Formalities Take 2

Well last weekend was our second formal dinner, and this is the battle report.



Having a pretty hectic school and placement schedule I was BUSY on Sunday, and barely noticed as dinner time crept up on me. Managing to shower and get dressed up formally in record time I arrived at the dinner hall to find that my usual peeps were already there.



From leftish to rightish is Peter, Owain, Clare, Rhonwyn, and the German (aka Andy). Though you can't quite see him Shaleen is just behind Owain, and his night was to set the tone for the whole evening. As a vegetarian Shaleen of course couldn't join us in enjoying the Steak that was served. However one would think for the formal dinner that some effort would be put into making an at least acceptable alternate course.



I wish I'd thought to take a picture (but my camera batteries were dying) of his meal. He was presented with a craved out pumpkin full of mushrooms. Seriously it looked as though someone had prepped a mini jack o lantern and then just throw a spoonful of roast mushrooms in it. The pumpkin alone barely looked like it has been cooked (if it was at all), but we were informed they put mushrooms in EVERY vegetarian meal, and pool Shaleen was sick of eating them.

Andy suffered from a tilted reality all night due to my forgetting to reformat this picture before I posted it. He is still in rehab for world axis reorientation.

Peter on the other hand was looking rather smart in his suit jacket. Man I'd look that happy if I had a coat like that one. This was by far the highlight of the evening. Yeah Peter's jacket.
Detracting from the fun somewhat was that I was not the only one of our group to cut their dressing up to the last second. Thus when they arrived to get tables the ONLY ones available were in the front row. As you can see (enhanced further by Owain's expression) we were painfully close to the speech makers.

Man oh man. I could rant about the post dinner "show" for hours. Of all the times they pick to schedule a bloody congratulate the management and running council, they go with the build up to finals. All normal uni students have exams starting next week, and us teachers in training are all in the middle of very stressful assignment due dates and placements.

What does headmaster Bruce and his keepers seen seated behind him decide. To have 2 hours of speeches and music performances after a hour and half meal. BEEPing BEEPers BEEP is all I have to say! Attendance was manditory too I point out...

Fortunately due to my ADD like tendencies I was able to make entertainment for myself during this boring process. Though you're probably thinking this picture was taken at some point before the speeches I tell you now you think wrong! My camera was snatched to take this photo about an hour and some into the speeches. Just figured I'd give some protest to hearing yet another speech about how "Salmond is a great place to achieve at school and life" despite the fact they were keeping us all from being able to do so to hear their own BLEEPing voices...



Now fortunately I was able to get my homework done. Unfortunately I had to sacrifice sleep to do it, and with my current dodgy state of health (I've been sick twice this month) it was NOT appreciated. Right before finals who ever heard of holding students till nearly 10pm!?!



The conclusion is that my hall spirit is at an all time low. Even lower then when they signed me up for debate against my will, and conned me into doing that a month ago (once I get the video I'll have a post for that).



Anyways I sign off for now. Back to my health unit and next weeks lessons...

Internet Stuff

Well the battle of life goes on. My primary big bad as of late is still skool, and the trails and tribulations that it brings.

Tomorrow I teach my first major lesson in my placement classroom. It is on how the Moon's face changes due to it's orbiting the Earth. Keep you posted on how that goes.

Other then that not too much to report. So instead I'm combining a bunch of stuff into something resembling a post (problem with sticking to the books and assignments, not much worthy of blogging comes up).

First off for all you facebook users out there I am now it. HOWEVER due to my busy schedule, and my minor none conformity tendencies I am not an active user. I will not be searching out or requesting any friends. Rather I'm enjoying using the site on a passive filter feeding basis. Meaning that I'll accept ppl and talk to them only if I get tagged. It's a little experiment I've been doing for the last 3 weeks, and it's been quite successful.

The end of this post is just some fun videos I found on youtube, and are funny enough I think to warrant posting them. What in lue of my having anything funny going on in my actual life!




Been having a superhero withdrawal lately, and this video hit the spot. That and I have loved this song for a long time



An inspiring little animation clip that is all too appropriate being down here (even though I still haven't seen a Kiwi). Reminds me that we all must make our own lot in life, and build our dreams.



Lastly as the summer season just started in Drum and the Museum is going it without me I'm missing that whole scene. In particular the crew. So as Peter's the only with a video on youtube that I know of I've posted it cause it's funny too...

Hopefully I'll have something noteworthy of posting soon.

Think On Happy Thoughts

So here I sit trying to get into a paper that I really don't want to have to do. It is my only one of the whole program, but I still don't want to do it of course. Now fret not. This will be a quick sweet blog distraction. I do actually need to warm up writing wise anyway...

To help me with this back home a one off favour has paid off in morale dividends like gold!


So Mike, here he is the lovable scamp, as you should know has been working for Marvel comics the last few years. Well the ultimate (not the comic series mind you) convention hit Cowtown a couple weeks back, and of course naturally I wasn't there. It had everyone from actresses from my fav show (firefly), to the creators of my second fav show (the DC animated series), and lastly my fav comic writer of all time Gail Simone.

Now Mike was invited by the convention to be a GUEST. Yeah that's right I'm friends with someone famous! Anyways in between manning a table of his own he managed to sneak around and talk to some of the celebs kicking around.

Including Gail. Now he grabbed her autograph on a few notable books, but they were all his copies (mine are all in storage back home). He did send me this pic though. Now you'll note the small thing she's holding in front of her face. I recognized it immediately as a figurine of my favorite lame super-villain Rhino from the battle game me and Mike play.

Making my day, and causing a slight scream of delight (sadly not kidding about that), Mike informed me that is MY Rhino Gail is pretend kissing. Oh yeah in your face losers! My Rhino!

So thanks to mike for making my otherwise blah day a bit better!

Now onto the paper. Shudder

Having a Ball...

This past weekend saw the big social event of Salmond come and go. The annual ball was well, a ball!

The night was a simple enough ordeal. Dress up real nice, enjoy a very elegant meal at the hall, and then get driven out to the only castle in New Zealand and enjoy a dance. This years theme was casino royale meaning we had some pretty high roller looking dudes and dudets about.

For myself I wore my some of my teacher threads, a tie, and just to shake things up a sports jacket from the 70's (was supposed to be 20-30s look, but hey past is past I say). Now the jacket was a miserable worn down thing, but the only alright looking one I could find for less then $10. The shame I have a brilliant one me and Bond found in Drum for $3 in 04 that would have done the trick and not looked shabby.

Fortunately the addition of the tie and more to the point my shades gave the outfit a real hit man look. So I fit the theme. Just not quite in the same approach one would expect. With a room full of Bond look alikes (that is James not the aforementioned Peter variety of Bond) though I was pretty much dead meat by the end of the night had this been a movie. Phew one time that life not being what I imagine it being like is a good thing!

The tie was the only other funny story. Me and Andy spent a good 30 minutes trying to figure out how to do the damn things properly. Needless to say we eventually tracked down someone who could assist us.

The terrible three who ran amok the whole night. (Owain and Andy for the record)

Beware of pretty faces that you find. (Andy and Charm)

Before the quality of my jacket was apparent me and Andy had been planning on classing it up a notch or two. We found these monocles rather cheap at a costume shop. Sadly they were impossible to actually keep up on your eye.

On the bus to the castle. You'll notice the rather sinister figure in the left hand corner. That's my neighbor at the hall Clare. I always joke with her that she is "Lady Death" due to her evil cackle. This picture seems to support what I thought was just a joke...

Anyways I'm a meat head and didn't take a lot of pictures that night. Though I had my camera I had a bit too much fun dancing and milling about to waste time standing around taking pictures.

In summary the ball was awesome. Definitely the best Salmond run event thus far. Hopefully more of its caliber are in the works.

Back to Skool...

Back into the full swing of things now for 2 weeks. Not too much to report.

We've been in lectures at college since the break, and as of such nothing very interesting to relay other then topical material related to these classes (which would probably be a bore, or take me a long time to type up... I just don't have that kinda time).

We're back on placement in kids classrooms next week. I'm in a year 7-8 class that my fellow Canadians were in last placement set. I hear nothing but good things. So here's hoping for a good tour.

Besides that I've come down with a fairly full on chest cold earlier this week, and missed yesterday's lectures as a result. I'm feeling a little bit better today, but may pick up the prescription I got yesterday from the doctor, and snuff off this bug for sure.