The Home Stretch

Well, I've finally made it to the home stretch. I am barely 2 weeks away from home and the end of my second year of teaching. It's been a long year, full of all kinds of new experiences, both the good and bad. There. That's the most reflective that I'll be in this post.

 I'm proud to say that I am able to cross another place off of my bucket list. I visited Tintern Abbey, just across the Welsh border, a few days ago. To explain why this place drew me so much...

In my third year of university, I was taking an English Literature course and we had a 5 pound textbook...I'm not even close to exaggerating (I weighed the sucker). In this textbook were all of the texts, poems, extracts, sonnets, passages, soon and so forth, that we needed to have in our possession to be a successful English student. One such poem was Wordsworth's poem, aptly named "Tintern Abbey." Alongside the poem was a beautiful picture of the Abbey. At that moment, I knew that I had to see this place in person one day. It was such a beautiful, ethereal and almost too beautiful for words.

If I thought a picture of the place was spectacular, being there in person is almost indescribable. It was beauty beyond words and a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. So, another country and another site off my list.

Not much else to report...I think everyone is in countdown mode now, students and staff alike. Roll on summer.

Oh. I suppose I must now eat my words. Not only have I reconciled with Tom (we all remember Tom)...we're dating. True story.

Damn.

The British men finally got me.

Lazy Norwegian Days

It's a tough life, this holiday stuff. It's my last half-term holiday of the year and I'm back in Norway for one last visit before heading home for the summer in just over a month. Sarah and Kristian have settled into their new house and I've been busy unpacking. Well, that is a slight exaggeration...I have unpacked when I've been told where things go. Otherwise, it's mostly been me hanging out with Kristian's parents St Bernard puppy, watching movies & relaxing. It's tough.

 We went out for a joint birthday celebration on Saturday night for several of Kristian's friends. Sarah & Kristian said it wouldn't be a late night. So, at 3:30 AM, we arrive home and dig into some early-morning snacks. It was fun to see all of Kristian's friends and I had a really good time.

The sun never fully sets here this time of year so it is really hard to judge the time of day (or night) by how light or dark the sky is. Sarah & Kristian have a beautiful new home with lots of windows so I can follow the sun's progress throughout the day. Yes, that is how busy I am on holiday. Well, I have found time to do some cooking, break the cable that provides signal to the TV, almost put a few holes in the wall from opening a door too quickly and smacking into closet doors but that's just par for the course when it comes to me.

 Back to school next week and then a roll-over two weeks following that. That is when all of the current year groups move up into the next year group: year 7 students move into year 8, year 8 into 9 and so on. I have a brand new timetable with new courses on it, so it will be interesting to adjust to. I'm sure I'll come round.

 Based on the decibel level of Tanja's (the St Bernard) snoring, I can assume she is having a day just as relaxing as mine. I've said it before and I'll finish with it: it's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

One Last Hurdle

One more half term holiday and then we're really on the home stretch until the end of the year. It's incredible, how fast time has gone by. Before I know it, I'll be writing yet another oh so sappy post about how wonderful my colleagues are and so on, blah blah blah.

 Mary, Hannah & I went out for dinner last week, as is fast becoming a weekly habit, and visited a nice Mandarin restaurant that we've been to a few times before. Everything was great, had a lot (too much) to eat and headed home for an early night. A couple of hours later, I started feeling a bit off. Over the next few hours, the pain progressively got worse, to the point where I headed to the hospital. Verdict: food poisoning. It wasn't a very fun night. The only bonus was that I felt it was completely acceptable to drink apple juice in bed all day the next day.

 Roll on Friday..I've a staff dinner on Thursday. Let's avoid the mussels this time, shall we. I don't think Norwegian air will cater very well to my food poisoning.

Dear Readers

I appreciate each and every one of you. Truly, I do. From South Korea to Brazil and everywhere in between, I am very appreciative for all the readers I have in the 25 countries that this blog has been viewed in. I never expected it to be viewed as many times as it has over the last year or so.

 I checked the stats this morning and found that a couple referring sites were google.com and google.co.uk with the search terms of my name + Northampton and then my name + Northamptonshire. Definite dedication. I either hope that I know you or...

Let's just leave it at 'I hope that I know you'...mysterious Googler.

Drip Drop

It has been raining here for two weeks. Three weeks. ETERNITY. I realize that England is known world-wide for its drizzly weather but this is taking stereotypes to a whole new level. While I'm sure all of this rain will make everything oh so beautiful in the summer, I won't be here to enjoy it and so I would greatly appreciate seeing the sun every once in awhile. I'm pale enough as it is.

 I've found myself lying in bed, listening to the rain falling on a very lazy bank holiday Monday. It has been a pretty uneventful couple of weeks, incredibly busy at work with lots of long days involved. It was Hannah's birthday this weekend, so we all went out to celebrate and have a few drinks. Mary, Hannah & I went to Birmingham yesterday and that sums up my very laid-back weekend. There is nothing too exciting looming on the horizon for the next few weeks...in less than a month, it's another half-term holiday and then it will be the final countdown to my return to Canada.

 As excited as I am to go home, it will involve a lot of headache and stress, for part of the trip at least. I'm in the middle of gathering paperwork for my Visa and I am quite worried that the 5-6 week window I have at home won't be long enough to have the papers processed and my passport returned to me on time before I head back to England. If I have to delay my trip, that could be a costly extension to my vacation. But, pointless to worry about it now, so I'll deal with that when the time comes.

 As the school year slowly winds down, I'm getting ready to say goodbye to my current classes before getting a new timetable for next year. One group, however, will be moving on and moving out of the school. My group of Year 11 students have been, above and beyond, one of the greatest perks of the job the past 18 months. I took over the group last winter, shortly after Christmas, and I've fallen completely in love with this group. The students, all of them, are absolutely hilarious and they have made my job so much better. I don't think I will ever be able to forget them, any of them. From the boy who gave me a bracelet made out of paperclips and...actually, I'll stop there. No point in becoming too introspective on what should be a wonderfully laid-back day. Sorry, lazy. Lazy day.

I sadly do have to drag myself out of bed and out into this damn rain...it's much less soothing when I'm walking in it rather than listening to it from the comfort of my big bed and warm duvet. I watched The Avengers last night and, going a little backwards, I realize I should watch all of the other movies that make up the Marvel series. What an arduous task. I do hope I'm up for it.

Easter Holiday 2012

The puke-filled field trip was over, lessons were observed, books were marked (kind of) and I was ready for a holiday! I spent the weekend not packing and procrastinating until the last minute...as per usual. As I was going literally from one holiday destination to the next, I packed for Norway as well. Hannah picked us up on Monday morning and we headed for Gatwick. A cramped and boring plane ride later, we touched down in breezy, warm Tenerife! We headed to our hotel and took some time to explore the area that we were staying in, Los Cristianos. Rather than go through a painfully detailed retelling of the entire five days, I can sum up the holiday in the following:

• Breakfast at our condo
• Beach for the day. We had to take some breaks from the stresses of sunbathing to have some lunch (AKA cheap cocktails) at one of the restaurants along the water.
• More sunbathing
• Swim in the pool at our hotel
• Dinner, drinks and exploring Tenerife by night.

It was a great holiday....aside from getting a wicked sunburn, as was to be expected. Strangely enough, it was the backs of my legs (from the knee down) and the tops of my feet that got it the worst. I stocked up on the SPF 50 and avoided the sun like the plague for the rest of the week. So much for coming back bronzed and beautiful, like Mary & Hannah. While we were there, we went to a neighbouring town, Las Americas, where all the nightclubs were. On our first night out, I met a Finnish guy named Niko who was on holiday with his brother and father. Bless him. Not sure how good your game and pickup lines can be with your dad sitting beside you. Aside from Niko, we met a couple of other very unwanted guests in the form of cockroaches in our apartment. Hot damn, those things are fast. And very, very gross. Creepy crawly disgusting bugs.

Hannah & I went whale-watching on our last day in Tenerife...there are pods of Pilot whales found off the coast, and Hannah was dying to see them. The trip took about 2 hours and we saw entire families, including little calf whales..so cute! Hannah was so excited, and I loved seeing them. For such huge creatures, there is something graceful about the way they move through the water.

The week went by incredibly quickly and we soon found ourselves on the way back. We landed at Gatwick just past 2 AM, where Hannah's friend Mark was waiting to pick us up. Mark dropped me off at Heathrow where I killed time until my flight to Norway. Thanks to a lucky upgrade, I got to fly business class...no complaints here!

My trip to Norway didn't involve Finnish men, cockroaches or stray cats that wandered into the apartment (true story, happened a couple of times in Tenerife. I wanted to keep it) but involved family, friends, movies about Space Nazi's and more food than I care to even think about again. Most of the week was spent relaxing at Sarah & Kristian's while they were at work, with trips to his parents, the cinema and out to dinner mixed in there. I went for walks around the lake, fed the ducks, had a duck bite my shoe (ok, I may have stuck my shoe out to see what the duck would do...I kind of deserve it, apparently) and visited with Michelle to meet her new little boy, Teodore.

Norway was so relaxing and a great holiday. Sarah & Kristian just bought a new house, so my next half-term holiday will probably see me back in Norway, unpacking them into their new house! Can't wait :).

So, it was back to England last Sunday, and back to work on Monday. The week went by incredibly fast, and the next couple of weeks are bound to be incredibly stressful. Great...When is my next holiday?

First Time.

I think that I have finally recovered enough to relive the first (but I am sure not only...I would only be so lucky) experience of this particular event as a teacher. Naturally, I'm speaking about chaperoning a field trip.

And what a trip it was. Let me give you the details.

100 Year 7 students...100 eleven year old boys and girls being taken into the woods of Oxfordshire to work on team building skills. And I was lucky enough to be going along. A definite bonus was being able to wear casual clothes, even if I did look younger than some of the students and get confused for an extra child a couple of times.

Within about 5 minutes of pulling out of the school parking lot, the kids were into their pop, candy and were about 27 different shades of hyper. The bus ride was about 90 minutes and it was about an hour into the trip when the inevitable happened.

"Miss......I don't feel so good." And up comes the first batch of sweets and fizzy drinks.

It was like a chain reaction and I was left walking through a mine-field of projectile vomiting children. The heat on the bus was turned up on high, there were no windows to open and the smell was just...indescribable. Once the first kid let loose, the smell and sound set off another, and then another...and then another. Followed by 2 more, just for good measure. In total, 6 kids couldn't keep their snacks to themselves and we only had 3 sick bags. I'll spare you the details. Actually, no, I won't. 3 kids were lucky enough to get their own sick bag, one needed the spare change of clothes that were brought along and the last one got to experience a type of recycling that nobody ever wants to participate in. I likened the event to a scene I watched in a Stephen King film, only it was much more...chunky.

Eventually, and with no more chunks a-flying, we arrive at Cornbury Park and spend the day watching the kids do team-building exercises, like learning to build a fire, collecting firewood, cooking over an open flame and playing some games. The kids cooked whole trout for lunch and I decided to creep a couple of them out by eating both eyes from the fish. Wasn't so bad, tastes a bit like a salty, crunchy pea. Much more appetizing than what the kids had to offer for snacks on the ride there, I'll just say.

Rounded up the kids, gave them explicitly clear instructions that they were not to eat or drink a single thing on the ride back, and loaded them back into the buses. Overall, an eventful field trip. I definitely needed the holiday that was coming up that weekend. Next time...my Tenerife trip!