Tomorrow's Worlds' Ultimate Rival

Consonant Reader,

Look Around You is back on TV.

Thants.

B x.

Wait an age for the wage

Consonant Reader,

I just got paid on Friday. Has anyone else been paid after what seemed like an eternity after xmas?

It feels very good indeed.

I've been seriously bloody shopping today. *smiles*

..Aaaahh...

B x.

Uninformed, Reactionary Parent Abuse!

Consonant Reader,

The kids are sent to try me, by god.. *Grits teeth*

So, there's this girl pupil of mine, lets call her Ramona Hitler. Her real name has been changed because quite frankly, Ramona is a galaxy of an improvement compared to her real life namesake.

On Monday, she pissed me off in my lesson, didn't listen, kept surfing the web while I was taking the lesson and generally being an idiot.

Now, I'm a teacher, right? (I shouldn't have to ask I know)..I want her to learn, to listen, ask questions and all that. But, she was quite happy to sit there and totally ignore my instructions to turn her screen off and listen.

So after the bell went for break time I asked her to stay back for a chat, to which she promptly walked straight past me and out the door.

I followed her down the corridor to find her waiting on some stairs, smiling wickedly.

"Ramona!" I shouted. She looked up, smiled at me and then ran down the stairs.

No gets away with this. No-one.

..Detention.


I found her at lunchtime in the playground and passed her the detention slip.

"This is yours" I said. "Take it home for your parents to sign."

She didn't take it. Instead she ran off with her friends. I wasn't going to chase after her, I'd look daft. Plus I can't run, I'm over 25.

Instead I handed the slip, along wth a few others to her Head of Year. He would then place the slips in the registers for the following morning, so that everyone down for a detention, including her, would get one.

This morning she came to my door and handed me back the note.

"I'm not coming." she said and showed me the back of her detention slip.

It read;

Mr Love

My daughter Ramona needed to go to the tiolet. Right away!

As she is a female!

Youe Got No Right to stop Her going to tiolet!

Mrs. Hitler
(Mother)

Well, Mrs. Hitler. Your girl certainly kept needing to go to the toilet quiet, infact she never had the decency to put her hand up at any point during the lesson to ask to go to the toilet, sorry, tiolet (I forgot you can't speel.)

You must ask her next time to put her hand up in future, thats what any other pupil in any other school on the planet would do.

Mind you, her needing the tiolet was probably the logical reason as to why I had no work produced from her for the entire lesson (Thats a whole hour honey pie) and will explain why she needed to surf on the internet right infront of me.

Yes. Surfing, needing the tiolet, waves, tiolets.

It makes sense now.

Also, thank you for pointing out that she is female, I can never tell these things and am glad a stinted lowly horse-like turd like yourself can offer me valuable insight on these matters.


...Sorry, I'm over-reacting here...

But I will take great offence if any parent beleives I am mistreating ANY of my pupils at ANY time. Especially pupils who are not taking the work seriously in the first place, that's just taking the piss.

And the parents of those kids know it to be so, because they were just like that when they were at school.

B x.

Texan Teacher Shortage in UK

Consonant reader,

The job I'm in, well, it's funny.

Any other teachers out there must agree, nod in agreement, say "Yeah, I've been there", laugh and say "I know, I know" or just say "10-4 good buddy", if that teacher happened to hail from Texas, USA.

Texan teachers in the UK are rare (although this is not the rule, merely a common observaton).

You really are on the go all day. Nothing stops. From the moment you get in to school you find yourself preparing for any last minute details you forgot to iron out from yesterdays lesson preparations and plans (photocopying, copying files on the network- it all takes time)

Pupils stop and talk to you, staff talk to you, pupils ask you things, inane yet useful things which you must give a meaningful answer to, even if the answer you give is by no means the whole truth.

There's moving rooms after each bell. Remebering which lesson is next.

Talking a lot. Shouting a bit too. Yelling sometimes. (Thats just the staff -*arf!*)

You get a lot more aware of the time that you work through in the day. At lunchtime, hopefully the 40 minutes you get is your own, if your not on duty or helping out in computer club (By the way, thats helping some kids to print off essays etc.- not just geeky programmers, although by god, we get them too)

After school, clearing up, maybe a departmental meeting or AFTER school computer club. More lesson preparation. Then get home as quick as your tired worn out legs can carry you (However most teachers nowadays use cars or other automated transports to get home, which makes walking a virtual 'thing of the past').

I type this knackered, sick to death of looking at a computer screen. I hate computers...

..

..However, folks, its all good, believe me. I wouldn't change it for anything. I DO enjoy it, the whole shotting match. As they say, every day is different, and you just don't know whats going to happen; the fire alarm might go off, you might have to break up a fight or you might be talking to one of your forms parents over the phone to discuss their work.

Anything out of the ordinary on a daily basis is ok by me. It keeps me on my toes, doesn't make me feel completely comfortable and makes me a lot more aware of things going on around me. Sounds funny, but its a good thing.

*WHACK!*

..Who threw that!

B x.

Great Dream for SW Fans Everywhere

Consonant Reader,

I shall not beat around the bush. I have been known to do this in the past, and get arrested on charges of sexual harassment, so that's why I shall not do it again.

I am also, not going to skirt around the subject. Although skirts were also involved in the previous incident as described above.

Instead I am going to be honest. I love Star Wars, like so many others of you out there.

Come on, admit it, you do.

No.. you DO, just open up to the truth.

George Lucas is my spiritual father, and I love him for creating a wonderful cultural phenomena that has influenced societies across the globe in a thousand million different ways. It has left a stamp on our subconscious, ever since we first saw those yellow words running out into distant outer space amid a heart- stopping fanfare.. come on, hum it with me. Just recall to yourself;

How often do you pick up a flourescent strip light and make lightsaber noises?

How often have you fucked up sentences and then lapsed into Yoda? (Fucked Am I!)

Wished you were behind the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon?

Acted out the story with your friends when you were ickle.. were you Luke or Han or Leia? (I suppose it did really depend on your gender too..)

Used the force to grab your lightsaber buried in the snow just out of reach in order to free yourself from being forcefully hung upside down in a very hungry wampa snow beast's cave in order to escape?

..Ahem. Well, anyway thats neither here nor there. The point is I dreamt that I'd seen the next Star Wars film.

Now I haven't been sleeping at all well all week. Maybe it was the position I was sleeping in, the noise of the traffic and chavs outside at 2 in the morning or those 5 cups of coffees I had before bed.

Last night I slept like a baby log. And I woke up at 8.40am, which for me is like getting up at midday.

The dream was ace, an epic of gargantuan proportions and I didn't want it to end, but it did, and I woke up almost opening my eyes to the noise of a retracting lightsaber.

Ahhh.

*fsssssssssh!- A lightsaber, yesterday*

B x.

Good Charlotte

Consonant reader,

Charlotte Hatherley, the often overlooked guitarist and vocalist from once male dominated pop rock group Ash...



She's lovely isn't she?

Well, she's only gone and done a solo album... by herself! Apparently its been out a while, called "Grey Will Fade".

Sounds groovy, as does this very good video of her third single 'Bastardo' (By the way, I'm not getting paid to say this by her record company, honest).

It features not only the good lady Charlotte, but the additional talents of Simon Pegg, David Walliams, Julia Davies and Lucy Davis. I think even Lauren Laverne makes an appearance but we'll try to forget that. Also its directed by Edgar "Shaun of the Dead and Spaced to name two things wot I done" Wright.

Visually and aurally brill.

The video 'Bastardo'.

..And if you don't like that, or it's not your cup of tea, here's Pee Wee Herman and Grace Jones dancing with a globe with a big nose watching them.

*Sigh* ..Each to their own...

B x.

I cannot teach geography to shave my wife

Consonant reader,

This week has been *gasp* non- stop. Much like any other week really.

The kids are all *gasp, phew* all hyped up after xmas, the weather does them no good at all because when its windy and cold it only gets them all wound up and they end up *intake of breath* causing utter mayhem in class.

Today I had to do cover lessons. I've not really done them before, infact, I'd go as far as to say I have never done them before.

Today I was put in charge ofcovering a Year 9 group after lunch, then a Year 11 group before hometime.

Now, usually, because I teach ICT, I am comfortable with fairly small class sizes, 25- 27 is the most I've had. I have taught much larger groups in other schools but at the one I'm at, I'm used to pretty intimate amounts of kids.

This geography group had at least half of Year 9 in it.

And I couldn't get them to log on (because there were no PCs)

I couldn't warn them that if they continued to talk I'd take them off the computers (Because there were no PCs)

And I had no idea what I was trying to teach them. Something about rainforests, sustainability and ice cream. It ended up with me shouting my pretty little face off to a crowd, nay a sea of noisy faces jabbering back at me.

A lot of mess was made after they had left, which paved the way for the year 11's. And they were meant to be getting on with coursework.

However, the coursework wasn't there. There was no coursework, indeed, no cover work set for them of any kind. Not even a crossword based on scree slopes or contintental drift. Sod all.

I tried to copy some random work for them, but the geography departments photocopier decided to die on me. This would NOT happen in the ICT department I said to myself whilst the year 11's carried on talking.

I ended up reading an old magazine to myself towards the end of the lesson, as they had nothing to do, and I couldn't think of what I was trying to do or how I would instigate any kind of work for them to be getting on with, with only 10 minutes before the end bell.

They left the geography block.

I realised I then had computer club after school for an hour. I rushed back to the ICT block, right the way over the other side of the school and hugged the nearest flat screen monitor.

"God I've missed you." I whispered to it, and if there were no pupils around I may well have shed a tear.

B x.

Don't make any plans...

Consonant reader,

Any New Years Resolutions yet?

Of course not, and why start now of all the times in the year...

You've had all of last year to sort out that gym membership, fix that hinge, paint that door, nail that bit of lino that keeps flicking up and tripping you at the most inopportune moments or even start eating shredded wheat again and watching that rude foreign film your friends told you to watch.

Why begin to torture yourself by setting up a list of perogatives to be dealt with, you're not going to attempt them! Heaven forbid you've actaully gone and created a Week By Week hitlist of jobs to do! Christ No!.. Step into my office.. watch the cat.

Ok. Rules. ..I don't think so. You'll never stick to them anyway. If you had seriously wanted to do them, if you were really that arsed about it, you would have done them by now.

Some things we have to do.

For example: "I'm hungry. I want food."

...Time passes...

"The state of hunger has increased over time and I am still hungry. I must eat."

...More time skips along the clock face...

"I am ravenous. I need food immediately or I will start gnawing on this kettle in front of me which is, by all accounts, made of metal and inedible for a humung bean like myself."

Now, before you started salty vinegaring your favourite Morphy Richards, you would have sorted out some type of sustainance way in advance. Of course you would. Same goes for breathing, blinking and in some extreme cases, walking. This type of proactive problem solving is prevalent in our everyday lives and affects many essential activites. These are our 'immediate tasks'. They're fine, we can do them without really giving them any real effort.

However, another area of our brain tells us there are other jobs out there, jobs that need to be done which do not contain themselves within the 'essential' realm of things to do. This is where the problems begin.

These are our 'peripheral tasks', and it is these tasks that rarely show themselves in real life. They lay dormant in the recesses of our minds, waiting to come into fruition one day, hoping you will spring up from your sofa and 'get on the case'.

Sadly, we never or seldom rarely do these tasks and they continually float around in the vacuum of our imagination. After New Year shoots past we decide it is time to polish off our peripheral tasks, give them a re-think, prioritise them into order of importance and get ready to work through them one by one. We make lists, stick them on fridges or pin them on our walls or just paint them on our cars, whichever works the best.

Before we know it, its February and we're already back on the sofa. Those tasks disappear, and we are left waiting and wanting and needing to know what to eat for tea the next evening.

By their very nature, peripheral tasks are constantly elusive and will rarely see the light of day. It is only through years of effort and training can we truly unlock these thoughts with ease. For the majority of us, we are stuck with only the idea of fixing the suacepan with the wonky lid or the idea of cleaning out that drawer that seems to collect tickets, money and tissues. If you really wanted to do it, you'd have done it by now.

As the proverb says: "Don't put off tomorrow, what you can't do anyway", or something like that.

B x.

p.s. You managed to read this blog, so at least that's one chore out the way. You obviously aren't affected by everything I've just been talking about. Shit.

2005 A.D. ..the millenium was 5 years ago baby...

Consonant Reader,

*whoosh*

What the hell was that?

Ah.. That'll be the christmas holidays, once again flying by faster than light itself. Christmas holidays in which I was ill for a second time in ONE month, would you believe it? And on christmas day of all bloody days. It was rough.

..Oh gawd it was my first day back at school today. I felt just like the kids.. I got up at 6, but this was from getting up at 5, wondering how my first day back would pan out like. I've been watching the hours count down for days until my alarm went off this morning. I've literally been watching the days go by and been very conscious of it. My time at the moment seems doubly precious to me.

I'd never really felt like this about going back to a job before. I really can't put my finger on it, but christmas for me wasn't the most satisfying of my career, what being ill a second time and only getting into the swing of things just before New Year, I've been felt somewhat cheated.

And what with all the horror and grief in the world at the moment, the whole affair got put to one side anyway. Theres never a right moment for anything like that to happen but unfortunately it did.

And thats the thing that made me feel all the more reluctant to come back to school. With all thats going on in the world, I do feel rather small and insignificant. This, however has always been the case anyway and its only now that I've noticed this bug's life view. And it made me think very existentialist thoughts on why we do what we do in our lives when things like this destroys families and levels settlements to unimaginable debris.

And I was thinking about all of this whilst ill, over the festive season. So I didn't dare drink anything incase I started to feel that the end was nigh.

Having said that, today was fine, the kids chirpy, the teachers slightly dazed including myself. It was, on a complete flipside of things, nice to be back.

Undecidedly awkward forever,

B x.

p.s. Happy New Year everybodies, lets hope its a good one...