One could tell even though one was up and doing before dawn. This is obviously pay-back time for the glorious day yesterday!
With the way that the timetable has worked out I have my first lesson at 8.15 in the morning and then have nothing until 1.05 pm.
One could say that this is an ideal time to catch up on marking or producing teaching material for the ensuing week: or you could say it is pretty poorly organized in a day which is absurdly over-long.
Amazingly I did manage to get some packing done yesterday evening including the wash-bag which is the one thing which always lacks something essential when you reach your destination. For example I now realize that while I have filled all those little bottles that one has to use if you are only travelling with hand luggage and even remembered the dental floss, I have omitted to pack a razor. As I have now remembered that, I am starting to muse about what obvious other thing I have forgotten.
The UK wallet has been found and packed. This contains all the out of date “gift” cards that UK shops have given me in lieu of money. Reading the small print I noticed on one that after 24 months the company would make a charge of £1 a month for each extra month until the money is gone! You have to admire such greed. I think the answer is to spend things like that immediately even if it’s only buying batteries – they always come in useful.
More importantly I am not sure that my debit card is working for the holes in the wall machines. As I will be there for a weekend when the banks are most emphatically closed I am relying on the card to get me money and the last time I attempted to use the card the machines refused point blank to recognize my plight and steadfastly kept my money safely away from my admittedly grasping hands.
The other point of panic is the hired car. I am only hiring some insultingly basic vehicle and there is always a moment of horror when the people in charge start rejecting all the cards that I have and demand that I show them a true credit card.
As is well known, I am far too young and immature to be trusted with a credit card (even one linked with Amnesty International which was my last excuse for getting one) and I well remember the moment when I cut up the bloody thing with shaking hands and sharp scissors.
It usually ends up with the car hire people taking my Spanish card rather than my British one, but I keep telling myself that it will not be used and is only a precaution so I can rest secure. As long as I remember to take my Catalan wallet too!
I think that the highlight of the weekend will be the taxi ride from Church Road to the party with a car filled with a Roman Emperor, Dracula and Austin Powers – as well as a taxi driver. I will not have any pockets on my costume and I am already worrying about where to put the camera and other necessities.
The last time we had a fancy dress party in Cardiff we also went out and about in the streets and I at least was warm and snug in my Cardinal’s rigout. I fear that the flimsy gold lamé of my admittedly full-length costume will be insufficient to keep out the rigor of a late September night in South Wales.
Meanwhile there is the matter of four days of teaching to get through. Ah well.
I have informed the school that I intend to join the ranks of the workers and participate in the General Strike on the 29th of September. I fear that I will be a lone worker in our school to make this decision which is more a function of the emasculated power of the unions in the way in which they have to operate and their consequent distance from the workers that they are supposed to represent than any cowardice on the part of the teachers in school. I think. I am always prepared to give the benefit of the doubt to the powerless rather than the powerful: though in this case I am not sure which is which!
I have just had a short meeting with the IT teacher to try and find out why my computer refuses to work with the white boards whose use is now mandatory in our school. Even on the first day (the first day mind you!) I attempted to add the computer and white screen to my first class. As is usual with technological equipment in the classroom it was an abject failure; a failure, however that was kept away from the pupils by my furtive attempt to make it work before the class started.
What do I find out now? The pressing of two buttons was all I had to do to make the system mine own. The function button and F5 brought up an icon to change screens; a further press of the F5 brought up the screen which was recognized by the system. And that was it!
There is something immensely satisfying about a meeting which takes virtually no time whatsoever and makes your teaching easier. This meeting ranks as one of the most “time as a function of utility” positive meetings I have ever had. I will use it as a measure of the usefulness of all the other meetings to which I have to go in the rest of the year.
Or perhaps not as that way madness lies!
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