School starts for real

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  London, England, United Kingdom
Thursday, November 6, 2008

I have now started teaching for real, I have 12 classes with around 30 students in each class, that's over 300 names to learn and books to mark. I am also teaching 8 different topics, Judaism, Buddhism, Plate tectonics, OS map skills, fair trade and development, the Roman Empire, The Renaissance and slavery. So right now I am feeling slightly overwhelmed. The fact I still don't have room keys, an email address, access to a computer in my office doesn't help my stress levels.

Living at Jo's is great as it's only a 5 minute train ride from work, I still have to walk to the station and then from the station to school so all up the journey takes around 20 minutes which is nothing compared to what I was doing before. It also means I don't have to take the tube which is just depressing and stressful! My first week of work I came home and collapsed exhausted on the couch every night. Friday finally came and I joined some of my fellow teachers for a drink at the local pub. After 2 pints I felt wrecked and caught teh wrong bus home which meant I had to take three buses but eventually got there! That's how you get to know your way around I spose! Jo cooked me dinner which was nice and gave me another cider that I didn't need. I lay down on the couch to watch a movie and promptly fell alseep (at 10pm on a Friday  night!)

Saturday night Jo and I went to our local shopping centre, southside and bought some work clothes and some much needed new jeans! Sat night we went to a pub called the goat and were quite delighted that they had games, so we enjoyed a game of connect four, jenga and trivial pursuit whilst sipping out bright pink strawberry ciders. We met up with some of Jo's friends later at Balham but left early and were in bed by midnight... man I'm a loser!! Having not done any exercise since I left home apart from some sporadic hiking adventures etc. I thought it was tiem to do something. Found out about a place that does bikram yoga where you can go as many times as you like in 10 days for 10 pounds. We went along Sunday night to give it a go and almsot died. It was so hot 40 degrees to be exact and I have never sweated so much in my life. Came out with an awful headache which I still had the next day! Wanting to make the most of the offer I went back the next day and found that it wasn't at all that hot and left feeling great. Don't know whether I will continue afetr my ten days run out but we'll see.

My second week of school started much teh same as the first. Have only managed to learn a handfull of names, still don't have keys to the classrooms, email address or school system log-in and no-one is being very helpful in sorting them out for me. I have some really really nice classes, mainly year 7's whp are gorgeous and funny and just really eager to please. Then I have some year 9's who I can not control. I can not get them to be quiet for long enough for me to set a task let alone explain anything. I have them Friday last lesson and this week they were so bad that I burst into tears as soon as they all left. I had to get another teacer in to remove one of the students and I had opther shouting at me telling me that I wasn't teaching them anything, that I was a bad teacher etc. It was awful and left me feeling shit for the rest of the weekend and such a shame as before that I actually thought I was making some progress.

Friday night Reebecca had got us tickets to a dance performance which forced me to get out of the house rather than staying at home wallowing in misery. The performance was called 'to be straight with you' and was as much theatre as it was dance. It was about homosexuality mainly with religious issues also taken up repeatedly. It was really good anyway and I didn't even mind standing the whole time as these were the only tickets left but at a bargain 5 pounds! Saturday I didn't do much at all. I had found someone giving away sheets and towels on freecycle (a website) and went to collect them so now I actually have sheets rather than sleeping in my sleeping bag which is nice!

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