40 Quotes of Lent: Day 11

"It's practically charity."
- M.B.

Story behind quote:
#PovertySkittles

40 Quotes of Lent: Day 10

"I'm like a cheerful old man."
- M.B.

Story behind quote:
She whistles and sneezes like one. DisneyLoverMolly.

40 Quotes of Lent: Day 9

"It'll grow on you!"
- H.W.

Story behind quote:
Master explains that she's adjusting to her new and shorter hair cut, to which Wicks replies so puntastically.

40 Quotes of Lent: Day 8

"Black shoe, black shoe, something something, black shoe."
- A.T.

Story behind quote:
When asked what the 'Black Shoe' nursery rhyme is, ANT very nearly got all the lines.

40 Quotes of Lent: Day 7

"Outrageous good."
- H.W. M.B. J.C.

Story behind quote:
Being outrageous...good! A new rating on personality tests ;p

40 Quotes of Lent: Day 6

"It's like little cities in hexagon squares..."
- H.W.

Story behind quote:
Wicks explains Civ.

40 Quotes of Lent: Day 5

"They told us we had to be quiet or else the bees would attack us..."
- S.A.

Story behind quote:
The truth, or a myth to keep kids quiet at 'Gig in the Park'?

Weekly News Round-Up #84:15/02/2015

Well, it's me again! Hope you've all had a week filled with wonder, we've had another quiet week, what with people going home at every given opportunity. Neverless, much fun was had by those who remained...

This week, Wicks has been revising for her lifeguard exam, which comes with a handy book providing plenty of information on the likes of first-aid training, legislation and how to effectively look around the pool. She also had a bunch of us help out with demonstrations, which must have looked like some sort of strange dance to the unwary passerby. All in all, Wicks passed the exam, so a big well done and congrats are in order!

Tuesday saw Cap informing Master of possibly the best Google Image search; King of Sweden wearing hats. Take a look for yourselves, some of these hats are truly works of art.

Towards the end of the week, Wicks was counting up her change to buy some Skittles, however she didn't have enough. Kindly, DisneyLoverMolly filled in the gaps and got the Skittles, hence the birth of the PovertySkittles, made to be shared around.

Shortly afterwards, we tried our hardest to grapple for details on the Shtory. It can be confirmed that there is slow but definite progress, with the first draft being re-written. There is no publishing date yet but I'm sure we'll find out in due course. I'll tell you now, it wasn't easy getting information; Slickens has a notebook that is said to contain top secret information regarding characters and plots. Wicks had to snatch it out of her hands and run off with it, however no further knowledge was acquired due to our appreciation for information privacy. We can assure you that we will be the first to report if any news surfaces.

Sharah also shared with us that, whilst looking through a thesaurus, she came across the perfect nickname for herself; Spindleshanks. Got a good ring to it ;p

Until next week, have a good one :)

40 Quotes of Lent: Day 4

"It was terrible, but I enjoyed it. 7 out of 10."
- A.T.

Story behind quote:
ANT expresses her views on the sequel to Legally Blonde.

40 Quotes of Lent: Day 3

"I don't think I'm built for full days anymore."
- J.C.

Story behind quote:
A full day of lessons just feels like so much these days, have we devolved?

40 Quotes of Lent: Day 2

"That was the dress rehearsal, but wait until opening night!"
- J.C.

Story behind quote:
Metaphors for not peaking too early - part 2.

Further reading:
WNR #81

40 Quotes of Lent: Day 1

"You see, there are mountains around Everest and you have to climb those to get to Everest."
- H.W.

Story behind quote:
Metaphors for not peaking too early.

Further reading:
WNR #81

Weekly News Round-Up #83: 08/02/2015

G'day all! Well it's been a week and a half, or so it feels like it! To my horror I had a full day of lessons on Monday and I have to admit it feels like we've devolved and are no longer built for full days. Brightening up the day, ANT announced that she watched 'Legally Blonde 2'. Naturally, her review of it was something along the lines of "terrible, but still enjoyed it; 7 out of 10!" And who could blame her, you gotta love rom-coms. When discussing the movie, DisneyLoverMolly realised that she didn't remember much of what happened expect for the gay dogs. The conversation took a quick turn as Wicks was reminded of a documentary she'd seen about gay penguins. I fail to remember the exact statistic in a population, but it seemed to be nature's very own birth control, as the gay penguins compensated for their more promiscuous aunts. Well look at that, we've come full circle on evolution and devolution!

In other news, Sharah tells all about the fool in King Lear, but we were all momentarily baffled due to hearing 'fall instead of 'fool'...plot twist? Hmm, I think not. Meanwhile, DLM's English teacher finally answers her email; hurrah! Also, Wicks asks if anyone still remembers the dance to the Time Warp (let's do the time warp agaaain!) since ArwaChihuahua seemed to have no recollection of its existence.

Whilst talking of summer, Sharah told us about her experiences at Gig in the Park when she was younger. The overall impression we got was that Sharah did a lot of venturing out on her own whilst others were a little tedious, for example, the grown-ups feeding the kids tales of killer bees that would sting you if you were loud...likely story. When thinking of things to do in the summer, we thought it might be fun to take a trip to the Isle of Wight inspired by the events in Badger's Day Out. Wouldn't that be delightful.

The week's biggest lunchtime discussion topic was Harry Potter. One major area that we felt Hogwarts could have done better on was protecting students against the Basilisk. Although it seems an impossibly large task, a suggestion was that they could have provided glasses. This lead to quite a funny image being painted in our imaginations; Dumbledore handing out novelty glasses, for example, the ones with a moustache attached to the bottom, perhaps Snape could've had a hot pink cat-eye shaped pair... Anyway, when going through Voldemort's timeline and that location of horcruxes, it appeared to us that Albania proved to be quite the popular tourist destination for Harry Potter characters. And one final question: does Bellatrix love Voldemort? Discuss.

Reaching the middle of the week, ArwaChihuahua and Wicks contemplated going to see Big Hero 6 (according to Wicks there's no connection with Big Hero 1 - 5). When explaining the premise of the film, it was clear that there's some sort of robot school, but not quite anything is related to robots...and enigma it is.

Thursday saw Wicks explaining to us about a rather 'mundane', as she described it, dream, where we were doing some filming in a wonderfully grand house that was situated in the middle of a theme park. Unfortunately Wicks had left some equipment behind but, when trying to re-enter the theme park, ended up having to deal with a rather difficult douchebag of a gatekeeper.

Ending the week, DLM announces that she is addicted to the mobile game Bubblemania. Meanwhile Master got her hair cut, but it took people a little while to realise, due to the deceptive nature of the shorter cut looking like just a shorter layer.

And there you have it, a whistle-stop tour of the events and happenings of the week!

Until next time, have a good one :)

Weekly News Round-Up #82: 01/02/2015

Good day to you all! I hope it's been a pleasant week; we've had a relatively quiet one, with lunchtimes often being sparsely populated. Still never mind, we had fun ;p

The two Molly's got their share of Geography and were introduced to this helpful song about hurricanes, although it is questionable how much this helped...

On the topic of educational songs, Wicks found a song about transition metals, let us point out, in her own time. Although it is a wonderful display of Auto-tune, a particular line is slightly mis-leading, see if you can spot it...

The main lunchtime discussion of the week was regarding the classic story of The Wizard of Oz. Wicks questioned whether the witches are human, Munchkins or their own race. Also, how did they get to Oz? Immigration, plain ol' magic or were they there right from the beginning?

More Chemistry news; Cap could only sigh and look disappointed at an article that announced the discovery of a new type of chemical bonding, namely vibrational bonding. Welp, something else to add to the syllabus.

Until next week, have a fun one ;p

Weekly News Round-Up #81: 25/01/2015

Welcome, one and all, to a brand new year of WNR's! I hope everyone's had a good winter holiday, we only just got back to the Academy this week, meaning we are back to our usual antics...

To kick off the week, ANT found out that she had a surprise 3-day Art mock exam starting from Monday. Of course, she sat through it, only asking for a Polo to 'keep her going' in these difficult times.

During lunchtime, ConscienceSarah tried to prove the point that not everything in the world can be solved using maths. She presented a scenario to Master, with the challenge being to solve the problem with only mathematical methods. Here is a summary of said scenario: you are in an enclosed box with only a rapidly flooding toilet. How does one save oneself from drowning? Dwell on that and comment with any solutions.

Tuesday saw the Chemistry crew getting their mock results back. Everyone did well, but the emphasis was on not peaking too early. Naturally, this lead to us coming up with a string of metaphors for not peaking too early, with Wicks even suggesting, at one point, that if there existed a qualification in the use of metaphors we'd all pass with flying colours, but of course, we can't peak too early on that one either.

As the conversation shifted, Sharah informed us that she watches so much TV that she knows the words to quite a few adverts, including this one for Colman's Shepherd's Pie.

In the middle of the week, Cap and Master had planned to go into town to get Wicks' birthday card, however ended up with a slight problem when Wicks was also on her way to town. They ended up having to leave the birthday girl in the book store with the promise of picking her up when they were done. Whilst browsing the card stores, Cap and Master somehow couldn't resist chuckling at all the 'son' cards; a particular favourite was one that said 'Son, you made it'. They contemplated getting this for Wicks but reasoned that no one else would get the joke. After much consideration and exposure to some of the crazy cards on the market (particularly one with a power pack that had a singing hamster when you opened it up), they settled on a reasonable choice.

On their way back to the Academy, the trio dropped into the local 99p Store, where they found these biscuits. They decided to bring some back for everyone to try.

We loved how the picture of the biscuits is animated.

We were all rather excited when Friday rolled around as that was the party day that we all agreed on. It did however prove to be quite a challenge for all of us to sign the card without Wicks seeing it, but we managed in the end. Come lunchtime we had the present-opening ceremony, which Cap and Master took turns filming (henceforth the creation of CapCam and JenCam). We all contributed towards a group present, which was the 'Thor: The Dark World - Art of the Movie' hardcover book (which we all got a whiff of), Ruby also made a beautiful dragon picture and Cap baked this delicious cake.

Every detail was thought of, including the rolling pin-bashed choc chips in the filling!

To end a fantastic week, even though no one can seem to recall how this conversation started, we had a chat about Voldemort's tendency to honk and also if the actor's family looked at him any differently after the movies. Perhaps people who knew him were unafraid of his character; maybe the kids thought 'Oh, it's just Uncle Ralph' when they saw him as Voldemort.

Anyway, we hope Wicks had a fantastic birthday and wish her another year filled with joy.

Until next week, have a good one ;)

Note: We are not affiliated with Colman's, the 99p Store, Gullón, Marvel or the Harry Potter franchise.