deck the halls (with lots of helium)
ha. evidently i pressed something i shouldn't have before finishing the previous entry and couldn't be bothered to go back. how very lax of me.
anyway, it's now CHRISTMAS! i get very excited by christmas, as i'm sure many of you know. it's doubly good because the fact i am now on holiday means that i finally have time to do things that aren't planning lessons or marking books, like updating this thing. everyone else is at work today but i am here wearing a big mambo jumper, burning cds as presents, eating twix fingers and watching morecambe and wise. woohoo!
i'm burning:
69 love songs by the magnetic fields for ed
joanna mewsom's the milk-eyed mender for barry
bobbie gentry - the capitol years for emma
the 'old' hot puppies album for my dear cousin chris
i never realised before today that i might find the opening credits of 'ellery queen' enjoyable. what a girly name! maybe he chose it on purpose so crooks and murderers would think he was a bit of a nancy and slip up.
yes... my life has been a bit mental for a while. teaching is amazing and i LOVE it - but fuck me, it's a whole lotta work. for the past two weeks i've been knackered all the time. My typical timetable for most december weekdays so far has been along the lines of:
7.30 be round at andy's house to get a lift to school
8.25 stop whatever work i've been doing in the school computer room and dash hurriedly to regsitration.
8.50 onwards
deal with belligerent, short, angry, excited, hormonal, illogical people who are full of
sugar all day.
3.00 stay behind for an extra hour and a half of work most days.
4.30 wait ages for bus to show up.
5.30 get home, make dinner.
6.00 climb into bed because it's cold. eat dinner and watch simpsons.
6.20 fall asleep before end of simpsons.
8.45 wake up cursing own tiredness. try to finish work.
11.00 andy turns up. chat, read, have tea.
11.30 bully andy into playing chess with me.
11.45 andy takes my queen at chess and i fly into a fifteen-minute rage then
demand a rematch.
1.30 andy falls asleep like a reasonable person. livid at his blatant attempts
to make me lose the game and sated by my earlier nap, i lie awake, unable to drift off,
smoking furiously and plotting his downfall. i will fall asleep around 3am and in all
likelihood sleep late in the morning.
it's not helpful. but it is fun, in a warped kind of way. my school has been amazing; i can't believe that after christmas i only get one more month with them. i even got christmas cards and presents off the kids - all signed to 'miss', which is funny. my next school will suck by comparison.
other recent updates:
× i have a sore throat and have done for the past two days due to copious amounts of helium abuse at an italian restaurant in the lanes on friday night. it was very funny though.
× jen came to see me! we had tea and beer and long talks and she showed me her rat-bites. then we ate chips and giggled about christians. she's moving down here in the new year so i anticipate much more of the same behaviour. huzzah!
× our house's fake christmas day was saturday and so yesterday was fake boxing day. our dinner was amazing and there was so much wine it was almost scary. at one point there were twelve people hanging out in our tiny living room trying to play taboo and throwing after eights at each other. it was really nice though - doubly so since suzanne and lawrence were off to switzerland for three months the following day. as a send-off i think it worked nicely - plus there's the possibility that, schoolwork permitting, andy and i can go for a cheap hol to visit them at half-term.
× fake boxing day meant dinner at andy's parents', but it was very nice actually. dinner was good and the budgie didn't come near me because i have successfully conveyed to it on other occasions how little i care for its company. andy's mum even gave me a present from her travels in germany but andy wouldn't let me open it. the best thing was - and i am saying this with the most fetishistic enthusiasm you could imagine - was reading through their bumper double special issue of the CHRISTMAS RADIO TIMES!!! i found it incredibly exciting planning my christmas viewing. i can't discuss this any more; i might wet myself and these aren't my pants i'm wearing.
× when we got back, it was another house event - the traditional fake boxing day cheese board, with cherry tomoatoes and red grapes and buck's fizz and french bread and seed crackers and celery sticks. we watched series two of 'maid marian and her merry men', which is still funny even now, and had a lovely wind-down. ahh, relaxation at a stressful time of year.
× i fly home on friday afternoon. i can barely describe how excited i am about this. my parents owe me an extra good christmas after the disastrous easter we had - i have demanded subtly reminded them of this.
× andy begins his listening for his 'albums of the year' list today, and for once i am joining in - partly because i miss thinking about music so much since the shop shut, and partly because some of the cds he's including in his list belong to me. in the running are:
brakes - beatific visions
broken family band - balls
isobel campbell and mark lanegan - ballad of the broken seas
neko case - fox confessor brings the flood
johnny cash - american 5: a hundred highways
chatham county line - speed of the whippoorwill
flaming lips - at war with the mystics
fujiya and miyagi - transparent things
the handsome family - last days of wonder
a hawk and a hacksaw - the way the wind blows
the hot puppies - under the crooked moon
langhorne slim - when the sun's gone down
the legendary shack-shakers - pandelirium
jenny lewis and the watson twins - rabbit fur coat
peter bjorn and john - writer's block
shooting at unarmed men - yes! tinnitus!
sparklehorse - dreamt for lightyears in the belly of a mountain
tv on the radio - return to cookie mountain
the victorian english gentleman's club - s/t
yeah yeah yeahs - show your bones
the following are ones that neither of us own but that i would probably add to my end-of-year listen, having heard and liked them already:
'we shall overcome: the seeger sessions' by bruce springsteen
'the warning' by hot chip (just for the memories of dancing with jamie to it round the shop)
'cansei de ser sexy' by css
i still have not heard the recent efforts by joanna newsom, kasabian, sonic youth, jarvis cocker or tom waits.
i care not for lily allen nor for the pipettes, and my morning jacket can just.fuck.off.
anyway, it's now CHRISTMAS! i get very excited by christmas, as i'm sure many of you know. it's doubly good because the fact i am now on holiday means that i finally have time to do things that aren't planning lessons or marking books, like updating this thing. everyone else is at work today but i am here wearing a big mambo jumper, burning cds as presents, eating twix fingers and watching morecambe and wise. woohoo!
i'm burning:
69 love songs by the magnetic fields for ed
joanna mewsom's the milk-eyed mender for barry
bobbie gentry - the capitol years for emma
the 'old' hot puppies album for my dear cousin chris
i never realised before today that i might find the opening credits of 'ellery queen' enjoyable. what a girly name! maybe he chose it on purpose so crooks and murderers would think he was a bit of a nancy and slip up.
yes... my life has been a bit mental for a while. teaching is amazing and i LOVE it - but fuck me, it's a whole lotta work. for the past two weeks i've been knackered all the time. My typical timetable for most december weekdays so far has been along the lines of:
7.30 be round at andy's house to get a lift to school
8.25 stop whatever work i've been doing in the school computer room and dash hurriedly to regsitration.
8.50 onwards
deal with belligerent, short, angry, excited, hormonal, illogical people who are full of
sugar all day.
3.00 stay behind for an extra hour and a half of work most days.
4.30 wait ages for bus to show up.
5.30 get home, make dinner.
6.00 climb into bed because it's cold. eat dinner and watch simpsons.
6.20 fall asleep before end of simpsons.
8.45 wake up cursing own tiredness. try to finish work.
11.00 andy turns up. chat, read, have tea.
11.30 bully andy into playing chess with me.
11.45 andy takes my queen at chess and i fly into a fifteen-minute rage then
demand a rematch.
1.30 andy falls asleep like a reasonable person. livid at his blatant attempts
to make me lose the game and sated by my earlier nap, i lie awake, unable to drift off,
smoking furiously and plotting his downfall. i will fall asleep around 3am and in all
likelihood sleep late in the morning.
it's not helpful. but it is fun, in a warped kind of way. my school has been amazing; i can't believe that after christmas i only get one more month with them. i even got christmas cards and presents off the kids - all signed to 'miss', which is funny. my next school will suck by comparison.
other recent updates:
× i have a sore throat and have done for the past two days due to copious amounts of helium abuse at an italian restaurant in the lanes on friday night. it was very funny though.
× jen came to see me! we had tea and beer and long talks and she showed me her rat-bites. then we ate chips and giggled about christians. she's moving down here in the new year so i anticipate much more of the same behaviour. huzzah!
× our house's fake christmas day was saturday and so yesterday was fake boxing day. our dinner was amazing and there was so much wine it was almost scary. at one point there were twelve people hanging out in our tiny living room trying to play taboo and throwing after eights at each other. it was really nice though - doubly so since suzanne and lawrence were off to switzerland for three months the following day. as a send-off i think it worked nicely - plus there's the possibility that, schoolwork permitting, andy and i can go for a cheap hol to visit them at half-term.
× fake boxing day meant dinner at andy's parents', but it was very nice actually. dinner was good and the budgie didn't come near me because i have successfully conveyed to it on other occasions how little i care for its company. andy's mum even gave me a present from her travels in germany but andy wouldn't let me open it. the best thing was - and i am saying this with the most fetishistic enthusiasm you could imagine - was reading through their bumper double special issue of the CHRISTMAS RADIO TIMES!!! i found it incredibly exciting planning my christmas viewing. i can't discuss this any more; i might wet myself and these aren't my pants i'm wearing.
× when we got back, it was another house event - the traditional fake boxing day cheese board, with cherry tomoatoes and red grapes and buck's fizz and french bread and seed crackers and celery sticks. we watched series two of 'maid marian and her merry men', which is still funny even now, and had a lovely wind-down. ahh, relaxation at a stressful time of year.
× i fly home on friday afternoon. i can barely describe how excited i am about this. my parents owe me an extra good christmas after the disastrous easter we had - i have demanded subtly reminded them of this.
× andy begins his listening for his 'albums of the year' list today, and for once i am joining in - partly because i miss thinking about music so much since the shop shut, and partly because some of the cds he's including in his list belong to me. in the running are:
brakes - beatific visions
broken family band - balls
isobel campbell and mark lanegan - ballad of the broken seas
neko case - fox confessor brings the flood
johnny cash - american 5: a hundred highways
chatham county line - speed of the whippoorwill
flaming lips - at war with the mystics
fujiya and miyagi - transparent things
the handsome family - last days of wonder
a hawk and a hacksaw - the way the wind blows
the hot puppies - under the crooked moon
langhorne slim - when the sun's gone down
the legendary shack-shakers - pandelirium
jenny lewis and the watson twins - rabbit fur coat
peter bjorn and john - writer's block
shooting at unarmed men - yes! tinnitus!
sparklehorse - dreamt for lightyears in the belly of a mountain
tv on the radio - return to cookie mountain
the victorian english gentleman's club - s/t
yeah yeah yeahs - show your bones
the following are ones that neither of us own but that i would probably add to my end-of-year listen, having heard and liked them already:
'we shall overcome: the seeger sessions' by bruce springsteen
'the warning' by hot chip (just for the memories of dancing with jamie to it round the shop)
'cansei de ser sexy' by css
i still have not heard the recent efforts by joanna newsom, kasabian, sonic youth, jarvis cocker or tom waits.
i care not for lily allen nor for the pipettes, and my morning jacket can just.fuck.off.