your service has been interrupted

I go back to work: it's like all the creative thoughts drain out my ears. Maybe if I was lucky they would stick on the pillow overnight and I could scrape them back up again. Problem is every time another one of those bells go off and I jump up to my feet watching the ticking clock another one gets zapped and then there's nothing, no residue available for a good going over later. It's the treadmill what does it, I realise now. No time for the wistful gaze out of the window, no mindless trips on the bus not needing to get anywhere any time, and certainly no laying on the bed looking at the ceiling until I forgot what I was thinking and start thinking more.

watching the ships roll in

I can find no more reasons to avoid doing today's marking.

Damn.

what it don't get I can't use

Peter
Originally uploaded by etcher67

For three weeks we forgot to do the Lottery. We forgot the bit when we promise ourselves that we don't really think we will win, the bit where don't win but we joke that we will definitely win next week, and the bit where we are secretly disappointed that we didn't win because actually we kind of hoped prayed dreamed a little bit that we might .

Back to work now.

I can't stand up

It is the holidays at long last. Marvellous.

Today I foolishly forgot that I was a middle aged woman for a brief moment and played stick-in-the-mud with my class in the warm afternoon sun. This was brilliant until I fell over; resulting in a loud bang and an impressive set of grazes. I had forgotten how much falling over at speed hurts (the relative speed of a 40yr old, though there's a lot more mass to test gravity than there used to be) and nowadays one cannot burst into dramatic tears* and be half carried limping to the first-aid room, you just have to sit on the floor for a moment and feel like a bit of a twat. The kids were great though: they pointed and laughed. Bless 'em.

Our school is now officially in special measures. Um, hooray; or something**.

*dunno why really, I do dramatic tears on a fairly regular basis to be honest.
** something more like 'Oh: shiiit'.

I am an island

sitting
Originally uploaded by etcher67

There was a point shortly after this picture was taken when I achieved a completely relaxed state for the first time in about six weeks. It was really, really, lovely.

Sadly by 9.30 am yesterday I had gone back to the the place close to the end of my tether which seems to be my more normal home right now. Fortunately it turns out that there is quite a lot of chocolate near the end of tethers. Slimming can wait: I am eating my troubles away.

Five working days until my holiday. New headteacher April 21st. Pray for a miracle worker.

the wrong jumper

I should have known today when I put on the red and purple striped jumper that I would smash a plate into the staffroom bin in the middle of a rant about why nobody cares enough to wash up the odd teaspoon until they are piling up in the sink like spillikins thrown by a spoilt child I should have known today when I put on the red and purple striped jumper that I would end up in voicemail hell and shout at Vishal that I'd rather buy my curtains from John Lewis even if I don't like their fabrics because then at least I would be able to order a sample without going through a tortuous process involving three different departments and being told that there was no problem when there was a bloody problem or why would I be calling them I should have known today when I put on the red and purple jumper that I would shout at Graham to Give It A Break!! when he was mumbling and muttering that he was on strike no more homework no more school the yogic breathing is not really working the red and purple striped jumper is evil and I have eaten five yes five chocolate biscuits one right after the other bugger

climb every mountain

Some days, the need for a day off is more pronounced than others. Thank goodness for days off. Every now and again I contemplate the 20% pay rise that working five days a week would bring, but generally some kind soul reminds me that teaching five days a week is a fast track to personal bad temper and general insanity. Given my current level of personal bad temper and general insanity this would definitely not be wise. Work continues to be...challenging. Still no Ofsted publication, still no new headteacher, still lots of teachers hiding behind things crying. Not ideal.

A man in a long sparkly coat covered in appliqué elephants tried to persuade me to become a storyteller this week. I confess that I was tempted. I have been wishing for a door to open recently, and wonder whether that might be it. Even though I have virtually no intention of following up this opportunity it's nice to think that it exists.

I had a bunch of other things to say about London and books and stuff like that but I have decided to keep it to myself. Not blogging is the new blogging. Writing about not blogging is web2 (er, three?) meta for a new millennium! I shall go and sit on the sofa and think inside my head instead.

still

It's half term, and the sun is trying to shine.

I might walk to the library.

I might buy Indian snacks.

I might bake bread.

I might play my ukulele.

I might finish my knitting.

I might look for a new job.

I might take some pictures.

I might feel better.

repeat after me:

Just past the point where things can get no worse. Just at the point when a tiny pin-prick of light appears at the end of a very long tunnel. Just at the point where I decide to give things until May before I resign. Just at the point where I raise my head and realise that the last 5 months have been untenable, the Ofsted juggernaut appears and runs us down. The report is unpublished and the results currently secret even to members of staff, but still there are great fat tyre marks across my back.

It has been a shitty week.

It's just a job.

never had no sweater

I am knitting a tank top*. I haven't worn a tank top since Grandma knitted me one in 1975** , but here I am, knitting one. It is very stress-relieving, especially the bits where you have to start it four times, realise you are actually following the wrong pattern and spend hours agonising about what to do about the four inches you've knitted already (whilst watching a really horrible programme about the Jonestown Massacre which is bound to give you nightmares), and the fact that the longer it gets the more it looks a suitable size for someone who still has a living knitting Grandma.

Knitting is great. Hours and hours of things other than work to think about.

*I mainly chose a tank top because it has no arms and should therefore be quicker. I am beginning to realise that this may not be the best method of choice.

**it was lime green, white and navy, and went very nicely with the bowl haircut and NHS specs. Gorgeous I looked: gorgeous.

shhhhh-taka-tak-a-tak-a-tshhhhhk. Click. BOOM!

At work we've recently had a slew of kids with ASD, ADHD and a variety of other initials join our classes. Not that we didn't have our fair share already. There's now roughly one child with some sort of diagnosis per class, and more like two, really. It brings an extra dimension to teaching when you have to deal with Lego obsessives and impromptu aerobics exhibitions, the blu-tac fiddlers and the shouty shouty boys. Some days they band together and machine gun one another with their ruler guns across the classroom. On others they argue incessantly with one another, me, their classmates, the walls: desperate to have the last word. Mostly the best way to deal with it is to ignore it all, praise the desired behaviours. Some days this is easier than others. Some days this is hell on earth and results in small nervous breakdowns behind toilet doors. Don't get me wrong: I like my job, and I like those kids, but on occasion I wonder how the rest of the class are managing to learn anything, or whether we're just all getting an excellent lesson in ignoring the elephant in the corner.

After the children go home I sit in staff meetings swinging on my chair, doodling, folding pieces of paper into tiny missiles and launching them around the room into the cups or hair of my colleagues. I exclaim and harrumph, and today I caught myself making sound effects as I prepared to take out a Newly Qualified Teacher's head with my fearsome laser arm.

All that ignoring can't be good for me.

you got to pick a pocket or two

A group of girls huddle around me in the playground; and to take our minds off the wind and the puddles underfoot I ask about their Christmases: were they good? What did they get?

They all agree that it was good, and they got good things. They tell me about their upcoming holidays, and then one asks me: what did I get for Christmas? My mind goes immediately blank. Ermmm...what did I get for Christmas? I know I had presents, I know I liked them, what the flipping eck were they? I dredge about in the muddy pool of my memory.

I got an ukulele book, and a book about criminal children, I tell them. Oh, and some cake tins. They look distinctly unimpressed, so I look at them very seriously and tell them that 150 years ago children of their age could be put in prison or transported, for very minor things such as stealing spoons, or bread. I do not mention the death sentences, the cruelty and futility of penal punishments, or the degradation that meant many children were relieved to get into jail so that they'd be fed and clothed for a while.

Edith looks at me suspiciously. 'That doesn't mean you can lock us up', she says.

'Doesn't it?' I smile, 'What a pity. Someone go and get me the bell.'

woof

Just up to my neck in un-bloggable work stuff, I'm afraid. That and the fact that I now feel the urge to keep my private life actually private, and have not the time or inclination to write about it through the filters I used to use.

In other words, I'm too busy getting on with it to blog about it. Does this mean I'm all growed up? (Of course not.)

I expect I shall be back in a more regular sense at some point. You should still buy an Ukulele. Buy one for yourself and one for your friend. You know it makes sense :)

bad-tempered teacher

Things to do on your first day back at school:

1. Find your cup.
2. Colour in all the days off for the next year in your new diary (thanks to Lectrice for that one).
3. Correct the grammar and spellings in all the staff meeting handouts with a red pen.
4. Compile a list of words to describe an irritating member of staff (including 'supercilious' and 'self-aggrandising').
5. Make a list of things to be done, including three things you've done already so that you can cross something off.
6. Bin all of the paper in your pigeon hole.
7. Lose your cup.
8. Lie about what you did in the holidays.
9. Go home with a headache.

Thanks to Colin for his contribution over the last week.

now it's half past three

I decided today that I should like to keep chickens. 'I think I'll get chickens; yes, chickens would be good and would eat all the slugs and I wonder if I could get one of those foxproof Eglu things' I thought. I even began to imagine a couple of gingery girls pecking contentedly in my back garden. Fantasies such as these carry me through my lunch hour and help balance out the thoughts which go: 'I hate this job and want to work somewhere else and I am going to actually strangle Lance Wyatt if he doesn't stop arguing with every bloody thing I say every bloody minute of the day.'

There are nine working days to go until the end of term. I am going to have to think about chickens a great deal.

you got a fast car

cloud

Walking along the lines of the playground I start to dream escape plans. I shall get a train to France, I shall camp in a field, I shall go and stand and look at the sea. I will drink frothy coffee and eat cake. I will dig my garden. There will be no interruptions and finally, finally the sun will shine for longer than ten minutes. Other people will make the dinner. There will be swimming which I do not put off due to a reluctance to remove my clothes; and best of all I will not have to work quite so hard at suppressing the urge to tell certain colleagues just how much they are really, really irritating me.

It will be nice.

wash me clean

In the ladies at work is some new soap. The name on the bottle is 'Fantastic Day'.

Although I remain unconvinced I have washed my hands with it twice, just in case.

we're all just pushing along

It must be nearly the end of term; I've seen two of my colleagues cry this week, and virtually everywhere you go there are huddles of people muttering angrily to one another and looking hastily over their shoulders to check who might be eavesdropping. Not a happy school, mine.

There's an end of term play on at the moment; performed by one of our more psychopathic year groups. This means that apart from all the normal entertainments such as small children dressed up as dwarves and rabbits and the occasional fudging of lines we have extra added interest such as the trumpet which wouldn't play because someone had shoved a blue wig inside it, one of the kids sitting at the front of the stage calmly destroying part of his costume in the middle of a song, and a girl wearing long grey socks with her sparkly leotard because she point blank refuses to take them off, possibly because she is worried that someone will steal them for further trumpet muffling duty. I've spent a bit of time over the past few weeks helping to rehearse them, and it's been an uphill struggle of the hair pulling description all of the way. Despite (or perhaps because of) all this I was reduced to hormonal rubble yesterday by the sight of one of the more combative boys singing solo in a sweet albeit deeply embarrassed soprano. You can't help but love the little fuckers sometimes.

you and me and the devil makes three

This week is going on for ever.

you can count on me

'So....in 459 there are 9 units. That's the same as nine ones. How much is nine ones altogether?'

Long and considered silence.

'.....ten?'

Long intake of patient (ha: who am I kidding?) breath.

'No, Not ten. Look again...nine ones....'

Personalised learning. That's what we need. Please be aware that engaging me in conversation about this may result in screaming and the renting of hair. Yours, probably.

My staff meeting was cancelled tonight. I was on the playground playing 'it' with seven year olds in a rainless moment this afternoon. It almost killed me, but I still managed to leap into the air with happiness when I heard.

I come home and spend some quality time with my bed. A day's relentless cheerfulness has worn me out but half an hour heading down towards sleep helps. At the point where I would fall asleep were it late I wake up, then spend a groggy 30 minutes resurfacing.

I force myself to draw, because I have this strange idea that I might go back to the print studio and begin to work again, at last, and I want to. I really, really want to. I have had long, sensible, optimistic conversations with several people about how I will have to 'bibble about' (Jones) and 'produce shit' (P) for a while until I am back in the habit of being an artist. It all makes perfect sense. I completely agree. I might have even introduced the idea. The only problem is, the work is utterly horrible and it makes me want to cry and throw things. It's not unreasonable to expect that I should be brilliant all of the time, is it? Don't answer that.