The second time this week that I have risen at 6 am and it is not the last as Friday too is an early start. I am trying to persuade myself that I am an “early” person and that this unnatural greeting of the dawn is good for my soul.
Rubbish of course, but you have to delude yourself somehow if you are to get through the year!
There is something to be said for getting the pupils so early as they are mostly stunned into academic compliance as the disenchantment with the whole school system does not usually take over the personality until after lunch!
It does make the day unnaturally long and one feels that it is about time for lunch at about 10.30 am. But lunch is at 2.00 pm! And then school goes on until 4.45 pm.
The author and illustrator of the book that a group of kids are translating are going to come and visit to speak to the pupils and see how the translation is going. If things keep t the timetable that I have in mind then the rough draft of the translation should be ready by the first week in October. This is a positive teaching experience – though god knows I am not really teaching them anything as the finer points of translation from a language that I do not speak with any fluency are somewhat lost on me. I can, however, look at the English that the kids are producing and make suggestions about where they might need to concentrate. At least I hope that is what I am going to do; otherwise my function is going to be confined to sharpening the pencils they use!
I also had an unexpected free period as the numbers of pupils who are going to take a credit on Current Affairs are not sufficient to justify two teachers.
The worrying point here is that I will have two periods for “other uses” and all the other uses that I can envisage are not enticing.
FRIDAY 10TH SEPTEMBER
I have now seen all my classes but one (with one class appearing to have disappeared up its own lack of interest) and only Media Studies is remaining for me to inflict what I think the subject entails.
Considering that this week has been one in which one day has been without the kids, all my colleagues are totally exhausted. We kid ourselves that this is simply a function of the “first week” and that we will become immediately acclimatized to the horror in succeeding weeks. I am not fully convinced by this as three early starts, ploughing on to five o’clock is not my idea of fun and I do not think it ever will be. But, for the sake of my sanity I will restrain my plaintive cries of desperation and ruggedly soldier on for another few days until I decide to plumb the depths of despair.
Friday is the day on which I have an 8.15 early start, then after a break I teach for three hours straight and then another hour after lunch. I do not think that this is ever going to be the sort of day where I am able to take it in my stride. Even with leaving early at “only” ten to four in the afternoon, it is still a killer of a day.
This weekend is an odd one because the 11th of September is Catalonia’s National Day.
In an oddly quirky way, reminiscent of the British inclination to glorify magnificent defeats (Corunna, Dunkirk etc) Catalonia decided to make the day on which the 1714 Siege of Barcelona ended their national day. The Catalans had (with British encouragement and effusive protestations of absolute commitment to the Catalans) supported the Habsburg claimant to the Spanish throne in the War of the Spanish Succession. The 11th of September was the day on which they lost. The victorious Bourbon line (which reigns in Spain today) exacted a Draconian revenge for supporting the “wrong” side. The British, of course, abandoned the Catalans to their fate; as is the way in these dynastic struggles.
So the 11th of September commemorates a cataclysmic defeat which redrew the boundaries of Catalonia and destroyed the defences of the city of Barcelona. Each to his own! Oh, and by the way, this National Day was first instituted in the far off and distant days of 1980! I do like instant tradition!
Unlike the UK just because the day falls on a Saturday we do not get a substitute day to compensate for it being on a weekend.
The most logical thing to do is accept that nothing will be open and merely retire to the beach to laze in the promised sunshine. There are, after all, worse ways to spend ones time on a bank holiday.
And a little light reading, I think!
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