Trembling hands; nervous looks, furtive and frightened; the tearing of small cambric handkerchiefs; lack of coherence and a look of wistful loss.
That just about sums up my broken personality this morning when, arriving in school, I discovered that I had left The Machine on the arm of a chair in the living room at home.
Luckily (!) I had a fairly full timetable with the loss of a free period and so there was little opportunity to use it and even the lunch hour was taken up with eating and desperate marking of the Mock Examinations that we have now started.
As is the way with the school we have created for ourselves an “Examination Nexus” with clashes and pile-ups and general chaos and inconvenience. There is also a short time scale for the marking of the papers before we have a Grand Meeting (again) to “discuss” pupils’ progress – so I have been marking furiously to get the things out of the way so that I can do more marking to make way for more examinations. And so on.
To be fair the marking I am doing reflects little on my professional status: in the so-called “real” world the answer sheets I am marking manually would actually be marked by a machine! Which in our case we do not have.
I have managed to get ¾ of the task done and I am determined to get the rest finished this very evening as who knows what the weekend will throw in my general direction!
We have now completed 10% of the term and we are all trying to diminish the sound of the 90% of the term remaining. However hard we try it still amounts to nine weeks of teaching with a “fiasco” week in early March when I at least will have no students but will still have to go in to school for undefined “courses” – perhaps I should regard this interpolated week as a form of Loyola Spiritual Exercises on the lead up to Easter so that I can respond to them in an other-worldly way!
The return of Toni from his exile in Terrassa (where he was ministered unto by a doting parent after his operation for the removal of a tumour near his eye) was for the taking out the stitches and a celebratory meal afterwards. I know that things are back to what we laughingly call normality when I find myself having an informed conversation about who should have won the golden accolade for being the best footballer in the world. I am still reeling from the fact that I actually have an opinion about such things! How times have changed!
Toni’s arrival also brought The Family present for me for Kings: a computer lap rest with a light and holes for teacups and pencils and pens. It is in a pleasing metallic finish and I think that I have a spare Apple symbol that I can affix to cover the actual make of the thing so that I have a seamless co-ordination between The Machine and Rest. Yes, I have no shame.
My marking is now complete – at least this stage of the marking. The trick is to finish off your marking and not let anyone know that you have done it. The last time I finished with what might be described as despatch I was asked to take a chunk of someone else’s marking and complete that too! I shall not make that mistake again.
Meanwhile the weekend stretches before me with an expansive (if ultimately deceptive) length. I shall make the most of it.
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