I heart Harry Potter

 Ok, I'll admit I wasn't always a Harry Potter fan. Actually I was a Harry Potter hater. I described it as an overrated childrens book and I refused to read any of them. I also mocked my Dad (who was a Harry Potter fan) mercilessly. He would order the books from Amazon so that they arrived on release day and would always drag my Mum along to see the films with him. I stood and mocked him from the side!!

 How wrong was I!?!?!

To celebrate Dads birthday (July 16th) me and my Mum and brother went to watch Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. It was my first experience of the films and even though I had no real idea about what was going on I loved it. But I needed more, I wanted the back story and information about all the characters. Thankfully the school summer holibobs were coming up and so I made a decision.

I decided to read all the books for my Dad. This time it was me being mocked by both family and friends and I couldn't blame them! It didn't take long before I was completely obsessed. I would carry whichever books I was reading with me wherever I went and I would read whenever I had a spare minute! I loved the books!

Yesterday my Mum took me to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1... We were at the cinema 1hr before the film started - we needed to make sure we had good seats - we had fizzy drinks, popcorn and sweets just like my Dad loved. It was a fab evening and I loved the film - I am eager for the final film to be released. I also need to return to the earlier films and watch those!

I am so glad that I lost my negative view of Harry Potter and gave in to Potter mania. I just wish I could tell my Dad how wrong I was and how right he was!!

phone blog

Just a little trial blog to see if I can post from my mobly! Is this successful?

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The other side of the world

I started the blog and then got freaked out by it. All of a sudden I didn't know what to write or what I actually wanted to share. Should I go into more detail about 2009 or shall I start with my life at the moment? Most of the time things link together but some stories need to be told on their own.

Two weeks ago I did the bravest thing I have done in a long time. I flew to Cape Town, South Africa with a group of teachers to investigate the education system. Doesn't sound very brave I know, but it was with a group of teachers that I didn't know (and I had to share a room!) and I had a lot of panic about going away before hand - I was so nervous that people wouldn't like me or something awful would happen at home whilst I was away. I needn't have worried I had a great time and had the most amazing experiences and I honestly believe that I have made some friends for life. We did all of the touristy things - went up table mountain, did a lot of wine tasting, went to Robben Island (very sea sick!) and saw whales and penguins. It was brilliant.

But it wasn't the tourist trail that captured my heart it was the children. We visited 6 schools - all were different, some made us angry, some made us sad and some restored faith in human nature. I am positive that I will be going back to South Africa - If I get my way I will be spending 4 weeks teaching in the township school that I visited. Since getting home Ive been ordering books and DVDs about S Africa and I'm even trying to learn a little bit of Xhosa!! Drinking was also a large part of our trip, most evenings were spent in the bar by the hotel sampling the delights of South African beer and wine! How I survived on so little sleep I have no idea, but I had fun and that was the important part.

Arriving back in England was a massive reality check. Teaching pupils who don't really care about learning has been difficult and the weather has been hard to cope with. As I write this the wind is howling round my house and the heating is still broken but I will save the story of the broken boiler for another day.

I think I might come to enjoy writing a blog - not sure if I'm ever going to be any good at HTML links and labels etc but we can still have some of my general ponderings!

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My first post

I've never written a blog before. Actually I've never even written a journal. But, I have decided to start writing a blog. This is going to be my blog... It's going to be mainly about me, how I feel and what has made me happy or sad and how I'm still standing!

I'm still standing has become my motto in life. Depending on the type of day or week I've had I will play the Elton John classic and dance around the living room - sometimes I cry and sometimes I laugh but I always try and dance. The singing and dancing has the same impact on my Mum!

So why is this my motto? 2009 wasn't the best year of my life. I'm 26 and I know that the future is going to have a lot of ups and downs, but I know that 2009 was the worst year of my life so far and I truly hope that I don't get another year like it. In 2009 my Dad died. He was 53 years old and it was very sudden. No warning, no heads up, no divine sign - One minute he was sat on the sofa and the next he had had a massive heart attack and was gone. Unfortunately this wasn't the only bad thing of 2009 - my brother and his wife got divorced and my boyfriend left for work one morning and decided he wanted to be a single man again.

So when I'm having a bad day I play my favourite Elton John song and I'm thankful that I am still standing because I know it's going to take a lot more to knock me over!