Oh what a tangled web...

I'm useless at lying, but for the last two or three years I've been blogging without the knowledge of my family and friends. Well, apart from the friends I've met through the blog, obviously. Now, it's getting to the stage where, as soon as a conversation turns to things technological, I get prickly heat just trying to remember what camp someone's in - do they know? do they not? does it matter?

It was never meant to be like this...I started the transition blog anonymously because Buster would've hated me writing about him. And probably Barney might have too. So it was kind of a discretion/respect kind of thing. And then when I started this one it seemed sensible to stick with Honeysuckle. And now I'm in a pickle because home and virtual lives are interlinking and the people who know me best are excluded from one whole area of my life and...

Time to come clean?

Anyone else living a double life?

Being watched

My first observation today since I've been fully-fledged. This is how it went:

...well actually, just don't ask. There were elements of :

*lateness (we started the class on time with just one student)

*poor communication (I was expecting him for the more endearing morning class; he arrived for the unenthusiastic afternoon class)

*unwarranted cannine visitations (two students arrived with a dog in tow - huh??)

*cannabis (by the time I got my verbal feedback at 3pm the observer was complaining of feeling woozy, having spent an hour breathing in the druggy fumes coming off the two boys opposite him).

So, apparently I'm just satisfactory with good aspects.
'But I wanted to be totally good!' I wailed pathetically. He just breathed the cannabis right back at me and stumbled out into the rain.

Fully-fledged what?

Fully-fledged teacher, that's me. Yes, indeedy. Much to my surprise.
And hff was meant to be a blog on teaching and writing, altho' so far there's precious little of either in evidence...

A letter in this month's Writing Magazine tho' really brought out the newly-trained teacher in me. Jacquie Seddon from London wrote to the mag to say that, having taken up writing after years of drug addiction and other difficult stuff, her first assignment 'came back marked poor'.
POOR? Who marks someone's first assignment as poor? What happened to medals and missions? Things to work on? Areas for development? First rule: don't tell someone they're crap at something; suggest ways they might improve their performance.

Well, okay, she went on to get three 'excellents' (it's all very black and white with this tutor, isn't it?) and has been on an upward path ever since. And I'm glad because a lesser person could well have thrown the towel in after that first assignment. Good on you, Jacquie. Poor indeed!

Just go to the doctor, why don't you?

Bo gleefully told me, now that The Sex Education Show has come to an end, she's found another programme for us to watch: Embarrassing Teenage Bodies. Now, don't get the wrong idea, but I really liked TSES. It was non-salacious; the presenter was cheerful, non-judgmental and willing to undergo intimate procedures on our behalf; it allowed Bo and me to watch together, affording her the chance to fill in the gaps in my knowledge.

But have you seen ETB? What is going on there exactly? - gurning presenters; pus-filled tongue piercings; too-sudden-switches to close-ups of fat-reducing surgery. Oh, yucky! Give me a break, do.

And the question I'm left with is this: what is it with teenagers who are too embarrassed one minute to even consult their GP over their condition, but the next minute are willing to undress and display their bits for the entire nation to gawp at?
Just don't get it.