gunga_din

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:24:19 GMT

So something floating around on LJ right now is for someone to suggest 5 interests for you to explain. Liz has provided me with 5 to talk about so here they are:

New Zealand – I guess it stems from the music. It started out with Split Enz when I was a kid and then I discovered a couple more bands. I decided to go there on a gap year and then on to Australia as they were places I figured I’d be able to cope in by myself as they’re not too different from home. When I got to NZ I fell in love with the place. I saw pretty much the whole county and had some good times with good people over there. I have many a good memory of the evenings at the slum in Auckland with Kim and Paul, and to a lesser extent the Japanese girls and the other Brits. My best friend also came out to visit and we spent a few weeks seeing the North Island. I’m really into my music and discovered a whole heap of stuff over there that I associate with the good times. My favourite bands are kiwi acts which further helps my love for the place. I didn’t make it to Oz in the end as I extended my stay in NZ because I loved it so much. I’ve been back twice since and still want to try and live out there again some day. My love for the kiwi music is still going strong too.

Teaching – I’m not entirely sure how this came about! I originally decided I would never want to be a teacher. I still don’t think I’d ever want to teach in a British school but after spending time working for EF I decided that teaching English could be fun. It also gives me a chance to live abroad and see a bit more of the world. Now I’ve finished the CELTA course I am pretty sure its something I’m going to enjoy doing.

History – I enjoyed history at school and was really good at it. I had some ace teachers who always made lessons fun so I really looked forward to them. At uni I figured it was important to study something I actually enjoyed for 3 years and so went for history. My other option was German as I also enjoyed that but I plumped for History in the end. I really enjoyed it at uni as I got to study some really interesting topics. I also got to be a geek and read a bunch of (usually) interesting books and do some research in archives for 3 years.

Audio style music genres – So my first day in New Zealand I went to buy some CDs and got chatting to the guys working in the store, Dale and Matt. I became something of a regular there and they gave me lots of suggestions for new music to try out. Dale was a breaks DJ and invited me along to a club he played at. I met a bunch of cool people there and despite my reservation actually quite liked the music that was playing. I went out a few more times with them and got into the music a bit more and picked up a couple of CDs. There was a guy who moved into the hostel for a while who was a bit of a raver so I went to a few drum and bass nights with him at the same time as I discovered Concord Dawn and Shapeshifter. It started out in NZ, however I really got into the music when I went to uni. The first week there I went along to Supercharged as I recognised the name Krafty Kuts from hearing the guys in NZ talk about him. It had an awesome time and went along the next week with some other people – it was the first night Supercharged happened at Audio so there was a big launch party with the Scratch Perverts. I had an even better time so decided to try and go as much as possible.. Some of the best nights out I’ve had were at Audio with good music and good people. As Brighton is a big part of the scene I was able to really discover the music as there were always good DJs playing every week and a bunch of independent CD stores selling albums. Through going to Supercharged regularly I got into things like dubstep and decent drum and bass by hearing them mixed in with some of my favourite breaks tracks.

Travel – My first big trip was to Bolivia with the school. I wasn’t sure about signing up for it but in the end I decided it might be good to see if I could cope with being away for a month before committing to a whole year away in New Zealand. I had a really good time and it got me in the mood for going away. It was really good to experience a completely different culture and as there was a big group of us and a support network in place should things go wrong it was slightly less daunting than it could have otherwise been. It made me more certain that I could cope with a year in NZ too. I really enjoyed my time in NZ – some of my favourite memories are from that time plus it really changed me as a person because I actually had to speak to people. I was painfully shy up til that point but I had no option there but to force myself to speak to randoms. I have been looking for ways to get away ever since and have had a few more good trips since then but there is still a lot of the world left to see!

Now Liz you have to write about the ones Lou suggested for you!

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:23:49 GMT

I am here!

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:07:24 GMT

I'm leaving TOMORROW!! Argh!

My new life

I might copy and paste entries here too. We'll see.

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:55:34 GMT

Kora are playing in Brighton on the 11th November *cries*

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:46:35 GMT

I love this song at the moment:

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 19:38:49 GMT

Things I have done recently:-

I went to Brighton last weekend! Went down on Friday and went along to Battlejam. There was some breaks, some drum and bass, some dupstep, some le eep-op, and a bunch more random things that made it a good night. Was my list night at Audio for a while so I'm glad there was some breaks! On Saturday I went into Brighton for a bit to do a bit of shopping but I began to hate all the slow walkers and people who stopped in the middle of the street so I gave up and went to the beach to read my book for a bit until I got too cold. Then I walked back to Hove along the sea front. That evening went out to the nice Chinese around the corner from the crazies house and had a nice meal with Kyle, Mary and Liz. Lots of nice food! Didn't do much on Sunday during the day then at 4 I started my monster journey home. Too many rail replacement services for my liking and the journey took about 5 hours in the end.

On Tuesday I went to London for the day and met up with my fellow history geek Mat. We went to the Imperial War Museum, then along to Covent Garden to the Oz/Kiwi/Canada shop. We slowly made our way from there up to Oxford Street and then walked back down to Leicester Square to get some food.

Yesterday I went to Birmingham to see Nina. We wondered around the shops then went for some lunch. Again we were plagued by slow walkers and random stoppers so we went to the oldest working cinema in the UK where Nina's boyfriend works. We sat at the bar and had something to drink then had to say goodbye to Nina. As I still had some time to kill before my train back I went back to the cinema and watched Burn After Reading (for free ;o)) Sadly all the sofas were booked so I had to sit in a regular cinema seat but it was cool. Made my way back to Swindon after that. Had to change at Bristol and when I got off the train I saw a bunch of policemen dealing with some chav types in hoods. Not particularly reassuring when I then had to spend 1/2 hour there waiting for the train to Swindon.

Next week I am going to Cardiff for the day to see Gemma, and am supposed to be going to Bath some day next week with Jenny. The following week I am off to Vietnam to be killed crossing the road!

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:45:36 GMT

I think I'm going to die in Vietnam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaWmtwRaPRU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25YfTO2gn7M&feature=related

Theres a whole host of videos in a similar vein - thats not crossing the road, thats an obstacle course!!!

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:00:42 GMT

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:41:06 GMT

http://www.sporcle.com/games/world.php

only 4 countries I forgot!!

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:14:52 GMT

113

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Dating Site

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:36:11 GMT

I am addicted to this:

104

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Dating Site

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:50:32 GMT

So. I am going to Vietnam in Novemeber to do my CELTA and get all qualified to teach English. Hopefully I will then be able to find some work afterwards and everything will be sweet as (bro)

Went to the bank today to try and transfer the course fees over. I also went to the bank yesterday to do the same thing. I failed both times as apparently I am lacking in an IBAN thing from the bank in Vietnam the money is going to. I got a reply from the finance people at the language place and they provided me for the second with the list of info I needed to transfer the money. No IBAN. Argh!

On the plus side I got to have an argument with a woman in Nationwide today. Was queueing for a while to speak to someone and there were 3 or 4 people in front of me. I waited patiently and after about 10 mins the woman in front of me was sorting her stuff out. In comes chav mum and stands next to me. A guy comes to the desk and asks "who's next?" and she starts talking. I just looked at her and said "excuse me, I was here first so I am going to speak to him first". She looked rather pissed at that and then came up with some bullshit excuse about how she had her kid with her so she should go first as her kid wouldn't behave for long. I told her that if she couldn't manage to control her kid then she shouldn't bring her shopping with her. Having a child with her didn't mean she could jump the queue. I had been waiting for at least ten minutes already and wasn't prepared to let her cut in front so I turned to the guy and asked my questions. Chav mum looked shocked that someone had challenged her and was clearly struggling to string enough words together to get out a sentance. I finished up what I had to do and got the fuck out of there before she abandoned English in favour of beating me up. It was my small victory for the day!! People like that really piss me off. Its not my problem they can't control their brats. If every mother used that bullshit excuse to cut the queue wherever they went then no-one else would ever get served in Swindon!

Have spent this afternoon looking through my grammar books and have started to make notes about each tense. Mainly stuff like drawing a verb table up for each one, the main uses of each tense with examples and some questions that can be asked to a class to make sure that they have understood what the tense is all about. My favourite so far has been the past perfect continuous. What a crappy tense!! I have all of two lines of notes about that tense. Lame!

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:13:51 GMT

Spent the weekend in London with Gem and Vicente. I went up on Friday afternoon and made my way to Blackhorse Road. Went to Gem's house for a bit then we made our way down to Oxford Street to browse the shops and eye up some shoes in New Look. Found a store selling New Zealand ice cream - they had hokey-pokey!! That excited me greatly. We went to Nando's for dinner and were disappointed to find they had run out of sangria. In retrospect that was probably a good thing!! Then we made our way back to Gems stopping at Tesco's on the way to get some booze and snacks. We sat on her balcony with a bottle of wine and had a gossip. We went to meet Vicente about 10.30. as he got the train from Stanstead to Tottenham Hale. We escorted him back to Blackhorse Road then enjoyerd our second bottle of wine. Gem then attempted to make mojitos but was missing half the ingredients so it wasn't particularly successful! I think it was about 4am by the time we went to bed on Friday.

We woke up pretty late then went across the road to get some breakfast/lunch then V and I headed into central London to do a spot of sightseeing. Gem wasn't feeling to great so I was left to act as tour guide and so I shamelessly ripped off the EF walking tour I took my bratty Italians on lst summer. Had to faff around with a lame replacement bus service to get to Finsbury Park then pick up the tube. we stopped at Kings Cross so V could go to platform 9 3/4 then carried on to the eye. Steered him past all the main sights like Big Ben, Downing Street and Buckingham Palace then we made our way to Covent Garden. We eventualy ended up in a pub so V could try some English beer then went and waited for Gem to show up, keeping ourselves entertained with watching a limo full of chavvy girls trying to get around a tight corner. It just didn't happen and eventually it reversed back down where it had come from. Was rather entertaining!! Once Gem showed up we went to Somerset House and as usual I took off my shoes and ran through the fountains. It had to be done!! We made our way to Leicester Square after that and went to Wagamama for dinner. Have never been there before but it was really nice! Plus they had ginger cheesecake which is ace. We then walked up to Picadilly which didn't impress V too much after Time Square. By then we had enough of all the endless tourists so we went back to Gems. This time we had all the ingredients for mojitos so made some up and enjoyed them on her balcony.

Came back home on Sunday and helped my sister get sorted to go to NZ. She is heading off to Oz to do what I did in NZ all those years ago and is going to see NZ first. We took her to the airpirt yesterday to get rid ofher.

On Thursday I have a phone interview with a dude in Vietnam about a CELTA course in Hanoi in November. Hopefully I can go and get the TEFL done and then get employed over there. The language school recruits from its CELTA graduates so fingers crossed they would employ me.If not there are a bunch of language schools in Hanoi and hopefully one of them will have a job going!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/Nukulah/Londres#

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:12:00 GMT

am making decisions about where to go and what to do with regards to the whole teaching english thing. its looking likely that by the end of the year i will be in Vietnam getting the qualification and then I'll either stay there to teach or go somewhere like China. Just got to make a final decision and tear myself away from the option of going to Mexico. The course there isn't as good and it doesnt say which language school it would be with so i could end up working at some really crappy place. I would like to go to Mexico though so its still tempting me!

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:21:46 GMT

Thats Mexico, Spain, Nepal, Israel, Peru, Jordan, Scotland, Japan, Mongolia

also: i passed my driving test yesterday so am now free to terrorise other road users!

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:59:49 GMT

am currently researching TEFL stuff online and job options based on teaching english. the british council website has information on peacekeeping english:

http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-elt-pep.htm

want!

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:12:56 GMT

my laptop has randomly fixed itself!! the pink has gone!

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:24:04 GMT

my laptop screen is pink :o( everything that should be white is pink. and fuzzy. after 4 years my laptop has finally broken. now i am trying to decide between getting it fixed (means i still have MY laptop with XP and old school windows media player, plus they guy in the shop i went to today said it wouldn't have to be wiped to fix it so i won't have to spend hours getting all my music back into media player and anally organised) and getting a new laptop (new laptop!!!! plus as my current beast is several years old it might break again soon and be beyond repair and then i'd have to buy a new one. how long do acers live for?!?)

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:28:04 GMT

cause i miss it a lot right now

and also...

the questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food? right now?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favourite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favourite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. What is one word that describes you?
12. What is your flickr name? (Nukulah didnt produce anything so i tried Gunga Din instead)

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:22:31 GMT

i went to the isle of wight today as i had a day off and fancied escaping southampton for a bit of a change. I nearly didn't go as it looked kinda grey when I got up. When the ferry reached Cowes though it was really blue and sunny. Yay!! Sussed out the bus network and then spent and hour and half winding along country roads to get to the Needles. The bit by the bustop was incredibly tacky but I walked down to the beach at the bottom whigh excited me greatly. THE SEA!!!! I miss the sea. I walked along to the end of the beach and clambered over some rocks (no surprises there) then made my way back to the tat at the top. Travelled on some more buses and saw some more parts of the island. Found a sandy beach and some clfftop walks which kept me happy. Shared a bus back to Cowes with some chavs which didnt make me quite so happy, then had fish and chips by the harbour before coming back to Southampton. Was a really nice way to spend a day off.

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:32:33 GMT

going to brighton tomorrow!!!!!!! going to audio!!!!!!!!!!!!!

its gonna cheer me up. some wanker stole my wallet a few days ago so i have been without money and id until i could get stuff sent to me from home. have had to pay to get my drivers licence replaced, and also i had £100 that i'd just been reimbursed with in there at the time. some bloke in head office is gonna see if theres anything he can do about authorising my manager here to give me the money again but if not im down £100 that i really cant afford to lose :o/

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:26:23 GMT

deaded. and i think i have trecnhfoot from alternating between standing int he rain in converse and sitting in a warm laundry room. ace!

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:47:12 GMT

good old ef. last night we had a call about 8pm saying there was a teeny tiny chance that a bus full of 30 kids might be deouring to southampton if it couldnt make it over to the isle of wight. called a couple of people throughout the evening and was told that it was highly unlikey that they wouldnt make it over there. at about 10 i called the manager at the isle of wight centre and was told that the chances were the bus driver would have enough driving hours left to get the kids to the isle of wight, no problem. as i was saying goodbye to her my other phone rang with my centre manager jon calling to say 'were getting a bud load of kids at 2.30.' :o/

had to run around finding them rooms, then me and jon decided to sleep for an hour or two, knowing that arrivals are rarely ever on time, and if timings do change there are phone calls from head office etc keeping us updated. except that didnt happen last night and so eager beaver security boy called at about 1.30 telling me a bus had pulled up with the kids. me and jon had to leg it across the site to meet the kids and herd them all into random rooms. they were juniors so were really tiny compared to the seniors we get at southampton!

i got up at 7 today for a trip to asda to buy breakfast for 30 people. what a way to start the day, shopping with the alcoholics! managed to feed 30 people for £30 tho which seemed pretty good, considering i had been given £100 to spend! after that i had to go wake sleepng children and herd them all out of their rooms and onto the bus. all before 9am! spent the rest of the day doing rather tedious work for the 300 arrivals i have coming tonight and tomorrow. name lists keep changing and i keep having to move kids around all over the place to accommodate them whilst sticking to the ef rules about rooming kids. im getting rather bored of that now and would much rather be getting on with more excitng things.

jesus is arriving tonight with a bus full of mexicans - as they have been in europe on tour this past week i have exact numbers and genders for them. however with every other group thats arriving tomorrow anyhting goes! you just have to wait and see what shows up. hows that for organisation?!

despite all the above i am enjoying myself. suprisingly im not that tired considering that i dont get much sleep most night. until today there were very few staff so me and activity boy kyle have to go around every night from 11 on night duty. the 90 spanish kids are pretty good tho and after seemlingly endless buenos noches they quieten down by midnight so we can sneak off to bed. i go to bed late and get up early yet dont seem to be suffering with sleep deprivation. that can only be a good thing!

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:11:28 GMT

aaaargh! its 2am and i am faffing about with forms for the catering department here in southampton for ef. once that is done i am off to stand out in the rain waiting for a bus load of kids. any of you want my job?

Sat, 31 May 2008 10:22:55 GMT

for some reason i really want a supercharged hoody:

http://www.superchargedmusic.com/store/index.php?cPath=31