Fave Friday

A while back I was trawling around looking for blogs about AG&T Education...

....incidentally, every blog I found was an American blog, mostly by homeschooling parents. I don't know whether Google just ordered them like that or I went off on a tangent, or what. It's disappointing, really, because there are shedloads of good bloggers out there on general/History teaching in the UK but nothing on AG&T, that I can find. I started my own. In the interests of keeping home web and work web separate, though, I won't post the URL here....

...I came across this blog, by a homeschooling mum called Kelli. She has all manner of little tricks up her sleeve for regular blogging, kind of like that knitting blog I mentioned a couple of months ago, including Work On it Wednesdays (WOW) where you did something you'd been putting off - that was a great idea but I sort of kept putting off setting myself a goal to complete something I'd been putting off. So (if you understood that) I never participated. Here's something easier though - Fave Friday. Five favourite things! Any things! How hard can it be?

Five Favourite Fiction Books
1. Like Water For Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel. I wish I was fluent in Spanish and could read the original. Perhaps that would be a good challenge one summer.
2. Futuretrack 5, by Robert Westall. A teen fiction book I still pick up and read again every so often. I really like the story.
3. The Falls, by Ian Rankin. Anything by him, really, but that sticks out as a particular fave. Unfortunately, since most of his books are murder mysteries, they can only be read once. I love his writing, though - he's a real wordsmith.
4. Memnoch the Devil, by Anne Rice. I went through the Vampire Chronicles phase about a decade ago but this one has stayed with me because she has some really unique views on religion. I also really like Queen of the Damned but that's more of a ripping yarn than a thought-provoking treatise.
5. The Dark Is Rising series, by Susan Cooper. More teen fiction, really, but I love all the old English history bits in here, and the way it's like a Famous Five adventure but not cheesy, and the fact that I've read them a dozen times and I STILL don't remember how it ends...


Long weekend ahead. I never really realised, when I accepted my contract as team leader on my regular exam paper, that the fact it was PAID much better than bog-standard examiner is because it's more WORK. I haven't stopped this week and could only manage an hour at knitting group last night, even. Rachel didn't even have time to give me The Look.

I've fallen back into the old routine of up at 6am, work for an hour, go to work, come home, eat, work until 10, Big Brother, bed, repeat. I love getting up at 6am, I get shedloads done and I feel much more with it during my commute and early morning school - it's a shame I can't force myself to stick to it unless my workload is double what it usually is.

Luckily the team leading duties will tail off a little over the next week, once my examiners are well into their allocations and marking consistently. I'm sort of disillusioned with it, though. BUT I keep my eyes on the prize...3 nights in Sequoia, 4 nights in Yosemite, 3 nights in Tahoe and then 2 nights in a haunted B&B in Virginia City...oh yes, it will all be worth it in just 6 short weeks. I'm going to go bear spotting and rafting and swimming in lakes, and getting noshed on by big, Californian mosquitoes, and knit a lace shawl, and take 100s of photographs, and break in some new walking boots, and get an amazing pedicure at that salon near Father Hand's house, and buy Philosophy products, and visit Jimmy Beans in Reno and buy yarn....it's going to be awesome.

Now....60 more responses to backread before I can start my weekend....


I should mention the positive, actually - I taught a grand total of 4 lessons this week. FOUR. Out of 25. I have been hanging out all year for year 11 to finally pop off so I can get all of that time I spent slogging through their coursework and marking their mocks, and it's finally here! I can go to work for a rest, now. I can get eveyrthing done I don't have time for in the evenings. I have been so very productive this week. Go me.