I have a third of the 3ESO a term so that I will have taught all of them by the end of the summer. It should be an opportunity for me to experiment as I can do pretty much what I like as long as there is some way of getting a mark out of ten at the end of it for the kids.
I suppose that the only thing that limits the teaching is how much I want to spend devising something which interests me and interests them.
As the kids have no idea whatsoever about what Media Studies actually means I have a fairly wide area of communication to choose from.
I have started with Logos and will move on to adverts. I love deconstructing slick adverts; I only hope that the kids share my enthusiasms – and I have chosen some risqué, revealing and salacious perfume adverts to give a populist sheen to academic endeavour!
With such a short course I don’t think that I will aim for intellectual rigour and balance I shall just go for the gimcrack and gaudy. Again.
My timetable this year is much more draining with a few (!) instances of three lessons on the trot with no break. I am thinking of appealing to the International Court of Justice as I am sure that such timetabling is contrary to the United Nations definition of slavery or something.
At the moment I am rejoicing in a revision to my timetable which means that I am actually one period under the number that I had last year. This will not last, but I am going to enjoy it while the weeks tick by.
Tomorrow the trip to the photography exhibition (which takes up two of my free periods) which I am supposed to look at through the eyes of an experienced Media Studies teacher. Roll on the history of art lessons!
Before I succumbed to the coma that the end of the day encourages I decided to make a visit to the multi storey second-hand car emporium on the way to Sant Boi.
The building houses a collection of different car dealers and you have to wend your way down aisles lined with shining vehicles to make your choice.
Almost as soon as I was through the doorway I was confronted by a Peugeot convertible in gleaming black. Although the door was locked it was, unsurprisingly easy to reach into the car and open it from the inside.
The seat was too high for me, but when it was lowered (mechanically!) the driving position was comfortable. The demonstration of the roof closing mechanism was deeply satisfying and I took it as an omen that the information display on the dashboard was actually in English. “Prepared, just for you!” the salesman smilingly said.
The car was coming up to three years old and was reassuringly expensive.
I wandered through the other floors and saw earlier and smaller versions of the Peugeot convertible as well as some exotic versions in other makes. There was a virulent yellow Opel convertible which looked exactly the sort of car that Medallion Man would want to be seen in.
When I had looked at every bloody car in the place I came back to the first one that I looked at and found, horror of horrors, Medallion Man sitting inside having the roof mechanism shown to him.
He was one of those wrinkled men too old to be covered by the phrase “of a certain age” wearing a heavily embroidered Polo Club shirt with the collar turned up. I had seen him sniffing around the car earlier and so I knew that he was wearing the wildly inappropriate three-quarter shorts and canvas shoes. I was rather disconcerted to think that I might be looking at cars which attracted that sort of person. But it is not likely to dissuade me from an act of astonishingly extravagant self indulgence. Too late to stop now!
As I have no money it was not difficult to walk away from the gleaming carriages, but I can feel the infection spreading and rendering useless all those rational faculties that should be reminding me that I am not that interested in cars!
In spite of terminal exhaustion at theend of the day augmented by the visit to look at cars and with only a large amount of encouragement from Toni I dragged myself like the wounded Grendel and slipped into what I expected to be the icy waters of our recently cleaned pool.
The sudden shock of instant refrigeration was not as severe as I expected and I actually able to pretend with very little effort that my swim was almost delightful.
Each day makes the immersion a little more hesitant as I expect a repetition of the never to be forgotten day in Maesteg in the open air pool when the superintendent asked me to dive into the pool and retrieve some clothing that had been discarded by somebody trying his life-saving certificate.
As I dived in so the vicious and vindictive coldness of the water smashed out all the oxygen out of my body. Somehow I did struggle don to the bottom to get the clothing and reappeared on the surface and handed them to the superintendent while trying to gulp some air into my tortured lungs! I have no desire to repeat this experience. I was a resilient six year old then; today I am not.
And it is still only Tuesday.
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