I’m sitting in front of a year 8 English class doing their grammar work for the week, so I have a little window of opportunity to catch up with you. I always make the first lesson of every week a grammar lesson, so it’s easy for the kids (and me!) to remember which book to bring to class.
The room that I’m sitting in is a ‘modern’ room in a modern building. It only has walls on 3 sides, so that my class is lucky enough to hear noise from the similarly built classroom next door. Why on earth any architect worth their salt would think that this is a practical thing to have in a school of nearly 1,000 kids is beyond me. I’m teaching 4 periods today and all of them are in this room. Lucky me.
I shouldn’t whinge too hard, though. The guy who I’m replacing is a student manager so he has a 5 period time allowance to do that, which means that instead of teaching 5 classes – with all of the marking – I only have 4. I’ll be getting extras every week to make up the difference but after a year of teaching CRT, that’s just fine with me.
My classes are all really nice kids. A small part of me was hoping that they’d be awful so that I’d never do this again, but this way is vastly better for my happiness. I’ve covered my desk with photos of England and Ireland so that when I start getting sad at my lost freedom, I’ll be able to look at the photos and remind myself of the reward awaiting me at the other end of this.
My garden is starting to produce many, many purple king beans. I was leaning over the garden bed to harvest them and my nose was buried into a basil plant growing in the same bed. Basil is one of my favourite scents in the world. Talk about an unexpected treat!
It’s been nearly 3 weeks since I drove 3 and a half hours to Mooroopna and picked up Jenny’s dogs. They had a difficult first few days, being utterly traumatised and bewildered as to why they’d been uprooted from their home, but they’ve settled in quite nicely now. I’ve discovered that they don’t like to get their feet wet when it rains, and as a result we are now closing the hallway door leading to the back of the house. It does my head in when adult dogs wee inside. Thank god for hardwood floors!
Dad joke of the day:
What do you call a cult that’s hard to get into?
Difficult.
Dancing With Frogs 