Another day when it is a crying shame to be teaching indoors and not lazing about on the Third Floor.
But that is what teaching is, a constant series of opportunities lost while mouthing platitudes to the unresponsive. Away with it all!
In a major effort in which brain cells died right, left and centre I managed to get almost up to date with my marking. “Almost” is the nearest you ever get in this place where there is always something waiting to be marked, as odd papers from odder pupils appear and then disappear made heavier by the weight of red pen laid down on the language which has only a tangential relationship with English as she is spoke.
For some reason which doesn’t immediately suggest itself to me the driving as I was coming to work this morning was more than usually aggressive. By the time you actually arrive at the turn off on the motorway for the road which eventually gets you to the school you are sullenly shell-shocked and then almost immediately you find yourself in the approach road out of the tunnel leading to the roundabout. Up to five lanes of traffic attempt to get into two lanes while one or two other lanes are there for yet other streams of traffic to go straight on.
It is, as you can imagine absolute, unutterable chaos. People do not indicate as they try to change lanes they insinuate their way into your lane. If you driving a four-by-four then insinuation is not really their nature. People look straight forward and drive as if there was nothing in their way. I, of course, keep to the rules of the road and am constantly appalled by the sheer bloody-mindedness of my fellow road users.
There are “two” lanes around the roundabout: the inside one to go towards the centre of Barcelona and the other to go up the hill to my school. The norm is for the car on my left to carve me up and to add insult to injury by then turning right rather than going straight on. Over the months I have come to expect this discourtesy and I no longer scream with rage. This morning I barely tutted as cars around me attempted to create four lanes out of the two that actually existed. Added to all this you have to factor in the buses which ferry our privileged students to their places of learning, winding their way up steep gradients in streets which are almost comically too narrow for them.
It is hardly surprising that my morning cup of tea which I have as soon as I get into the staff room is sometimes accompanied by shaking hands and deep breathing!
One more lesson to go and even as I type clouds are fingering their way across the sky to ensure that by the time that I make my escape from this place the Third Floor will be in overcast dullness.
Shine on!
But that is what teaching is, a constant series of opportunities lost while mouthing platitudes to the unresponsive. Away with it all!
In a major effort in which brain cells died right, left and centre I managed to get almost up to date with my marking. “Almost” is the nearest you ever get in this place where there is always something waiting to be marked, as odd papers from odder pupils appear and then disappear made heavier by the weight of red pen laid down on the language which has only a tangential relationship with English as she is spoke.
For some reason which doesn’t immediately suggest itself to me the driving as I was coming to work this morning was more than usually aggressive. By the time you actually arrive at the turn off on the motorway for the road which eventually gets you to the school you are sullenly shell-shocked and then almost immediately you find yourself in the approach road out of the tunnel leading to the roundabout. Up to five lanes of traffic attempt to get into two lanes while one or two other lanes are there for yet other streams of traffic to go straight on.
It is, as you can imagine absolute, unutterable chaos. People do not indicate as they try to change lanes they insinuate their way into your lane. If you driving a four-by-four then insinuation is not really their nature. People look straight forward and drive as if there was nothing in their way. I, of course, keep to the rules of the road and am constantly appalled by the sheer bloody-mindedness of my fellow road users.
There are “two” lanes around the roundabout: the inside one to go towards the centre of Barcelona and the other to go up the hill to my school. The norm is for the car on my left to carve me up and to add insult to injury by then turning right rather than going straight on. Over the months I have come to expect this discourtesy and I no longer scream with rage. This morning I barely tutted as cars around me attempted to create four lanes out of the two that actually existed. Added to all this you have to factor in the buses which ferry our privileged students to their places of learning, winding their way up steep gradients in streets which are almost comically too narrow for them.
It is hardly surprising that my morning cup of tea which I have as soon as I get into the staff room is sometimes accompanied by shaking hands and deep breathing!
One more lesson to go and even as I type clouds are fingering their way across the sky to ensure that by the time that I make my escape from this place the Third Floor will be in overcast dullness.
Shine on!
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