Thursday, December 15, 2011

Some Seasonal Cheer

Teaching at a posh school means I have a four week Christmas holiday, which is super (although it would be more super if I was on salary and being paid for this holiday time). Yes, it's nearing Christmas time and everyone is trying to remain cheerful and rise above the fact that it's been raining, hailing and blowing a gale. There's as much gloom on the news as ever, and more fancy drug dealer cars hanging around our block so the season of excess must be upon us. Therefore this post aims to be full of cheer. What follows aims to be a basket full of un-christmas related cheerful stuff.

Firstly, love is in the air. Well it is for my lovely flatmate who is falling head over heels for a Frenchman down the road. His mother is a cooking teacher who taught Princess Diana and Delia Smith, by the way. He is lovely, even if he talks about himself a lot. Which means I get the house to myself more, meaning my music choice gets played 100 percent of the time, although I have no one to blame but myself if the loo roll runs out and hasn't been replaced by one from the cupboard.

Secondly, this blog/tumblr thing. Nick Clegg is the leader of the Liberal Democrats, a party that had a conscience until they went into coalition with the Conservatives after last years elections- a sort of pact with the devil if I was honest. This is a nice little parody, and quite clever.

I love a good mix of pop culture and high culture- so Feminist Ryan Gosling fits the bill nicely.

And finally. This still makes me laugh after perhaps the tenth viewing. It's a parody of the BBC's political correspondent. It's not embedding, so I have doubts that it won't play outside of the UK, but here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDyf6UgGtYw

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Professional Paper Thrower.

Today was the second to last day of term, before school breaks up for four weeks over Christmas. Those poor folk in the state schools must trudge on for another week and accept a mere two weeks' break.

This afternoon was the annual, traditional Christmas Lunch where about 380 staff and students sit down to roast turkey and brussel sprouts (still the least favoured vegetable of children the world over). My duty at this point was to oversee the cracker pulling, party popping and balloon blowing of the pupils under my charge at Table 22. Before then escorting four students off to get the roast turkey and trimmings platters, clearing the plates and collecting desert.

Then came the building anticipation as the tables were cleared of dishes, plastic and threateningly hard paper. What followed was the traditional school sanctioned Paper Fight. There were rounds (blondes vs brunettes; Under 16s vs Over 16s) but in truth it was a free for all, and a good opportunity for me to throw things at teenagers. Things calmed down relatively quickly as everyone settled into the singing of several Christmas tunes before some were dismissed off to class and others remained behind to clean up.

Since my class seemed to be all far too heavily involved in the clean up to come to class so I went to the staffroom and helped sort the collection of christmas cards from students to teachers. When the final bell went I took my bag and caught the train home.

And that is what I got paid to do today.

Tomorrow I am helping to escort the whole school to the church across the road for the carol service (we're deep in the heart of the Church of England here folks).

Some day I am going to have a really awful job as the karma balance to this one.