Ahhhh finally the holidays have arrived!! It's been a very long term, and everyone was feeling it I think, especially the kids! I'm thrilled I'm through my first sixth of my NQT year, I'm feeling a bit more settled and know more what I'm doing!! It's had its challenges, but doing what I can. We had a useful but quite melancholy Inset yesterday, on Child Protection. Followed by some adminny stuff and discussions about Christmas!!!! But didn't get round to half the stuff I needed to do, so I popped into school today for a few hours, caught up on all my marking, tidied my classroom, rearranged some stuff, did my last display, and sorted out some stuff so that I can get organised for next term! I was quite impressed!

Tomorrow I've got a bokwa class, need to do some work, hoping to get tickets for the a gig, and then we're heading out for dinner with friends! We have a busy couple of months coming up with weekends in Gower, down to Weymouth for a family christmas in November, birthdays, never mind preparing for Christmas!!!! Eeee!!

Good weekend!!

I've had a great weekend!! On Friday, we picked up Pete's parents and had a bit of a chat before heading to bed.

On Saturday morning, we got up early-ish and headed down to Weymouth to see my parents!! We had a good lunch, a wander up and down Weymouth sea-front, before eating MORE food then headed back home. It was lovely to introduce our parentals, after nearly 3 years!!

Today, Pete was supposed to run the Cardiff half marathon, but he woke up feeling a bit unwell so decided not to go. This meant we didn't have to get up before 7!!! Instead we walked into town for lunch and sat in the sunshine before I headed back to get on with schoolwork. Pete took his Dad to the cricket ground because his grandfather (Pete's great-grandfather) used to work there.

Plenty of cups of tea, Skyping some of the family, and we watched Felix Baumgartner do his unbelievable jump from 23 miles up. I am so amazed, and really glad for incredible, brave people like him pushing what we think is possible. Unbelievable!!!!

Anyway, just catching up with the X factor results and then will be off to bed shortly!!

I'm so glad it's the weekend!! Having a lovely chilled evening after a bit of a manic week at work. Highs and lows but ended well. Amazing support network and my mentor took the afternoon out of class, arranged cover for me so that we could work through some things that have been really stressing me out!

So I'm feeling much better and looking forward to next week, then only 2 days til the hoildays!! Hoping to get down to Bucks to catch up with some schoolfriends, then Mum is coming up to Bristol to watch a flamenco show for her birthday.

Busy weekend this weekend, Pete's parents are visiting from Aberdeen and we're going to head down to Weymouth tomorrow. Fingers crossed the weather looks like it's going to stay dry so we should be able to hit the beach!! (in a mid-October, blustery walk sense)

All in all though I'm feeling pretty content, time is flying, so I must be having fun!! I'm in pretty good health, finally kicking the gluten full-time and massively feeling the difference. Taking plenty of zinc and eating well, haven't touched dairy for months and allergies are almost non-existent. Amazing.

Sure there's loads of other stuff to mention but I'm pretty tired and this is already an odd-jobby blog so I'll leave it there but as always I must try to keep more up to date!

Ciao for now!!

First week.. done!

I had a great first week back at school. I was so nervous on Sunday, even though Monday was an Inset day!! Unexpectedly I had nearly the whole day to work with my TA getting the classroom sorted, so by the end of the day I was feeling much calmer and ready for the week. My colleagues are amazingly supportive, kind and insist I ask them if I need anything at all. I had a performance management meeting with my NQT mentor and feel really positive about the year (if slightly anxious). I think I'm filling myself with pretend confidence and it seemed to work on the kids last week so fingers crossed that'll work all year...?

Anyway, had a great weekend, we've finally sorted out the spare room, and Mum and Dad came up. We went over to Clifton with the intention of visiting the zoo, but the car parks were full and there was a massive queue, so we amended our plans. We went for lunch at the Avon Gorge, overlooking the Suspension Bridge. Then we found out it was the Bristol Open Doors weekend, so we got a free guided tour over the Bridge which was really interesting!! We went for a walk on the Downs, then home for a Chinese! Really nice!!

Today we finished constructing our new spare bed, bought a couple of nice rugs and I finished my maths planning for the week. I'm going to have to get in early tomorrow though to do my flipchart because I'm still waiting for a school laptop and can't get the IWB software on my personal laptop :/ Still, looking forward to Week 2 - first NQT session too!!

Summer

Well I'm finally feeling relaxed, after working until the beginning of August I was totally exhausted! We went on holiday to Tuscany for two weeks, staying in a little studio cottage outside San Gimignano. It was hot at exactly what we needed - relaxing with some sightseeing thrown in, to some of many walled Tuscan hill-towns including Volterra (home of Twilight's Volturi!!!!!), Monteriggioni, Certaldo and Siena. It was gorgeous!!

Back to England with a bump, it's quite muggy but cloudy here, and I'm worried my nice tan is going to fade far too fast!! After a chilled weekend, I've started the week organising documents, sorting out all my files from my training, and trying to get organised before going into school this afternoon/ tomorrow to start doing my planning for next term! Feeling a bit anxious about starting the term, and realising I'm going to be solely responsible for the learning and progress of 30 9-yr-olds for the whole year, garhhh...!! I'm sure it'll be fine, the school is very supportive and everyone is helpful so I know I'll have help if I need it.. but still! :/

In other news, we got a cat in July and after a panic when she escaped for nearly 2 weeks, she's settling in well, she is very playful and affectionate. I do love her very much even though she miaows all night and then wakes me up at 7.15 every morning!!

I'm going to stop faffing around online now and get on with some NQT stuff.

BFN!

A week in Bromsgrove

It's been great this week doing something completely different!

On Monday, I drove up to Bromsgrove to help set up IH Bristol's first summer school there. I'm working with my lovely friend who I've worked with a long time until I defected to state-school teaching! We also have a great team of teachers, so it all boded well! We had a couple of days of induction; setting up the teachers' room, discussing IH policies, levels and testing ready for the arrival of the teens (78) and kids (27) on Wednesday. It's all gone pretty smoothly and we've all settled into a good routine - we live just off site in a boarding house, all meals provided and access to the gym. So we're eating extremely well, but at least we have the opportunity to work it off!!

I came home on Friday evening and the plan was to spend the weekend camping (well, glamping in a nice little cabin) and visiting the Cheddar Gorge and caves before supporting my other half in the Cheddar half marathon on Sunday. However the delightful British summertime has scuppered our plans - with flood warnings for Somerset we decided against shivering in a box all weekend and stayed home instead. It's been quite productive though - we did a bit of DIY, put up a table in the kitchen, got feeding bowls and litter trays all set up for our new arrival tomorrow!! We're picking up our cat tomorrow, and very excited to help her settle in and get to know her!

Of course we've been watching lots of tennis - Serena Williams winning her 5th Wimbledon title, and now we're enjoying the Men's doubles, wooo!! Very very excited about Murray's final tomorrow, and hoping the weather is bright.

It's been lovely to be home (and warm and dry) and just relax for a bit before heading back northwards tomorrow evening.

.. and I'm done

So I thought my last blog was overdue.. It's now been 8 months since my last post!! Apologies, blogfans, if you're still out there!!

It's been a pretty busy few months, got into my GTP, had some lows and had to really pull my finger out to get it done. After a struggle with confidence, I managed to sort myself out and I was relieved to be signed off with a good report at the end of May. I finally finished my teaching block on Friday. I had the Year 3 class, and although they are a really challenging group, I was really sad to leave them as I was just starting to feel like we were building a good relationship and trust, especially with the trickier characters. We trainees had our graduation ceremony on Tuesday. Of the 15 who started, 11 of us finished, so a real achievement for us all.

I also got a job for September, but I was so stressed for a while, as I sent out 17 job applications with only 1 interview.. so I am thrilled that I'll be working at my swap school permanently after the summer. I can't wait! I really enjoyed my block there and I'll have the Year 5 class which is exactly what I'd wanted.

Tomorrow I start a 4 week contract back at my old job, it's also going to be really busy but much less pressure than the last 9 months!! I'm looking forward to meeting my new kids and doing a bit more admin instead of lots of teaching.

Away from work, all is well. We're off camping next weekend, and picking up our new adopted cat!! It's very exciting. More details will follow about her I'm sure. We'll be off up to Scotland for a few days at the end of July for a wedding and big family catch up in the Northeast, and we're off to Italy for a couple of weeks in August. Really looking forward to a massive rest before starting to look forward to my NQT year!

Oh, I just also add that I've been getting fit this year too. In January I started Crossfit, which is fab and although I can only make it once a week, I've noticed a difference already in my shape and strength. I'm starting to enjoy exercising and have also rejoined pilates, and gave Spin ago (probably for the first and last time...) I'm going to have to have a few weeks off, but luckily I'll have access to a pool and gym so hopefully I can still get some exercise ready for putting my bikini on in August...!

I'll try to post more regularly..!

Hasta luego!x

overdue update!

I can't believe it's mid-October... I never update this blog any more!!

Been pretty tired since starting my new job/course. It's going well though and I'm really enjoying the experience. I've not done much teaching yet, but have my first teaching block coming up in about 3 weeks.. Getting on well with my colleagues and the children seem to be responding pretty well to me in general... we'll see about their responses to me when I'm actually teaching them..

Other than that, my parents moved house and are now delightedly at home in Weymouth. We visited last weekend and it was lovely to be beside the seaside! The house is lovely but Mum's looking forward to putting her stamp on it, and Dad's looking forward to making the garden his own. Moving the Scottish one properly into his flat this weekend, Ikea tomorrow evening and we need to get hold of some paint and stuff to try to get going on the facelift the walls and ceilings need. Off to a wedding on Saturday afternoon, so it'll be nice to catch up with some old friends and the family who will all be there!!

Thank goodness it's half term next week, a chance to catch up on some sleep, writing up my notes, and having a lovely friend from London coming to visit!!! Yay!!!

And now it's August..

It's my second day off since I left my job on Friday.

I have a lot of work to do, and after a lazy, unproductive day yesterday I sat down and and had a look through my notes and evaluate what needs doing! PHEW!! There's a massive reading list and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to buy all the books... and how I'm supposed to read everything before the 1st September!!

I'll get started properly on it all tomorrow and might drop an email to my training manager about the most important things that need doing before I start. I'm going to read through my Maths and English books and have a go at the pre-induction tasks... I guess any extra reading I have time to do is a bonus!

My other half moved back to the UK, to Bristol, two weeks ago. He's staying up the road with a friend and has just had an offer accepted on a house which is very exciting. It's great to have him close by!!

Last weekend was pretty busy. Friday was my last day at work so everyone came out for drinks. I was given some lovely gifts from everyone which was really touching!! Then on Saturday we went to the rugby in Cardiff for one of my (former) colleagues' birthday. It was a great atmosphere in the Millennium Stadium, drinking Brains, and trying to out-shout the Welsh (and the Scottish guy sitting next to me ;) ). Frankly, England played rubbish and really Wales weren't that great but their defence was much better than the English side. We then had a bit of a drama getting the bus back to Bristol but made it in the end!! Then we had a fab curry before going our separate ways!

This weekend we're going back home to Mum and Dad's - possibly for the last time before they move house! Very sad times. But will hopefully see some friends while there as well. Then Paris the weekend after which'll be a great break before getting started on my GTP!! Woooo!!

it's about time!!

Again, an age since I updated.


Since the last, rather frustrated, blog, things at work and home have got increasingly more frustrating. Pay rise revoked "until we know what your plans are" - SERIOUSLY??? Rather than basing it upon what I've achieved for the school in the past year, and possibly lure me to stay, it's been cancelled. Yet another straw for the struggling camel's back.

I passed my GTP tests and interview stage, and had a successful interview/ meeting at a potential school which is now no longer potential, so I'm really looking forward to handing in my notice, and getting started on my primary teacher training in September. I spent a little time looking around the school, and reading a story to a group of kids, and had a strong sense that it was definitely the right thing to do.

Looking forward immensely to moving out of this flat. It's been fine, but housemate increasingly slovenly and I've reached the end of my tether. There's nothing more depressing than a stinky kitchen cluttered with days-old dishes with crusty food inside them. 2 weeks and I'll be out.

August is set to be a very exciting month not only because of finishing my current job and getting ready to start my new challenge. Someone very close to me will be returning to the UK and starting a new job just up the road in Filton! I am absolutely over the moon and never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined things working out so perfectly. I just can't wait, the next two months had better fly by!!

So that's all my exciting news for now. Cornwall holiday was great, really relaxing although the weather wasn't up to much, I'm dying to get away somewhere hot, but it's not looking likely before October. Might take a few days in August to go somewhere.. I'll have to see.

Peace out, yo.

oooops late update!!!

Look at that!! Time flies!!

To be honest, I've not had a lot to blog about.. Apart from an amazing holiday on the West Coast of Scotland in March, and going to a wonderful wedding in Glasgow, it's been pretty much business as usual. Promises of a pay rise have still not materialised so scraping by, still managing to socialise but increasingly convinced that working 50 hours a week, give or take, for minimum wage despite my qualifications, is not the way to go!!

I've decided to go for my primary teaching qualification, probably a GTP for which I'm applying as we speak, very exciting. Employed by a school and no training fees sounds like the best bet to me. I'm keeping all my extremities crossed!

Off on holiday again at the end of the month, down to Cornwall. Hope the weather will be as good as it has been the last week!!! Woooo!

Generally all is well, I'm just getting a bit fed up of living like a student in more ways than one.

soooo tired

Hi blogfan(s),

The concert last night was great!! Standing room only in a church with 800 person capacity. Incredible performing in such an amazing venue, and possibly the best we've ever performed most of the songs!!

Today I'm just absolutely shattered. Went to my friends' house for some lunch, delicious - thanks ladies! Just chilling at home now, watching Dancing on Ice, love it.

Checking out flights for Malaysia but I think the next the month or so are going to have to be sooo lean, as I also have to take the car for a service and MOT, and know one of the tyres needs replacing. Still, must take the rough with the smooth right?

I think it's soon time for some tea, bangers and mash tonight. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Long-overdue update!!

I'm too sleepy for an in-depth blog but realised it's been ages since I bothered to post!

The last few weeks have been super busy, I've barely had an evening to myself during the week, and have therefore spent weekends being pretty home-based. Not too exciting, but totally necessary.

Loving the new flat, it's really chilled and nice and quiet so I'm sleeping much better and having more will to go out. Choir's going well, we have a concert on Saturday evening, tickets are £3 so if you're around come down to St. Mary Redcliffe at about 7.30. Woo!

Have a couple of hard-work students,who are insisting they are a better judge of their own level and that we, the professionals, don't know what we're talking about nor do we have their best interests at heart. HA. We've also been really busy with cert students and lots of marking. Given myself extra work by persuading my pre-ints that it'll be a good idea to do a bit of diary writing every day. Yay, great thinking Jac. But it'll definitely benefit them and their spelling, sentence construction and that sort of thing.

In other, sad news I went home a couple of weeks ago and had a big old clear out. My parents have put our family/ childhood home on the market, it's SOOOO sad!!! :( :( But, life goes on. Fingers crossed I'm starting to settle down a bit now, I've been in Bristol for 9 months now, possibly the longest I've been anywhere, since I was 18!!!

Anyhooos, that'll do for now, not very insightful or profound I'm afraid... Hasta pronto!!

Sundays!

It's ages since I blogged (again)

I'm just sitting on the sofa watching Aladdin (CLASSIC!!!!). It's been a busy weekend really, Friday went out for a drink or three with some work colleagues, then yesterday worked all day at the IELTS exam. Last night, just passed out on the sofa and watched Britney Spears Glee from last week! My housemate made a curry, and then I pretty much went to bed!

This morning I had a chilled read of the news then went to the gym for an hour and a half!!! Longest gym session in history, I think! Pretty good but waiting for the burn tomorrow... Then spent a small fortune in Tesco but bought a lot of freezer and cupboard stuff, so hopefully that'll keep me going for a while.

Gotta start keeping massive tabs on finances though because I'm hoping to book flights this week... to Malaysia!! Hoping for two weeks off at the end of April, and so we've been planning a fantastic trip. We've been wanting to go there for about a year (since we planned a whole trip, I quit my job and came back to the UK!! Hehe oops.

All is good in general, back to choir last week, and we've got a concert coming up in about 3 weeks in the St. Mary Redcliffe church here in Bristol, super exciting. It's a great venue so I'll post all about tickets etc as and when I know!

Right so I'm gonna go and put the heating on for an hour and chillax to a brilliant childhood favourite film ;)

Chau!!

So tired!!

It's Wednesday. I'm SOOOOO tired!!! I need to sleep, think I'd better have an early night tonight except I also have lots of marking to do!!

I haven't managed to make it to the gym the last few days either, I had a hair appointment yesterday and today I was on late at work so I couldn't get out until after 6pm. So I came home and ate dinner and now watching TV (instead of marking).

Tomorrow's back to choir and test writing. And so I'm gonna try to go on Friday after work. Phew.

Still, all's going pretty well, flat's good, and work is fine although it's still just getting towards being back in the routine of work. Effort!!!!

2011!

So we're already one week into the New Year and this is my first blog of 2011!

The holiday was really great, so good to have some time off and hang out with my family. Unfortunately Adam couldn't make it for Christmas, but Granny came up and we had a lovely few days eating lots of delicious food, watching rubbish films and all the traditional stuff that goes with Christmas! On Christmas Eve it was really good to catch up with the usual suspects in the usual location! Also managed to meet the newest people in my friends' lives - not-so-little Cormac and placid wee William.

Unbelievably, Pete managed to get home without a single delay or problem, and we spent a few fab, relaxing, touristy days in London and Bath, ahhh. New Year was at my friends' house and it was good for him to meet a few of my oldest chums! We arrived back in Bristol on the 3rd to my lovely new flat!!!!! It was annoying having to go back to work while he was still around but we had a delicious dinner at the Cowshed, and then he headed over to London on Wednesday to get his flight back to the Middle East. So the countdown's back on! The end is in sight!!!!

Back to work, and good to be getting back into my routine. Settling into the new flat which is a great location, much more in the heart of things, about 10 mins from work, my friends' houses, the gym.... YES, the GYM!!! Today I joined the local gym, and I'm determined to make the most of it. The membership includes access to all the branches across Bristol, all classes, all facilities (so the one nearest me doesn't have yoga or a swimming pool, but I could go over to another site to do that if I wanted) - it's pretty small and it's a council gym so it's not pretentious like other gyms I've been to!! haha. So we'll see how it goes...!!

Snow!

It's the end of term - last day of teaching was on Friday, followed by a completely accidental night out. I nursed one beer for well over an hour and a half, then for some reason caved to a couple of glasses of wine. Food followed with more wine, then amaretto before I decided to go home at about 10 pm. However, on my way home, I bumped into a student who persuaded me (or should I say, invited me, to which I said yes), to go to the pub with her and a few other folk. Pub closed about midnight, and then we went onto some student digs in the centre of down, me attempting to give directions... and I got home at 2am. OH DEAR!!!

Felt rubbish yesterday but had to get up early to sign paperwork at the estate agents along with my new housemate. I felt so disorientated and strange that I actually corrected a punctuation mistake in the document without even realising. Went for a fry up which definitely helped, then spent the rest of the day feeling sorry for myself, napping, and watching stuff on iPlayer!

Today I finished reading Harry Potter 7, now just really excited for the second part of the film to come out!!! Only 7 months to go... I've also been packing up my room ready to move my stuff over to the new place, hopefully on Tuesday.

The weather's been pretty cold, and we've had a fair bit of snow in Bristol but other places have been much worse hit. I'm starting to get worried about Pete coming home - if he can even land at Heathrow (which has been closed for most of the weekend) it won't be so bad but Aberdeen airport's been shut for the best part of the last few days so just having to keep fingers crossed and we'll see what happens. I don't think I should have too many problems driving home, but Adam's not sure how easy it'll be for him and Nic to get down from Manchester, but again trying not to worry too much and we'll all just have to cross those bridges when we come to them. Stressful though!!!

mid December

More time passing! Just over a week until I'm on my Christmas hols, hurray!!

Last night was our work Christmas do which was fun, nice and sociable!! Spent the day in Bath with a friend and met my parents for lunch. Lovely day, the Christmas market was great too!!

It's been really busy at work so we're all looking forward to some time off. I'm looking forward to this week as I'm hoping to move out at the beginning of January, I haven't had a hot shower this week (boiler problems), and I've woken up a coupla mornings with no heating (housemates turning it off). So I've found a new flatshare, and will be sorting out the paperwork and money side of it this week sometime. HURRAY!!!!!!!!

2011 is going to be a good year I think.

A busy week

The weeks are flying by, now I'm teaching again, I can't believe it's only about 3 weeks til Christmas!! Madness!

This week has been really busy. I went on a Social Programme trip to Wells and Wookey Hole which was good (and a good job it wasn't this weekend!!). Sunday I went with some friends from work to see Harry Potter!!!!! It was so good!!!! I must recommend it, even if you're not a Potter fan. Something for everyone. And the acting is so much better than the previous films!! Then was out every night this week, with French on Monday, Spanish exchange on Tuesday, dinner with some Italian friends on Wednesday and choir on Thursday. Friday I was looking forward to a quiet evening and early night. It started off well with a curry and a bit of wine, watched 'The Reader' (which I must recommend), then was just getting ready to sleep when my housemates decided to have a party in one of their rooms. Until 2am. I was livid. Especially when I was then woken up at 9.30 am yesterday morning. Seriously.

Anyway I got some things done at the bank and chilled (literally) for a bit, looked in the charity shops and then I came home, had a nap ( :) ) and then headed out for some drinks at my friend's new flat!! It was really cool, a lovely Spanglish get-together, delicious food and great company!! Headed home about midnight thought and managed a decent sleep before getting up, finishing the 4th Harry Potter book hehe then going down to collect my car from my friend's, and heading over to St. Bartholomew's Church where the Gurt Lushers were performing as part of the North Bristol Arts Trail. It was really fun, quite informal concert but good to get my first live concert over with in a relaxed atmosphere!! Think I blagged fairly well the songs I didn't know, too! Win.

So I'm feeling much more settled in Bristol. Been looking at flats to rent, I'm absolutely fed up of sharing so trying to find somewhere reasonably priced on my own. I may have to concede to sharing again though, but ideally just with one or two other people. At least until September when I'll know a bit better what the long-term is looking like.

That's all for now anyway!

Oh dear

I need to seriously buck up my ideas with this blog!! Disaster!! I'm finding myself either really busy or exhausted these days!

I've been thrust back into the full-time teaching, from between 7.5/ 15 hrs a week to 23ish, including observations of trainees, all the planning and marking and IELTS exam class. I'm totally pooped, but it's EXCELLENT, exactly what I wanted to be doing (which is a relief after all the fuss I was kicking up ;) ) and I'm trying to be more creative and use the IWBs and IT and stuff to become a better teacher. It's so good to be mentally tired from really thinking about stuff and I'm really lucky with my classes, great bunch of students (although we collectively can get a bit chatty... oops, but it's fun!)

I have my last (ever??) Saturday trip this weekend, to Wells & Wookey Hole! I haven't been for years and years, so I'm looking forward to that, gets me out of the house!!

Monday evenings I have my French class, which is going OK but I'm not feeling as challenged as I'd like.. I'm going to give it a few more weeks but I'd really like to move to a higher beginner class if it's possible. Also on Mondays for the last coupla weeks I've been doing a Spanish/ English exchange with some students. It's really cool, and I think we're going to merge with another exchange probably to a Sunday which'll be more chilled!! Tuesday and Wednesdays get filled up with stuff, and Thursdays is choir. Really enjoying it, and if you're interested its http://gurtlush.yolasite.com/ - check it out!!!

Weekends are taken up with going back home to Bucks, seeing friends or just doing absolutely nothing, which after a busy week of thinking and brain exercise is MUCH needed. I'm trying to motivate myself to go to the gym or take up some classes but honestly I don't know if I could mentally or physically cope at the moment!!! Really should do something though...

Anyway, all is well, I'm feeling much more settled, content and just looking now for a nice one bed flat or studio for end of January/ beginning of Feb. Fed up of living with people so I'm looking forward to having my own little space for 6 months or so by which time I'll probably be driving myself mad, but we'll see!!

:)