1st Dress rehearsal coming Up

Am desperately trying not to eat cheese, or drink milk or caffeine until after I have been to rehearsal this evening, need my voice to work and not conk out at the end as it has a scary habit of doing! Have finally sorted all my costumes, including the quick change one at the end, I refuse to go on wearing the ever-so-attractive dress that I've got to be a Roman Woman for the finale!

So hopefully I'll remember all the words to the songs and it'll all go fairly smoothly :S Hasn't quite hit home yet that we open on Friday. It's beginning to. I saw the set in church yesterday and it looks great, which helped me take a step closer to 'show mode'. Unfortuantely I also spent the whole, gloriously sunny, weekend inside the dark Mem Hall doing the tech-ing for the Y13's and it's their shows that are at the front of my mind right now........

On an exciting note, my first sunflower sprouted today, and some of the sweet peas and lots of tiny Allysum....So cool. I just think watching plants develop form a tiny hard seed into the thing they become is one of the most magical things to watch. Every time I go back and check something else has poked it's head through the soil :)

Sweet Pea

Allysum

Sunflower

Seeds away!

Huzzah!

Finally got round to planting some seeds today. Some Blue Stripey Sweet Peas (love the smell!) that are hopefully going to wind their way up the balcony rails and some sunflowers of both the giant and the 'spray' varietoes. I have also attempted to put some Alyssum in a tray but the seeds are terrobly tiny so I'm not sure how that'll work out. Still it is all quite exciting!

Trying to get the Y13 assessment stuff up and running for the weekend, just don't seem to be able to quite get my mind round it! Still I have nearly all the lists of everything they want now, and besides taking the doors I made last year of the trolley and getting the swing up when it arrives form Germany (yes....Germany!) I think I might actually get it done! 1 of my Y12's is halfway through making her costume already and the others will hopefully not be far behind. It's still rather scary that someones A-Level result depends on me teaching them and keeping them to deadlines (especially as one of them 'doesn't do morning's '!).

Rehearsals for AD34 (the musical I'm in for the next 2 weeks) are going pretty well. Still having trouble making the words stick which is not brilliant as I tend to be the one everyone looks at to start verses! Still I do have the honour of bringing everybody off (including the band!) in the final number. My voice isn't doing too brilliantly but hopefully we can warm up lots and it won't start cracking all over the place as it was last night (mind you I was singing alto then soprano and then back again) or that will be highly embarrassing.

Shhhhtupidly tired

I cannot quite understand why I am quite so bloody k*******d as I feel right now. It took all my determination to get myself to de-rig the movers today and take them back - even htought he lovely guys at Enlightened had extended my return day from yesterday - 'cos it was just impossible then!

Right now it's 8pm and all I want to do is go to bed! But I feel I must hold for at least another hour so that I don't then wake up ridiculously early. Maybe I should catch up on some neighbours whilst I wait for 9 o'clock to come round?

Had a fun afternoon with the BATHOS lot. Becky and Angharad came and spoke to the girls about life and fashions in the 80's. Tea was drunk and Brownies were eaten and I think they now have a much clearer idea of what they want to design and the overall look we're going for - huzzah!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Cream Crackered

Am now chilling out and making lists for tomorrow (when did I become a list person?) after walking about 20km with almost my entire kit for Peru!

Me and 3 of the Peru Crew joined the Silver DofE'ers and the Ten Tors lot on their 2nd training walk today. It was perfect weather for it and I am very proud of how they did. One of the girl's has dyspraxia which makes her balance quite tricky but she managed brilliantly! Am feeling better for several reasons:
- I'm pretty sure all my kit will fit in my rucksack
- The walking poles were a brilliant buy! (They really do help your knees etc - bizarre...)
- I'm about 3 times as fit as I was last year - the final hill was nowhere near as hard!
- I know that I can deal with all the weight on my back
- I have found the perfect sock combination (that includes tubi-grips!)

All in all a succesful day. I have spent rather a lot of money on kit this weekend but I was back in the black for the 1st time in 5 years, albeit briefly, and I thought if I get it now then I don't have to worry about it any more. Only little things like iodine tablets and re-hydration powders now....well and the £150 I've got fork out for vaccinations but heigh-ho!

Next week is the dance show. Have still to program the moving lights so that's my main job tomorrow. In between teaching Y9's about make-up design, Y12's about 1:25 scale model building and working from costume patterns and checking the set design's for the Y13's - I love my job....weird but wonderful.

On the Peru front there has been a bit of a set back, which hopefully will be resolved soon. Can't say too much in case one of the girl's finds this page! But it is a little stressful and I'm not sure how the parents will react......still, we shall see.

Be Prepared

...as my old Guide leader used to say. Well, actually, she didn't - and she wasn't old either, but I think it was written on my belt at some point!



Am off to the exciting Trowbridge this evening to BCH camping, who have kindly agreed to do a "lock-in" for us (not the sort you're all thinking of - the only drink there will be coffee.......tut!) am looking forward to trying on lots of things and spending my birthday and Christmas money in a guilt free way :) The plan for this evening is to get a rucksack, sleeping bag and Gore-tex jacket - may be the most frightnened my bank account had ever been - despite the lovely tax man giving me £600 :)



Had a serious meeting after school today, mostly to do the financial climate and how we're going to progress ahead. Kinda scary, I'm not exactly worried for my job, but there may be some changes to be made so am not really sure what's in store.

hum-dee-hum

Dude, the size this mug!

Hurrah, the snow came down.

11 day girls and about half of the staff made it into school. So with the boarders and the 25 Juniors who also made it up the steep and slippy hill they enjoyed a day of 'Fun in the snow' until 9:30, a languages quiz (snow related), Science time (all snow related) and then an Art Lesson. Then the fabulous lunch - which as ever on a Thurday included CHIPS!

Then after lunch they officially closed school most of the day girls had already gone home and it is the first official snow day (possibly ever!) tomorrow. This should be cool. Having a few panicky issues about the fact that we are supposed to have a play on on Monday Luchtime that has never been tun through with the whole cast, set, props or technical wizadry - but if the snow has its way then we won't be in then either!

Some props for one of the plays next week arrived this morning - boxing gloves. And with them?for free? Quite honestly the largest mug I have ever seen! It's huge, and is now sat next to me on the desk filled with approximately 2 cups of tea.....oh yes, this snow day is going to be a wonder!

I also got to go up the tower for the first time today. Took some wonderful photos. The view form up there was just stunning - although you weirdly lose your bearings when you're up there looking down at everything! It was a very....!Famous Five-esque" climb up. 2/3 of the way consistes of a tiny stone spiral staircase (accompanied by Raph's running commentary on the dangers he felt were aroung - honestly for a geographer he hasn't got much sense of adventure!) and then a series of dubious looking ladders - the last the most dubious of all, especially when you're the first one up and have to unbolt and then shift the slightly degraded trap door. Well, I say trap door, there no hinges so it's not a door, just piece of chip board with 2 (although only one works!) bolts on it. Still it was fun and the view was definitely worth it :)

Snowy thoughts

I am wide awake and it's 7:45 - the reason?

SNOW!!! It's now the third day of snow. It fell during the night loast night after most of it had melted during the day - however it is now snowing again - the GAPPIES have been called to go down to the Junior school (even though they don't start 'til 11), and I gatta tell you, the road looks impassable.

However this school has never shut fo snow in at least 25 years (because of the boarders mostly!) but a lot of the other students and staff will probably not make it in today so who knows......

Graphics Card blues

I am a tad stressy at the moment as my poor laptop has a poorly graphics card.

At some point something sprung off inside (this, of course, would have nothing to do with me urrr ...bumping it several times!) shot across the inside wedged itself in the cooling fan for the graphics card, snapped off to blades and managed to burn out th emotor - impressive huh?

Now it transpires that either it is just the fan - so when this is fixed the card will fine and wil no longer send my screen doolalay after 15mins or, it damaged the actual card and it has sadly ended it's uselfulness :( This has been stressful because: this first went wrong 2 minutes (and I do mean 2 minutes!) before the curtain went up on 'A Midsummer Night' Dream' and the laptop was controlling all the projections, and, I have no way of editing DVD's (because the annoying school video camera has no USB/firewire out and even the new laptop they have given me (#4 now!) isn't set up to rip DVD's) or sorting the website for whiteboard theatre out. Which in turn means that an awful lot of things for school aren't getting done ahhhh!!!

So between me and the lovely guy at technophobia in Keynsham, we have been trying to find a new card. This has proven rather tricky. Mostly because, although MXM graphics card are a great idea for those people who want to upgrade their grahics capabilities without replacing their entire laptop, no company relaly picked up on them and they are like gold dust to find. SO the search has so far included 5 2nd hand ones being sent over from the states to be tested (non of them worked!), me sending the original back to the company who assembled the laptop (they say they may be able to fix/replace the fan) and, in the latest escapade, me finiding a far more up to date model on eBay in....wait for it... Canada! So after I get paid this will be winging it's way across the ocean to me.

I have checked the compatibility charts - my model of Notebook is there and it says it is compatable - so there is no reason this shouldn't work. It does not, however, come with the fan or heatsink, so I have to make sure I get the other one back so we can nick the bits off that!

In a way I rather hoope the actual original card is damaged - this new card is about 4 times as powerful........4 times.....imagine Sims2 - or even Sims3.....*cough* I mean, imagine how much easier DVD editing will be..........

Telegram from a crap blogger....

Life has been very busy STOP

So have not blogged for long time STOP guess this is a good thing really COMMA means I have been busy STOP

Things that have happened COLON (that would be the punctuation not a thing..)

Christmas DASH very cool

New Year DASH in Lake District with great people COMMA impromptu Ceilidh and everything STOP

Finding Larry DASH panto I wrote and directed starring some amazing students and teachers from school COMMA went very well COMMA raised lots of money for Peru expedition COMMA good team bonding STOP

Decorating Gatehouse DASH Hallway is done COMMA new GAPS here and enjoying it COMMA Living room next STOP

Promise to be better blogger from now on STOP Especially as I spent this morning reading a book on Peru and am now more excited than ever EXCLAMATION MARK

Now have no money due to long telegram STOP