Students 65: Management 0

For the first time in ages we have a great group of students. They're fairly well-motivated and usually pleasant. Well, that is, they complain endlessly about the cold and other stuff, drink all our coffee without washing up, and one of them disappears periodically for a nap on the settee, another just disappears altogether...but apart from all that and lots more, they are actually quite nice, funny, and we're enjoying teaching them.

So it's a pity that my manager has turned into, well, I'd like to say psycho-bitch but that would make her easier to deal with. If someone's acting like a complete nutter you can do stuff about it but when they start just trying to chip away at your self-confidence and tell you openly that they can't support you in certain situations because other, more influential, people 'have to be kept happy', well, what can you do? Just slink off home and have a few sleepless nights, I suppose.

So, should I just give up on the main teaching job and stay home and write, maybe do a few adult classes for my second string employer? Or is that what she wants me to do?

What's afoot? Definitely more, as John Lennon said, than twelve inches.

Whoops a daisy

Another report in the paper yesterday about a man following his satnav's instructions to the letter and ending up perched over a drop at a curve in the bridleway he'd driven down. The fact that he was a BMW driver engendered much hilarity and caustic comments, but in fact this happens regularly round here - it's either drivers driving along footpaths or waggon drivers trying to steer their HGVs round tiny corners in hillside lanes that we struggle with in the Jazz. What is it with this people? Are they so seduced by a sexy satnav voice that they disengage their brains when they turn the thing on?

Well, that's the basis of many people's criticisms, but me, I'm saying nothing. Some years ago, after a lovely Elizabethan banquet at a nearby stately home (during which I'd drunk nothing, honest) I was the last one out of the car park. For reasons I've forgotten, but possibly by dint of gormlessness, I turned right where everyone else had turned left. It was very dark and it caused me some concern that the road seemed to be getting narrower and narrower until it was no more than, oh, just a grass footpath really. I did stop and gingerly manouevre the car back round the other way - I didn't like that bit as there were drops on both sides - and go on my way but obviously, it's easily done...

I'm just glad I wasn't driving a BMW to add to my embarrassment.

I've said it before...

...and I'll say it again: those people at The People's Friend are so lovely! Really, they'd make ideal favourite aunts or next door neighbours or...well, I'd like to see them running the country - a bit of politeness and integrity wouldn't go amiss there, would it?

From a writer's point of view, they may be a little tardy these days making decisions - altho' no tardier than any other mag -but they certainly make up for it in encouraging words and just general loveliness. I'm a big fan.

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Barney went for a drink yesterday lunchtime, meaning he was unable to pick me up in the car as he normally does from the station. He decided to make up for this lapse by meeting me on foot at the bus stop, with a welcoming glass of red wine in his hand. Aw, bless.

A bit of a moan, kind of

So what's new, eh?

I had an interview yesterday for a job at the college which is near my home - still the same kind of job but slightly more money and of course I'd save the train fare. I didn't get it and, to be honest, I wouldn't have given me it either. They asked about how I use IT in teaching - I use it loads: we watch Youtube clips, do interactive exercises, we update the blog, loads of stuff. But at the time the only thing that came into my head was Skillswise, which is like the most basic website literacy teachers use - couldn't think of anything else!

And then today the course that I was going to take at the nearby university next year has been shifted elsewhere, so I can't do that either. Despite the fact that I need the course to continue to be fully qualified, I was already in two minds as my employers reneged on a promise to pay for half of it, but even so I'd have like the chance to make a choice...

Anyway, it frees up a year to study something I'd like to. What shall I do? Italian? Spanish? Maths GCSE? Something crafty? The world's my lobster, as Hilda would say. Can't be Tuesday evenings tho' as that's the day we're taking up jiving lessons. Can't wait!