1) I have an awesome immune system

2) I can manage on 2-4 hours’ sleep a night

3) I never get a hangover

4) I know what it is like to be completely, deeply and amazingly in love with someone. OK, it didn’t work out but I know what it felt like – so I know what I need to find again.

5) I have no problem coping with extremes of temperature and humidity

6) I very, very rarely get stressed about anything

7) I’m really good with kids of all ages

I’ve done so many things I never thought I would, so I have some excellent memories and stories

9) I have a very analytical/logical mind which goes well with most of the jobs I’ve ever had

10) My weight seems to be fairly stable so I can get away with eating loads of crap

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Reasons to be cheerful

                          

Me at Dunnet Head

I don’t post much beyond film reviews and the occasional complaint letter so I thought I’d pop a quick catchup on the page.

Right now, I’m approximately halfway through my PGDE (Secondary) and very close to my second School Experience. I have a one-day visit tomorrow followed by 6 weeks beginning on the 8th of Feb. This one’s going to be a lot of work as, in addition to lesson planning, I’ll have assignments to do for my additional module (“Teaching in the Outdoors”), Contexts and ICT – plus the handful of short tasks and portfolio updates.

Just to be clear, though – I am still very much enjoying the course and the teaching.

In other news, I was recently up in Thurso to see Laurie. She’s a friend who ticked the “I will go anywhere” box for her qualifying year as a primary teacher. And ended up on the north coast of Scotland! This may well happen to me as I’ve ticked the same box for next year. On the Friday I walked up to Dunnet Head – the northernmost point in mainland Britain. Details of my visit are over on the travel blog. Thanks you to my kind hostess – I had a lovely, chilled (and chilly!) weekend.

On the downside I’m currently carless. On Friday I was due to head over to Mugdock Park for some orienteering, part of my Outdoors course. It snowed briefly in the morning and the roads around my aunt’s aren’t gritted. Despite driving really slowly, when I turned the wheel right about 50m from the house, the car decided to keep going the same direction.

The left front wheel hit the kerb while turned and there was quite a bit of a bang as I bounced onto the kerb. Partly the outside contact and partly the airbag erupting from my seat. It did no good at all, actually causing me some injury (nothing bad – just skinned my head and ear) and adding a few hundred, I expect, to the repair bill.

I changed the wheel as the rim had been damaged and I didn’t trust it, then tried driving on but something wasn’t making a nice noise so I returned to the house. An exceedingly kind uncle drove me to Mugdock and picked up the three classmates I’d agreed to give a lift to… and picked us all up again in the afternoon. Thank you, James!

As it stands, the damage to the car is:

• one sheered bolt behind the wheel (fixed for pennies)
• steering assembly jiggered (£161 cost price for the parts, plus markup, plus tax, plus fitting)
• driver’s seat needing replaced, or at least the airbag canister “recharged” and the seat restitched

Methinks it will be going via the insurance. And I was only doing about 5mph when it happened. Still, it’s nowhere near write-off and I’m fine apart from some scabbing behind my ear courtesy of that flipping bag.

And now back to ploughing through a Higher grade computing paper to see how bad the marking scheme is…

Related articles by Zemanta

• Dunnet Head (moshtour.me.uk)
• Saturday in Thurso (moshtour.me.uk)
• A quick trip north (moshtour.me.uk)

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A quick life catchup

                          

Thanks to the two of you who noticed that I’d gone to the trouble of adding it.

I go to all this trouble for you lot… *mutter mutter*

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Snow go

                          

Start as you mean to go on

By Iain Purdie, aged 36 and a little bit.

Despite really not being in the mood, I was convinced to go to a party in Paisley with Scott – one of the student teachers I worked with on a recent placement. Five pounds a ticket for the nearby pub, and back to his afterwards with about a dozen folk.

So I ended up in a bar called “kilty kilty” in Paisley at around 10pm having already guzzled half a litre of strawberry milkshake with vodka in it. Well, it was only just over four pounds in Asda. And it was pink. And smelled nice.

Let me make it clear to any younger readers that excess consumption of alcohol is neither big nor clever. It is, however, a tradition at new year in Scotland so I simply had no choice other than to go ahead with it.

Scott and his pals arrived from dinner shortly after and a pool was put together to fund the drinkies. Pints of 70/- gave way to shots of whisky (with a free half of beer – impressed), then some Italian lager and then the dreaded Jaegerbombs.

The DJ was a bit crap, to be honest. When you’re in a bar for less than 2 hours and you hear no fewer than three records played four times each you know the daft sod’s left half his CDs at home. Still, it was all background anyway and I enjoyed a nice natter with a lot of the guys.

Midnight, bizarrely, was counted down at three minutes to the hour. I checked my phone – time set over the mobile network – and watched the TV screens showing the live broadcasts on BBC. All confirmed – the muppet was counting from 10 seconds far too early!

Nobody seemed to notice, though. Any excuse for a knees-up. I had two random girls come up for a new year hug. One kept coming back. And back. And back. I think she was counting seven by the time we left. Her friend kept trying to snog me, but (and I hate to be nasty but I doubt she’ll read this) her mouth smelled like something had died in it. A long time ago. And was currently rotting.

I politely pecked her cheek instead.

Time to stagger over to Scott’s which we did via a not-crowded bar doing karaoke. Well, three of us anyway. One of the girls needed a pitstop and we enjoyed a brief bit of warmth before the final push to the flat in the nippy outdoors.

The party was a party. More beer, my first Newcastle Brown Ale of the year and some good chat that I can barely remember. People started to drift off around 4am and I was one of them, opting to walk back to Elderslie rather than pay the outrageous new year taxi fares.

This is where I realised that I was back in the UK. I stuck my thumb out along the main road as cars went past and nobody stopped. It was -8 degrees Celcius (thankfully my beer jacket was nice and snug), dark and I was by myself. I didn’t mind the walk but I just know for a fact that had I been in Australia, Vietnam or one of many European countries that some kind soul would have picked me up.

Not in Britain, though.

Instead I plodged along until I got quite close to my destination when I saw a window open and a light on. Music was playing and a couple were chilling in the kitchen. So I asked if I could have a cuppa. They readily invited me in and I spent another hour or so chatting to random strangers and being force-fed Apple Sourz and Bacardi Breezer. And tea.

It must have been around 6am when I left to walk the last quarter mile or so to my aunt’s.

Definitely not what I was expecting, and a good new year overall. Of course, thanks to Scott and his girlfriend for inviting me. And to everyone I talked to. And of course to the people in the downstairs flat who let me in! Maybe it’s just people in cars who are selfish.

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What I did for new year

                          

I’m tempted to say “roll on 2011″, but I’ll give 2010 a chance first.

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Byebye 2009…

                          

The true meaning of Christmas - these days anyway

Just so you know you’re at the right blog, my traditional Christmas greeting to you all.

Best wishes to everyone out there. I hope you all get the chance to be with your respective families and enjoy a relaxing day off from the rest of the world. Eat well, drink well and watch a ton of crap telly.

My personal aims today are to watch Little Cuz destroy 3 sapient pearwood‘s worth of wrapping paper, see both my grannies, have a decent bit of scran at my aunt’s and ensure I get to see Dr Who and the last episode of James May‘s Toy Stories.

Don’t forget – Christmas is for children. They’re the single best thing about it. So if you don’t have any to hand, just act like one. With luck, nobody will notice.

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Bah, humbug!

                          

Besides, there are better uses for your cash than folding bits of paper. If you were considering sending me something the please just drop a quid into a charity box (your choice) instead. Your choice.

If you insist on getting cards, then kindly get one from here.

Thanks, as ever!

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Don’t send me cards!

                          

I’m also off down to London for the weekend so I’m going to push myself slightly further behind! I will get to your stuff ASAP, I promise. Hopefully that’ll be by Wednesday once I’ve worked out what I’m doing for 2nd year. As luck would have it, that usually means one lesson plan copied seven times…

Thanks for your patience!

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Busy, busy, busy

                          

Over the last week I’ve gone over the concept of Internet Safety with three classes.  A key concept in the lessons is “Don’t give out your personal details to anyone”. That is, don’t go publishing your name, address, school and photo on your Bebo page then opening it up to the world.

That’s sensible enough.

I was talking to another teacher (I say “another” as if I’m qualified… roll on summer 2011!) who had the following thrust at him as a question:

“Well, sir, in that case what happens if I lose my school bus pass? It’s got my name, photo and address on it and it’s got the school name printed across the top.”

Of course, he thought this was silly. There’s no way it would have all of those details on.

Actually. Yes. Yes, it does. He looked and was struck dumb. The obvious answer is “well, don’t lose your bus pass” but these things happen. They go walkies, they get dropped, they get stolen along with the bag they’re inside.

And then someone has their hands on this young girl’s school and home addresses.

Does anyone else think this is madness? It’s a school bus pass for a bus that runs from a locale to the school direct, not a public bus. As long as the pupil has a pass, their address is immaterial. It needs a photo to show that the carrier is the one entitled to the bus trip. That, I accept. Even having the name on isn’t the end of the world. The name of the school makes a bit of sense, but why would they be on the wrong bus? If they were colour-coded or had some other identifying feature even that wouldn’t be necessary.

But home address? If the pass is lost, the student applies for another. If it’s got the school name on it then the finder can return it there – the school would be able to find the pupil.

So while we’re telling them not to publish their details somewhere public, the school is handing them a piece of card that they have every chance of dropping with just that information on. Not as bad as shoving a poster up, but depending on who finds it every bit as worrying.

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Do as I say…

                          

Kick this - not my shins!

After many false starts and things not being organised, I met up with some of my fellow students for a kickabout in the park after lectures this afternoon. In all, there was a whacking four of us. And the other three were girls.

I will no longer call women the weaker sex. Fairer, certainly – but only when we’re talking about looks as this lot cheated. I have the bruises on my shins to prove it. Catherine, I’m looking at you. Through the tears in my eyes.

In fairness, I’m flipping unfit. The most exercise my legs get is shifting between the clutch, brake and accelerator pedals. This, of course, is no excuse for taking advantage and kicking me in the legs every time I walked past. Next time I’m taking my shinpads.

The conditions certainly didn’t favour football either. We were on soft grass and it was quite cool. The last time I played a full match, I was on an all-weather pitch in 35-degree heat at 8:30 in the morning. Admittedly in Hanoi. This obviously suits me much better.

So aside from the pain, battering, humiliation, wheezing, and the fact that I got caked in mud… I had a pretty good time. Thanks to Catherine, Laura and Mhara (I think I have the names right) for sorting things out and not hurting me too much. Good luck on your placements, ladies!

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Kickabout