blu tac thief!

There is a little bit of a mystery going on within Form One at the moment. We have a blu-tac thief! On Monday, I came in and someone had taken the blu-tac from the name cards. Tuesday, it was the posters lining the staircase outside their classroom. Today, the name cards again. We all have our eyes and ears peeled, to catch this criminal red handed :)

Last Monday was full of drama. I had my hands full at 8.30am with 3 hysterical 7 year olds. E (who can be a bit of a bully) broke D's waterbottle - a gift from D's mum (who is away for 2 weeks with her fiance without her daughter, and making her board...yeah I know, that's a whole other rant. Parents here are ridiculous. CARE FOR YOUR CHILD). D burst into tears, E started crying because she knew was in big trouble, then S decided to start because everyone else was crying, and she thought it would be fun to join in. Trying to comfort D, tell off E and make sure S wasn't throwing herself onto the floor was extremely difficult. This is why I am going to teach high school. At least teenagers don't decide to throw a tantrum and bang their fists on the floor!

Little rant here - sometimes I want to get some of the students here and throw them into the real world. Some of these girls are so mollycoddled. There is a girl here who is 10, and we have to look after her in form time because she doesn't like school. I REPEAT. SHE IS 10. OH MY GOD, SUCK IT UP AND ACT YOUR AGE.GROW UP. I'm pretty sure the only reason we do it is because her dad is the third richest man in Britain. GAH, private schools are fucked. I hate the class system over here. Australia isn't exactly 100% egalitarian, but we're a lot closer than England!
I got on my high horse yesterday with L, who I help with Maths. I like to think I'm extremely patient with her - she has learning difficulties, but her attitude is shit, which really gets me going. I don't care how smart a kid is, as long as they try their hardest, that's all that matters. When a kid tries to give me attitude, angry Georgie emerges. I hold Angry Georgie in 99% of the time, but yesterday, after 20 minutes of trying to convince her to finish a timetables grid, she threw her head onto the desk, pushed my arm away from her desk and declared 'You're such a pain, why are you here, I hate my life, it sucks'...and other things to that effect. I told her in no uncertain terms that she was extremely lucky to get one-on-one classroom help, some kids don't even have the chance to get an education (real high horse with that one, phew.) and if she wanted to make her life harder and muck up her future, then it didn't matter to me, and I turned around and helped T and R, who were struggling with their 12s. Ignoring her worked a treat, she pouted and sighed in my direction for about 5 minutes, then realised I didn't actually care and wasn't interested unless she wanted to work. And she finally got on with it and we finished the exercise. Thank the Lord.

The past week or so has been more relaxed than usual - it's such a difference from the beginning of the year! We have two new gaps, and they are both ridiculously sporty so they've taken all our sport classes, which leaves us with classroom support, duties, and everything that is INSIDE. Godsend. Winter is fast approaching and I'm so grateful to not be out in the cold. Games lessons when it's 2 degrees outside is hell.

It's been really warm latel!. They are all complaining about the 'boiling' 28 degrees, but to be fair I complain when it gets below 10, so I guess they're allowed hahaha. Sometimes. The IVs tried to tell us that school should be cancelled, because to 'work in this heat is inhumane'. Guys, try a 39 degree day in a classroom with no air-conditioning, then take a packed tram and train home, and see how bad 28 is then.

Man I sound so grumpy! I'm really not. I like work, it's just when I finish work and keep getting invites to things I can't go to back in Melbourne that my homesickness kicks in. Watched 'I still call Australia home' last night - BIG MISTAKE! Tears everywhere. Didn't realise I was that bad!

Dinner tonight was shepards pie. Yummy. The girls are as lovely (and as spirited) as ever. A and P, true to form, jumped on me as I walked down the link to dinner, and P decided to jump onto my hips, pull my shirt and announce loudly 'Miss P, your boobs are big!'. A then announced that she liked them because it means that 'Miss P is cuddly', so maybe that evens it out? Crazy girls, but I'm going to miss them!

This time exactly in 10 weeks I will be sitting on the plane, having just taken off from Heathrow. This is going to go so quickly, but drag at the same time....

September

A couple of Saturdays ago I helped out Turner, and went down into town to the massive park, then to Eden (the shopping centre). I was taking photos of all the girls because the Turner camera had gone missing - the girls were loving it, they were posing and jumping like nobodys business hahaha. Rose and I engineered a few jumping shots or two, we should really take it up professionally. Adel (the Turner deputy housemistress) bought me an icecream, which was SO lovely of her, and then I got to know the new girls in Turner while taking a group of Uppers around Eden to buy supplies for their 'crazy hair' day on Sunday.

After buying hairspray etc, we went shopping and they were trying on massive heels in River Island. HILARIOUS. A. was pranicing around in massive hot pink stilettos while M. stalked up and down the changerooms with a massive sparkly handbag, and there were tears of laughter coming out of my eyes. Let's be honest, I probably wasn't setting a good example, but it was the kind of thing that I'd do with Hannah. :) As we were walking back up the hill (that bloody hill, I'll be so glad to get rid of that!) Stuart Bonner, the music director, was in a shop and he jumped out to scare the girls as a joke. They laughed, I screamed and nearly fell to the floor. Real cool Miss Peters, reallll cool.

On Sunday I relaxed, watched videos, practiced piano (Daisy taught me 'Mad World' on piano and I am determined to perfect it by December) and was generally lazy. I love weekends.

I'm tired already. I've got a whole new class of Form 1s who are absolutely gorgeous and very good...so far. A couple of them are a bit teary, S had a cry on my shoulder because she was scared of going into class. It's all very new and scary!

I'm helping with Form 2 Maths which is quite fun. We spent a double lesson learning to set out work neatly and draw margins (which, for a bunch of 8 year olds, is harder than you would think...). Thrilling. I love sitting at the back of the class before we get into the work and watching the teachers - the teachers here are amazing, they're so good at their jobs. The girls were nearly leaping out of their seats to answer questions. I'm also doing quite a lot of French and gymnastics with the older girls - yay! Vicki and Felicity - the two new gaps - are very sporty, so although I'll miss my netball, I won't have to spend my day outside in the freezing British winter, wooooo!! AND I get to wear nice clothes now, instead of trackies. Win. They are both lovely, and the best part is that Felicity lives close, so there is just Em, Aisling, Rose and I in the flat, which is so less crowded and a lot more relaxed.

It's funny showing the new girls around - you realise how much you call this place home! Walking through the school, girls will hug you, say hi (or in the case of S, Z and E, do our secret hand shake) and you'll always stop for a chat with a teacher. The longer this year goes on the more I begin to realise how much I will miss the girls! Z got milo from her Dad during the hols, and very kindly gave Rose, Em and I a packet each - what a legend.

My aunt and grandma came over two weekends ago! I thought it was just Maria, but when she walked through, she asked me to wait for ‘this old woman I flew over with’. IT WAS GRANDMA. I couldn’t believe it, nearly collapsed onto the floor. I spent the best three days with them, sightseeing, showing them around London, and having good old family time. I miss my family! When I said goodbye on Sunday night, I had a little cry on the tube, but I’m totally good now. I want to go home and I don’t want to leave. What is going on.

The past week or two has been quite routine - but in a good way. I'm very comfortable here, loving my new timetable and my classes. The laminator is broken, which is HEAVEN because half our admin work has disappeared! Woo! Hoping we don't get a new one until Christmas.

I’ve had bit of trouble with my diabetes this week. My last vial of insulin went off, so I was stuck on Friday with enough insulin until that night, instead of until Tuesday of the next week. I had to run down to the doctors, beg for an acute prescription, run to the pharmacy, run back up the hill (DIED at least 3 times over. I fucking hate that hill) and slide back into work. THEN I put it into the medical fridge in the resource room, but when I went to get it that morning, it was locked. Had to ring David and ask him to open it up for me. I felt so bad!

This weekend I was sick on Saturday, but on Sunday Aisling and I (Rose was babysitting, Em was away) dragged ourselves out of bed at 6.50am to go to Camden Market before seeing a show at the Globe. Camden was AMAZING – I fell in love. I bought two second-hand books (I can’t help myself with books, it’s like Mum with shoes…) and a gorgeous vintage silk skirt, which was only £15 because it has a coffee stain on the front (I can get it dry-cleaned for about £10). I’m in love with it – hand sewn with a tight waist. Heaven.

We could have spent all day there, but headed off to London Bridge tube station to get to the Globe. We had standing tickets - £5, bargain. We were ‘groundlings’, and stood so close to the stage. We got water, cake, everything thrown onto us. Aisling’s bag got soaked in wet sock water. Loved it! We saw ‘Dr Faustus’, by Christopher Marlowe, and Arthur Darvill was Mephistopheles. I was about 30 cm from him, I nearly died. The actors were all amazing, I came out of there as high as a kite.

There have been countless funny and cute things the girls have said these past weeks – I should really start writing them down. K, a Polynesian girl, skipped past Rose and I last week and I said over my shoulder ‘Hey K’, to which she replied ‘I’m black!’ Had NO idea where that came from! Rose and I were pretty much on the floor in laughter.

One of the teachers is a stickler for unnecessary photocopying and laminating – she wanted me to do 30 colour copies of these notices, laminated and backed. Haha, no. This is how I get my kicks now…I copied them in black and white, didn’t laminate them and stuck them up with blu-tac. They still look good. Haha, take that.

26 days until half term. 71 days until the end of term. 79 days until I get on the plane to fly home.

So I've been lazy

really lazy.
I can't be bothered writing a huge blog about summer. No-one is going to get through that anyway, So I'll just jot down some highlights and have a rant about starting work again.

- Fell in love with Italy. Want to go back and live there. Not even joking. Someone please teach me Italian, pronto!
- Went sailing through tiny Greek islands for 3 days, in our own boat. Met fantastic people, so much fun. At one point I was sitting at the front of the boat, sailing through choppy ocean in my bikini, and water spalshing all over me. It was fantastic!
- Did Eastern Europe for about 2/12 weeks. Croatia was beautiful, I need to go back. Budapest is the coolest city ever. Prague is like living in a fairytale, it is absolutely gorgeous (and you can drink on the street there as well, which meant Aisling and I were able to walk along the streets of Prague drinking cheap wine and making lots of new friends hahaha)
- Albania was crazy. Very weird. (Unfortunately didn't find Voldemort, but there's always a next time)
- Krakow was AWESOME. Polish people are so friendly, and the city itself was really funky. Met some great English, German and Aussie people in the hostel, had heaps of fun with them/ Went to Auschwitz, which was something I really needed to do after doing 20th century history. There were some tears, it was a very confronting day.
- Slept in Warsaw airport. It was cold and horrible and I had to sneakily sleep in a cafe by hiding behind the stacked up chairs and putting cushions over me. Never again.
- Spent a couple of days in Paris with Steph. It was lovely to see her again, and also to talk French!
- Finished off Europe with Santorini for 6 days. It was so relaxing. Kate and I went cliff diving, donkey riding, drove around the island and had the best week ever!
- Last place I went before starting work was Ireland. Ireland was great, it's another place I want to live for a while. The people are ridiculously friendly, and the country itself is stunning. The weather is shit, but my pale skin fits in there haha. Rose and I saw a play in Dublin the night before we left, for £10. Bargain.
- Got back to London on a 12 hour overnight bus (hell), then discovered that to get back to High Wycombe we had to get the tube all the way to West Ruislip and then a bus to High Wycombe. 15 hours on public transport. Wanted to die.

Now have started back at work. Daisy arrived last Friday, which I was ridiculously excited about. Saw her walk through arrivals, squealed, jumped over the barrier and an old lady and nearly bowled her over. It's been so nice to see a good friend from back in Melbourne, I'm very tempted to hide myself in her backpack instead of working for the next three months!
The past two days I have been doing prep for the start of term. Filing, curriculum stuff, meetings....it's been pretty hectic. The boarders all arrived back today, so it's going to be lovely to see all the girls tomorrow. I'm working at Turner tomorrow morning a but earlier than usual, because there are SO many new girls it's crazy. Not the same house anymore, they're all so young. :)

See Mum, I told you I'd get around to blogging eventually!

Daisy is leaving tomorrow, Ria is coming over soon, so September should be a good month!

Venice

Before I say anything about Venice, it has to be shared that Aisling, Rose and I went to see Darren Criss the night before we left England. He was AMAZING, everything I thought he would be. Such a fangirl, but so beyond caring. I nearly cried with joy, I swear to god. Then when Joe Walker came out on stage to sing a duet, the room was thrown into chaos. He sang everything, from his EP to AVPM to Disney covers. I went to sleep grinning!

Anyway, VENICE

Arriving at Luton airport, Rose and I were told that our flight was delayed by 6 hours...not the best way to start off the summer! After waving Izzy goodbye we tried to amuse ourselves until ten minutes past midnight, when we were finally called to board! After the plane trip (90 minutes and I am in Italy, Europe is ridiculous...) we caught a shuttle bus to the station to get us to Venice. That train trip was bliss...Rose and I had not slept in more than 24 hours, we looked and felt like the walking dead. We slept nearly the whole 2 hours, and woke up as we were pulling into Venice.

I will never forget walking out of the station and seeing Venice for the first time-my jaw literally dropped. No picture can do Venice justice - it is the most incredible and beautiful city. Ancient buildings look like they are floating, boats buzzing along carrying tourists or families with their shopping...there is nothing like it! We got to our hostel (with me being told off by an angry old nonna for jumping across the seats on the waterbus) then explored our island of Giudecca. It's off the main island, and is residential, but 5 mins away from the main island. It was actually quite nice, wasn't as touristy and full of western shops as Central Venice. There's this art festival going on at the moment, so Rose and I wandered into a contemporary art exhibition in this gorgeous old house. It was a very early night for us that night - we'd had about 4 hours sleep in two days! Thanks easyjet...

9 July

Today we left at about 8am and headed straight to Piazza San Marco. We went into the Basilica, which was breathtakingly beautiful, like everything in this country seems to be! I said a short prayer in there, and for one terrifying moment when I opened my eyes I thought I had lost Rose. After a couple of minutes panic I found her again, then we just decided to wander. It's true what they say - you can't exactly plan Venice, the best way to discover things is just to wander. We wandered through Rialto Mercato, where there were heaps of fresh food stalls. It smelt amazing - living in England, the kingdom of crap food, has made me appreciate good food so much more. I've been eating on such a budget that I'm going to get scurvy before the summer is out haha. Fresh fruit for dinner and no money for transport, or bread roll and bus fare? There were heaps of touristy stalls around as well, with 'venetian' masks made in china :) we grabbed a 72 hour public transport pass, then went back to the hostel for a siesta to escape the heat. (I've acclimatised to the English weather, and am

dying in 35 degrees-what am I going to do when I get back home in December?!)

Afterwards, typical Rose and Georgie, we hopped on a waterbus which made our 10 minute trip into an hour long one. We weren't really fussed, we got a lovely scenic tour of Venice. We hopped off, and took a stroll away from Central Venice and into a park. It was gorgeous, the air was cool, the sun was setting and it was SO quiet. No cars in a city make all the difference! We walked past a family who looked like they were on their way to a summer dinner outside on the terrace - they were holding bruschetta, prosciutto...pretty much a walking deli. YUMMMM. After our long leisurely walk, we took a long leisurely cruise back to our hostel. The hostel has no air conditioning, and I swear I'm losing weight from the amount of sweat I'm losing...sleeping in a 10 person dorm in 33 degrees? Never fun.

10 July

Today we had planned to do all the islands, but just ended up doing Murano (the island famous for it's glass) and Lido. Murano was quite cool - the glass blowing demonstration was awesome! The guy made a horse in about 10 seconds, so talented. We wandered around, lusted after glass dust collectors, and went back to the hostel to sunscreen up before Lido aka the beach! I had low blood sugar as we were pulling into Lido, and treated myself to a yummy hypo fix of cherry gelati - jelly beans are no more in Italy! The beach was so crowded, but the water was BEAUTIFUL.

You know what else was beautiful? Us, apparently, according to the Italian guys. Our egos inflated so much, Rose and I were hit on so much it got a bit silly. (Seriously, how is my ghost white skin and thunder thighs remotely attractive?) Italian guys are so forward! One of them, when we told him we were australian, said 'Oh, Australia, it is bootyful, just like it's women' and slapped his chest...I am not joking. Rose and I had to stop ourselves from cracking up. Another one shook my hand, went in for the normal two cheek kiss, then tried to plant one on my lips hahahaha. My favourite? I think his name was something along the lines of Dimi? He spoke not one word of English, and my Italian is crap, so we had nearly no idea what the other was saying, but oh my god he was so sexy! We used a lot of gesturing, then he went and tried to make me a bracelet out of a reed...I died. Italian is such a beautiful language, I could have listened to him talk all day. He took my hand under the water and started to look into my eyes (I swear to god I am not making this up!) but this creepy as guy was hitting on Rose, so I made my excuses and we hustled back to the beach. As we swam back he kept pointing to Rose and I saying 'bianco! Bianco!' then pointed to his extremely tanned chest looking very confused haha. Yeah we get it, we are the palest girls on the beach...

(that's not even an exaggeration. Everyone is tanned, and all they sell is SPF10, while I'm there piling on the SPF50. Have the Italians not heard of skin cancer?). As we walked back up to the beach I turned around to firmly say goodbye, and he grabbed my hand, kissed me and said 'Ciao bella'. Seriously, what is Italy feeding their men? Can English guys have some of whatever it is?

So to say the least, Lido was a success! We had a huge pizza for dinner, and got back to hostel at about midnight.

11 July

Today Rose and I did a final wander of Venice. We went into a bookstore which claimed to be 'the most beautiful in the world', and it certainly lived up to it's name! Nestled away in a tiny street, it was stacked high with thousands of books, with hundreds more tumbling out of small gondolas in the middle of the tiny store. At the very end of the store it opened up to a small canal - it still makes me catch my breath, the fact that waves lap at peoples back doors!

We found a little deli/cafe with really friendly owners, where I had a delicious pesto. Before heading back to the hostel to grab our bags, we went into the Doge's Palace, which was just incredible. I walked through the bridge of sighs, and under a ceiling covered in 24 carat gold. It's a medieval palace...and we were walking in it!

We grabbed our luggage, caught the train with plenty of time to spare, and as I write I am lying in bed in florence. It's so hot oh my god!

Activities Week

Activities Week. It means that for a week the girls play games, make things, do workshops etc. It's a very weird week...and very stressful!

Oh, on Sunday Lou adn CLaier arrived to stay with us for a couple of days! Claire's been popping in and out all week, it's been so lovely! She made us dinner a couple of nights ago and scones last ngith. She is the best house guest in the world!

Monday.
I WAS AWAKE FOR 21 HOURS.
Why? Let me explain...

I went on a day trip to France with the Middles. I know, casual day trip to France, whaddup England. We went through the tunnel. You drive into this shuttle thing and it whizzes you through the tunnel in 30 minutes. Crazy! We came out the other end and we were suddenly in France!

We spent the day in Boulogne-sur-mer

Walking around the markets, and spent a couple of hours in the aquarium. The girls had fun, although it was hot. got to about 31 degrees, and for 11 year old English schoolgirls that is sweltering. They did not STOP complaining, I came very close to yelling 'TRY 40 DEGREES!!'. The air conditioning on our bus was broken, of all the days...I do feel sorry for them, England's version of air conditioning is 'open your windows', so no wonder they were uncomfortable.

We had lunch at a lovely little restaurant opposite the beach. A couple of the teachers and I were very keen to take the girls for a dip, however due to health and safety that wasn't an option...stupid paperwork!!! We went for a wander through the town, and tried to force the girls to speak some French, which some of them did :) We stopped by a hypermarche to get some snacks, but we were really delayed at passport control (they made us do things we shouldn't ahve to do, landing cards visa checks etc) so missed our shuttle.

We thought 'Oh well, that's fine, we'll get the next one'. However, the shuttle that we were meant to catch broke down halfway, and we were delayed by 3 hours. Together with missing the shuttle, we were stranded with 40 Middles near the eurotunnel for 5 hours. That is a very long time. At first we relaxed and lay on the grass and it was lovely, but by the end the girls were all tired and we grumpy and we all just wanted to get home. After waiting in a queue for ages, we finally got in a shuttle and we all slept the entire way back home. Once we got back to Godstowe, we got the girls back to their parents as quickly as possible. Most of the parents waiting there were Dads, which made me laugh! Poor Dads, they're always the ones doing the crappy pick ups (well, in my family anyway). We cleared the bus of rubbish etc, then by the time I was done and could head back to the flat it was around 1am...work the next day was not fun!

On Tuesday I helped out with the Upper Division Production, as well as the Viking Day for Form 2. Helping out with the production was great, they're doing a musical version of Romeo and Juliet. Set to Queen songs. I know! Amazing! Why did we never think of that at school? Viking Day was so boring, I threaded needles for two hours because they were making bags and satchels and things. I wanted to stab myself in the eye with the needle at the end of it. I'm happy to do anything 99% of the time, but I had been told that they were 'desperate' for help, but they actually didn't need me...can you tell I'm over younger children at the moment! I love them dearly, I do, but in small doses. I love the older ones so much more!
I worked with the girls, EG and CM choreographing dances, helping block and stuff. It was really fun, and I was really flattered because CM wantedto know and acted on them! She let me jump in and block scenes and everything! That night Em baked brownies. The best brownies in the world. They were DELICIOUS, that girl is indispensible. we had about a million each with a glass of milk, while watching we can be heroes and kath and kim. Partying hard in the gap flat, woo!!

Wednesday morning I spent helping out the Lowers with 'Team Games', but they really didn't need me at all...nice excuse to sit in the sun for a couple of hours! From breaktime to lunch I did some French workshops with the Form 1s, learning how to ask for an icecream in French. We then had icecreams at lunch, and they had to ask me and AA for them in French. 'Je voudrais une glace au chocolat' times 30. Very very cute. That was definitely one of the best activities to help out with. Combining two of my favourite things, French and icecream, into one activity? Winner. I have nooooo idea what I did that afternoon, but I had aftercare afterwards which was hell. Aisling was sick so I did it by myself, and the washing up took forever. The upside was that a) it was jam sandwhich day, yummy! and b) when I got back up to the flat the feeling of relief was incredible! :)

Thursday morning Rose, Em and I dressed up in uniform, as the girls had mufti day and we thought it would be funny. They loved it, thought it was hilarious. The teachers freaked out, they kept walking into the staffroom and going 'GAH I thought you were a student!!'. Nothing to say about that day, other than I did boring photocopy stuff. Thrilling. That night was the first night of the production, so Aisling and I headed down to do makeup and relived our MHS/MGHS musical makeup days. I did Lady Capulet's hair and makeup and I must say she looked stunning :)

Friday we spent ALL day making new labels for the trophies for speech day. It's all top secret so whenever a girl walked past the trophy cabinet we all dived over the lists and labels so they couldn't see. The sneaky things kept craning their necks to see but they had no chance hahaha. That night was also the production, and it was fantastic, I was so proud of them! When J sang Bohemian Rhapsody I got shivers, she was fantastic!

The weekend has been nothing special, other than I spent £100 on stuff for summer. Woops. It was babysitting money so it totally doesn't count!

not your average weekend

warning: not very related to work at all!

Well what a weird couple of days...

I was feeling quite ill on Saturday, and hadn't really been feeling too happy the whole week. I was just generally fed up with everyone and everything, wanting to travel and get out of this crappy little town and sick of teachers not telling us anything*. So Saturday I didn’t eat much at all because of my stomach ache, and decided to go out that night down to town. All I can say is BIGGG mistake. Drinking on an empty stomach, with blood sugar levels going everywhere is never a good idea. I won’t go into details, because putting that on the internet is never a good idea, but I woke up the next morning with no recollection of the night before, bruises and cuts all over my body and hypo at 3mmOl. I then spent the whole of Sunday curled around the toilet, head in the bowl and glasses of water around my feet. I didn’t give myself any insulin as I was hypo all day, and I am petrified of having another bad hypo. I had a horrible one last year when I couldn't move or speak, and one this year whoch was pretty much the same, and I am terrified of it happening again!

Monday morning I woke up and felt disgusting. Shaky, weak, nauseous, light headed. All the symptoms of high ketones but I really wasn’t thinking straight. Illife came into the staffroom to check our timetables to make sure everything was covered this week (it’s just me and Em because Rose and Izzy are on camp with the IVs) and immediately was like 'Ok, you're not well, what's up'. To cut a long story short, I ended up going down to the doctors around lunchtime, where he did some tests, told me that my ketones were through the roof and advised me 'extremely strongly' to go to hospital. So I spent my Monday afternoon and evening in Wycombe A&E on a drip, in a wheelchair parked next to the triage...whoo, joys of diabetes. I am 100% ready for a pump when I get back, I'm so sick of trying to work out basal and fast acting and screwing up my whole day if I get it wrong. Artifical pancreas here I come...

I came down to work the next day, feeling at about 75%, but keen to work because otherwise I would have been bored in bed the entire day, and they needed me. I had a discussion with Iliffe which reminded me very strongly of the discussions I used to have with Mum last year...
'Georgie, go back to bed, you're not well'
'I have to go to school, I have a SAC'
'The SAC can wait, you look like death'
'YOU CAN'T STOP ME!'
I hate being mollycoddled, so I assured her I was OK for work, so spent Tuesday doing all my usual jobs apart from Kindergarten swimming. Haha, speaking of, they were using noodles in the lesson...you know the big long polystyrene things? They call them 'woddles'. J. asked me to collect them up and I had noo idea what she was on about. Woddles?! That's not even a word!

Today I'm at 100%, work has been fine. Somehow all the teachers know that I've been 'poorly' and have been concerned, which is really nice! One of the girls asked me today 'Miss Peters, why is your hair so frizzy today?'...kids have no bounds. Finally finished this massive profject I've been working on for the French department, SUCH a relief. If I have to laminate one more thing I will put myself through the laminator. Did some filing today while chatting to one of Iliffe's daughters who was helping out, which was lovely. There is a bit of a gymnastics craze going on in the Lower Division at the moment, so duties are spent helping girls with backwards walkovers, backbends, handstands etc. Stupidly I did the splits for some of them a couple of weeks ago (let's be honest, I'm a showoff and enjoyed the cries of 'but you're so OLD, how can you do that?) so I'm being asked to WATCH THIS MISS P!! every 5 seconds. It's very cute though!

It's Em's birthday today, so I'm off upstairs to get the cake ready, food out and put a movie on. Yay! 2 weeks until summer holidays, thank god!! 75% of things are booked, payday is on Saturday so the rest will be booked by the weekend. 2 months of travel, here I come!! I'll get the blogspot app on my ipod so I can blog and upload via wireless. Otherwise my family might disown me :)

*It’s so annoying. If a swimming/sport/whatever is cancelled, none of the teachers think of telling us, so we’re running around trying to suss out whether we have to re-organise rosters, where our class is etc. SO frustrating.

South of England show and Aisling's birthday

On Saturday Rose and I went into the South of England show with the boarders. Aisling, Izzy and Em stayed at home and relaxed/cleaned. Being teaching gaps, we were both given IVs to look after for the day, which was fantastic because the IVs are my favourite year level (shhh). The older the better. If I don't have to tell them to stop picking their nose, I'm happy...

After an hour long bus ride, sitting next to P. (Form 1) who played hangman and waterslide on my ipod the entire way up (she beat Hannah's high score, better start practicing Han), we arrived and got split into two initial groups, to be taken around by a tour guide. I wouldn't have been suprised if the guide had been 100, he was so old and doddery and insisted on showing us a 'very exciting' cow judging. From the back. So essentially we spent 15 minutes looking at cows bums. Lovely. I felt like I was on a school excursion for that part of the day, my group kept asking me things like 'Miss Petersssss, can't we just, like, fall off the back and get lost. He's so boringggg'. I couldn't exactly disagree with them, as he was as boring as cows poo, so we had a little countdown system going until it hit 12.30 and we could bail. To be fair, he did take us inside the cow, sheep and pig sheds, where the girls got treated to talks about the different types etc, but try making 13 year olds interested in different types of Jersey cows....hell, I'm not even interested. We all know I'm not a country girl.

The show was very English...lots of posh men walking around with bowlers, carrying canes, talking about heifers and sows. The horse show was very posh - lots of polite clapping and cries of 'Oh, well DONE'. I feel like I was in an Enid Blyton book again.
As soon as lunch had finished, David said 'Alright girls, you can go' and my group and I were off like a shot. Everyone else was still getting up and we literally ran hahaha. For the next couple of hours we walked around, looking at the horses, dogs, food and spending quite a bit of time in the sweet section. It was quite nice with just the four Ivs and me - A, I, E and C. We had a great time, chatted heaps. Just before we were due to meet up with everyone else, we all got an icecream and I did my blood test as usual. They were so interested in it - they're not on my breakfast table so they have never seen me inject or anything. It was really nice, they kept asking questions and were so nice about it. Makes a lovely change from Highlands girls screaming 'EW' and jumping 10ft in the air. That's another reason I love the older ones!

The bus ride back went quite quickly. I sat next to J and I, two IVS, and J and I sang Hairspray, Glee and Wicked the whole way back. I am such a dork. That night we were exhausted, and I headed over to Turner House to watch a movie with Janet and the girls before heading back to the flat and preparing for Aisling's birthday :)

Rose and I woke Aisling up that morning...by wearing Darren Criss masks and singing 'Ginny'. I'm glad to say she loved it! That day, after she had skyped her family and we had watched our weekly Sunday morning F.R.I.E.N.D.S episode, we headed down to town to go shopping, have lunch and see a movie. I'm hanging out for after summer, when I don't have to worry about saving and we can go crazy in topshop. We didn't go in - it was too depressing because we can't afford any of it :) We saw 'Diary of a wimpy kid', which was actually hilarious. We were the only people in the cinema who were not at primary school or parents, but that's beside the point. Very very funny. Rose and I had bought Aisling a Disney princess cake, so up at the flat while the others were watching Anastasia we sneakily put some candles in and sang her a very loud happy birthday and did presents :)
(Aisling later found out that one of the girls in Lodge had the same cake as her for her birthday. This girl is five. We regret nothing)

This week is going by quite quickly. Sports day is coming up, which should be interesting. Three weeks exactly until the school year is over and we're on summer holidays!!. And you know what I realised today? 6 months exactly until I'm at Heathrow catching a plane back to Melbourne. I wanted to cry when I realised this - I don't want to leave! Must I really go to uni?

I'm a slacker

I WILL BLOG SKERN LODGE when i can find wireless internet.
I've been such a slacker, many apologies. I always feel like blogging when I shouldn't (at work), then when I'm able to blog I only want to collapse in front of the TV.

We're on the last couple of weeks before summer now. On the weekend, Rose and I spent a whole day in London, just because we felt like it. We headed in early, and had brunch in Leicester Square before heading to Pineapple Dance to do a couple of classes.

A couple of weeks ago I had done the intermediate contemporary class, and managed fine, so I thought that we would be ok with an intermediate jazz. SO MISTAKEN. There were so many turns in there (I suck at turns. Leaps and flexible stuff I'm fine, tell me to do a double pirouette and I will die), and we got so stressed we both mucked up a really simple pas de bouree-pirouette-layout combination. It was one of those dances which I could have gotten down pat with an extra hour, but dear god I was struggling! We walked out of that class, grateful that we weren't the worst, but feeling like crap anyway. This kid, who would have been 9 at the most, was amazing and was at the front of the class the entire time, breaking it down and casually doing triple pirouettes left right and centre. Bitch.


BUT, our next class was musical theatre, which was so much fun. Good warmup, great dance. Not too hard, but not ridiculously easy. We danced to 'The Dark I Know Well' from Spring Awakenings, so it was an unexpectedly deep musical theatre class! No tits and teeth, more slapping the ground, heads in hands, backbendy stuff. :) Yay deep!



After a very refreshing shower we had lunch at a little cafe in Soho, and killed some time at the National Portrait Gallery, until we started to walk down Charing Cross Road, to hit Oxford St and eventually the Palladium Theatre, which was where we were going to see 'The Wizard of Oz'. W ehad wanted to see a ballet, but all the cheap tickets were sold out :( It was fantastic, we got relatively cheap seats, and did a sneaky seat change when the people in front of us failed to turn up, so we got better seats than expected! Was really good, the Wicked Witch of the West still scares me after all these years. The lead (Susan Hope) also looked like a cross between Kelly McInnes-Smith and Emma Hoy, which I found a little weird haha! We arrived home happy, with empty wallets and singing 'Follow the Yellow Brick Road'.



This week? I had gym, like usual, with Kindergarten. They're starting beam, which was very exciting. I'm a nazi when it comes to pointed toes, none of these six year olds could get past me with lazy feet. The kids have been really affectionate this week, there have been hugs left right and centre! P. was so funny this morning, we were doing the quiz and Sue asked 'Which terrorist was recently killed?' and P. shouts BARACK OBAMA! Sue and I were nearly on the floor in hysterics, the girls had no idea why we found it so funny haha. P. comes out with the funniest things. We were playing rounders and she yells 'RUN, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD RUN!!!' at the others. We had to tell her off while laughing, she is priceless. The IVs are starting to freak out about leaving so soon, and just quietly Janet and I are freaking out too - I love the IVs, the school will be so different without them! The graduation dinner is tomorrow night, which means I have to dress up, put makeup on, wax my legs...ew. Living and working with just girls has turned me into a lazy fat cow! I barely brush my hair anymore haha. There has been heaps of admin to do because the end of term is coming and the teachers are busy with reports, so we're getting all the dud jobs atm. Makes summer that much more exciting I guess!

Have completely booked my tour, Santorini with Kate and flights. WOOOOO. So excited for Santorini, donkey rides over ancient ruins and scootering through old towns - heaven. Just need to do accomodation and some trains. Speaking of booking, booked my flights home today! I leave here on the 14th of december at 9pm, and arrive in Melbourne on the 16th at 9am. Put that in your diaries, I expect balloons, banners and a marching band. Not really. Just your beautiful faces.

I am counting down the days until summer...I haven't been for a run for two days, I am just so exhausted and over work!

Yesterday I dragged myself out of bed and had Kindergarten for gym first. The hall was being used by maintenance men, so we played 'duck duck goose' and other games like that instead. I partnered J. in ladders and they were all very excited that Miss Peters was playing. Then laughed at me when I lost the race. I totally lost on purpose, but having 14 six year olds mock you is never that nice haha.

I helped a couple of the Year 8s throughout the day (and a bit of last week as well) with their french oral practice. They have their exams this week and they were all freaking out, so while I was covering an Art class I sat in the corner and asked them questions about their school, home etc...I remember how scary oral exams are!! The ones I've helped this week have done really well (after drilling J. on her perfect and future tenses, she cornered me at dinner and said that the examiner congratulated her on her use of tenses! WOO!), so that's really good :) I helped a couple last week as well after dinner - nicely giving up facebook stalking to help 13 year olds revise 'avoir'! I'm finding it really rewarding, and shows me that however cute the little ones are, the older ones are SO much more fun.

The girls are always really curious to know about your life outside of Godstowe. The amount of times that I've been asked if I've ever had a boyfriend/been drunk/smoked is ridiculous. Obviously we just say 'thats none of your business', but yesterday during the end of Art class cracked me up.
'Miss Peters, have you got a boyfriend?'
Me: 'Girls, I'm not telling you a thing'
'She DOES! have you kissed him?!'
L: 'Of course she has stupid, she's pretty' (at that point I died of cuteness)
I: 'Have you SNOGGED him?'
At that point I couldn't help myself and burst out laughing. The I.T teacher walked in at that point and the girls in question died of embarassment because they had just yelled the word SNOG in front of an old male teacher. Hahaha. They all seem to think that we have raging parties up at the gap flat, when really all we do is watch Come Dine with Me, Doctor Who and Friends.

Today the sport with Lodge was cancelled, so I spent a lot of my day doing admin and making boards. My Form One class has just got three new beanbags in their reading corner, so I spend the first five minutes of each morning making sure they don't suffocate each other by throwing L. under the bags and sitting on her. Playground duty is full of drama as usual - stuff like 'she took my smelly gel pen' .

Summer plans are coming into motion - will have definite plans by the end of the week! I got my hba1c back and it's higher than last time, so I'm in a bit of a shit mood this week, trying to get it back down. My health kick is coming along nicely, I've stopped losing weight but can finally see my collarbones, which is nice! I'm off to the hospital tomorrow to get blood tests done, I;ve been ill on and off the past couple of months and the doctor thinks I might have coeliac...fingers crossed I don't!

19!

I got so spoilt!

Monday night (the 9th) I came up to the flat and discovered that Izzy and Em had planned to order my fave chinese takeout and suprise me with it! Ultimately that plan failed, because the restaurant was closed, but the thought was lovely! We had Indian with some wine, it was so nice! Skyped my family and had some quality time with the whole extended family - my cousins are getting so big!!

Tuesday I woke up, then promptly jumped back into bed as Aisling started yelling 'GET INTO BED!!' 'Can I get dres..'' 'NO! YOU RUIN EVERYTHING!!!' Hahaha. Rose and Aisling brought me in birthday muffins (hark back to the days of good old 9E!) and sang me happy birthday to 'wake me up'. I opened up the parcel that my parents sent me (which had arrived the day before), which was the best parcel in the world. Contained Aussie stuff, like timtams and milo and a toy koala. and a gorgeous pandora charm. Izzy had her camera out, and ocumented my whole day hahaha. I didn't want to go down to work, but I'm glad I did!

Yve was waiting for me in my Form 1 classroom with a massive badge that said 'IT'S MY BIRTHDAY', which flashed...the girls were very excited and P. led about 3 renditions of 'Happy Birthday Miss Peters', then I got drowned in hugs. After Form 1, I had PE with the Preps, and the gem of the day was this.
'Miss Peaches, how old are you now?'
'How old do you think I am Jess?'
*she thinks hard...* '45!'

The rest of the day was spent doing usual stuff, but with more of a spring in my step because I'm 19 now! When I was at lunch, my Form 1s came in and started up another improptu chorus of 'Happy Birthday'. It was so sweet! I ran over and we all had a big 1S group hug, I'll miss that class loads after summer term! A. (one of the Spanish girls I take for EAL) knocked softly at the staffroom door, handed me a homemade bday card, and gave me a huge bear hug - heart melted. After work ended I bolted up to the flat to leave for London with Aisling and Rose to see LEGALLY BLONDE THE MUSICAL.

Needless to say, I cried with happiness. I kid you not, I was smiling so hard throughout the entire thing I'm suprised my face didn't explode. It was so much fun, and we got AMAZING seats. Last minute cheap tickets, and we were smack bang in the middle. It's karma I tell you, karma. The people around us were very amused, when 'So Much Better' started Rose and I grabbed each other and exclaimed 'oh my god this is our song!!!'. The tube ride back to High Wycombe consisted of us singing every Legally Blonde (and Starkid) song that we knew. But that wasn't all!

When we arrived at the flat, I was dragging my feet and wanting to get into bed. I was the last to get into the flat, and as I opened the door all the lights went on and there was a massive yell of SUPRISE!!! My beautiful gappies had thrown me a little suprise party! The living room table was groaning under the weight of food and cake. I got so many more presents, really thoughtful and lovely. I'm so lucky, what did I do to deserve to be so spoilt?! :)

Today I just bathed in post-birthday bliss. I got a couple more bday cards from the girls, and B. even got me a little teddy bear! (It was unintentionally white and purple...WOAHHH BOOMBOOMBOOM YES) We were all exhausted, but I had a lovely birthday. Have been living off cake and lollies for the past day or two.

The Uppers and IVs have their french orals next week, so I'm helping them during lunchtimes and class, and some of the boarders after dinner. I remember feeling stressed about orals, its the worst feeling ever. Not lonf now until half-term, this year is going way too fast.

ROYAL WEDDING

I GOT INVITED, SAT NEXT TO JULIA GILLARD AND PRINCE HARRY SNEAKILY PROPOSED TO ME.

Just kidding. I wish.

However, we did head into Hyde Park to watch it! Along with 120 000 other people. It was so much fun, we all 'awww'ed at the moment where Harry looked around and said 'Wait 'til you see her to Will'. the moment where they looked at each other, any moment really. When Kate got out of her car everyone cheered loudly, stood up, and waved their Union Jacks like their life depended on it. The atmosphere was awesome.

Only awkward bit was when the entire park stood up to sing 'God Save the Queen', and us, along with a thousand other Aussies, Kiwis and Canadians, stood there awkwardly and half-heartedly waved our flags. Australians all let us rejoice?

Rose, Aisling and I had packed a picnic and everything. After the wedding had 'finished', there was a massive stage with a band playing 'wedding songs', so we belted out everything from Shania Twain to Robbie Williams for an hour or two. We were up dancing nearly the whole time, the park was mostly full of young people like us having a day out. I don't care what people say about it being ridiculous - it was such a great day, all the Brits were so patriotic and at the end of the day, it's really nice to watch a wedding!

Afterwards, we made a detour to Kings Cross Station so we could go to Platform 9 3/4. We got lost however...
Kings cross ticket guy : 'Where are you girls trying to get to?'
Aisling and I: 'HOGWARTS!!!!'
We found it eventually, and I'm not ashamed to say I let out a very loud and excited squeal!

Turkey

17 April
We nearly didn't get into Turkey. Rose's visa stuffed up (I think she's cursed with visas!) so after about 3 hours in customs and passport lines, we emerged into arrivals having missed the topdeck tour welcome. We freaked out for a little bit, but then got a shuttle bus to our hotel and walked into the foyer right in the middle of the tour briefing. Awkward! After an entire day travelling, collapsing into our hotel room was the best feeling in the world. That night we headed out for drinks in the centre of Istanbul and met some other Kiwi and Aussie travellers. Lots of fun, although they were all 23+...I feel so young whenever I travel!

18 April
We woke up with all intentions of exploring Istanbul, but it was POURING down with rain so we spent a day relaxing in the hotel and chilling out with the people we met the last night. That night, we had a bit of a messy night out with the 'Fanatics', a tour group that was significantly more bogan than ours. Our night involved a blow up kangaroo and a karaoke bar...

19 April
After a yummy Turkish style breakfast (yoghurt and fruit, yummmm!), we went on a walking tour of the main Istanbul attractions. We went to the Blue Mosque, which was quite amazing. Our tour guide Tolga (who I liked at first then ended up hating by the end) told us facts about the city - at one point we were standing in a Hippodrome that was thousands of years old and had been used for chariot races! We had free time after that and headed to the Grand Bazaar, which I loved! The vendors were so fuuny, we'd walk past them and they would yell out things like 'Hey Spice Girls! Charlie's Angels! You want scarf?' I got 'Heyyy Jennifer Lopez' so many times it's not even funny. After spending a couple of hours there we took a ferry around the bay. We got to see a lot more of Istanbul that way, see how massive it actually is. 15 million people live in Istanbul - that's like 3/4 of Auustralia's population in just one city. Crazy!

20 April
Today was the day of the massive long drive. 10 hours. The turkish countryside was all that I thought it would be - three people on a bike, old men with donkeys, etc etc. At the start of our drive a typically Turkish driver crashed into the back of our bus, and from then on we all called ourselves 'Team Dinted'. (because the back of the bus was dinted...geddit?). We stopped at a couple of parks etc along the way to relax, until finally getting to Pamukalle.


21 April
We visited the ancient site of Aphrodisias and the calcium cliffs of Pamukalle. I think today, apart from ANZAC Day, was my favourite. The cliffs were incredible. The sun reflecting off the white sheer cliff face was surreal, and we paddled in the thermal pools that were on top of the cliff. Very cool. Visiting the ancient city was fantastic, because it was the first one we had visited and I was blown away by how OLD everything was. The thing about Turkey, once you've seen one ancient city you've kind of seen them all...From Aphrodisias we drove to Kusadasi, a beautiful beachside resort, and had the most gorgeous view from our window. Spent the afternoon walking along the beach and eating magnums. Mmmm gap years are hard! That night we went out and I was extremely...happy.

22 April
Second day in Kusadasi! After a lie-in, we headed off to Ephesus, another ancient city that was massive an really well preserves. There were loads of people there, and because many of us were hungover/still tipsy from the night before, it was quite a fun day! It was at this point that our tour guide began to annoy me and many of the others - he had no idea what he was on about, and would make sure he walked far ahead so he could read the stuff on the info signs before telling us and passing it off as his own. So we ignored him and made up our own history instead. Example A - Erin. 'And on your left you have a giant really old stone wall, built by an old Greek guy called Ned.'


We also had 'borrowed' Skippy the Kangaroo from another tour group and took photos with him all day. The city was the best preserved out of all the ones we went to, you could really get a full idea of how it might have been 2000 years ago. There were still original mosaics and everything. On the way back to Kusadasi we ended up at a Turkish fashion show. It was the most random experience of my life. Random in the true sense of the word. One minute I'm driving through Turkish countryside, the next I'm being herded into a small room with a catwalk and pounding music, watching 'models' and being asked if I want to buy a 700 euro leaher jacket... That afternoon we grabbed a magnum and sat on the beach relaxing (some Turkish girls came up to us and practiced their English, so cute!), then the others went out to a pub. Kate and I couldn't be bothered, so we stayed in and talked.

23 April
Started off the day in Pergamon, by catching a cable car up to another ancient city. It was very pretty, and VERY windy - apparantly people used to go there to be 'healed' by the wind. After that we headed to a an island that used to be a Greek island. You could totally tell, it was just beautiful. Old timber boats floating next to the boardwalk, seaside restaurants..Kate and I bought a Magnum (yes, we were addicted!) and walked along the path for aged. After another long drive we ended up at another hotel - we were all exhausted so everyone literally fell into bed.

24 April?ANZAC Day
Stopped at Troy, and took some obligatory pictures with the reconstruction of the famous horse before speeding off to Gallipoli. We wanted to get there early and rose in protest against our guide who wanted to stop for an hour or two because he wanted lunch. No luck buddy. We stopped briefly at a supermarket to get supplies for the next day or so. Of course I went overboard and got myself 4 bags of food. When we got to Gallipoli we waited for a couple of hours (in the sun, making friends with strangers, it was lovely!) before slowly - VERY slowly - being let through security. They let the boys in first, so the Turkish guards had some assertive feminist Australians and Kiwis demanding to know why we had to wait and the guys could head right in. Yours truly included.
Once we were through we found ourselves a spot on the grass, and staked our claim with sleeping bags and my bags of food. Kate and I talked for hours, in between the presentations, until the lucky thing fell asleep at midnight and woke up at 4. I was lucky enough to be lying on a rock so I stayed awake all night (It was so cold!!), curled up in my sleeping bag and listening to the videos, documentaries and music that went on the entire night. The music was incredible - there was one piece titled 'Invasion' that was absolutely indescribable. Aisling woke up during it and said 'SHIT! I thought we were being invaded!!'
Just before the dawn service started there was a part where the names and epitahs were read out of certain soldiers. This is the point at which I started sobbing. There were so many names read out that could have been my brother, my cousins, my friends. I know I'm sounding unbearably pretentious and wanky but just bear with me. It's just so unfair that so many soldiers have to die through war to keep our country safe. Not only during WWI, but all wars. It sucks.

Dawn service at Gallipoli was, without a doubt, one of the most emotional, intense and moving experiences of my life.
Standing at ANZAC Cove with thousands of other Australians and New Zealanders, listening to the Last Post after a cold sleepless night under the stars, while remembering those throughout the years that have fought and died for our country was such an incredible honour. I will never forget it.

War has touched so many families, including my own. There are so many people back in Australia who think that being patriotic equals being a bogan. Not true in the slightest. I love my country, I think it’s one of the best in the world, and I can say that because hundreds of thousands of Australians have fought to keep it that way.

I’m proud to say that I sang both the Australian and New Zealand national anthems with pride, and choked on my tears thoughout. ANZAC Day has always been a special day for me, and I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to travel to the place where our national identity first became our own.

Lest we forget.

After the Dawn Service I headed up to Lone Pine after accidentally-on-purpose losing the others (yeah sorry guys, suprise!), because I wanted to take my time with everything and be alone to reflect on what had just happened. You're only at Gallipoli once. I wandered into cemetaries and along ANZAC Cove. The Australian Service was good, although we all nearly fell asleep because we hadn't slept for 24 hours. Seeing Lone Pine was quite surreal, I can't beleive how SMALL it was. I mean, you learn about that battle but I never realised what a little bit of land it actually was. The Inter Studies class St Bedes from Mentone was there...lucky things, where was our trip to Gallipoli Ms. Kelly?! After the worst hike uphill to Chunuk Bair (I was about to die), we hopped on a bus back to Istanbul. I had a stomach bug and cramps, so it was pretty much the bus ride from hell. Lovely.

But the shower back at the hotel was AMAZING. Heaven is a hot shower after 48 hours without washing, I am sure of it.

Paris - Easter Holidays

Woo, Paris! This is short, I'm really not in a writing mood!

7 April

I left the flat at 1am to catch a 1.30am bus for my flight which left at 6. Needless to say I was not that chirpy once I landed at Charles-de-Gaulle (although the business man next to me was listening to Christina Aguilera and Girls Aloud on his ipod, which cheered me up considerably!). I was very proud of myself when I was buying tickets for the train to Anna's house - I asked a French lady next to me if she could help me out (in French obviously - anything I say in this blog is in French unless I say otherwise) and we had a nice little chat about holidays and travelling and I could understand what she was saying! Once I got to Anna's house and had a big hug-filled reunion, we lay out in the sun and chatted for ages, then I went to watch one of her dress rehearsals. I also got to see the friends I made last time I was in Paris, which was really nice! They remembered me and everything.

8 April

I went to Paris by myself to do some more exploring - and springtime in Paris is incredible, beats winter in Paris by a mile! It was around 25 degrees, beautiful and sunny, and flowers were out everywhere. I strolled to Notre Dame and went inside (after asking a lovely old German couple to take a picture of me outside it). I prayed, then afterwards walked all the way down to place de la Bastille. I could have taken the metro and saved myself 20 minutes, but it was such a nice day I didn't want to waste the sun! I was a Revs nerd and checked out the outlines of the formation of the Bastille, then as I walked down rue de st antoine, I popped into a little bookshop and found an Ionesco play for 4€! Done deal! After buying an apple for lunch I sat back in Louis XIII square and lay in the sun, it was lovely. From there I kept walking down until I hit the louvre, then walked through the tuileries garden, all the way up to place de la concorde. The tuileries garden was AMAZING, the flowers were out and smelled amazing, fountains were everywhere... By this time I was hot and tired, so I way my home way by metro. I got lost at la chapelle, so luckily a guy who saw me looking lost helped me to gare du nord. Unluckily, he tried to hit on me (despite him being quite cute I didn't want to get drugged and abducted a la 'Taken') so as soon as I found my train I bailed very quickly! 'Merci, Merci! Au revoir!!' *runs like the wind*

That night Sylvie and Anna took me to the ballet at the Theatre National de Chaillot (excuse the lack of accents, I really cant be bothered). It was the Swiss Ballet doing 'Romeo and Juliet', but a really contemporary version - bare feet, disjointed time, dancing to silence - SO COOL. Anna fell asleep on my shoulder, and woke up during the sex scene (which they were dancing completely naked bar flesh coloured underwear, under this massive white sheet suspended from the air...). She mumbled 'That's so weird' and fell back asleep again. Bless her.

9 April

After sleeping in and having a leisurely lunch, Anna and I went into Cemetaire Pere Lachaise (the really really famous one with lots of famous French people - and Jim Morrison). It was beautiful, very old and very French. Found Jim Morrisons grave, and helped some American tourists. After that we walked back up to the Bastille, and watched a funk band play for a while, chilling in the shade and dancing and singing along. We also had to find a sneaky place for me to inject after lunch...THAT was an undertaking. I finally injected ninja-style through my jeans as Anna sheltered me from view - apparently it's illegal to inject in public in France, diabetic or otherwise. Bastards.

10 April

We took a road trip, and I got taken all the way up to Le Havre and Normandie! Check out the photos on facebook, it was so beautiful. The age of the villages and buildings still amazes me. Driving through the country we passed chateau after chateau - the French countryside is so beautiful! We had a stroll through Le Havre (was full of British people -French seaside towns are their equivalent of Sydney, then had a picnic lunch on the beach before heading to Normandie. Normandie was fantastic, it had a REAL BEACH WITH GOLDEN SAND AND EVERYTHING!! It was full of very rich and wealthy people, the kind who own chihuahuas and wear lacoste t-shirts to bed. We lay on the sand for ages - I can feel summer already!!! On our way home we made a detour past Monet's (as in the artist) house and garden :D

11 April

I headed into Montmartre, and spent an hour or two lying in a shady garden square, writing and reading. So relaxing! I walked all the steps up to Sacre Coeur, beating the fat tourists who were taking the lift up hahaha. I took a slow walk around Sacre Coeur, prayed for a while, then walked out down the hill feeling refreshed and rejuvenated! I had a bit of a low (stumbled into a man, checked my blood sugar..oh hello 2.3) so grabbed myself a baguette and some cheese (which meant I spent a whole €1.50 on lunch, broke student ftw) and sat in a little park with nannies and grandparents watching young french kids play on the playground. :) Strolled to the Moulin Rouge, then checked out Cemetaire de Montmartre before making my way home.

12 April

Musee d'Orsay! I finally got to go there! Anna and I had pre-purchased tickets, but we still had to wait half an hour in the queue before we went in. Inside was incredible - I saw 'The Ballet Class' by Degas, and 'Blue Water Lilies' by Monet, two of my favourite paintings ever, so that was amazing! After spending a good two hours wandering through there, we had lunch then I dragged Anna to the Musee Carnavalet, which is a museum dedicated to the history of Paris....there was a whole floor dedicated to the 1789 French revolution. Needless to say I nearly died, and went crazy snapping photos of everything. Original banners, paintings and artifacts, my nerd side was well and truly out. Fairly sure Anna thought I was crazy. After cramming so much revs into my head last year it's nice to put some knowledge to use! After that, we were both museum-ed out, so we headed to the Jardin de Luxembourg for a stroll and a lie in the sin. It's beautiful (my camera was flat so no pictures :()....we lay there for about an hour in the sun, chatting and resting our feet!

13 April

My last day in Paris! We slept in, after being up late the night before, and headed to Anna's grandparents for lunch. 'Mamie' et 'Papie' aka Michel and Genvieve are pretty much my third set of grandparents, they are so incredibly nice and friendly, it was fantastic to see them again. Michel insisted on driving me to the airport the next morning, no matter how much I said that he didn't have to! After a lovely four course French lunch, I took a photo with them and promised to be back asap. I mean it. They won't be able to get rid of me this year! Anna and I went into Paris to visit the catacombs. We just made it on time, they close at 4 and we got in at 3.45! They were incredible, but horribly scary and creepy. My fear of tunnels and enclosed spaces didn't get any better, lets say that. Anna and I were clutching each other for dear life. I was quite happy with my french though - one of the staff was telling us information in french and I understood most of it! Maybe listening to 'et pourtant' in french class about a million times last year really did pay off!

Would that not scare you as well?!?! In the half dark with water dripping down the back of your neck?!

14 April onwards

I left early in the morning, giving Sylvie and Anna a huge long hug, and promising to come back. My flight went smoothly, and for the past day or two I've been back in good old High Wycombe, doing boring things like laundry and organising stuff for Turkey. On a side note, the health kick I started about a month ago has payed off - I've lost two kilos since March! Yay! Did a great work out today so hopefully it continues. Tomorrow is all organisation and then we're off to Istanbul. I'm so excited, can't wait!

Promise blogging will be more regular once I'm back at work!

cranedale

Last Sunday I headed off on a Geography camp with the Uppers (Year 7). It was the kind of camp that Anna and Corky would have loved, being the geography nuts that they are (there were lots of rocks and landforms and stuff), but I ended up loving it, which I didn't expect! Obviously I went off to camp with a positive mindset, but it really took me by suprise how much I actually enjoyed it.

Day 1 was spent hiking through the moors. We were crashing through the valley, jumping over fallen trees and sliding down muddy banks. Every so often we would stop and examine something. I would either get really interested and help out the girls with their work (looking at ancient fossils) or completely zone out and focus on a pretty leaf instead (discussing sedimentary rocks...). I completely ruined my 'tough Aussie' persona when Hannah (one of the tutors) was showing the girls a dung beetle and thrust her hand at me and asked me to hold it...I screamed, covered my eyes and nearly fell backwards. I can deal with spiders and snakes but NOT beetles. Argh it was horrible! We spent a couple of hours at a stream where the girls took samples of the organisms in the stream. while the teachers and I lay in the sun (and I went to sleep). I love being a staff member hahaha. We finished off the day hiking up a massive hill, which was hard because I was so over the day by this stage but had to keep a positive face on for the girls

'Miss Peters, I'm tired and want to go back and my feet hurt and I'm hungry'

'Keep going B, we're nearly there! Don't worry, it's still such a great day!' (meanwhile I'm thinking 'killmekillmetakemehome')

Every night after we would return I would hang out with the girls in the common room, playing table tennis and table football and card games. My competitiveness came out in full force, the head of geography and I were playing a very intense game of table football one night and we had half the year level standing around us screaming while N. led a commentary ('Miss Peters has the ball, passes it down,ooooooo nooo intercepted by Ms. C!')

Day 2 was a rivers day, where the girls took the depth, width, velocoity etc of different rivers around the district. It sounds boring, but it means they got to tramp around in rivers wearing wellies and waterproofs. They had a lot of fun, and I had a lovely time 'helping' while appreciating the beautiful English countryside...this is what we were surrounded by...

Real Bronte country. Also, as a side note, the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter movies is the train that regularly goes through the moors that we were in that week.

So, pretty much, I WAS NEAR HOGWARTS!

Day 3 we spent at a typical English beach, rockpooling and...counting limpets. Yeah, it's about as thrilling as it sounds. I loved being at the beach though, I hadn't realised how much I missed it until we got onto the sand and all I could smell was the sea. If it hadn't been about 4 degrees I would have thrown off my 10 layers of clothing and dived into the ocean right then and there. After that we headed to a bird watching sanctuary, which was actually a lot of fun! The birds were amazing, and we saw puffins! Cutest birds ever! They looked like this...

We died of cuteness. Although, the girls spotted these two birds mating. And these birds were really mating, they were going all out, really having a lot of fun...the girls were nearly on the ground in tears they were laughing so much. J. and I had to keep a straight face and discuss how it was mating season blahblahblah. but it was really so funny, I couldn't say 'stop laughing girls' with a straight face. And the birds looked so happy too!

Day 4 was coastal geogaphical landforms. With the fittest tutor going around, Mark with a Newcastle accent. youtube it, it's so cute. I didn't care what he was talking about, as long as he kept talking I could sit there and listen to him talk all day. The girls had the same opinion as me, they swarmed towards him hahaha. We spent a couple of hours in a bay, which was gorgeous, I'll put up photos soon. I listened and learnt heaps...but I'm still not doing geography at uni. There are only so many different types of rock I can take. We played 'Kung-Fu Landforms' before lunch, which was pretty much 'Simon Says'. We would say 'erosion makes...' and put in something like 'stack' or 'wave cut platform', and that had to make the shape with their body. Why didn't we do that in geography?! When we got up the top we all nearly got blown off the cliffs, the wind was 30 miles per hour! We were all leaning into the wind and it kept us up, it was actually insane. Afterwards we went to the most depressing seaside resort ever, and looked at the coastal erosion...one metre PER YEAR. crazy. On the one hour drive back I had a lovely chat with Joe, one of the tutors.

That was pretty much Cranedale! The girls were so much fun, I kicked back with the staff every night, and on the last night we let the girls go a little bit crazy. It was their last night so they were running around screaming, and we really just leant back and said 'they'll run it off eventually'. I got a lovely thankyou on the last day and a little Cranedale teddy, it was very sweet! With regards to A., the girl who was a type 1 diabetic as well, her levels were really good, I made sure she kept them at 5-7. One night she shot up to 17 (I have my suspicions she ate lollies without injecting), so I made sure she set her alarm to keep testing and inject 1/2 units etc. It was such a lot of responsibility but it all turned out well, thank god!

These past couple of days have been relaxing. I unintentionally went for a 2 1/2 hour run today, as I got lost and couldn't find my way back to Godstowe. Was legit near tears until I finally asked someone and found my way back. Nearly kissed the floor. Aisling, Yve and I did some aerobics last night, using an old aerobics video we bought at the opshop for 40p. Best fun ever! Aisling and I have been youtubing aerobics videos, and I have never had so much fun exercising. My favourite so far is a clip with a sassy black guy who told us that we should be 'feeling funky!!' by the end of the exercise. Classic. We've all been playing tennis quite a bit, as the sun is coming out and it's warming up! I'm actually learning to hit the ball Mum! Gap years are the best, must suck to be in uni and writing essays right now.

There's a staff vs. students netball match on Tuesday, which should be really fun! I was planning to sneaky skype chorals but have to work in the boarding house on Wednesday. Shattered :(

GO NEREIDS YOU WILL OWN CHORALS I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE IT ON YOUTUBE YOU GUYS WILL BE INCREDIBLE I LOVE YOU!!

I'm heading off to Paris on Thursday for a week, to see the Seurins and be part of a family again for a week. I can't wait to see them, they are like my French version of the Corkills. Freaking out about my french though, it's going to be so hard speaking it all the time again, it's become so bad since school ended. They are just amazing, they're taking me to the ballet and letting me stay at their house the whole week!! After France I'm back in England for a couple of days then heading off to Turkey, with some of the other gaps and Kate, a friend from Melbourne :) I'll be there for ANZAC day, I still can't quite believe it. After I get back I'm getting all my medical stuff sorted out, because summer term is crazy and before you know it it'll be summer holidays!!

Promise I'll upload photos to Facebook soon. Miss you guys, can't wait for some of you to come over!!!

PS- tonight at dinner L. told me she had a secret for me. Beofre I could ask what it was she pulled me down and planted a massive kiss on my cheek, and said that was her secret. Cute! Then A. (9 yrs old) grabbed me around the waist and said 'Miss Peters, I have a secret for you too'. I bent down, fully expecting her to say 'bum' or something, and she whispered 'you're the best gap'. Dead. Work in a primary school, you will never feel unloved.

sun!! sun!!!

IT HAS BEEN SUNNY FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK!
IT IS STILL SUNNY!
I AM NOT COLD!
England, what is going on?!

On Saturday, Izzy and I headed into London to spend a day at Pineapple Dance Studios. For those who don't know what it is (i.e. my aunts, uncles, parents etc), it's one of the top dance studios in the UK...and also has a hilarious reality show about it :) So we headed in, ridiculously excited and stressing about what to wear. You can't just rock up to Pineapple in trackie bottoms and a ratty old t-shirt.

We did a Jazz class first off, which was really fun. It was 'Beginner'. but was definitely more of an intermediate level. The warm up was amazing and they really pushed you the entire class. The atmosphere was really good as well, our teacher was really into it and constantly yelled 'attack! attack it!' After walking around Covent Garden and soaking up the rare English sunshine, I headed back to take a musical theatre dance class...and ended up unintentionally walking into the 'Advanced' Class. Eeeek. I didn't know this until after the warm up, which had been pretty standard. The teacher (who was so so SO gay, he was the best) turns around, hand on hip, and yells 'four struts forward, pas de bouree, soutenu'...etc etc. I knew what all these words meant but it was all meant to be done in about a half a second!

Needless to say I struggled through the first half, but then as we kept going and I kept trying, I actually got it! By the end of the class I actually got it, was keeping up, and even landed a double pirouette (which is good for me, most days I can barely do one). I'll never walk into an Advanced class again, but I'm so proud of myself, there were people in there who were studying at LSMT. Walked out completely exhausted, and my abs hated me the next day, but totally worth it!


Sunday I headed to a water park and ice skating with Turner and Walker, the two older boarding houses. I'm the floating gap for Turner, which means that I help out once a week and join in on a lot of their activities, but I also tend to invite myself along whenever there are excursions. I got to ice skate (A. taught me how to do an arabesque on the ice!) and have races down waterslides with the Fourths, and call it 'work'. Of course, you've always got to make sure that your group is all there and the girls aren't being a nuisance etc, but it was so much fun.

(Just a little side note, the British population makes your self esteem shoot up. At the pool there were girls walking around in skimpy bikinis with their guts and muffin tops hanging out for all to see. Cellulite and pasty white skin galore...I felt like an absolute babe).


This week in general has not been the most thrilling, just a normal week.

- K and H, two of the Form 2s that I help with swimming, finally learnt how to kick their legs and move their arms at the same time during front crawl! I was so proud of them, they'd obviously been practicing and they beamed at me after they did a length without stopping (much). M also finally learnt how to do a forward somersault in the water after weeks of me kneeling by the pool with my arms in the pool and helping her turn. Ms H and I were very proud. Doing swimming is good for me, I'm actually learning how to swim properly as well...

- I had a training session with David (the headmaster) and the nurse regarding A, an Upper who is going on the Geography trip next week and is a Type 1 diabetic. That's the main reason I'm heading on this Geography camp, to help out A. It's certainly not for my geographical knowledge hahaha. I felt very smart as the nurse went through what to do if A had a hypo, ketones etc. Been there, done that. I think it will be really good for her to have me on the trip with her - when she found out that Miss Peters had Type 1 diabetes too she nearly fell off the playground in shock and joy. It'll be good for me as well, because we're testing and injecting together so it'll force me to be a good example! It makes you feel less different as well, if someone is doing it with you. Girls at school screamed and made disgusted noises when I tested or injected, and they were meant to be mature 18 year olds - it must be so hard for her having to hide injections and stuff from girls at school.

- The sun has finally shown itself and the weather is incredible. Sunny and bright! Doing games with the little ones is an absolute joy, and doing duty is so much nicer. Today I lay on the astroturf with the Fourths in the sun (making sure they were wearing sunscreen!). Everyone seems happier when it's this kind of weather.

-Speaking of doing games, I was doing football with Kindergarten and JH decided to set me up as the goalie and we showed the kids how they were going to dribble the football up to Miss Peters and 'try' and score a goal. Needless to say, JH has probably been playing football all her life, and I have not, so she shot for the goal and I quite obviously missed it. Didn't even try to miss it, I legitimately put 100% into trying to stop that goal. How embarrassing. A couple of the littlies scored against me as well. They are 6...really, how I ended up being 'sport gap' is beyond me.

-I accidentally taught M. the ‘f word’ on Tuesday...she’s Spanish, and we were working on past tenses (riveting stuff) and as she was reading aloud she said the word ‘factual’. With her accent it sounded like ‘fuck-tl’ and I gasped and asked her what she had just said. She was really confused at how grumpy I was about her saying a harmless word and said
‘Miss Peterzz, I didn’t say anyzing, it’s just like the word fact’ (which sounded just like the word fuck...)’
‘M, what you just said sounds like an English swear word, so say it with me again. FACT’
‘Fuck’
‘M!’
‘What? It is rude?! Ooooh!’ At that point M got really excited and started to say it over and over again...
‘fuckfuckfuckfuckfcuk’
‘M!!!!!’
Needless to say, I came out of that EAL lesson wanting to throw myself off the Highlands tower. I just corrupted an 11 year old.

- I seem to gradually be losing weight...about a kilo a month. YESS! I’m still a bit of a heifer though. Trying to stay off the puddings and stick to salads, which is so much easier now that the weather isn't shit and British. The fruit and vegetables here are crap. They have about half the flavour of Aussie produce (I'm fussy with my fruit and veg - you don't work four years at Chelt Fruit Supply and learn nothing about your capsicums...). It's like they've sucked half the flavour out of it and made it plastic. I hate to be one of those people who complain abut how much better their native country is, but I'm sorry, in this case Australia kicks Britain's ass. However the puddings here are to die for. Best rice pudding I've ever tasted!

- At Turner this morning the girls in Gucci (one of the dorm names...I know, I know, the others are called Dior, Prada etc) had a water pistol and I busted them having a waterfight. I asked for the pistol, held it out the window and squirted all the water out (they all screamed because they thought I was going to throw it out the window! As if I'm that mean) before giving it back to A. and making her swear not to use it again otherwise I would confiscate it. I had on my scary teacher voice, I'm fairly sure it's still at the top of her cupboard where I made her put it, because they all sped downstairs about a second after I left. They were a little bit shocked, I'm usually quite easy breezy about most stuff. I'll overlook crumpled duvets on the top bunk (it's hard to make a top bunk!) and a drawer that's sticking out from under the bed but not water pistols!

I won't blog for about another week and a bit - I'm off to Cranedale (the Geography trip) on Sunday, so I will be away from all forms of phone reception and internet. Yippee!

languages day

Today I had a 'day off' work...instead of normal classes we had Activities Day, where each year level did something different. I decided to spend my day with the Lowers, doing a whole day of languages! (I was so keen to help out with the Uppers' drama day it was embarrassing,but unfortuntely no gaps were needed. Sob.). I also got to wear nice clothes today, because for once in a blue moon I wasn't doing P.E! I broke out my brown heeled boots and purple dress, I felt like a human being again, as opposed to the fat blob that I feel like in my trackies and hoody. A comfortable blob, but a fat blob all the same.

I actually had the easiest job in the world - my job for the whole day was to sit in on the classes and take pictures. It's a hard life, being a gap teacher...

The first class was Mandarin, which was so interesting, because I have absolutely no idea about it. Up until last year I was still unaware that Mandarin and Cantonese were different things, and called them both 'Chinese'.....I'm such a white girl.. Anyway I learnt that for one word in Mandarin, it can mean 4 different things depending on the intonation of your voice. Additionally, when you write a character it all has to be in a certain order. I'm totally sticking with French at uni, I nearly died.
The second class was German, where the girls learnt a song about 'mein hut' which has 'drei ecken', and I sang along enthusiastically, delighting Frau A. but making the Lowers laugh hysterically.
'Miss Peters, you're not supposed to sing!'
'Girls, Miss Peters can sing as much as she wants'
Winner! On break duty we made up a little dance about 'mein hut' - I am actually 10 years old. I sang the song to Janet at lunchtime and she couldn't understand me because my pronunciation was so appalling hahaha.
After break we had Spanish, which I nearly fell asleep in because I'd eaten the entire dining hall contents at lunch. Nothing much to report there, except I realised that I can't pronouce Spanish either. French major it is!
Following those three classes, we took them upstairs to do a massive general-knowledge-about-languages quiz. It turned into something like house trivia at mac.rob - very loud, very competitive and very stressful (but minus a Mr. Richards sitting at the desk looking overwhelmed while we screamed 'OREADS ARE CHEATING!' at him). One team was steaming ahead because they had native french and spanish speakers - of course the other girls complained but they had to contend with me giving them extremely obvious hints, like subtley pointing to my head when they were stuck on what 'la tête' meant. Some of the answers were hilarious - at least three groups replied to the question 'Who was Salvador Dali?' with 'a chef'' ('I'm sure he's a chef Miss Peters, I'm positive!')
Lunchtime passed by with me taking photos (and numerous jumping photos) of the girls in their costumes. Some were fantastic, they had really gone to a lot of effort. I lent C. my scarf and she was stoked, she was so careful with it until she gave it back at 4, it was so cute!
To finish off the day the girls made mosaics. It was very messy and very glue-y, little bits of coloured paper were flying everywhere and I spent the first 10 minutes sorting out fights.
'I want to do a dragon but A. wants to do the german flag and now C. is crying and I hate this and...' ARGH. I rediscovered my inner child and sat down with the shy, quiet group and helped them finish their mosaic of a dragon. It turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. I had a little hypo at about 3.50 (tested at 2.2, yuck), so had to head outside for a bit and wolf down a jam sandwhich - I felt really bad because it looked like I was slacking off to eat.! :) Fatty boom-ba much.

Come 4.00, I headed back up to the flat, relaxed, then headed off to babysit S. at 5.30. S. is in Transition (aussie version = Prep) and is one of the sweetest little girls in the world. She's so much fun, I did her spelling and her homework with her, then played a very one-sided game of monopoly ('Take another chance card S, we'll just ignore that 'go to jail''). Her house is amazing - I'm rethinking my money isn't everything philosophy, because living in a house like that would make life a whole lot easier! It wasn't like a lot of rich people's houses where it seems like you've stepped into a magazine - it was really homey but beautiful, with a massive backyard, pool, and carpet so soft you easily could have slept on it.

I headed back to Godstowe, came down to the computer rooms and watched some Glee with the others. New episode...amazing. Darren Criss is the most amazing, incredible person in the entire world and I want to marry him. I have never had a celebrity crush this massive, I am a 13 year old again. The site we were watching it on died halfway through and we screamed so loud that I'm suprised Australia didn't hear.

The problems of a gap year student - glee episodes stopping halfway, no more milk in the fridge, going down to dinner and realising it's sausages...the list goes on :) Tomorrow I'm back to a normal day, with swimming and P.E and Turner House in the morning, which means having breakfast with the Turner girls and sewing hems/filing/folding laundry for 2 hours. Yes! I love Thursdays!
I hope you're all enjoying Uni and lectures and free food on campus and all the rest of it - if you're in a lecture now STOP READING AND PAY ATTENTION. Jaymee Klonis I'm looking at you.

national netball tournament!

This morning at the bright and early time of 7am, I headed off with the Under 12s and 13s to the National netball finals at Roedean, a girls boarding school in Brighton. Not because I had to, but because I got asked to come and I really wanted to! Day spent watching netball? Yes please. Netball tragic? Little bit. I blame my mother.

This is the school --> http://www.roedean.co.uk
I seriously want to win lotto, then enrol in this school and pretend I am 16 again. I would go through A-Levels to go to this school. It was amazing. It was on the edge of a cliff overlooking Brighton Beach, with the biggest and most beautiful grounds I have ever seen. They had the hugest theatre and about a million netball courts - it was straight out of 'St. Clares', but so much better.
(Brighton is awesome. Although I only saw it from the inside of the bus, I am booking a weekend there ASAP!)

Watching netball in England is pretty much the same, it just feels a lot more posh! Parents and coaches were calling 'Play up! Mark up!', which I figured out meant something like 'Play better' - I always thought it was something Enid Blyton had put in her books for shits and gigs, but apparantly people do say that! The bodysuits that we all wear back home have just made their way over here, but because it is ALWAYS SO COLD in this country they wear them with long thermals, which makes them look like they're wearing some kind of weird onesie...hahahaha.

About the tournament itself, there isn't much to say except that our girls played really well. They didn't get through to the play-offs, but just missed out! There were a few injuries (the first aid kit became my best friend...), but it was nothing a bit of R.I.C.E (rest,ice,compression,elevation) wouldn't fix! Every game was so close, the PE teachers and I couldn't watch at points, it was so tense. I spent a bit of time comforting some of the girls whose confidence had shot down a bit thanks to a loss or two - epecially the boarders, it must be hard for them at times, because you really want your parents to watch you at times like these! During the breaks I bonded with the teachers or huddled under blankets with the girls, eating their food and giving them life advice (with my whole six more years of experience...). They are just gorgeous girls, so much fun, calls of 'Miss P! Miss P! Watch this!!', followed by a crazy attempt at shooting from somewhere in the centre third went on all day!

The tournament was a prep school tournament, which you could guess by the cars! Walking back to the bus, we passed so many Volvos, Range Rovers and generally expensive cars (my car knowledge is crap, it's restricted to adjectives like 'shiny' and 'red') that it became a little bit hilarious. It got funnier when we passed a woman wearing a fur coat and heels - she looked like she had just stepped out of a fashion house. To be completely honest, she probably had but still, she was at a netball tournament! Heels? Seriously?
(There was also a seriously fit guy staffing the gate. So fit. I died. If only I wasn't wearing 100 layers and didn't have windblown hair...)

Now I'm home again, all netball-ed out, sitting in the library with Izzy and Aisling, contemplating whether I have enough energy to go upstairs and make myself pasta...