Women's things...

Well, that was interesting. Last night, I went along with some of my friends to watch a production of the Vagina Monologues. It was certainly an experience. I went because my good friend, Sam Reid from Band Club was in it, and a great job she did too; but I was not particularly looking forward to spending two hours listening to what I expected to be a feminist rant.

And feminist rant it was, in places. I'm not sure if I'd recommend it to anyone, although certain parts of it were invaluable. The monologues address issues such as violence and abuse towards women, and rape. These monologues must be heard. But some of it is just wierd, and some of it is entirely unnecessary. One of the pieces, for example, is dedicated to the C word. That word which is considered more offensive than any other in the English language. The speaker claims that she has reclaimed it, and takes pleasure in using it. She tries to get the audience to chant it over and over again (and I'm sad to say that most of them did). It seems to me that it was put there for nothing more than shock value. The monologue seemed to serve no real purpose; there were no staggering insights in it. Just a repeated use of a particularly vulgar word. But then again, if you're going to watch something called The Vagina Monologues, you have to expect a few vulgarisms.

I'm not going to say anything more about the production, because I don't want to put people off/ruin it for them. AS I say, I think that some of the pieces are essential viewing (or reading), but parts were a little hard to swallow.

Meanwhile, back at Salvator Darlings camp, things are getting a little exciting. Leading up to the release of our mini album, we have a series of gigs that we're in the process of booking from the end of April. We have a show next Monday (Feb 20th) at the Packhorse in Leeds, to say farewell to our Irish bassist, Tim Higgins, who's leaving for various reasons. The show will feature long time friends of the Darlings, The Hyde Park Death Squad, as well as new act Sensitive Men.

In preparation for the show, Simon and I will be appearing on Leeds Student Radio this afternoon at about 4:30 GMT. Just go here, click on the button that says listen, and you can enjoy a couple of songs and an interview with us. Should be pleasingly silly.

Right, the bell just went, and I have a group of children to take bowling. I love my job! Have a good Valentines day, y'all...

Ragtime...

Remember how I was saying a few weeks ago that everyone I know is getting a blog? Well, it's true. If he ever posts something worthwhile on there, you can read the thoughts and musings of the drummer from my band, Little Rob, here. He's a funny man, you know. If only he'd get around to typing something...

Something that has been up and running for altogether longer, is The Rag. This is a spoof of the news, contributed to by a group of people, one of whom is my old next door neighbour and hero of the now disbanded Speakeasy, Matt Medd. It's a work of genius. They're getting quite a lot of traffic now, and they're considering sorting out a proper site for it, rather than the Blogspot format. Go check it out now, enjoy it, link to it, and when it's the most popular site on the web, you can say that you were there from the start. Well, nearly, anyway...

That's all from me for now. I have college tomorrow, and the next four-week block is Maths. I hate maths. I'll let you know how I get on with that. I'm off to prepare for it now. Have fun kids...

The Swear Box...

Don't let me catch you swearing in my house. Not now we have a swear box. Butch, Tim and I were slightly worried by our increasingly casual attitude towards mild cursing. So we decided to put a stop to it by using the timeless Swear Box. We searched high and low for a suitable object to use, and settled on an old whiskey bottle box that I had. I cut a slot for a coin in the top, and we were off. We made a little label for it with masking tape, and I wrote on the white board in our kitchen 'every curse costs you ten pence. Blasphemy costs you twenty pence.'
Rob, the comedian that he is, added a joke about my mom on the Swear Box label, and so the third rule was born: 'Rude comments about mums cost thirty pence'. And the list has grown. Whenever a new rule comes into existence, we create a new label to go on the bottom. To date we have:

The Swear Box
Every curse costs you ten pence...

Your mum cost me ten pence
Rude comments about mums cost thirty pence.

Holy Smokes!
Blasphemy costs you twenty pence.

Swearopoly
The C word - Mayfair - one pound
The F word - Park Lane - fifty pence

If you're in, you're in...
Be you resident, or guest, when you're in the house, the rules apply.

Quote, Unquote
Swearing in the context of a quote, no matter who said or sung it, will result in a fine.

There is also a disclaimer attached to the original ten pence fee on the top that reads:

*Embellishments apply.
Please read all rules thoroughly to avoid disappointment...

Tim suggested that we use a third of the money to help support a tourettes charity; he's found one in Scotland, apparently. Butch thought that it might be a good idea to use the rest to throw a party for the tourettes sufferers that we're helping out. Get them to fill the box up, like...

Although that may be a rather silly suggestion, we're all amazed at the success of the Swear Box. Or are we? It's been up and running for three weeks, and it's got six quid in it. But the past week has been largely fruitless for those poor tourettes sufferers. Butch, Tim and I are operating the rules on ourselves when we're out and about too; the only condition for others is that they have to pay if they swear in our house. We're kind of pleased that we've saved up six pounds, but at the same time, that adds up to a lot of swearing...

I'm back in the class again tomorrow, teaching English. We're looking at defining words, and I have a few tricks up my sleeve for the lesson. I'll let you know how it goes, but secretly, between you and me, I'm quietly confident. The PE/Games/Phys Ed/Gym/Whatever you want to call it class the other day gave me a whole lot more confidence, actually, and I feel ready to take this on tomorrow. I'm certainly not as nervous as I was about my first lesson doing maths. I also have a lot more theory under my belt from college this time, so I feel like I'm better prepared.

My dad and uncle came up last night. My parents are decorating my old room in their house. They say that they want it to be a nice room for Bethany and I to stay in when we're married and we visit them. They thought that she might want something more...carpeted. I say that they don't know her as well as I do... Whatever they do with the room, the result was that they wanted rid of my old bed and wardrobe. This was music to my ears, because I'm sick of the bed that was provided by my landlord. It was just a bed base, with a tired old mattress on it. And my wardrobe was small, flimsy, and the drawers were falling apart. So I got my dad to bring up the bed and wardrobe that they wanted rid of. Superb! Although they are my old ones, and we bought them 8 years ago, I only lived with them for 3 years of that, so they're practically new to me. There's slightly less space in between my wardrobe and my bed now, but there's more room down the side, and I can store boxes of stuff under the bed. There's stacks more space in the wardrobe too. It's brilliant. I think I may move everything around a bit, but I'm going to leave that till Bethany arrives, because we're going to decorate when she's here too.

Speaking of which, I'm going to go to the supermarket. The love of my life arrives in 8 days, and, although I want to make sure that there's plenty of food in so that I can cook for her and she won't starve, I also need to ensure that all the really nice food has already been eaten, so that she can't have any. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Seriously though, I'm going to the supermarket. Then I'm going to cook up a tasty meal, and finish my lesson planning. Then to bed. My nice, new bed...

Oh yeah! Cheeeeeeeese....

Ah, it's Monday again. Another weekend over, another four days of school. This weekend was an interesting one. I was so busy on Saturday, but it was all fun. Let me fill you in:

I got up and did some lesson planning, before heading to Tim's at eleven to pop to Headingly. We were intending to see if Oxfam still had any second hand putters in to complement our set of golf clubs, but they didn't so we ended up purchasing a board game each. Good old Headingly. Full of charity shops and thrift stores. I picked up the classic Othello for a mere £1, while Tim got himself a mint condition Cribbage set, with oak board, for only £1.50. Bargain.
We met up with Butch's girlfriend, Katherine, and took the car to Morley, where we watched a good deal of Ultimate Frisbee at the indoor tournament there. Butch and Andy were playing for Curious Bacon original six, and Rob was supposed to be on the Jedi Legends team. But he defected, and played for the team that won the competition (whose name escapes me at present). Even though we didn't get to see all my housemates face each other in the end, it was a good afternoon, and we saw some excellent Frisbee. Something that my friends at college would probably laugh at me for.
The other thing that would tickle them is the way that I spent my evening. After a bit of grocery shopping, Tim and I headed back to mine, where we made fresh pasta. We rolled it out into sheets using my pasta machine, then made ravioli with different kinds of cheese. We used Stilton, Windsor Red, Lancashire, Gouda, Bleu d'Auvergne and black peppercorn cheddar. Then we put it all in a box, and sealed the lid. Off we headed to Toby's house.

So then, the first meeting of Ches Moi, our cheese society. Since its inception last Sunday, the membership has risen to a staggering 25, each with their own special Ches Moi name (I'm Ches Ventura, no prizes for guessing why). Butch is The Grate One, as he will always be the leader. There's also a monthly election for The Grate One's right hand man, known as The Grand Fromage. He chairs the meetings. Well, it was ridiculous. We watched a Powerpoint presentation that Toby (this month's Grand Fromage) had made for us, focussing on the aims of Ches Moi, and the cheeses that we would be concentrating on for that meeting. We rose for the society's anthem (Chan Chan), we all greeted each other with our special handshake. We descended into nothing short of complete silliness. Then I cooked the pasta, and we served the cheese and crackers. There were 12 of us present (Ches Andham, our secretary took attendence then the minutes of the meeting), and ten different cheeses: Bleu d'Auvergne, Stilton, Welsh waxed Cheddar, Blacksticks Blue, Danish Blue, Peppercorn Cheddar, honey and herb Cheddar, a very strong Cheddar, Windsor Red, and Dolcelatte. We ate the lot. It was incredible. I have to say, I didn't feel so well after all that, but it tasted SO GOOD...

Sunday? That's another story. Church was great, and I did a bunch of stuff in the afternoon too. But it was a different kind of day, and I'm not going to give you a run-down of it just yet. Perhaps later. As for now, the bell just rang to signal the end of lunchtime, so I'm back to class. I taught games this morning, and it was pretty hectic. I was on my own for it, and that was an experience in itself. The class was loud, and a bit unruly, but I got there, I think, and I've established some sort of order for when I'm in charge. I think there's probably more to write on that subject, and who knows what will happen this afternoon? I might well continue this later. Until then, my name isn't Cheese anymore. It's Gordon Pritchard...

I never signed up for this...

On Thursday, I learned the very sad news that one of the pupils from the school I worked at last year, died this week. To be honest, he was very unwell, and it isn't a huge surprise, but that doesn't make it any easier. For those of you that don't know, I worked in a school for children with Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties (PMLD). My mom also works with children like this (although she takes more of a managerial role these days), but my dad pointed out that there was a period of two weeks where she had to attend four funerals. It seems that it doesn't get any easier over time, and it's never easy to accept. But it kind of comes with the territory, I guess.

Otherwise, school was good this week. Wednesday was superb. More observing in class, but we have music lessons on Wednesday mornings, and it all got very silly. The teacher and I get on very well, and everything descended into complete stupidity. The kids really enjoyed it too... After school, we went to a short tennis competition that the kids were in. They really appreciated my appearance, I think, and we got some good hang out time. It's not that often that you can chat to the kids out of school, and it made them more relaxed with me.

College was really good yesterday too. I was so fed up with this lecturer that we have had for the past three weeks, that I just decided to go to the other group when I got there. I knew that the guy that taught them was really good, and completely different from the lady that we had. Imagine my surprise when I arrived and found that the lady was off, and we were all together with the other guy anyway! Very pleasing. We had a fantastic day, and it was all rounded off with some great work to do with drama in a primary school classroom. We experimented with different techniques, and it all got pretty hilarious. It just made me realise how much better the last three weeks could have been, and how much more I could have gotten out of it...

Right, there's sleeping to be done. I know it's not a school night, and that's why I'm still out of bed at 1:30. But there's a Frisbee tournament in Leeds tomorrow, and all my housemates are playing. I'm going there with our next door neighbour, and Butch's girlfriend. We're not heading there till about three, but we have a bunch of stuff to do first, and it requires being up and about reasonably early. And after all that, there's the first official meeting of our cheese society; Ches Moi. But that's another story. I have a bunch more stuff to write about - it's been a pretty intense week, and the things to post about are racking up - but I'm going to have to draw the line, and come back to this later. Till then...