A short conversation

Year 2 pupil: Miss Allen, look at my new book. Are you a parent?

Me: No

Year 2 pupil: Are you married?

Me: Erm, no.

Year 2 pupil: Oh, that's alright then. This book says 'Adults: KEEP OUT' so when you're an adult, you won't be allowed to look at it anymore.

A bit of spontaneity

I'm not a spontaneous person. I need to know exactly what I'm doing, usually months in advance. But tonight, as I was looking through old family photos, I realised that I really missed my relatives in the Philippines. And then I did something about it. Suddenly, instead of spending the first part of April in a rainy cabin with forty Year 6 children on the Isle of Wight, I'm gonna be spending Easter weekend here:

My family had already planned their Easter break, and asked if it was ok if I tagged along to Mayon Volcano (which is an active volcano- I'm not sure how I feel about that) and the hot springs and waterfalls surrounding it...

It was a difficult decision, but they managed to twist my arm! So it's all worked out rather well.

In other news...

-I'm currently in the middle of 'The Shack' by William Young. I know I'm a little late jumping on the bandwagon, but if you haven't read it- do! It's excellent.

-When bowling at the weekend, I was amazed that the 'chuck and wish' technique I've used since I was seven finally paid off- first strike ever! (This doesn't count Wii bowling and bowling with the barriers up- I've scored many strikes on these occasions...)

-I thought I had more to say, but it turns out I don't.

Dancing on Ice

On Sunday, myself and three friends from work went along to see Dancing on Ice being filmed live in Borehamwood. Because our tickets didn't guarantee entry, the process involved queuing for hours in the freezing cold. We were about halfway in the queue with around 200 people in front of us, so we thought we'd be fine! How wrong we were... the guy handing out wristbands ran out just before he got to us, apologised and explained that there was a huge guest list, and we were now on standby. Most of the people behind us were told to go home, but as we were clutching standby tickets 11-14, we waited. And waited some more. Eventually, at 6.30pm (we'd arrived at 3.40pm) once everyone else had been seated, an announcement was made saying that the first 20 standby people were allowed through... we were VERY lucky.

Now, my friends and I were split up because the only seats available were the ones where friends and family of the celebrities participating hadn't turned up. However, this meant that we were sitting in the VIP area! So it all worked out well. I was sitting with the entire Nolan clan, my friend Janine was next to Alan Carr, Jo was next to Kevin Pieterson (who was rather handsome) and Marie was next to the hosts of Loose Women. And there were a few others we bumped into during the interval, such as Suzanne Shaw and that Angelica Bell from CBBC. Poor Angelica- I made the classic mistake of thinking I knew her when she turned around. Before I knew what was happening a 'Hi!!' had escaped my mouth and she was looking a little blankly at me before politely saying 'Hi!' back. How embarassing! I felt like a prize idiot... until my friend Jo had to step over Graeme Le Saux to get to her seat and did exactly the same thing, but louder: 'Oh, HELLO!' she exclaimed before realising what she'd done. It was very strange.

Has that ever happened to anyone else?

Anyway, we had a fantastic time (even though we were all sitting on our own!). The performances were amazing and for just one single moment I had this thought:

'I want to be a professional ice skater when I grow up.'

Then reality struck and my world came crashing down around me.

'You're 24. You're a teacher. You have no balance or co-ordination. It's too late.'

It was very similar to the time I realised that at no point in my life will I ever grow up in Dublin and have a genuine Irish accent.

Sigh.

Still, if Coleen Nolan can give it a good go, so can I... (the ice-skating, not the Irish accent!)

Birthdays

January has been a busy time for birthdays. As usual, I successfully managed to make my birthday celebrations last about two weeks. There was a work birthday meal, a trip to see Joseph (Lee Mead was amazing!), family meals and an afternoon in London with uni friends (where we found the perfect combination of ice cream shake at the Haagen Daz cafe- Belgian Chocolate and Vanilla). However, the highlight was most definitely the princess themed birthday party meal which Ben threw for Stacey and I (we share the same birthday). We had the whole upstairs room at Ask to ourselves... and a good time was had by all. And I've decided I quite like being 24.

This week, it was Susanna's turn to have a birthday...

She looks like she's having a nice time, doesn't she? Well, she was... until we asked Ben to take a photo of us. Unfortunately, Ben couldn't quite grasp how to take a photo, and took a video instead. Check out Suz's face when she realises what's happened:

Hehehe...

Happy New Year!!!!

It's 2009! A year in which I intend to be a better blogger. However, I'm really tired right now and have to take my car to the garage tomorrow (not to the vet, as I told Susannah earlier tonight!) at a ridiculously early hour. The last time my car was MOTed and serviced, it was a disaster- the blog post I've linked to here was just the start of it, as my brakes failed the day after it passed its MOT and I had to fork out even more money. Fingers crossed they don't rip me off this time... (I'm going to a different place, don't worry!). Anyway, the point is that this is another lazy post, but I will blog properly soon.

I took a pretty cool photo last night at a party I went to (more on that soon) and thought it would be quite nice to have as my first blog post of 2009. So here it is.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Test your observation skills... Whodunnit?!

The holidays have started and I'm feeling very Christmassy. I've already caught up with one or two friends I haven't seen in a long time, and over the next few days I'm really looking forward to catching up with some more. There have been cosy Christmas gatherings round friends' houses and lots of carol singing... I love this time of year! And it wouldn't be complete without one of these:

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Does that make up for the lack of posting, Matt?

Meh

So, the last couple of weeks have been reeeeeeally busy. And so are the next couple of weeks. I'm becoming one of those people who have to make appointments in order to catch up with old friends. And nobody likes that person. So if you're reading this and I've been a rubbish friend lately, I'm sorry...

Starting with the most recent and working backwards, here's a brief update on what's been going on in my life right now:

> I've finished writing my reports. That's the main task that's been occupying me over the last two or three weeks. But now they're done and dusted. Whoop!

> Actually, that previous statement is a lie. The main task that's been occupying me is my shiny brand new Wii and Wii Fit. It was supposed to be a Christmas present from my parents but it arrived through the post after a particularly bad day at work and I figured I would treat myself. Totally worth it... It's amazing! (Apart from when it tells me that I've been snacking too much this afternoon, or that I'm a couch potato because I can't hold 'the plank' position for more than 10 seconds.)

> I went to Cambridge on Saturday with Matt, Christina and Glyn. It was full of people saying things like 'I like to think that if music hadn't existed, then I could have invented it,' and 'To me, this clock represents time being eaten away by our mundane daily routine.' Or something like that. I was just mesmorised by the little blue lights on the clock.

> We recorded our very own Christmas single at the last Straight Ahead rehearsal of 2008. It was a lot of fun. We did a cover of 'Feed the World'- Here's us shouting 'Happy Christmas!' at the end (apparently you had to shout to the ceiling instead of into the microphones...):

> Hadleigh band visited Belfast the weekend before last, and Heather and I tagged along as talented 2nd Horn players. It was great! Although I'm fairly certain that over the entire weekend, I managed to eat more than I could lift. Here's us on the plane:

There are only 6 and a half school days left til we break up from school! I am VERY excited about the buildup to Christmas and catching up with lots of old friends- roll on the end of term!