Bagshite

Labour's Phil Hope has lost the Corby constituency to toff-nosed Conservative candidate Louise Bagshite. The succinct nature of this blog should hopefully communicate how horribly disappointing this is.

Faimly

Deliberate misspelling there. Say it in a Glaswegian accent should make it make sense.

'Twas my birthday yesterday, was a really good day, not because I got lots of presents or money or anything but just a generally great day spent with great friends and family. I woke up at 7 and opened my presents to start with. From the family, just clothes but lots of them, and bloody hell I needed them! I was going through my wardrobe the other day and out of the 14 T-shirts I had, 7 were grey! Very depressing but thankfully it's a bit more colourful now.

School was awesome for a few reasons, first and foremost it was Wednesday which means no Sociology or Geography and two IEC lessons. Got loads of birthday wishes off people which I reckon is better than a card or a present or anything. Will I? Ham? bought me a box of chocolate which I shared with my Humanities class who were surprisingly well-behaved for a change.

After school the usual birthday drill which never fails to get tiresome and was actually the highlight of the day. Basically my extended family plus family friends came round at essentially the same time as each other and we spent the evening playing football in the garden. I love my family, even though we don't see each other very often, we're all very close and always have a great laugh. Since I've started at BW and getting stick for being Scottish it always makes me laugh when my family get together and the air turns blue and people get drunk, but hey, it's who we are, and if you've got a problem wi' that you can get it right up ye! :P

My Kids

People always look at me really funny when I refer to the kids I spend my IEC with like that, although the funny looks I get from that pale into insignificance compared to the funny looks I get from people when some of my kids run up to me in the corridor and hug me or stand uncomfortably close to me and things like that.

But anyway, even if sounds perverted, I genuinely feel attached to my kids, I feel responsible for making sure that they pull through what can be a horribly difficult year OK, and now as they approach the end of Year 7 and I see that they're (mostly) maturing into a bunch of really great people, it makes me feel immensely proud. And for the ones that aren't quite adjusted to the secondary school way of life yet, I kind of feel compelled to make sure that I have a laugh with them as much as I can to get them a bit more acclimatised to getting along with people, as if it's my duty to make sure they catch up with the rest of the pack.

My mentor for IEC is involved with the pastoral care side of things so she tends to find out about some of the personal difficulties that these kids are going through, and there are a fair few of them. When I find out that X's mum is dying of cancer or Y's bad behaviour is really an attempt to cover up the fact that he's practically illiterate, it affects me horribly, it plays on my mind for days and it actually keeps me awake at night sometimes. People are often quick to dismiss Year 7's as blank canvasses but some of these kids are experiencing difficult personal lives on a scale which most people will never know at that kind of age, and they manage to hide it during school time impeccably.

So that's a post about my kids, the kids who've managed to wean me away from chasing a hopeless dream of a career in the aviation industry and towards what might just be my true calling. This whole post is probably a bit incoherent and poorly structured but that's exactly how I want it to be because it reflects how mind-blowing this whole experience is.

Until next time.

PMTP

PS- Actually teaching them isn't that bad either! :P

The Weekend

So I had my weekly teaching session on Wednesday, my group in Period 4 is a Year 7 Humanities class - great bunch of kids, I get along with them really well. There's a few kids in there as well who have a desperately difficult home life, of course I can't divulge but you get the idea. It's really wierd, some of them can be a bit badly behaved at times and some of them can be downright nasty to each other but I still if asked would say that each and every one of them is a good kid. Perhaps I'm getting attached...

My mentor for the whole thing is a teacher who's been at BW for a good few years and is well known for being friendly and approachable and I'm counting my lucky stars that I got her as a mentor, not only is she a really nice lady but she's willing to let me take a bit more of an active role which is probably the reason why I've decided on becoming a teacher in later life.

Annnnnnyway, this week was the start of 8 weeks of Geography where MJ (mentor) hasn't really got much knowledge so she lets me do a fair chunk of the teaching - this Wednesday I essentially taught the entire lesson, pretty much just improvising as I went along seen as I'd never saw the powerpoint we were using before. Normally when I'm stood there at the front I'm really self-conscious and stand still like a lemon, but this time everything flowed really smoothly and it felt great! MJ said it was my best one to date since I started in September.

Period 5 was Citizenship with another year 7 class. Activity: Class discussion about healthy eating. Meh.

So the rest of the week has basically been stress, stress and more stress, with the dreaded German speaking exam only 4 days away and all of my other teachers breathing down my neck, like the unreasonable fire-breathing dragons they are.

Work tomorrow, been asked to do 6.5 hours instead of the usual 4. Whoopie.

Until we meet again,

PMTP

Lappage

Today was a fairly normal day, started off with the usual piano practise in Elgar (I don't care what it's called now Duguid, it'll always be known as Elgar). I've always been a bit aware that playing piano isn't exactly the most masculine of activities but recently I've started enjoying it quite a lot, even though I'm still going through the monotony of the same three shite Grade 5 pieces. Practising in Elgar is great, very relaxing and it gives me a chance to reflect on the day.

Period 1 was spent, as usual, doing an inordinate amount of laps with Ohnnyjay - I'd say about a third of all of my free time at school is spent lapping with him, and to an outsider we must seem like a pair of complete lunatics. There are so many wierd things we do, like humming patriotic songs or shouting "Karen!" as we walk down the science corridor, or seeing if we can ever beat our 1 minute 24 second powerlap record, that I don't know where to begin. And like I said, we probably look like a bunch of idiots but it's good fun. Something I am dreading slightly about leaving BW is leaving my friends behind - if the transition from primary to secondary school has taught me anything then the chances are I'll lose contact with the vast majority of my friends which is pretty sad.

The rest of the day comprised mainly of various tests and deadlines to meet which is just fab.

After school - a bike ride around Corby with Lliotteay. Bit chilly.

So that was my day. Riveting stuff.

PMTP

PS- Tomorrow is WEDNESDAY! Yay!

Argh!

This is BBC One in the East. And now, a rant about deadlines.

ARRRGH!

I have at least one deadline every day of the next week which is causing some major pains in the but-tocks. Essentially, this week is full of annoying little tests that I "must revise for", with some serious and non-negotiable deadlines peppered in there for good measure. My German speaking exam is looming with just over a week to go and I haven't even come close to any serious work for it yet. I find it immensely frustrating that every time I try to do any German there's always some pissing annoying essay for Sociology or one of my other godforsaken subjects that gets in the way.

Rant over.

Well...

That was strange!

The dreaded Saturday night out with work has come and gone and to be honest it was pretty damn good! Pretty damn strange as well but I'm not complaining.

What, you want me to explain why? *sigh* Alright then...

Well, I was the only one of the "younguns" from work there (two others were meant to come but dropped out without telling anyone at the last moment) so everybody was at least 15 years older than me, which at first was a little uncomfortable but as they got drunker they said how great I am more and more! Apparently the group of younguns at work aren't popular with the bosses and I'm bucking the trend so it's happy days really. I must admit it was a bit of surprise when they all started coming out with (drunken) things like "You see you, Paul? You're a really nice guy, you are," bearing in mind how horribly uncomfortable work can be sometimes.

The night was at Memsaab in Northampton, dead posh, followed by about an hour in some trendy wine bar.

So that was mein Wochenende.

Peace out.

PMTP.

PS - This blogging thing is getting boring already.