It’s another half-term break for me here in High Wycombe, which means I’m at the beginning of another week-long break; consequently, I have time to blog! My roomie, Jess, and I leave for a five-day road trip along the southern coast of England tomorrow. We’ll be going to Brighton, Bournemouth, the Isle of Wight, Devon, Cornwall, and all the beaches we can manage along the way.
I have decided that the absolute best thing about the English educational system (one of the only perks, in fact) is the fact that I have at least a week off every 5-7 weeks. Yes, this means that we’re in school all the way through mid-July, but we still have a six-week summer holiday, which is plenty of time for a summer vacation anyway. These breaks are perfectly spaced for both students and teachers to rejuvenate and recharge. From a teaching perspective, the breaks also split the year up into perfect 6-week units of study. It makes the planning really nice. When I become Secretary of Education in the United States of America, my first act will be changing the national school schedule to include a week off approximately every six weeks, with two weeks at Christmas and Easter and six weeks of summer vacation. Trust me America, you’ll love it.
Prague:
In honor of my February half-term break, I accompanied my Canadian friend Val to go visit her friend Joanne in Prague, Czech Republic. Prague has been a destination goal of mine for a long time. When Eric and I were in Europe two summers ago, we were really disappointed to get to the end of the trip and find that we didn’t have the finances to make one last jaunt up to Prague. I was bummed. I have always heard such amazing things about Prague; I was anxious to visit. Val posted a message on Facebook about a month before half-term break looking for volunteers to accompany her to either Italy or Prague. It was a perfect opportunity, especially since she has a friend living there who could give us travel tips. I sent her an enthusiastic “Yes!” in response to her request, and we got in contact with Joanne to get the ball rolling.
Prague in February is just what you would expect: Cold. Snowy. Completely gorgeous. We arrived in the evening after a surprisingly short (less than two hours) flight with Ryanair. I was hesitant to use this small European airline, because I had definitely heard mixed reviews. But I found the flight and service perfectly adequate considering the flight was dirt cheap. Val and I also got to enjoy being shamelessly flirted with by a couple of British chaps headed to Prague for a fun weekend. They gave me their phone numbers and told us to call them later that night and they’d buy us drinks. Haha! Yeah right! That didn’t happen.
We followed Joanne’s perfect instructions to our hotel via Prague’s excellent public transport system, and got to our lovely little hotel (which was, once again, dirt cheap) with no problems whatsoever. Joanne met us at the hotel and we went out for a night on the town in Prague. She took us to the most visually stunning place in Prague: Old Town Square. I walked into the Square with huge, fluffy snowflakes falling from the sky, and literally had to catch my breath. It was positively stunning. We spent the next 30 minutes just wandering around the square, trying to capture our absolute rapture of the place in pictures. We got some beautiful shots, but they can’t compare to what it looked like there. Of course, I have no basis for comparison, but I as long as you can handle the cold, I would definitely recommend seeing Prague in the winter.
When Joanne could finally drag us kicking and screaming out of the Square, we hit the surrounding area full of trendy bars and restaurants looking for a place to eat. We settled on a restaurant called Kolkovna that serves traditional Czech food and beer. A few tips about Czech food: they like meat, garlic, and dumplings A LOT. The food is very heavy and filling. They also seem to serve rye bread with everything, which I find really gross. Generally speaking though, the food is very flavourful and I liked it. We hung out at Kolkovna for a while, then went to a really cool hole-in-the-wall Irish pub for a couple drinks. We had planned on having a full-fledged night on the town, but ended up getting tired and going back to the hotel pretty early. It worked out though. We did plenty of drinking for the rest of the trip.
Val and I spent the next couple days exploring all the sights of Prague, and the evenings hanging out with Joanne and her friends. Jo’s two best buddies are an Australian named Justin and an Italian named Alessandro. These guys were AMAZING. They were a blast to hang around with and made the trip so much fun for me and Val. Prague’s reputation for its beauty is no mere rumor. Every place we went in the city, I found myself constantly tripping over something because my eyes were permanently fixed on the buildings above me. We visited Prague Castle, of course, and the incredible St. Vitus’s Cathedral within the castle walls. The castle grounds are an extensive network of chapels, halls, squares, towers, and cottages weaving through cobbled streets and lanes. It’s like its own small city atop the hill in the middle of Prague. St. Vitus’s Cathedral is by far the grandest part of the castle. It has some of the most intricate and beautiful stained glass I have ever seen. Further up the hill was my favourite sight in Prague: the Monastery at Strahov. The outside of the Monastery and the panoramic views of Prague from the back garden would make this place impressive enough, but that is nothing compared to what’s inside. Granted, this may just be because I’m a dork. The reason I loved this place so much is that it had the most mind-blowingly gigantic and gorgeous libraries I have ever seen! Thousands and thousands of books that are centuries old, in rooms with arched ceilings as intricately painted as the Sistine Chapel. These libraries were out of a dream for me. I could have stayed for hours if we’d been allowed inside the actual room. Unfortunately, we couldn’t even go all the way in. The libraries are extremely well-preserved by the fact that they are only accessible by the monks who live there. For the public, it’s “Lookie, no touchie.” Super lame. But it was still awesome to see.
Other highlights of our Prague sightseeing include the Charles Bridge, the Church of St. Nicholas, the Little Quarter Bridge Tower and the Little Quarter, and the Jewish Quarter. The Jewish Quarter was fascinating. We toured three Synagogues, one of which (the Klausen Synagogue) has been converted into the Czech Jewish Museum. On the inside walls of this Synagogue are written the names of every Czech Jew who died in the Holocaust. Thousands upon thousands of names are inscribed on the walls. Even more fascinating (and just as sad) is the cemetery outside the Synagogue know as the Old Jewish Cemetery. For over 300 years, it was the only burial ground permitted for Jews. Because of lack of space, people had to be buried on top of each other, up to twelve layers deep. You can see over 12,000 gravestones in this very small cemetery, but around 100,000 people are thought to be buried there. We couldn’t take pictures inside the Synagogue, I couldn’t stop taking pictures of the cemetery. Check out my Facebook album to see them.
The last major adventure to report from the Czech Republic was the night we ventured outside of Prague…about 5 hours outside of Prague, to be exact. We crossed most of the country by train and went to a city called Ostrava for a party night. Ostrava is known to be similar to Bourbon Street, with one main drag that is basically solid bars and clubs. Joanne, Alex, and Justin had never been before but had heard reports that it was a crazy good time. Let me just say…not so much. I’m not going to tell you the whole story in writing because it’s a LONG one, but it ended up being a very weird night. Some of you know that I have a tendency to attract weirdos, but it turns out that Joanne’s knack for this is ridiculous. It started on the train out to Ostrava and did not end until we finally got back to Prague at 9:00 a.m. the next day. Add to the weirdos a lot of alcohol; an eerie, almost deserted street of bars and clubs; the coldest weather I ever remember being out in; hours and hours of train delays; and you have the basic ingredients of our night in Ostrava. I was grateful to get out unscathed. All I can say is that it was an adventure that taught me patience and tolerance for discomfort. If you ever want to hear this story, I’ll tell you over drinks when you’ve got quite a lot of time to kill.
Oh! One last thing that I loved about Prague: it had really amazing Mexican food! It was such an unexpected and pleasant surprise. I ended up eating more Mexican food than Czech food, if I’m honest. I’ve missed it soooo much.
Overall, Prague gets an enthusiastic thumbs-up! Ostrava, thumbs-down!
Paris:
My trip to Paris didn’t exactly fall on a half-term break, but when my boyfriend, Aaron, decided he wanted to take me, I suddenly found that I was just not feeling well enough to go to work one Friday in March (*cough cough*) and he and I took a three-day weekend in Paris to help me…uhhhh….recover. Ok, look! Mental health days are completely legitimate reasons for skipping work! Don’t judge me!!
Anyway, I played hookie and we went to Paris for three days. Let me say right away: I love Paris. LOVE IT. Paris has a vibe and an energy to it unlike any other city I’ve ever visited. It’s also breathtakingly beautiful. Yes, it’s cliché, but I really believe that you can’t help but feel romantic in Paris. I know I felt that way, even when I was there in an unromantic capacity. I had been to Paris before about five years ago, but Aaron had never been, so I had the pleasure of imparting some tourist tips to someone else for once! Not that he really needed them. I mean, what tips could I really give him? “Uh, you should go to the Eiffel Tower.” I’m guessing he could have pretty much figured this stuff out on his own. It was lovely, though, to be in such gorgeous place and be able to share it with a boyfriend-type person for once. Usually, I visit these locations on my own, take a self-portrait in front of some historical monument, and move on to my solitary enjoyment of some other beautiful place. Don’t get me wrong; this doesn’t bother me at all. I really love travelling alone most of the time. I generally prefer it. Every now and again though, I have wondered what it would be like to be able to have a romantic dinner in a romantic city, or be kissed on a spectacular bridge, or have my hand held while I wandered through a museum. It was really quite pleasant to get to do all that stuff this time.
We visited the standard Parisian sights: The Louvre, the Arch de Triomphe, Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, and The Moulin Rouge (which was very near our hotel). We made several trips to the Eiffel Tower, including taking the lift to the top at night and being up there during the hourly light show. We wandered around the fancy Champs Elysees for shopping and had an amazing, fancy dinner there. We took a boat tour down the Seine and met a really helpful and fabulous older French couple who tried very hard to give us tips about the best places in Paris to visit, despite being able to speak a minimal amount of English, and Aaron and I speaking even less French. We also went looking for Jim Morrison’s grave, but nobody seemed to know what we were talking about and we didn’t have internet access to look it up. This two-hour fruitless search ended up with us saying, “Screw it. Let’s go drink some wine instead,” which we did. I guess we’ll have to try to find Jimmy next time. We walked through some gorgeous parks and strolled down Paris’s enchanting avenues and lanes. We ate cheap and delicious Nutella-filled crepes purchased from the street vendors that line every Parisian street. We stood on bridges and looked out at the city. We drank wine. We started conversations with the French just to see if they’d be nice to us. They were. We spent three days thoroughly enjoying ourselves. The weather was cold, but bearable, and being there during an off-peak season made it so much nicer since we didn’t have to deal with millions of tourists. Our hotel - located in the exciting and vivid neighbourhood below Sacre Coeur known as Montmartre - was reasonably priced and quite lovely. I would definitely stay there again. Coincidentally, it was one block away from the hotel where Chrissy and I stayed when we were in Paris five years ago. I actually felt like I knew my way around a little bit!
The one thing about Paris that was NOT enjoyable (and that I don’t remember being this bad the last time I was there) was the absolutely EXORBITANT amount of money it cost to feed ourselves. While the tourist sights in Paris were very reasonably priced (if not free) and accommodation expenditure was perfectly acceptable, the price of food and drink was infuriatingly high. A can of coke, for example, cost an average of 3 Euros…that’s around $4.50. Going out to dinner at a pizzeria one night cost us over $100. I was staggered. Feeding ourselves for three days nearly cost us as much as the rest of the expenses for the trip combined. If you’re going to Paris any time soon, be warned! Unless you’ve saved a fortune, you’ll be living on street-vendor food.
Glasgow:
Easter came, and though I had originally been planning to go to Spain and Portugal for my two-week vacation, I suddenly discovered that I just did NOT have the money for that extravagant of a holiday. For a couple weeks there, it was looking like I was actually going to have to stay in High Wycombe for the whole vacation. But my soul screamed out against the idea, so I knew I had to find a way to travel. The solution came in the form of my Scottish buddy, Dominic. Not only did he generously offer to transport me to Glasgow when he headed back there for Easter, but he arranged two nights lodging for me with his mother, found me cheap and decent hotel accommodation for the other nights, let me hang out with him and his friends for the week, gave me tips about all the best sites, pubs, shopping, and museums, and to top it all off, he spent the first four days of his vacation driving me around to all the places I wanted to see. He was invaluable to me while I was in Glasgow. He’s been a good friend to me since I’ve been in England, and I’m going to miss him very much when he moves to Qatar in August. You know, he could move some place where I want to visit and could actually use him for a place to stay, but I can say with some certainty that I have no plans to visit him in Qatar. Sorry, Dom!!
Scotland is one of my favorite places. In fact, Edinburgh is in my top 3 favorite cities ever. Since going there five years ago, I had always hoped to come back and see more of the countryside and the other cities. I was so pleased to finally get the chance, and what I saw on this trip did a fantastic job of living up to my very high expectations! Glasgow was not at all what I had expected. It was quite a bit larger and much more cosmopolitan. It was much more like a “city” than I had expected, having only been to Edinburgh which is quite historical and lacks the look and feel of a modern city. Glasgow does not. While still being quite beautiful and boasting some noteworthy historical tourist attractions, it is also a bustling metropolis, complete with a subway system. Granted, the subway system only has one line that makes a big loop around the city, but still!
One of the best things about Glasgow and the surrounding area is how many beautiful bodies of water there are. Glasgow and its suburbs are built along the banks of the River Clyde. Perhaps 20 minutes outside of Glasgow is the absolutely breathtaking Loch Lomond, and two or three more lochs are within easy driving distance. In case you don’t know, I should clarify that Loch Ness is nowhere near Glasgow, so going hunting for Nessie was unfortunately not an option. While Loch Lomond is significantly less famous than its fellow Ness, I can’t imagine Loch Ness being any more serene or beautiful than Loch Lomond. I was pleased that Loch Lomond is still relatively unspoilt and natural. I was disappointed at first because at one end of it there is a visitor’s centre, shops and a café, which are all quite tacky, and this happened to be my first view of the Loch. Thankfully though, as we stopped off at other points around it, I saw that it was just that one area that had been built up to support the tourist industry. The rest of the Loch’s shoreline was subtle and uncluttered, allowing lovers of nature like me to imagine that the Loch would have looked very much the same hundreds of years ago. I strolled along the beaches and through the trees at various places around the Loch. Got cold and wet, and didn’t mind at all.
Aside from Loch-walking, the other part of my trip to the Southwest of Scotland that I couldn’t wait for was the historical sights in the area. Stirling, in particular, is chalk-full of fascinating Scottish history. I went to Stirling and toured the castle, which was AMAZING and I loved it. One of my favourite castles ever, actually. I also went to Stirling Bridge to see the place where the great battle between the Scottish and the English took place. The bridge obviously looks a bit different now than it did during Wallace’s time, but it was still pretty cool. I went to Bannockburn, the famous battlefield where the Scots once again kicked the crap out of English. I went to Wallace Monument, which is a humongous tower that sits atop a large precipice a few miles from Stirling Castle. I about died walking up the steep slope to the top of the hill, and (silly me) I wanted to climb to the top of the tower to see the panoramic views of Stirling and the countryside, but I got there right as they were about to close and they wouldn’t let me go up. My lungs were happy about that, in any case.
My final bit Scottish adventure that I’ll tell you about (though it was actually one of the first things I did on the trip) was to go to a real, live European football game. That’s “soccer” to you Americans. The Celtic are one of Glasgow’s two football teams. The Rangers are their arch-rivals. Glasgow is a city divided when it comes to this sport. Half the city worships one team, and despises all the supporters of the other, and visa versa. It’s quite intense. Dom is no exception to this. He is an avid and passionate Celtic fan. When they lose, his day is ruined. We Americans love our sports, but I’ve never seen fanaticism like this. Americans are passive spectators compared to the football fans I’ve seen out here. Of course, I wanted to go and see what all the ruckus was about. Dom leant me some of his precious green and white striped apparel and we went to the game. It was so much fun! The energy and atmosphere were intoxicating. The crowd was such a blast to watch and listen to. They sing! European football fans know tons and tons of…well, I guess you’d call them “fight songs”…that they sing loudly from the stands for almost the entirety of the game. There’s sometimes several different songs coming from different sections of the stands at once, and sometimes, even more spectacularly, the entire stadium will break out into the same lively tune. It appears that everyone knows all these songs! And every team has different songs. It was fascinating. It’s a culture so unfamiliar to me, not being a sports fan, but I really enjoyed partaking in the excitement for the day. Luckily, “our” team won. It made for a pleasant, celebratory rest of the afternoon.
Still to come:
Okay, I’m leaving a few sections out of this blog because it’s been so long since I’ve written that a whole lot has happened. I simply can’t get it all into one blog, and people are rather forcefully requesting that I get something posted. So, the next blog will include: Easter with my boyfriend and his family in his hometown; Liz and Jon’s visit; other local travelling like Oxford and Blenheim Palace; May half-term break road trip with my roommate to the South of England that I mentioned at the beginning of the blog; school updates, and MORE!
Theatre:
Here is a quick review/explanation of each of the shows I’ve seen recently.
Taming of the Shrew: Badass! Performed by The Royal Shakespeare Company. Completely hilarious. Loved it.
A View from the Bridge: Beautifully performed. I sat in the front row and cried my eyes out. Especially moving performance from Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio who was Maid Marian in the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
Spring Awakening: Sooooo incredible. One of my favorite shows ever. Loved it so much that I saw it again the very next weekend, and I plan on going to see it again. It’s coming to Denver in December. If you can go, you must.
In other news:
1) After careful consideration, including several “pros and cons” lists, talks with my friends and family, praying, and debating whether or not I will kill my boss if I work for her another year, I have finally come to the decision that I am staying in England for another year. More than anything else, it all came down to the realization that I’m simply not done here yet. My original plan when I came out here was to stay for two years. That still seems like the right amount of time. So, you’ve all still got plenty of time to come visit. Start planning now.
2) I moved. The new house is about ¼ mile down the road from the last one. It happened suddenly and the circumstances sucked. I am very very angry at our former landlady. She’s evil. If you need the new address, just let me know.
3) It was so great to have Liz and Jon out here to visit. In fact, I’d really like it if some more people would get their cabooses to the U.K. I’ve got one more coming as of now. Hooray for Fitz!! Still, there’s plenty of time now for other people to plan their visits as well. Get on it people!
4) I want to take this opportunity to say, “Congratulations Mike and Steph!!” who are getting married this Saturday, June 6th. I am incredibly sad that I won’t be there, but I wish you the very happiest day out of all the days you’ve ever had! I love you both.
5) I’m coming home for Christmas. There. You are now warned in advance. I had better see you. Details later, when I have some.
6) Did I mention that I want visitors? ‘Cause I do.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
"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.
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.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
How did I get here?
A couple of weekends ago, I met my friend and former AHS co-worker, Brady, and her husband Shane in London for the day. Brady is actually the reason why I’m in England. She was the one who told me about Bluewave International, the recruitment company I went through to get my teaching job out here. A friend of hers had found the company online and decided to apply with them, just to see what would come of it. He was placed in a school out here in England very quickly, and since she was feeling unsettled in her teaching career in Colorado, she decided to give it a shot as well.
One evening several months ago, she and I were at our favourite “English Pub” in Denver, and I was expounding upon the many woes I was facing in my situation at the time. Things were rough for me, both personally and professionally, and I was searching for a solution. Leaving Denver and starting afresh someplace else was an idea I had been mildly considering since Terry died, but one night last November, over a year after his death, I had an experience that, since that night, I hadn’t been able to get the idea of leaving out of my head.
I was lying in bed waiting for sleep, when I suddenly thought I was drowning. Literally. It felt like someone was sitting on my chest. I was gasping for breath, my body was shaking uncontrollably with sobs, and I was convinced that my own death was imminent. These were not suicidal thoughts; I was not thinking of taking my own life. It simply felt like I was going to die…like death was coming for me. Never having had a panic attack before, I didn’t know that that was what was happening to me. It wasn’t until an emergency trip to my counsellor the next day that my experience was given a name. All I knew at the time was that it was one of the scariest things that had ever happened to me. When I was finally able to calm down enough to breathe and think, my first impulse was to run. “Impulse” is perhaps the wrong word. It wasn’t just an impulse. Every ounce of my being was on fire and pulling me out of bed and urging me into my car. Again, death seemed imminent. If I didn’t go, I would die. I was sure of it. I picked up my phone and called my friend Tommy in Hawaii and my friend Travis in Seattle, and I asked them both if they would be okay with my coming to crash with them for a while. They both kindly offered me a place to stay for as long as I might need it. I then called my sister Jessie in South Dakota. Whether I decided to go to Seattle or Hawaii, I was going to have to get the money for a plane ticket first, and I could not stay in Denver another minute. I was planning to throw some stuff in the trunk of my car and drive to South Dakota that very night. I knew I could stay with Jessie or with my grandma, get a job, and make some money to buy the plane ticket. This was the plan. Then I walked downstairs, still sobbing, and talked to my mom. She listened concernedly as I cried and tried to verbalize what I was feeling and what I wanted to do. As only she can, my mom calmed me down. She was understanding and compassionate about my need to flee that very minute from the feelings that were consuming me, but she made me promise to sleep on it, go see a counsellor the next day, then make a decision. As much as every molecule in my body was illogically screaming at me to get in the car, I was still able to comprehend the logic behind her request. This was a rash decision. I did as she asked; I went to bed. I slept very little, the immediacy of the urge to run still coursing through my veins.
The next morning, I went to talk to someone about what had happened the night before, praying she would be able to tell me exactly what to do. Naturally, it doesn’t work like that. She couldn’t make my decision for me, but she did help me a little bit. First, she described what a panic attack is, and it was pretty obvious that she was describing what I had experienced the previous night. That helped. This thing had a name. It was real. I wasn’t going crazy…well, not in that sense anyway. She also explained that to make a life-changing decision like moving to a different state could be a catastrophically bad idea in the immediate aftermath of a panic attack. She said that I was certainly still too emotionally unstable to be able to make a clear-headed choice of that magnitude. I did a quick internal emotional scan, and in point of fact, I was still feeling the effects of it as I sat in her office. I was still trembling, still uncontrollably crying, and the impulse to run was still pushing urgently at the back of my throat. I’ve never felt anything with such immediacy. Over the course of our conversation, I came to realize that I needed to wait a little longer before deciding to move. Her recommendation was a month, one month to mull it over and be sure of what I wanted, and while that seemed like a reasonable amount of time in my head, my body couldn’t fathom staying where I was for a whole other month.
Thankfully, Thanksgiving was only about a week away and that offered me a temporary solution. In just a few days, I was able to pack up my car and give myself a slight respite from the insistent demand for distance still resounding inside me. I drove to South Dakota and spent Thanksgiving with my sister, my grandmother, and a few of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. The ten-hour drive through relative nothingness put me at ease. I could actually feel the knots in my stomach start to release as I got closer and closer to the place where my mother grew up. I spent four days of stillness and quiet in the peaceful countryside where my mom’s family farm sits on a hillside surrounded by wheat fields that dance and shimmer in the prairie wind. I love it there. My soul is fed by the gentle silence and the endless sky. It’s a place that has always brought me comfort and solace, but never more so than this. The only way in which this trip was not a complete reprieve was that when I went home, I wanted to be gone again. The time away showed me, quite clearly, that I would need to leave again. Now came the task of figuring out how.
But life, as it tends to do, took over again once I got home. Out of necessity, I went back to working day to day, interacting with people day to day, and trying to cope day to day. The inclination to leave stayed at the back of my mind, and I spent nights in bed musing over how I might go about making it happen. Whether or not I ever took my musings seriously, I can’t be sure. Part of me believed that I would never be able to do it, that I was stuck. I felt as though, in the last year, all my decisions had been the wrong ones. My unpredictable emotions continued to wreak havoc over my life, harming me and those around me. I didn’t know how to fix it. By the time I had this conversation about Bluewave with Brady, I was feeling anxious and trapped. More than anything, I was utterly scared.
So why am I here? I’m here because I got scared. My life scared me. All that had already happened, all that was currently happening, and all that might happen…it all scared me. I chickened out. I couldn’t face it. I didn’t know how. I mean, there were other reasons too, of course. My wanderlust had been nagging at the back of my mind long before this. Travelling is one of my passions; it is a part of who I am. I travelled quite a bit last summer, spending a couple of weeks on the West Coast and Hawaii, then a month in Europe, but I wanted to be more than a tourist. I’ve always wanted to live – not just visit – in a different country. I wanted to become a part of a culture, not just observe it as outsider. Scotland, England, and Spain have always appealed to me, so when Brady mentioned this program, in the midst of all that I was feeling, it seemed like something I was supposed to pursue. However, if I’m honest with myself, I know that the main source of my motivation for this move was fear. When I look back on the last few years, it sickens me how many of my decisions were made on the grounds of fear. Fear has ruled me. Fear is a terrible power, and it is mostly self-inflicted. I let fear take me over, because that seemed like a safer route than allowing for any possibility of further loss and heartache. My single greatest priority became to avoid pain. Yes, I will admit it – the reason I am here is primarily a cowardly and selfish one. There were issues I didn’t want to deal with back home, so I ran.
But here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter why I left. The reasons that brought me here are irrelevant. I am here. And I need to be here. It is necessary. I am supposed to be living in this house, with these people, in this town, working at this school, at this exact time in my life. There is no other explanation for any of this other than I HAD TO. If I didn’t, I would always have wanted to, and I would always have thought that I should have. Years from now, no matter how good my life had the potential to be, there would always be doubt that I had made the wrong decision. I would regret that I had been too scared to give it shot. It all comes back to fear. I came because of my fear, and if I hadn’t come, that also would have been because of fear. “The lesser of two evils” required me to make a decision. What scared me more? The answer came to me surprisingly easily. I already have quite enough look-back-and-wonder-what-if material, thank you very much. I knew I had to try. Yes, there was the distinct possibility that I would come to England, fail miserably, and have to go back home again dejected, having sacrificed a great deal in the process. There is still that possibility. But if it happens, I will know that at least I tried and it didn’t work. I want so desperately to come home at the end of this truly ready to move on with my life. I think I am making steps toward making that happen.
I won’t lie and say that this has been easy. There are days that I am so frustrated with some of the aspects of teaching in this system that I am want to quit and walk out of the school. There are days when the students are so emotionally taxing that I want to sit down and cry. There are days that I am so sad about all the moments I am missing with my nephews that I want to get on the next plane and come home and never leave them again. There are days that I need my parents, and my siblings, and my friends so badly that I want to call every one of you, just to draw some strength from your voices. There are days that I am so lonely I want to climb into bed and never get up again. There are days that I’m so afraid that I’ve made the wrong decision and lost something so precious to me that it is hard for me to breathe.
There are those days. My only solution for those days is to try to make the next day better. I can’t always fix it, but I try. I do some exploring, or I make a new friend, or I read a new book, or I go to London and see a show, or I get a bunch of grading done, or I buy something British and fabulous, or I write, or I make plans for my next break from school. These things help refocus my mind and remind me that I am having a fabulous adventure. I have seen some amazing things that many people will never get to see. I have done some incredible things that many people will never get to do. I have met some wonderful people that I already can’t imagine my life without. It is these moments that make this whole life-gamble worthwhile. I am thankful that I have this opportunity to grow, learn, and heal. I realize that it is up to me to reap the maximum potential benefit from this endeavour, and I am really, really trying.
The Teaching Bit:
I don’t have to do it for a while! Hooray! We’ve just completed our first half term and I now have one week off. I really like this one week off for every six weeks of teaching thing. Brilliant! I am a little behind with things at school (like grading), so I will spend part of my break at school getting caught up. What can I say?...I haven’t changed much in my absolute inability to take a break from work. However, I am taking a few days to go explore northern England. Me, Samantha, and our friend Ben are taking a road trip up to Liverpool for four days. We leave today. I’m so excited! Outside of London, there just hasn’t been time to do a whole lot of sight-seeing. I am really looking forward to this.
Theatre:
The day that I met Brady and Shane in London we went to see Stomp, which is absolutely one of the most exciting and fun theatre experiences I’ve ever had. It was positively exhilarating. If you ever have a chance to see this show when it’s touring, I ABSOLUTELY recommend it. Samantha and I went to see Rain Man with Josh Hartnett the next weekend. It was quite good. Mr. Hartnett did a pretty good job, and Adam Godley (who played Ray) was outstanding, although not as good as Dustin Hoffman in the movie. But, come on, you can’t really expect that from anybody. I wasn’t terribly impressed with some of the supporting cast, unfortunately, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed it. Finally, this week we took about twenty of our year 10 Drama students to go see West Side Story since they are studying it in class. It was excellent. The woman who played Anita absolutely stole the show, and the actor who played Tony had one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard. Swoon. Seriously. When he belted the high note in “Maria” I almost fell out of my chair. Oh dear…my face is getting a little flushed. I have to stop thinking about it. Anyway, the whole cast was fabulous. The dance element of the show was particularly fantastic, and the final scene was beautifully staged and positively heart-wrenching. Three more successful theatre experiences in London. Most excellent.
London:
Sam and I went to Harrods a couple of weekends ago. Now, I went there with Chrissy when I was in London four years ago, but we must have quit before we saw the whole store, because I do not remember my last experience there being nearly as grand as this time was. This time, we spent the better part of the day there, thoroughly enjoying all six ridiculously huge floors. I have never seen anything like this place. There is nothing you can’t buy there, if you have the money to afford the exorbitant prices. It is almost overwhelming. You don’t even know where to begin. In fact, it’s so big, that I am quite sure that we missed at least part of every floor. Each one was a huge, never-ending maze of merchandise, ranging from food to electronics to a couture wedding gown boutique. And here comes the highlight of the day, and perhaps the highlight of my entire experience in England to date: The shoe floor. I have never seen anything like it. It is not an exaggeration to say I almost fainted when we reached it. Every high-end designer you can think of had their own unique alcove throughout the floor…Gucci, Jimmy Choo, Manolo, Prada, D&G, to name a few. Then, of course, was the designer whose shoes speak directly to my heart, and who, if I ever had the funds, would be the recipient of my generous shoe-buying patronage: Christian Louboutin. His red-soled masterpieces stood along the gorgeous black displays, in the gorgeous black velvet covered room, with black ceiling-to-floor sheer drapes that separated row after row of his incredible creations. I tried on a pair of $900 red, patent leather pumps with criss-crossed straps across the top of the foot. I tried on a pair of the perfect $800 black patent leather pumps, so comfortable I am quite convinced I could have worn them jogging, though of course I would never do that. I held, but could not allow myself to try on, a $2000 pair of black satin, crystal-studded heels. They were perhaps the most beautiful shoes I have ever seen. *Sigh* It was a very good day.
*A-hem!* Now that I have pegged myself as probably the biggest girly-girl in all of Girldom, I have to remind you that I while I love shoes, I also camp, and get dirty, and climb rocks and trees, and shoot guns, and ride four-wheelers, and snowboard, and I don’t paint my fingernails. So there. I’m not a complete loss.
Well, I’m going to go get ready to run around Liverpool doing dorky Beatles-related stuff. I’m missing you much and wishing you well, as always.
One evening several months ago, she and I were at our favourite “English Pub” in Denver, and I was expounding upon the many woes I was facing in my situation at the time. Things were rough for me, both personally and professionally, and I was searching for a solution. Leaving Denver and starting afresh someplace else was an idea I had been mildly considering since Terry died, but one night last November, over a year after his death, I had an experience that, since that night, I hadn’t been able to get the idea of leaving out of my head.
I was lying in bed waiting for sleep, when I suddenly thought I was drowning. Literally. It felt like someone was sitting on my chest. I was gasping for breath, my body was shaking uncontrollably with sobs, and I was convinced that my own death was imminent. These were not suicidal thoughts; I was not thinking of taking my own life. It simply felt like I was going to die…like death was coming for me. Never having had a panic attack before, I didn’t know that that was what was happening to me. It wasn’t until an emergency trip to my counsellor the next day that my experience was given a name. All I knew at the time was that it was one of the scariest things that had ever happened to me. When I was finally able to calm down enough to breathe and think, my first impulse was to run. “Impulse” is perhaps the wrong word. It wasn’t just an impulse. Every ounce of my being was on fire and pulling me out of bed and urging me into my car. Again, death seemed imminent. If I didn’t go, I would die. I was sure of it. I picked up my phone and called my friend Tommy in Hawaii and my friend Travis in Seattle, and I asked them both if they would be okay with my coming to crash with them for a while. They both kindly offered me a place to stay for as long as I might need it. I then called my sister Jessie in South Dakota. Whether I decided to go to Seattle or Hawaii, I was going to have to get the money for a plane ticket first, and I could not stay in Denver another minute. I was planning to throw some stuff in the trunk of my car and drive to South Dakota that very night. I knew I could stay with Jessie or with my grandma, get a job, and make some money to buy the plane ticket. This was the plan. Then I walked downstairs, still sobbing, and talked to my mom. She listened concernedly as I cried and tried to verbalize what I was feeling and what I wanted to do. As only she can, my mom calmed me down. She was understanding and compassionate about my need to flee that very minute from the feelings that were consuming me, but she made me promise to sleep on it, go see a counsellor the next day, then make a decision. As much as every molecule in my body was illogically screaming at me to get in the car, I was still able to comprehend the logic behind her request. This was a rash decision. I did as she asked; I went to bed. I slept very little, the immediacy of the urge to run still coursing through my veins.
The next morning, I went to talk to someone about what had happened the night before, praying she would be able to tell me exactly what to do. Naturally, it doesn’t work like that. She couldn’t make my decision for me, but she did help me a little bit. First, she described what a panic attack is, and it was pretty obvious that she was describing what I had experienced the previous night. That helped. This thing had a name. It was real. I wasn’t going crazy…well, not in that sense anyway. She also explained that to make a life-changing decision like moving to a different state could be a catastrophically bad idea in the immediate aftermath of a panic attack. She said that I was certainly still too emotionally unstable to be able to make a clear-headed choice of that magnitude. I did a quick internal emotional scan, and in point of fact, I was still feeling the effects of it as I sat in her office. I was still trembling, still uncontrollably crying, and the impulse to run was still pushing urgently at the back of my throat. I’ve never felt anything with such immediacy. Over the course of our conversation, I came to realize that I needed to wait a little longer before deciding to move. Her recommendation was a month, one month to mull it over and be sure of what I wanted, and while that seemed like a reasonable amount of time in my head, my body couldn’t fathom staying where I was for a whole other month.
Thankfully, Thanksgiving was only about a week away and that offered me a temporary solution. In just a few days, I was able to pack up my car and give myself a slight respite from the insistent demand for distance still resounding inside me. I drove to South Dakota and spent Thanksgiving with my sister, my grandmother, and a few of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. The ten-hour drive through relative nothingness put me at ease. I could actually feel the knots in my stomach start to release as I got closer and closer to the place where my mother grew up. I spent four days of stillness and quiet in the peaceful countryside where my mom’s family farm sits on a hillside surrounded by wheat fields that dance and shimmer in the prairie wind. I love it there. My soul is fed by the gentle silence and the endless sky. It’s a place that has always brought me comfort and solace, but never more so than this. The only way in which this trip was not a complete reprieve was that when I went home, I wanted to be gone again. The time away showed me, quite clearly, that I would need to leave again. Now came the task of figuring out how.
But life, as it tends to do, took over again once I got home. Out of necessity, I went back to working day to day, interacting with people day to day, and trying to cope day to day. The inclination to leave stayed at the back of my mind, and I spent nights in bed musing over how I might go about making it happen. Whether or not I ever took my musings seriously, I can’t be sure. Part of me believed that I would never be able to do it, that I was stuck. I felt as though, in the last year, all my decisions had been the wrong ones. My unpredictable emotions continued to wreak havoc over my life, harming me and those around me. I didn’t know how to fix it. By the time I had this conversation about Bluewave with Brady, I was feeling anxious and trapped. More than anything, I was utterly scared.
So why am I here? I’m here because I got scared. My life scared me. All that had already happened, all that was currently happening, and all that might happen…it all scared me. I chickened out. I couldn’t face it. I didn’t know how. I mean, there were other reasons too, of course. My wanderlust had been nagging at the back of my mind long before this. Travelling is one of my passions; it is a part of who I am. I travelled quite a bit last summer, spending a couple of weeks on the West Coast and Hawaii, then a month in Europe, but I wanted to be more than a tourist. I’ve always wanted to live – not just visit – in a different country. I wanted to become a part of a culture, not just observe it as outsider. Scotland, England, and Spain have always appealed to me, so when Brady mentioned this program, in the midst of all that I was feeling, it seemed like something I was supposed to pursue. However, if I’m honest with myself, I know that the main source of my motivation for this move was fear. When I look back on the last few years, it sickens me how many of my decisions were made on the grounds of fear. Fear has ruled me. Fear is a terrible power, and it is mostly self-inflicted. I let fear take me over, because that seemed like a safer route than allowing for any possibility of further loss and heartache. My single greatest priority became to avoid pain. Yes, I will admit it – the reason I am here is primarily a cowardly and selfish one. There were issues I didn’t want to deal with back home, so I ran.
But here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter why I left. The reasons that brought me here are irrelevant. I am here. And I need to be here. It is necessary. I am supposed to be living in this house, with these people, in this town, working at this school, at this exact time in my life. There is no other explanation for any of this other than I HAD TO. If I didn’t, I would always have wanted to, and I would always have thought that I should have. Years from now, no matter how good my life had the potential to be, there would always be doubt that I had made the wrong decision. I would regret that I had been too scared to give it shot. It all comes back to fear. I came because of my fear, and if I hadn’t come, that also would have been because of fear. “The lesser of two evils” required me to make a decision. What scared me more? The answer came to me surprisingly easily. I already have quite enough look-back-and-wonder-what-if material, thank you very much. I knew I had to try. Yes, there was the distinct possibility that I would come to England, fail miserably, and have to go back home again dejected, having sacrificed a great deal in the process. There is still that possibility. But if it happens, I will know that at least I tried and it didn’t work. I want so desperately to come home at the end of this truly ready to move on with my life. I think I am making steps toward making that happen.
I won’t lie and say that this has been easy. There are days that I am so frustrated with some of the aspects of teaching in this system that I am want to quit and walk out of the school. There are days when the students are so emotionally taxing that I want to sit down and cry. There are days that I am so sad about all the moments I am missing with my nephews that I want to get on the next plane and come home and never leave them again. There are days that I need my parents, and my siblings, and my friends so badly that I want to call every one of you, just to draw some strength from your voices. There are days that I am so lonely I want to climb into bed and never get up again. There are days that I’m so afraid that I’ve made the wrong decision and lost something so precious to me that it is hard for me to breathe.
There are those days. My only solution for those days is to try to make the next day better. I can’t always fix it, but I try. I do some exploring, or I make a new friend, or I read a new book, or I go to London and see a show, or I get a bunch of grading done, or I buy something British and fabulous, or I write, or I make plans for my next break from school. These things help refocus my mind and remind me that I am having a fabulous adventure. I have seen some amazing things that many people will never get to see. I have done some incredible things that many people will never get to do. I have met some wonderful people that I already can’t imagine my life without. It is these moments that make this whole life-gamble worthwhile. I am thankful that I have this opportunity to grow, learn, and heal. I realize that it is up to me to reap the maximum potential benefit from this endeavour, and I am really, really trying.
The Teaching Bit:
I don’t have to do it for a while! Hooray! We’ve just completed our first half term and I now have one week off. I really like this one week off for every six weeks of teaching thing. Brilliant! I am a little behind with things at school (like grading), so I will spend part of my break at school getting caught up. What can I say?...I haven’t changed much in my absolute inability to take a break from work. However, I am taking a few days to go explore northern England. Me, Samantha, and our friend Ben are taking a road trip up to Liverpool for four days. We leave today. I’m so excited! Outside of London, there just hasn’t been time to do a whole lot of sight-seeing. I am really looking forward to this.
Theatre:
The day that I met Brady and Shane in London we went to see Stomp, which is absolutely one of the most exciting and fun theatre experiences I’ve ever had. It was positively exhilarating. If you ever have a chance to see this show when it’s touring, I ABSOLUTELY recommend it. Samantha and I went to see Rain Man with Josh Hartnett the next weekend. It was quite good. Mr. Hartnett did a pretty good job, and Adam Godley (who played Ray) was outstanding, although not as good as Dustin Hoffman in the movie. But, come on, you can’t really expect that from anybody. I wasn’t terribly impressed with some of the supporting cast, unfortunately, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed it. Finally, this week we took about twenty of our year 10 Drama students to go see West Side Story since they are studying it in class. It was excellent. The woman who played Anita absolutely stole the show, and the actor who played Tony had one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard. Swoon. Seriously. When he belted the high note in “Maria” I almost fell out of my chair. Oh dear…my face is getting a little flushed. I have to stop thinking about it. Anyway, the whole cast was fabulous. The dance element of the show was particularly fantastic, and the final scene was beautifully staged and positively heart-wrenching. Three more successful theatre experiences in London. Most excellent.
London:
Sam and I went to Harrods a couple of weekends ago. Now, I went there with Chrissy when I was in London four years ago, but we must have quit before we saw the whole store, because I do not remember my last experience there being nearly as grand as this time was. This time, we spent the better part of the day there, thoroughly enjoying all six ridiculously huge floors. I have never seen anything like this place. There is nothing you can’t buy there, if you have the money to afford the exorbitant prices. It is almost overwhelming. You don’t even know where to begin. In fact, it’s so big, that I am quite sure that we missed at least part of every floor. Each one was a huge, never-ending maze of merchandise, ranging from food to electronics to a couture wedding gown boutique. And here comes the highlight of the day, and perhaps the highlight of my entire experience in England to date: The shoe floor. I have never seen anything like it. It is not an exaggeration to say I almost fainted when we reached it. Every high-end designer you can think of had their own unique alcove throughout the floor…Gucci, Jimmy Choo, Manolo, Prada, D&G, to name a few. Then, of course, was the designer whose shoes speak directly to my heart, and who, if I ever had the funds, would be the recipient of my generous shoe-buying patronage: Christian Louboutin. His red-soled masterpieces stood along the gorgeous black displays, in the gorgeous black velvet covered room, with black ceiling-to-floor sheer drapes that separated row after row of his incredible creations. I tried on a pair of $900 red, patent leather pumps with criss-crossed straps across the top of the foot. I tried on a pair of the perfect $800 black patent leather pumps, so comfortable I am quite convinced I could have worn them jogging, though of course I would never do that. I held, but could not allow myself to try on, a $2000 pair of black satin, crystal-studded heels. They were perhaps the most beautiful shoes I have ever seen. *Sigh* It was a very good day.
*A-hem!* Now that I have pegged myself as probably the biggest girly-girl in all of Girldom, I have to remind you that I while I love shoes, I also camp, and get dirty, and climb rocks and trees, and shoot guns, and ride four-wheelers, and snowboard, and I don’t paint my fingernails. So there. I’m not a complete loss.
Well, I’m going to go get ready to run around Liverpool doing dorky Beatles-related stuff. I’m missing you much and wishing you well, as always.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s
Hello, my dear ones. Here’s my second blog for you to peruse at your leisure.
The Teaching Bit:
Although it’s still a struggle, I do feel much more settled at this point than I did last time I wrote. There are moments when I am still completely mind-boggled by some of the policies and procedures of the school, but I am trying my hardest to shrug it off and do the job the way I know how to do it. Hopefully, that will suffice.
The biggest stress of the job is preparing the students for their exams. If I ever thought that we were assessment-based in our teaching in the States, I really had no idea how much harder it could be. There are two main levels of assessments that are essential to every student and every teacher. They are: 1) the GCSE exams, which students take at the end of year 11 (age 16), and 2) The A-level exams at the end of year 13 (age 18). The easiest way for me to describe it is to compare them to the O.W.L.s and the N.E.W.T.s in Harry Potter, because they work basically the same way…and yes, before you say it, I know I’m a huge dork. **Note: if you have no interest in knowing how the educational system in England works, skip the rest of this section. I just thought it might be informative to my fellow educators.**
Anyway, like in the books, these two exams are not just to check on how the schools are doing (like the CSAP at home), but to determine the direction the students’ education will take from this point forward. It’s a narrowing-down process. The students’ futures really are determined by how they do on these exams. Up until the end of year 11, every student takes the same variety of classes. They are not given options, not even for “electives” such as music, theatre, and sports, because they are not elective. Every student must take these classes along with the core classes like English and Math. That’s right…you’re understanding me correctly. Theatre, Art, Music, Technology, etc. are REQUIRED classes up until they take their exams at age 16. Brilliant!! The GCSE, like the O.W.L.s, narrows down what courses the students will take at the A-level (like the N.E.W.T. classes), and should hopefully be all the classes the students need for their future at university. I’d say that’s probably the hardest part. These kids really do need to have a strong sense of what they want to do with their lives by the time they get to their exams at the end of year 11. The students must earn a passing grade on the GCSE exam to be able to take that subject at the A-level. The A-level classes cover their last two years in secondary school, and the sole purpose of the A-level classes is to get the students ready for university. The A-level classes are intensive courses that give students the knowledge-base they will need to succeed at university, and to prepare them for the kind of work-load they will be facing at university. I’m teaching an A-level Drama class, for example, and the curriculum covers theory and performance demands I didn’t experience until at least my second year of college. It’s crazy. Anyway, if they do not earn a passing grade on the A-level exam, they will not be able to continue study of that subject at university, and they may not get into the university of their choice at all. So, in that regard, the A-level exams have some correlation to our SAT’s and ACT’s.
It’s a really intense educational system, but in a lot of ways it makes more sense to me than what we have going on in the States. The system is much more focused and much more specialized. I think the main reason I like it is because it stops forcing students to take classes not applicable to their futures by the time they are 16 years old. I’ve always thought that was one of the main reasons that our drop-out rate is so high. It makes perfect sense to me to allow students to take classes that focus on their areas of strength and interest by the time they’ve reached that age.
Of course, that puts a huge amount of pressure on the students to do well on the exams, because (SHOCK!! GASP!!) the exams out here actually MEAN something to them. There is only one exam at the secondary level that seems to be CSAP-esque. It happens at year 9, it’s pointless, and the schools are trying to get it abolished.
Can the U.S. learn something from this system? I think so.
London:
My friend David, who has been stationed in Germany for past year, is leaving to go back home to Colorado in a couple of weeks. So, before he left, we decided that he should come visit me in England since he hadn’t been here yet. He made his trip out here two weekends ago. It was so nice to see him, and SO nice to have company (hint hint)! The weekend was fantastic. He came in to Wycombe on Friday afternoon and we spent the evening in the pubs in my town, but the rest of the weekend was in London. I took him to see the major sights I had been to before, including most of the places listed in the last blog, plus Buckingham Palace, Green Park, the war memorials, Hyde Park, Westminster Abbey, and a trip to the Sherlock Holmes museum on Baker Street. I love that place! I also got a chance to visit some places I hadn’t been before, like the Tower of London. This was super cool! We got to see where Anne Boleyn was executed and buried, the national armoury, the crown jewels, and a bunch of other cool English historical and military stuff. Our tour guide was also very funny, which added a lot to the experience.
I’ve now spent enough time in London that I can get around several areas very comfortably, without having to look at a map. Someone even asked me for directions to Chinatown a couple of weekends ago and I was able to tell them…and they were English! Can you believe it? I can give someone directions in London! Crazy!
Theatre:
Two more shows down: Avenue Q, which was positively freaking hysterical, and Riflemind directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman and starring John Hannah (he played Evelyn’s stupid brother Jonathan in The Mummy movies), which was amazing but totally messed with my head and left me depressed for about three days.
Anna, U.K. 2008 version:
In order to adjust to life in England, a few things have changed. I thought I’d let you know.
1) As a result of there being no screens on any windows in this country, I’m getting much better at killing spiders, though I am still afraid of them. I would do what I normally do, which is make someone else kill them for me, but no one in England kills spiders. Apparently, Brits are all the take-spiders-outside-and-let-them-go-free types, and I can’t have that. Actually, if I had known that before I moved here, it’s likely I wouldn’t have come. If I see a spider inside, it dies. Taking it outside just means it’ll come back in later with a few of its friends. So, by necessity, I’m getting much braver. I give you permission to be proud of me. I expect praise, gifts, and maybe a cake.
2) I don’t know exactly how much, because I have yet to see a scale in this country and I wouldn’t know how to do the conversion anyway, but I have definitely lost weight. My clothes are falling off. I guess having no car and walking everywhere has its advantages. Though, I do have to say I am honestly surprised that I’ve lost weight. I really thought my increased consumption of chocolate and beer would have balanced it out.
3) Now, I know I swore that I’d never do this - that I would never bend to this trend - but I couldn’t help it. Please don’t judge me. I bought my first real pair of skinny jeans. They’re taking some getting used to, but they look great with boots.
4) I’m also considering getting bangs the next time I get my hair cut. Holy Crap! Who am I???
I thought I would end this blog, and perhaps future blogs, with a list of things that I’m finding awesome, as well as terrible, out here in England. I’m sure I’ll find plenty to add to these lists as my time here goes on. Let this serve as a warning to anyone planning to come visit.
What sucks:
- No ranch dressing
- No pancakes
- No dill pickles or pickle relish
- The smooth peanut butter (it tastes funny and it’s dry)
- Potatoes are served with everything
- The round-abouts
- The way pedestrians are uniformly ignored by drivers
- No decent Mexican food (this is killing me)
- The pop music (When the hell did S Club 7 become popular again?)
- No screens on windows (spiders! EEK!)
- Coca-cola (also tastes funny)
- Coffee (nothing but instant. Ick!)
- The fashion (some of it)
What rocks:
- London
- The weather
- The chocolate (freakin AMAZING)
- Beer
- Yorkshire pudding
- The late pub/club hours
- The late-night food vans outside the pubs
- Public transport
- The rock music and the electronica
- Tea
- The gardens
- The fashion (some of it)
- The theatre
- Ice cream at intermission of theatre shows, in the theatre, not just the lobby
I must admit to feeling a little lonelier this last week or so than I have since my arrival. I’m missing you all very much and hoping that everything is good with you. Please don’t forget to send me updates about you and yours. It helps me feel like I’m still connected to you and tied to what’s happening in your life if I get emails and messages.
Still adjusting but pretty happy,
Anna
P.S. – I found a karaoke bar, AND they’re currently doing a contest with a grand prize of a thousand pounds! Watch out High Wycombe! Anna enters the scene this Tuesday night! :) Wow, I’m lame.
The Teaching Bit:
Although it’s still a struggle, I do feel much more settled at this point than I did last time I wrote. There are moments when I am still completely mind-boggled by some of the policies and procedures of the school, but I am trying my hardest to shrug it off and do the job the way I know how to do it. Hopefully, that will suffice.
The biggest stress of the job is preparing the students for their exams. If I ever thought that we were assessment-based in our teaching in the States, I really had no idea how much harder it could be. There are two main levels of assessments that are essential to every student and every teacher. They are: 1) the GCSE exams, which students take at the end of year 11 (age 16), and 2) The A-level exams at the end of year 13 (age 18). The easiest way for me to describe it is to compare them to the O.W.L.s and the N.E.W.T.s in Harry Potter, because they work basically the same way…and yes, before you say it, I know I’m a huge dork. **Note: if you have no interest in knowing how the educational system in England works, skip the rest of this section. I just thought it might be informative to my fellow educators.**
Anyway, like in the books, these two exams are not just to check on how the schools are doing (like the CSAP at home), but to determine the direction the students’ education will take from this point forward. It’s a narrowing-down process. The students’ futures really are determined by how they do on these exams. Up until the end of year 11, every student takes the same variety of classes. They are not given options, not even for “electives” such as music, theatre, and sports, because they are not elective. Every student must take these classes along with the core classes like English and Math. That’s right…you’re understanding me correctly. Theatre, Art, Music, Technology, etc. are REQUIRED classes up until they take their exams at age 16. Brilliant!! The GCSE, like the O.W.L.s, narrows down what courses the students will take at the A-level (like the N.E.W.T. classes), and should hopefully be all the classes the students need for their future at university. I’d say that’s probably the hardest part. These kids really do need to have a strong sense of what they want to do with their lives by the time they get to their exams at the end of year 11. The students must earn a passing grade on the GCSE exam to be able to take that subject at the A-level. The A-level classes cover their last two years in secondary school, and the sole purpose of the A-level classes is to get the students ready for university. The A-level classes are intensive courses that give students the knowledge-base they will need to succeed at university, and to prepare them for the kind of work-load they will be facing at university. I’m teaching an A-level Drama class, for example, and the curriculum covers theory and performance demands I didn’t experience until at least my second year of college. It’s crazy. Anyway, if they do not earn a passing grade on the A-level exam, they will not be able to continue study of that subject at university, and they may not get into the university of their choice at all. So, in that regard, the A-level exams have some correlation to our SAT’s and ACT’s.
It’s a really intense educational system, but in a lot of ways it makes more sense to me than what we have going on in the States. The system is much more focused and much more specialized. I think the main reason I like it is because it stops forcing students to take classes not applicable to their futures by the time they are 16 years old. I’ve always thought that was one of the main reasons that our drop-out rate is so high. It makes perfect sense to me to allow students to take classes that focus on their areas of strength and interest by the time they’ve reached that age.
Of course, that puts a huge amount of pressure on the students to do well on the exams, because (SHOCK!! GASP!!) the exams out here actually MEAN something to them. There is only one exam at the secondary level that seems to be CSAP-esque. It happens at year 9, it’s pointless, and the schools are trying to get it abolished.
Can the U.S. learn something from this system? I think so.
London:
My friend David, who has been stationed in Germany for past year, is leaving to go back home to Colorado in a couple of weeks. So, before he left, we decided that he should come visit me in England since he hadn’t been here yet. He made his trip out here two weekends ago. It was so nice to see him, and SO nice to have company (hint hint)! The weekend was fantastic. He came in to Wycombe on Friday afternoon and we spent the evening in the pubs in my town, but the rest of the weekend was in London. I took him to see the major sights I had been to before, including most of the places listed in the last blog, plus Buckingham Palace, Green Park, the war memorials, Hyde Park, Westminster Abbey, and a trip to the Sherlock Holmes museum on Baker Street. I love that place! I also got a chance to visit some places I hadn’t been before, like the Tower of London. This was super cool! We got to see where Anne Boleyn was executed and buried, the national armoury, the crown jewels, and a bunch of other cool English historical and military stuff. Our tour guide was also very funny, which added a lot to the experience.
I’ve now spent enough time in London that I can get around several areas very comfortably, without having to look at a map. Someone even asked me for directions to Chinatown a couple of weekends ago and I was able to tell them…and they were English! Can you believe it? I can give someone directions in London! Crazy!
Theatre:
Two more shows down: Avenue Q, which was positively freaking hysterical, and Riflemind directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman and starring John Hannah (he played Evelyn’s stupid brother Jonathan in The Mummy movies), which was amazing but totally messed with my head and left me depressed for about three days.
Anna, U.K. 2008 version:
In order to adjust to life in England, a few things have changed. I thought I’d let you know.
1) As a result of there being no screens on any windows in this country, I’m getting much better at killing spiders, though I am still afraid of them. I would do what I normally do, which is make someone else kill them for me, but no one in England kills spiders. Apparently, Brits are all the take-spiders-outside-and-let-them-go-free types, and I can’t have that. Actually, if I had known that before I moved here, it’s likely I wouldn’t have come. If I see a spider inside, it dies. Taking it outside just means it’ll come back in later with a few of its friends. So, by necessity, I’m getting much braver. I give you permission to be proud of me. I expect praise, gifts, and maybe a cake.
2) I don’t know exactly how much, because I have yet to see a scale in this country and I wouldn’t know how to do the conversion anyway, but I have definitely lost weight. My clothes are falling off. I guess having no car and walking everywhere has its advantages. Though, I do have to say I am honestly surprised that I’ve lost weight. I really thought my increased consumption of chocolate and beer would have balanced it out.
3) Now, I know I swore that I’d never do this - that I would never bend to this trend - but I couldn’t help it. Please don’t judge me. I bought my first real pair of skinny jeans. They’re taking some getting used to, but they look great with boots.
4) I’m also considering getting bangs the next time I get my hair cut. Holy Crap! Who am I???
I thought I would end this blog, and perhaps future blogs, with a list of things that I’m finding awesome, as well as terrible, out here in England. I’m sure I’ll find plenty to add to these lists as my time here goes on. Let this serve as a warning to anyone planning to come visit.
What sucks:
- No ranch dressing
- No pancakes
- No dill pickles or pickle relish
- The smooth peanut butter (it tastes funny and it’s dry)
- Potatoes are served with everything
- The round-abouts
- The way pedestrians are uniformly ignored by drivers
- No decent Mexican food (this is killing me)
- The pop music (When the hell did S Club 7 become popular again?)
- No screens on windows (spiders! EEK!)
- Coca-cola (also tastes funny)
- Coffee (nothing but instant. Ick!)
- The fashion (some of it)
What rocks:
- London
- The weather
- The chocolate (freakin AMAZING)
- Beer
- Yorkshire pudding
- The late pub/club hours
- The late-night food vans outside the pubs
- Public transport
- The rock music and the electronica
- Tea
- The gardens
- The fashion (some of it)
- The theatre
- Ice cream at intermission of theatre shows, in the theatre, not just the lobby
I must admit to feeling a little lonelier this last week or so than I have since my arrival. I’m missing you all very much and hoping that everything is good with you. Please don’t forget to send me updates about you and yours. It helps me feel like I’m still connected to you and tied to what’s happening in your life if I get emails and messages.
Still adjusting but pretty happy,
Anna
P.S. – I found a karaoke bar, AND they’re currently doing a contest with a grand prize of a thousand pounds! Watch out High Wycombe! Anna enters the scene this Tuesday night! :) Wow, I’m lame.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Where's the karaoke??
First off, please accept my deepest and sincerest apologies that this first blog has taken so long to post. Access to a computer has been frustratingly limited, mainly because my three roommates and I have been sharing one laptop, so I feel bad taking up too much time on it. This blog (I predict) will take a while to write and I don’t want to bogart the only computer in the house. I would have typed it after hours at school, but classes aren’t over until almost 4:00, then I get kicked out of the school at 6 p.m. This is crazy: they completely lock up the school at 6:00 and no one’s allowed access without a special pre-arranged reason. No more 11:00 p.m. nights at school for me, it looks like. This is going to take some getting used to. I’m accustomed to having a master key to the school and the phone number for security on speed dial on my cell phone, allowing me to come and go as I please. My whole life is much more scheduled now. I’ll explain when I get to the teaching bit of the blog. **Disclaimer** I’m typing on a British computer, so Microsoft Word is automatically changing my spelling on words like “favourite” and “centre”. I’m not being pretentious! Okay, let’s jump in:
Getting Here:
The trip was thankfully uneventful, and went surprisingly fast for an 8 ½ hour flight. It’s nice that it was overnight, because I was able to sleep for a good 4 hours, which NEVER would have happened on a flight not during my usual sleeping hours. I’ll tell you another thing, every time I have the option, I will definitely be taking non-stop flights. What a relief it was not to have to deal with a layover. You wanna know the best part?? Now sit down because you’re never going to believe this….my luggage got to England at the very same time I did! I went to the baggage claim, and 1, 2, 3…there they were! **Shock! Gasp!** (In case you didn’t know, this phenomenon of luggage arriving at a destination at the same time as the traveler is damn-near unheard of for me.) My British roommate Angela and her friend Richard were at the arrivals gate to collect me. They miraculously knew who I was as soon as I came through the gate (is it that obvious that I’m an American?) and carted me and my four massive suitcases off to the car.
It was now about 6 a.m. my time, but around lunch time in England, and Angela and Richard were starving. So we stopped at a little pub on the way to the house. I had a lovely breakfast of an omelette and a beer. That’s right…I don’t mess around. Twenty minutes in England – it was time to drink. I thought it was a great idea since I fully intended to crash onto the nearest flat surface as soon as we walked in the door of the house, but it wasn’t until after I had ordered and was drinking my pint that I found out that there would be a houseful of people moving in furniture and boxes when we arrived. I didn’t realize that the moving wouldn’t already be done by the time I got there. So…oops. Now I was exhausted from the flight and I had taken the equivalent of a sleeping pill by drinking that beer. Time to move furniture!
It actually wasn’t too bad because there was plenty to do to keep me from thinking about how tired I was, plus it was probably a good idea to stay awake as long as possible to try to get onto England time. I stayed up and helped move all afternoon, then went to a very nice dinner with Angela and Richard. We went to a nearby village and ate at an awesome little historical pub. The food was delicious. By the time we got home around 8:30 I was literally ready to drop from exhaustion. I fell onto a random bed in a random room and didn’t move again until nearly 2:00 p.m. the next day. So much for getting on England time…
The House, the Town, and the Roomies:
I remember very little of the first week because I spent most of my days in a complete fog – exhausted from trying to get in the right sleeping routine. Trying to function on a schedule seven hours ahead of my internal clock turned out to be harder than I expected. Mostly, I spent the first week or two continuing to get settled and unpacking, checking out the school and planning for classes, and getting to know my roommates.
In case I didn’t already tell you, let me give you the background about how I came to find this house with these people. The principal at my school, Rob, initially put me in touch with this crazy Canadian chick, Samantha, who had also been hired at St. Bernard’s through Bluewave. Since we were both going to be new to the country and the school, it seemed like a logical decision for she and I to consider sharing accommodation for financial and companionship purposes. We started chatting through email and it was pretty clear we were compatible. As we started apartment hunting via the internet, we started to worry that we would not find a place with a move-in date that coincided with our arrival in England. I sent Rob an email asking him if he could put the word out with the staff asking if anyone knew of a place that Samantha and I would be able to crash temporarily, should it be necessary. He wrote back almost immediately and told me he’d already been asking around about that (how great is this guy??). He put me in contact with a woman named Angela who was just about to move into a new house and was looking for two leasers for the extra bedrooms. I spoke with her, again through email, and found out that she and her 18-year-old daughter Laura were moving into the house around the same time I was arriving. The circumstances really sounded ideal and the rent was within my price range. However, I never spoke with Angela or Samantha on the phone, and I never saw a picture of the house. I was taking a whole lot on faith. What the hell…it’s an adventure, right?
Naturally, there was certainly a level of uncertainly and nervousness about this move. After all, I really knew nothing about the house or the roommates before I arrived here. Well, God must be on my side, because everything about my accommodations is perfect. The house is wonderful. It’s a lovely house, we have plenty of space, the back garden and yard are beautiful, and there’s a trampoline!! Hooray! The location is ideal as well. I’m about half way between the town centre and the school – less than a mile to either – so the walk is totally reasonable. The train station is also about a mile away. It means that almost everything I need is accessible on foot, and everything else is accessible through this town’s excellent bus, train, and taxi systems. It’s wonderfully convenient.
High Wycombe is a decent little town. It has some sketchy parts, but those are easily avoidable from where I live so I don’t worry about it much. The old town centre is really charming. Lovely old buildings, cobblestone streets, great pubs, outdoor markets on the weekends…all great. The new town centre has a huge partially outdoor shopping complex with great stores (Topshop, H&M, House of Frasier, and lots of other amazing British chains), a Starbucks, a grocery store, a brand new library (which I’m already a member of), a bowling alley, a movie theatre, great bars and restaurants, and lots more. Wycombe really does offer everything I need, and it’s only a 25-40 minute train ride into London, depending on the train. Perfect! The only thing I haven’t found here yet that I MUST locate soon is a karaoke bar. Angela says there are a few in town, and I think it must be my mission this week to track one down and check it out. If I don’t sing karaoke soon, I might just explode.
The roommates are equally ideal. I am living with three sweet, fun, considerate women, who have already become friends and comrades, instead of just roommates. My living situation truly could not be better…except maybe if there was a little more closet space. ;)
The Teaching Bit:
I swear, if I ever end up teaching in the U.S. again, I’ll never complain about my schedule, assuming it’s anything like the schedule I had at Arvada, Columbine, or Alameda: 5 classes to teach, 2 planning periods for every 5 that I teach, the same class schedule from week to week. I had absolutely NO room to complain. Looking back at it now, I had the most relaxing schedule in the world, hardly anything to grade, and all the planning time a person could want. Let me try to explain it:
The scheduling at my school follows no logical system with which I am familiar. Essentially, we are on a 10-day schedule. That means that I teach a different schedule of classes every day for 10 days (two weeks), then I start back at day one and run through the ten days again. This also means that I can have up to ten preps. I have seven. Seven preps! Seven different pieces of literature, grammar, writing, reading, and theatre lessons to plan for! I’m even more special because my seven preps are each for a different grade. Secondary schools out here have grades 7-13. I teach every level of student at the school, which means I teach kids from 11 years old to 19 years old. Talk about differentiation! I hardly need state that the first two weeks of school have been incredibly overwhelming and confusing; in fact, I don’t remember the last time I was so stressed out….not even during tech week for a musical at Arvada. If you remember how stressed out I always got during that week, then you’ll know that it’s REALLY saying something that this is worse. There is also a stupid, confusing schedule for homework. It’s this totally baffling system of assigning/doing homework for the staff and students, which I’m still struggling to understand much less follow. Apparently, each subject is only supposed to give the students one hour of homework a week, so they don’t get overloaded. To manage that, there is a week by week homework calendar that tells what day homework should be assigned in each class. AHHHHH! I don’t work like that! I don’t schedule homework! If it doesn’t get finished in class, it’s homework. Isn’t that the way it works??? Not here. This is so incredibly frustrating and hard to follow. I’ve never been so scheduled in my whole life.
Then there’s the issue of planning time: it is almost non-existent. I am only “guaranteed” five hours of planning per ten days, and they can distribute it however they choose. I, for example, go four days of teaching without a planning period. Additionally, every teacher is required to be available for “cover” on their planning periods. As far as I’m concerned, this is the worst part of the whole system. There aren’t really substitute teachers out here. If a teacher is out, the other teachers in the school cover their classes for the day – a different teacher taking each period based on who has a planning period. So essentially, I am never completely guaranteed my planning time. I do all of my planning a grading before school (which thankfully doesn’t start until 8:40) or after school, which has been difficult because I have had an after-school meeting almost every day since I started, and then I get kicked out of the building at 6:00. I’ve been doing all my planning at home in the evenings, mostly without the use of a computer. If I thought I was going to be able to have a life while working out here, I was sadly mistaken.
Oh yes, and let us not forget about mandatory supervisory duty. We have to be on supervisory duty in the hallways, cafeteria, or school grounds at least twice a week before school, during mid-morning break, or at lunch. I have three shifts a week.
I wonder what Vinny Castelano would have to say about that, eh Arvada folks??
Thankfully, the staff and administration are incredibly supportive. The other teachers have supplied me with tons of materials and schemes of work for certain units, making the planning a tad easier, but I can’t even express to you how much I wish I had all my teaching files from home! It sucks that it’s so expensive to ship things overseas!
The kids are also really awesome. I have been stunned by how respectful they are. I’m not sure if this is a British education thing or a Catholic school thing, but these kids all know exactly what is expected of them, and as a rule, they do it. There are a couple of shitheads, of course. There always are. In fact, I’ve already had to get a kid suspended. In general though, there is an expectation of obedience and respect in this school that is upheld by most of the students. I’ve got to tell ya, I almost died of shock in my first class on the first day of school when the students lined up outside my classroom, waiting to be invited inside, then came in quietly and stood behind their desks, waiting to be invited to sit down. The craziest part was when I said, “Good morning” and they responded, “Good morning, Miss” is unison. I almost burst out laughing. Do children actually do that? I thought that was just in the movies! It was even weirder coming from teenagers. I’ve never seen anything like it. They aren’t zombies, though. They definitely have spunk and attitude and moments of apathy and defiance, just like all teenagers have. Before I came here, everyone kept asking me if I was nervous about what English kids would be like, and my thoughts on it were always, “Kids are kids,” no matter where they are raised. So far, that statement appears to ring true. The main difference is the structure. These kids definitely have more structure.
Although I’m sure I’ve made it sound generally awful, I have to admit that I like the school. It has an atmosphere of support and respect that I really enjoy. The staff all appear to be kind and sympathetic, as well as extremely dedicated. The aspects of the school that I find so frustrating are due to the fact that I’m simply not familiar with the system. I’m sure if I were raised here, if I’d gone through my teaching certification here, and if I’d done my training here, it wouldn’t be a big deal at all. It’s just new and very different; therefore, I need to adjust. It’ll just take some time, and in between times, I get to enjoy England! It’s not a bad deal, I’d say.
London:
I’ve made two trips into the city so far and enjoyed myself thoroughly each time. It’s been so fun just to walk and get lost on purpose just to be able to become familiar with this awesome city. This really is a cool town. I’m not going to go into too much detail just yet about the places I’ve gone and the things I’ve seen, mostly because this blog is already ridiculously long. I’ll save the details about London for the next blog, but here’s a quick run-down of where I’ve been and what I’ve seen so far:
Camden Town Market, Covent Garden, Tottenham Court Road, Leicester Square, Piccadilly, Regent Street and Oxford Circus Shopping, Chinatown, Soho, the Thames, a few bridges, Parliament and Big Ben, The London Eye, The National Theatre, and of course the Gielgud Theatre, where I saw my first London West End play. I am going to give you details about that.
Theatre:
I’ve already seen my first show in the West End (I just got home from seeing it in London a few minutes ago, actually. I couldn’t wait to write about it!!), and it was absolutely freaking incredible. Our seats were two rows from the front, which isn’t usually my preference. But since this was a straight play instead of a musical, I figured it wouldn’t be a huge detriment to be that close. Turns out…it really wasn’t a detriment, because the show was incredibly intense, and I think being so close only amplified the intensity. The play is called 6 Characters in Search of an Author, and it starred Ian McDiarmid. I will assume you don’t recognize the name, but I can almost guarantee you know who he is. This actor played the Emperor in all the Star Wars movies…that’s right, the hooded, melty skin, evil Emperor dude was about 5 feet from me on stage tonight. I practically could have reached out and touched him. His performance – as well as the show in general – was brilliant.
It’s starting to look like theatre-going will be consuming quite a lot of my paycheck, because there are just too many amazing shows with amazning actors playing now or opening soon for me to not take advantage. It would be a sin…a sacrilege…a tragedy…and lots of other bad things! So, here are the shows that Samantha and I are already planning on attending: Rainman, starring Josh Hartnett (OMG!) and Adam Godly; Ivanov, starring Kenneth Branaugh (OMG OMG!!); Madame DeSade, starring Dame Judi Dench (OMG OMG OMG!!!); Hamlet, starring Jude Law (yummy); Hamlet (again), starring David Tennant (he played Barty Crouch, Jr. in the 4th Harry Potter movie) and Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard!!); Oedipus, starring Ralph Fiennes (yummy); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, starring I don’t know who but I don’t care because it’s my favourite Shakespearian comedy and it’s at The Globe and we’re going to the final performance of the entire Globe season; The Royal Shakespeare Company’s performances of The Taming of the Shrew and Othello; plus zillions of musicals like Avenue Q, The Lion King, Chicago, Mama Mia, Oliver, We Will Rock You, Wicked (we’ve already got tix reserved for this one!), Phantom, Les Mis, Grease, and many more!
I tell you what folks, if this trip ends up failing in every other aspect, it’ll have been worth coming just for the theatre.
Well folks, that’s about it so far. I hope this serves a decent account of what I’ve been up to for the last three weeks. It’s probably way more than you wanted to know! I will definitely try to make sure that my next blog isn’t so long in coming, and since I finally have a school laptop at my disposal, typing these at home will be much easier. My school laptop won’t access personal email accounts, so my time on yahoo, gmail, myspace, and facebook will continue to be very limited, but at least I’ll be able to post these more frequently than every three weeks! The next one will be shorter, I swear!
Stay tuned to my blogsite for more! I miss you and love you!
Getting Here:
The trip was thankfully uneventful, and went surprisingly fast for an 8 ½ hour flight. It’s nice that it was overnight, because I was able to sleep for a good 4 hours, which NEVER would have happened on a flight not during my usual sleeping hours. I’ll tell you another thing, every time I have the option, I will definitely be taking non-stop flights. What a relief it was not to have to deal with a layover. You wanna know the best part?? Now sit down because you’re never going to believe this….my luggage got to England at the very same time I did! I went to the baggage claim, and 1, 2, 3…there they were! **Shock! Gasp!** (In case you didn’t know, this phenomenon of luggage arriving at a destination at the same time as the traveler is damn-near unheard of for me.) My British roommate Angela and her friend Richard were at the arrivals gate to collect me. They miraculously knew who I was as soon as I came through the gate (is it that obvious that I’m an American?) and carted me and my four massive suitcases off to the car.
It was now about 6 a.m. my time, but around lunch time in England, and Angela and Richard were starving. So we stopped at a little pub on the way to the house. I had a lovely breakfast of an omelette and a beer. That’s right…I don’t mess around. Twenty minutes in England – it was time to drink. I thought it was a great idea since I fully intended to crash onto the nearest flat surface as soon as we walked in the door of the house, but it wasn’t until after I had ordered and was drinking my pint that I found out that there would be a houseful of people moving in furniture and boxes when we arrived. I didn’t realize that the moving wouldn’t already be done by the time I got there. So…oops. Now I was exhausted from the flight and I had taken the equivalent of a sleeping pill by drinking that beer. Time to move furniture!
It actually wasn’t too bad because there was plenty to do to keep me from thinking about how tired I was, plus it was probably a good idea to stay awake as long as possible to try to get onto England time. I stayed up and helped move all afternoon, then went to a very nice dinner with Angela and Richard. We went to a nearby village and ate at an awesome little historical pub. The food was delicious. By the time we got home around 8:30 I was literally ready to drop from exhaustion. I fell onto a random bed in a random room and didn’t move again until nearly 2:00 p.m. the next day. So much for getting on England time…
The House, the Town, and the Roomies:
I remember very little of the first week because I spent most of my days in a complete fog – exhausted from trying to get in the right sleeping routine. Trying to function on a schedule seven hours ahead of my internal clock turned out to be harder than I expected. Mostly, I spent the first week or two continuing to get settled and unpacking, checking out the school and planning for classes, and getting to know my roommates.
In case I didn’t already tell you, let me give you the background about how I came to find this house with these people. The principal at my school, Rob, initially put me in touch with this crazy Canadian chick, Samantha, who had also been hired at St. Bernard’s through Bluewave. Since we were both going to be new to the country and the school, it seemed like a logical decision for she and I to consider sharing accommodation for financial and companionship purposes. We started chatting through email and it was pretty clear we were compatible. As we started apartment hunting via the internet, we started to worry that we would not find a place with a move-in date that coincided with our arrival in England. I sent Rob an email asking him if he could put the word out with the staff asking if anyone knew of a place that Samantha and I would be able to crash temporarily, should it be necessary. He wrote back almost immediately and told me he’d already been asking around about that (how great is this guy??). He put me in contact with a woman named Angela who was just about to move into a new house and was looking for two leasers for the extra bedrooms. I spoke with her, again through email, and found out that she and her 18-year-old daughter Laura were moving into the house around the same time I was arriving. The circumstances really sounded ideal and the rent was within my price range. However, I never spoke with Angela or Samantha on the phone, and I never saw a picture of the house. I was taking a whole lot on faith. What the hell…it’s an adventure, right?
Naturally, there was certainly a level of uncertainly and nervousness about this move. After all, I really knew nothing about the house or the roommates before I arrived here. Well, God must be on my side, because everything about my accommodations is perfect. The house is wonderful. It’s a lovely house, we have plenty of space, the back garden and yard are beautiful, and there’s a trampoline!! Hooray! The location is ideal as well. I’m about half way between the town centre and the school – less than a mile to either – so the walk is totally reasonable. The train station is also about a mile away. It means that almost everything I need is accessible on foot, and everything else is accessible through this town’s excellent bus, train, and taxi systems. It’s wonderfully convenient.
High Wycombe is a decent little town. It has some sketchy parts, but those are easily avoidable from where I live so I don’t worry about it much. The old town centre is really charming. Lovely old buildings, cobblestone streets, great pubs, outdoor markets on the weekends…all great. The new town centre has a huge partially outdoor shopping complex with great stores (Topshop, H&M, House of Frasier, and lots of other amazing British chains), a Starbucks, a grocery store, a brand new library (which I’m already a member of), a bowling alley, a movie theatre, great bars and restaurants, and lots more. Wycombe really does offer everything I need, and it’s only a 25-40 minute train ride into London, depending on the train. Perfect! The only thing I haven’t found here yet that I MUST locate soon is a karaoke bar. Angela says there are a few in town, and I think it must be my mission this week to track one down and check it out. If I don’t sing karaoke soon, I might just explode.
The roommates are equally ideal. I am living with three sweet, fun, considerate women, who have already become friends and comrades, instead of just roommates. My living situation truly could not be better…except maybe if there was a little more closet space. ;)
The Teaching Bit:
I swear, if I ever end up teaching in the U.S. again, I’ll never complain about my schedule, assuming it’s anything like the schedule I had at Arvada, Columbine, or Alameda: 5 classes to teach, 2 planning periods for every 5 that I teach, the same class schedule from week to week. I had absolutely NO room to complain. Looking back at it now, I had the most relaxing schedule in the world, hardly anything to grade, and all the planning time a person could want. Let me try to explain it:
The scheduling at my school follows no logical system with which I am familiar. Essentially, we are on a 10-day schedule. That means that I teach a different schedule of classes every day for 10 days (two weeks), then I start back at day one and run through the ten days again. This also means that I can have up to ten preps. I have seven. Seven preps! Seven different pieces of literature, grammar, writing, reading, and theatre lessons to plan for! I’m even more special because my seven preps are each for a different grade. Secondary schools out here have grades 7-13. I teach every level of student at the school, which means I teach kids from 11 years old to 19 years old. Talk about differentiation! I hardly need state that the first two weeks of school have been incredibly overwhelming and confusing; in fact, I don’t remember the last time I was so stressed out….not even during tech week for a musical at Arvada. If you remember how stressed out I always got during that week, then you’ll know that it’s REALLY saying something that this is worse. There is also a stupid, confusing schedule for homework. It’s this totally baffling system of assigning/doing homework for the staff and students, which I’m still struggling to understand much less follow. Apparently, each subject is only supposed to give the students one hour of homework a week, so they don’t get overloaded. To manage that, there is a week by week homework calendar that tells what day homework should be assigned in each class. AHHHHH! I don’t work like that! I don’t schedule homework! If it doesn’t get finished in class, it’s homework. Isn’t that the way it works??? Not here. This is so incredibly frustrating and hard to follow. I’ve never been so scheduled in my whole life.
Then there’s the issue of planning time: it is almost non-existent. I am only “guaranteed” five hours of planning per ten days, and they can distribute it however they choose. I, for example, go four days of teaching without a planning period. Additionally, every teacher is required to be available for “cover” on their planning periods. As far as I’m concerned, this is the worst part of the whole system. There aren’t really substitute teachers out here. If a teacher is out, the other teachers in the school cover their classes for the day – a different teacher taking each period based on who has a planning period. So essentially, I am never completely guaranteed my planning time. I do all of my planning a grading before school (which thankfully doesn’t start until 8:40) or after school, which has been difficult because I have had an after-school meeting almost every day since I started, and then I get kicked out of the building at 6:00. I’ve been doing all my planning at home in the evenings, mostly without the use of a computer. If I thought I was going to be able to have a life while working out here, I was sadly mistaken.
Oh yes, and let us not forget about mandatory supervisory duty. We have to be on supervisory duty in the hallways, cafeteria, or school grounds at least twice a week before school, during mid-morning break, or at lunch. I have three shifts a week.
I wonder what Vinny Castelano would have to say about that, eh Arvada folks??
Thankfully, the staff and administration are incredibly supportive. The other teachers have supplied me with tons of materials and schemes of work for certain units, making the planning a tad easier, but I can’t even express to you how much I wish I had all my teaching files from home! It sucks that it’s so expensive to ship things overseas!
The kids are also really awesome. I have been stunned by how respectful they are. I’m not sure if this is a British education thing or a Catholic school thing, but these kids all know exactly what is expected of them, and as a rule, they do it. There are a couple of shitheads, of course. There always are. In fact, I’ve already had to get a kid suspended. In general though, there is an expectation of obedience and respect in this school that is upheld by most of the students. I’ve got to tell ya, I almost died of shock in my first class on the first day of school when the students lined up outside my classroom, waiting to be invited inside, then came in quietly and stood behind their desks, waiting to be invited to sit down. The craziest part was when I said, “Good morning” and they responded, “Good morning, Miss” is unison. I almost burst out laughing. Do children actually do that? I thought that was just in the movies! It was even weirder coming from teenagers. I’ve never seen anything like it. They aren’t zombies, though. They definitely have spunk and attitude and moments of apathy and defiance, just like all teenagers have. Before I came here, everyone kept asking me if I was nervous about what English kids would be like, and my thoughts on it were always, “Kids are kids,” no matter where they are raised. So far, that statement appears to ring true. The main difference is the structure. These kids definitely have more structure.
Although I’m sure I’ve made it sound generally awful, I have to admit that I like the school. It has an atmosphere of support and respect that I really enjoy. The staff all appear to be kind and sympathetic, as well as extremely dedicated. The aspects of the school that I find so frustrating are due to the fact that I’m simply not familiar with the system. I’m sure if I were raised here, if I’d gone through my teaching certification here, and if I’d done my training here, it wouldn’t be a big deal at all. It’s just new and very different; therefore, I need to adjust. It’ll just take some time, and in between times, I get to enjoy England! It’s not a bad deal, I’d say.
London:
I’ve made two trips into the city so far and enjoyed myself thoroughly each time. It’s been so fun just to walk and get lost on purpose just to be able to become familiar with this awesome city. This really is a cool town. I’m not going to go into too much detail just yet about the places I’ve gone and the things I’ve seen, mostly because this blog is already ridiculously long. I’ll save the details about London for the next blog, but here’s a quick run-down of where I’ve been and what I’ve seen so far:
Camden Town Market, Covent Garden, Tottenham Court Road, Leicester Square, Piccadilly, Regent Street and Oxford Circus Shopping, Chinatown, Soho, the Thames, a few bridges, Parliament and Big Ben, The London Eye, The National Theatre, and of course the Gielgud Theatre, where I saw my first London West End play. I am going to give you details about that.
Theatre:
I’ve already seen my first show in the West End (I just got home from seeing it in London a few minutes ago, actually. I couldn’t wait to write about it!!), and it was absolutely freaking incredible. Our seats were two rows from the front, which isn’t usually my preference. But since this was a straight play instead of a musical, I figured it wouldn’t be a huge detriment to be that close. Turns out…it really wasn’t a detriment, because the show was incredibly intense, and I think being so close only amplified the intensity. The play is called 6 Characters in Search of an Author, and it starred Ian McDiarmid. I will assume you don’t recognize the name, but I can almost guarantee you know who he is. This actor played the Emperor in all the Star Wars movies…that’s right, the hooded, melty skin, evil Emperor dude was about 5 feet from me on stage tonight. I practically could have reached out and touched him. His performance – as well as the show in general – was brilliant.
It’s starting to look like theatre-going will be consuming quite a lot of my paycheck, because there are just too many amazing shows with amazning actors playing now or opening soon for me to not take advantage. It would be a sin…a sacrilege…a tragedy…and lots of other bad things! So, here are the shows that Samantha and I are already planning on attending: Rainman, starring Josh Hartnett (OMG!) and Adam Godly; Ivanov, starring Kenneth Branaugh (OMG OMG!!); Madame DeSade, starring Dame Judi Dench (OMG OMG OMG!!!); Hamlet, starring Jude Law (yummy); Hamlet (again), starring David Tennant (he played Barty Crouch, Jr. in the 4th Harry Potter movie) and Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard!!); Oedipus, starring Ralph Fiennes (yummy); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, starring I don’t know who but I don’t care because it’s my favourite Shakespearian comedy and it’s at The Globe and we’re going to the final performance of the entire Globe season; The Royal Shakespeare Company’s performances of The Taming of the Shrew and Othello; plus zillions of musicals like Avenue Q, The Lion King, Chicago, Mama Mia, Oliver, We Will Rock You, Wicked (we’ve already got tix reserved for this one!), Phantom, Les Mis, Grease, and many more!
I tell you what folks, if this trip ends up failing in every other aspect, it’ll have been worth coming just for the theatre.
Well folks, that’s about it so far. I hope this serves a decent account of what I’ve been up to for the last three weeks. It’s probably way more than you wanted to know! I will definitely try to make sure that my next blog isn’t so long in coming, and since I finally have a school laptop at my disposal, typing these at home will be much easier. My school laptop won’t access personal email accounts, so my time on yahoo, gmail, myspace, and facebook will continue to be very limited, but at least I’ll be able to post these more frequently than every three weeks! The next one will be shorter, I swear!
Stay tuned to my blogsite for more! I miss you and love you!
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