exit, pursued by a bear

i finished at great baddow yesterday and have been packing up my room and stuff all today ready for my departure from essex forever on tuesday. am feeling remarkably unemotional considering how heightened my emotions have been over here (i find myself tearing up at makeover shows on tv). i can only conclude that coming home is the absolute right decision...

i celebrated the end of the baddow experience with a number of pints and a trip to the cricket. the phenomenon of doing something you would never consider doing at home (eg: attend a sporting event) has been articulated very well bypenny. i was actually *excited* about attending, who would have thought?i was accompanied by a group all enthusiastic to initiate me into the world of the english cricket game. apparently heckling the fielder closest to you is encouraged, as is booing the members section who don't continue the mexican wave. not quite the gentlemanly game i had imagined.

i was slightly disappointed to find that the 'one hand one bounce' rule isn't actually in the official cricket rule book. i was up a cheering at number 23's killer catch before i was informed that it didn't actually count. no matter, there were plenty of opportunities to jump up and cheer and the essex cricket board actually provided you with little cardboard signs that you could wave around when someone hit a 4 or a 6. meanwhile, i went in to say goodbye to my bookshop crush today and was told he is off work studying for his yr 11 exams! good lord..

thirty two fouettés en tournant

on saturday i took myself to see swan lake at royal albert hall. it was quite an experience and not one i would recommend for those who suffer from vertigo. check out the steepness of the seating in the hall in this picture i ripped of the net:i was sitting right up the top in the cheap seats and had to avoid looking sideways so as not to freak myself out. it was a beautiful performance though. i love going to the matinee session because all the little girls are there in their party frocks and you see them after holding their dad's hands and breathlessly exclaiming i'm going to be on that stage one day. and you just know that they are going to go straight home and practice their swan arms in the mirror and reread all the noel streatfield books. adorable.

other things:

it has rained for about 13 days in a row here. it is grim and i do not regret one dot my decision to get out of england.

the history department took me out thursday evening for a 'goodbye' type thing. they plied me with so many drinks i ended up monkey dancing and headbutting.. i felt so ill the next day that i had to leave a class in the middle of a lesson for a little vomvom in the staff toilets. certainly the peak of my teaching career..

surreal london moment: penny, bonnie and i (all tremendously tired/hungover/suffering gelatine overdoses) wander into the southbank centre to play detective* and instead find ourselves in a big hall hitting each other with enormous bags of air. brilliant.

*checking if a comatose man on the couch was dead or just sleeping in an unfortunate pose

tales from the schoolyard...

i am in official countdown mode to when i finish up at great baddow.. only 7 more teaching days and i am out of there! so it seems the right time to share a little of what has been keeping me amused at work these last few weeks. seriously, i couldn't make this shit up...

the history department have been having some meetings to discuss the curriculum. most of the teachers don't enjoy teaching the JFK unit so we have been trying to think of another individual to study. i kid you not, one of the options is a unit on Princess Di. looks like i'm leaving just in time..

one of the more disturbing things i've encountered this year is 'the phantom shitter'. he/she/they sneak into classrooms and leave a dirty big turd on the floor to be discovered by a horrified teacher in the morning. they have struck a few times and are yet to be caught. there is something seriously deranged about these children.

lunchtime last week one of the chidlers was climbing up on the roof, fell and cut open his ball sack. poor little bugger. it was the source of much hilarity for those that witnessed it. he had to go to the hospital and everything. i wonder if he met up with the other student who has been admitted to the children's ward for od'ing on ADHD medicine bought in the playground black market..

i got to attend another parents night. man i love those nights and in england the kids come along as well. so when you are informing the parents that their kid is a bit of a numskull, the numskull in question is right there to enjoy the moment too! it's also fun to tell parents when their kid is a superstar. because for all my bitching, i do teach some lovely kids who awe me with their perceptiveness and insight..

the ghetto wannabe kids in my bottom set yr 9 class have taken to referring to their braces as their 'bling'. "yo i got per-mission from my orthodontist to be wearing this bling miss, so don't be giving me no uniform strike". it's pretty impressive the amount of times they can work it into a conversation. hilarious.

only 25 more lessons to teach and you can bet i'm hoping at least some of my students do something ridiculous and stupid so we can all have a chuckle at their expense...

the weekend

with thanks to penny whose 'busy weekend' blogging format i have blatantly copied..

friday

3:30pm - weekend gets of to a killer start when i get roped into supervising uniform detention. blergh

5:00pm - mad rush to shower, dress and get to london. am of course, late..

7:30pm - irritate alpha by messing up directions to the pub we are meeting bonnie at for birthday drinks

8:00pm - meet bonnie and her friends in the coolest beer garden this side of rundle street. drink vino, make various toasts, enjoy meeting other worlds.. happy birthday bonnie!

12:00pm - drunk enough to dance in furry beret

1:00am - ride home in what was one of the best taxi rides in my long career of interesting taxi rides. something about riding through london at night and seeing all the landmarks lit by street lamps. it was wonderful. also frederick the driver was hilarious. i offered career and love advice. cause, you know, i'm such an expert

1:30am - mightily impressed by this method of dispensing crisps at the off licence near penny's place6 hours sleep on penny's very comfortable pouf and couch

saturday

10:00am - wake up a little worse for wear

12:00pm - am revived somewhat by a coffee and stroll down broadway market, the food and farmers market that happens every saturday on penny's street. this place is unbelievable, so much delicious food to tempt you. i went for the samosas and interesting curry place and was blown away by deliciousness.. i was also very taken with the cupcakes... 2:30pm - meet kate (who flew in just that morning) in notting hill and wander around portabello markets. was mostly unimpressed with the markets but probably only because thoughts of the brilliance of broadway market was fresh in my mind. the ginormous paella did impress though and it was great to see kate again..

6:00pm - (retrospectively) unwisely get stuck into the pino grigo the second night in a row

10:00pm - drinking on a boat on the thames with a view of big ben and the london eye. wowie.10:30pm - argue with a fellow history nerd over finer facts of russian history. vow to google disputed facts as soon as i get home (which i did and am pleased to report I WAS RIGHT)

11:50pm - dash into liverpool street station to discover i've missed the last train home by about 4 minutes. briefly consider going back to meet kate and adelaide girls but decide to call penny instead as her place is closer and i doubt my ability to successfully negotiate the tube again..

1:00am - make a dramatic entrance at penny's place where she and the renaissance man were enjoying 'musical night'. sit down to enjoy the second half of phantom of the opera. sing along loudly with complete disregard for open windows and close neighbours. actually quite impressed with my ability to remember many of the words when i haven't heard the music for over 10 years. must have been the all the times mum made us listen to it on the yearly drives to melbourne

3:00am - somewhat ungraciously gloat that my magic tricks are superior when alpha tried to show off his new skills (learnt from hackney's glitterati). sorry alpha!

penny's couch is somewhat less comfortable the second night in a row..

sunday

8:30am - awoken by alarm, realise i've agreed to be in cambridge in three hours. resign myself to being late and send off various text messages. dress in a t-shirt that is on it's third day. lovely.

12:30 - brief spurt of energy spent snapping pics when i discover this at king's cross station. ooh!2:00pm - arrive in cambridge where i meet my glorious housemates katie and andy who are giving me the insiders tour of the place (they both studied at the university). poke around the various colleges and enjoy walking straight past the 'no visitors' signs..

4:00pm - go punting! this was too exciting for words. enjoy watching the camrbidge students in their natural habitat. especially the floppy haired boys in crumpled shirts and boat shoes. check out andy wield that pole! tres impressive7:30pm - arrive at st johns college where katie and andy have arranged to go to a 'formal hall' dinner. this involves andy pretending to be a current student and me posing as someones cousin. note andy's clever disguise, he is wearing the college tie to ensure he passes as a genuine student. we gave him shit about it all night.8:00pm - thoroughly enjoy the pomp of dinner and bombard katie and andy with endless questions about the archaic rules cambridge students are forced to follow.11:00pm - arrive home totally exhausted but still manage to check my email before i fall into bed. which reminds me, whats with the practically empty comments box people? lazy bastards. guess i've got to send some to receive some...

a hastily written recap...

last week began in brussels with penny, alpha male and aj (newly nicknamed 'the renaissance man' as he seems to know something about everything, with his speciality subject being fine dining). the weekend passed in a glorious drunken haze of novelty photographs, rants about politics, in-jokes about communist architecture and the turkish morality police and of course, the requisite hangovers. more detailed versions of the weekend can be foundhereandhere. it was wonderful fun and i am beginning to think i might be over the solo travel thing.

monday the team headed back to london and work and i head to brugges, a town about an hour train ride from brussels. it is a beautiful little medieval town full of canals and cobbled streets. i hired a bike to explore during the day and spent the evening in the hostel bar baiting wanker travellers to say stupid things. fun times.

tuesday i took the train to paris where the weather was monumentally shit but i managed to have a glorious time anyway, though with more museums and galleries than lying in the sunshine people watching.

most surreal moment:
discovering 3 german punks laying daisy chains and crying at the grave of samuel beckett at the montparnasse cemetery.. punks! daisy chains! samuel beckett! weird!

best breakfast:
on my last day the sun finally came out.. i went to the market down the street, bought a 22 euro hunk of cheese and a baguette and ate it in the luxembourg gardens. then i ate a chocolate eclair. yum.

closest i came to death:
some turkish guys staying at the hostel had hired scooters for the day. i dared them to ride around the insane 6 lane roundabout going around the arc de triumphe. they double dared me back. apparently turkish double dare rules mean you have to perform the same dare *twice*. they all launched themselves into the traffic with much gusto and horn beeping. i watched them with dread and hoping they would forget i was meant to go next. they didn't and i drove at 20km an hour right around the outside, almost on the footpath and was still terrified for my life.. who designed this insanity?!

most valuable travel item:
my earplugs! not only does it block out the pneumatic snores of the 60 yr old born again christian sharing your bunk bed but you can also put them in when wandering around art galleries and get fed up of hearing idiotic da vinci code interpretations of every religious picture on show.. pop them in and voila! the soundtrack to your arty wanderings is only the intensified sound of your breathing. i'm taking them with me everywhere from now on.

best movie moment:
i was browsing the shelves of shakespeare and co when george the ancient and legendary owner got me to help him move a stack of harry potter books. while we were fussing around moving things, his cup of coffee which was perched precariously on the stair banister fell off and onto an obnoxious brit alterna-girl. she came up the stairs all huffy at us, and we giggled together like schoolgirls at her histrionics..

perplexing:
sand font is a popular choice in mainland europe.. ugh.