passing round the ready rub

It is traditional at the beginning of the school year to spend a couple of nights tossing and turning and staring balefully at the light on the alarm clock whilst the little hours click past. This ensures that one returns to school feeling almost as tired and stressed as you did at the end of term, though without the sleep debt that made it almost impossible to think a happy thought about anyone or anything other than spending a week in bed eating cake.

Fortunately staff meetings involving the term's dates go some way towards righting the debt, if you can remember to treat them as a meditation session and not listen too hard. The stains on the carpet make a good mandela if doodling isn't your thing and you can't quite see out of the window. I lifted my head briefly to look around at the vacant stares in mine this morning and could have sworn that everyone had died. They all stood up at the end, so it appears that it was only the death of freedom from managerial bullshit we were communally celebrating.

I'd broken my no bitching resolution by 10am. I think that's a record; though actually one of the things that struck me today was how much I really like some of the people that I work with. Thank goodness for mercies such as that.