The Onset of Autumn

Hello. This is one of my occasional life posts which has nothing specific to tell and is instead a mish-mash of stuff. I literally have very little idea of what’s going to be included when I start one of these posts and generally make it up as I go along. At this stage of writing the title could end up being absolutely anything.

So August is coming to an end and the Autumn is creeping up on us. Well us in the Northern Hemisphere anyway, you southerners are just looking forward to Spring. We hate you at this time of year. One of the things this means is that my work is over for another summer. It’s been a joy more than ever this year and I’d quite happily do it all year round. Last week through work I even ended up being the carer of a child for the day, which was unexpected but turned out to be pretty good.

It’s now around a month until the new term starts at university. Currently my Third year is all a bit mysterious. The provisional timetable we’ve received just tells us when we have things and not what they are and has a random week with no lectures in which has not been explained. The only thing I do know is that there’ll be six weeks of probably pretty rubbish lectures before a 6 week teaching practice, though which school and age group that will be is anyone's guess at this point. Our uni aren’t very good at giving us the information we want to know. This for me is this big one. If it all goes badly then it could see me walking away from the profession forever, which sounds awfully dramatic. I am thinking about it a bit more positively than I was a few weeks ago though after a late night thinking session which led me on to the fact I know I can teach brilliantly and just need to stop having so little confidence and get on with it. Easier said than done though.

Hmm, I’m thinking the title of this post will now be Autumn related as I can see a sort of theme running. It’s getting dark earlier and earlier but it does mean you can get some pretty awesome sunset photos…

Perhaps the most exciting thing about Autumn this year is the return of Doctor Who. It all starts with the sure-to-be spectacular “Asylum of the Daleks” this Saturday! I can barely contain my excitement. This is the longest period without Doctor Who since it’s revival in 2005. And we’re only getting five episodes before it stops again. But they are sure to be five awesome episodes. Every Sunday I’ll be chatting about them in my Time Vortex feature right here (though it’ll be Monday this week for reasons I’ll explain later). You can see my Series 7 preview right here.

If you’re anything like me and can’t wait for the series, check out “Pond Life” which is a five-part mini-adventure following life with Amy and Rory living at home and the Doctor occasionally turning up. It’s pretty short but very funny and you can view it online here.

Something which has been occupying large amounts of my time recently is the newly released New Super Mario Bros 2 for Nintendo 3DS. Normally I’d give this a proper review but my blog schedule is chocka-block with stuff and there just isn’t room. It’s very similar to the original game and the Wii version, although as you play through the levels you aim to eventually collect a billion coins, which I have realised is going to take some time. Though not very original, it’s still excellent fun. I much prefer NSMB on a handheld console, it just didn’t feel right for me on Wii. Although I loved the Yoshi’s in that version. NSMB2 is a great game and I shall certainly be spending a lot of time attempting to get to a billion gold coins!

I actually downloaded this on the Nintendo e-shop rather than bought a physical copy. It’s 2012, you can do that kind of thing these days.

This rest of this week looks to be awesome. Tomorrow I shall be off to the Bournemouth Air Festival (it’s annual tradition now) and then on Friday I’m off for a four day weekend break with my family which will be nice. Plus somewhere in that time I’ll get to watch new Doctor Who! Of course you’ll be able to hear all about that at some point next week. And if you fancy reading some more stuff by me check out my Scrapbook of Thoughts where I write about various things that happen to cross my mind. Thanks for reading and I’ll be seeing you all soon! Now to write a post title and try and make it sound awesome.