Assorted Ramblings...

An entry by someone on my f-list reminded me that I wanted to post something about the public sector workers' strike that's taking place on Wednesday this week.
( On the soap-box )

As usual, half-term has flown by and it's back to the grind on Monday. I've started to make a list of all the stuff I need to do; I didn't get to finish all my assessments or input the data I do have because I was ill, so that's at the top of my list. It's going to be a long week though - it's the school show on Weds, Thurs and Fri and I said I'd play in the band, so that'll be three late nights. I live too far away to be able to come home after school and go back again which is a bit of a pain, but it does at least mean that I have a few hours each night to get stuff done.
( Read more... )

( telly )

A real life post! Blimey :)

( Cut to maintain sanity of the f-list! )

See? I told you I was good at it! To be fair (to myself), I do have my school laptop open on the other side of the table, have attempted (without success) to access my school email, sent some other emails because there is Stuff I Need To Find Out Before Wednesday, and opened up some lesson plans and resources. I am - or was - in the process of transferring some information from Notebook to Powerpoint (yeah, whoever wrote the resources has an Interactive Whiteboard, and I don't!) and reading through said plans so I know what I actually have to DO in the lessons. Fortunately, I've got a relatively easy couple of days Thurs and Fri, despite having double year 9s on Friday morning! It's Monday that's going to be the killer because of the fact that I have to teach French and Music immediately after each other and the classrooms are at opposite ends of the school.

( This bout of procrastination is brought to you by the letters 'D' and 'T'. )

I'm not going into work today. I've been sitting at the laptop for the last hour and a bit writing cover lessons but they are at last done and emailed in and I can go back to bed. Well, I can, once I've managed to get through on the phone to let them know I'm not coming in. I've been trying to leave a message since before 6 - what is it with the bloody phone system?

Also - X is ill as well, so we're both off. Not surprising, I suppose, that we'd get the same germs!

I had a bit of an odd day today. I was woken up sometime between 5 and 5.30 by a cat, desperate for attention, who was trying to push her head underneath my hand in the hope that I'd be encouraged to scratch her behind the ears. She wasn't impressed by the fact that I didn't have the energy at that time of day to move any muscles - and so kept reminding me of the fact that she was there by nibbling my hand every so often. After that, I gave up and got up - 6 o'clock on a Saturday - ick. But I suppose that because I have to be up at that time Mon-Fri, my body decided it should wake itself up, so I came downstairs, made some tea... and was too awake to go back to bed, so I stayed up and marked a load of French tests. I then went back to bed about 7.30 and managed to doze off to the sound of Mr Humphreys on Radio 4. I didn't wake up again until just before 10, and I feel as though I could have slept for another couple of hours.

I've been pottering about since really - caught up with 30 Rock, watched another episode of Life... read my news feeds - and now it's time to head back to bed. I've put some of the clocks forward, and I'll do the rest in the morning. I really hate this pissing about with the clocks twice a year. I don't care whether we're on GMT or BST, I just wish someone would pick one and bloody-well stick to it!

That said - it's time to dust this one off...

( This clock should be in military time. )

So it's the end of term next week, and the end of my time at school A. I can't say I'll be sad to leave, although the reaction of some of the kids I teach has been surprising, to say the least! I'm sure they're only begging me to stay because I'm the devil they know.

But the end of term means it's time to start planning lessons for next term. At least now, I'll be taking the majority of the classes myself, so I won't have to write lesson plans for others. The upside of that was that it meant I had to have plans ready a week or two in advance; now it's "just me", I won't have to do that, although I have to admit, it's a nice feeling to be prepared well in advance. I used to have a system of writing each weeks' lessons the day I gave the previous one - I haven't been able to do that lately, but I might go back to it. What I need to do first though, is get a rough outline of the overall plans done so I can root out or make whatever resources I'm going to need. That's the sort of thing that takes hours and hours.

I suppose that if a needy moggy wakes me up early again tomorrow, I could make a start. It's that or the ironing...

I've spent hours today writing two letters - my resignation from job A, and an application for job B. The resignation could just have been a simple two line thing, but that never feels right to me. And as for the application, well... it's bad enough writing them at the best of times, but applying for the job you're already doing? Not easy. It was a case of - "how far do I state the bleedin' obvious?" And it's all the more difficult because I'm not writing to a spec - this is a new position that the school has basically created because they want to keep me on, and because of the situation re. the other teacher and her uncertain state of health, I doubt they've actually been able to write a proper job description yet!

Still, I do at least have something on paper which I can adapt if need be - although to be honest, I think that as long as I've written something expressing my interest in the job, the school will be happy. I think they just want to get on with it.

So next week is the week I start it all moving. The deadline for resignations (to leave at the end of this term) is Friday anyway, so the plan is that I'll get into school B on Tuesday, get the official offer of the temporary contract for next term, give them my application, and then hand in my resignation at school A on Wednesday.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Thankfully, the forecast overnight freeze didn't happen here. I know there are still parts of the country that have snow and ice, but there really was nothing on my car this morning other than a thin frost on the windscreen! So that was good. I didn't have to drive to work feeling as though I was taking my life into my hands. No, I do that in other ways!

My "other" school was also one of the few that was open yesterday, and the kids are still moaning about the lack of a snow day, and hoping desperately for more snow. I don't suppose I can blame them in a way - it's not often we get snow at all, let alone enough for a decent snowball fight and a few snowmen, so maybe it would have been better to let them get it out of their system rather than have most of them grumbling and pretty much unable to focus on anything else. Not that that's a new thing for a lot of them, but still...

But it looks like that's it for us this year. Just wait, I reckon in a couple of weeks time, we'll be in the middle of a February heat-wave like we were a couple of years ago. That's how stupid the weather is over here. And then we'll have Arctic conditions again in May.

We have white stuff on the ground and it's blowing a gale. Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to the drive to work tomorrow.

The problem is that although we're told to listen to the local news which reports school closures, they're never reported in time for me, because I have to leave the house at seven. I remember a couple of years ago, when I slogged to Colchester in horrible conditions to find that the school was closed, it hadn't been on the radio and nobody had bothered to let me know.

I called my boss earlier, and he said that he'd be surprised if the school was closed because it never has been; I suppose it depends on whether enough staff can get in. But I really hate driving in snow and ice. I'm always careful, but there's always the possibility of a situation you can't control and you're at the mercy of the other idiots on the road who don't take account of the poor driving conditions.

All I can do is wait until morning I suppose. The local forecast is for "heavy snow" (according to the BBC Weather Page) - for my trans-pondian friends, I should clarify that "heavy snow" for my part of the world is two or three inches. Yeah, we're wusses, but because we get weather like this so rarely, we're not too good at dealing with it.

And it's supposed to be gone by Tuesday, when they're forecasting rain.

1. I updated Windows Mail yesterday to the new version and I don't like it. The colours are all wishy-washy and they've moved stuff, like the "send and receive" tab. And they've taken away the little icons on the toolbar :( Bastards.

2. I've had one of those days where I'm sure I have a hundred and one things to do, but I'm buggered if I can remember any of them. And I hate that feeling, because I'm sure I'm going to forget something important.

3. I need to make a list. :)