there was a time...

Time always fascinated me as a young writer...actually as a young person in general. The simplicity of how the second you do something, you can never repeat it in exactly the same way again, absolutely wound my head up. I wrote many a melancholic poem about the passage of time. The inability to go back. I was like an 80 year old reminiscing constantly, but actually living through it.

Now as I sit here on my first official professional summer break, I am wasting copious amounts of time. Although at this point in my life it doesn't feel like 'wasting' time, it feels like I'm enjoying it...because I now know how rare it can be. I'm actually doing a novel study over the summer with a small group of kids. I foolishly picked a book out for them without reading it first, and here I am faced with teaching my old childhood conundrum, understanding time.

My favourite bit from the book so far:

'All of a sudden, I realised that every single minute I've been on this planet since I was born has been just that.'
'What?'
'Time.'
'So?' I said. 'No call to go peculiar, is it?'
'But don't you see? Time isn't anything real. It's only time. So suddenly I saw that all the time that's still to come won't be real either.'

I think the reason I like this so much is because the attitude scares me. And of course because I relate to it. And it reminds me that in September I will have another group of kids to mentor and any one of them could be having thoughts like this. Probably will be having thoughts like this. And it is giving me nightmares.

I don't know if it is because I'm living in London. Where three doors away from me yet another teenager was stabbed to death...for no reason. Where I feel like I have to somehow use everything being shown in the British media to help them grow above that stereotype.

Or if the fear is just that of a new teacher.

Or of someone with too much time to sit around thinking and over thinking.

Or, is it the painkillers I am on after falling down a flight of stairs and severely bruising my tailbone?

Oh....the cliche I could end with here...

the future lOOks bright

I am a temporary entity again!!! I seem to have gotten a little bit side tracked. What with accepting that stupid job and everything. What was I thinking? To be honest, it all came down to the fact that I could WALK to work everyday and avoid the infuriating chaos that is any form of public transport here in Londontown.

I am quite lucky that the school asked me to stay on after my position ended (actually I am lucky that two of the original PPA covers decided to go home to Australia at the exact moment I would have to begin day to day supply work again).

So now I am in search of a position for next year. And to all those people I told I was most definitely going to get a job at my school in September (seeing as 6 people are leaving), I say, please remember that 'assume' makes an ass out of you and me my friends.

Which leads me to the inevitable round of interviews. Or as I like to call it Round 5 in the battle against low self esteem. I went to an interview this week that actually left me physically exhausted (by 11am). You put your whole bloody self out there to get scrutinized and picked apart and then when they call and say 'Sorry you just don't have enough experience', you can't help feel its a form of the 'Its not you, its me' excuse. Rejection is not easy, no matter how it comes at you.

Luckily though I've had plenty to keep myself occupied during the whole process. After pulling my hair out last November participating in a pilot project for marking the national curriculum tests, I decided I enjoyed the pain (money) enough to do it again. I can smile now and talk rationally about it because I only have about 10 left to go (out of 350).

Here are some of my favourite bits...(it can't be illegal if I don't include names, can it??). This is the future of England...(I'm getting out as soon as I can...).

I really, really wanted to give this kid marks. Come on, what a kick ass answer!

Perhaps I should add that these were part of the KS3 tests, that is middle of high school over here. Mmmhhhmm. That's right.

Kit Kat Break

Time off : 2 weeks

(England has school breaks every freaking 6 weeks!!)

Things to do related to school : at least 11

(3 weeks until SATs!!! crazy tests we prepare constantly for, that pretty much mean nothing but that I should nonetheless be preparing lessons for)

Things to do related to myself : at least 8

(all the things I've put off for the past six months to do 'during my break')

Things actually accomplished : 2

(a trip to Sweden and letting Surf the Channel EMPTY MY BRAIN OF ALL RELEVANT MATTER)

Socialising

I have a pretty hard time reading people. I think I'm getting worse with age aswell. This wasn't really a problem when I was just supplying, because, well, I didn't really give a shit about getting to know anybody. Not that I do now, but I feel like I should give a shit for some reason.

I've been in this position for just over a month now. Feels like an absolute LIFE TIME. I've only got 8 weeks left, once you take away all the school holidays they have over here. So...do I really need to make an effort to be friends with the people I work with? I guess technically I don't know anybody over here yet, apart from the people I live with....but that still doesn't convince me that I need to be social.

I haven't felt particularly invited into the teacher clique yet, although, that probably comes down to my shitty ability to read people. And perhaps my lingering teenage afinity to being an outsider. I just don't do groups very well. My goodness, what is it about being a teacher that makes me feel like I'm in high school again? And not in the obvious way...

I spend my lunch hours hidden away in the hole that is my 'classroom', doing work, rather than 'socialising'. Oh! Speaking of my hole, I finally took a picture of it...and of the adjoining classroom so you can get a sense of what I'm really missing out on.

So where do you get to draw the whole work/social line? Is being social a necessity? Especially if you aren't there permanently? Its not like I never talk to people...I'm very friendly and chatty to everyone, when I come out of my den.

Oi....eight weeks and I can get back to supply teaching. I'd like to say the grass is always greener, but then I knew how freaking green it was when I was there.

BOO! ster

So last week I went to sub at a school that was only 20 minutes walk from my house. It was loooOOvely being able to walk to a job for the first time, and not to be crammed on the underground with the rest of London. It was so lovely in fact, that I somehow left the school with a semi-perminent job.

Damn it I love walking!! I'm now cursing that fact though, because I really didn't want a proper job. Not yet anyhow. I had settled quite nicely into the idea of supply teaching all year. At the end of December I was going to a few interviews, feeling around for something that fit, but nothing ever did. Apparently by 'fit' all I meant was close enough to save me a bus fare.

If I'm honest though, it is a pretty sweet job. I am boostering 10 kids in english, math and science. In the UK kids write final exams in those subjects in year 6, and the results of those exams determine what secondary school they go to...sort of. So I am basically working on the same materials as the other year 6 classes, but giving small group support.

Of course after five days there, everything is not so sweet. And this blog wouldn't sound right if I wasn't bitching about something. My classroom is basically a narrow sliver of another much bigger room. They pretty much just stuck a little wall up, and not all the way up, so the giant high ceiling funnels all the sounds from the big class into mine and vise versa.

The teacher in the big room, with her 25 students, popped her head into my nook today and said, "Is it as noisy for you as it is for me?" And for a moment I thought of saying back, "No, no. Your 25 students can barely be heard through that glass wall and empty space above it. Are my ten kids overpowering them so that you can't hear anything??"

I resisted though, smiled sweetly and said something that was only a partial lie.

It's only my first week, after all. There is plenty of time for them to really get to know me...