Day 1: I Kill a Television.

It's the first official day of my half-term break and I have already managed to screw up something technological thus far. Kristian has a very nifty all-in-one remote control that controls his TV, the Wii, audio system, DVD player, etc, etc. Annnnnnnd, in the company of yours truely for about 30 seconds, I now can't get the damn TV to turn on. I am a death sentence to all things technological. Sarah's laptop is taking its life into its hands by allowing me to be on here at the moment.

My visit has been great so far! I landed around midnight on Friday so came to Sarah & Kristian's and headed to bed. Saturday, Sarah had First Aid training at school and Kristian had some errands to run so I had the place to myself for awhile. After coming home, Kristian opened up his birthday presents I brought with me (a Metallica towel and the Dave Mustaine autobiography) and we headed for a walk downtown. Our 'quick walk' led us to the Stavanger Museum which was really cool! There was a Darwin exhibit on and lots of other exhibits showing Stavanger throughout history...supergeek in me is coming out now.




There was one exhibit in the basement that had all kinds of animals, both in skeletal form and stuffed form. One such creature is...



...This furry little friend. I knew it was long-since dead and stuffed...but I was still waiting for the eyes to blink or something.


After stopping for coffee and supper, we headed to Cardinal, the pub that we went to on my first visit here. Thankfully, I wasn't ID'd as Cardinal is 24+. We left Cardinal and went to another little place where the only people there were....the 5 of us. Sarah, Kristian, Per, Arthur & myself. And, to make it even better, the music was all country and classic rock. Score! After our wild night on the town, we ended up at home at the nice late hour of...9pm. I guess that's what happens when you start your day on the town in the mid-afternoon.

Yesterday, we went to Hallestø beach and took Sarah's colleagues dog, Theo, with us. Theo is a St Bernard 'puppy.' I use that term very loosely as Theo's head is about the size of my torso and he is capable of knocking me over with a well-aimed nudge. And the drool on that dog...I had a sudden flashback to the old Ghostbuster's movie where the pink slime was coming out of the bathtub, trying to snatch the baby. After a windy walking on the beach, we dropped Theo off and came home. Kristian's mum, Sidsel, came over for tea & coffee and it was really nice to see her again. She and her husband, Jon Einar, had been up in the mountains skiing over the weekend. She told me a saying often applied to Norwegian's and I'm starting to believe it: Norwegians are born with skis on their feet. Probably true.

I brought no schoolwork with me this week so I plan to relax for the next few days. I may head into work with Sarah at some point this week...we'll see if my nerves are up for that.

The Final Countdowwwn (Insert 80s hairmetal dance sequence)

Instead of doing something frivolous, such as marking notebooks or lesson planning, I have decided to spend some time with the blog read round the world. Ok, perhaps a little pretentious...a blog that is read in at least 4 countries. Obtaining world-wide fans aside, this blog has another major perk: decompression. It helps to be able to write everything down, keep my friends and family updated and just have a place to record some memories of this pretty big adventure I've found myself on.

This week has been the most stressful week yet, without a doubt. Last week all my students completed assessments and, this week, the task of marking them naturally had to be done. That was a big enough task. Add to that...

--Staff meetings/co-curricular activities every single day after school
--Two open evenings for parents and potential future students
--Re-interviewing and re-applying for my job to continue past Christmas--which included a 3-hour interview process, a lesson observation, a formal interview, a formal application and setting cover work for the time I would be doing the interview
--Lesson planning (apparently that's an important part of teaching...)
--Dealing with the cold/flu bug I found myself gifted with last Sunday

Hmm. Oh, yes. I tried to sleep every now and again.

Somehow, with the help of lots of over-the-counter cold medication, a few breakdowns here and there, and lots of raging moments of "I can't do this! Get me on a plane back to Canada!" I survived. The assessments are all marked, the open evenings are over (rather successfully, I think...the young kids looooved making me say things in my "funny" accent), I'm feeling much better thanks to lots of sleep over the weekend, the lessons were somehow planned and I successfully was signed on with the academy until the end of the academic year. I celebrated Friday night by getting take-away, eating the first proper meal I'd had all week, and going to bed by 11pm. I know. I'm livin' the rockstar dream.

After all of that, it felt like it should be mid-term break. But, oh no. Not yet. I have a 4-day week this week with the students and a morning of staff training next Friday before I head across the sea to Norway for my mid-term break. Can't wait!! Kristian's birthday is this Wednesday, so I'll be just in time for birthday celebrations on the weekend. Aside from that, just looking forward to having time to relax, not think about school (as if that will happen), spend time with Sarah & Kristian and hopefully discover some long-lost Viking tribes that happen to be kicking around Stavanger. I promised Zach I'd try to bring him back a pirate ship from England, but maybe a Viking shield or helmet would suffice.

I'm missing home, missing family, hockey, TIM HORTONS, and the beautiful fall weather I'm accustomed to in Canada. It's nice enough here...starting to cool down, stay grey-skied most days and the weather is tending to lend itself towards wet and raining most evenings, but not what I'm used to. I miss the smell of a fall morning (as cliche as that sounds) and the warmth of a wood fire. Oh, dear. I think I'm turning into a Harlequin novel. I suppose that is a sign I have to drag myself to marking notebooks and prepping for school tomorrow morning.

T-minus 5 days!

I'm pretty much Jack the Ripper...of computers.

Yes. The (apparently) inevitable event has indeed happened. I've killed my laptop.

I killed it.

DEAD.

To forego the many curse words I would like to apply to my current situation, I will, instead, just have a moment of silence for the latest victim of my computer-killing spree. It's quite sad, really. This laptop was still just a baby. Only 4 months old. I'd like to say a few short words about it...

Dear Laptop.

At the tender age of 4 months, you decided to leave this world in a blaze of glory and crashed hard-drives.

You were a good, if short-lived, friend, that provided many a hour on Facebook and MSN. Hours that should have, probably, been devoted to lesson-planning.

You survived the trans-atlantic journey to England only to lose your life tragically one grey Saturday morning when I pressed the power button, unknowingly delivering the fatal blow to your system.

O, woe is me, dear laptop. Just so you know, I will always remember you.

I will always remember you as the POS laptop I bought from Futureshop, the store which is currently on the receiving end of some seriously violent thoughts from me at the moment.

In closing, dear laptop,

I hope you burn in the eternal fires of damnation.

Is It Mid-term Break Yet??

Ahh, the end of another week. Thanks be to God. The weeks, in retrospect, go by really fast, but man I am exhausted at the end of the day and dead on my feet by the end of work on Friday. Continuing on with the weekly tradition of "screw cooking!" Fridays, Joel, a colleague, Zoe, and I went back to O'Neills for a (few) drinks and some supper. It's such a relief to know that I don't have to even think about school for the next 48 hours (nevermind the fact I dragged home about 15 pounds of marking in my bookbag today) and I can enjoy my weekend.

Hmm. The biggest news happening recently is my upcoming trip to Norway on my mid-term break. I fly out Friday afternoon & return 9 days later, just in time to crash for the night and head right back to school that Monday morning. I refuse to take--or even think about--schoolwork with me, so I'll be slightly manic (and incredibly cranky) by the time I board the flight. I've made up my mind and decided I refuse to spend a break, whether it be a mid-term, Christmas, or otherwise, here in Northampton. I'm heading to Norway for this break, going home for Christmas, hopefully Greece for my spring break and we'll see what other adventures I can find myself on for the others. I want to be able to look back when I'm 50 and finish a story to my grandkids by saying "...and when I woke up, it was just me, the goose and I was lost in Italy!” or something else amazing along those lines. I was to have as many great, crazy and terrifying adventures as I can while I can still get away with the excuse of being young and irresponsible.

Not too many random adventures happening as of late. As part of my job requirements, I help run a co-curricular club afterschool on Thursdays and it just so happens to be a Glee club. It is lots of fun, so far. Although my little Gleeks just enjoy making me repeat words back to them in "Canadian" for the hour we're there. I did a nice little Michael Buble duet—by default since the rest of the students refused to sing—with a kid this past week (which may have been slightly inappropriate and I'm sure Ray Williams is screaming somewhere '701!! 701!!!). Speaking of Michael Buble, I was going to buy tickets to his show in Birmingham this weekend but they are sadly all sold out. So. The moral of this story is that I would probably sell a kidney if I could get a ticket to see his show. Cause, when I think about it, it'd be a little hard for him to propose if I'm not actually at the show. See? Always thinking.

While talking to a colleague this morning, I realized that I actually had to concentrate to pick up on her accent. I was amazed—did this mean that I really was growing accustomed to living in England? Was I actually beginning to understand the British accent? I was so proud of myself! …Then I had to ask a kid to repeat the word “football camps” about 5 times before the rest of the class, in unison, shouted back “he said FOOT…BALL…CAMPS!!!” and I was knocked off my high horse pretty quickly. I’ve also had the first awkward student-add to Facebook. I came to realize pretty quickly that I should probably not have lied and told my students I didn’t have Facebook because that lie apparently doesn’t hold up well. Damn this Gen-X and their Facebook frenzy.

To add to the list of strange questions I’ve had from my students…

--“Miss? Miss?! Do you know you’re not wearing any pants?!” (This came today from one of my Year 9 girls who saw me wearing a skirt and wanted to make sure I knew about the change of my wardrobe)

--“Miss…how do you drive in Canada? Like…do you have cars yet?”

--Student: “what’s that thing on your flag?”
Me: “A Maple leaf”
Student: “What’s it do? You know…what’s it grow on?”

--Student: “Do you have those things in Canada…you know. Like reindeer. Only not. You know!”
Me: “Moose?”
Student: “What the hell is a moose?!”

--“Is there ever any sunshine in Canada?”

And, yet again, I’ve been asked if I know Justin Bieber one too many times. I really, really hope that he falls out of the limelight soon. Or hits puberty. Either would work fine.

As always, I must end with yet another brilliant story about my grace, wit, or impeccable sense of timing. I was doing duty at afterschool detention today (FYI: kids love doing detention afterschool on Friday afternoon. Love it. They don’t resent you at all) and had diligently shown up on time, spoken to the students I had put on detention for some silly little reason (such as throwing a book at someone’s head or something equally as inconsequential) and stepped out to speak to a member of staff. I walk back into the theatre (the only room big enough to house the number of students we had on detention) and bump into the vice-headmaster who looks at me and says “Alright Jess? You just showing up now? A little late, aren’t you?” and walks away before I thought of a coherent enough sentence to respond. Damn damn dammit.

T-14 days until Norway!