Time is slipping!

 

My peaceful existence in the empty staff room this morning was broken by the arrival of the secretary who harangued me (yet again) for my lack of perfection in the Spanish language.  She pointed out that with the length of time that I have lived in Spain I should now be able to indulge my obvious sociability and chatter fluently with my colleagues. 

Did I not realize, I was asked, how much of the interplay of normal social intercourse I was missing by not having a proficiency in the language? 

I did not point out to her that I must have some sort of ability to allow me to understand what she was saying!  But let it pass, let is pass.

We are going to start the day with a departmental meeting and then “the only way is up” – which is slightly unfair as our departmental meetings are dealing with the “here and now” of the situation rapidly approaching when Monday will bring the influx of the hordes.  The febrile tranquillity of days without the students will be fondly remembered by tattered souls ripped apart by the terrible reality of groups of actual smallish people sitting in front of them when they go into a room!

I have yet to be given my class lists for most of my groups.  To be fair (again) the English lists exist, it is all the others that do not.  It will probably only be tomorrow that I actually have the lists and the last full day before the advent of the kids is one that is filled with yet more meetings.

The Quest for Tapas was fruitless this evening.  I am now down to just three establishments that I have to visit and I intend to visit the two that are possible.

 

This evening it was the turn of the restaurant in the area of the Olympic Canal.  This artificial stretch of water was created for some of the boating events in the Barcelona Olympics and is here in Castelldefels.  It is a very large stretch of water and is used for emergency purposes when there are forest fires in the region.  The planes come and scoop up water from the Canal and dump it on the fire.

I checked the time and the details of the restaurant very carefully and we made our first visit.  And were told that all the restaurant staff had left at 8.00 pm and we were out of luck.  This is not the first time that the information printed on the sheet that has to be stamped has been faulty.

Tomorrow I will go there directly from school and nab my antepenultimate stamp!

As the time for the real teaching draws nearer I fell less and less inclined to remain a member of the noble profession and more and more drawn to a life of indolent ease.  I think that I will have to take this year of torture term by term.

In a telling feature of our place it has been decided to give more time to the construction of the so-called Credit of Synthesis which I have no intention of explaining except to comment that it takes up a great deal of a week and is largely a waste of time and effort.  This year the tired feature is to be given a makeover with the direct involvement of small committees or working groups of teachers to construct a project based framework within which the kids can work.

 

I have been drafted into the group considering the 2ESO project and, in spite of our having a timetabled day eight hours long (and sometimes longer) and our having an effective pay cut as our wages have been frozen, the groups are going to meet after school for an hour a month!

As usual I was the only person to exhibit incredulity that it had been impossible to schedule a meeting during the working day.

Our staffing is so tight that a single absence can wreck havoc and the idea of a “supply” teacher is greeted with peals of laughter.  As an example the Head of English will be absent for five working days as she goes with pupils from the school to a school in Canada: no supply.  An absence of more than three days known in advance: no supply.  It is simply incredible and, at the same time, contemptible.  I don’t know whom to blame more: the management or the quiescent teachers.  We can leave the unions out of the picture, as they are generally ineffective and neutered by the arrangements for representation in individual schools.

The shadow of unnumbered weeks of unrewarding, under-paid toil is beginning to depress me, and even the continued sunshine is no compensation because, after all, I will be indoors looking out at what I might be enjoying.

And I think that I have forgotten how to read for enjoyment!

Roll on the weekend when at least we might be saying farewell to the neighbours as they return to the city.

The Cava is cooling!