In pursuit of Health, Wealth and Happiness

Tete_en_l'Air

Hi Beccie, I don't know an awful lot about the Harcombe Diet, I think NIM lost a lot of weight in his first week? I've tried calorie counting before and I know it works for me (when I stick to it!), and I quite like that nothing is forbidden per se, you just decide what to eat from the calories you're allowed. I'll see how I go with this and maybe consider other options if I'm struggling.

Hi Kitty (I'm just going to call you Kitty is that OK?) - yeah the curriculum documents docs were a bit scary but on closer inspection I think a lot would come naturally - I guess they just have to spell out exactly what a child should be doing at each level?

THIS is the page I was talking about - Search by region and click through the options (the one about effectiveness, no idea what it's talking about but you get the same results if you tick all or none), and finally you come to a page with 'Reports:...' and a drop down list, click 'Trainees' qualifications on entry' and you'll get a grid with all the figures for students they've taken and there's a further drop down box to choose the year, that should help you to select who you'll apply to.

Sounds like you're getting things moving though which is great. I had an email back from an ex-colleague who has just done her PGCE and is about to start work - she was so helpful and enthusiastic and has said to get in touch anytime - but I don't want to hound her too much as she'll be stressed enough in her first year of teaching.

Hoping that the broadband will be working when I get home so I can actually do a few things tonight. I'm still at work - SO busy at the moment and I'm not even procrastinating so much as being distracted by phone calls etc, and then it takes time to get back into what I was doing Going to send my boss a little email now just so she can see how late I've stayed

Kittikins

Tete - DO get in touch with your just finished her PGCE chum, she may let you have lots of notes and books that you can then peruse then share with me Also, if she went to the uni that you want to go to, she'll know the interview format etc. Every little helps as they say.......

Thanks for the link, looks like my first choice is more picky than my second when it comes to 2:2s but I'll just have to blow them away with my enthusiasm, knowledge, errrrr, skill at BSing

Tete_en_l'Air

It's a helpful little tool isn't it?

Augh, what a day today has been - so busy!! I'm even thinking about having a sneaky glass of vino tonight ahead of Sober September, even though it'll take me over my calorie goal for the day

The broadband was still down at home last night, praying it'll be ok at least by tomorrow as a lot of my weekend plans involve the internet

Brain too frazzled to say anything more. Hope everyone is well, have a lovely weekend (in case I can't get online)!

Tete_en_l'Air

Good morning! Well as you can guess from lack of updates my home broadband has been down all weekend. There's an engineer coming today but typically it was working fine this morning when I put my laptop on to do my 30DS DVD.

So my weekend plans which mostly involved internet research and emails were scuppered, but I DID use the time to do non-internetty things and was pleased with my productivity. I got some curtains hung, repotted my cacti and made LOADS of soup - whose aim is two-fold: 1. Means I don't have to spend money on work lunches and 2. They're quite low-calorie.

So cue massive weekend roundup:

Health - I started the 30DS on Saturday and now can't raise my arms above shoulder level. It's good though, I feel good for it. The calorie counting went out of the window a bit over the weekend but I managed to stay under 1600 both days at least. I wasn't feeling like I'd lost a lot but I got on the scales this morning and in the first week I've lost 5lbs and at least an inch all over my body (except arms and bust - where frankly I need all the inches I can get!) - SO pleased with that and it's really motivated me to keep on with it.

Saturday also marked the start of Sober September although I've actually not had a drink since last Saturday.

Wealth - There were a couple of things finance-wise I was planning on but they involved internet (ebay being the main one), but Saturday was the first of September and thus, the first day of my spending diary.

Saturday -
£6.20 - tupperware boxes for my soup (an investment I suppose)
£8.46 - curtain tape and glider things for my new curtains (sale purchase a couple of weeks ago)
£2.39 - some flowers for Grandma to mark what would have beem Mam's birthday today
£28.96 - groceries (of which £14.09 was household cleaning type stuff)
£9.05 - soup ingredients (with which I made 16 lots of soup, making each portion 56p - so SLIGHTLY cheaper than a tin. Hm. But lots tastier though!)
TOTAL: £55.06 :eek:

Sunday -
£1.00 - bottle of water
£1.40 - diet coke
TOTAL: £2.40

I was annoyed with Sunday's spends as I had been aiming for a NSD, but I was taking the photos for my running club at a big 10k race, I didn't have a spare plastic bottle to take water and it was so hot I needed some. Then we went to the pub afterwards! Argh.

Hoping for a NSD today though.

Happiness - Career-wise, not great - I had a couple of email replies from teacher friends but was unable to get back to them as I couldn't face typing on my phone. One in particular was a bit negative actually but she's the one I was hoping would be most help as she teaches French. I was finding myself feeling quite down when I read it but really, I need to stop letting other people's opinions influence my own. I do want to do this, I think I'll be good at it, I just need to believe in myself a bit more. I did manage to draft a few emails to more people though so hoping to get those out today.

Right lots to do in my day job today (as always) - hope everyone had a lovely weekend?

shrimpy_80

Well done on your weight loss Tete! My calorie count went through the roof on Sat as it was OH's Grandad's birthday and they had a big family do with lots of food, I accidentally ate two pieces of cake as well but managed to avoid the wine and got back on track on Sunday, so not too bad. I was good last week too in preparation!

Do you use myfitnesspal any more? I'm a bit baffled by it tbh, it has set me a target of 1200 calories a day, then when I hit that it still only projects a 4lb weightloss over the next 5 weeks? Its useful for keeping track, but I think I'm going to ignore the projections!

What was negative about the email? Is it possible that your friend is feeling a bit down about her work at the moment and that has come through? Hope some of the other responses were more helpful to you.

Tete_en_l'Air

Hi Shrimpy, well done on avoiding the wine, I think you deserved an extra little piece of cake in that case!

I have started up MFP again as I find I only really succeed at losing weight when I catalogue everything that I've eaten. But I deleted all my 'friends' from it as I only really use it as a calorie counter, I don't go in for all the "You go girl!" and find it all a bit American

My projections were a bit 'modest' shall we say, I wouldn't listen to them. Although I think my -5lbs was a Week 1 bonus, don't think it'll happen again!

I found it funny that if you're under your goal even by like 20 calories, it goes "WARNING - you will starve!!" or words to that effect

Friend was just a bit moany. She said right at the start - the good bits are the kids are lovely and the holidays are brilliant. The bad bits.... and then went on for another three paragraphs about the paperwork, bad Heads, bad schools.... I wonder if she's just had a bad experience with a poor school? I aim to pick her brains a bit more though as she didn't mention the language side of things but I'm pretty sure that's what she does. I won't be disheartened!

(PS - loved your reason for editing!)

Kittikins

Hi Tete, sorry your French teacher friend was so negative. I've had good and bad comments from my teacher friends but am trying to think more of the positive and screen the negative comments for nuggets of worth from them Luckily most people are saying things like it's a great career and you'd be a lovely teacher, only a few are doing the it's rubbish, the pay's carp, the heads are winkers and the kids nasty.......

Maybe it helps that I want to do primary rather than secondary, so I won't have hormonal teenagers to deal with?

DD and I bumped into her headmaster this morning when we walked up the road and I had a little chat about going in to get some experience and he was really positive. Yippee! Just need to find out my last day asap as its starting to hinder me......but had a major wobble over the weekend about the finances, what to do with my house etc etc, and had a bust up with OH as he was an insensitve berk and went out on the razz when he was supposed to be over here with me.

Feeling more positive today thank goodness but really tired as I've been so angry with OH and thinking of ending it with him and then not sleeping for pondering on it.

shrimpy_80

I think you'd find that with most jobs, there is the job itself and then there is also the environment you work in, disliking one doesn't necessarily mean that there's anything wrong with the other.

I got the MFP warning yesterday as well, even though I had clearly eaten enough food the day before to feed a family of four for a week!

Hope you're OK Kitty, sorry to hear about your OH. Have you been thinking this way for a while or is it anger do you think?

I'm with you on the financial wobbles, seem to be having a permanent worry over it these days.

Birdie85

I wouldn't take the moany e-mail too much to heart Tete, some people just want to whinge about their jobs and it doesn't matter what they do, they'll still complain! I'm sure that even once you're teaching (and loving it!) you'd still find yourself daydreaming about winning the lottery and never having to go to work again!

Good luck sticking on the straight and narrow for Sober September! I need to get back on MFP, it does help to document it all (and it makes me think twice about what I eat as I can't be bothered to enter it in! ), I might have to leave my return to it until Wednesday though as I'm going to a Chinese buffet tomorrow night! Well done on losing 5lbs though, super! :T

Gah, you know how time sometimes catches up with you and surprises you?! I *knew* that I was going to see Lady Gaga on the 9th September and kept meaning to get/make something funky/funny/awesome to wear but never got round to it as it was *ages* away and all of a sudden it's this Sunday and I have nothing sorted! :eek: My SIL and her sister are of even less use than I am so not only do I have to get myself something to wear, but I need to get them something too! And of course my mind is a total blank. Guess what I'll be doing tonight?! Any ideas?!

Kittikins

No idea on Lady Gaga, a pack of bacon maybe?!? Not my thing.......

Tete - just found these websites for practice mental arithmetic for the QTS test, hope they're helpful

http://www.qtsnumeracy.info/

http://www.koganpage.com/editions/how-to-pass-the-qts-numeracy-and-literacy-skills-tests/9780749462413 (at the bottom of the page there are 5 downloads)

Hope they help - well the downloads would help me if I had flipping Windows Media Player on this laptop (can't wait to get my own....*sgh*) but the first link was useful to me.