Our school at least, although allowing costumes also encourages the kids to wear their PJ’s (as if for bedtime stories), so it gives parents an out to encourage their kids to not need more tat.
The intent of encouraging and celebrating reading is good but the pageantry around it is becoming outdated fast.
Luckily, my kids still do a lot of dress up so the costumes will get reused a fair bit!
You know, I think I might pay money to watch either of them bust this out live in concert before a sea of screaming fans.
Was due to be going to a gig on March the 16th, the last of my gigs that were rescheduled due to Covid.
There are train strikes on March the 16th.
Two weeks prior to the gig, the band announced that it had been rescheduled to March the 18th.
There are also train strikes on March the 18th.
A week before the tour is due to start, they’ve announced the original support act can’t make any of the dates.
Of all the gigs I’ve been to I don’t think I’ve been this unenthusiastic about going.
Will there even BE a gig?
They’ve not announced support acts so it could very well just be them at this point*. Though I get the feeling they’ve known about their original support act pulling out for a while.
It’s only the second time they’ve done dates in the UK so ultimately I’ll end up going regardless of the support act and travel woes.
*They have announced VIP tickets (£30 more than a standard ticket) where you get early entry, a poster and to meet the band, which does somewhat feel like they’re trying to recoup some of the damage.
CW: Death.
Opened the door of my flat this morning and there was a smell not too dissimilar from chicken that was going off. Thought maybe someone had just left a bag of rubbish out.
Bumped into one of my neighbours as I came back from the gym at lunch and she remarked on it too. Made a comment about checking on the people who live alone, which I didn’t think much about at the time.
We’ve just had a police car and an ambulance turn up. Another neighbour has just let me know that an old gentleman has passed away.
Used to speak to him from time to time. Very sad.
Having a grumpy weekend. I took last week off to work exclusively on my CELTA (teaching qual) because I’d lost a week due to illness. Spent it working intensively on an assignment and then frantically planning yesterday’s lesson in 2.5 days, in the course of which I realised I’d been given two chunks of textbook that focused on totally different skills & language but didn’t have time to rewrite them.
So yesterday’s lesson was delivered pretty damn well in my view but was not very good as a lesson per se. Three of us teach in a row, and each half of mine tied in nicely with what one of the others did, so as a set of three lessons for the same students it was fine - but I get assessed on my lesson. Cue long discussion afterwards and the trainer saying that if I can write up a really good summary of what I told her, I might not fail that lesson.
Immediately afterwards I got back the feedback from my assignment, which is a fail and resubmit, except in the major parts for revision it’s not clear that the trainer understood what I was trying to do and why. E.g. the big reading task I designed is commented “this is focused on cohesive devices not comprehension”, which… is intentional. So it’s hard to tell exactly what I’ve done wrong and what I should change.
Coming all together it’s very dispiriting. I did the lesson summary yesterday, then my brain gave out and I spent the evening eating cake and designing extremely weird things for GURPS, which is my current form of relaxation.
Just starting to look over the assignment feedback now, and I have to revise that for the weekend, plus do the next assignment, plan the final lesson, and complete about fifteen hours of online units. And I’m back at work full-time this week. Just gah, really.
My brain has been on “autopilot” for 2 days. I had a miserable teach and play. Eh. These kind of stuff happens. At least, I didn’t had a fever.
Went on a week-end getaway across the Rhine with the girls. The 7 of us had a great time, with a bit of shopping, hanging out, eating, drinking and having fun. We even had a walk through the vinyards to see the blooming almond trees (the locals are making a lot of it but it is only a few in that area). We visited the „Saline“ where they run salt water from a local spring over sprigs to evaporate it and the air becomes a bit like sea air…
It‘s been a really good 2 days but now I am quite tired. The kids and the guys had to stay home this time but they were missed.
We‘re doing a long week-end with everyone in May hopefully. We have a lot of catching up to do for all the missed events of the previous years…
Been to the funeral of my aunt today. 6 hour round trip.
Growing up we were a ‘see the wider family once a year’ kind of family. So we weren’t close. I’ve felt nothing for the whole time between her death and the funeral. I’ve felt nothing during or after as well. I won’t miss her, but I feel empathy for my uncle and cousin losing a wife and mother.
I feel guilty in not feeling anything towards a relative.
I can relate to this. Apparently an uncle of mine just passed away recently. I think this was a brother to my grandfather, but I’m not certain. I vaguely recognized the name when my mom told me, but I have no face to attach to it. My family is so wide and extended that I just don’t know everybody. I feel bad for those who feel the loss, but it I may as well have been told that a random person passed away half the country away, because it is essentially the same thing.
I think that this:
I feel empathy for my uncle and cousin losing a wife and mother
Is much more important than this:
not feeling anything towards a relative
If that helps 
Agreed. Ive felt the same about relatives I didn’t really have much to do with
Thanks for the support.
I’ve been described as having the emotional range of a brick. So knowing that others feel the same as I do helps a lot
I remember my grandma’s funeral. I was still a teenager when she died (my dad was her youngest and my parents had children late, so she was quite old), yes I realized she was gone. I didn’t cry at all that day I think. I tried to make myself because I thought I should. But I was mostly sad for my older cousins who lived closer and knew her much better. The thing I remember the most was meeting some relatives I had not even known existed and who told funny stories of her as a young woman.
I’m much the same. I never really had contact with Dad’s family at all (I was 45 before I met any of them in person), and generally spent time with Mum’s family once a year at Christmas when I was little, but have rarely seen any of them since. I’ve been to funerals for both her parents and her older brother, but I can’t say I had much of an emotional attachment to any of them (a little more for Nana who lived to 99, and I think that’s mostly because I connected a bit more as an adult than I’d done as a child). I don’t even have a recollection of when my Dad’s parents died. Dad’s niece died recently and unexpectedly, but I’d never met her. Like you, I mostly just felt sad for the people left behind who knew the deceased a lot better than I’d done. As far as I saw it, I was just there to provide a bit of extra support for other people.
Being a blood relative is just a physical connection, not an emotional one. There needs to be something more than “we’re related” to form an emotional bond, and when you hardly ever see the people there’s precious little reason for that to occur.
I have finished CELTA. The relief is palpable. The reduction from 62 to 40 hours a week is even more palpable. My current boss has immediately sent me a link to a teaching job 
Naturally I am immediately filling that space with new commitments. Although I need to get back to The Dreaming Ward - will try to do that this afternoon.
Update to our school drama. Due to circumstances, we had pulled the kids from school entirely on Feb 13th. Over the course of the following month, we got them enrolled in a different school and they officially started again yesterday. Sure, next week is spring break, but hopefully it will help ease them back into the school routine. Both kids took the bus to school okay, and most importantly, both came home on the bus (our younger kiddo has refused to ride the bus home since early October).
Admittedly, our older kid refused to get on the bus to school this morning and had some behaviors, but to be fair to him, his brother was up until about 4 AM last night, kicking walls, laughing and screeching, and generally being a PITA, so he may not have had the most restful night (I only got about 2.5 hours of sleep). His mom has been able to get him to school though he’s missed half the day and he can’t ride the bus home (he has an aide, and because he was called out the aide isn’t there today), so she’ll have to pick him up.
Still, overall an improvement, and we just have to hope the kids are more successful here.
