I was also massively into Duran Duran when I was young, never got to meet them, but saw them in concert once.

I bet going to England on a school trip was exciting, such a long way to go from there.  Our school trips were usually a day trip somewhere local lol, although we did have a day trip to France when I was 12.

I didn't know you could drink at 16 here! I just googled it and says if you're with an adult you can.  I always thought it was 18, but maybe that's to buy it yourself. You learn something new every day I suppose lol.

Yes, my daughter has been waiting years for news of a 1D reunion, looks like it won't be the reunion anyone expected

We do live in a scary world with all these weirdos

Wow, Northern Africa seems so far away and so exotic! And now I get why it's so hot! Glad you didn't have to travel very far to get to the airport.

When I was a sophomore (year 10) in High School, I went with my AP English class to London. We stayed primarily in London and went to a bunch of shows there. But we also traveled to Stonehenge, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Dover. Because I was the youngest by two years, I really didn't have any friends that came along with me, but because I also loved Duran Duran at the time, I didn't even care. I spent that whole trip thinking I'd run into them. The first night we were there, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe where we proceeded to order a pitcher of Long Island Iced Teas for our table since the legal drinking age was 16. Our teachers had no clue! LOL

I can't even imagine what it would be like if that had happened to us in our fandom. We are lucky that the boys always had each other to count on. It's sad that the big One Direction reunion all their fans have been craving is going to take place at one of their funerals. It really puts things in perspective.

Yes, he was removed, but I'm still worried. Even though he's off social media for now, he still might be stalking Kieran and his family. I'm just hoping someone has warned them about this lunatic. He's not on social media at all and his wife only posts on Instagram so they wouldn't be aware of it unless someone told them. We live in a very scary world these days!

Tenerife is one of the Canary Islands which are part of Spain but they are just off the coast of northern Africa.  So the weather is hot all year and they are popular destinations because of that.  There are a few islands, I've been to Lanzarote, Gran Canaria and Tenerife, but there are a couple more.  And what's even better is that you can get there from our local airport which is about a half hour drive from my house rather than having to drive a couple of hours to one in England.

There are so many lovely places in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.  I really want to see more of them.  Where did you go in England?

Yes, shocking and tragic news about Liam Payne.  My daughter was a massive fan of them when she was a kid (she still loves them now), so of course that means I became a bit of a fan too and took her to the concerts, bought all the merch and things like that.  She still can't believe it, she's really shocked.  It makes me think how lucky we are that we still have Nick and AJ after all the troubles they've had with drink, drugs ad mental health issues.

I'm glad to hear that weird guy had his account removed, people like that are dangerous.

I'm unfamiliar with Tenerife. I've never heard of it before. Judging from your posts, was it in Spain? I'm so glad you had the opportunity to go whale watching. To date, that is still the single best thing I've ever done on any vacation I've ever had, even though technically it wasn't a vacation because it was out of Boston while I was there in college. We took a day trip to Cape Cod.

I would love to go to the Highlands of Scotland one day. I loved England but I'd love to see Scotland, Ireland and Wales as well. They all look beautiful!

What about that Liam news? That's so tragic! I feel for their fans. I can't even imagine.

That guy's twitter account finally got removed! I don't think there's been another one so hopefully they blocked the IP this time.

Mare, that's creepy about Kieran's stalker. There are some real weirdos out there.

Good to hear you're both getting on well with writing though.

Yeah, I do think some teachers assume that those kids just get away with doing whatever they want, when really it's that I try to pick my battles and let them have time to calm down when they need it instead of getting in their face and nagging/criticizing every little thing they do wrong.  That's how I've had the most success with difficult students, although they definitely still test my patience LOL.

The Nick concert was good!  I absolutely love the type of venues he's performing in, theaters with great lighting and acoustics and seats that are super close to the stage.  We were Row D, which I assumed was fourth row, but it was actually the second row of seats behind a very small pit section, so we had a fantastic view!  My pictures turned out so good.  He cut out a bunch of songs from the set he performed last year without adding anything new, though, which was kind of annoying.  I wouldn't have minded him changing up the set list if he was going to sing different stuff, but it was just a shorter version of the same show I saw last year in Nashville.  That was only the second show of the tour last year, so maybe he realized it was too much and cut back.  I'm sure it's an adjustment singing a whole concert solo when you're used to having four other singers on stage with you.  I was worried "You Shook Me All Night Long" was going to wreck his voice last year, so I'm not surprised that one got cut.  But it was disappointing that he cut out some of the other covers and solo songs and kept all the BSB songs he's been doing.  I really don't need to hear him sing Everybody, I Want It That Way, QPG, etc. by himself.  But it was still a really fun show, and he was amazing as always!  And in my post-concert depression, I bought tickets to see him again in Vegas in November, so I can't complain!

Congrats to your Mets!  I haven't been following the postseason all that closely since my Cubbies aren't in it, but I did catch their big win the other night and was glad to see them take out the Brewers.  It's always fun to see an underdog wild card team make it far into the playoffs.  I hope they go all the way!

Congrats on hitting 5000 too!  And posting your new story!  I'm enjoying a relaxing weekend at home and trying to get some writing done after half-assing it to keep the streak alive for the past couple weeks.  I'm writing about a ski trip when I've never been skiing before, so it's a hard thing to half-ass.  And now I keep getting Facebook ads for Aspen ski resorts from all the research I've been doing LOL.

Wow, glad you got to see him that close and in a small venue too, must've been amazing.  Post concert depression is awful but good to hear you're seeing him again next month.

 

Steph have fun on your vacation. Are you going anywhere?

We went to Tenerife for a week.  It was good, although much hotter than I thought it would be! Tim was happy with the heat, but I was trying to stay in the shade as much as I could with my factor 50 sunscreen on lol.

We saw whales and dolphins up close on a boat trip and went to a big water park, which was good.

Back to reality now though.  I think next year I want to do colder places like the Scottish Highlands

I'm sure your daughter does have stories, Steph!  I will say, things have gotten better the past couple of weeks.  Most of the kids have settled into a routine and gotten used to my expectations.  One of my two heavy-hitters seems to be done testing me and is much less argumentative than he was the first month.  The other one is still obnoxious, but he missed 3 out of 5 days this week due to a doctor's appointment and illness, so I had a relatively easy week.  It's amazing what a difference one child can make.  I hate to admit it, but my class and days are much more pleasant without this kid in it. 😬  At least his parents are supportive and don't make excuses for him or deny that there's a problem, which certainly helps.  It would be a thousand times worse if his parents were obnoxious, too!

Parents who don't want to parent are definitely a growing problem.  We see the effects of kids who have grown up with far too much screen time.  They have no attention span and can't handle being "bored" or not being overstimulated all the time.  And some of them are definitely lacking in basic skills.  I have 4th graders (9 and 10-year-olds) who can't tie their shoes or tell left from right.  And we've seen an increase in kids that age who frequently have bathroom accidents (both kinds) at school without any medical diagnosis that would explain it.  It's like some of them are not even being properly potty trained.  I never thought I would have to deal with that kind of stuff as a 4th grade teacher!  I understand why there is a teacher shortage.  I'm grateful to have good administrators and a good union in my district that try to make the workload more manageable, but even with decent working conditions, it's a difficult, demanding job.  And I've certainly heard horror stories and seen those videos from teachers in other districts who have it much worse.  I would never want to teach in Texas or Florida, for example!

I've taught many kids on the autism spectrum, and while some of them were a handful, most of them have been very likeable and often among my brightest students!  Sometimes I hear horror stories about students from their previous teachers, and then they turn out to be fine in a different setting with a different group of kids and teacher.  I had one last year that one of my former principals, who's now in charge of a different school, told me was the most challenging student he'd ever had in his 25+ year career.  After having this kid in my class all year, I wouldn't even put him in my top 5 most challenging students!  He had his moments, but most of the time he was fine for me.  He was a quirky old soul who knew a lot about pop culture from even before he was born, and he had a great sense of humor, so it was easy for me to find commonalities and bond with him.  Sometimes it just comes down to personalities meshing, even between adults and kids.

My daughter says about the kids who aren't even toilet trained.  What are the parents doing? They aren't parenting their kids at all and seem to think it's down to the school to do everything for them.  She says a lot of them have no interest in books or stories and just want to play on ipads.  It's sad really.

Yes my son is on the autism spectrum and so when he first started school he was a bit of a handful for people who didn't understand him and some of his ways.  But once they understood him, he was fine.  I think there's more awareness for autism/aspergers these days.

I hate when that happens! For me it isn't accidentally closing a tab but for whatever reason, I'll accidentally hit something with my sausage fingers and delete entire paragraphs. Sometimes if I click undo it'll come back but most of the time it doesn't.

Right! The Up Close and Personal tour. I'm glad he's doing small venues with seating. Maybe as they're all getting older, they can appreciate it's not always the easiest thing to stand the entire time. LOL I wonder what the big thing is. Hopefully it's a real big thing and doesn't end being just a remixed version of Everybody or something. Might be a cruise or a residency.

My new story is going well writing wise. I will be starting on chapter five of it tomorrow. It hasn't gotten many hits just yet which is a little disappointing. I'm at 162 hits which is kind of low. My one shots usually hit about 400. I'm just chalking it up to maybe no one realizing that I'm actually posting the new one yet. I did say I'd start in October but not exactly when. I don't think this fandom has come to know how OCD I actually am about schedules. I was able to link the two together as a series. Thanks for the tutorial! So maybe now that they're connected people will start reading it. 

That's awesome you got a brand new reader! And congrats about being the most commented on story on AO3! Hopefully that'll help you with your skiing chapter! Knowing you have a new fan! Wow 1,000 is awesome! Good for you!! We are both so funny when it comes to stats and numbers etc... 

There is an uber creepy person who has been posting on twitter. He or she is a Kieran stalker. And it's like reading a fanfic! Kieran is a really private person. He doesn't have social media and when Jazz his wife posts pictures of their kids she always covers their faces or takes it from the back. Well, this person has been posting pictures of Kieran with his kids from a very scarily close proximity. Talking about how he's following them everywhere and he knows where they live. And then he has posted info on where the kids go to pre school and he can't wait to get Keiran out of the way so he can have Jazz and the kids all to himself. Totally scary and creepy. We all keep reporting the account but then he just resurfaces with another username. Then we wonder why celebrities never want to be out in public. As it is, he rarely likes to leave his house. The really terrifying part of this is, he and Jazz are in London for the BFI for A Real Pain and he posted pics of them there. Saying he followed them and was on the same flight. Who knows if it's all just fake and he's getting a hold of these pictures somewhere else but either way. Creepy!

Ugh, I had a reply to your last post all typed out and then accidentally closed the tab and lost it all!

Shorter version:  That was the Up Close and Personal tour the boys did in 2005 before Never Gone came out.  I loved how small and intimate it was, but I hated that it was GA.  The show I went to in Chicago was at the House of Blues, which is too small for a BSB show.  It was so packed!  I found a good spot at the top of a step, next to a pole, and I stood in that place, pinned to that pole, for 2+ hours.  By the end of the show, I was so stiff I could barely walk.  But it was worth it to actually be able to see their faces while they performed.  I'd never been that close to them before!  But I still prefer seats to GA.  Both Nick shows I've been to have been at performing arts centers with nice, theater seating, which is the best!

Thank god for Nick and AJ giving us something to get us through the BSB droughts!  They've both teased something big coming for BSB in 2025, but it still hasn't been announced.  We'll see.

I had the same experience with my third grade teacher.  I was one of the few students she actually seemed to like because I was a rule-follower, but she terrified me with the way she treated other kids.  I regularly cried and complained that I didn't feel well to try to get out of going to school.  That was the only year I didn't like school.  When I have to lecture a class, I always make a point to say, "I know it's not all of you.  If you're someone who's been following the rules, you can tune me out right now because I'm not talking to you" and make eye contact with my good kids so they know it's not directed at them.

How's it going with your new story?  I hope the first chapter was well-received!

I'm excited because I got a new comment on my current WIP that wasn't from one of my three regulars, and it made it the most commented-on story in the BSB fandom!  I'm still writing the damn skiing chapter.  It's going okay so far; I'm just slow and haven't had a lot of time or energy to write.  But I'm on track to hit Day 1000 of my writing streak on the 17th, so I keep plugging away at it.