Charlton vs Peterborough

So I had the pleasure of experiencing my first ever football match two nights ago. The stadium was only about a 5 minute walk from my house and I could still hear people celebrating at the stadium from home.

It was crazy to see the crowds at my usual train station, and the number of police was very intimidating. Basically, from the train station (a block from my place) to the stadium there was a police officer standing in front of every other house down the street.

We got there just minutes before the game started and I think we were all surprised at how big and busy the place was. Our little Charlton was buzzing.

The teams were our own Charlton (red and white) vs Peterborough. (For my Canadian readers, they pronounce it Peterburrah) as my roommates continue… still…. to remind me. No one scored in the first half (45 minutes) and despite my leggings, jeans, two pairs of socks, boots, two long sleeve shirts, two sweaters and winter coat I was freezing and wondering if anything would ever happen. Finally. 75 minutes into the 90 minute game we scored! And a few minutes after that we scored again!! We won the game!

There is nothing like the sound of the chants at a football match. And I went to a blue jays/ Yankee baseball game right before I left Canada that had twice as many people. I didn’t understand the words they were saying but it was easy to tell when people were pleased and when they were not.

My roommate Dan cautioned me about rubbing people the wrong way at a football match but I was cheering for Charlton. There was only a small section cheering for Peterborough so it felt pretty safe.

All in all it was amazingly fun, although I don’t think I saw a true football hooligan. I might need to go to the big leagues, a ManU game or something, to see that.

Some interesting things about the whole experience.
– You could buy a drink, but not bring it into the stadium (but they can drink anywhere here!)
– no smoking, anywhere, even within the gates, but still outside the stadium. I have one friend who smokes here so that is how I found this out.
– everyone seems to know all the chants, even the little kids
– soccer is way easier to follow than hockey. The ball moves so much slower than the puck, you can tell the players apart without having to memorize their numbers and the rules are pretty straight forward.

Best moment:
Me: “basically, they fall down, look so incredibly hurt, like they will never walk again, and then when the ref calls a penalty or makes his call either way, they just get up and keep playing?”
Jay: “yep”
Me: “so they are just pretty much faking it to get what ever they want”
Jay: “well they are men, aren’t they?”

Haha. Good times with my Uk ladies 🙂 (even though they are all Canadian or American)

Baking cookies

So a couple of days ago I had a really, really bad day. I took the wrong train to a school. Normally this is pretty easy to fix but I actually got on an express train in another direction so got very far away before I could just hop off and fix it. They had to send my friend (who thought she had the day off) to the school instead.

Anyway, I really wanted to bake cookies to make myself feel better. I didn’t have any ingredients or equipment so I settled on chocolate chip because they are so easy.

I found a recipe by Michael Smith (because everything I do these day has to have an element of candiana) and I was on my way.

First stop, TK Maxx for equipment. Wooden spoon, cooling rack, two bowls- about £10

Second stop, Asda for supplies. (Measuring cups/ spoons came from here too, and a cookie sheet) Most things I found alright. The lady working there couldn’t tell me if the flour was sifted (it wasn’t labelled so I was worried). The eggs were not refrigerated. No corn syrup so I had to use golden syrup which is similar but definitely tastes different (I’m not sure what it is). Finding that was a chore. Another lady at Asda charmingly remarked, “Maybe you should spend some time looking up what things are called here before you come shopping”. Ya thanks…. And I’m still not sure if soda bicarbonate is the same as baking soda… But I decided to try it. (£15)

Ok… So then I got home. Looking at my “butter” which is actually a “spread” made of olive oil and wondering if that will work. (It did in the end I just had to keep putting it in the fridge because it was a little runny).

As I’m putting together all of these questionable ingredients and hoping that they will work out, my house mate walks into the kitchen and questions what I’m doing. He asks why I’m baking cookies and I tell him it’s just because I feel like it. He then informs me that people don’t just make cookies for the sake of it. ( news to me)

Working out the oven, which is tiny, was a challenge in itself, and I had to get help from another room mate. (He also thought I was crazy, more so because I couldn’t work the oven though.) I ended up burning some of the cookies a little but they were still good.

The plate I left out by the stove seemed to be less and less full each time I walked into the kitchen. I don’t think my roommates minded all the trouble in the end.

Some random mobile pics.

Here are some unedited pictures from my phone. The first few are Guy Fawkes night. Two of my house mates came with me to see the largest fireworks display in London at Blackheath park. That was pretty fun. The fire works lasted almost half an hour! My neck did have a bit of a kink after that. It was nice just to spend time with the people I live with though. Our schedules are just so opposite from each other. They are really cool guys. Then there is a picture of the Thames from Greenwich on the same night. There is graffiti that was scratched into the back of a train seat that I believe says, “Cautious Diamond” and finally a picture of me. Not snapped for the purpose of this blog. It shows how long my hair is getting though so I thought I’d include it…

I’m still experimenting with the best and easiest way to upload pictures. I’m so far behind on this… expect a few more picture type posts so I can get through a lot of the pictures I’ve take over the last few months. 🙂

Some Random Pictures

Out and about for a walk, I couldn’t get over how big these trees were.

To try and illustrate how big they are, here are some fallen leaves next to my feet.

It is, isn’t it?

I do go out a lot, but I rarely take my camera. It is only light here until about 3:30 and it is always a grey dull light. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to compensate for the poor lighting. My photos are looking quite dull. 🙂

Diamond vs. the pharmacist

“Can I help you?”

“Oh yes please, I’m looking for a painkiller brand good for headaches”

“Oh, ok, do you have any other symptoms?”

“No I just deal with noisy kids all day and I’d like to have a bottle of pills on hand”

“Oh we don’t sell that here”

“Pardon?”

“We don’t have anything like that.”

“Aren’t all these tablets for that”

“Oh yes, we have tablets … I’ve never heard of ‘a bodle ov peels’ ;)”

“-.-” *you’re really funny*

A teaching update.

So, I’ve been teaching at the same school for five weeks. This should be enough explanation for why I haven’t been updating my blog too much. Well, it would be enough of an explanation if you are a teacher. I cannot believe how much work I have put in over the last five weeks between the marking and planning. It’s hard enough when it is your first year teaching… but learning an entirely new curriculum, set of school routines, expections, and marking scheme on top of that is near impossible. (or so I thought).

Thankfully I’m done at that school for now and I can take a bit of a break and just supply teach for a little while. Supply teaching has it’s own ups and downs but what is great is that at the end of the day, I can come home and relax without worrying too much about it. Each day, more or less is a fresh start.

I was just teaching grade 6-9 (in Canadian terms, since most of my readers are friends and family from home). It’s quite difficult to adjust my own teaching education to adapt to the needs of students several years younger than I am used to, but I enjoyed the challenge. I really enjoyed teaching grade 6 and grade 9 but that equally reflects the classes I had, not just the ages.

Noteworthy events: Often staying twelve hours at school and giving the caretakers a fright when they come to lock up the english building. Meeting a few young teachers who were pretty cool, took me cool places and made me feel at home. Many students connecting with me, including two boys in particular who have severe behaviour problems but were golden for me.

Ok… actually I’ll pause there to share an anecdote. One of those boys, who behaviour I just called golden, came up to me one day with a book in his hand. He said, “Miss, I found YOUR book… here you go.” “Oh thank you, but I have a book here”, “No miss, this one is yours” “Haha, ok, thank you” … then I turn to see another student in tears on the ground and I run to his aid. Later I find out that while I was writing the page number on the board, this boy who had just been so sweet, had strangled the other student because he thought he had my copy of the novel. Although he got into a lot of trouble and I had to do some restorative justice so that the injured student would feel comfortable in the class again, I still couldn’t help but feel like I’d made an impression on this young boy. A small accomplishment, but I got him sitting quietly through lessons and reading so…. not too bad.

I suppose there isn’t anything outrageous that happened to me while teaching at this particular school outside of London. I did not … at all, in any way, enjoy the work load…. but the staff were friendly and the students… could have been worse.

Tomorrow I’m back to supply teaching… waiting at the station at 7:30 to get the call… we will see how that goes… hopefully, I don’t end up teaching reception again (age 3).

With love 🙂