"Severe Weather Conditions" May Cause Delays...(of Anna's blog)

When I ended the last blog, I told you that I was about to go to Liverpool and Blackpool for half-term break. Yeah, ummm….so that was like three months ago. *sheepish grin* My bad! Here we go:

Autumn Half-Term Break in Liverpool and Blackpool:
Samantha, Ben and I took a road trip over our one-week half-term break to Liverpool and Blackpool, a couple of England’s noteworthy tourist spots. We started in Liverpool, about a four-hour drive north of where we live. There’s this joke about Liverpool that goes something like, if you drive through the Liverpool with your arm out the window, by the time you get to the other side, your watch will be missing. It has a reputation for theft and burglary. Turns out, it’s not just a rumour. The first night there, while our car was parked in a well-lit and guarded parking garage, the back window got smashed out. Thankfully, we had taken everything of value into the hotel with us so nothing was stolen. It was a touch disconcerting, seeing as this was our first impression of the city, but it turns out that Liverpool is an otherwise very cool place.

We did all the Beatles sight-seeing, of course. We went to Mathew Street and drank a pint at the Cavern Pub, where the Beatles made their start and became famous. I even stood on the stage! Naturally, the place has been renovated several times since the Beatles made themselves famous in that tiny little pub, but there is still a definite vibe in the place. Since then, many bands have played on that historic stage and the walls of the pub are lined with amazing music memorabilia. I got quite a thrill out of being there. We went to another bar the Beatles are reported to have played, called the Jacaranda Club. It was a cool, funky little dive - cheap drinks, walls painted in crazy colours, and an eclectic mix of people. I really liked it. We also went to the Beatles museum called “The Beatles Story” which covers the whole history of how the Beatles came to be, and how they ceased to be. It was fascinating. Inside the museum, there was a re-creation of the Cavern Pub as it would have looked like in the 60’s. It was a pretty rough place, and from what I understand, very smelly on concert nights. The whole tour was fascinating, and it culminated in a white room with John Lennon’s beautiful white piano standing serenely in the corner, the lyrics, “So you say that I’m a dreamer? Well, I’m not the only one…” written on the walls. I liked it so much, I bought a Beatles hat as a souvenir!

Also on the Liverpool agenda, we visited its two distinctive churches: The Anglican Cathedral (the largest cathedral in the U.K.), which was absolutely massive and beautiful in a traditional European Cathedral kind of way, as well as the Metropolitan Cathedral, which was also huge but very modern-looking. It reminded me of Light of the World (the church I attended for most of my life) in many ways; its design, for instance, being unconventional and geometric. I took millions of pictures of each one. The Anglican Cathedral also had a large, park-like, slightly strange graveyard that surrounded it. The headstones were placed haphazardly around in clumps and clusters, instead of evenly spaced for the graves like you usually see. I’m not sure it was a graveyard at all, in fact. Rather, it looked like a place for preserving the old headstones. The headstones even lined the stone walls of the paved footpath, so I don’t see how they had graves attached to them. In any case, it was a lushly green and peaceful place and I enjoyed walking through it, inspecting the ancient headstones for people who “fell asleep”. Chrissy and I discovered this charming euphemism on the headstones in the graveyard in the tiny village of Deddington last time I was in England about 5 years ago. Apparently, there’s a whole bunch of people in England who fell asleep, only to wake and discover that they had very rudely been buried in the interim. :)

Aside from those major landmarks, we just wandered around the streets of Liverpool, taking in the sights and sounds of this very cool city. We strolled along Albert Dock, went to the Maritime Museum, visited the pubs, went shopping, and generally enjoyed ourselves for a few days. But before heading back to High Wycombe, we decided to venture a little further north along the coast and go to another “pool”: Blackpool.

Blackpool is a major British holiday spot…in the summer. The stretch of town along the beach resembles an old-fashioned carnival, only permanent - complete with arcades, bumper cars, a Ferris wheel on the pier, stands selling cotton candy and funnel cakes, fortune tellers and palm readers, tons of fish and chips shops, casinos, and creaky old carnival rides packed with screaming children. The whole place looks, sounds, and smells what I imagine Atlantic City would have been like in the 1930’s. I can certainly understand why families would flock to this place for a mini-holiday…in the summer. In November, however, it was freezing, the wind coming off the Atlantic chilling us to our very bones as we walked along the pier. We did our best to stay warm though, and ended up thoroughly enjoying ourselves anyway. We played arcade games and bumper cars, had a pint in the pier restaurant, and even ate at one of the many fish and chips shops. Yes, that’s right. I, Anna Smith, hater of the fish and the potatoes, ate fish and chips. It just seemed like one of those things you’re supposed to do in a place like that. It actually wasn’t too bad.

We only got to spend a few hours in Blackpool before we had to get back in the car and start the five-hour drive back to Wycombe. Overall, it was a very enjoyable four days. I had originally hoped to do some “real travelling” (i.e. to a different country) over half-term break, but finances didn’t allow. In the end though, I was happy that I got to branch out and see some more of England. I realized that there’s still plenty of this country that I’m currently calling home that I haven’t visited, and I think it’s important that I dedicate some of my travel time to seeing all that I can in England, instead of limiting my experience in this country to High Wycombe and London. Granted, I got to visit quite a few English cities when I was here five years ago, but there’s plenty more to do: Brighton, Dover, the Isle of Wight, Newcastle, York, and *a-hem* I sorta haven’t been to see Stonehenge yet. What’s more pathetic? It’s only an hour or so from where I live. I’m lame. But I’ll get there! I swear!

Christmas and New Year’s:
I went home! As most of you already know, my sister Liz and her husband Jon decided that my Christmas would be best spent back in Colorado, and I have to admit that I completely agreed with them. When I missed being with my family for Thanksgiving, and then as it moved closer to Christmas, I started to get more and more affected by the fact that I was going to miss the holidays with my family for the first time in my life. I couldn’t bear the idea. Thinking about my nephews diving head-first into a mountain of wrapping paper, and me not being there to see it, made me depressed every time the thought came to mind. The last straw was when I saw one of those Mastercard “priceless” commercials, and it showed a bunch of different people coming through the welcomes gate at an airport being greeted with hugs and tears by their friends and family. The ad was giving flight prices from different cities; Sydney: £650; New York: £300, etc. and ended with, “Spending Christmas with them…priceless.” I burst into tears. I was surprised by how much I wanted to go home. I really thought that, come December, I would be mapping out my travel plans for those glorious two weeks away from work. I was thinking somewhere warm like Greece or Cyprus, or possibly taking advantage of my friend Dominic who is from Glasgow and had offered to show me around and help me with cheap accommodation. But the closer I got to the holiday, the more I longed to go home.

Then, one day, rather serendipitously as I had just been thinking depressively about how badly I missed my mommy, Liz called and said that she had decided that I needed to come home and be everybody’s Christmas present. I whole-heartedly agreed. We discussed the details, and a few days later I had a ticket home. We then proceeded to spend the next few weeks lying and scheming to keep anyone from realizing the surprise. We plotted out just how we were going to shock the hell out of my unsuspecting parents, siblings, and friends. There were a couple of accomplices outside of myself, Liz, and Jon, but by-and-large we completely and utterly flabbergasted everyone I love. It was tons of fun! In addition to being enjoyable, it also turned out to be very important that I be home for those 10 days, because in that time my family suffered the loss of a few loved ones and struggled with some serious illnesses. It was horrible that it had to happen at all, but since it did, I was relieved to be home for it. If all this had been going on while I was alone in England, I wouldn’t have been able to cope. It seemed meant to be that I was there to support and be supported by my family during this difficult time.

Let’s back-track a little: the process of getting me from London to Denver was a general fiasco and I thought you might be amused by the story.

First, because of wind apparently, my flight out of London Heathrow got delayed four freaking hours. That’s right. A four-hour delay because of wind! Does this sound COMPLETELY stupid to anyone but me?? Anyway, the delay meant that I would miss my Denver connection out of D.C. completely. I kept expecting the people from United to tell us what the plan was for all of us who were going to miss connecting flights, but somehow no info came. By the time I got on the plane, I was piping mad. Thankfully, my seat on the flight was a window seat in an exit row, so I had oceans of leg room and a wall to lean against for sleep. I can’t even express to you how much that improves the quality of a seven-hour flight for a tall person. The only disadvantage to an exit row seat is that it tends to get quite cold, but I always travel with my pink cashmere blanket in my carry-on, so I was covered. I also never fly without my inflatable neck pillow that I bought in England five years ago. It deflates and folds up into a tiny square that takes up practically no space in my luggage. You may scoff at the snootiness of my pink cashmere blanket and compatible pillow, but I discovered long ago the benefits and comfort of having my own pillow and blanket on a long flight. I am actually able to sleep and stay warm, and I wouldn’t give that up now for anything. I may not ever be able to fly first class, so I find my comforts where I can get them.

Actually, I had a surprisingly pleasant flight in general…blanket, pillow, and leg room aside. I started to notice after I was seated that the handsome, well-dressed gentleman sitting next to me was attracting quite a bit of attention from the flight attendants. They were waiting on him hand and foot, saying things like, “Oh! You’re sitting in coach! This must be quite the culture shock for you. Are you all right? Can I get you anything?” I started to wonder if I was sitting next to a celebrity that I didn’t recognize. My curiosity finally got the better of me and I started a conversation with him. Turns out, not a celebrity…a flight attendant. He works for United and was flying stand-by, which usually means a first or business class seat, but the flights had been full so he was stuck in coach with us mere mortals. He was actually very nice and we had some great conversations when we weren’t eating or sleeping. Plus, there were some definite fringe benefits in sitting next to him with his friends waiting on us…not the least of which was the entire bottle of red wine they brought us for free that we stashed in my purse and enjoyed throughout the flight. Quite nice.

All the niceties of the flight came to a sudden and screeching halt when we landed at 11:30 p.m. ( 4:30 a.m. my time) and my handsome friend and I parted ways. They herded us through customs, shoved a slip into our hands with the connecting flight information (4:00 p.m. the next day) which mysteriously lacked a seat assignment (they couldn’t guarantee us a seat and we’d have to show up the next day and hope to be given one), gave us a voucher for discounted hotel accommodations (that’s right, the airline did not cover the hotel cost for those it had stranded), and sent us on our way with absolutely no further information about how to acquire aforementioned discounted hotel accommodation, or any other helpful information for that matter. I have to admit, over the next few hours, I came very close to punching something several times.

As it happens, my U.K. phone charges me about £2 to connect and £1 per minute for international roaming, so I unknowingly used up what little phone credit I had left checking my voicemail when I landed. I now had no phone to contact Liz to tell her what was going on. Honestly, until that moment, I had no idea just how dependent I am on a cell phone. As soon as my phone died, it was like I lost all ability to make a rational decision. I had absolutely no idea what to do. I wandered the baggage claim area of that airport – literally walking in circles – for probably a full hour before my brain started to kick in and formulate how to go about moving forward without a cell phone. I’ve never felt so stupid. It’s an incredibly long and complicated story to tell you the entirety of what happened over the course of the next two hours, but it basically involved pay phones, borrowed cell phones, trying to contact Liz, unsuccessfully attempting to get a hold of my friend Scott who lives about an hour away from the airport, realizing I could put more credit on my cell phone by using my credit card, texting Liz back and forth because it was so much cheaper, trying to track down airport information personnel (it now being nearly 2 a.m. and there being no one in sight), figuring out the airport courtesy telephones, trying to decide whether to get a hotel room or stay in the airport for the next 14 hours, deciding that staying in the airport was tantamount to a death sentence for my sanity, finally finding a reasonably priced hotel, getting there around 3 a.m., having the guy at the reception desk take 30 minutes to check me in, and finally falling unconscious into a glorious, fluffy, king-sized bed, from which I didn’t stir until 10 a.m. and only did so because I was starving. Although I was royally pissed off that I had to pay for a hotel room at all, that Marriott room and the heavenly, greasy breakfast in the lobby restaurant the next morning was the best $100 I have ever spent. I returned to the airport that afternoon after spending a lazy day at hotel, received a seat assignment, and was finally on my way to Denver, one day later than expected. Oh yeah, and to top it all off, the flight from D.C. to Denver was horribly turbulent and I was close to barfing by the time we landed. Ick.

Despite the drama of getting there and the hardships my family faced, I spent a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s with my friends and family, and returned to England (uneventfully) not at all rested but very, very happy to have gone home.

The Teaching Bit:
*Sigh*. I’m disappointed that things aren’t going better in this area. It is a continuous fluctuation of good days and bad days, as it has always been in this profession; nevertheless, I have to admit to more bad days than good lately. I find a few things about the system and school in which I am working immensely frustrating difficult to adjust to, mostly because they contradict my innate sense of what it is to be a good teacher. In fact, I feel that my autonomy and creativity as an educator have been virtually stripped away here. This is mostly due to the fact that this educational system is entirely assessment-driven. Every day is a race to make sure the kids know how to pass the GCSE, rather than an effort to teach them skills and instill a passion for the subject. It is not the creative and explorative environment I am accustomed to establishing in my classroom. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not that my classes have only ever been all touchy-feely-artsy-fartsy, with no emphasis on knowledge and skill. I’ve always been demanding and a bit of a hard-ass in my approach, as my former students can attest to. My expectations for their achievement are very high, and always have been, no matter how challenging the class or how low the skill level of the students. What I find trying, I think, is that our ONLY focus is the exam.

Poetry lessons, for example, are not focused around teaching the students to read and understand poetry independently, much less appreciate it for its beauty. Rather, they have a bank of poems that they must be familiar with and able to answer questions on for the exam. They must understand those specific poems (dictated to us by the exam board), which really just means being able to regurgitate what I told them in lessons, rather than gaining a cohesive understanding of poetry and being able to construct a personal response to it. It’s that way with the novels and plays as well. I just don’t like it. I like the idea of the standardized assessments actually being worth something to the students, but I can’t stand that preparation for the assessments is the sole purpose of education.

A realization dawned on me the other day when I was trying to verbalize how unsuccessful I feel as a teacher this year. As I was venting my frustrations and expounding upon my feelings of incompetence, it suddenly dawned on me that this is exactly how I felt when I was student teaching. In a flash of clarity, it became perfectly evident that I am essentially student teaching all over again. This realization helped to assuage the guilt I’ve been feeling and I was able to take a deep breath. It all makes sense! My student teaching experience was successful in some respects, and a horrendous failure in others. This is simply because I was still trying to find my footing. I was teaching for the first time; I didn’t totally understand yet how things were done or what was expected of me; I was working out my approach to classroom management, trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t; I was learning the ropes of the Colorado educational system and what it expects from me as a teacher, as well as learning the ropes of my classroom and what my students expect from me as a teacher and trying to balance it. It was a daunting task, and yes, I really struggled. At the very least, I know that I was completely ineffective with an entire class of Juniors at Columbine High School that semester. They hated me, and I doubt they learned anything at all, because somehow that became the class where all of these elements I was trying to balance kept stumbling around, crashing into one another, despite my best efforts to stay in control. Turns out, changing countries and stepping into an entirely different culture means that I become a rookie all over again.

It sucks, but I tell you what…having the reality of this situation dawn upon me – that I am, in fact, starting all over again – has helped me to cut myself a bit of break, and feel a tad less like a blundering, inept, moron. It also makes me more willing to carry on here for another year…although this is far from decided. The school has made it clear that they want me to stay for as long as I am allowed (4 years on this visa), so at least I know that they don’t think a gigantic idiot. Before any decisions are made, however, I have some demands of the school (and of my slave-driving department head) that will have to be met before I decide to stay another year or more. When that meeting happens, I will update you.

The Theatre Bit:
My theatre-going has slowed significantly because of the pressure of work, but I have managed to fit a couple more shows in. We took a group of Year 7 students (that’s 6th graders to you Americans) to see Wicked. Yes, I realize this is the third time I’ve seen this show. No, I’m not ashamed. It was fabulous! I thought seeing it with English accents would throw me off, maybe make me like it less, but I was totally wrong! The accents work for Oz! The woman who played Elphaba was out-of-this-world-incredible, though Glinda was far less impressive. This has been the case each time I’ve seen the show, though it’s flipped back and forth between Elphaba and Glinda – when one of them has been great, the other has been so-so. I have yet to see a performance of it when both actresses have been outstanding. Oh well. Guess I’ll have to keep seeing it until I find the perfect cast. Shucks! :) The only other show I’ve seen recently was a comedy called 39 Steps, which is a spoof on Alfred Hitchcock films. It was absolutely hilarious. The show ingeniously interweaves bits and pieces from various famous Hitchcock movies to create its ridiculously complicated plot. The actors were phenomenal – each one playing several different roles over the course of the play. The sets and effects were also extremely clever and occasionally silly, adding to the over-all hilarity of the production. Very enjoyable indeed.

London:
Okay, let’s see…I’ve now been to Portobello Market and spent a thoroughly enjoyable day in the shops and markets there, not to mention finding a bakery called Hummingbird with the best cupcakes I’ve ever tasted. I attended an Evensong service at St. Paul’s Cathedral and spent an hour listening to perhaps the most beautiful sacred choral music I’ve ever heard, helped along by the resounding acoustics of the Cathedral. Oh, and after leaving the service, Jessica and I (see “In other news…” to discover who Jessica is) were walking to the tube station not really paying attention and almost got hit by a double-decker bus, but you’ll be relieved to know that we were reciting the Apostle’s Creed at the time (which is why we weren’t paying attention), so if we’d died it would have been okay. I figure that’s a straight ticket to the Pearly Gates! Ummm…where was I? Right. We went into London last weekend for the Chinese New Year festivities. There were thousands of people and it was bitterly cold, BUT we got to see the traditional Chinese dragon and lion performances, ate some super-yummy food in Chinatown, did some shopping on Regent Street, saw a spectacular fireworks display in Leicester Square, and I got to wear the hat Sam gave me for Christmas! Good day!

In other news…
1) My roommate Samantha became "The roommate formerly known as Samantha" when she went home for Christmas and decided not to return. The girl who replaced her (both at the school and in our house) is an Aussie named Jessica and she’s fantastic. I’m very much enjoying having her here.
2) I participated in a karaoke contest a couple of months ago. Twelve pubs in several nearby towns all had prelims in their own pubs, then semi-finals, then the people who won the semi-finals (2 people from each pub) went on to the finals which took place in a pub about a twenty minute drive from where I live. Well, I got into the finals, which was exciting because 1st place was £1000 (About $1,500) and 3 days in a recording studio, and 2nd and 3rd place were both quite a lot of cash too. I didn’t win anything, unfortunately, but did place 5th out of the 24 contestants. Not too shabby.
3) Related to above karaoke story, when I won the semi-finals, my local radio station called me and asked me to sing a couple of songs at my town’s light ceremony…where they turn on the town’s Christmas lights. It’s kind of like the Parade of Lights in downtown Denver, only at a much smaller scale. Still, most of High Wycombe was there, including most of my students. I sang in front of several hundred people, met a couple of local celebrities, and consequently felt like a bit of a local celebrity for the next few weeks. They talked about me on the radio and everything! It was pretty cool.
4) I’ve had three days off of school this week because of “severe weather” -Translation: three inches of snow. Are you kidding me?!?!?! Amateurs. But hey, no complaints here. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed sitting at home, writing my blog, drinking coffee (since I now own a REAL coffee pot and can brew the REAL coffee my family mailed to me), and doing essentially nothing productive for the last three days. Here’s hoping the Brits never figure out how to deal with “severe weather”! hahahaha.
5) I’m going to Prague for half-term break in two weeks and doing a long weekend in Paris in March. Hooray!

I won't promise, because I don't want to make myself out to be a liar, but I'm going to try REALLY REALLY hard to not let three months pass before I post another blog. For no other reason, this monstrous thing was a beast to write, and I'm guessing not much easier on you to read. I hope you took it in sections and stopped for food and water along the way.

Oh, and by the way, I definitely think it's time for visitors. *WINK WINK*

I miss you all so very much.