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!