Thursday 20th April- "Miss and Mr Personality Competition" Up mega early cause I had to officially announce our presentation to the school at the 6.45am assembly. This morning was great fun. I was asked to judge the "Miss and Mr Personality Contest" along with 2 other teachers. My Gap class came to watch, so I didn't need to teach this morning. The contestants were mostly in form 4+5. All of them were totally dressed up. Bearing in mind, make up is completely prohibited in the school- and everyone has to wear the modest school uniform. So to see the girls with dresses above the knee, their hair down and styled, and funky make-up on, was cool. Some of them were unrecognizable! Most of the girls took it really seriously and made a huge effort, but there was one legendary girl that was just having a laugh and wore the funniest thing- she was great! The boys were all jazzed up in their suits and such like as well, with their hair gelled etc- so funny. I was judging the catwalk and singing part of the competition. The contestants had to write a short essay about themselves and answer questions on the spot. They were also marked on the suitability of their dress. Marks were low in this category since the girls weren't supposed to have skirts below the knee and no shoulder's showing but they all pretty much went against that! The girls were pretty vain on the catwalk but the boys were hilarious. Some of them got it to a T. Tis just crazy how much raunchier stuff they can get away, than the girls. They were doing the whole taking off the suit jacket and swinging it over their shoulders and striking amazing poses. Leslie cracked me up! He's the camp, slightly overweight boy in one of my classes. He's got such confidence and is just fab- giving it all the Charlie's Angels poses. He got top marks. The singing part was a bit disappointing on the girl's part but 2 of the guys just blew us all away. Of course I already knew Leslie could sing- I'd heard snippets during our classes. But he sang a full swing piece today and it just made every hair on the back of my neck stand up. I really need to record him singing- I've heard a lot of singers in the past and I honestly can't say I've heard (live), a richer voice than his. It's immense. There was also another boy from form 5 that was pretty teeny, and he looked really nervous in all of the other parts of the competition. I seriously thought he would have bailed out of the singing part- but oh my! This huge voice came out of him- with no flaws what so ever- I was like "W.O.W". Really really impressive. I love it when you know someone's really shy, but when you give them a mic, they just come out of themselves. Gave them both full marks. You must think I was a teeny bit sexist in the comp but the guys were just so much more laid back- I did give the girls fair points though. As the points were being totaled, the other judges asked me to go on stage and give them all some feedback, which I did. Most of the constructive criticism was given relating to the "Question and Answer" round, since few answers were given in any detail, loads of hesitation and some didn't understand the question. But I mean- come on! It was all in English- imagine thinking up an answer to a random question in your own language let alone a second or third language! I gave loadsa positive comments as well though- especially about the singing. Miss and Mr Personality were then announced and photos taken. Twas great fun! Ceilidh After the comp, I went back to chill in the room and wait for our presentation time. Luckily we had a really good turn out for an audience. We started with a performance from my Form 4A class (my dancers), who did Strip the Willow perfectly (after much practice). They were wearing the tartan sashes and heather pins that mum had made, as well as tartan ribbons in the girl's hair- looked fab. We then showed a Power point of the photos from Aman's and my travels. The kids all seemed really impressed- especially by Aman's sky diving and bunji pics. One of my students then read out "The Sair Finger", with a few girls acting along with her. I then showed a short DVD piece on Edinburgh and finally, Joyce closed the presentation, playing "Auld Lang Signe" on the guitar, while my dancers did the actions. It all went to plan, which was fab and it was really nice when Rakeema approached us to congratulate us at the end. One of the other teachers invited me to judge a singing competition tomorrow- so that should be banter. Aman's gone back to the hotel for the final night with her parent's and bro. I can imagine tomorrow will be a bit sad for her to say goodbye. She'll be heading straight home after her placement though, so it won't be too long until she sees them again. I've spent the entire afternoon and night, writing up my postcards, as you may have noticed, I was dreadfully behind! Now I just have to upload all of my pics for you! Oh and something I missed out was Georgie. I'm feeling so bad for her. Basically she's been really physically sick for the past couple of months. It got to the stage where it was just not going away, so she went to the doc, was told her bowl was swollen so was put on antibiotics. These didn't work, so she's been put on stronger ones. They're not working either, so she's prob gona be referred to hospital for a camera thingmy to check it out properly, which might therefore lead to an operation. So major fingers are crossed for her cause if she needs an opp, there's so many things we have planned that she can't join in with. So I'm praying her doc appointment tomorrow goes well- it'll be the decider. Oh my, it really is bed time now- 10 weeks to go!!!!! 70 days! 1680 hours. Hmm.