my_skwid

Well. Things have changed somewhat since last post. Which was more than a year ago. 

I'm afraid to say that I didn't get to the end of my teaching course, which is fine, teaching is by no means for everyone. I showed no aptitude for it, even when I was enjoying it. I'm a lot happier out of it anyway.

So last time I mentioned the shop idea. It's morphed over time but what I'm managing to do for the moment is to work with Stef to make money off something we enjoy. Be nice if we could make more, but we're still pretty new so hopefully we'll get there.

Basically that's it since last time. Shortly after then I left my course and started teaching myself business. And here I am.

Going to swim tomorrow morning. The session is 7am-8.30am so I shall sleep now.

Off school for two weeks or maybe more and I'm starting to wish that I never got on this course. I don't know if I want to finish it, don't know what I want for my career and of course, if I do leave, two months before the end, there'll be regrets. 

Well. It's right at the start of the holiday so I have a little time before I need to come to any firm decisions. I'm really thinking about the shop. Now does seem like to perfect time for it.

New Doctor Who last night. It certainly didn't disappoint. I seriously didn't have any doubts, though. I've seen eight Doctors now and none of them have been wrong. And he wasn't similar to Ten at all, I thought. I got bits of Four and Five but no Ten, even though he did a couple of his catchphrases.

Also also new Ashes to Ashes was on Friday, which I enjoyed, though the foreshadowing was a bit much. LoM and AtA both overdo the foreshadowing at the start of a new series and it makes me wonder why this series' ominious hints didn't feature at all in the previous series. I don't want to make too much of it. It really is a minor niggle.

Also exciting is Jonathan Creek special today. Not only do I like Jonathan Creek, but I looove one of the guests so I can't wait for it.

Later in the month is Iron Man 2 which I want to go and see and there's loads of YuGiOh and Pokemon stuff coming up. My current favourite thing is my Pokewalker which I'm taking everywhere.

I just have lotsa good happy stuff for the next couple of months, so hopefully it'll all keep me up (cuz I don't know how it's all going to go life-wise).

So the last week of school ended and half term began. Half term is a week where I am not scheduled to be anywhere. I have two assignments due in in the next two weeks: 2000 word critical reflection (25/02/10) and 5000 word research assignment (05/03/10). I've already done 1800 words on the critical reflection so I thought 'Hey self, if we do a thousand words a day we can get the RA done this half term'. And I decided to do that. And more amazingly, I stuck to it. I have 4500 words of stuff plus all my results typed up, so all I need to do now is... do the research. For both assignments.

I've done it backwards, you see. Because really, anything I say, there will be stuff that backs it up. All I need to do now is find it before the 25th and the 5th. It's fine. I made such a meal out of my dissertation last year. I've been much better with this. I used to be up till the early hours of the morning doing essays for my degree.

The downside of plowing through the work like that is I've kinda lost my week. Last thing  I knew it was INSET Friday and I was learning about what the kids are up to on the Internet (heh), and now it's more than a week later and I've got uni on Monday? How did this happen? It's a bit rubbish. But then, when was the last time I didn't spend a holiday with some pressing schoolwork that needed doing?

But what I really, really need to do tomorrow is get my three applications done. It is very important that I don't go back to uni without stuff out, because everyone's going to be talking about the jobs they've applied for (or got, in at least one case). I'm slightly behind on that front (because it's bloody scary!).

March 1st is my birthday. It's fallen during the two weeks back at uni, which I thought was going to be bad. I don't want to spend the day in lectures. But it turns out that's the visit to the Museum of Science and Industry, so yay, playing, followed by popping round the interesting shops to get my standing order and stuff.

I'm watching Pushing Daisies at the moment. For the first time, despite mentioning getting it in a post on here... on July the 13th last year. Really enjoying it. I watched the first series over yesterday and the day before and then went out looking for the second today but HMV didn't have it and there's nowhere else on the highstreet to buy DVDs anymore. I'll have to get it off Amazon, but in the meantime I'm streaming. I have a very narrow window of opportunity for loafing and I'm not going to waste it! Having trouble with the fourth episode, though. It seems to have got mixed up with a later one that I've now accidentally watched a good few minutes of.

Can't wait for new new Who. Hustle's over, Survivors finishes on Tuesday and there's only another couple of weeks on Being Human (and I'm not really feeling it this series. Dunno why). It's nice to have something there to look forward to in a week.

I'm going to ramble about three things I like for twenty minutes and then I am going to be productive. Ready... Go!

I like my daylight light thing. It is made of magic. The item is a lamp with a really bright, daylight-mimicking bulb. In the morning, half an hour before my alarm goes off, it slowly starts to come on. The light passes through my eyelids and activates the retina, telling my brain the sun is rising, which sets off the 'getting up' program in my body. And that causes me to wake up, usually even before the noise of the alarm comes on. Rather than being woken up with a jolt, it's more like waking up naturally, like you do at the weekend with no alarm, when the light from the sun wakes you. The reason I have it is because, just before Christmas, some of the teachers in the staff room were discussing them. The ones who had them really recommended them and so I got one for Christmas.

Better than going soley off adverts and review, is listening to other people's conversations and asking questions to people who use them. As I was picking out the one I wanted I was nearly put off the one I got because of all the negative reviews. Someone always has something bad to say. Like, the buttons are too plasticy and clunky. Like that matters! Time spent pressing the buttons = very little.

Hmm, only 9 minutes to go. Second thing I like - chocolate pudding. Just had some. Drank it with a straw. Yum.

Ok, that one was quicker.

Thing number three is Hustle. I didn't watch it for the first few series. Only when I was loving everything I was watching on the BBC did I pick it up. I especially like Sean, because he's played by the person who was Fitz in Fitz's half hour of audio with the Eighth Doctor (and I adore Fitz). And also because I love the brother-sister dynamic. Today I went back and watched their introductory episode, which I think is my favourite of all Hustle. Tomorrow is the last episode of series 6. It sounds amazing. Don't want it to end, though. Six episodes isn't enough and there is no fic. Unless there is and I can't find it.

Now begins my last week of placement at school. Been there since October. I don't want to leave, but I'm looking forward to the half term holiday. Have actually begun work on my assignments and am now going to continue. Wish me luck.

It's a pretty good way to tick the "go on a school trip" box, is going ice skating with a hundred really pleasant fourteen year olds. After school on Friday I got on a coach with half the kids and my really frazzled form teacher (who'd had the trip dumped on her last minute) and we went off to Blackburn ice rink. It was a really laid back, really smooth event, though. Got there, I helped oversee the kids get their skates, then I went on the ice and found my skating legs, then got the school camera and tried to take some action shots. It doesn't sound like a great idea tbh; I can count the number of times I've skated on my fingers and I was slightly dubious about combining it with trying to take photos but it actually went fine. I didn't fall over at all, with or without the camera. It's Sunday night now and I can really feel it in my calves. It's a set of muscles I don't often use.

Yesterday, before club, Stef and I popped into Blackpool to locate the two comic shops I've somehow never been to. Only got to one of them because of the time, but we bought some old Doctor Who magazines (around 1985), and I bought the novelisation of the TVM. We do get our £1.99 out of those magazines. They're great for throwing up prompts for conversations. Just have to try and steer attention from the stuff that is still spoilers fot Stef, though. And I think it's funny that, if it hadn't happened last year, I would have been spoiled for the end of Blake's 7 by issue 90 of Doctor Who Magazine. Of all places!

Stephen came home from uni yesterday ad stopped overnight. He's in the middle of his dissertation. I do not miss that. Though I really should start my 5000 word thing soon. I think it's probably due in the same day as his. I suppose it is the dissertation for my course, really.

Nearly got some work on one of my assignments done today but didn't quite get there. Finding out that it was actually twice as long as I thought it was was a bit of a setback. It says 1000 words in some places and 2000 in others, but I think it is 2000. The two examples we have of them are, anyway. Got to try to do some work at some point. Let's see... 2000 words over five days - 400 words a day and have it done by the end of the week? (it's unlikely)

Also got an application to do by Fri if I want a chance at the Bury job. Don't actually know it I do. Specially since the interviews'll be in my 5000 word-thing deadline and birthday week.

I dunno, I feel like I want to get back into blogging. I used to do it so regularly back on Elftown and I like going back to read over it every now and then to revisit myself back at the start of uni. I'm never going to be 'me, now' ever again (and I have a really bad memory!). Maybe I should make a late resolution to write my year. Hey, I kept last year's resolution, just check my Facebook. 352 photos taken out of my bedroom window, almost one for every day of the year.

There we are, then. This year I will blog.

Let's see... in my last entry I was two days from my graduation from Lancaster University with a 2:1 in Biological Science. While it was one of the most important days of my life, I didn't really enjoy it. Which kind of sums up my university experience: while the qualification is probably going to stand me in good stead career-wise, I certainly didn't do uni right. Oh well.

Then after that it was the summer holiday. What to do, what to do? No career waiting for me... Ah, let's spend the summer following the Pokemon Village Fete from city to city, teaching people how to play the Pokemon card game in a huge tent. OK then! So my best friend and I got on trains and in cars and did a lot of miles ( maps.google.co.uk/maps ) and stayed in hotel rooms and did a lot of talking (www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/article.php and I'm there under "Playing the Pokémon Trading Gard Game"). It was mostly lots of fun, even if we did have some long, long hours. Seriously, eleven hour days? But we more or less got to take care of ourselves so we did our own breaks and whatnot, unlike the poor kids from the agency on the rest of the exhibits who got three or four breaks over the course of the whole day. As soon as people tried telling us when to take breaks I lost my voice (literally, no intelligible noises from my throat) and was next to useless for two days. That was frustrating.

So we finished that on the seventh of September and I found myself at a loose end again. Still no proper job (and to be honest, not much effort had gone into finding one). And then, the phonecall. Oh, yes, that interview I went on back in May or whenever it was for the Secondary Science PGCE that I got put on the waiting list for. Do I want to come onto the course? When does it start? Two days ago? And you want me to decide now?!

So I decided, yes, I would go on the course for the job I wasn't sure I wanted at the university I didn't really want to go to, run by people who were just as unsure about accepting me. And how I wavered. Nearly left the course on four or five separate occasions. Because it's uni all over again and I don't like uni!

But it's what I'm doing now. Training to be a Science teacher. And it's not uni, not really. The students are half grown-ups and they're giving me money to do it, rather than the other way round and it's mostly out on placement anyway. Since October and for another three weeks I'm at a Catholic high school and... I love it. I like being at school, I like teaching (mostly, and it'll only get better). The days are varied and kids are great (I already knew this, though).

Here's something, though. What I do, always, is put myself in positions that are hard for me. And I don't know why. But look at Hazel. Hazel is a girl who is shy, who doesn't talk to people she doesn't know, who frequently gets tongue-tied, who is intimidated by everyone. This person has chosen standing in front of judgemental teenagers and telling them things 80% of them don't care about. It's madness! It seems to be working, though. Whatever weird entity takes control whenever such decisions are made, I'm changing. Hazel now is different to Hazel of September.

Anyway! school bit is great but there are still assignments and I haven't done them, haven't even looked at them and I'm starting to get stressed. Got three weeks, got to get a move on. Also also got to start applying for jobs because I have to, above all else, move out before dad retires. We are not getting on at the moment.

But I can't go far. I love this place and my family is here and Stef is here and Stef and I are ridiculously compatible. We can always talk and I never want to leave when we're sitting around watching old Doctor Who and critiquing it in that it's-ok-because-we-both-really-love-it way. And it's been what? Four years? I've never had a friendship like this before.

Doctor Who. So, so into it at the moment. Doctor Who and I, well, before David Tennant there wasn't a Doctor-Who-and-I. Ignored the Eccleston revival entirely, just a sci-fi show I didn't care about with a pop star I'd never paid any attention to. And I think eventually Aaron dragged me into it, but it didn't take much to make me stay, so it must have been 2006. Now here I am, bought that shiny almost-complete box set of New Who, audios coming out of my ears, constant fic-and-novel reading. Eight and Ten are my favourites. That Paul McGann voice... and there's so much Eight stuff. I could just spend all my time listening to it. And reading it (25 books into the EDAs. And 3/4 comics).

And then after DW, of course I will now watch anything the BBC does! Torchwood, Sarah Jane, Merlin, Robin Hood. Even when it's crap!

My anime and manga love is on the wane. I haven't picked up any new series in months and I really feel like I'm waiting for my current ones to end. Though I'll probably pick up whatever CLAMP does next. Masochist is the word, and probably is for that paragraph above as well.

Also been picking up some other little skills and hobbies in the last year or so. Learned how to knit. Taught myself to hula-hoop and juggle. And to pick padlocks, though I think I've gone as far as I can with that without some more sophisticated equipment. How I wish someone would buy me some lock picks!

Last year I lost 8kg. This year I have gained 1kg.

Hmm. Running out of things to say.

Oh, I met Gareth David Lloyd after seeing him in panto.

Well, I think that's all, folks. My whole life from last July to now. This, by the way, has been one long exercise in procrastination to avoid getting my lesson plans and resources together for next week. Next week starts tomorrow so now I really must go and do something.

I have too much stuff going on in my browser. Mostly new and exciting sources of Eight fic, since I keep running into the same stories over and over in people's favourites on Teaspoon.

Tomorrow is games. Got to run both sides with Stef out of town.

And Wednesday is graduation. And since I've got to be there at nine I need to decide quickish if I'm going clothes shopping tomorrow morning. Annoyingly the haircut-ship has sailed, but that's what happens when you let time slip by without paying any attention. Got to remember to send Stephen out to that book shop in Lancaster to take their last EDAs. I just wish I noted which they were, now I've got something of a list of slashy ones to aim at. No stop. Books are not the most important part of being Lancaster-way on Wednesday.

Dunno about Thursday. Actually am a bit short of plans for the foreseeable future. Apart from actually starting to apply for stuff. And my second masochistic watching of Torchwood.

Oh, yesterday went to CEX. How much I love that place. They gave me £8 trade on something I paid £5 for, £4 for something I paid £4 for and £4 for something I won ages ago. Plus £4 on something of Stephen's. So we got three quarters of Ecclestone's Who (I already had the last bit), complete Extras, series one of Pushing Daisies (going on reputation alone) and Shaun of the Dead, for a rewatch. And had £3 left over! That's a serious trade up so far as minutes go, as well as on quality. Didn't want the credit note so got Son of Rambow (my choice. Heard it was good) and Fight Club (Stephen's choice) and paid the difference. Just wish they did audios but it was all music CDs.

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