Into Geek: Holidays are Coming

Holidays are coming, holidays are coming (Coca-Cola Christmas Adverts)

I am feeling pretty Christmassy this weekend which makes up for feeling rather like the infamous Ebenezer Scrooge for the last few weeks. I do love the Christmas period and in my mind that starts on the 1st December. Now that is the 1st December Christmas is allowed to happen and I’m more appreciative of the Christmas decorations in our hallway that I despised three days ago and have re-discovered my Christmas playlist on Spotify. It’s been a bizarre week and I suppose now’s the time to recount it for you.

If you have keeping up to date with the chronicles of my life you will know that I am currently on a teaching placement. This week has involved me teaching lots of maths and literacy lessons, including one maths lesson which was observed my a tutor from my university. It wasn’t that great thanks to me cocking up what was on the interactive whiteboard and getting in a bit of a muddle because of it but I got decent enough comments about it. I did get in trouble for my paperwork being “inadequate”. I hate paperwork.

Amongst all the serious stuff was the crazy stuff. On Thursday afternoon I was part of the team trying to arrange it for the 60 children in the year group to make pizzas. There was a distinct lack of organisation which meant I spent the entire two hours running around like a headless chicken trying to sort things out. For me it began by cooking some tins of chopped tomatoes but to have enough for 60 kids it involved a lot of tins and a massive saucepan. Before this could happen I had to open the tins which took some time because the tin opener provided was virtually impossible to use. The rest of the afternoon was mostly organising baking trays- from handing them out to collecting them in to removing them from the ovens to washing them up. If I ever see another baking tray again it will be too soon. The children’s pizzas mostly turned out pretty well, although there were some rather unpleasant ones as well- one I saw consisted of strawberry sauce on a pizza base topped with chocolate and marshmallows but the most horrific one involved the usual toppings of tomatoes and cheese as well as chicken nuggets and chocolate sauce. That could not really be more wrong.

Friday afternoon was pretty bizarre as well. It was the Christmas bazaar at the school and I ended up co-running the “fish for a bottle” stall. This involved loads of really cheap bottle of fizzy drinks and a piece of bamboo with a string attached to it, with a tiny noose at the end. The idea was to loop the noose around the bottle to win the bottle. We made £22 for the school on this frankly atrocious stall. To celebrate the bazaar all the staff, which apparently includes me now, had to wear the most ridiculous Christmas jumper we could find. This was mine, borrowed from my housemate Josh:

It’s the hideous cream colour that makes me hate it. It’s pretty much the colour of vomit.

My one non-school thing this week came when I gave blood. This was on Thursday after the hectic pizza afternoon and I didn’t have time for dinner so I was a little paranoid I was going to pass out. It turned out I was fine though. The highlight came in the form of the awesome new chairs that they now have. These are chairs which you sit on and then can be tilted back when you give blood. Once you’ve been drained you can be tilted upright over a series of steps so it doesn’t get too much for you. I am easily pleased and felt the need to comment on the amazingness of the chairs to the nurse, who couldn’t really have cared less. Still, she feigned interest even though it was clear she thought I was some sort of psycho.

And there we have it, another week gone by. It’s the 1st of December so I hope you’re all starting to enjoy your advent calendars- I am certainly am with this treat in mine today: