alot alot.)

During this year at uni I've been to several schools on placement - the Headteacher (HT) at this most recent school described my experiences as ranging "from the sublime to the ridiculous", and I'm pretty much with her on that. I've taught in a very poor area, a very nice area and somewhere in between, and seen various ranges of resources, types of social and economic backgrounds and issues which go along with them.

This new school is, however, by far the "best". It has a flawless HMIe report, Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) up the wazoo, a body of pupils entirely made up of middle-class, pretty well-behaved children, a young, energetic, innovative staff, and a brand new school building choc-a-bloc with brilliant ideas and resources for the kids.

Obviously I can't tell you which school I'm at, any more than I can tell you any of the other schools I've been to - for starters I might decide I want to say something rude about one of the children, and then where would I be? Up Shit Creek with no paddle, that's where... (And obviously all that confidentiality stuff too, etc etc, yadda yadda).

So, I'm feeling very lucky, but don't think for a second that this means everything will be fine and dandy: all children have issues, all jobs have downsides: one school is much like another in that sense, it's just a question of how much easier or harder the situation is made by external factors like money, colleagues and parents.

Placement proper begins on Monday, which is also when the teaching (blagging)and working (panicking) really begins, and I am looking forward to it in a way. It's nice to be in the classroom again, and not at bloody, bloody uni (sorry, I literally can't help it - I've developed Moray House related Tourettes Syndrome), and the kids are lovely, as is the teacher I'm working with, so I'll be sure to share all the good stories I'll inevitably collect over the next five weeks...

...'Cos kids just say the funniest things, don't they? Funny, cute things? You know, all the funny, cute, not at all terrifying and inappropriate things 11 years olds say, ask, repeat?...

Watch this space.

Curse of the Golden Flower

You have to hand it to Chow Yun Fat: he deserves a Nobel prize, or a humanitarian award, or maybe one of those awards you get on ITV, presented by the likes of Carole Vordeman, for being a very special, heartwarmingly helping and kind person, for the fact that his movie has a cast which consists of EVERYONE IN CHINA. That is employment on a massive scale - I can only assume that that's all of China's problems sorted now, everyone is famous, rich and in Hollywood...

Anyway, the film. Well, we went to see it on a Friday night, at 9.00, and there were a total of 7 people in the screening. This could be for one of two reasons, either:

A) Everyone is out having fun, getting drunk, or watching it at another, more central cinema

B) Everyone who has already seen the film killed themselves as soon as it ended or before, thereby making it impossible for them to recommend it to anyone else. (In this sense, you could describe the film like a particularly virulent disease which succeeds in wiping out an entire species, and then itself.)

I'm plumping for B) on this one. It just seems more plausible.

I don't want to spoil it for you, so I wont give you all the twists and turns, but the upshot is this: everybody dies or goes stark raving bonkers.

EVERYbody.

And since the population of China is 1,313,973,713, and they're all in the film, this takes quite some time, not to mention an inordinate quanitity of fake blood. Do not be fooled, however, by a death-count which would put Pol Pot to shame, nor by the trailers which show many interesting Ninjas leaping about the place excited/ingly. No, no, you fools. Yes, there are Ninja types, and a ginormous battle, but these scenes are the exceptions to the rule of slowness which controls the rest of the film.

The plot is good though - it is essentially a Greek tragedy in Chinese (in a number of ways) but I was somewhat let down by the woeful lack of fancy-ass Wing Chun, and deeply put out by many of the highly irritating details of the film, like why the Emperor (who appears to be the richest person in the world) would actually pay people to wander round his huge palace banging gongs on-the-hour-every-hour, shouting stuff like "Heaven and Earth collide, giant wombats fall from space - Now is the hour of the terrapin!" or words to that effect. Just buy a clock....showy bastard.

The film has its good points - the costumes, the sets (comedy factor if nothing else -what is the point in see-through bamboo doors?), the acting, the plot and, if nothing else, the sheer scale of it.

Nevertheless, if you recommend it to a loved one and they commit suicide soon after, well, its probably going to be your fault. That's all I'm saying....

Think about it.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Holy Mother of God

Ok, ok: it was *my* idea. I *asked* to be allowed to do it - I even pestered to be allowed to do it. I know this. However, now that I am definitely on for my fight at the end of May I am, how shall I say...shitting bricks. On Sunday 27th May, I will be having my first ever Muay Thai fight, down in Manchester at this 'ere show:



(I personally think each and every one of you who reads this should come and shout me on. Or form a protective barrier around me so I can run away in safety...)

It'll be a C-class fight - the lowest of the low, apart from amateur fights where they wear padding - and it'll consist of three rounds, each lasting two minutes (C Class 3x2, in case you ever see that written down and wonder what the hell it means). I'll be wearing probably 10oz boxing gloves, and a mouth guard for protection and that's all. Well, obviously I'll be wearing Thai shorts and a sports bra, otherwise it's just porn, but you get my drift.

So now comes the Rocky-style training montage, because I've got 4 weeks, I've been out of training for 3 weeks, my fitness is down, my weight is up and I'm a big, fat chicken... Running and weight loss = things I hate to do, but I'll be doing ALOT of this over the coming month, and just you wait, I might even post some technicolour pictures of my bruises. But only if you're very, very good.....

In addition to this, anyone who is in Edinburgh and who wishes to be my friend MUST come to this show - it is compulsory and will count towards your final grade in my Friendship exam:



Do it!

Friday, April 20, 2007

The Life of a Cyclist

I have always had a bike, and until recently I used it just for getting to and from training for a wee bit of extra exercise, but after getting a new one a couple of weeks ago I've taken to cycling everywhere...EVERYWHERE. Since Tuesday evening I have cycled......wait for it......62 miles, and I must say I'm *rather* proud of myself :)

The downside of cycling so much in so short a space of time (aside, of course from the permanent bike-seat impression which has been left in my butt, and the windscreen effect of bugs splattered all over my face) is that it's all too easy to begin to take liberties with fate, and get a teensy weensy bit over-confident.

For example, I am normally not the kind of person who relishes confrontation, but cycling 20 miles in one day will erode your patience for spotty-faced, tiny-dicked, wimpy little men who drive sporty-looking-but-cheap-and-cheerful red sportscars.

So, when the little snot-stain pulled out of a juntion without so much as glancing left, nearly tranforming me, magically, from the wonderfully unique human I am into so much road-kill (I can see the headline now: Young Newlywed Primary Teacher Killed in Tragic Accident by Waste of Space) , I was more than happy to catch up with him at the next set of traffic lights and give him my best Primary Teacher "you should be ashamed" row. Ok, I didn't say that, but I did demand an apology, and would happily have dragged him out of his car and spanked him in front of a crowd, forcing him to repeat, with every stroke, "I", "Will not", "Be such", "A dick".

However, this is apparently forbidden by law, both inside the classroom and out (who knew?), so I didn't. And that's the only reason why not.

So, as you see, cycling lots: good for the thighs, bad for the soul ;)

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

The Final Countdown

I have an essay due on Tuesday - 3000 words on Curriculum, Teaching and Assessment, theory and practice of Environmental Studies and Expressive Arts. Yep, it's pretty boring. And, as usual, I'm procrastinating like nothing on earth, so it is for this reason that I set the following challenge:

I want to create an Ultimate Cheesy Training Soundtrack, filled with the sorts of tracks which you'd expect to accompany a Rocky training montage. So far I've got:

Eye of the Tiger - Survivor
The Final Countdown - Europe
Hero - Bonny Tyler
Gold - Spandau Ballet
Going the Distance - Rocky Theme Tune

So, come on guys - rise to the challenge.....Your country needs you!

Sarah xx

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Normal(ish) Service Resumed


Finally, after a whole lifetime-long 23 days away from training, I'm finally back at class! I'm suffused with a warm, glowey all-is-right-with-the-world sense of bliss.

This is in direct contrast to the presiding emotion of the last few days, which has been one of "AAAAARGGGGHHHHHH! BLARGYBLARGHYBLARGHHHHHHH!!!!"

It's not something I have any place writing about, except to say I think things are looking up and I think I probably have the best friends in the whole world and I am very, very lucky.

You guys rock

Monday, April 02, 2007

Cellulitis? Just the beginning....

Sounds ominous, doesn't it? Well, it may not be quite horror movie standard, but things did get worse..... much worse.....a bit worse, at any rate.

My cellulitis improved with the ingestion of FUCKLOADS of antibiotics (2 kinds, 4 times a day), but I was left with a very angry, purple, hot lump right where the very first sign of the infection had a appeared. Rather than get, say *smaller*, the lump got bigger, and hotter and angrier and I finally realised, with the help of the internet, that it was a big abscess and determined to take myself to the doctor on Tuesday and go "Look! It's an abscess! Fix it!". This I did, at 15.40 and was sent, posthaste to the hospital to have it drained.

I thought they would just make me wait for ages, then stick a syringe in it and make it go away, but i was wrong.

I was seen by a doctor at 17.00, had x-rays to check the infection hadn't gotten into the bone, and blood tests to check the infection hadn't gotten into my blood by 18.00, and was admitted to the orthopaedic ward by 19.30 to have surgery first thing the following morning, which I really wasn't expecting.

The orthopaedic ward is an interesting place to be, since it is largely populated by old women and men waiting to have hip-replacements, and I was easily the youngest patient by a margin of about 50 years. I was in a room with 3 little old ladies: one was lovely, sparkly and articulate (and referred to the other patients as "old women" despite the fact they were her age), one was fast asleep for the first day, but after her surgery the following day cried almost non-stop, and the other was stark, raving bonkers - totally unaware of who she was, where she was and what was going on, and as such was utterly terrified and prone to screaming for long periods for no reason. As you can imagine, this was conducive to both rest *and* relaxation...

Anyhoo, the first night in the hospital was one of the longest of my life and I didn't sleep at all, mainly because I was a bit scared of what they might find when they opened up my leg the following day. There's something very isolating about being awake in a hospital at 3am or 4am, with the nurses chatting, or marching around and you with nothing to do but worry or listen to Regina Spektor on your headphones. I gave up pretending to sleep about 5am and got up for a shower and watched the Clangers on the cool wee personal TV things by each bed.

About 8am a woman I now know to be an anaesthesiologist appeared and asked some questions about allergies and whether I "fancied a spinal" as opposed to a general anaesthetic, but I had a general in the end. Sadly, when the surgeon rocked up with his entourage shortly after this I was utterly brain-dead from not sleeping and couldn't understand his Irish accent, which earned me a very stony glare, and I reckon I'm lucky I still have my leg.

They took me to theatres about 9am, and got me all prepped including giving me pain killers through my veins and it really hurt and kind of made me panic because I was woozy and it was all really scary and nasty, but after that I don't remember anything until I woke up after surgery (which only took half an hour). I was seemingly a bit cold after the operation so I had a cool blanket thing full of hot air, and also lots of morphine (which was lovely), spent a bit of time trying to talk to the nurse and failing miserably because I was too drugged up, and then spent the rest of the day sleeping, really.

After that it's mostly sleeping, pain killers, waking up for hospital food, more painkillers and bucket-loads of IV antibiotics and blood pressure and temperature monitoring, and aside from a bit of low BP dodginess all went very smoothly and I got out on Thursday in time for getting Lewis on Friday, which I'll post about a bit later.

I'm on the mend and looking forward to getting home and weighing myself and finding out the true damage I've inflicted on myself over the last week (feeling *very* heavy*!) and having abit of fun :)