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Stop the world, I want to get off.
It's taking a lot of energy just to be me at the moment...
On Sunday my train was delayed for about an hour and (as the conductor told me) I started to sob. I couldn't stop the tears from steaming down my face... I can't imagine what went wrong - I'm not a big cry baby really, and I knew my father was on his way to pick me up anyway (bless him). In the end the Virgin people (I mean the people who work for Virgin rather than a passing group of helpful religious types) fed me a cup of tea... I'm sure they assumed that I was grieving, or ill, or mental.
Certainly, we can assume that it wasn't the trains.
Now, if I were the skinny blonde lady who presents 'you are what you eat' I might hazard a guess at the tears being related to eating too many choclate christmas decorations/ turkish delight/ sprouts over the Christmas period, but I have been quite healthy really... I could perhaps assume that it is related to general moon madness, but I know this not to be the case right now... So, I can only assume that the complete loss of any coping mechanism at all on Crewe station was as a direct result of me being tired and stressed and feeling, well... a bit rubbish actually.
Learning to be a teacher is hard, and I seem to be on a downwards slump heading for classroom anarchy, failed exams and bad shoes....
Actually... forget the last bit... it hasn't reached that point.
Yet.
Conjunctive.
The navy blue mood that has been smashing and crashing at my soul, (like the wind is smashing into the side of my sisters sweet little house in the middle of nowhere somewhere in the North) may be slowly starting to lift.
Firstly, all three of my lessons went OK today. Sure, I wasn't quite Robin Williams, but I managed to achieve quite a few silences... obviously turning up the heating, shutting the windows and playing Enya works wonders.
Joking, I'm joking!!
Plus... I have just been marking 60 pieces of year eight homework. We have been analysing celebrity photo's and deciding on the messages that the stars were trying to give us through their posed pictures.
I have waded through Cameron Diaz, Paris Hilton, Churchill, Bill Clinton, Andy from Little Britain, Hnery VIII, Princess Diana, Alex Ferguson, Bob Marley and Tiger Woods already... and I think I might be getting close to understanding the mind of a 13 year old boy.
What a terrifying thought.
Superlative
You have bad days and then quite unbelievably, you have worse days.
My kids don't listen to me. I have some of the little horrors for one hour detention tomorrow and I'm starting to see dull hatred in their eyes rather than the charming sparkle of enthusiastic youth.
This really isn't why I became a teacher. For every sweetie who tells me about what their great great grandfather did in the first world war, I have a little horror voicing his opinion that I am 'even more boring than the RE teacher'.
I am not boring.
And so after an exhausting day of reenacting trench warfare, analysing tudor paintings and taking over the Roman Empire I had a lesson that you can only imagine. A lesson filled with horror and nastiness. A lesson where I could do nothing apart from hope that no one got seriously hurt. It was a disaster.
And I know that I am a good teacher, I know that even hardened teachers would have struggled today, but that didn't stop me from feeling like a failure. And I do.
So I cried, and then cried and then had some wine and cried some more, and just as I had calmed down (by watching yet more information on the first world war) my father came home and told me that there was almost no hope of me getting any more rent from my tenant, and I was going to have to send the bailiffs (sp??) in. So, I've no money to buy shoes to cheer myself up for the next 6 months... and I can't go on holiday this year.
As I say, the begining of the week was horrid, yeaterday was worse and this I assume is as bad as it gets. God I hope so.
How was your day?
And then...
...a 14 year old boy stands up in front of the class and tells you how his great grandfather was in the first world war. He reads you extracts from his letters about how he misses his wife, and how sometimes he feels cold and lonely in the trenches at night and you feel like you can almost smell the rotting bodies and hear the guns blazing over-head... and the fourteen year old boy finishes the letter and turns to you and says 'He died the day after he wrote that letter miss, but my grandmother says he was a lovely and cheerful man and I never knew until you told me to go and find out.' And there is a silence as everybody in the room thinks about this cheerful man, all alone and homesick and suddenly one by one the boys burst into applause.
...and it takes Miss a couple of minutes to be able to speak.
At least 3 of the 7 deadly sins.
Sadly none of the exciting ones.
This weekend I have been mainly eating flapjacks lying on the sofa watching extreme makeover and laughing at the ugly people... It turns out that my tears may have been moon-related after all... (I have no idea how this still surprises me). However, there have been small moments in between this time and so...
The ten things I achieved this weekend are:
1. Wrote a lesson on Prince Harry (I can't wait to send the boys letters to the palace and I can't wait for the replies!!!
2. Bought new and exciting multi coloured pens
3. Visited cinema and watched the Aviator (it's Ok... but quite long. You may want to consider taking some supplies with you, and a sleeping bag)
4. Decided on all of the plastic surgery I would have done if I won the lottery
5. Decided (shortly afterwards) that no gain would ever be worth that pain and I will not be having any sugery even when my ship comes in.
6.... apart from a facial peal maybe in about 10 years...
7. Planned my two friends separate parties next week.
8. Went for drink with teachers and such like. Yes it's just like the programme
9. Ate. Alot. Especially tunnocks tea cakes
10. Drank red wine. It's nector for the soul.
I'm going to have to work on being more exciting... While buying coloured pens really did excite me* I feel I owe this blog a better weekend than that!!!
*I am a tragic freak. Really.
Doing it for the kids.
The fantasy
3.35 - Daisy enters the physics lab.
Daisy: Hello attractive physics teacher who I snogged on the staff night out...
Sir: Hello foxy blonde student teacher. What are you doing in my classroom?
Daisy: Well sir, I thought I'd come and see you about those extra curricular activities we discussed.
Sir: Ah yes, of course. please leave boys... I need to see Miss privately.
Boys: But Sir, we have a detention...???
Sir: Leave now boys
The door shuts and Sir sweeps Miss into a Hollywood style embrace.
Sir: Oh Miss, I've been thinking about this since I saw you wearing that attractive fleece hat and chasing those years 7's this morning on play ground duty...
Daisy: Oh sir, let's go into the backroom and try out some experiments. I have a number of hypothesis which need exploring....
The reality
3.35pm - Daisy enters the physics lab.
Daisy: Hi Sir.
Sir: Hi Miss, what are you doing in the science block??
Daisy: The erm office asked me to er... give you these files.
Sir: Oh cheers Miss.
Daisy: I er...
Boy: Miss, can I speak to you about my mosaic homework?
Daisy: Yes of course.
Sir: Is there anything else Miss?
Daisy: No... no of course not. Come on child. Lets go back to history and talk about your mosaic.
Damn and blast.
Hole in the head.
Daisy is sitting marking in the staff room, nursing her peppermint tea and wondering why schools are always the coldest and windyest buildings in the world. She wraps her rabbit fur throw tighter round her head...
Sir: Daise - where have you been?
Daisy: Erm - here. Right here in fact, since the bell went - why?
Sir:Erm - because you have obviously forgotten that you set your kids a detention...
Daisy: I didn't set one.
Sir: Well, they've all been in the dining room for the past hour writing out lines for you...
Daisy: For me? But no-ones been naughty and - I didn't set one - I really didn't...
Sir: Oh well, serves the little gits right hey? See you tomorrow.
Daisy: But but but....
...and I really didn't set one.
Did I??