June 18, 2007

A long time ago we had a Little Sister Earth that liked to stay close to our Brother Earth. One day the Sun who offered light hid away from Sister. She tried desperately to follow the gas trail the sun had left behind but the Sun was so far a way she could not see through the darkness. Sister was so sad the Sun had disapeared that some of her earth crumbled off.

The pieces of earth mixed with the gas trail, cold elements sunk to form earth and hot elements rose to form atmosphere. The movement of heat made the elements spin into millions of stars around Sister who was now the moon. Sister was pleased to be with the stars, they brought light into her land which she could bring admist darkness to her Brother Earth.

To this day, when we look up into the nights sky the moon shines so brightly showing her marks that crumbled so long ago. If we are lucky we can see her hiding the Sun from Brother Earth.

Friend, does the sun not shine for the earth?
Do the stars not smile upon the moon?
Does the sea not care for the sand?

Friend, do you walk away from the one person you love?

The story and questions are about my first break up with my boyfriend of 2 years 1 month which happened two days ago.
Sometimes that sinking feeling went away and I was left with nothing. Somethings hurt so badly. It was so hard to breathe.

18 June 2007

I'm working in a primary school at the moment on a voluntary/relief basis, preparing for a lifetime of education, just to give you a smidge of context.

Today was the day that the literacy training was rescheduled following its postponement from the inset days at the start of this half term. Sue had asked me to provide cover from 11.30am – 3pm, but AK was off sick again, so I'm going to claim for the whole day. The day started with Lauren in charge of the class who were surprisingly badly behaved compared with normal. Usually when Lauren's in they are well behaved. I tend to put that down to the novelty and the fact that she uses the interactive whiteboard a lot more, which they enjoy. Today they were badly behaved, disinterested, noisy and ignored lots of instructions.

I had found out that the plan was for them to have two PE sessions today; one for the whole class from 11.30am – 12pm, and then two sessions in the afternoon. During this time I was going to take the other half of the group for numeracy – practising adding on 10 because the class have had such trouble using the concept of adding 9 by adding 10 and taking 1.

Rachel (Tuesday morning voluntary TA) arrived at 11.15am, which was a pleasant surprise because I didn't know I was going to have any help! That was the point that I calmed down enough to do some planning.

I kept some of the children from AM PE because of their bad behaviour. While Rachel and I were getting them changed for PE they were quite noisy, and when Sue came in and had to tell them all off, I felt a bit like I was being told off for not managing them better.

I didn't worry about it too much – nothing I can do retrospectively apart from learn from it! Working with Rachel was fun – she was very supportive and strict when necessary. It's always a little strange when you see and hear someone telling children off when you've only seen them being really friendly before – but it certainly made me feel much better about how I was handling them, and I think we made a good team. It certainly felt we had a good awareness of what was happening in the classroom, and there was only one occasion when I told a child to do the opposite of what Rachel had just told him to do!

I feel tired but quite pleased with how the day panned out. Rachel commented at the end of the day about how calm I had seemed throughout – which was great, especially as I'd had a couple of moments when I didn't know what I was going to do next! Before they went to PE for the first time I managed to get them all sitting in silence (this followed their dressing-down from Sue!) After about a minute of silence, I thought to myself "Now what?"

We had a couple of games of 'heads down, thumbs up' before lunch, which had a surprisingly calming effect on them. It's a good one to remember, because it involves a lot of sitting very quietly and keeping still. I had thought that a good run around at playtime would chill them out, but it doesn't. They come back in all hyped-up and not at all tired. A sit down and a story seem much more effective. And I'm pretty partial to both of those things!

I don't think there is any more training tomorrow, but AC is doing moderation for the KS1 SATS so will be out of the class for possibly the whole time. It's not quite clear. AK should be back in though, and according to the timetable I am expected to be in Diamond Class with Lauren. I think I'll try and get in really early, so that I can get any work sorted out and still be able to be in the right place at the right time.

Funny how I don't begrudge leaving home at 7.30am to help out at school, but would have HATED to do that at the council. Or any previous job for that matter. Perhaps it's because I enjoy it so much more, and because people are so grateful. And it's fun!

More training is scheduled for Friday, and I think the idea is to follow the same plan (Über-PE!).

Finally i have the Internet back at my house. I've been planning to do this for a while but since i just got the Internet back i will start today. At the restaurant i work at we make what is called "staff meal" basically when business dies down we (the back of the house) have to cook something for ourselves and the front of the house to eat. I intend to start noding these recipes as a way to get myself in the habit of writing things for this site more often.

Now, i have a small caveat here about the recipes. When i/we make them we are not measuring ingredients. We are also making these meals for 10+ people and as such i will give you my best estimates for amounts. I simply ask that you bear in mind the kind of yield one will get from my amounts also keep in mind that my amounts are estimates, you will probably want to change some things to make the dish more to your liking.

Lime shrimp:

1 bag frozen shrimp 1 can coconut milk 8 cups basmati rice 5-6 limes 1 large white onion 1 red onion 5 tsp garlic fresh ginger*1 8 cups white wine honey red pepper flake teaspoon of 5 herb*

Take the white onion dice and saute with the garlic until the onion is caramelized. In the water that the basmati is to be cooked in add 1 de-juiced lime and some red pepper flake. When the basmati is done remove the lime rind and add the onion/garlic to the rice.

In a large saucepan put in the red onion (diced) and the 5 herb with a little bit of white wine. Cook until the onions are no longer so harsh and crunchy. At this point add the rest of the white wine, coconut milk, ginger, and the juice from all the limes. Bring this concoction to a simmer. As it cooks it will evaporate a lot of the alcohol and reduce some. You will find that the taste is somewhat bitter from the strength of all the limes. Simply add honey until the bite from the lime is evened out. When your sauce is to your liking throw the shrimp in and wait until they are cooked. Serve over a bed of basmati

*tarragon, thyme, oregano, marjoram, parsley *1 i don't remember how much ginger we used however, ginger should be the second strongest flavor after lime, so be somewhat liberal