20 things you didn't know, that you didn't know about me!

1. I can touch my nose with my tongue.
2. I have more than 50 t-shirts.
3. I sometimes talk in my sleep.
4. I was the only girl on the general knowledge quiz team in my primary 7 class.
5. I can play the clarinet (and recorder and keyboard)
6. I have only ever missed 1 university lecture or class, which was for my driving test.
7. I have been to 18 different theme parks, in 7 different countries.
8. I played hooker for our school's girls' rugby team.
9. I have water skiied round an island.
10. I was in a fashion show and had to wear hot pants whilst dancing to 'Sex Bomb' by Tom Jones.
11. I once added icing sugar to a cheese sauce to try and thicken it, then didn't tell the person who ate it, until it was all finished!
12. I have taught someone to ceilidh dance in George Square in Glasgow.
13. Until i was 15, i was goingto be an air hostess.
14. My favourite cities (so far!) are:~
European:~ Amsterdam
American:~ Chicago
Canadian:~ Montreal.
15. When i was 5 i blew out candles in a church and sang Happy Birthday.
16. I have to put Wine Gums in a certain order before I eat them. (yellow, orange, black, green then red, eating the red last of course! :D )
17. I have been swimming in a lake at Midnight in the moonlight.
18. I once sang ring-a-ring-a-roses (complete with actions) on a stage in front of 200 people. (i was 17 at the time!)
19. I can order a non smoking table for 11 in Italian.
20. I have sung on stage in the SECC and recorded a CD in a Glasgow recording Studio.

Good Morning Miss Annan!

Before i go on, the title of this post is to be said in the true sing songy voice that children use in the classroom every morning to greet their teachers!

I feel that i am now officially a poor, struggling student! Last night at Tesco i worked on the checkouts for half of my shift, and then, oh yes, i stacked shelves! not just any shelves, but the dairy shelves, my hands were freezing! i then had to walk round the store with a big roll cage collecting all of the carboard! what fun i had!?!?!

On saturday just past i went to Clydebank to buy a new necklace and watch to replace the ones that were broken (the watch broke on thursday at the CU ceilidh, i was lost without a watch for a day and a half!) anyways i went to Clydebank shopping centre which happens to be the main shopping place that the kids in my class would go to. I was just dredding meeting one of them as i walked around in my very baggy dungarees and my big comfy Onaway hoody, as this would completely confuse them,to see a teacher in 'normal' clothes! but thank goodness i didnt see any of the children. HOWEVER, i now know somethign worse than a kid seeing me in 'normal' clothes, and that is seeing me in Tesco uniform stacking shelves and pulling roll cages about! One of the boys in my class was shopping in Tesco with his mum last night and saw me with my head inside the fridges putting out cheese! the poor kid must be so confused, to them im a teacher, so why would a teacher be working in Tesco?? hehehe!

On the subject of teachers, i really gotta go to school! My crit went well yesterday, my tutor was very pleased with all my work! so yay! (or as alastair would say hoorah!)

Verse for the blog:~ "Jesus Wept" John 11:35 (yes i know it's short, but tis one of my favourite verses!)

Ceilidh Arms!

For my international readers a ceilidh is an amazing scottish party with lots and lots and lots of dancing! Ceilidh arms, are what you get after a ceilidh, you know that its been a good ceilidh when you have bruises on your arms and it huts to lift them in line with your shoulders. However the pain is nothing because of the fun you've had at the ceilidh!

Thursday night was the CU ceilidh and last night was the Romania fundraising ceilidh (looks like we'll have raised about £1200 from the ceilidh and someone gave an anonymous donation of £1000! so we're doing well so far with the fundraising!) Both ceilidhs were amazing fun, the CU ceilidh had a lot of international students. Its always fun to teach them the new dances and then also to watched them getting it completely wrong, but having a brilliant time anyway! There will soon be photos on the CU website, so you can check it out! (i'll put a link in for it sometime!)

I have my second crit tomorrow, and have sat all day infront of the computer desperately trying to work. But i am sooooo incredibly tired, didn't get home from my taxi duties until 3am last night! then up for church this morning! At about 8 o clock tonight, i had lost it and was just lying on my bed complaining to my mum, who was very patient and stood chatting to me and claming me down! I can happily say that i think i'm ready for it, if somethings not right im just going to plead ignorance! :D I also have to remember to wear a long sleeved top and not to push up the sleeves as it will reveal my bruised ceilidh arms, and i'd rather not have my tutor wondering if i'm being abused, or even worse finding out that i am still managing to have a social life whilst on placement! i know someone who was marked down for one of her crits, because the tutor found out that she had gone out for dinner!

I've added some more things to my 'to do before i die' list. They are:
* Be at the top of Ben Lomond for sunrise or sunset.
* See the Great Wall of China.
* Visit Amelia in Texas (if she'll have me! hehehe, she might decided to stop all contact with me after she stays here in August!)
* Learn how to transpose music into B flat for the clarinet.

I have started teaching myself about transposing music and have done the verse of 'All My Days' altho i can just about look at the normal music and play it as if i have already transposed it! So that's now just 6 things on my list to do the 4 above as well as using a power drill and doing a parachute jump. The other week i did get to hold a power drill and make it go round, but there was no bit on the end and i didn't get to drill through a bit of wood!

Verse for the blog:~ "You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever." Psalm 30:11-12

Sport, Sport and more Sport!

What a brilliant time of year this is! Not only do we get the Winter Olympics, we also get The Six Nations (which may be better in my opinion!)

However, it is also a great annoyance, as i didn't get very much work done over the weekend, as i watched 3 rugby games (well 2 and a half, i slept through the first half of the England/Italy game!) and then i watched the Couples short figure skating in the olympics, as well as the qualifier for the Ski jump, and the Luge! On Sunday i watched the Scotland Wales rugby match, we played very well, and Wales shouldnt be too proud! I'm sure i watched some sort of olympics too! Then today, i watched the last two stones of the Womens curling! which we won, 5 stones to us and 4 to Switzerland!

I also realised that when the olympics (or another big sporting event!) is on, we pick up all this useful knowledge and say things that we normally would never say, well we do in my house anyways! Like i now know roughly how they score figure skating (its not out of 6 anymore, tis far more complicated!) i also find myself having conversations with Stuart (my bro) about how many stones we have in the curling, and the sweeping techniques of Rona and her crew! Makes me laugh anyways!

Happy Valentines to you all! Hope you have a fun filled day (with or without a special someone! ;D )

"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever." 1 Corinthians 12:4- 8

Nothing of Value!?

So i sat here reading Louise's blog (link on the right hand side!) about helping with the homeless ministry that her church does and it got me thinking! I realised that i have done nothing of great value at all this weekend, not that it hasnt been fun, i've just not had one of those 'wow' moments or 'the penny dropped moments' or done anything to really help somebody other than myself! I guess at the moment I'm fed up with placement, ive been there for just over 3 weeks now, and still have another 4 and a half to go! There's so much work to be done for it! I guess i'm just completely tired out physically, mentally, spiritually, But it is just one of the stages that come on the rollercoaster of life and soon i will be heading up the next steep slope!

Now i come to think of it i did kinda have a 'ah ha' moment! I was watching 'Dangerous Minds' a great film about a teacher and i was thinking that everything i see i think of it from a teacher's point of view. I now can't watch a film with a teacher in it without analysing what they're doing and deciding if they're a good teacher or not! (example, Jack Black in School Of Rock, was a good teacher because he appealed to the things that the children were specifically interested in! if you need more detail ask, coz there's lots! lol, im such a weird person!) Yeah, so realising that i see everything as a teacher, made me think that i should try and see everything from a Christian point of view. Instead of just looking at what i've done, actually looking at what things i can do to be more Christian, to live a better Christian Life. I shouldn't get bogged down with placement stuff, because it's where i'm meant to be and i should feel priviledged to be there at all!

Wow, blogging certainly sorts things out in your head! Altho it also shatters my dream of being in bed before 11pm! (i do have 2 minutes to make it, but i need to make a cup of tea, get a biscuit, get into my pjs etc etc etc! and now only a minute left to do it!)

ah well nevermind! "He [the Lord] makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, He restores my soul." Psalm 23:2-3

Something a little less than witty!

This has been a busy week for a great number of people!

Some highlights: Sunday:~ Scotland 20 - France 16! yay come on the scottish boys! (and they did play brilliantly, same again this week would be great!)
Monday:~ Children were semi well behaved considering it was a monday!

Tuesday:~ Small group, always fun! More of the Pure course, and again it was higly interesting!(there was a scarily high proportion of committee members there tho! had to be on my best behaviour! ok so there was 6 out of a possible 15 committee members at the time! thats all changed but look at Thursday!)

Wednesday:~ I went to see Titanic in the Theatre Royal, it was so sad, i had to wipe the tears away from my eyes! twas really good except for the white sheet coming down, i think it was meant to symbolise the iceberg, but it was actually just stupid!

Thursday:~ Last day with kids in school for almost a week! CU AGM, where the new committee were officially accepted and started their roles! due to some lack of communication there was no food organised, so alison and Louise kindly offered their flat for a big bunch of people to take carry out food to! anther very fun night full of great banter. I had the car and was playing taxi driver again, i think that i should be the official CU taxi driver, 3 quarters of the new committee have been in my car at some point, some more than others, ahem alastair! (sorry bad cough there! :D)

Friday:~ Inservice day in school, with teachers who didn't ask if Jen and i wanted something from Gregs, as the sheet wasnt passed round to us. So we went out for lunch and were almost late for the afternoon meeting, after about 45 minutes in that meeting we were told we could leave because it was school calander business which didn't really concern us!

And tonight was at Boys' Brigade and again more good banter, well how can it be bad banter when you have to talk them into wearing dresses, hehehe!

Ooh i also went to see Chicken Little today! It is fantastic, i was laughing out loud and clapping (yes i was and am still slightly embarassed about that!) but it was soooo funny and (pathetic child alert) i really really want a cuddly chicken Little, he's so cute! Plus i decided since lots of the characters names rhyme, so my name is now going to be 'super silly jilli'! to go with my new Super J tshirt!

Quote for the blog:~ "Everyone in the world lives in one of two tents: content or discontent" J. John. Which tent do you live in?

My way or the Highway!

Should i start this blog off with a question? or should i say what's on my mind? (add a cello here, to add a sad impression)

Don't you absolutely hate the first day of a cold? well today was the first day of my current cold, and it's really really not a happy experience when you're trying to teach and be all happy in school! Oh yeah, and apparently when it's non uniform day the teacher's dress down too, was very nice of people to tell me! i think i was just about the only teacher who wasn't in jeans today, no i was dressed up smartly as usual!

Wanna hear a funny story? Today the teacher was asking the children which Roald Dahl book they would like to listen to, when she held up Charlie and The Chocolate Factory one boy said, 'no that's the old one!' which slightly confused me, but the next comment by another boy helped me understand! the next boy, referring to the book said 'i hope that's not the one with Johnny Depp!' how can you mix up a book and a film?

i was at CU last night and it was a 'guys and girls night'. It was so much fun! Gary (the current president, since the committee changes next Thursday!) gave a little talk and then we split into guys and girls, the girls of course got to each chocolate! In the groups we discussed a couple of Bible passges and then we had to write 'Hey brother...' and then say some positive things about the guys, like how they protect us or don't let us wallow in our problems. we also had to do slightly more negative things like when guys take lead when they don't have a clue, but feel they have to because they're male. At the same time the guys were doing the same thing about the girls. Twas funny, coz then the leaders of the group swapped and each group got to hear what the other group had said! The guys had thanked us for having genuine friendships with them and asked us to not talk to them during football on tv as they won't hear anything we say! They also commented on the fact that we can take anything they say and get a totally different meaning from it! We also talked about how we can encourage each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. I think it a very fun and informative evening was had by all.

Then Dougie, Alastair, Fiona and i went and played some pool. (a little aside here, i beat Alastair at pool! yay!!!) the guys did their bit by making sure that we fully understood what they were meaning when they said something, well alastair would just say 'oh i better not say that incase you take it the wrong way', how was i meant to take 'you hip hop freak' in the wrong way??? Lol! it was a good night anyway, and it was great to be a student again and not have to worry about looking all smart and having to put on a fake smile all the time!

Verse for the blog:~ "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." Colossians 3:12 - 14

Should I end this blog off with a question?

Ready for a SHORT blog?

I discovered last night a brilliant way of saving paper whilst printing and re-printing things for my S.E.F, print double sided! i can't believe it took me so long to work that out!

On the laminator/Ipod front - i'm not going to buy an Ipod, just more cheap Tesco batteries for my MP3 player! and my mum bought the house an A3 laminator today for only £25! a bargain or what, i just need to think of something to laminate, hmm, i might make snap cards on volcanoes for the kids! hmm, leave it with me! :D

Our Pure course started at small group last night, we looked at Genesis and the roles of men and women, twas very interesting and good banter all round!

I shall leave you with some of the differences between men and women from the Pure book:
* Women smell nice, men smell.
* Women usually usually aren't very good at reading maps but men don't stop and ask for directions.
* Women think shoes are interesting; men think shoes are functional.
* Men are task oriented; women are relationship oriented.
* Men get straight to the point; women spend hours talking about it and still don't know!
* Men are more logical.
* Women have different coloured pens!