Teaching

How scary is it that I'm going to be a teacher?!
The PGCE seems to be going well, although I haven't actually done any teaching yet so that might change! It is a lot of work but at the minute it's manageable and I'm enjoying it which always helps. I've been placed in a really nice school, with a great mentor who has helped me loads. I'm nervous about having to get up in front of a class but part of me can't wait to just get that first lesson over and done with! If you're in the habit of talking to God, I would appreciate a bit of prayer for my lesson tomorrow in which I have to do a vocab test with my Year 9s. Not the most awful thing in the world to do but this will be the first time I'm up at the front of their classroom so a bit of prayer wouldn't go amiss. (it's at about 1.20) Next week I have to teach a full lesson to my Year 10 class - it'll be a revision lesson (also at 1.20) so please pray that I'll prepare properly for them ,but that I won't spend every waking moment thinking about it! Not that I'm likely too, but just incase!

Summer continued

So we arrived home from China, a bit sad, but ready to start our next summer adventure! After sorting out dad's luggage (which didn't make it from China, in fact hadn't even been put on the plane in China!) we headed north to Stirling for the wedding of a friend who lived across the street from us when we were growing up. Suzanne and Mike came back for the wedding so we had some extra time with them which was great.





Next up we went to the lakes for a week. My aunt and uncle have a cottage there which they kindly agreed to let us use. The five of us had a great time and Mike's mum and gran were able to come and join us for a couple of days. We even had nice enough weather to have a BBQ!









After the lakes, Suzanne and Mike went back to Manchester, mum and dad headed home to NI and I made my way across to Newcastle for Liz and Harry's wedding! It was really beautiful, quite traditional, and relaxed.






Then it was home to do nothing for a few days before Rose came to stay (sorry no photos yet - updated when I steal Rose's!), and then Phil and I headed off to Scotland to visit her mum (we went to the rare breeds farm, hence the second photo).





And I think that was it! I'm now back in Newcastle doing my PGCE (Secondary German and French) and I think it's going ok! More about that in a later post. We've had our church weekend away which was physically exhausting but mentally/spiritually refreshing, and I'm due to start playing hockey again this weekend - I can hear my muscles screaming in protest already!

Holidays

Wow, it's been a while since I posted anything. Summer was hectic but fun. Here's a snapshot of what I got up to:

1. Graduation 12/7/07

We had a fun day; the ceremony was traditional but relaxed. My Pop (granddad) made it over for the day which was great, and I particularly loved swooping around in my gown!

Being hooded as part of the ceremony

With the folks

With Auntie Sue (who lives in Ncl) and Pop (who is not Ian McKellan, as some others have thought!)

Not much explanation needed really!

2. Then we went off to China to visit my sister (Suzanne) and her boyfriend (Mike) who live there. We had an amazing time - didn't do a whole lot apart from chill out, catch up and a bit of culture (ha, 3 alliterated points - I should be a minister!)

The Wall:

Hong Kong and Macau - we went for a week of ultimate relaxing (and even shared a hotel with some premiership football players!):

Hong Kong Conference Centre - our hotel was right behind this so we had a great view :)

Lawrie Sanchez - former Northern Ireland Football Manager, now manager of Fulham - at our pool!

Reading Harry Potter by the pool in Macau - it was tough

Our hotel in Macau - view from my lounger

Visiting the casinos......but only for dinner!

Random selection:

In Tiananmen Square

View down from Suzanne's 31st floor apartment. Bottom right, if you can make it out, that's my parents sitting in the garden swing!

Church! Beijing International Christian Fellowship to be precise. Foreign Passport Holders only

Ok, that's all for now - will finish the rest of the summer in the next post :)

Travelling home

I would like to tell you a story of my travelling adventures yesterday:

I left my house in Fenham at 11.45, caught the bus to Central Station and then the metro to the airport, panicking at South Gosforth when it changed drivers and we had to sit and wait for that. But I arrived at the airport with more time to spare than usual and after checking in and dropping my guitar case at outsize luggage, proceeded through security, only to be told that our flight was delayed an hour. That's our Easyjet flight, just to be clear. So I bought some food, and thought that at least it wasn't a five hour delay. Then they told us it would be another half hour. I started to worry. Eventually they called us down to the gate, where we then sat for another half an hour as the flight hadn't actually arrived. Finally, an hour after we should have arrived in Belfast, we were boarding the plane. We finally arrived in Belfast, and I have never been so glad to see rainy Northern Ireland.
However, the saga did not stop there. Up to this point it hadn't really been a big deal, I mean, getting delayed is an inevitable part of having to travel. It was just ironic as the day before I'd been having a flybe/easyjet debate with Mr D from church (for the start of this, see here) who had had some issues with flybe on a recent trip to Southhampton. On arriving in Belfast, I discovered that my guitar hadn't quite made it from Newcastle (thankfully it wasn't my new beautiful guitar). I suppose I should be understanding I mean, Newcastle's such a huge airport...no wait, that's not right. Yes, but I arrived at the airport with only minutes to spare until the plane left...no wait, that's not right either. I hadn't checked on an extra bag when booking my flights...no, I paid £5 extra when booking to make sure I could bring it. I think you know where this is heading.
I.do.not.like.easyjet. OK, granted, it's not really based on the fact that I was delayed or that my bag didn't make it , I just don't like it that they won't assign seat numbers! It's the weirdest system ever! Does it save time? no. Does it save money? no. Is assigning a seat difficult to do? no. Does it mean that if you travel in a group you have to arrive about 5 hours before the plane's due to leave just to make sure you get seats together, but then might still be assigned a lower boarding group and not get seats together because every other group has thought of the same thing? Yes!

Well, my guitar arrived today, so no major damage done. Just thought I'd give you all a laugh, you especially Mr D :)

Finished

It's over! I did my last exam today and it feels....weird! It's bizarre that I don't have anything to do, no theorems to remember, no lists of vocab to learn. I'm exhausted - it feels a bit like suffering from jet lag. I keep wanting to go to sleep and I keep having to make myself stay awake until later tonight!

I've got a great night of celebration planned. First, ER at 9, then Big Brother with Becky at 10, then all-new Grey's at 11 - nice :) Then tomorrow it's out to do some exercise because it feels like all I've done for the past 4 weeks is sit at a desk and eat chocolate biscuits.

On sadder note, Sim left today and so The Plan is no more. Although, technically, I say it's not over until he gets married at the end of June, but it's still sad that we're all going our separate ways. This has been a good year - good housemates, good church, good classes (mostly), good plan for my life...:)

Music Practice

So, following a number of house groups (particularly the sessions on the book "If you want to walk on water you've got to get out of the boat" and 40 days of community) where I felt that my lack of confidence shouldn't be stopping me serving, I plucked up the courage to volunteer to play in the music group at church for the Sunday services. I went along last night to the practice, just to see what it was like and start to learn how to play with other people, and somehow it finished with me agreeing to play on Sunday! Not quite sure how that happened!

I was really nervous before going and pretty much the whole way through, but it was so fun playing with everyone! There were some things I was a bit unsure of but there are other guitars too so I can just hide behind them a bit if I'm not sure!

Just for fun, here's a pic of my beautiful guitar which I fell in love with the moment Sim pointed it out in the shop:

2 down, 2 to go

Ha! Well, it went ok today thankfully! So much for the lecturer saying "it'll not be like last year's paper because the dept has a policy where the paper's got to be 80% different from the year before". It worries me that this is the Maths dept and they aren't aware of what 80% means. I do believe the paper was remarkably similar to last year's.......thank goodness.

PS. If you're wondering about the title of the post, it's ok, I can count - I had French on Wednesday so didn't mention it in the last post :)

Exams

So, it's that time of year again, the time that every student dreads, this one being no exception. But I've had a couple of reminders today that I'm not going through these exams alone, that even when I sit for 3 hours, staring at a couple of sheets of paper, trying to commit the funny shapes and squiggles to memory, and feeling like I'll never manage it in time, it's ok because God's already seen the paper, He's seen my results, He's planned my future...oh yeah, and He created this system that we call mathematics. If you're so inclined, a little prayer would be great. Here are the dates of my exams:

Maths: Fri 25th May, 2pm
German: Monday 4th June, 9.30am
Maths: Thursday 7th June, 9.30am.

Thanks :)

Essentials for writing a dissertation

- an interesting topic which you continue to narrow down until the week before submission date
and which ends up being nothing like what you had planned to write about

- a parent or other loving relative willing to listen while you talk at them

- a knowledgeable flatmate to quiz about how to reference properly

- a supply of box sets - motivate yourself and reward your hard work by watching an episode (or 3) in the evenings (we heartily recommend "The West Wing")

- a library buddy

- CHOCOLATE

- the ability to cut out 2500 words in 2 days (and a kind next door neighbour to read it through and make sure it still makes sense)

- a good selection of music (which should include Casting Crowns and Take That)

- a flatmate who'll make you copious amounts of tea

- a clear route to the bathroom

- prayer

One last point: it is inadvisable to have flatmates serenade you on two guitars with 2 different songs while you're trying to write your final sentence.

Holidays

Just back to uni after the Easter holidays and am feeling surprisingly well rested. We went to the mountains for a few days to relax and it was beautiful. Here's the view from our road:

Back in the city I spent lots of time with church friends, namely William and Paul, and also Richard and Deborah. Most of our evening together were spent playing Uno Extreme (culminating in Ultimate Uno Extreme, where you deal pretty much half the pack) and it was so much fun.

Over Easter I went to Edinburgh for Chris and Mairi's wedding. These are two of our uni friends, and it was an absolutely wonderful day. We were so pleased to see them get married, but it was kinda weird too! We spent the day, from the moment Mairi started to walk down the aisle until the ceilidh ended in the evening, going "awwh", "that's so lovely" "they look beautiful", "I'm so happy" and other such sentiments. It was great having so many uni friends all together, especially ones who have moved away from Newcastle :)

We had the chance to do a bit of sightseeing around Edinburgh the following day but due to the late night ceilidh dancing we spent most of the afternoon in a coffee shop!

Back at home and work began on my dissertation , a draft of which I had to get to my supervisor before going back to Newcastle. Thanks to Amazon for finally sending my books and to mum for allowing me to talk it all out with her - I think by this stage she could probably write it for me! It got written (eventually) and I'm waiting for word of how it has been received.

So I'm back in Newcastle and it has taken me the longest time to settle back in which hasn't happened in a long time. But then I went to church yesterday and now I feel much better. When I go to church here I feel like I'm coming home, which is a strange feeling in Newcastle, but a welcome one. I was taking Young Church, which is like Sunday School during the service. I work with the 11-14s and yesterday we were learning about the things that we do that keep us from coming to God, and how Jesus has broken down all the barriers between us and him. It was really cool and fun, and I really enjoyed being reminded of the lesson too.

Places I've Been

This is a map of all the places I've been. Not that extensive yet,
but I'm working on it! I'm discovering you can find pretty much
anything on the internet and that the internet will do pretty
much anything for you!



create your own visited country map

Birthday

Well, another 22 February has come and gone - sigh. This year I celebrated by going out for a pub lunch with Matt, Sim and Katie on Thursday. We had lots of fun and I LOVED the stripey paper they had used to wrap my presents :) (A flexible cake tin, a stripey jumper and a CD with songs from different musicals)




Thursday afternoon I chatted to Sara-Louise who had lovingly house-sat for me so as not to miss the delivery from mum and dad (from Tesco - chocolate cheesecake, cream, wine, chocolate - YUM!). We spent the evening with Becky and Emma from next door - we played Triominos and guess-who-you-are (ie, guess the name that's written on the bit of paper stuck to your forehead).

On Saturday night we had people over for a bit of a party (a small one). Everyone had to wear one stripey thing, resulting in Matt showing off the latest fashion of skirt-ponchos and Pete going all out on his shoes!

What Lynne Means

Ok, I totally stole this from Beth but she's just so darn technologically wonderful and it kept me away from working for a while so it's gotta be good!

What Lynne Means

L is for Likeable Y is for Yummy N is for Neglected N is for Nice E is for Extraordinary

What Does Your Name Mean?

New Semester

It feels good to get exams over and done with. The new semester is going well, although I haven't quite got back into the way of working again. It feels weird to still be seeing people for the first time since before Christmas, but with exams, everyone's holed up in their room or in the library working, so this is the first time most people have seen the light of day!

All the flatmates are going away this weekend - Matt and Katie to NSC (Apage student conference) and Sim to Peterbrough - so I'm heading to Leeds for a couple of days to visit Helen. I'm looking forward to catching up with her and seeing Leeds for the first time.
I had a really fun time over Christmas, despite Dad not being well the first week and me having to write essays (yuk). It was great when Suzanne and Mike were home, I miss not having them around. I don't realise how much I miss them until I see them! We had a really chilled holiday together. In Newcastle we had secret(ish) santa in our house - I was very excited cos I got the new Superman DVD (from Katie):

(I love Superman - especially when Dean Cain played him in The New Adventures of Superman - yum)!

Next week I've got an interview for the PGCE course (teacher training) I would like to do in Newcastle next year. The interview'll last all day and I'm kinda nervous!