4 days and who knows...

It's been 4 day (according to my husband) since my last entry. I thought no one read these as I never get feed back. But now my husband is asking me to write again - probably so he can laugh at my bad spelling and grammar. He always rips me off about it, saying "I can't believe that someone with a degree in English has such bad grammar". In my defence, my degree is in English literature and not linguistics! Thus I can read a book and analyse it in terms of its social, ideological, philosophical etc... implications. Correct grammar was something that MS Word always did for me. Sad as that might be, I had other things to think about, like why Moby Dick was a white whale and how Jane Eyre has a colonialist discourse.
So far this week:
Monday - I went to Jeffery's Bay with my Belly Dance instructor, Janka, to help her teach a lesson and then give a demonstration. It was a lot of fun. We got home really late and then my husband made me do the dishes before could eat. I didn't enjoy that as I was tired and hungry.
Tuesday - I had a Troupe rehearsal and then afterwards I went to the shops and bought some fish for supper. When I got home I found my husband had slept the entire evening. I was tired and so I sat for 30 mins before starting supper. I watched a bit of the Amazing Race. Rob and Amber are in the lead of course. They are a really good team. Amber sometimes reminds me of my sister Deborah - perfectionist and does a little victory dance when she's happy.
Wednesday - I usually go to this Access course waste of time thing after school. It usually is about 3 hours long, but this Wednesday the lecture (hopefully) caught onto our hints and condensed it into 45 mins. It was so much better. I really hope she continues in this manor. When I got home I found that my dear darling dog had eaten and thrown up his friend's, Magenta's, collar. He didn't eat the buckle and name tag, just the strapping. He then ate it again and looked miserable for the rest of the night.
Our neighbours were also attacked in their home that night. Now they have a security guard outside their place. My parents want us to get personal panic buttons.
Thursday - We went to our lecture on training nervous, aggressive and environmentally aware dogs. We learnt that we're not doing everything wrong, but there are a few things we need to change. We put some of it into practice last night and Charlie seemed to comply and actually enjoy it. This did mean I had to miss a belly dance practice, but I'll survive.
Today - I have a rehearsal for a dance gig after work. We are dancing at a 50th birthday party on Saturday night at the Malabar community hall. I don't know what I'm dancing yet but I'll find out tonight.
I'm not sure if my teacher likes my solo I did as she hasn't commented on it yet and hasn't asked me to dance it anywhere. I guess I'll have to see tonight if she wants me to do it at the party. Otherwise I'm gonna have to work harder at my choreography skills.
I also found out that I actually don't have to do detention duty as I'm only part-time staff. I've already done this year so I told the teacher in charge she owes me big time.
We had a bomb drill earlier today. The girls were told it was only drill and so they strolled out slowly and laughed at the whole process. Last year when we had a real bomb scare it was a different story. Anyway, the gardeners and maids "blew up" as they didn't leave the premises - apparently a drill is too much effort for the person in charge of them.
I've had a craving for something all day and I can't identify it. That's bad when you can't identify something you are craving. Maybe it's sleep disguising itself as a food.
I weeded the back of the garden yesterday. The weeds were becoming a bit too tree like for my liking. It was quite a workout and Charlie enjoyed digging in the holes created by the missing plants. Now I have a pile of weeds with no place to go and stiff muscles from pulling.
Lunch is coming up soon and I'm hoping the tuck shop lady doesn't try out one of her new recipes on us today. Sometimes it's just too weird to think about eating - or it's curried. Many a stomach ache has been caused by a curried soup!

Chillies and Chocolate Cake

On Saturday I did my first professional belly dance gig. It was for the Chilli Festival. There were 7 of us dancing in varous combinations and styles. I did a traditional Egyptian duet with Melanie and then I was in the final group dance which was a drum and veil dance.
It was a bit weird standing there with my belly exposed to a whole lot of strangers, but I managed and danced my heart out despite the cold and cough I've had all week.
Saturday night my husband and I went to my father-in-law's for a poker game and chinese. There were 7 of us all together. My husband won the game, however, it was a friendly and so he won nothing. I get bored and so lose so that I can go do someting else - in this case - play with my sister-in-law's kitten. She is so cute and cuddly and reminds me of my cat that lives at my parents house and so I don't get to see her very often.
Sunday started. My sister-in-law brought her dog round for a play date with my dog and then we did some work on a piece we want to perform later this year. We then back to her father's place for left over Chinese food and attempted to watch the first episode of the Simpsons. I was terrible. Not funny etc...
That afternoon we had my husband's brother and his fmaily come round for tea and chocolate cake. The nieces played Wii while the adults talked but inevitably that structure falls apart and I end up having my hair ripped from my scalp by 2 well meaning and happy girls.
Now the left over chocolate cake in a bone of contention between my husband and I. I see it going into my belly and he doesn't. Oh well

Another snotty hot day

Although I'm beginning to get better, I can't help complaining about the combination of a cold and the Frikkin' hot weather we are having. The temperature is not particularly bad, its the humidity and comfort level that is causing us to wilt into - well, something in my garden that were once flowers and are now something else. Even the weeds aren't surviving.
Yesterday I went to belly dance class after skipping troupe practice because I was dying. I managed fine and only had a problem with my snotterfall when bending over and stretching. This bodes well for the Chilli Festival tomorrow afternoon. We have a rehersal tonight. Hopefully Mel and I will be able to get Haduni right. It's not the dance really - it's the changes that makes it into a duet that will trip me up if anything does.
I marked my Gr 10s test and unfortunately there weren't any really funny answers. It wasn't really that kind of test. There is nothing funny about them sayign that

is a short cut for paste. (For those of you who aren't familiar with short cuts it's the wrong answer)
I starting teaching my matrics the VLOOKUP function in excel today. The one class ahd lots of questions and couldn't understand certain things and the other class was, "Whatever, look I can do it after your first explanation". And yet there is no significant difference in their average marks for each class respectively. Just goes to show how each group of people have a different dynamic and way of functioning.
I'm bored now.

Cypatriots

My new word is "Cypatriots". I have a collegue who is Cyprian and quite proud of it. There's nothing worng with being proud of your heritage but you can merge the words "Cypriot" or "Cyprian" with "patriot" very nicely. I'm not sure if there are others that you could do it with (I'm sure there are), but I don't feel like trying. I'm lazy that way. New words should come naturally.
Anyway, I'm slowly getting better. I can breathe through one nostral at a time, although my throat still hurts and I'm cough up great balls of muscous.
I hate Med-lemon, but it does seem to work. The reason I hate it is that the acidity, bitterness and temperature all remind me of vomit. It's always my last resort when I don't seem to be getting better.
Yesterday I had to go to the all delightful Access 2007 course at NMMU. Again it turned out to be thrillingly boring. What tipped me over the edge was when the lecturer said, "And now which datatype would we use for a field called Date?" - I actually gasped "Oh My God". I can't believe the level of this course. We are all supposed to be teaching this stuff and yet these people can't even do the simplest of things.

The Dawn of the Dead Sick

I'm still sick and I hate being sick. It means not being able to go to belly dancing. It means not being able to teach to my full. It means having a sore throat and trying not to talk. etc...
Yesterday, I got home, had something to eat and then went to bed. I was too tired. Luckily I have a thoughtful husband who knows that I don't like cooking in general but especailly when I'm sick. So he agreed we could get pizza.
The best thing to happen all day was when I dog noticed my husband's jacket hanging on a door handle and - well shame he's just an overly aware doggie - he must of thought it was an intruder and he barked madly. After we had a short chuckle at his silliness, my husband decided to "investigate" the intruder. The intruder (Mr Jacket) attacked my husband, making the dog all scared. However, my husband was brave and much stronger than the jacket and won the fight. Charlie was much happier then and didn't mind the jacket hanging on the door handle anymore.

I'm sick

I'm sick. It all started on Friday night where inconsiderate people decided to smoke indoors instead of in the braai room like Tom, Andrew and Tarryn do. So I couldn't escape the smoke until I went into Odessa's bedroom to play with her baby kitten. My sinuses hurt that night, but then Saturday I was fine. Sunday I felt awful and Monday (yesterday) I didn't go to work and spent the day in bed.
I've had to come to work today as I can't let my matrics fall behind and my Gr10s are writing a test on Thursday and I need to finish the work for it.
It would be great if something happened that I could go home and to bed. Like a false epidemic - that'd give me at least 48hours of sleepy time. I know that's a horrible thought, but that's where I am right now.

The beginning of the end?

My husband told me that as I didn't make a post yesterday that it signals the beginning of the end. However, I believe I was just too busy with 90 odd girls calling me (ma'am ma'am ma'am ma'am) to show them how to do simple calcualtions in queries, after I'd done a few with the whole class. Also I noticed they might get the calculations correct but they forget the query part.
Today I have to show them how to do calculated fields in a report. I think they are going to get confused and try to do the calculations in a label rather than a textbox. I wish they could just remember simple things like the difference between a label and a textbox.
I'm auditioning to be a teaching assistant at the belly dance studio. The interview/audition is on Saturday morning and I have to write an essay on why I want the position and then I have to perform a choreography of my own. There are only 2 of us auditioning and the other girl has been dancing a lot longer than me and has been the assistant teacher up till now. I plan of just having fun. It doesn't matter if I don't get it, at least I've been able to perform my own choreography in front of Janka and I'll be able to get her opinion and feedback on it before I have to perform it on the 7th of March.
I'm feeling really tired after troupe practise last night. Eventually I'll get fitter and not be so dead the next day. I really wish I could go back to bed right now. I'm not sure how I'm going to make it through today. I teach till 2:10 then I dash off to the university for my introduction to Access 2007 lecture (which lasts 2 -3 hours) and then I have to dash back to school for a parent teacher evening. Parent teacher evenings are every teachers' worst obligation. My first one ever I was constantly busy and as the last to leave. I didn't cry though. I was very friendly and diplomatic. My second one I had hardly anyone seeing me and I got bored and cold. Tonight shoudl hopefully proove boring, but seen as how the parents invited are matric parents only, they might suddenly have a renewed interest in their daughter's education.
The bell has gone so I'm about to get my first class of the day.