Weekend update

Friday night - reunion with the girls from school at Puja's place. Fruli, yum yum, Curacao, yum yum, cherry brandy, yum yum, Black label, oh dear. A night of fun and poker, won the first round (whoop whoop) then battled HW till almost 5 in the morning, ultimately losing. Four hours of sleep wasn't good, but the night was worth it.

Sat night - having slept through the day once I got home, went to a wedding reception. Nice and fancy schmancy. Crucially, the news broke that my cousin Dhushi has got engaged to her Muslim boyfriend. Only slightly controversial in the traditional sense - more alarming that now there is only one female cousin before it is officially my turn to tie the knot. Crumbs.

Sunday - went to the gym. Got screwed over by new parking restrictions and so landed myself a ticket. My "unnecessary costs of driving" now exceed £1000 i.e. a whole grand, a whole month's salary essentially wasted due to my poor driving. Don't even get me started on car insurance aka tax on the honest driver.

Aaaaanyway....had a nice piano lesson, then went to play Scrabble with Mouche, CK and Gid. Mouche is alive and well, and we bonded, very nice. Gid won the Scrabble, but that was ok as he had no sleep last night and is busy seeing two different boys on the trot. CK was all good, but then he got a phone call with some bad news about his grandfather. Am still a little shocked on his behalf, but hope he's ok. Had four pints of Guinness and haven't planned any lessons...the cumulative hangover is growing.

Busy day tomorrow, but, crucially, am seeing the doctor to think of ways to fix my head. Sure you'll love to hear the suggestions, so stay tuned.

Shout out to Yeen, by the way, looong blog no see. Nice to have you back.

Behaviour Policy

Before I launch into a mini-rant about behaviour at my beloved Academy, some updates:

Hair: it's now been 25 days since I washed it with shampoo and I swear it's cleaning itself! I mean, I still thoroughly wash it with just water, but it's nowhere near as greasy as it was at the start. Plus, it feels thicker (although this could just be me following the spin). I do miss the smell of shampoo and given that I've been off serious sport for this whole time, it's not been properly tested yet. So far so good though.

Piano: I have now had 10 lessons and am thoroughly enjoying myself. I actually feel myself getting better every week and my musical theory is miiiiiiiiiles ahead of where it was (no idea how I got my grades before; perhaps evidence that "theory" incorporated into Guildhall exams can be bypassed). It's strange how I have completely forgotten how to read bass clef notes once I stopped playing 'cello and focused on trumpet. Also it's strange how I can now get my hands to do different things at the same time - not as hard as it looks! I have decided that it's definitely an advantage to try and learn something like piano at a young age since it is so mentally challenging (in a good way...as opposed to some of my little angels at school!) so if my future kiddies are up for it, I'll be smiling.

Anyway, onto the "drivel" as my blog has so offensively been described. My school is due to implement a brand new behaviour policy next term. The SLT attempted to give us some kinda input into what we were going to do at the start of the term, but we've not heard anything about it since. I'm guessing they will suddenly bombard us with new rules and guidelines and we'll be just as clueless as the kids.

Now, I'm all for a behaviour policy and will do my best to apply it as well as I can, but something like a behaviour policy requires every member of staff to follow through with it. Our school is so full of "old staff" who say they've seen these things fail time and time again that I don't think I'd be far off the mark if they didn't even try to implement it (or, fingers crossed they don't, but they could even sabotage it). This obviously won't be a good start, but a good start is crucial to the success of the policy.

Speaking of sabotage then, the whole SLT have been increasingly distinctly AWOL this half of term. Consequently behaviour has slipped dramatically to an almost unbearable level.

Take today, lesson 4, Y10 maths. Usually the maths department enjoys greater respect and better behaviour than most of the rest of the school; perhaps because most members of maths are "institutions" and the kids know not to mess. However, today, 10 minutes into the start of the lesson and there were at least 12 Y10s hanging around outside the block, and a further 5 who had already been kicked out of their lessons. Kids are just walking outta lessons and lounging around and refusing to go back. The group I team-teach were absolutely off the wall due to a cover teacher being present. Thankfully the Head of Department stepped in to give them a rollicking at the end of the session, but in other classes kids are getting away with it. Where's the SLT or Head of Year to come and sort them out? Nowhere to be seen. So the kids know they can get away with it and push it a little further each day.

I don't wanna be cynical or conspiracy theory about this, but I'm convinced the SLT are deliberately letting things slide with regards to behaviour so that next term when the new policies are introduced and behaviour improves, they can give all the credit to the marvellous new policy. In truth though, for the most part things will be better because they are finally doing their jobs again.

I guess I don't really care what eventually causes behaviour to improve as long as it does, but I can see things getting worse before they get better.

In other news, I'm singing in assembly on Friday - yes, dodgy I know, hahaha, but we'll see how we get on....

Two Good Days

Yes, I have had two good days in school. Surprising stuff.

Sure, there have been fights and staff politics and detentions and ICT problems and lost exercise books and kids bunking lessons and running around like a mad thing and constant attitude, but on the whole they've been good. Maybe I am just learning to cope better....?

Hmmm, no, scrap that. Coping is not entirely featuring prominently in my life at the moment. Well, I'm not not coping, but I feel kinda weird. Like I'm not really me. I've had this before but still don't really know what it is. Strange. Maybe I am a medical curiousity? Or maybe it's just the flu.

I have had a spectacularly little amount of sleep due to the continuing specialness that is insomnia, and I think this has led me to take everything in my stride. Possibly because I can't be bothered to let anything get to me. Kids quacking in my lessons, bitching about each other, shouting and swearing across the corridor, talking about illegal substances etc. - all have been subtly ignored. As one of the PE staff said to me today, I am a machine.

But even machines occassionally malfunction. I think it may be time to take that first ever sick day!

Before you start thinking I'm being a nutter, don't worry, I'm pretty much fine, just a lot in my head. Clearly more in my head than Nelly Furtado....check out these lyrics from "Say It Right":

In the day

In the night
Say it right
Say it all
You either got it
Or you don't
You either stand or you fall

Ruuuubbbbbbish. How am I not earning more than her?! That said, "Give It To Me" (Timbalanda feat. Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake) is wicked, diss chat and great beats.

And also, thank you Jade for putting up with my ridiculous questionning about musical theory...it's starting to make sense!

I'll leave you with this from a comment from another blog: "If you don't know who you are, a classroom, like a boxing ring, is a painful place to find out." Deep.

Bed time

It's 9:15pm. If I want to get my 8 hours sleep, I have to be in dreamland in approximately 15 minutes. Having slept a fair amount yesterday day-time after getting home from Oxford, I am wide-eyed and bushy-tailed (yes, like a squirrel...yum, nuts). This is great for now, but will feel rubbbbbbish tomorrow morning.

Why so early you ask? Well, I have a professional development trip for TF maths teachers to Telford School in, well, Telford (near Birmingham). They've created a wonderful online maths curriculum so that kids can have everything they need to teach themselves the syllabus in the absence of a teacher (competent or otherwise). I look forward to hearing what they've got to say, and also entirely ignoring HSBC, who sponsor the curriculum and the trip, and will no doubt try and convince us to work for them in the 6 hours of journeying back and forth from London.

I may well direct my kids to the site after one of them complained to her friend today that "she's not a real teacher, she doesn't even teach us anything", after I tried to get them to use their initiative to try and answer some GCSE questions. Bear in mind it's about three and half months to the exam and we've covered the whole syllabus, so you'd think by now they'd have some idea of what a rotation was. Humph. Good luck to them is all I say, cos despite rapidly losing my patience with them, this is about the worst I can do. The real working world will be a complete shocker to them no doubt. I can see why they say that kids come out of schools with no skills nowadays...they've been spoon-fed and allowed to sit on their arses for years, what does society expect?

Despite my crossness at them, I am still disappointed with my own professionalism, in that I told them that they might as well leave my lesson then, since there's no point sitting there wasting my time and their time. When they started raging, I just said I wasn't interested and ignored them, which only wound them up more. Good work. I try so hard to be mature, but when I'm dealing with 15 year olds, I find it hard not to resort to acting like one myself. I blame the hangover.

Anyway, I am over it and am going to bed to think about scales (both of the musical and the aquatic variety) and curving my fingers and stopping my left hand going mad on the keys (apologies for allowing you to witness my insanity Jade, again I blame the hangover). Happy thoughts, oh yes..surely a 5:30am wake-up call can only be a happy one?

Running for the bus

As a rule, I don't run for the bus. When I walk down my road to the bus stop, I always see the bus going past just when I am within running distance to catch it. And I always think, shall I run? But I don't. Why should I run? I mean, I'm inevitably late anyway (perhaps a change in thinking is in order?)

Last night after Mos' surprise birthday party in Oxford (not convinced he was actually surprised, but wonderful fun nonetheless) I got the OxTube back to London and was walking down New Oxford Street at about 3am. I was about 300 yards from my bus stop when I saw the N8 zoom past me. Dang it, I thought, I'm gonna have to wait half-an-hour for the next one. Then, I don't know what happened, but my legs started moving. Really fast. Some might even call it a run. Hahaha, yes, I ran for the bus. And I caught it! It was amazing, I felt like I was flying. Admittedly I was a bit drunk (after only a few drinks, shockingly lightweight!) and I am a big fan of my new K-Swiss. But still, whizzing down that pavement was remarkably liberating. I am much better at running for a reason.




The bus was completely packed and full of chatter all the way home. It was lovely to see all these different groups of people from all over the world, sharing this delightful night-bus journey home. I felt as though we were a little community, brought together by chance. What else will we ever have in common apart from that one journey home together?

Mouche, thank you for the wonderful definitions. I like carapace the best, I think I may invest in one for myself. And yes, you need to blag your way out of work so that we can all go up on Friday night and provide the new Furies with a suitable source of hangover.

Sprouts and MePij, hope all is well.

Jade, I have learnt to play Silent Night on the piano! How exciting!

And finally Rob, if you're reading this, so lovely to see you and Francesca on Saturday, The Three Goats Head is def on my list, so thank you.

The start of term...

...has been strangely good. Maybe because the kids were only in for 3 days. Whatever, I was pleasantly surprised. Not that I was dreading going back or anything...

Friday was full of good drama highlights. I was on duty at break in the playground and some Y9 boys had brought in Chinese firecrackers and proceeded to set them off in front of everyone. Despite not being an expert on the school rules, I was pretty certain that this was against them, and so I had to spend lots of valuable time chasing the boys. Excellent. Then, at lunchtime, I headed into the maths block to set up for my lesson and there were kids smoking in the hallway. INSIDE! How daring. They obviously ran away, so again I had to do some chasing. Honestly, these kids, why can't they stay out of trouble? Still, it was kinda funny.

In other news, I am going to pick up my piano today, awooohooo! Also, my brother says he is going to buy me a bop-it, which is also good news. These things are amazing - Disneys in particular will love it; a very worthwhile investment with hours of pointless fun right at your fingers (not that you don't have this already, nudge nudge wink wink...heehee. Although, Mouche, the pile of stuff is lots of fun too. My GCSE Geography coursework is currently on the top, though I think the Over Head Projector writing kit might soon take the much coveted pole position).

Right that is all. Oh, except I love the Docklands, they are so pretty.