6 days til Half Term!

I'm about to enter the 8th week of the first half of this term. It's a significant week. I have never, ever had to work for 8 weeks in a row without a break. Not during school, uni or certainly not during the last three years as a teacher. Yes, it's been an especially long half term and I am tired- I think it may even be the reason why I haven't blogged as regularly as usual! It's not been the easiest of starts either- my class can be quite hard work, but am slowly beginning to see a change in them. So that's good. One of my lessons in particular had a real impact on my class this week- one mum came to see me after school yesterday to relay the following conversation she had in the car with her son on the way home the day before:

Mum: How was your day at school?
Ethan: Ok. But isn't it terrible about Louis.
Mum: Which Louis? In Year 3?
Ethan: (ignoring question) It's so sad that he had that accident.
Mum: Oh no! Is he ok?
Ethan: He went blind.
Mum: (horrified) Oh my goodness! What happened? Is he back at school?
Ethan: (looks at her like she's an idiot) No mum, he's dead now.
Mum: WHAT?!

As you may have guessed, Ethan was talking about Louis Braille, who we're currently studying in History.

In other news...

-Ben, Heather, Rich and I went to see Wicked last week- it was brilliant! Due to increased workloads, being part of a bigger community with the Wickford and Chelmsford guys (although that's great!) and Rich living in London, the four of us don't get to spend as much time together as we used to, so it was really nice to spend some quality time catching up and seeing a show.

-I've seen 3 films at the cinema recently- How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Mirrors and Burn After Reading. All three were quite good, but Mirrors was a mistake, as I keep having nightmares about it. It's basically about this guy who works in a derelict, run-down department store, and starts seeing things in the mirrors there, as well as at home and in his car. His own reflection starts making him do things. Not nice when you have drive home late at night afterwards along the A130 with only your rear view mirror and reflection for company.

-Flight of the Conchords has appeared in the On Demand section on BT Vision, so I've finally been able to check out what everyone else has been raving on about for ages. It's hilarious. I've only watched a couple of episodes so far but this song really made me laugh (for the few who haven't seen it, it's a comedy about two guys from New Zealand who are in a band, and each episode has a couple of funny songs in it). Enjoy:

- Finally, I've been researching the Salvation Army initiative Journey, and would really like to go on some kind of 'Encounter' as it's something I've wanted to do for ages. However, I've asked for more information, I've emailed them, I tried ringing them (no answer)... I even tried sending a message to one of the guys in charge of it on Facebook, but received nothing back. So if anybody knows anything about it or where I could get some more information about how to apply (I've been to the website but the application it tells you to download already assumes you know about the dates and different expeditons), could you let me know? Cheers :)

What goes up...

At my murder mystery party way back in January, we attempted to construct a human pyramid. It wasn't easy. A good few attempts were made in order to achieve as many layers as possible... but in the end we succeeded. And it felt really good. Here's a little reminder of the end result:

However, when I saw the news today, I realised that we weren't the first people to come up with the idea of a human pyramid. In Spain, it's like a professional sport. And a dangerous one at that... (although the news reporter said nobody gets seriously injured). Check these guys out:

Makes our pyramid attempt seem kind of pathetic, doesn't it?

My favourite part was in another video where the news reporter stated (as it collapsed):

'At this point, any pain was swept away by the joy of success!'

Really. I'm not totally convinced...