Return of the Rythm-less Nation a.k.a Zumba the Life Ruiner.....and also, snow is back in town

So!

If my life was a reality show, last weeks episode would be called

When Will The Grit Come? - how many times will Monique slip, flail and fall before she breaks her neck.....

So far the score is about 3 Buckingham pavement (successful falls) and 5 Monique (flails, skids and avoided falls).

Last week's polar vortex turned my walk to school into a slip n' slide. One fall took place at a crossroads, left me flat on my back with a Toyota truck waiting for me to scrape myself off the pavement.

This week will be

Escapades in Montreal and the return of the snow that nobody really missed or asked for.......

Stay tuned for when I can be bothered to blog about Montreal...might put up some photos.


Moving on.

One of my NYRs is (sadly) #NewYearNewMe fitness and healthy eating. I wish it was because I want to have a healthier lifestyle and 'feel better about myself'. It's not. I want to get back to the beautiful weight Cuba left me at, thanks to dancing and sweating half my body weight just existing, plus fresh fruit and toast for breakfast (obviously not by choice lol, I ate what I was given). I'm proud to say I've made it almost all the way through January eating at least one salad a day and working out every day - barring long weekend getaways....don't judge me what am I gonna do, sneak into the bathroom and do burpees and crunches while everyone is sleeping and hope no-one realises? - thanks to my PumpUp fitness app [that's right people, I'm legit] and general guilt/skin breakouts. Gotta love it.

In short. For 2014

I won't set myself up for failure
and admit defeat by posting a picture of the likely reality...

In honour of this commitment (ha, barely a month and its "commitment" like a sub-par relationship) I've decided to keep throwing my money away on Zumba classes, not just makeup and clothes. And true to form, my lovely instructor got some new tracks and some new wack/ridiculously complicated/off beat/un-doable routines!

So at the moment, class consists of this (see too your left): My instructor making herself look good down in front, looking at her audience between moves. Aaaaand the rest of us looking a hot mess trying to keep up or style out mistakes by making our own moves. I'm May the Kanker-sister because I always look at my instructor with a happy, hopeful expression while my feet try and communicate with hers to figure out what they hell they're doing and what beat they're following and where mine can find it.

 -______________________-

Sometimes I wish I could just run the class for one day. Roll in with a boombox, some 90's/00's music with a headscarf and hoop earrings on and one of my dad's tshirts and some big old tracksuit bottoms (rather than leggings/pedal pushers and a vest top) and, just like my instructor, offer no actual instruction on how to do the routine, just start dancing:

and 5, 6, 7, 8, - warmup

 followed by:

"pat your weave ladies" squats.
If you want to push yourself change out of tracksuits and into those
pyjama boy shorts no one is ever meant to see.....

And of course the:

"I don't want no scrub" bouncing lunges, with a punchy #NewYearNewMe mantra.
To push yourself, spontaneously do a cartwheel in the background
while everyone else is busy lunging & affirming.

And to finish, the Queen Elizabeth:

all tension must be held in the face until a digestive is procured.

In other news, hair and clothes are going well for me right now. Yes. That's right. So little else is going on in my weeks at school since my return that my highlights come from wardrobe moments of glory and successfully taking hairstyles from the small screen [YouTube] to the big screen [my life]. No word of a lie, even though it took me all day to get from New Jersey to Buckingham, I rolled into school the next day in my new clothes - thank you Auntie Jackie! - like Tyra was watching.....

Sadly I came in to discover it was actually my day off [on the updated calendar] so I just took down my fabulous Christmas decorations then went home.

On the upside, braiding and pin curling and decorative scarf ties have been working wonders on my hair right now. No joke. I ain't got no hairdresser money right now so YouTube is tutoring me on - how to not leave the house with jacked up hair....or at least hide it well. You know them mornings when a style you tried the day before comes out so well it shocks you and you have to give yourself an  arrogance allowance:

                             

Nothing interesting, but you know how I love sharing with y'all (cue crickets applauding) here are some things I heard at school recently/convos I've been in, and reactions I had to hold inside.

(when talking about Judaism - reading a book on the Holocaust - with my kids to explain what some words in the story meant)

Kid: How do you know all this stuff?

Me: I learnt it at school.

Kid: And you still remember it?! Aren't you like 50 years old??

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(later in that same class)

Another kid: Whatever, that doesn't mean that all the Germans are Nayzees.

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(reading the same book with another group)

Kid: Why did people listen to Hitler, he was just a giant douche.

- Ladies and gentlemen, these children are our future -

...................................................................................................................................................................

(later when a sentence using 'fierce' to describe Polish winters)

Kid 1: What does 'fierce' mean?

- NO JOKE, THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED -

Kid 2: [no words were spoken, but she did this with confidence and assurance]

a combination of exhibit A

and exhibit B

Me: Ooookay, different kind of 'fierce'....you watch too much TV.

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(telling my grade 3's to each take a dictionary before we go to a classroom)

My bougie little braniac student : I'm not taking one 'cause I don't need one *sashays out of class*

(as soon as we start work and I tell them they have to look up words in the dictionary to fill in the work sheet)

Bougie: C-can I have a dictionary please?

Me: See, I told you to take one (petty but I don't regret it).

 ..................................................................................................................................................................

Me: Broom, b-r-o-o-m, like room, moon and soon

Weird girl: I. Am a mooooooooooon!

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(in the car with one of my teacher's who kindly offered to give me a ride home when a black man drives past)

Teacher: Your skin is a lot lighter than his, do you have some white in you? (clearly she has decided we're at this point in our relationship now, I was not informed of this update...)

Me: [to her credit she's not wrong, so I had to answer, but I still pulled this face out the window] Yea...somewhere, like grandparents, great grandparents etc.... *cue awkward discussion of the colonial history of Jamaica, and me having to state that it is, in fact, no longer a colony and that there was "some mixing going on" in the Caribbean*

Teacher: So when did your parents move to England?

Me: [clarifying one parent is 1st gen Jamaican and one is 2nd gen from my immigrant grandparents]

Teacher: Ah, Jamaycah (no that is not a typo, that, is how she said it). Land of the smoking, marijuana, the music, Marley-land.

Me: [I couldn't leave the car, so I mentally left the conversation]

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(Another teacher I keep crossing paths with - via the window of a door - took a moment to give me a breakdown)

Other Teacher: [excuse me while I paraphrase and read between the lines] Look yea, every Tuesday at the same time I come to this room with my class and, when we see you in here we leave and have to go to another room [meaning when she looks in, waves c'est correct and marches her little class away without putting up a fight]. Now, I don't know if you know [I didn't] but we come here a little after 2pm [when my group has been in here since 1. 20 pm] and have reserved this room for that time [my reservation was written in pencil last term, she erased it and wrote over it in pen, telling no-one] so we need to use this room [aka could you please leave now].

Me: Ok, sure, I didn't know. We'll leave. Come on guys.

#SideNote

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Some things in this school are just #TeamTooMuch

Please Lord, just let me make it out of January in one piece.