Ardingflies

Bonjour my beloved family and friends, 

Another week has flown by at Ardingly - the time just goes so quickly it's ridiculous, I can't believe it's almost half-term. It feels like it was two weeks ago when I arrived and felt so overwhelmed by the huge school and all the names and jobs to learn. Ah, how far I've come :P

Since my last post, nothing too exciting has happened, although I'll tell you about my week anyway. 

As Friday rolled around, I was excited for the weekend, but on Friday morning, I was told that I had to work until 8:30 pm that night at the parent-teacher conference pouring tea and coffee. Ugh. But anyway, afterwards, Jess and I cooked popcorn and watched Finding Neverland while the boys went out in Haywards Heath. 

Saturday was particularly long... Normally I get half of Saturday off but I worked all day unfortunately. In the morning, some students had to sit entrance and scholarship exams (on a Saturday! How mean is that!) so Joel and I had to don our hi-vis vests and direct traffic in the cold. We got 'radios' though - walkie talkies - so that made up for it a little.
An hour later, I went up to my warm bed and watched tv for 2 hours (work is so hard heheh) before I was needed at netball. We hopped in the coach and drove for almost an hour to get to our match at a school called Christ's Hospital. This school is MASSIVE. And their school uniforms are really traditional, I'll post a photo to show you because I was shocked when I saw them.

I'd honestly hate to wear it, but apparently the school held a vote a couple of years ago to see if the students wanted to change their uniform and the majority said no, so they're keeping it. Crazy. Anyway, so it was freeeeeeezing when we got there, I joined in on the warm up so I wasn't so cold. In the first quarter, it started pouring, and me being the idiot foreigner I am, didn't bring any waterproofs so my big doona of a coat got soaked. They call doonas 'duvets' here, fun fact. Anyway and then it started to hail... Another example of beautiful English weather. The girls lost unfortunately, but it was a good game. Afterwards, we went to their dining hall for match tea and they have these huge old paintings in there. The biggest one took up most of the length of the hall and is apparently the longest painting in Europe.

We drove home and I got ready for my first gig running the bar. Jess and I were hired for the Ardingly Burns Night function (although we've yet to be paid...) and we had so much fun! Burns night is a Scottish thing, where the life of the bard(poet) Robert Burns is commemorated. The day also celebrates Burns' contribution to Scottish culture. His' best known work is "Auld Lang Syne". So we poured wine and beer and watched the guests get drunk and dance. The bagpipes were played and kilts and tarten were worn... I tried the Scottish delicacy, haggis ("Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally encased in the animal's stomach and simmered for approximately three hours. Most modern commercial haggis is prepared in a sausage casing rather than an actual stomach." I'm very very surprised I ate it... But it wasn't so bad actually) and danced to 'strip the willow'. I loved doing it, and our boss was so fun and lovely, she said she would ask for us next time she had a function here. And the head of catering thought we did such a good job, he gave us a bottle of Chardonnay on him! Apparently he's never done that before so, go us! Guess what we'll be drinking this weekend :P

We finished late and went to bed. On Sunday morning, I spoke to Bronte who is in Scotland and Katelyn on Skype which was so nice. I've missed them a lot. And then the gappers and I headed down to brunch (on Sunday, the school does brunch so we can sleep in!) and then caught a cab into Haywards Heath for some shopping. There's not a whole lot of shops in Haywards, but we hit up the 99 pence store which was awesome. We really wanted to watch the Wolf of Wall Street at the movies, but there is no cinema nearby and the buses don't run on Sundays into the town that has one. Very frustrating. We got home and watched another movie - The Holiday - and had a pretty lazy night. It was really nice.

Exciting news, we finally got our bank accounts so we've been paid! Hooray. 

The kids haven't been calling me 'Gapper' as much anymore. I took advice from Auntie Lee, who told me to give the kids two options that you can deal with so that they can feel somewhat in charge; I said, "You can either call me Miss Olsen or Miss Awesome - which sounds similar - it's your choice". The cool thing is, is that some of them actually do call me Miss Awesome... I love it.

The past couple of days have consisted of playing Flappy Bird, an extremely simple, yet difficult and frustrating game which I'm currently losing in... Josh and Joel are beating me so I've got to keep trying to beat my high score (which currently stands at 17...) 

And a very happy birthday to Mitch! Twenty one years old yesterday! I wish I could've been there, but Skyping him and mum and dad and Grannie and Pop was really nice.

I got a lovely package on Monday from Michael packed with Australian chocolate (oh how I've missed Caramello Koalas), Australian flags etc, a Polaroid camera and little printer to print off my photos, and some things from mum and dad (Vegemite, cards, photos, my sunnies, more food hehe) which just brightened my week, so thank you :) 

The wind reached 90 kmph last night which was pretty crazy. Still no snow though. And, that's about it for me.

I'm about to start head off to Pre-prep now, where I'll help out in the office, then with Reception (pre-Kindergarten equivalent I think), and then sit with the Nursery kids at lunch and make sure they use their cutlery and eat all their food, then supervise their lunch time, watch them swim for an hour, and then my netball team has a match, so I'll be umpiring that. Tonight I have boarding duty with Joel; Wednesdays is tuckshop night, the kids buy sweets and we play games like capture the flag and football after they do their 'prep' or homework. 

I promise this blog will get more interesting when I actually start some travelling.

Anyway, talk to you all later.


Much love,
Maddi xox