Deepavali Dress Up!

Yet another excuse to dress up - hoorah! Like the good little teacher I donned my punjabi suit for Deepavali dress up today.

All dressed up and nowhere to go? Not us! We headed off to Passage to India to eat delicious indian food off banana leaves. Mmmmmm.

Terry Fox Run

Me and Louise sporting the Terry Fox t-shirt

Bright and early this morning we joined the crowds heading to the Lake Gardens for the Terry Fox run for cancer research. The difficult bit was not the 5 km run, but actually navigating our way to the event. 25 minutes after leaving our apartment I realised that I had been directed in a huge circle and we were going to have to start again - clearly Jane has never seen a road map and the randomness of the road signs here didn't help Taras navigating.

Finally we made it and caught the tail end of the crowds of runners, walkers, roller bladers and cyclists. It was a lovely route and great to see so many people out. The monkeys were a bit bemused though!

Amazing Asia

Amazing Asia was the title of our activity week this week. Each year group took a different country in Asia and organised activities to do with it. Needless to say Year 4 took Thailand and our incredibly creative parents turned our shared area into Thailand complete with temple, beach and kickboxing arena!

Foolishly I said I would teach a bit of Thai dancing. Therefore, using you-tube as a teaching aid, the dancing could be described as 'experimental'. However, by the end of the week I had perfected the Loy Krathong dance and Sam's class were actually looking quite proficient!

The highlight of the week has to have been visiting each year groups shared area. We have been to China, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia and India. My favourite was Japan where the kids got to make origami and take turns singing karaoke! Poor little munchkins soon had to relinquish control of the mic so Miss Ali could belt out Gloria Gaynor and a bit of Brittany - they weren't impressed - but I had a ball!

We tasted delicious delicacies from all round asia, sang songs and participated in the chopstick challenge. We made origami cranes, vietnamese hats, chinese horoscope bookmarks and clay buddhas (which unfortunately looked more like BFG's).

The week was rounded off with a parade with all the classes in costume and performing either a dance or a song from their country. It was quite a spectacle! I particularly enjoyed the Air Asia uniforms worn by the specialist teachers - although I have to admit our Thai fishermen pants and yellow 'I love the King' teachers were particularly comfy.

I have to admit though it was terribly exhausting having so much fun! But I really appreciated the fizzy wine that was put on in the staffroom to thank us for all our hard work - but whoever decided that bringing the karaoke machine into the staffroom surely soon regretted it!

Dancing the night away

This weekend Global Gathering came to Malaysia and we piled on down to Melaka ready to dance the night away. But there was not a tent in sight. Camping? Never! For us there was a bungalow with pool, and of course a fridge ready to be filled with alcohol and munchies. By 5:30 on Friday evening we were on lilo's in the pool beer in hand. The evening rapidly degenerated and we were soon playing twister and wondering how we had already consumed a crate of beer already.

As the event was being held at the terribly cheesy A'famosa resort we thought we should probably make the most of the facilities and saturday morning saw us at Waterworld zooming down water slides and floating in the wave pool. Not a bad wayto build up to the main event!

And what an event! We danced away to The Shapeshifters and Layo & Bushwacka, got wet in the foam bar, and wore sunglasses in the dark.

Having been very excited about the Retro roller disco I was very disappointed to find my roller skating skills somewhat lacking - although that could have had something to do with all the beers and the fact that my skates were 2 sizes too big. However, I did manage to stay upright a little more than Hannah and Cara! I'm a little sore but no huge bruises luckily!

Unfortunately the weather has been particularly wet recently so I have to admit the field was pretty reminiscent of certain UK festivals. Within minutes I had mud splattered up my back and in my hair and by the end of the evening the flip flops were abandoned completely.

All in all a fantabulous weekend - although I am feeling cream crackered today. I'll definitely be up for it again next year!

Global Gathering

Feeling Jolly

Couldn't resist trying one of these. I think you'd have to drink quite a few to get 'jolly' but I have to admit it doesn't taste bad. I'll be having this again.

Happy Hari Raya

Today was Hari Raya dress up day at school to celebrate the end of Ramadan. You would think choosing a Hari Raya outfit wouldn't cause too many problems but unfortunately we girls can be a little bit vain and these outfits really do not do much for us. But I'm guessing that is generally the idea. Dee and I did have an entertaining hour trying different outfits on but when we realised we were gathering a bit of an audience each time we modeled one, decided to just grab the least hideous one so far.

Dee, Ed, Jane, Sam (glorious leader) and me!

I have been told that I looked like 'the help' and walking was a bit of a challenge as I am quite a strider - poor Jane even feel over when she tried to walk to fast in hers. I have attached a photo of the year four team - please excuse the fuzziness (I don't think our cleaner had seen a digital camera before) but I think it does give you and idea of the delightfulness of our outfits.