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.