Just how drained I am

I slept through an earthquake. Literally. Chimneys were falling down, buildings were rocking, and I slept. There you have it.
Am going to London tomorrow to spend an evening with Caz over a nice dinner that we will have cooked together, a nice bottle of wine or two and a movie. And to forget about Vile Year 9 for a few hours. And the assignment. And the Whole School Issues Log Book. And the lesson plans. And the lesson evaluations. And the behaviour management procedures. And the long term plans. And the incident reports. And the Learning Journal. And the teaching ressources, worksheets, power point presentations and other related papers, be it physical or digital, that I should be producing this weekend. And having to punish students I really don't want to punish. To forget about being a teacher and pretend to have a life. Just for a few hours. Hope that's not too much to ask.

Too nice for my own good

During form time today I asked the form tutor I’m working with for advice on behaviour management. In her opinion, what works best is when the whole class feels responsible for the behaviour of individual pupils, which means class detentions in case if only a few are chatting when silence is required. I said I would feel horrible punishing the good ones along with the disruptive ones, but decided that I would still give it a try. As we were leaving the room, one boy sitting close to us said in a sympathetic tone: “Miss, you’re too nice for your own good...”. Guess being nice can be a problem…
On the other hand, the Evil Year 9 were really good today. I went there prepared to give out detention after detention and I ended up giving out loads of ‘bravo stamps’ for good work. We’ve even achieved complete silence three times! Not that it ever lasted more than a couple of seconds.
Anyway, three lessons still to plan for tomorrow, so I’d better get to it!

TGIF...

First week of proper placement is officially over. God I’m glad it’s Friday! And boy, do I need sleep… I’ve been feeling so overwhelmed that I could feel an impending emotional breakdown but it never happened, bummer actually, cause crying all that stress out properly would have undoubtedly helped. But no, so now I have to get around sorting myself out in a more conventional way – by getting work out of the way, wrapping my head around this bloody assignment that I don’t understand one word of, planning a few lessons ahead etc. Such are my exciting plans for the weekend.
But, on a more cheerful note, here are some random haps and mishaps of the week for your general enjoyment:
On Wed, I’ve managed to go to school without underwear. Which shows how tired I am. I realised it only as I walked into the staffroom. I’m really grateful that I haven’t been endowed with bigger boobs so I think nobody actually noticed. But, of course, I’ve spent the whole day overly conscious of the fact and so not really at ease.
Thursday, year 8 lesson (they’re 13, for those unfamiliar with the UK system ), conversation with one of the lads: “Miss, where are you from?” “From Poland” “That’s cool.” “I know”. Today he marched into the classroom, gave me thumbs up and said: “Poland, yay!” with an ‘I’m cool’ look on his face. Glad we’ve got that established!
Today, first lesson I taught year 9. Me (repeatedly poking at the interactive white board that wouldn’t react) “Oh work now, will you? Why are you doing this to me?” You can imagine the general amusement. I laughed to. Just as I did when in the same class, I asked one lad to answer a question and I got “Oh damn…”. Unfortunately, I failed to insist on getting the answer, so I’m afraid that they think now that “Oh damn” gets you out of answering. Oh well.
Finally, one pupil in another year 9 class I taught, let’s call him B (I have a vague feeling that using their real names could get me in trouble if anyone came across this), defined by the regular teacher as ‘lazy’, was one of the few to actually finish the task. I was very proud of him. And to be honest, I think he did it to make me happy. And well, he did.

Vikings

We went to York for the Vikings. Well no, we went to York cause neither Susanne nor I had been before. But then we found out about the Viking festival. So we wanted Vikings. At least I wanted Vikings. A lot. And there were Vikings all right. The first thing we walked into were hoards of Vikings training for battle. The problem was that, as we have later discovered, a big part of them were… Polish. The taxi driver who took us back to the hostel on Saturday night told us that each year there were loads of Norwegians coming for the festival, towing their long boats and all. So, in spite of the fact that on Saturday the ‘Vikings afloat’ were nowhere to be seen, on Sunday we’ve set out to find them anyway. Cause, of course, I wanted Norwegians. Unfortunately, the ‘Vikings afloat’ were still missing in action and the warriors swarming all around York were still, well, mostly Polish. That to say that when we went to see the Jorvik reconstruction I was sort of surprised that the sound effects were voices in Old Norse and not in, well, Polish.
I bought my Thor's hammer from a Swedish merchant, so at least there's an ounce of hope that it is more or less authentic and not, well, Polish.

Beauty

Jannick and I went to the Symphony Hall tonight. It was Love Classics, duh, it is Valentine’s day. So I had to sit through a few sappy, mushy, horrid pieces that others might call romantic but I won't. But then there was Tchaikovsky and there was Grieg. And as the music went up and the brass instruments joined in and grew in power, I could feel it swell in my chest and push tears out, each strike on the timpani sending violent waves through my body and I would realise that I had been holding my breath too long for my body not to protest, and I would let the breath out in a gasp as the next phrase carried me forward to the next climax, and oh God. I feel exhausted. I suppose beauty does that to you.

On sunshine, trumpets and drums

It’s been such a wonderful day today. First of all, it was sunny. Really sunny (I know that for some of you living in the south of France this would be nothing unusual, but for me it is). And I could smell the spring in the air and I just love the spring smell of the Midlands. And Susanne’s got a job. And it’s half term holidays (well, not for me, for me it’s uni week but still). And I’ve decided that I really like my new school. And Naomi and I went to the Friday Rush Hour Blues and now I’m all trumpets and drums. And tomorrow Jannick will be here. It really was a wonderful day. Thought I’d share. Hope your day was at least as wonderful as mine.

Pancakes

This is Paul. Paul is doing a very important thing – he is skilfully flipping a pancake, the destiny of which is to end up in my happy stomach, hence the importance of the act.
Paul has the most amazing lips I have ever seen and gives hugs that make you feel safe and warm indeed. On top of making really good pancakes.

But before you start having wrong ideas, here’s Paul again, this time with Vincenzo, the host of the pancake evening. Vincenzo and Paul are an item. Sort of. Long story. Vincenzo is a very kind person, when he’s not bullying me, that is, and he seems to enjoy bullying me quite a lot. Paul usually joins in, if he doesn’t start it. But then Vincenzo calls me “snowflake” and I forgive him. Paul, as I’ve already mentioned, makes pancakes, which also inspires forgiveness.

Finally, this is Bernie trying to flip a pancake. She succeeded, but I failed to catch it. Sorry. Bernie makes me happy. She calls herself a tramp disguised as a teacher and when she dances, the world is a much happier place (although she thinks that I’m making fun of her when I say it, I’m not. I really think that).So here are some of the people that I’ve met here in Brum. I shall introduce more at a later date. All this, I suppose, to avoid talking about my new school since I haven’t yet decided what I think about it really.

Everyone should have a Cate

I love train stations. Train stations are where everyone is going somewhere (which you can’t really always say about life). Everything has a sense of purpose, and there’s always something or someone waiting for everyone at the end of the journey: home, adventure, experience, something. Train stations are happy places. Life really happens there.
One thing that amused me while I was waiting for the train that was going to take me to Oxford, was the announcements. “I’m (extremely) sorry for the (severe) delay to your journey.” said the speaker and to my expat year it sounded as if the person making the announcement felt personally responsible for the problem.

I love going places, even if it often makes me way too thoughtful for my own good. You get to see bits of life that you would have wanted or could have had. Oxford is an academic city, knowledge and study seep from each stone and each angle. And one of Cate’s friends made me talk about my thesis, which sort of made me miss all that…

But most of all, I love Cate. Cate is someone that makes you think, review your opinions and form new opinions about things you never felt you needed to have an opinion on before. Cate is also full of random facts (did you know that banana was actually a berry?) and quick advice that always makes sense. So I’m back from Oxford untangled and back on track. My reason is back where it belongs and no longer absent without further notice. Everyone should have a Cate. And next time I go shopping I will buy chicken.

Seriously!

I’ve just reread myself and I can’t believe how bitter I sound! Seriously!
I’ll blame it on the fever & co. + sleep depravation.
Right. No one is going to mess me up. Not even if he has a very shiny saxophone.
There.
That's better.

Flugzeuge im Bauch

I don’t think I will ever cease to be amazed by how well English girls tolerate the cold. The state of undress in which some of them walk the streets chills me to the bones. All that to save the pound on the cloakroom. That for a random thought of the day.

As for the jazz concert, well, it wasn’t a jazz concert. It was salsa, a precision he had omitted to make and I overlooked when checking the place’s web site. Don’t get me wrong, I like good salsa, but it’s not the same. He was sure I was going to enjoy it, I was sure I wasn’t going to enjoy it as much as last Friday’s gig. I suppose we were both right.

It was fun, but… he is really gorgeous and I am really tired.
Back home, as I was falling asleep, I couldn’t help nostalgically remembering my innocence when I fell in love for the first time. The sole problem back then was ‘he likes me, he likes me not’. Now the question is how bad can he mess me up. Or rather how bad will I mess myself up over this one. And the only answer available is ‘we shall see’.