Sunday 26 September 2010

Changes

So regretably I'm on a train heading east not nearly as quickly as I'd like it to with a fair few miles to go. Although I left my heart at home with my accordian and a much loved rainbow coloured tambourine, a small part of me is looking forward to learning some stuff. Having weaned myself back into education over the past couple of weeks with a job in a school, the prospect is not quite so frightening. Although I have to admit that whilst many of my friends have been working hards in Boots/Lloyds and various other pharmaceutical gigs, I've possibly been into a pharmacy once over the last 4 months. And even then this was only was due to an expensive creme d'solaire emergency on holiday in France.

Sadly it's getting noticeably colder, it will be october soon and the summer is officially over. It did almost surprisingly end with a bang though, with yet another epic weekend fusion of partying and various church related activities.




Friday night was exciting. As a few good friends from church, we have been promising a wild night out on the town together for possibly years now. On friday these plans finally came to joyful fruition as we headed out to Terrace followed by fanclub, even stopping along the way to meet the nice folk from the 'Jesus army' bus, which somehow I didn't even realise was part of Leicester's night life. We had coctails, giggles and lots of dancing before food on the way home. To make the evening's happenings more outrageous, Miss Deb Goodhead and Mr Nathan White positively peer pressured me to stay out until 5am..shocker! It was an evening of discovery as we soberly arrived and crazily danced at a rather shifty underground club I'd never even known about before. Amazing!










After a big trip to the co-op to buy such essentials as new teatowels, oven gloves and a tin opener, the joyful celebrations continued. I attended alongside many friends, the wedding of Pat and Don Smith! Having never really been to a wedding of anyone I know well (the last time being when I was about seven), it turns out I really like weddings! What a joyful day of singing, cake, catching up with friends and celebrating with the happy couple. I was still going over it all in my head when I got home! After church (yet more musical madness!) this morning we on behalf of all the youth stealthily and hilariously pimped out their honeymoon caravan with a big just married sign and some 'caravan raiders' challenges to complete along the way!









And now, here we go, to the east. So far third year is like first year but with much less preparation. Looking forward to rocking up at my new house in the not too distant future!

Ciao for now.





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Thursday 23 September 2010

What I saw at the zoo

Today, I went to Twycross Zoo with some year 10 students from Beaumont Leys High School. It was awesome.

I saw some..

Elephants



Giraffes



Gorillas




Meercats



and many a funky monkey.













:)

Tuesday 21 September 2010

What I have been up to

A significant amount of time has passed since I blogged in the traditional way. I keep forgetting to take my camera places, but from what I can remember, this is how September has been so far.

The month began with a whirlwind trip to Norwich, where I had to return to take two days worth of training in preparation for my student associates scheme placement. I used this time to settle into my new house, and also had the opportunity to spend some time with my good friend Sally. We explored our new local areas together, met up with Mrs Chorlton and found that our respective new houses really aren't too far apart at all!

I've come to the conclusion I spend far too much time and money on train travel. This Norwich adventure was quickly followed by an even faster trip to the south coast, Hastings, to be exact, in honor of my old housemate Katie's 21st Birthday. It was an awesome trip, great to see some faces I hadn't seen in a while, and to engage in lots of dancing. Look at this last photo below..I love Beccy Twist. Although I needed to make a hasty getaway the following day, there was just enough time to visit the local church and nom some chips on the pebbled beach before dashing for the train home. I refused to leave the seaside town without a paddle in the channel! It was cold.













The following week flew by in a haze of tea, nothing much catching up with friends. I spent a few days with my Nanny, who returned from taking my Grandad's ashes to Ireland and stayed with us a few days. We watched a disproportionate amount of daytime television, and walked around the shops in Groby. The weekend following that flew by in a whirlwind of total madness. On Friday night, Ryan's 21st Birthday Party was fun despite some rain.Then Saturday marked the end of Groby URC's annual week of prayer. The obligatory Saturday night church praise party BBQ passed with loads of joy, singing, piano playing on my part and dancing. The Sunday morning was full of much the same, and Sunday afternoon brought the baptism of Tom, a friend of mine from church. This meant more worship leading, and a really joyful afternoon. It was great to share in Tom's celebration of his faith, particularly with cake, getting excited about possible future baptisms and jumping around on the trampoline in his back garden into the evening.



The week and part of a week since this wonderful weekend has been a working one. I've been privaledged enough to be working in the science department at Beaumont Leys School, Leicester, as part of the student associates scheme. This so far has been fun, and should be a good earner of the pennies. On Thursday I get to accompany year ten on a trip to Twycross Zoo, absolute win. Around this I've been dropping into various church activities such as Revelation, the youth bible study group which was the highlight of my week during sixth form. Despite being the grand old age of twenty, and often a leader to this age group, I stand with so much to learn from the discussions and absolutely love spending time with the youth! I also loved spending some time with Sian 'Slay' Moseley taking a walk in my trendy new nike high tops to Groby Pool, the village's finest night time spot.




After my first week at the school, it was time for yet another crazy weekend. Friday night brought Helen's 21st Party, Cosmopolitans and Rasperry Daquiris all round. We danced lots on the Top floor of Leicester's Superfly, it was wicked! Sad black cab syndrome quickly arrived when I realised I may not see these friends for a while now. Saturday brought a trip to Luton to see my Nanny, and an enormous much appreciated fry up completed by lots of tea, trifle and my favourite Marks and Spencers biscuits. We helped hang some new curtains before heading home quite late.

I slept until Sunday, (another relatively busy one!) went to church, and then went back to church in the afternoon to prepare for the 3SE evening service. We did what we used to do every month without fail, arriving for a music practice at three, jamming for a couple of hours and retreating to James' house for tea before the evening service was brilliant. The lovely Miss Jackie Williams, youth worker and now a friend from Desford came to speak on the evening's theme 'believing without seeing', an all round challenging one. Naturally the evening progressed happily to the Stamford Arms. Such is life eh?

Thursday 16 September 2010

Norwegian Cod vs. King Crab

And today in school, where I've been working this week doing a Student Associates Scheme placement, a year 10 Btec applied science lesson began with this piece of genius. Brilliant, although I absolutely could not keep a straight face.


Groby Ink?

So, I'm still contemplating the professional implications of getting this, inked onto my wrist. The words mean 'sacrificial love' and 'justice' in greek, although i'm not at all convinced this translation here is right. Roughly..





Friday 10 September 2010

The Accordion Dream

I was going to give ten biblical reasons not to burn the Qu'ran but let's not even go there. Instead, here's a long overdue photo of the instrument bringing me so much excitement over the last couple of weeks. Bought second hand for my mum, by my great grandmother in 1973, costing £30, this beautiful baby piano accordion having never been played by the rest of my family now falls into my adoring but more than slightly amateur hands


I've just realised the photo is confusing because I used a mirror to take it, but there are two octaves of piano keys to be played using the right hand and three rows of eight buttons for the bass, each corresponding to chords. Of these, so far I've only mastered the art of using about 4 of them. Any accordion wisdom would be much appreciated, my technique (though masterful in the key of D) is entirely trial and error.


So far I can play selected jigs, reels and hornpipes (mainly ones in the key of G or D), and a few rousing hymn choruses from Mission Praise. Along with the two or so famous bars from Edward Maya's absolute dance classic 'Stereo Love', my beginners repertoire is complete and certainly enough to drive my family members and new housemates into a state of insanity. For this reason I think I will have to begin keeping my sessions to home alone time!