What the Butcher saw...

I came in from work last night to find Butch watching one of my favourite films, City of God. I saw it in the theatres when it came out, and then didn't watch it for years, despite the fact that I received it for my birthday on DVD. I finally got round to viewing it again on new year's day, very early in the morning, when I was waiting to go to the airport to fly back to England. Bethany was supposed to watch it with me, but she fell asleep. Despite the fact that I was incredibly tired, and watching it on a 7" portable DVD screen, I was once again wowed by the cinematography, incredible acting, and the harsh reality of the violence. The plot's pretty good too.

I was very pleased then, having been exposed to it again last night, to find that my very good friend James had written a review of it for digital-coffee.com. You can read the review here.

In other news, I went for a run last night. That's right, a run. I'm swimming tonight too. It's all part of a new initiative to get me in shape for my wedding. I know that there's a year to go yet, but trust me; the baggy sweaters do a great job of concealing a lot of extra weight that I shouldn't really be carrying. It's not the only change to my lifestyle either. But more on that later. Right now, I'm going to go have my lunch in a classroom. Then go for a swim. Then maybe I'll watch City of God again...

Nerves...

Well, who'd have thought it? I just took my first part of a lesson, and I was so scared! I have no fear of the kids, and I'm more than happy to work with them in smaller groups, but this was the first time that I've had to stand at the front of a whole class and write on the board. The first time that I've had to actually teach them something entirely new.

We were looking at time, and counting in five minute intervals between designated times. They caught on really quickly, and I was fairly confident that they'd achieved the objective of the session. Then the teacher came and took over for the rest of the time. She observed me as I taught, and gave me some valuable feedback, which you can find below:

Introduced the topic. You need to ask child rather than look at the whole class. Direct questions.
Good. Let children see their own mistake and work out the answer to correct themselves. Ask them to say how they worked things out (eg 14x5=70). Drew out well the 60 minutes = 1 hour.
Always ask the child to explain. Some do this automatically. A child's explanation is sometimes better than ours, as some children listen to other pupils better.

I feel much more confident now, as I feel that I've got over the biggest hurdle, and I've also recieved some valuable advice into the bargain.

It was a funny morning too. When we first came into the class, one child was showing me the latest addition to his pencil case - a bendy pencil. It looks like, and works like a normal pencil, but you can bend it to a certain extent. The boy next to him also had one. He was so pleased with it, and very keen to demonstrate how bendy it was. But he was a bit too rough, and snapped it in half... Ha ha ha ha. The other hilarious incident from this morning was in games. We were in the gym, and the children were in pairs, throwing a ball to each other, and catching it with one hand. The teacher asked them to use the hand that they use the least i.e. if you're right handed, catch with your left; if you're left handed, catch with your right. One boy announced proudly that he could catch equally well with both hands. The teacher told him that he should use whichever one he wanted. I had to laugh when I saw the look on his partner's face, as she threw him the ball for the first time, and he fumbled it and dropped it on the floor. Priceless...

A fun weekend was had, all in all. I went to a party on Saturday night at a very posh house. Full of people who thought that the most fun thing you can do at a party is stand around chatting politely with people of the same social class as you. We went outside and caused a ruccus. Butch invented a game where you had to kick cookie over a fence. Some random guy that realised we were having much more fun than anyone else came out and had a go. But his shoe came off and flew into next door's garden. Hilarious...
I got up a bit late on Sunday as a result though, and only made it to church for the Word (which Mashworth explained was a particularly significant name for it). The sermon was really good, and challenged me on a couple of things. Basically, it was looking at Annaneus and Saphira, and how they edged closer and closer to sin, playing chicken with it, until they took the final step; when what they should have done was run the other way when the idea came to them. I had a bit of a chat with God afterwards, and agreed with him some ways that I can avoid falling into the trap of playing chicken with sin. Really useful stuff, actually.

In the afternoon, I cleaned the house finally, so it looks great again. My parents have just got back from the Carribean, and they brought me a bunch of gifts and stuff. Hilariously, after I made the decision that morning to stop drinking alcoholf for the forseeable future, they gave me a bottle of fine Trinidad rum. Nuts. Not sure what I'll do with that... It was good to see them though, and they told me that they're decorating my old room, so the bed that's in there at the moment is going spare. I need a new bed, so they're bringing it up for me. And my old wardrobe, which I can paint. I was planning to decorate my room in February when Bethany's over, so that works out really nicely.

We had some great cheese last night too. A superb mature blue stilton. Ate it with Tim and Butch after a game of Fluxx. I thoroughly recommend this game to all that can get hold of a copy. Along with Scrabble, it's our favourite game for 2006.
Right, that's quite enough of that. There's work to be done. Catch you later...

Nothing changes...

It doesn't matter how many times I come back to Lincoln, it's always the same. My Best Man, James, is back for the weekend from London, so I too made the journey across into England's equivalent of Hicksville. As I could have predicted, James and Sujee, despite announcing that they would 'definately be there by 11' didn't turn up until midnight. Any normal people would have seen this as a good chance to have a few minutes catching up, before going to bed. But we were in Lincoln. At Damien's house. So, at quarter past twelve, we strode out of the house, and towards any pub that would still serve us beer. We didn't get in until quarter to four. Ah, a good time was had by all though. We went to Dogma, where I bumped into a good friend that I haven't seen for ages. Damo bought the drinks, and we sat in the corner and laughed until we cried. I haven't laughed that much in ages...

Before any of that could happen, though, I had to go to college. My second day back in university, and it was dreadful. The week before had just been an introduction to the English section of the course, so it was fairly general. But yesterday proved that our lecturer for the subject is pretty terrible. I just thought that our class was very sedate, but when the other group came to join us in the afternoon, I discovered that the problem lay with her. She just stands at the front and talks for two hours. If you try to make a contribution, she will shout you down and belittle you. It was pretty awful.

I never expected to enjoy the college part of the course as much as the being in school; one of the reasons that I love the idea of taking this route into teaching is that I get really hands on experience, and learn through doing the job. I'd rather not be sat in a room, listening to someone talk to me about it. It's interesting that, as a teacher, she demonstrates none of the good practice that she teaches us about. Remind me to do my best to avoid falling into that trap. Things will lighten up, I'm sure. Two more weeks of this, and then we're onto another subject, with a different tutor. And I'm still learning something, so all is not lost.

On my way over to Lincoln, I have to go through my home town of Worksop. I gave my sister a call, to tell her that I was going to stop off at McDonald's for a bite to eat when I got there. It turned out that she and her boyfriend were heading there at the same time as me on their way to his house, so we rocked up at the same time. We spent about an hour and a half, just talking and being silly. And laughing a lot, actually. Last night was a good night for laughing. We talked about our jobs, and had a great time. It was an unexpected bonus of the weekend. And it's only just begun. It's Saturday morning, I'm in Lincoln, and it's a beautiful day. I'm going to head into town with James soon, go meet some more old friends and have coffee. Then back home to Leeds, where I will practice with the band, and follow it up with a visit to my friend's birthday party. Good times. All this, and more, to come, when we play I don't have to work weekends any more...

Wordplay...

One of the reasons that I love the English language so much is that it's so complicated. Just when you think that you have a rule worked out for something, you find the exception. It makes things more interesting. Unfortunately, it doesn't make it particularly easy to explain rules of English to a group of 8 year-olds.

This morning, we were looking at pre-fixes. The task was to look through a dictionary, in groups of two, and find words that begin with ad- or al-. Then, the aim was to decide whether the ad- or al- in that word was a prefix or not. To help in this difficult objective, we explained the meaning of each of these pre-fixes; ad means 'moving towards' and al means 'in a state of...' In itself, those are pretty abstract concepts. Now try applying them to every word that uses those pre-fixes. Now try explaining your reasoning to a bunch of children aged 8. Then get them to work some out for themselves. I'm quickly learning that this teaching lark is a lot harder than it first seems. Trying to motivate children to do things is hard enough. Trying to get them to do things that they don't understand is practically impossible.

Out of school, I've been living wild. Monday night was the craziest. I went to the pub with Matt Ashworth, Tim next door and Rob Littler. We took a game of Scrabble with us. That's my idea of a great night out. The pub, with a word game. It seems that we weren't alone in this; the man at the table next to us had got a cryptic crossword that he was puzzling over. I won't bore you with a play-by-play of our contest, but I will tell you that it was very close; all decided in the last three words played. I'll also tell you that I was victorious. I remain unbeaten on my home turf of Leeds, and I intend to make sure that this remains the case...

Lunchtime...

I just had a cup of soup for my lunch. Well, a cup of water and powder. Why is it that no matter how much you stir those things, there's always a huge lump of slime at the bottom? One day I shall invent the perfect instant soup.

This morning has flown by. I started off in the class that I'm usually in when I go into mainstream. We did literacy, and continued where we left off the other day; writing descriptive settings. The class teacher is excellent with me, and put me with a more able group today, so that I could see a bit more of the range within the class. I'm learning so much, and I feel very privileged to be able to train in this way, picking up things from the practitioners. It will be interesting, I think, to see how Butch gets on when he starts his course in September, as he will be taking the more traditional PGCE route, the majority of which is spent in college as opposed to school.

We had an assembly this morning, which was fantastic, as it gave me a chance to see how the school funcions as a community. Being in the partnership room with the kids with ASC, I don't get much of a chance to experience this aspect of school life, so it was a lot of fun. Even more so because it was a singing assembly. A lovely lady came in for the first of a series of monthly sessions, to try to get the school singing. We did a couple of school hymns, including Praise Him, a classic from my own primary school days. Superb stuff.

I did, as I hoped I would, avoid having to do any exercise this morning, by getting out of PE. I went to the class next door instead, and did a literacy lesson with them too. It's quite advantageous for me to do so much of this subject at the moment, as that's what we're concentrating on for the first 4 weeks of college. Hopefully I'll be able to put some theory into practice in the classroom, and take some of my practical experiences to college with me. I'll let you know if my expectations are fulfilled over the next few weeks...

Suited and booted...

And ready for another day in mainstream classes. I got even more dressed up today, and have gone with the full suit for maximum smartness. Even though all I'm likely to do is sit and make notes on what happens in class. College was good on Friday, but I have to be honest; I didn't learn an awful lot. It was pretty much a day of introduction onto the course, and it was a good chance for the tutor to get an idea of how much experience we had. As a result, we talked a lot about what we already knew, but it will provide a good foundation for what we're about to learn. It was rather odd to be back on the other side of a desk, listening to someone else talk, and making notes. I had a brief moment where I actually had to consider the possiblity that the past 18 months had not taken place at all, and I had been at university the whole time, but common sense prevailed.

Right, I know this was a short post, but I need to go make my presence known in class. Perhaps I'll be desperately needed for something this morning. Otherwise, I'll just watch what happens, and let you know of anything exciting. I knwo that the kids are going to do PE this morning; I intend to come to the computer and do some work here instead of running around. Catch you later...

NEW FOR 2006!

I've been meaning to blog about this for a while now. We're compiling a list of things that are hot this year. Here's what we have so far:

Eating blue cheese - Blue cheese is awesome. Be it blue Stilton, Danish blue, blue brie, double Gloucester blue, Shropshire blue, or one of the many other fantastic mouldy cheeses, spread it on your crackers, your bread, your bagels; eat it in chunks or wedges; enjoy it with a spot of port or even just a glass of water. Blue cheese is great, and everybody's eating it.

Contradictions - that's right; everyone who's anyone is contradicting themself this year. Check out this lovely little excerpt from confetti's little book The Groom's Wedding. This very useful book tells you all the things you need to know to be the groom at a wedding. So, with reference to how to stand out at your wedding by your choice of clothes:

'If you're looking for something really different, the frockcoat is a popular choice.'

I don't think that we need to say anything else about that.

Teenagers whispering in shopping malls - This is going to be huge this year, trust me. They're everywhere. Blocking doorways, sitting on steps, hanging out outside washrooms. The list goes on. Whispering conspiritorially. Perhaps they're plotting something, I'm not sure. All I know is that everywhere you look in a shopping mall there's groups of kids whispering to each other. It's what all the cool kids are doing.

Alliteration - loads of literate lunatics all over the land are letting loose lots of like letters. If you're not constructing sentences overflowing with this poetic tool, then you're nobody in the literate world this year.

So, the list isn't exhaustive by any means, but it is in place. Observe it, learn from it, live by it, and you'll be cool.

Another possible entry for the list is blogging in England. I know that it's been very popular over in Canada for ages now, and some people over here caught wind very quickly. But it seems to me that lots of people that I know have just suddenly got their own blog. The pick of the bunch is this one. Steve Darke, front man of the wonderful Band Club, and station manager at Leeds Student Radio let's loose his opinions on pretty much everything (with an emphasis on music). Beware, some of the language is a little choice, but the blog is fantastic. I like it so much that I'm putting a permanent link to it on my sidebar...

In other news, my housemate, Butch, fell out of the shower the other day (he informed me last night). He was, apparently, performing a particularly vigorous rendition of the Christian classic, Lord I Lift Your Name on High, with actions, when it all got a bit to much for the space he was in; he tripped over the side of the bath, and ended up sprawled all over the washroom floor. Superb work, Mr Butch.

College was great yesterday, but I think that this post has been long enough for most people to digest. I'll let you know more about the course and what happened yesterday next week. Have a great weekend, guys...

O2 much to ask...

I made you a promise on the last post. I said that I would put up a picture of myself looking smart. I can't, thanks to my cell phone network provider. O2, who make it possible for me to make and recieve calls and text messages, sent my phone off for repairs last week. You may remember me telling you that it was broken. I had a voicemail message from them last night, saying that it was ready to pick up when I wanted. I went and got it back. I was very happy about that. But when I tried to make a telephone call, the person on the other end of the line couldn't hear me. So I tried another call. They couldn't hear me either. The microphone is broken. I thought I'd make the best of having the phone anyway, and had Rob take a picture of me in my posh togs with it to put on here. But when I tried to link the phone to a computer, it didn't recognise the fact that there were pictures on the memory stick. That's broken too. Now I have to take the phone back again, and have them fix it. That means another week (or more) without a phone, and another two trips into town to visit the shop. I'm not altogether impressed. If I'm honest, it's a bit unacceptable.

As for the rest of my morning yesterday, it was great fun. We did some writing work, and I got involved in the activity, helping one or two of the less able children. They were very happy to have me around, and I learned an awful lot. I'm looking forward to Monday now, when I get to spend the day in there again. I'm in college tomorrow, for my first day of lectures on the course. I'll let you know how it goes. But for now, I have to get back to class. There's work to be done, you know. I can't stand round here all day chatting...

An observation...

Things are going well. I've only done half the morning so far, but I've made three pages of notes. I can't see this lasting - it's going to settle down a little. I'm just taking note of every single thing that happens in the classroom at the moment. I'll give you some examples when I have a bit more time, but recess is about to finish, and I'm going to have to rush this somewhat. It's been fun so far though, and the class teacher is being really helpful. We get on well anyway, so that's a good start.

On a slightly different subject, Sgt Steve made comments on a few of my recent posts. For those of you that are new to this blog, or haven't read it in a while, or don't read the comments, he posed a question:

Hey Question to everyone, when I read mark blog I pretend as if Mark is reading it to me so I get the proper english accent and the mark twist put on it. Is it just me who does that????

What do you guys think? Is it just Steve, or is it across the board. I have it in good faith that Bethany does the same. She told me herself.

I look real smart today. Normally I wear sneakers to work, with a t-shirt and hoodie, and phat cords. But today, as I'm in mainstream class, and not crawling round on the floor, I'm in shirt and tie (!), a nice sweater (thanks Mom and Dad) nice pinstripe pants, and smart brown shoes (thanks Bethany for shopping with me). Man, I look good. I mean really good. Hey, everyone, come see how good I look! I think I'll get a picture taken, and post it on here. Nobody will believe me otherwise...

Get on with it...

So, this morning I begin my course proper. I've been doing some paperwork and stuff towards it, but I haven't yet begun observing lessons. Until now. I was supposed to be in a mainstream class observing what goes on all day Monday (which is why Mr. Mullet was taking my place), but the class teacher that I will be with was off sick. She's back today, so I can go ahead and start watching what she does. This is a very important part of my course, particularly in the beginning, because it enables me to gain some hints and tips on classroom management, and lesson structure. It also helps me, because I make notes on what I see, and these go towards my evidence file, which is what will eventually be assessed to see if I should be given QTS (Qualified Teacher Status).

I'm off to the classroom now. I'll let you know how it goes...

The phantom mullet...

For those of you that don't know, or can't see the picture properly, I've gotten myself a mullet. Several things are to be noted regarding this haircut: a popular question is (to me) 'Doesn't Bethany want you to cut it off?'/(to Bethany) 'Don't you want him to cut it off?'. The answer to this question is always that Bethany has wanted me to grow a mullet for some time now, and is rather pleased that I did so. She didn't like the moustache, though...
Still on the subject of my hair, an interesting thing happened today. To understand why the following anecdote is funny, you must realise that I modelled my awful hairdo on the styles of two people in particular; Barry Chuckle from the Chuckle Brothers, and a man that lives just over the road from me. His haircut is quite terrible in appearance (although I suspect he rather likes it). So, today was my first official day on my teaching course. As I will not be in the classroom on Mondays, the school has provided a Learning Support Assistant to take my place every week. I was first in this morning, so I was left in charge of making sure he knew where he was going. Imagine my surprise (and consequent shame) when I discovered that the man who was allowing me to train to teach was none other than the ape-drape wearing chap who lives across the street. I found it difficult to keep a straight face...

As I have noted above, I have, today, begun my teaching course proper. Unlike most courses that result in Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), this one is an employment based route into teaching. This means, effectively, that I spend most of my time in school, and only go into college one day a week. Initially I spend my time mainly observing qualified teachers, and making notes on what they do, but I progress, as the year goes by, to taking the classes myself. This should be quite interesting to others, as well as myself, because I think that it will give some insights into the teaching profession, and give a glimpse of the work that is involved in training to teach. I have made the decision, therefore, to blog about the things that I experience whilst I am on the course. The question is, do I do it here, on this blog, or do I create a new one, specific to the subject? Let me know what you think. In the meantime, I'm going to go brush my hair...

Mom will flip...

Mommy Ventura, I mean. I'm blogging considerably more than my usual once monthly efforts at the moment, and I can't imagine that this won't take some people by surprise. Particularly my future mother in law. She's always saying I should blog more frequently, and so, as part of my attempt to get in with the in-laws, I'm here again. Of course, I'm only joking. I wanted to blog. Mom, you should get a blog of your own.

So, I fixed my computer. I formatted the hard drive, and while I was at it, took out the faulty cdr/dvd combo drive, and put in an old cd drive that was lying about instead. It's a bit annoying, because I can't burn cds, but I don't miss the dvd bit. I never used it anyway. And at least I have a drive that reads cds now. It's also meant that I can install my webcam driver, so I'm rather pleased with myself. I can't take all the credit for this act of reconstruction on my system; my housemate Rob did more than his fair share. What a star...

Today I purchased for myself a copy of the popular board game, Scrabble. It was all part of the casual day that myself and my neighbour, Tim, enjoyed. We headed into town after a few games of magnetic darts (I'm not going to get started on that one...) and went to run a few errands. We were rather pleased that we didn't have any constraints on our time to speak of, so we strolled around Leeds at our leisure. I was looking for the aformentioned word strategy game, and intended to come home with a copy. We tried so many shops, but few stocked it (to our surprise). We eventually went back to the original shop that we had found it in, only to discover that someone had seemingly purchased all three copies that were in stock only hours before. Not to be perturbed by this, I bought a device that allows the board to be rotated easily, and headed to Argos, where I located the game in the Laminated Book of Dreams, and headed over to recieve it from the Pale, Mythical Warden of the Treasure.

I won't bore you with further details of my day, from our ride back home on the bus, to a trip to the supermarket with Butch, on to some Monty Python, and the establishment of my throne as Scrabble King of Village Place. Needless to say, it was a stinking good day, and a real blessing to have a weekend with no obligating commitments.

There's only one thing that sucks about this weekend. Not only is my lovely fiancee in another country (which I kind of get used to), but this weekend she's away doing an encounter weekend. She's out of contact. No phone calls for me to make or recieve. No emails waiting in my inbox when I get in. I miss her, and it sucks. I'm aware that the last time that I voiced my opinion on a matter similar to this, I was shouted down, so I'm not going to go on about it. I just wanted to say how I felt. And to tell her, when she reads this, that I love her...

If it ain't broke...

Then it probably doesn't belong to me. It's been a funny few days since I got back from Canada. The culture change always gets me more when I come back here. I don't know if it's because I feel more at home in Canada, but I always find it harder to start driving on the left again than I do to start driving on the right. I find it harder to say 'toilet' than 'washroom'. I suspect that I find it harder to go back to work than I do to turn up and bum around with no job to do for a couple of weeks. But the way of life is easier there, I think, and my fiancee's there too, so I guess I'd rather be there.

My computer is having issues, so that's something I have to fix. I don't know quite what's wrong with it, but the hard drive is a bit tired, so I think that I'm going to format it this weekend, and start afresh. That should speed things up a bit. My cell phone broke, so I took that in to be fixed. It's going to take two weeks before it returns to me, and I forgot to copy all my numbers out of it first, so I have an old cell phone, with no way of contacting most of the people that I want to contact. When I was taking my phone into Leeds to the shop to have it fixed, I parked my car outside an apartment complex at the top of town that I used to live at. I happen to know that, although there is a huge steel gate at the entrance, during the university holidays, they leave it open all the time. True to experience, when I arrived, the gate was open, so I drove in, and Butch and I walked into town. On the way back, I bumped into our next door neighbour, Tim, and petitioned him to come back with us, rather than on the bus. I thought it might save him time. When we got back to the car, the gate was locked, and nobody there knew how to unlock it. We had to walk home. I did manage to get it the following evening though.

The computer in our living room has sadly passed away, and my playstation is deteriorating rapidly. It currently displays a bit of an unwillingness to play dvds all the way through, which is a bit annoying. My cordless phone has given up the ghost. It seems that I've come back to everything getting a bit broken. Fortunately, this doesn't include my life. I'm healthy, I have a good future to look forward to in Canada. Plans are taking shape, and the preparations for my teaching course are also in full swing. I can't wait to get back to church. My band is going to record this month, and everything seems pretty good. So, who cares if a few of my material possessions are a bit rubbish? Not me...

Hockey gloves...

So, my wonderful fiancee's parents (and my future parents) bought me these awesome hockey gloves for christmas. They're Bauer, and they're black and orange, which perfectly matches the Steelers jersey. I like them so much that I'm going to do everything in them from now on. So, let's see how I get on with this blog. If I don't manage to type it correctly before then, have a happy new year, guys...

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Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

So, it's Boxing Day. That means yesterday was Christmas Day. As most of you know, I've been in Canada for a week now, and I'm spending the season with Bethany and her family. One of the things I was looking forward to most was the idea of a white Christmas. Beacause England isn't known for its snowy scenes, Toronto was a much more promising location for this festive fantasy, and I was very pleased when I arrived to find that there was a good deal of the cold, white stuff already on the ground.

Unfortunately, by Christmas eve, it was raining, and the temperature was above freezing. The snow was melting, and it was all rather annoying. Just before Bethany and I went to bed on Christmas eve, we prayed a slightly childish prayer, that it would snow on Christmas day.

We woke up in the morning, and, true to the weather forecast, the rain was falling. Nevertheless, we had a great day, and lots of lovely presents and time with the family. Then, around seven, we looked out the window, and it was snowing! The weather forecast said this wouldn't happen! We looked out again after about an hour, and the flakes were bigger than I have ever seen. Bethany thinks that she only ever saw snow like that once before in her life. The biggest ones were about the size of an Oreo cookie... It was ridiculous. And it was wet snow. Packing snow. The funnest kind. Bethany and I went out to make a snowman. It was amazing. And we came back and had hot toddies and hot chocolate to warm up.

It was just another example of God providing above and beyond what we'd asked or expected. We hoped for a trip to Canada; I got business class and a cheque into the bargain. We hoped for a romantic trip to Montreal; we got engaged. We hoped for a bit of snow; we got the biggest snow we ever saw. God is so good!

Devinez quoi...

So, the pictures say it all... I told you the story about the airline giving me all that money, and I really felt that God was giving it to me for a reason. So, I planned my course of action. On Monday, Bethany and I drove to Montreal with our friend Tobi. I was so happy, because I got to drive there, which is what I wanted to do all along. Well, on Tuesday, after a great day downtown (which, by the way, is incredibly beautiful at Christmas), we went out for a walk, heading for a restaurant that Tobi had recommended. We saw this beautiful church, with a view of the mountain, and covered in snow. We walked to the top of the steps of the building, and the bells started to ring. Bethany asked me if I could hear them, but I didn't respond, as I was too nervous... I got down on one knee, and produced a ring from my pocket, and asked Bethany to marry me.

She said 'are you joking?', three times before she said yes! Man, I was so nervous... Anyway, we're very happy, and we're looking forward to our life together. Right, I'd best go. I'm spending Christmas with her family, and we have a bunch of stuff to do. And I have a wedding to plan. Merry Christmas, gang...

I always do this...

Man, why is it that I only ever really blog when I'm in Canada? I mean, it's well over a month since I blogged last, and the one before that was written over here too.

So, I'm here once again. This time for Christmas. You wouldn't believe what happened to me on the way here. I travelled down to London on Thursday night, where I visited an excellent pub at Great Portland Street, the name of which escapes me. James and I drank Timothy Taylor Landlord, and the Owner of the pub put my suitcase in the cellar for me. We took the bus up to James' house in Golders Green, and I spent the night on his floor, using a towel for a mattress, and an empty duvet cover as my blanket. Next to a radiator that was hotter than the sun.

I didn't sleep so well, but I was up and away on time, and we enjoyed an unexpectedly good breakfast in a Weatherspoons at Baker Street station. After this, we parted ways, and I headed, with my suitcase, enormous backpack, and hand luggage, to Kings Cross, where I could change trains for the airport. Everything was going to plan. Then I arrived at the terminal building, to see the line of all lines for the check in desk. I waited for an hour, and then I was told that the flight had been overbooked, and I wouldn't get on it. I was sent over to a ticket desk, where I was told someone would sort me out. I thought this kind of thing only happened in the movies...

Well, I spoke to the guy, and he sorted me out with a flight the next morning at nine. He gave me vouchers for all the meals I'd be around for, and he got me a hotelf for the night, with transfers. Then, as is Air Canada policy, he gave me a hefty cheque (or check, depending on the way you look at it). I went away rejoicing at my misfortune!

So I spent the night in this hotel, hanging out with a young Canadian couple who now live in Cardiff, and were trying to head back to see the family. I didn't get much sleep, but that didn't matter much, because I knew that I had the flight to catch up. I got back to the airport in plenty of time, and as I checked in, was told that I had been upgraded to business class. It was UNSTINKINGBELIEVABLE. I'm not kidding, it was hilarious. You imagine me, in first class? Ridiculous.

Anyway, I'm off to Montreal for a couple of days with Bethany now. We're driving up with Tobi, and coming back on the bus on Wednesday. It's going to be pretty awesome. More upon my return. Peace out...

Gunpowder, treason and plot...

I don't know how long you've been reading this blog. If you're one of the people that's been checking my sporadic posts for more than a year, then you may remember my entry from November 3, 2004, Four. Stinking. Years.

I'm not going to repeat everything that I said a year ago; if you want to know, then read it yourself. But I'll tell you that, as the photograph testifies, I finally fulfilled my dream of attending the big celebration at Roundhay Park last night. And very enjoyable it was too. I went with a group of good friends, and it was everything I thought it would be, and more. We ate toffee apples. We watched fireworks. We enjoyed the heat of a huge bonfire. I purchased an overpriced, underflavoured cheeseburger. We revelled in the 400 year past torture and execution of a group of conspiratory Catholics. Check out the rest of the pictures in the Kodak gallery...

Wife skills...

Today I sat and ate lunch in the TACF Riverside Cafe with a good friend of mine, Jonathan Puddle. I wish I could do this more often than I currently do, but unfortunately, there's a little matter of living on different continents. Jonathan was eating a tasty tuna pasta lunch prepared for him by his new wife, who is a good friend of my beautiful girlfriend. In this meal was a vegetable that was initially impossible to identify, but then we realised that it was just broccoli chopped up really small. I mean really small. We had never known it was possible to cut that particular vegetable into pieces of that size until now, and as a result, we came to the conclusion that only a wife would be able to do it.

Could this be the case? Is it possible that at some point during the wedding ceremony; the transition from woman to wife, she gains the ability to do new tasks? Things that would have been impossible before the lawful joining together of herself with a husband? Could it be that the ability of a woman to perform such skills as the minute chopping of broccoli is inextricably linked to marriage?

Head count...

We're going downtown today. We planned it on Saturday, and finalised the idea yesterday. We wanted to get all the stuff that I need to do downtown finished early in the week so that we're not rushing to do it later. We decided to leave by nine am so that we got there and had as long as we wanted. It's now ten after ten, and Bethany is just BRUSHING HER TEETH.

Last night we went to Walt's. Well, it's a Boston Pizza now, but it SHOULD be Walt's. It didn't even make me think I was in Boston. There was one Boston Bruins hockey jersey on the wall, and nothing else remotely connected to that city. Show me a picture of Frasier Krane, or Sam Malone, or any other member of the cast of Cheers, and I'll immediately bring Boston to mind. But this place did non of that. The staff were friendly and we had a good time, but it just wasn't Walt's. That place has a lot of good memories for me.

I found a manakin's head in my suitcase this morning. Bethany and her HILARIOUS sister put it there when I was in the shower. It didn't scare me though. How many manakins have YOU found today? I anticipate on seeing a lot more, as I'm heading downtown soon. Although that could never happen now - Bethany just called my mom, and they could be talking for HOURS...

Busy...

So, Bethany's mom says it's about time I blogged. But then I found out there's a Leafs game on TV. So I'm going to watch that. Sorry.

Isolation...

So, here I am in Leeds. I love Leeds. I've lived here for 4 years now, and it really is one of my favourite places in the world. I particularly enjoy life here during the summer, when the district that I live in empties itself of students, and everything becomes a bit quieter. But sometimes that can work against me. My housemate, Rob, has been away for most of the summer, working for a sound company in York. Bethany has been and gone. Afam (my other housemate) works a lot. So I'm sat here in my room, thinking that there's nobody around. All my friends are elsewhere. To make it even worse, my good friends Maija and Jonathan are getting married today, and I can't be there because it's in Canada. Many of my friends will be at the wedding. My girl will be the maid of honour. But I have to go to work in Stinking Starbucks. (The alliteration there was unintentional, but rather pleasing).

You could be forgiven for thinking that I'm being miserable. Well, I'm not. True, I'd rather be in Toronto right now, but it's very unusual for that not to be the case. The thing is, I just yesterday recieved a comment on my blog from a girl called Christie, who apparently lives in Leeds. I assume she found me because she was looking for people livin in this fine city. I read her blog, and it was good. Then I had another comment from her today. So I read her blog again. She had already blogged this morning! And it's about mundane stuff! That's brilliant. So it seems that those little comments, and her blog, have made me feel less isolated. There's someone here who writes blogs about little things that happen to them, and I like that. Suddenly I feel a lot better about missing out on the wedding. Go check out Christie's blog, maybe it'll inspire you to post too...

Where have all the good posts gone?

So, here I am again, writing pretty much for the sake of writing. Every now and again I realise that I haven't posted for a while, and that I should do so. Invariably, this leaves me with a blog to write, and nothing really to write about. Nevertheless, I do intend to start writing some articles for magazines and newspapers, so perhaps it's time I learned to get over my writer's block.

What am I going to write about? I don't know really. I could tell you about what I did this weekend, or what I've been doing with my summer vacation. I could tell you about a spiritual experience that I've had recently, and what it meant to me, or I could talk about the different aspects of working for a multi-national coorporation. I could tell some jokes, or give you the recipe for the FANTASTIC chicken I cooked last night. But I can't think of an original way to do any of those things, so I'll just leave it at that. Voila. One more pointless post to add to the list...

Ridiculous...

Ok, so I figure it's about time I blogged. Even J has noticed that I'm terrible at doing this regularly. Hmmm. Not much to say really though. Bethany has left the country, and I'm selling out for Starbucks to bring in a bit of extra cash while I'm not at school. The band is taking a break for the summer, and I'm currently working on the new website.

Only thing of note really is the bizarre comment on my last post. I appear to have recieved spam on my comments page. It's from someone trying to get me to study with them, which is something I don't want to do. The best thing about it is that the (clearly automated) message claims that the author was reading my blog, when they figured that I'd be interested. Surely anyone reading the blog would have realised pretty soon that I don't live in the States, and therefore would have no reason to study there. How silly of them.

My favourite spelling error of the week goes to a seller on Ebay, the wonderful online auction site. It's a guy trying to sell some roller skates; quads. He claims, and I quote: "The plates are Skater plates, made of very tough but flexible resin plastic with enormous front stoppers. These are incredibly tough and never brake."

Not really the greatest selling point - brakes that don't work. On that note, I'm going to go play a little hockey. Have fun kids...

It's a contest...

So, Bethany and myself just had an argument. That's right. We couldn't decide who was best. I said everyone liked me way more than her, and when I move to Canada, everyone will want to be with me and not with her. She said that everyone liked her more, which is clearly not true, because she's so rubbish.
There's only one way to solve this problem. Post a comment and tell us who you like the best. Then we'll add up the votes. Problem solved.

Very annoying...

Now, I'm not normally one to support the work of Bill Gates. I don't really have many good things to say about Microsoft, and I am pleased to announce that I use the superb Mozilla Firefox internet browser, as I know many of you do. (If you don't, then I recommend that you start. You can download it for free here.) However, I do sometimes converse with my friends using MSN Messenger. I appreciate that this endorsement would seem to suggest that I am the sort of person who would ditch my ethical standpoint because of peer pressure, but that's the sort of person I am.

I realise that by choosing to blog about this subject (the primary point of which I have yet to make), I may be revealing myself to be somewhat in the dark ages of instant messaging, but so be it. I recently downloaded a version of Messenger Plus which, amongst other things (that I have largely yet to discover) allows you to create your own personalised status. This, may I say, is brilliant. Aside from being far more interesting than just choosing a status from a small, predetermined list, it gives one the ability to let people know what you're up to, rather than leaving it to their imagination. It's sort of a very brief blog. For example, today I was able to inform my co-messengers that rather than just being busy doing some generic task, I was, in chronological order, sleeping, working, searching for a housemate, playing Risk and finally, in a short time, back to sleeping. far more interesting, I'm sure you'd agree.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that I was informed of this development in software by my former housemate Martin Oxby. Do check out Martin's site, not least because he has linked to The Salvator Darlings on it. It is a little out of date at the moment (something I'm sure he'll put right when he has time), and he does tend to overuse the exclamation mark (a little pet hate of mine), but he's a good guy really.

In other news (my, this is a long blog, isn't it?), Bethany has arrived in the country. AS I suspected, this has served only to make things harder for us. Knowing that the Atlantic Ocean no longer divides us, and the distance has been cut by aproximately 3,300 miles, it is particularly irritating not to be able to see one another. However, I'm counting down the days until, in just over two weeks, I see her for the first time in four months.

So, it's good news. Bethany is coming, I think I may have found us a housemate (albeit a week into the new tenancy agreement), I have an interview for a teaching course in September, and I'm feeling really well. Oh, and it's Canada day tomorrow, so that's quite fun too. Not that I get the national holiday, you understand, it just gives me the chance to annoy people by pretending to be Canadian even more than I usually do.

You may also be interested to note that 'Microsoft Operating Systems' can be anagrammed to form 'Competitors' grossest infamy'. Brilliant.

Summertime...

It's too hot to blog.

Going up...

Don't get me wrong, if I was like my friend Alex, who suppports Hull City football club, I'd have been really happy this season, going up into the Championship instead of staying down in League One. I wouldn't have complained at all. But that would have meant that I would have missed out on yesterday.

Yesterday was the play off finals to see who would gain that final place of promotion into the next league. I'm not going to go into an in depth commnentary of the game, that would be silly. Some of you probably saw the game. If not, you'll be able to read more at the Sheffield Wednesday website. All I'll say is the game had everything. We were in the lead, then we were tied, then it looked like we were going to lose. There was a penalty, and extra time, and eventually, we won. We deserved it - we were the better team. The atmosphere was electric too. Before the game, we were all out in the streets, just grinning, and waiting for the match. We took 40,000 supporters; from what I gather, more supporters than any other team has ever taken to Cardiff Millenium Stadium.

So yeah, if I'd have been like my friend Alex, or indeed, like my friend Ben, who supports Luton Town, I would have been happy with the promotion. I would even have saved myself £40. But it was worth £40 of anyone's money just to be in Cardiff yesterday, let alone inside the stadium. Come on Wednesday!

Too long...

It's been far too long since I last posted. Everybody knows that. At least you haven't been waiting for this one as long as readers of Monsieur Le Crayon's blog. He didn't post at all between September 27 and May 12. That's almost 8 months!

Back to business. I had a rubbish week last week. It started off ok, but kind of went downhill. I discovered on Tuesday that my school that I work in is due to close in three years. This doesn't directly affect me, as I intend to be elsewhere by then, but it certainly doesn't give the place a great working atmosphere. When I got home, I chatted to my good friend Jacob Murphy, who is coming over to visit me today from Canada (more on that later), and who is due to move to England, and into my house, in September. Unfortunately, he's decided not to come over, which meant that I don't get to live with him any more. That got me down a bit more.

On Thursday, my car was broken into, and my best coat and bag were stolen. The annoying thing is that there was nothing of any real value in there. The thief escaped with my diary, some swimming shorts, my pipe, and a sandwich. But I can't afford to replace the coat or the bag. To top all of this off, my friend (and probably yours, if you're reading this) Will Elder passed away from cancer. I don't think that there's anything more I can say about that.

So, this week has been an improvement. Not really an obvious one, just a bunch of stuff that I'm excited about. I was really looking forward to Jacob's arrival yesterday, but due to an error, he missed his plane (I'll let him tell you more about that) and so he arrives today. It wasn't a major problem, in fact, it left me with an evening to finish some jobs, so that's good. I'm also really looking forward to tonight's gig. Jacob's supporting us, so that's going to be awesome. For more info, check out The Salvator Darlings website. If you can get down there, it's at the Cardigan Arms on Kirkstall Road in Leeds. Tickets are £2 on the door, and it promises to be a bit of an extravaganza...

So, here's to an even better week ahead. I have next week off work, and I have Jacob with me. We have plenty planned, and I intend to fill you in as we go. It's funny how sometimes things don't obviously become better immediately, but you know that you've got past a rough patch. A breakthrough, you might call it. But not a break in. I've had quite enough of those, thank you...

Blessing or Blasphemy

So, I was looking for something on this wonderful internet of ours, and I came across this page. Now, this guy, whoever he is, believes very strongly in his subject matter. He's written a lot of things. But the sad thing is, he's way off the mark. If you can't be bothered to go through the whole thing (and I wouldn't blame you), I'll sum it up. Our man tells us that Christian Rock is inspired by the occult. The bad news, it seems, is that I'm not Saved. According to this guy, if you listen to rock, be it Christian or otherwise, neither are you Here's what he says:

Only backslidden, carnal Christians, who refuse to yield to the Holy Spirit, could ever think rock music was the will of God.

Hmmm.. I could go on and on with this stuff, but I think you get the idea. Read the whole thing if you want. It seems to me that it's really just rather sad that he's spent so much time trying to defame these people who are using the gifts that God has given them, and openly proclaiming the Gospel, whether that's apparent in their lyrics, or just in the interviews that they give.

His argument is riddled with holes, and is clearly one-sided, giving no thought to the counter-argument. He quotes only part of song lyrics, and takes them out of context. He calls Christian artists 'Blasphemers' repeatedly, and even refers to Keith Greene(among others) as an Occultist (without proof to back up this claim).

But the saddest thing is he often uses events in these artists' lives, where they have openly acknowledged their own sin, as proof that they cannot be Christians. Our expert, who seems to use the Bible to back up his points so well, seems to have missed out the most important, central truth in the Gospel. If you ask God for forgiveness, and you proclaim Jesus to be the Son of God, and accept him as your Saviour, NONE OF IT MATTERS ANYMORE. We're all sinners, NO EXCEPTIONS. Thank God that Jesus died on the cross and took my sins, because I'd be screwed if he hadn't...

Famous Friends...

I was just perusing the Sheffield Wednesday Football Club website, and I found this page. The guy right in the middle of the picture is Brett Shelton, my sister's boyfriend. I know that it's not particularly spectacular, but it was still a bit of a surprise...

Hooray...

For successful gigs! Thanks to everyone that made tonight's Salvator Darlings gig so much fun. There's more info about this on our website, but to cut a long story short, the gig at the Vine in town was cancelled, so we organised a last minute affair at the Cardigan Arms in Kirkstall. Despite the late notice and lack of proper organisation that goes with such an occurrence, we got both us and Band Club down there, and even managaed to get another band to play with 1 hour's warning! Not only that, but more than 100 people came down to watch us all, which is amazing at that short notice. Thanks to everyone involved, it was a great night...

Plagiarism...

So, I'm going to write word for word what I read in Rachel O'Dywer's blog today, because I couldn't put it any better myself...

False Economy

It's somewhat depressing that a McDonalds meal costs less now than it did when I was born in 1981.

I too find that slightly depressing. Hmmm. Check out her blog, by the way, she has a lot of fairly amusing things to say.

Also, I'm going to steal Jeremy Wright's subject matter from his blog of Friday, because I found this rather amusing. I took this test, to find out what kind of American English I speak. To be fair, like Jeremy, I have to admit that I couldn't always answer accurately, because I use Anglicised phrases for some things. Still, it's pretty funny, and you should have a go yourself:

Your Linguistic Profile:

55% General American English

20% Yankee

15% Dixie

5% Midwestern

5% Upper Midwestern

20% Yankee, eh?

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Sick and bored...

Sometimes it doesn't seem fair. I've just been off work for week after week. I finally get to go back, and a week and a half later I get sent home sick. That's just annoying. Plus, there's no one else at home at the moment, so I'm here on my own. None of this is really relevant, it's just meant that I've been trying to find fun things to do the last couple of days. Well, I say 'fun'. Mainly, I've been sleeping, and watching films when I've been awake.

I have discovered something which interested me, however. I was reading the classic graphic novel 'Watchmen', which Simon Davy, the lead guitarist from The Salvator Darlings lent to me along with 'The Dark Knight Returns'. I noticed an interesting parallel to be drawn between one of the storylines, and a certain 2003 film starring Johnny Depp as the swashbuckling Captain Jack Sparrow. Does anyone else think it slightly strange that both films feature a ship with a crew from Hell, one named The Black Pearl, the other The Black Freighter. I also believe that anyone who has seen the film will not miss the link between it and this exerpt taken from the end of chapter 5 in Watchmen:

'The closing images, with a multitude of dead and drowned men walking across the ocean bed towards the anchor rope of the Black Freighter which they climb to take their rightful positions on board the ship, remain some of Orlando's most haunting work on the series.' (Moore/Gibbons,DC,1986)

Hmmm...

In other, more interesting news, The Salvator Darlings finally return to the Leeds circuit on Tuesday, after a four month break. Now with a new bassist, Tim Higgins, we'll be headlining at the Vine on the Headrow in Leeds, supported by Band Club and two other bands. Check out our website for more details...

Trade Justice

So, it's about time that we got this one sorted. We're screwing over the poorest countries in the world to benefit ourselves, and I don't like it. You might notice the white band on the right hand side of this blog. You WILL notice it, you can't really miss it. Click on it, follow the link. I guess this doesn't really apply to you that much if you don't live in England, but have a shufti anyway - it's worth seeing what we can all do to help. Let's make poverty history...

A funny thing...

Today, as I often do to kill time during the holidays, I went into town. I drove, as I often do during the holidays, to Carlton Hill, the halls of residence in which I lived during my first year at university. These halls have a car park, and are reasonably central to Leeds. Unfortunatly, the owners realised the prime location of the flats, and put a barrier up to stop cars that aren't owned by people with permits to park there coming in. These permit holders are also issued with cards that they swipe to obtain entry. However, I happen to know that this barrier is constantly up during the university holidays, because people need to come and go with their belongings. I parked in the car park, driving in easily through the raised barrier.
After a good length of time shopping with my next door neighbour, we headed back to the car, only to realise that for some reason, the barrier was now lowered, locking us in. It used to be the case that one could easily lift the barrier by hand, but now it is fitted with an electromagnet that only disengages when you swipe a card. We were stuck, unless we managed to find the owner of one of the cars that were legitimately parked there, to let us out.

We started knocking on doors, and after a few, we got an answer. It was a lovely Irish chap, who, coincidentally, lived in the apartment that I used to live in. Once we had asscertained that he was unable to help us, I mentioned the fact that I had lived in that very flat, four years ago. He seemed to be amused by this, and asked if any of the post was mine. I pointed out that 4 years is quite a long time, and it was unlikely. Nevertheless, he asked if I was called Robert something-or-other. I said no, and he asked if I was Mark Hardy!
'Yes,' I said, 'that's me. I'm Mark Hardy.'
He handed me a letter, which further investigation proved to be a copy of Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship's Catch the Fire magazine! Can you believe it?! For four years, they have been delivering this magazine from another continent to a house that I don't live in! Furthermore, the man now in charge of sending mail out to people like me, is in fact Jonathan Puddle. That's right. J Puddy. Him of the DJ fame. The man that I taught to spin. The New Zealander. The man who is dating my girlfriend's roommate! And there he is, a man I assumed to be very holy (he is, after all, in a position of responsibility at TACF), and he's wasting people's tithes and conference fees, wasting the money that comes in from the bookstore, and also from the Riverside Cafe. He's taking the money that people give to the work of that wonderful church, and he's spending it on sending magazines to houses that I used to live in!

So, I'd just like to apologise to Pudd (and Hamish before him) for allowing them to continue with this wasted task, and also to the people whose gifts to the Lord have been spent on the printing and international postage of an unread magazine. God bless you all...

Daunting task...

Right. It's twenty after twelve. I should have been up hours ago, but last night I slept really well and long for the first time in about two weeks, and it felt good. I'm wrapped in my duvet while I write this, and I have no intentions of getting up. I know I have stuff to do. In fact, it's a very small, very easy task I have to go to the basement, take some clothes out of the washer, and hang them to dry. But even this simple, quick job seems far too much effort when I've slept so well in my comfortable bed which is nice and warm...

very pleased to announce an end to the confusion about the gig on April 19. I got the phone call from Simon while I was in Majorca, saying that he couldn't do the gig, because of a church meeting. When I returned to England, I pointed out that the gig was actually organised first, and that we'd still be able to get tapes of the meeting. Simon agreed that these things were true, and then all we had to do was convince the promoters at the Vine to let us back on the bill. They'd asked someone else, it seems, to ake our slot, but last night I got an email, telling me that the other band were being really good about it, and we're back on. We're headlining, and Band Club, one of the most promising new band in Leeds, are on first. Get down there if you can, you don't want to miss this one...

Afer the match...

I went to see the football today. As usual, Sheffield Wednesday made complete fools of themselves in the first half, letting in two goals from the rubbish Torquay United. And, as usual, they proved what they can do in the second half. Unfortunatly, they'd already given too much away, because all we managed was to equalise, and to leave Hillsborough with one point. Anyway, all this is irrelevant, I was just setting the scene, and my emotions got the better of me.

As is often the case, on my way back to Leeds after the game, I pulled off the motorway at junction 35A, and went to the McDonald's on the roundabout up the road. I decided to treat myself to a donut for dessert. Now, I worked at the greasy burger restaurant for a good year and a half in my school days, and I used to love a good donut. But do you know what This one was rubbish. I couldn't figure it out. It was not old and dry, the chocolate was not melted off on one side, there were no signs of tampering. It was exactly the same as any other donut I have ever eaten from McDonald's. Then I realised what was different. When I used to eat these sweet treats from the greasy clown's sweatshop, I had never made a visit to Canada. I had certainly never sampled the delights of Krispy Kreme's mouthwatering snacks. And so, it seems, life will never be the same again. Once you've eaten a Krispy Kreme donut; once you've ravenously devoured one of those warm, sticky, melt-in-the-mouth pieces of sugary heaven straight off the production line, there's no going back. No donut will ever taste as good. Not McDonald's chocolate donuts. Not Tim Horton's Canadian maple donuts. Not even Gregg's custard donuts.

I guess it's like the band, James, said in their song, Sit Down:
'If I hadn't seen such riches, I could live with being poor.'

England's green and pleasant land...

Well, I'm back in the country. I have to say, I had a good time, but I'm glad to be back. That isn't usually the case for me, because I can think of at least 4 places I would rather be right now than my native country. But this time, it was a bit different. I really enjoyed the place we stayed in, and it was awesome to spend time with my parents. But the situation was not one I would choose to find myself in again. We shared an apartment. My parents had the double room, and I was on the couch in the shared living room/kitchen/dining area. The couch was pretty uncomfortable, and the room was too hot. I didn't get much sleep, before I was woken up by my mom and dad coming in to make coffee/go onto the veranda/generally make a racket.

Now, don't get me wrong, I still had a great time, and I wouldn't change my parents for the world. But there's something very wierd about being asleep in bed in the same room as your parents are wandering around in, when you're 23. I realise now why I moved away from home...

Never mind. The hotel was just our basecamp, as it were, and it did the job. We did a whole bunch of stuff, the most important of which I've outlined already on here, so there's no need to go over old ground in that respect. The trip back was ok, I'm on my parents' computer now, and I intend to be in Leeds by tonight, so it's a fish and chip supper for me, then in the car for the drive home. Mom's out at the chippie right now. I hope it's open. For all that I love sampling the foreign delicacies, and avoiding the British run/attracting places when I'm away, I still really enjoy a nice big plateful of deep fried, battered fish, and greasy, thick cut chips, smothered in salt and swimming in vinegar. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go salivate elsewhere - I don't want to short out this keyboard...

Those caves?

Unstinkingbelievable...

Hooray!

At last! Something in the field of technology did not let me down last night! It all started when I was in a restaurant with my parents. I had discovered that I could not only send pictures taken on my phone to Bethany´s email address, but I could also attach text, and even voice recordings for her to listen to later. I had quite successfully sent one of these messages the day before, so I thought that it would be a good idea to send another, this time with my parents saying hello too. and a good idea it was, until part way through the text part, the phone crashed and switched itself off. When I switched it back on, all the pictures I had ever taken on it were gone. All the ringtones I ever had sent to me or downloaded were gone. Pictures that people had sent me were gone. Even all the pictures, and ringtones that came with the phone had been erased. Fortunately, my phone book and diary were unaffected, but when I tried to send another email message, the WAP connection claimed to have never been set up. It was most frustrating.

Then, when I tried to blog last night, I had about 30 seconds left to publish my post. I clicked ´publish´, and suddenly the computer decided to go into slow mode. The screen went back to the ´put coins in´ screen before it had even got halfway. I was cursing all technological advances since the 50s at this point. I didn´t have any more coins to put in, and my parents were in bed, so I couldn´t go scrounge from them...

Anyway, I got downstairs this morning, and it seems that it published perfectly well, so I was worrying about nothing. I´m still taking my cell phone to the shop when I get back. Stupid Sony Ericsson.

Right. Today, we´re going to the Drach Caves in Porto Cristo. They´re meant to be pretty sweet. I´ll take some pictures and put them up on here when I get back. They should look suitably out of place next to the ones of Magaluf. My dad bought some sausages for breakfast this morning, but when he cooked them, we realised that they were the worst thing we´d ever eaten. Good job we brought the Weetabix - the Official Cereal of 16 Village Place...

Four minutes and counting...

So, I have four minutes left on my internet time to write this blog. I promised myself that I´d spend more time on it than this, but I emailed Bethany again, and now I´ve run out of change to put in the meter. Imagine! A computer that runs on a meter that you put coins in! Brilliant...

Anyway, today, I went to the capital of Majorca, Palma, which I expected to be horrible, and was actually beautiful. There was the most amazing cathedral, and some ancient public baths. the streets were narrow and cobbled. It was incredible. Also went to Magaluf, just to see what it was like. For those of you that don´t know, Magaluf is the mecca for Brits abroad. If you´ve ever heard a bad reputation of my nation on holiday, it probably comes from the locals of Magaluf. Everywhere you looked was English restaurants and pubs. We ruined what was once a beautiful coastline in someone else´s country. Pretty much what we did in the rest of the world, actually...

On Holiday

This is just a quick blog, because I only have 3 minutes left on my internet time in the lobby of my hotel here in Majorca. It´s rather warm, and the sea is close. There are many rude postcards in the shops, and most places will sell you an English breakfast, catering for the cretinous masses of English tourists who flock here every summer, who want the warm weather, but non of that foreign muck, as my late grandfather would have said.

Hope all is well in the colder areas of the world (and, if anybody´s reading this, from the warmer climes as well)

See you later, I´m off to eat grilled rabbit stuffed with spanish sausage and mushrooms. Local delicacy, I´m told...

Post op...

So, I had my surgery, and now I'm back home waiting for Bethany to arrive tomorrow.. It's all good. I expected to be out of hospital last Monday, but they sent me home on the Saturday. They've taken a bunch of skin and fatty tissue from the inside of my mouth to sort out the problem, and that's quite sore, but it's healing and the skin is regenerating. The fatty tissue will never grow back, so I'll always be able to feel the muscles inside my cheeks now, which is pretty wierd.

Things are a bit wierd at school. Xec emailed me today to say that the job losses have been announced. They are axing a bunch of teachers and almost all of the nursery nurses. Fortunately for me, they're keeping all the teaching assistants, but it's pretty harsh on the other staff. The LEA seems to think that it can replace teachers with higher level teaching assistants, which is a load of rubbish. Please pray for all the staff at the special schools across the city of Leeds, who are understandably worried about their jobs. Also for Michael, our headteacher, who I think is going to get a lot of stick for this, even though it's not his fault - he's being told what to do.

Finally, on a more positive note, I don't know if any of you have seen the new Volkswagen Golf GTi commercial yet, but it's unstinkingbelievable. Watch it here...

About time too...

Well, once again it has been a very long time since my last post. To make things worse, my last post wasn't even really a post. (I wonder what it says about the usual content of this blog that a short, meaningless joke of a post recieved more comments than most of my genuine posts.) Hmmm, I seem to be using the word 'post' more often than I would like.

So, there have been a number of developments since I last blogged. Two days after that, I went to the hospital to meet with my consultant. He asked me a bunch of questions, and he told me that the waiting list for my surgery was between 6 and 9 months. That kind of sucked. Never mind, thought I, at least I have some sort of time scale put on it now.

Things started to fall into place. Bethany would come to visit on March 4, and leave on March 14. I would go over there for Freshwind on March 20, and return on April 2, ready for work. It looked like the operation would fall in the summer, or possibly at the start of the new academic year. Then I heard this week that I was no longer going to be able to spin at Freshwind. It was bad news at the time, because I was really looking forward to the visit, and I wouldn't be able to afford to pay for it myself. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt at peace, and that the Jesus knew what he was doing. (Man, if only I could always remember that, life would be a lot easier...) I got another phone call today, this time from the hospital. Don't ask me how, but the 6 month waiting list appears to have turned into a five week waiting list, because I'm now due to go in for surgery on February 22.

This couldn't work out better. Not only does it get the operation out of the way, and puts me on the road to recovery, it also seems to fit perfectly with the things that I have organised: I come out of hospital about 5 days before Bethany arrives. Instead of being at work every day that she's here, I'll be off work recovering. I'm praying, and assuming, that I'll at least be able to have some fun that week. Bethany, it seems, is praying and assuming that I will still be sick enough for her to have to look after me... Hmmm, I could milk this one a bit, methinks... Then, I won't be able to go to Canada for Freshwind, but I'd already resigned myself to that one. Because God had told me that there was a reason that I couldn't go.

It's funny how I was so sure of the fact that my surgery would fall over Easter. I'm normally pretty skeptical about things like that, no matter how hard I try to be otherwise. The Mark that's living in the world would usually think something like 'aw crap. I really wanted to go to Canada. Now I can't go at Easter, and I'll probably end up having surgery in the summer, and I won't be able to go then either. Sucks to be me.' But this time I was surprised to find the Mark that's living in the Kingdom taking the front seat, and announcing to a number of people that I wasn't going to Canada at Easter, because my operation would be then.

The moral? Praise the Lord through the good times and the bad, because however bad things might seem to be at the time, the chances are, in God's eyes, they're almost certainly good. He knows what he's doing. Ladies and Gentlemen, will you please give all praise and glory to the Son of God Himself...

hmph...

I was going to blog, then I got distracted, and now I don't really feel in the mood for it. I hate when that happens. I had a bit of time set aside for doing it, and now I don't really have anything else to do with that time...

I've also just realised how much of a Bethany thing to do it was to write hmph in a blog. Expressions of frustration.

New year, new me...

This year started off with a bang. I was spinning at the Zeo in the firehall at TACF, and as the clock struck twelve, I was with my beautiful girlfriend who I was spending the week with. Canada was great. Really great. It snowed while I was there (it rained too, but let's forget about that...), there was plenty of opportunity for skating, and I played some hockey too. I hung out with old friends and I made some new ones. It was fantastic to get a real holiday for once.

Then I came back, and went back to work. The new year has brought new responsibilities, and that's a good thing. I'm really feeling like this is the line of work that I want to pursue, and that's a really good feeling. That, along with some other things which I'm sure will get discussed on here in due course, has started me thinking that God really does have my life planned out, and I'm starting to understand some of what he has for me. All this is good.

New year means new year resolutions, and I have a couple. Firstly, I want to be better with my money. This has already been working itself out in a variety of ways, not least of which is an answer to my prayer about getting a better car. With prayer and careful planning, I'm getting a truely awesome deal on both the car and the insurance. Sweet. Then there's the other resolution - to improve my piano skills. Still working on that one.

Finally, a new year means a new me, and that includes a new look. Despite the fact that Bethany loved the sideburns and lengthy hair, and ignoring the fact that in one of The Salvator Darlings' songs, I proclaim 'My beard is full, my hair's quite long', I took a pair of clippers to my face and head, and now look far more presentable, much to the pleasure of my mom. And much to the amusement of my work collegues, most of whom didn't recognise me when I walked in yesterday morning!

One more thing - Although I'm broken by the events in Asia over the holiday period, I don't intend to blog about it, because I'm fairly convinced that most of the blogging community has made some sort of comment, and I'm not one to join the masses in something like that. So that's my statement on the matter, and it's the last you'll hear of it here. Love.

canada, eh!

So, here I am. In Canada. Today I went skating in Nathan Philips square, yesterday I went skating in Nathan Philips Square and at the Harborfront (which was amazing). Tomorrow I get to play hockey. Sweet. There are many reasons that I want to move to Canada, but one of the most superficial is that I have the chance to skate outside, for free, on a decent sized rink, everyday if I want to. I know that I wouldn't skate so much if I lived here, but even so, I'd take good advantage of it. Trust me, I don't miss a thing about the English winter...

I got here to discover that the banks don't open till tomorrow, and I need to change currency, because all I have is English money. The problem is that the currency exchange places rip you off big time - they were offering me 1.02 dollars for my pound. The usual is 2.24 dollars for the pound. Sucks, eh? So the banks don't rip you off like that, but they're closed. Good job that I have a loving girlfriend to help out...

In other news, on my first morning here, I got woken up by a phone call from a friend that I went to university with, telling me that another friend of ours that had been on our course, died of lukaemia last tuesday. I think I'm still in a bit of shock about it, because I prayed for her last time she had it, and it went into remission, then it came back. I meant to call a couple of weeks ago, but I forgot, and then I found out that she had died. It's hard to make sense of things like this, but it certainly puts my illness into perspective...

I don't intend to leave things on such a depressing note, so I will just tell you that I am drinking more root beer than is good for any one person to drink, and this evening Bethany and myself intend to eat our own bodyweight in krispy kreme donuts. More body fat will keep out the cold...

Not again...

Well people, once again, it has taken me an inordinately long period of time to blog. At least I have some sort of excuse this time. I've been back at work, and I've been doing all sorts of other things too:

During the time since my last blog, I have formed the LJSC - the Leeds Jedi Supporters' Club. Leeds Jedi are an ultimate frisbee team, and I am now the president of their supporters' club. This means that I have spent quite a good portion of my time setting up a website for them - check it out here. I've also been compiling the first issue of a monthly newsletter, and getting a bunch of people to go to one of their tournaments.

The Salvator Darlings played a couple of gigs too - both of which went reasonably well. However, for various reasons, we are taking a break for a while, during which we intend to write some new material, and record some stuff. We'll hopefully be playing live again around March.

Finally, it's been really good to get back to work. Thanks to everyone that's been praying for me. I've been devastatingly bored some of my time off, and things looked a little hairy for Christmas with finances, but the Provider came through for me... there's plenty harder times to come, with another good chunk of time off for my next operation in the new year, but I'm trusting God to help out again. I finished work today for the Christmas holidays - it feels wierd because I've only been back two weeks, but this time it's much more fun being off. I have a work party tonight, the deputy head has left after 25 years, and it's Christmas, so we're having a do in Headingly. Then there's a week of parties before it's off to Canada.. I can't wait. I can't tell you how much I miss Bethany. And everyone else too. Canada's felt like my home for some time now. When I arrive there I settle straight in, but when I get back here it usually takes me a couple of weeks before I feel comfortable again. It's going to be fantastic to bring in the new year with all my friends over there, and while I'm worshipping on the decks...

Blog standings...

My housemate noted this morning that it's been eleven days since I last blogged. He has a point. When I started this blog, I fully intended to blog most days, and now that I'm off work, I should really be blogging everyday, since I don't have much else to do. Of course, the lack of things to do means that I have nothing to blog about. Man, this is some sort of vicious circle. Right, so the way I see it, I'm a bit crap about blogging at the moment. Certainly compared to some people I know... Check out my good friend Jeremy Wright. He blogged FOUR TIMES yesterday. Pudd blogs most days, sometimes more than once. A fairly regular blogger, Linda the Cho last posted on Wednesday, but she often posts daily, sometimes leaving up to two weeks between blogs. Beth and Maija don't count, cause there's two of them. Normally, I'd make some comment about how only Maija ever blogs, but Bethany got the last two posts, and since the last one was entirely for my benefit, I can't really argue that right now. Nobody that I know is a lazier blogger than one Mr. Ben Poulsen. He hasn't updated his fantastic blog since September 27!

I guess my point is this: I am mediocre. Thank you for listening.

Nevertheless...

Well, my birthday came a week early. I got my new cartridges for my turntables yesterday - Numark CS1s. Thanks to Pudd for the reccomendation on these babies, they're amazing! Good old Carl Cox, eh? Not only that, but today, as I was testing them out for the first time, I got a phone call from the greatest guitar shop in the world, Rockshack, telling me that they had fitted the Artec pickup to my acoustic, and it was ready to, erm, pick up. Both of these things are presents from my wonderful parents, and I am extremely fortunate to have such lovely gifts, especially a week before I should have them! If you're in Leeds, or in reach of it, and you want to hear the pickup in action (and trust me, you'll want to...), then head over to the Salvator Darlings' gig at the Packhorse on Woodhouse Lane on Monday night. Doors open at seven thirty, and entry is free!

Tonight I went to see NeverTheLess in Harrogate. This was their last ever gig, as drummer, David Dickinson, is off to London to drum school. Not that he needs to go, he's already amazing, as anyone who's heard him will testify, but he's off anyway. So they played a stonking set. Every time that I've heard them before, they've been very much about the music, but this gig was a bit different. I think probably because the seriousness has gone out of it, because of the split, there was an air of the silly about tonight. Whereas before the band played, and occasionally introduced a particular song, tonight it was like a Salvator Darlings gig, but with the music being played well... Matt took photographs of the crowd 'for himself', they covered MC Hammer, and Postman Pat... Lots of fun.

The highlight for me, though, was the encore. Having played an incredible set of AC/DC influenced rock, with Danny freestyling his way through both old and new songs (my favourite line: 'Freestylin' for the Daddy'), they left the stage, and were hollered at until they returned, despite the fact that they were already about 15 minutes over their alloted time slot. They came back and played 'Today', which is a real worship song. The atmosphere was electric, and Matt ended with an altar call and a prayer, in which he basically just gave praise to the Almighty God. It was so intense, and so right - in the past, they've not shyed away from the Christian message, but they've certainly never done that before. The Holy Spirit was so thick in that room, and the band rocked, and to be honest, it wouldn't have mattered if they'd have sucked, because people were touched tonight. I love The Jesus, and I love the NeverTheLess because they love him too...

I love work...

It's true. I hate being at home, I miss the kids and the staff at work. I miss doing stuff. I just end up sitting around the house doing nothing of use at all, and it's boring. As such, I don't have an awful lot to blog about, because not much happens when all you do is sit around the house all day.

Yeah, and I miss my wonderful girlfriend a lot. She keeps calling me, and that's fantastic, but I wish she was here. I guess I want her here more than ever because I'm stuck doing nothing at home, and I know she'd keep me company.

Enough moaning about how bored I am, there are some good things about being at home. Yesterday we made up for the fact that I was in hospital for bonfire night, and my amazing housemate sorted out a bonfire party for us. We built a bonfire all of our own on the local park, and we spent a load of cash on really good fireworks. I spent the day making traditional bonfire night treats - bonfire toffee and toffee apples, which we all munched on while we watched the fire and the fireworks. It was great, and it really made my week. Thanks Rob...

Four. Stinking. Years.

Right. Let me start by pointing out how much I love November 5th. Now, I know that a lot of you won't understand the significance of this date, but here's a quick history lesson to help you out:

In November 1605, because of the persicution of Catholics by the Protestant king of England, James I, A number of plotters attempted to blow up the houses of Parliament at the official opening. Every year, at the opening of parliament in England, the monarch attends. The intention of the plotters was to blow up the houses of Parliament, taking the king that was persicuting them with it. From there, they intended to stage a revolution, and have a Catholic monarch take over the throne. However, just hours before the plan was fully put into action, a man named Guido Fawkes, one of the plotters, was discovered under the houses of parliament, with all the gunpowder. He was arrested, tortured, and eventually executed along with his fellow plotters. Ever since, every november 5th in England, all over the country, Bonfires are lit and fireworks set off to remind people of what happened. We even still burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes on the bonfire, although the whole thing has become simply tradition as opposed to an event of political significance. The whole affair can be summed up with the following rhyme:

Remember, Remember,
The fifth of November -
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.
I see no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

All this is by the by. What is important is that, for me, Novemeber the fifth is the first night of the year that I wear gloves, scarf and hat. You have to wrap up. There is bonfire toffee, toffee apples, baked potatoes and many other tasty treats. It reminds me of being a kid. It also reminds me that my birthday is coming up.

I have lived in Leeds for four years now. The first year, I intended to go to the local big bonfire with some of my new friends from university. I went back to my parents' house, and had my dad bring me back in time for the big display. However, he set off really late, and by the time that I got back to leeds, the fireworks had finished! Not to worry, I thought, there's always next year...

The next year, I organised for my cell group to go to the even bigger display at Roundhay park. About 100,000 people turn up to this one, and it's supposed to be spectacular. But someone forgot their car, so I sat around waiting with two others while we waited for our ride, and we arrived in time to see the last firework explode in the air about half a mile away.

Last year, I had to work.

This year, I was determined to make it. We started planning the event about three weeks ago. It went like this: Everyone in my house, and in the two houses next to me, was going to walk down to Hyde Park, enjoy the bonfire, then return to have baked potatoes with chilli and cheese and watch the simpsons. It was so well planned, just like the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, but unfortunately, just like the Gunpowder plot, it was foiled at the last minute. I'm going to hospital for surgery today, and I won't be out until (at the earliest) Sometime on Friday. And if I come out then, I won't be well enough to go to the fireworks. Rubbish.

7/8 . 3/8

I have no choice.
I am Yours.
I have
Joy deep inside,
Here I hide -
Under the
Shadow of
Your wing.
I AM.

Doulos
(My name)
All gain -
Slave/servant.
I AM
(Your name)
My gain.
I am
Doulos
(My name)
All gain -
Bondservant.
I AM
(Your name)
My gain -
You are I AM.

Pause it and turn it up...

Evening all.

I went to see a number of bands last night, for my good friend Matt's birthday. The show was kicked off by Claire Buswell and her friends, with Speakeasy (Matt's own band) following, and everything was rounded up by the fantastic Dive Dive. Now, even before I'd heard them, this band had become one of my new favourite groups. That might sound a bit wierd, but let me explain:

You see, Matt had heard this band somewhere else at some point, and had been checking their website for news of gigs etc. He discovered that they were embarking on a low key tour of the country, but that they wouldn't be calling at leeds. This didn't please Matt an awful lot, but then he had an idea. 'What if,' he thought to himself, 'I emailed them, and asked them to come?' So that's what he did. It occurred to him that his birthday fell in the middle of the tour, so he suggested to them that they could come to the Brudenell Social Club, be supported by Speakeasy, and get paid nothing for it. In return, they would have an audience of a large group of Matt's friends, who wouldn't leave, because it's his birthday. They agreed. They drove all the way from London to play a gig in Leeds that they didn't get paid for, just cause some kid emailed them and asked them to play at his party. They're a signed band too...

Incidentally, they turned out to be really good, and you can check out their website here.

sucks

This has been an interesting week. I haven't stopped, and that's all been kind of fun, but it ended in a sucky way for two reasons; one of which I will account for here, the other will, I'm afraid, remain a mystery except for those involved...

Last Monday, Bethany and Mel arrived from Canada. This was a great thing to happen, because I love those guys, and I had been looking forward to their visit for a while. That night, we didn't really do much, but the rest of the week was intense:

Tuesday - we went to cell group, which was great but finished late
Wednesday - Mel went to Stevenage to see a friend, so Bethany and I travelled to Worksop to see my parents, my sister and her boyfriend, and my dad's best friend. It was a superb evening, and my parents were very pleased to see Bethany again.
Thursday - My band, the Salvator Darlings, headed to Sheffield to play an acoustic set at the Coffee Revolution in the university union. It was deemed a success by all except possibly the guy that organsised it, who seemed to think that we were a little too silly for his altogether serious evening. The night was also made fun by the fact that my car overheated on the way down, and we had to stop by the side of the road twice.. Amongst the 150 or so people in attendance that night, travelling from various places to specifically see The Salvator Darlings were: My sister Laura, her boyfriend Brett, her housemate Lucy, My friends Alice and Max, Biffy Clyro fan Barney, Bethany and Mel, Little Rob's girlfriend Lisa, and my next door neighbours Eleanor and Rhiannon, both wearing Salvator Darlings t-shirts. Photos of the night will soon be visible on the media page of the band's website.
Friday - Sharon arrived from Scotland. Sharon lived in Canada for some time, and has since moved back to her native country. Both myself and the girls were very pleased to see her, so that was sweet. Mel and Sharon went out for the night to the cinema and for a meal to catch up, and left me to take Bethany out on a date! I took her for a meal at a mexican restaurant, to a couple of bars, and then to the late showing at the cinema. It was such a perfect night, and we made the decision to start a relationship. More on that shortly...
Saturday - very busy day. We all headed off to York, where we met up with Kelly (well known groupie and merchandise seller of NeverTheLess), annoyed Elena at work, visited some shops and the minster, walked down the shambles, and went for a stroll on the walls (where Bethany and myself went in one direction, and the girls went the other). We nipped to Asda on the way back to pick up some groceries for sunday, and then went to Sheffield for the ice hockey, which the Steelers won 5-1.
Sunday - Church was superb, and it was all rounded off rather nicely with a Thanksgiving dinner. It was so sweet to have some of my Canadian friends here for thanksgiving, and it was made all the sweeter by the fantastic meal that we cooked for 15 people. Good times. Bethany and myeself ended the evening with a short walk, and I went to bed early because of work the next day.

Last night was really sad. Bethany and Mel left, and I had to take them to the train station. I didn't want to say goodbye, knowing that we won't see each other again until at least New Year, if not Easter. That's really hard, but I know that we really want to make this work. Pray for us guys, cause it's not going to be easy.

Ok, enough talking about stuff that you probably don't want to hear about. Go and do something more useful with your time...

Or lack, thereof...

Don't you think that it's about time I blogged? I mean, I haven't done it for two weeks now. Surely I have some interesting things to tell you after that long... Well, I do. But I have to go to work now. Speak later...