Oh, internet friends, how I love you! Thank you from the heart of my bottom for all your lovely messages, notes and emails over the least couple of days. It has meant so much to me.
Because not much else has happened, this entry will pretty much all be �cancer news� but I am actually doing some more interesting stuff over the weekend so I should have better things to write about then, but I thought I�d hop over here quickly to let you know that I put off telling the kids until Wednesday night as it was Jooj�s birthday on Tuesday and she had a Spanish GCSE exam on Wednesday morning.
I�d had a bit of a meltdown at school in the morning � I was already pre-occupied with the whole �telling the kids� thing and then the Headmistress made the mistake of asking me how I was feeling. I said �Im Fi�..� but couldn�t get the �..ne� out cos my face went into a great big screwed up mess and I kind of went a bit crumpled, which was a shame as I was on the stairs at the time and playing on stairs can be dangerous, boys and girls. She asked me what classes I had and I explained that I had pretty much all the shittiest kids in the lower school, one class after another. By the time Id gone to the Ladies Room and sorted my squashed tomato face out, she�d swept into the admin office and swapped my schedule with one of the other cover supervisors so that I just had maths classes all day (and when the other CS had asked �can I ask why I have to swap?� she said �No.�) and calm was restored.
Before dinner I got Jooj and Treacle in the TV room and spilled the beans. I didn�t dress it up at all � they are clever girls and they know when theyre being bullshitted � but they completely wrong-footed me by being utterly sanguine and matter-of-fact about the whole thing. I would love to say that they get that from me, but I was so surprised that I nearly felt like pinching them, just to make them cry a BIT ferchristsake! I would say that they were even a little heartless, if I had not had SOOOOOO many kisses and cuddles from them since last night that I know they have hearts as big as planets and they love their mama, fersure.
Last night I had to go out and do the inaugural meeting of a new community choir we are trying to start up at school. I don�t really �do� choirs but I said I�d help and it kind of snowballed a bit after that � if �snowballed� means �yeh, OK, we said �help� but we actually meant �run the whole thing��. We had about a dozen people turn up and I coached them through �Hard Days Night� which is one of those songs that�s easy to sing and pretty much sounds ok whoever�s singing it, once they�ve had a bit of guidance. For a first meeting, it all turned out pretty much OK. Ive only ever taught singing to one person at a time before but they seemed to be having fun, which is the whole point of it. I already told then that if they were thinking they�d be putting on a performance of Handel�s Messiah before Christmas then they were deffo in the wrong choir � ours is more about making lots of noise, some of it tuneful (ideally), and having fun while we do it. I want to get everyone involved in choosing what to sing, and I think the group liked that idea. Next week, because somebody has asked if we can do something for the Christmas Carol Concert in a couple of weeks, we�re going to get in some crooning practice before we start coming all ye faithful (or whatever I decide to make them sing!). Personally I�d like to do the Siouxsie and the Banshees version of Il Est Ne � look! Here it is:
But I fear I have not enough time at my disposal to teach them all French AND make them tuneful! I love that carol � there�s loads of different versions of it online but I like the kind of spookiness of the Siouxsie version. When I sing it, I sing it like that�.but without the vaguely foghorn-ish overtones, natch. I CAN sing, after all!
You know, I was also going to type �and am not an aging punk rocker� there�and then I remembered that I am.
Heehee, I just watched it again � I love how embarrassed Robert Smith looks, and Siouxsie� s �pan lid� playing and scant regard to the actual lyric is truly magical. *snort*. Its still great though, isn�t it. THAT�s how to make carols un-sappy, my friends. And you have to agree, it�s a skill to be able to mention bagpipes in ANY language and not have people cantering for the off switch.
Friday
Anyways, back to cancer central (see! The insidious little bastard sneaks in EVERYWHERE!). Thursday morning, the headmistress called a staff briefing (especially for me! I�d feel a bit special if it wasn�t altogether a bit crappy) and told all the teachers. I didn�t go. I hid in Bad Friend�s classroom with Bad Friend. Even though she�s now an important deputy head of department and all-round important teacher person she can still take time out of her hectic schedule to be naughty with me. Now that everyone knows, I just feel SOOOOO much better. The actual treatment is just mechanics, it was the mind-fuck stuff I was having trouble coping with. As far as Im concerned its business as usual and I noticed that my boss clearly feels the same as she gave me less than one minutes notice this morning that I was covering a year 10 (age 15) citizenship class because the regular teacher �is having a bit of a bad time in her personal life at the moment�.
I am perversely glad to think that she thinks that Im not.
Off bra shopping with L on Sunday � thanks SO much to artgnome for suggesting I get the Amish plain bras and then jazzy them up with my own adornments. I fear me and John Lewis�s habby dept are going to become firm firm friends! If I cant manage to find bras of sufficient triviality, I shall certainly be doing that.
Oh, and I checked out a couple of �foods that heal� lists online and it seems like barley is pretty much a superfood. As it is also a constituent part of the whisky making process, I am off out for a few scoops this evening and am pretty certain I shall feel quite a lot �better� by about 11 o�clock!
Later
S
x
Oh! I forgot to say! HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE! I hope you are having the BEST weekend.
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