I AM still here and alive, I've been a bit busy over the summer doing, amongst other things:
- a week of soggy camping at New Wine where we had to move my tent on day 2 cos it was in danger of flooding, and we taught Antonio (from South Africa) that English summers are indeed colder than your average Durban winter day, that the sun doesn't often visit in August and that we the Brits taught the world how to do BBQs!!! (only joking, it's a Braai.) On the plus side, Jonny (lovely boyf) got to meet and greet lots of church folk and we heard some amazing teaching from all sorts of great speakers like Heidi Baker, Bill Johnson and the like. Awesome stuff and for that reason alone I shall forget about the rain and be back next year.
- Testing out the NHS as a mystery patient. Firstly, I got ill enough to check their weekly care in a ward of Warwick Hospital, then I spent a great deal of time phoning round the various departments to try and ascertain just when I was going to get an operation, then I managed to convince the nurse in pre-op that neither I nor anyone in my family has CJD (I thought it was fatal in any case?) before finally testing out their anaesthetic during a brief but major laparoscopic choltestectomy (check out the big words!). In other words, they removed my gallbladder by keyhole surgery. Truly it is a miracle. Apart from feeling like I'd been shot or an elephant had accidentally trod on me, which took about a week to improve, I was absolutely fine and can now manage a fish and chip supper with no bother whatsoever. The wonders of modern medecine eh! At least I can now enjoy houmous again.
- Following on from this excitement, I went through a brief period of self-pity at my state of unemployment before landing a supply teaching job in the lovely Birmingham borough of Handsworth. I say 'lovely', but it's your classic race riots, gangland area where several of my pupils have lost friends to gang-related shootings and drugs are rife, although thankfully not in my school. I feel relatively safe though because my classroom is on the third floor of a tower block with kiler stairs. No one is going to bother climbing them to attack me, not even Ofsted inspectors last week could make it up there. Pupils need several minutes to recover from the hike, although it doesn't stop some of them taking it out on each other with a few well-timed punches being thrown. Modern teaching eh! I'd forgotten how much fun it could be!!
- And then my lovely boyfriend Jonny moved over to Leamington to be nearer me and that's been a blessing and a challenge. Suddenly I have to stop being selfish and consider someone else for a change, which is quite tricky when you have a bad day at school and just want to do nothing but watch yet more 'Friends' on E4. He's still without a job and needs one soon, but God will provide, we have no doubt. It's just that a lead would be nice... It is brilliant to have him over though, and definitely a step forward from a long-distance relationship to a proper 'normal' relationship day-to-day.
So that's me for the moment. I'll try to blog more often, I need to get back into the habit! Remind me if I forget and you miss me ;-)
