Had a lovely non-children day to day at school. Teacher training stuff. Its amazing how much you can get done with no children around!

I often get into trouble at school because I can't keep my mouth shut at staff meetings. When someone says something that I don't agree with, I find it hard to just sit there and think, "ok I will fill in 100 forms and 50 planning sheets because she told me I had to".

I guess I am regarded as the disruptive child in these meetings. Bet they all agree with me really though....!

I am ICT coordinator at school - which means all the computer stuff. The head at our place doesn't know anything about computers...hell, he doesn't know anything about anything!! (Lets hope he is similarly ignorant of blogs!) This means, I pretty much make all the decisions - the latest being, we have about £8500 to spend. Our computer suite has 16 ageing Win95 PCs that struggle with MS Word, and I need to figure out how to spend the money.....

I know...a round the world trip to San Francisco (hi Joyce) and Aus! Think anyone would mind?

You know that saying about old dogs and new tricks? I had a frustrating day today trying to be a teacher...no, not the kids - the TEACHERS!! OK, so kids can be dense, but I was trying to teach the teachers some computer skills - just stuff like opening files, saving files, copying and pasting text - all pretty straightforward stuff that they should know anyway! Honestly, you'd think I was extracting teeth or something!

I guess it *does* get harder to learn, the older you get, but technology is something some people just think that if the ignore, it will go away.

After my 30 mins or so, two of them came up .."So, we click on...erm...what was it again?"

Let me get back to dim 8 year olds!

I've decided, I want to be a Sim. You know that game? The Sims? Well, I installed it on my new PC the other day and have been creating families (One from Buffy, a TV gang, a bunch of staff from my school, next up, the XENAVILLE crew!!!) and making them all interact.

If you have never heard of this game (and are wondering what the hell I am on about) basically, its a sort of God Game. You create a family and have a certain budget to buy/build them a house. They get jobs and have to get promoted by being happy and having lots of friends!

The thing that makes ME want to be a Sim (back to my first point) is that life is so straightforward for a Sim. You can see how hungry they are, or how full their bladder is, or how happy they are, all by looking at their little colour scale.

And they can sleep anywhere! Plus making friends is a doddle, and relationships?? It's easy... "talk" "compliment" "joke" "back rub" "flirt" "hug" and "kiss" and you're hitched!! (well almost....)
Just stay away from the Guinea Pig!

Plus I bet the Sims don't have cats that projectile vomit! (Bloody Boris!)

Its 2am on Saturday night, and I say - THANK GOD FOR VODKA!!!
Oh, and the internet, and especially broadband cos I just watches about 8 episode of 24 :) While I'm at it, thank you God, for Friday nights, payday, comfortable pillows, cheese (exluding goats..YUK), cashew nuts, Joni Mitchell, sunny days(but not too hot), starry nights (but not too cold), Paul Weller's "You Do Something To Me" and all those other things that I might remember....without the vodka!

I am not sure of blog ettiquette - ie, how often I am supposed to update, whether I need to do a running commentary of my daily life or whether this should be an exporation of my inner self. Guess blogs are whatever you want them to be. I doubt whether an account of which snotty kid was a pest and which little angel got a gold star holds much fascination - I mean hearing a teacher go on about kids...*yawn* Almost as dull as proud parents, someone elses holiday photos or people who like to tell you what they dreamt last night. In detail.

How about I tell you why I chose that title up there. What the hell is Bookends, Pumice Stone and West Germany about anyway? Well its from a TV show - what a surprise hey :) It is from the BBC comedy classic, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. It some out in the late 70s I think, and at one point, Reggie is doing a survey into favourite ide cream flavours for his firm, Sunshine Desserts. All the results of the tasting went into their computer and the top three flavours in reverse order were....yes, bookends, pumice stone and West Germany. Technology is a wonderful thing... It was a very funny show in that it explored the bizzare behaviour of a very funny character, instead of relying on the same tired jokes. Plus I liked the daftness of this title.

Can I also explain the Psycho photo. I have a rather bland print hanging on the wall in my bathroom - fluffy cats I think. Anyway, I wanted something more appropriate and decided to go for an Andy Warhol-esque Janet Leigh in Psycho - perfect for the shower room I thought!! (Also I have very few photos on my new computer still... )