Today is day that will live in Infamy.
I have completed my two years as a drama teacher and am Officially an English Teacher at KES.
Over the moon with excitement.
New job, new flat....
I think things are looking up for me.
Here's to the summer. Here's to the changes.
Here's to the future.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
100 books
The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Tally your total, add it to the note title.
3) Tag others and pass it on. If I tagged you, it is because I think you love to read, like me!
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien ()
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (x)
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (x)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x)
6 The Bible (Extracts) (x)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (x)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (x)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ( )
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens ()
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (x)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (x)
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller ()
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (x more or less)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (x)
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien ( )
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ()
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (x)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger ( x)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot ()
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell ()
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (x)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens ()
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy ( )
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams(x )
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh ()
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky ( )
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (x)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (x)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (x)
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy ( )
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ()
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (x)
34 Emma - Jane Austen ()
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen ()
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini ()
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ()
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden ()
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (X)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (x)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (X )
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving ()
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (x)
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery ()
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy ()
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (x)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan ( )
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (x )
52 Dune - Frank Herbert ()
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons ()
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (x)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ( )
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (x )
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens ( )
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley ( )
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (X)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ( )
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (x)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov ( )
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt ()
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold ( )
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas ()
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac ()
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ()
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (X)
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie ( )
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville ( )
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (x)
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker (x)
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (X)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ()
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (x)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath ( x)
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ()
78 Germinal - Emile Zola ( )
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray ()
80 Possession - AS Byatt ( )
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (x)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ( )
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker ( )
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (x )
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert ( )
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ( )
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (x)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom ( x)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ()
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ()
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad ( x)
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (x)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ( x)
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams ()
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ( )
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute ( )
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas ()
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (X)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (X)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo ()
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Tally your total, add it to the note title.
3) Tag others and pass it on. If I tagged you, it is because I think you love to read, like me!
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien ()
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (x)
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (x)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x)
6 The Bible (Extracts) (x)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (x)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (x)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ( )
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens ()
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (x)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (x)
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller ()
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (x more or less)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (x)
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien ( )
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ()
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (x)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger ( x)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot ()
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell ()
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (x)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens ()
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy ( )
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams(x )
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh ()
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky ( )
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (x)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (x)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (x)
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy ( )
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ()
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (x)
34 Emma - Jane Austen ()
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen ()
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini ()
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ()
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden ()
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (X)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (x)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (X )
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving ()
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (x)
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery ()
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy ()
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (x)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan ( )
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (x )
52 Dune - Frank Herbert ()
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons ()
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (x)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ( )
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (x )
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens ( )
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley ( )
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (X)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ( )
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (x)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov ( )
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt ()
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold ( )
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas ()
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac ()
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ()
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (X)
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie ( )
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville ( )
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (x)
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker (x)
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (X)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ()
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (x)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath ( x)
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ()
78 Germinal - Emile Zola ( )
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray ()
80 Possession - AS Byatt ( )
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (x)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ( )
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker ( )
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (x )
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert ( )
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ( )
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (x)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom ( x)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ()
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ()
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad ( x)
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (x)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ( x)
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams ()
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ( )
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute ( )
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas ()
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (X)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (X)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo ()
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
WOW
15 Minutes of DEAD SILENCE! And the work is fantastic!!
LOVE the Gush!!
I write here because Twitter is blocked...Blogger is not yet considered innappropraite!
LOVE the Gush!!
I write here because Twitter is blocked...Blogger is not yet considered innappropraite!
The GUSH is back!
I remember the good ol' days of Gushes. My baby, my claim to fame as an English teacher. Well, I've resurrected the Gushes in my drama class. Today we are writing our first.
I have given my pupils 12 props. Random props like a Russian Hat and a tambourine, and they have to create a story about the props. It's been five minutes and they are dead silent....scribbling away. The Gushes have magic powers, they really encapsulate people.
One kid suggested "What does air taste like?" I like that one....
Power to the GUSH!
I have given my pupils 12 props. Random props like a Russian Hat and a tambourine, and they have to create a story about the props. It's been five minutes and they are dead silent....scribbling away. The Gushes have magic powers, they really encapsulate people.
One kid suggested "What does air taste like?" I like that one....
Power to the GUSH!
Monday, March 30, 2009
Having the Flu in the UK
When you've got the flu, you've got the flu. There isn't much to be done. You have contracted the germs, so now you deal with them. So what happens when you contract this dreaded disease when living in a place that ISN'T home? You have to play the game like a local.
I've caught my fair share of germs while working in a secondary school. I often feel as though I was given the short end of the deal when I was allotted my immune system, because I always seem to have some sort of cold, cough, headache, stomach ache, etc. You name it, I've contacted it. And today, for the first time in a long while, I had to call in sick to work.
Now, I'm not all about calling in sick. I remember there was a huge uproar surrounding Benylin's advert suggesting people take a day off to recover. But if we're going to make an arguemnt, you don't want to pass your germs along to anyone else. And really - how am I meant to combat a rowdy group of 30+ kids in a chaotic, movement based classroom? I'm not stupid. I know when I'm outnumbered.
So I made the call and then what? Mommy wasn't here to bring me cough syrup or make me soup. I had to fend for myself. Lucky for me I had a nice collection of Olbas Power Flu and Covonia Cold and Flu syrup. I've been around the block a few times with the cold medicines, and I found that these work the best.
After three days of feeling like proper waste, I was able to get up and shower. And I think I actually look like a human. Well done. Although it is a bit disturbing that these poor people in the advert are dragging themselves into work - SPREADING THEIR GERMS - but being supported by Power Flu. Are we really that much of a work enforced society?
http://www.powerflu.co.uk/tvadvert.html
I've caught my fair share of germs while working in a secondary school. I often feel as though I was given the short end of the deal when I was allotted my immune system, because I always seem to have some sort of cold, cough, headache, stomach ache, etc. You name it, I've contacted it. And today, for the first time in a long while, I had to call in sick to work.
Now, I'm not all about calling in sick. I remember there was a huge uproar surrounding Benylin's advert suggesting people take a day off to recover. But if we're going to make an arguemnt, you don't want to pass your germs along to anyone else. And really - how am I meant to combat a rowdy group of 30+ kids in a chaotic, movement based classroom? I'm not stupid. I know when I'm outnumbered.
So I made the call and then what? Mommy wasn't here to bring me cough syrup or make me soup. I had to fend for myself. Lucky for me I had a nice collection of Olbas Power Flu and Covonia Cold and Flu syrup. I've been around the block a few times with the cold medicines, and I found that these work the best.
After three days of feeling like proper waste, I was able to get up and shower. And I think I actually look like a human. Well done. Although it is a bit disturbing that these poor people in the advert are dragging themselves into work - SPREADING THEIR GERMS - but being supported by Power Flu. Are we really that much of a work enforced society?
http://www.powerflu.co.uk/tvadvert.html
Sunday, March 1, 2009
And today is Sunday
Today Ronan and I went on a little road trip to Burnham Market. We weren't happy that almost everything was closed, but we did have a laugh anyways.
Burnham Market is one of the best things I've seen in Norfolk in ages! At The Hoste Arms we had a cup of tea and it was one of the ideal little country pub settings. Fire, people drinking pints at 11:00 in the morning, misty day..... it was fabulous!
We also got to check out the Hat Shop - tons and tons of hats. Something I've never seen in mass quantity. Impressive collection.
After, we headed to Wells next the Sea -- killer sweet shop. The rest wasn't that impressive. It wasn't the best of days, to be fair. But it was not too bad. And to get out of the Lynn for a day - Fabulous!
Now, I'm resting up -- plenty of recovery this weekend from the dreaded QTS....but now it's OVER.
I'm going to conclude the day by watching The Wizard of Oz on Five and signing randomly to Flashdance.....
Burnham Market is one of the best things I've seen in Norfolk in ages! At The Hoste Arms we had a cup of tea and it was one of the ideal little country pub settings. Fire, people drinking pints at 11:00 in the morning, misty day..... it was fabulous!
We also got to check out the Hat Shop - tons and tons of hats. Something I've never seen in mass quantity. Impressive collection.
After, we headed to Wells next the Sea -- killer sweet shop. The rest wasn't that impressive. It wasn't the best of days, to be fair. But it was not too bad. And to get out of the Lynn for a day - Fabulous!
Now, I'm resting up -- plenty of recovery this weekend from the dreaded QTS....but now it's OVER.
I'm going to conclude the day by watching The Wizard of Oz on Five and signing randomly to Flashdance.....
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Thank you, thank you.
I have FINALLY completed my QTS. It was a long, difficult process, but it's finally over.
I learned a few important things along the way. So some words of wisdom for those who are going to do QTS as an OTT:
1. ASK for what documents they require right at the start. ALL of the required documents. And get them right away.
2. Book in to take the QTS skills test as soon as possible. Don't wait until you are completing the portfolio and doing all of you portolfio r other work - get it done early early early.
3. Get yourself a mentor. An actual mentor that is well seasoned in the school. And make sure you are working on the portfolio each week WITH that mentor.
Can you tell I've had a bit of a difficult experience. But it's ok. Because it's over. And now - we wait for the official documents, just so I know it's not a mistake.
I learned a few important things along the way. So some words of wisdom for those who are going to do QTS as an OTT:
1. ASK for what documents they require right at the start. ALL of the required documents. And get them right away.
2. Book in to take the QTS skills test as soon as possible. Don't wait until you are completing the portfolio and doing all of you portolfio r other work - get it done early early early.
3. Get yourself a mentor. An actual mentor that is well seasoned in the school. And make sure you are working on the portfolio each week WITH that mentor.
Can you tell I've had a bit of a difficult experience. But it's ok. Because it's over. And now - we wait for the official documents, just so I know it's not a mistake.
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