Staff party

Friday night was the staff party at college. I left work at 11.30 as I had finished teaching for the day and came home to cook. I made the puff pastry first so that it could rest and then set about cooking the onions and preparing the rest of the stuff. I made puff pastry triangles, which were topped with red onions, stilton and pear and also filo pastry triangles that were stuffed with bacon, pate and chives. They all turned out pretty well considering it was the first time I had cooked them. I had intended to make twice as many but ran out of time, so the rest of the puff pastry is in the freezer waiting for me to make sausage rolls with it!

My Secret Santa was Malcolm - the head of maintenance. I had absolutely no idea who had been buying gifts for me but the gifts were all fantastic! A cookery book - all chocolate recipes; some bath salts; a countdown holiday clock; some chocolate biscuits and a Place in the Sun magazine and the final gift which he gave me on Friday was the book Chocolat, by Joanne Harris and a bar of chocolate.

We were supposed to be having a Beetle Drive after we had eaten but it was decided at the last minute that it wasn't a good idea as people don't want to sit with people they don't know very well! Personally I think that was the wrong choice as we all ended up sitting with those we work most closely with and what is the fun in that! You never get to know anyone else unless someone makes an effort and a beetle drive would have been the ideal way to do this! Hopefully the beetle drive will take place as a stand alone event next term! But I won't hold my breath.

Student's Christmas party

I picked Gill up at 7 o'clock and we headed out to Northampton. We were really lucky and found a parking space near the Derngate. The Guildhall is a fantastic venue and we were greated by a man dressed like he was from a Dicken's novel. It turned out that he doubled up as the magician that wandered around the tables. There was also artificial snow around the building!

When we arrived there were more staff than students but by 9 o'clock it had filled up nicely. There was a rolling buffet of rolls and snacks and staff were allowed 2 free drinks. The decorations inside the building were stunning. Drapes from the ceiling, lots of lighted trees and beautifully decorated tables.

Here's a photo of me ready to go out. I am wearing one of Katie's dresses and I'm wearing Lizzie's shoes too. Having grown up daughters is so nice! And on the right is a photo of me with Rosa Nguyen - one of my Vietnamese students.

A couple of ex students came back for the party but not as many as in previous years. Gill and I left at 10 o'clock as it was getting very cold outside! It was a pleasant evening though.

JYC Days 4 and 5

I have spent much of today playing catch up with my Christmas journal. I must say it has been so nice not to have to spend time on college work which is the first weekend in about 6 weeks.

I have talked about my perfect Christmas and about Advent and the tradition we now have in our family. I think the journalling is clear enough to read so I won't repeat it here.

And this evening is the college student Christmas Party. It is being held at the Guildhall in Northampton and I am hoping that it will be a good evening. I hope lots of students attend and I know full well that most of the evening will be spent having photos taken with them all. They like to take photos of their teachers home to show their families!

Culture Day

Today was culture day at college. It is always an interesting day as we have displays from several countries represented at the college, national dress, traditional food and then a concert of music and entertainment from several different nationalities.

On the left are 3 girls from Eastern Europe - Russia or Ukraine. On the left is a group of Vietnamese students.





The picture on the left shows the Vietnamese student's table. There is information about their country behind them on the wall, a computer showing pictures of their country and there was some lovely pork and sticky rice to eat! On the right is a table from the Indian students.


In the afternoon there was a short concert. This consisted of 5 Vietnamese students singing a traditional song. From left to right they are Yun, Lynn, Christine, Helen and Chloe.


A chinese girl called Cindy sang a solo, another Chinese girl called Stephanie played the piano and a British student, Sunny, representing India played drums.








Sunny and Krishan then entertained us with their version of Signature - they were BRILLIANT! So funny and so entertaining. And they only decided to do this at lunchtime so they had 2 hours to rehearse!





After that we had some groups - Nigerians talking about their national dress and singing the National Anthem, followed by a group of Vietnamese singing their national anthem and finally the malaysian students sang together.


Overall a very entertaining afternoon.

New Year

So much time seems to have passed since my last post! I don't seem to have any inclination to write on here and I don't really have anything much of interest to say!

Frank, Lizzie and I went to Wales for Christmas - we hired a little cottage and spent most of the week playing board games together. It is amazing how much fun you can have when there is no computer distracting us all. Lizzie then flew out to New York to meet up with Katie and her friends. They celebrated New Year's Eve in Times Square and so Katie got to turn 21 in a fabulous location. Katie and Lizzie went to see Rent on Broadway and both enjoyed it. Lizzie is now half way through her holiday in America!

Our New Year was spent quietly here at home. We had one guest and we had a lot of laughs playing on the Wii. It was good to catch up with a friend from the past and has spurred me into contacting lots of people that we have lost touch with over the years.

Last Saturday I went to Birmingham to meet up with some old school friends as one of them lives in Israel and only gets across once a year or so. It was good to catch up with them all but was weird to find that out of 7 of us, I was the only one still married!

College is now well under way and we have lots of new students. Mainly Vietnamese it would seem but as usual, they are all lovely. Only 5 more weeks till half term and only 13 more teaching weeks until the AS exams start! How scary is that?

All work and no play!

This weekend I decided to try to break the back of reports and do what UCAS references I could. ALL DAY Saturday and most of Sunday was spent doing just that. I managed to write 5 references and complete 2 sets of reports. How come that is all I managed to do?

Monday and Tuesday are the final groups tests so after I have marked them, I can complete their reports. I am determined to finish them before the weekend so that I don't have to spend another whole weekend working on them. The references of course are another matter. We have about 25 references still to write and they will be done before we break up for Christmas come what may. At least we have more people writing them this year which takes some of the pressure of Sheila and me!

Thursday is again my scrapbooking evening. I still have to find time to finish the challenge but I WILL do it!

And there are only 3 weeks work left until we break up for Christmas! How good is that.

Back at College

Term has now been started for one week. It is good to be back and see all the students again, but I do miss being at home and being able to do some scrapbooking, crafting, messing around etc..

The students are, as usual, lovely, but it has been very hectic trying to get them the options they want. I am in charge of all the AS students (year 12 to the folk in UK and aged about 17/18 to those of you not in UK!). The college I work at gives them a free choice of subjects and we construct an individual timetable for each student. When they arrive at college they have already chosen what subjects they want, but often these are not exactly what they thought they were! Sometimes their English skills are just not up to what they have chosen so they want to change to a different subject (We have students from 22 different countries!). Needless to say the first couple of weeks is a bit of a nightmare, but then things settle down and it all runs smoothly.

After these AS students are settled, then I have to start on the UCAS references. The Vice Principal writes all the references for the Oxbridge entries (those wanting to apply to Oxford or Cambridge) and all the medical applicants as these have to be completed within 4 weeks of us returning. There are usually about 25 of these and then the rest are divided mainly between myself and the lady in charge of A2 students (those one year older than mine!). We usually write about 35 of them each and it takes up most of our time between now and December 7th when college closes for Christmas.

Hopefully, this will still leave me time for some fun!