Tinkerbell's Pages

On making some easy money...

Usually if someone holding a clipboard attempts to stop me in the street, I get quite annoyed. There is always a flock of these people down my local high street who jump out at you at the most inconvenient of times (usually when it's pouring with rain or you're carrying about ten bags of shopping) and try to enter into conversation with you in the name of 'market research'. I have a special trick for dealing with this particular situation - if you manage to spot them before they spot you, quickly pull out your mobile and pretend to be having a conversation with someone (or really ring someone if your acting skills aren't that good!) Hence, you can easily ignore said people and get away from them. I tell you, it works every time. The boyfriend has a particular loathing for market research people on the street and goes into some kind of military mode, violently pushing me into any shop we might happen to be approaching, if these people clap eyes on us when we're out shopping.

So why did I find myself willingly partaking in a 90 minute market research interview on Wednesday night? Well, there were a number of reasons: (1) I had been approached by email and not accosted on the street; (2) I actually had an opinion on the subject matter and thought it might be useful to take part; (3) It took place indoors, not on a street corner; and (4) I got paid for it. Well, to be honest, it was really just because I was getting paid for it : )

So, on Wednesday night I found myself in a strange conference centre with just six chairs placed in a circle in the middle of a room. I imagined that this might be the same kind of layout used for an AA meeting or other counselling session. The market research was all about websites for teachers and I had been asked to bring someone along with me. I had to think of another teacher who was desperate for some quick cash, so instantly big sis came to mind! There were two market researchers (one of whom did absolutely nothing but observe the proceedings for the whole 90 minutes) and two other participants. There were also free bottles of mineral water and chocolate biscuits. The minute we sat down we were each awarded with an envelope containing two crisp twenty pound notes. We could have just sat in silence for an hour and a half and still gone home forty quid richer!

All we did was talk about ourselves and our jobs and the time flew by. It's got to be the easiest money I have ever earned in my life : )

On being kinda good and kinda bad...

So, it's a fortnight since I posted my new year's resolutions on my blog and I thought I would update you with my progress. In some areas I feel I have done well, maybe not so well in others. But there are good reasons for my failings so far I promise you!

Resolution No.1 - Go back to yoga and take up salsa lessons with Miss S: The yoga has not gone as planned for several reasons (including illness, lack of finance, too much work for school), but I have now decided not to pay for the term and force myself to go every week. I feel this is a somewhat unrealistic goal. : ( However, the salsa has so far been a success! Miss S and I went to our first lesson on Tuesday night (more of which in another post soon!) and I do plan to go every week (parent's evenings and school concerts permitting!) The dancing was great fun, but I was sufficiently hot and sweaty after our two-hour lesson, so I reckon this counts as exercise! : ) Resolution No.2 - Make more time for myself to relax and forget about work for a while: Well, the salsa lesson is also an example of this : ), but before Christmas I somewhat stupidly (out of the kindness of my heart) agreed to have a student teacher working in my classroom  for part of this term and next term, which means that I currently have EVEN MORE work to do. As if I don't have enough to do already! So perhaps I haven't done so well on this one : (  Resolution No.3 - Make more time to spend with people I love and care about: Another mixed one - I feel that I have been neglecting poor boyfriend a bit this week due to the unbelievable and impossible amount of work on at the moment : ( but salsa nights mean I get to see my old friend Miss S on a weekly basis : ) Resolution No.4 - Learn to say no to people more often when they make unreasonable or unfair requests of me or my time: Whoops, maybe I shouldn't have agreed to take on a student after all! At least it is an altruistic act (ie. I don't benefit from it in any way), so I might eventually go to heaven : ) Or something.

On the pointlessness of January...

I really hate January and I know for a fact that I am not alone in this opinion. These are just a few of the many reasons why this is such a pointless month: it's always cold and miserable and rainy outside; everyone has to go back to work after spending days just lying around doing nothing; no one has any money due to buying presents and getting paid early in December for Christmas; it's pitch black outside when you go out to work in the mornings and pitch black again by the time you get home; all that's on TV is Celebrity Big Brother and let's face it, it really isn't very good.

The good news: Big Sis is equally fed up with January and so we decided to do something together to cheer ourselves up at half term in February. (YAY!) The bad news: Following this decision, we realised that our schools have half term in different weeks. (BOO!) How crap is that?! : (

On downsizing my New Year's Resolutions...

Like many other millions of people out there, as it is New Year I had decided to improve myself by making several New Year's resolutions. However, I quite like the Boots approach to this, which has been advertised in their Change One Thing campaign. The theory behind this, as you would probably expect, is that instead of trying to completely change yourself as a person as soon as the chimes of New Year's Day ring in by working on EVERY SINGLE THING you currently dislike about who you are and your lifestyle, you downsize the whole improvement thing by choosing one main area to deal with at a time. I had several small things I wanted to do this year, but these can mainly be encompassed under the main topic of 'Relax More'. If you set your personal goals too high in the first week of January, you are more likely to fail in everything you want to do, than if you set more realistic goals for yourself.

The main areas I wanted to work on this year were basically: taking more time out for myself; saying no to peoples' unreasonable demands; getting fit; and learning to let things go and relax more often. I have a job which is very demanding of my time and can often be extremely stressful, and I am well aware that one of my failings is that I find it hard to relax and let things slide sometimes. I am a creature of habit and like my routines - people who know me well will know what I mean! For as long as I can remember I've had to put in 100% to achieve my goals in life and I know that I can be too demanding of myself sometimes. Anyway, when I thought about the changes I had already decided to make, they all relate to each other and when combined are actually all helping me to work towards the same goal. These are the things I am going to work towards, which will all ultimately help me to relax more and become less stressed: (1) Go back to yoga and take up salsa lessons with Miss S; (2) Make more time for myself to relax and forget about work for a while; (3) Make more time to spend with people I love and care about; (4) Learn to say no to people more often when they make unreasonable or unfair requests of me or my time.

So there you go. Wish me luck! By the way, I am aware that nearly a week of the New Year has already gone, but these resolutions don't count until my Christmas break is over and I go back to work (ie. tomorrow!)

(See http://www.bootschangeonething.com/about-change-one-thing.html for more details and useful New Year's resoultion tips.)

On looking back to a few of my favourite things...

Happy 2007! In the style of Fraulein Maria from The Sound of Music, I shall now compose a brief list of a few of my favourite things which happened in 2006 (in no particular order):  (1) Radiohead: Going to see them, not just once, but THREE times in 2006 - once at the amazing Friends of the Earth Climate Change charity concert in Camden, once in Hammersmith and most randomly, in a huge park in Paris over the Bank Holiday weekend in August! (2) Stand -up comedy: Went to see an unprecedented number of stand-up comedy acts this year including: Dylan Moran, Dara O'Briain, Russell Brand, Russ Noble and Jimmy Carr. This is fast-becoming one of my favourite hobbies and now I can relive the best parts on DVD! Genius. (3) Musicals: In April, went with sisters to see Chicago and managed to get front-row seats for big sister's 30th birthday surprise. Also saw the amazing Wicked with big sis in October. (4) Holidays: Went away three times this year with the boyfriend. Although Bruges in February was a bit of a disaster due to crap weather and chronic toothache (!), Paris and Tenerife in August were fab! (5) Reunions: In September I was emailed out of the blue from an old school friend through Friends Reunited which was quite cool. The best reunion ever had to be the Goldsmiths Girls 10th Anniversary night out in October though! (6) Plays: Have rediscovered my love of the theatre this year by going to see some interesting plays. Watched plays including: The Woman in Black, The Mousetrap, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Much Ado About Nothing which were all highly enjoyable. Other highlights of this year have included: surviving OFSTED and somehow receiving an outstanding report, meeting the fantastic Danny Wallace and becoming an auntie. More details of all these fantastic events are of course available from reading previous posts of this blog. I thank you.