Friday, February 16, 2007

Downtime

I've been on half term break since last week and I've been chillin out mightily. I've gone in to school and gotten some work done during the break but not nearly as much as I should have. I'll live to regret this but at least I've done something.

As I sit here I'm eating what must be my 15th pizza of the week (store bought though) and drinking a fine fine pint of Young's bitter. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are blasting in the background and I'm trying to forget that I only have 2 days left in my break.

I went through another term...that's 2 down for the year. It was harder in some ways and easier in others. It was tougher in some ways because I began to expect more of myself but I'm still a rookie so I keep falling short of where I want to be. I also started liking a lot of the kids which made it more difficult to deal with them in some ways. It's harder to be really hard on kids if you like them. You'd think it would be harder for them to be mean to you if some of them like you too but I'm not sure that's so much the case. It must be for some kids. I guess they're the ones I'm not having the toughest time with.

On another note I got cast in a play of sorts at East 15! There's a director there who's doing a play called "The Investigation" by Peter Weiss. It's verbatim scripts from trials after WWII. It's not the Nuremberg trials - it's some other trial that's similar. It's 4 hours long so they're going to do readings every week for the next few weeks. I've been cast as the judge for the first section. Should be fun. I think they're aiming to do a full stage production but I'm not a hundred percent sure how that'll work since they have different people reading in all these different readings. Anyway it'll be fun to dust off the acting tool kit again.

Tonight I'm going to see a play my room mate is in about these women who camped in a park somewhere in England next to this nuclear silo for like, 30 years, to protest nuclear warfare. Should be good. The play has taken that situation and blended it with Antigone (ancient Greek play where the women go on a sex strike to stop a war). They've been doing tons of research for it including camping in the actual park itself.

Babagenouche is doing well. She's got this audition for the BBC coming up which is great but also a lot of work and stress. She'll so great though I'm sure!

That's it for now.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Snow Day

News from BBC.com

Thousands of schools are shut and motorists are being urged to travel only if necessary. Some households are also without power.

Up to 10cm (4in) of snow fell in some areas.

4 inches! Bwahahahaha!

Well today was another good one. Likely because I didn't actually end up having to teach. The entire city ground to a halt as 4 inches of snow fell on the city. Apparently it doesn't actually snow in London most years. This was a legitimate snow fall and it created all kinds of problems.

It took me 2 hours and 15 minutes to take the usual 45 minute train ride to work. Apparently the snow was interfering with the current. I'm not surprised because trains here are constantly sending out huge sparks as they travel along. Then again...shouldn't they be built a little safer?

I got off at one station and crossed over to the other side of the platform there was a constant blue arc shooting out of one wheel. It looked like a welders torch. It quickly began to burn through the metal of the track. Then flames started appearing as well as smoke. There was a worker with a walkie talkie saying things like "Move the train off the platform before it welds itself to the rail!" Apparently it couldn't move... or wouldn't. Eventually the arc stopped. I think it burnt a whole in the rail.

Once I got to work it became apparent this would be a relaxing day. There were only 8 kids in at first so we made up a short schedule.

<--- not my kids but you get the picture.

Then break time hit and the snowball war started. It was awesome! here we had about 14 kids who have major social and emotional problems having a huge snowball fight for about 40 minutes. I was out there on my own for about 10 minutes and had a great time chucking snow around. The kids got to whip snowballs at the teacher and, more importantly, I got to throw snowballs at them.

The only point I got really nervous was when this one year 11 student who is REALLY muscular came after me. He kept coming for me and trying to push snow in my face and eventually we ended up grappling. I thought I might be dead. Eventually he took me down - hard. So I got up again and took him down - hard. Really glad I managed to. I think I earned some respect. :) Amazing experience because none of this would be tolerated at a "mainstream" school.

Then we went inside and had hot chocolate.

It was a fun day.

One day left and I'm off for a week.

Thank God.


Tuesday, February 06, 2007

1 Near Perfect Day

Hot Damn it's been a long time since I posted!

Apologies to any who have been checking in regularly - I've probably lost every reader out there. Post a reply if you're still reading!

I don't know what happened today with my kids but I went through my toughest day in terms of scheduling with almost nary an incident to report.

Tuesdays are usually brutal. I have 4 straight classes in the morning and then an hour and a half straight of Drama. That would normally be ok but I'm usually exhausted and Drama is damn near impossible with these kids. They really don't want to do it it seems. I think we could do a much better job though. We need to start with just playing games...anyway! Enough about that.

Four straight classes of engaged students. Unbelievable. I had points where I was standing there watching them work - completely unsure of what to do with myself. Usually I'm arguing with them. Or they're arguing with me. Is this what teaching in a normal school is like? I actually have energy left over. Usually I'm so tired I can't stand up by the end of the day. It's also amazing how my disorganization and inability to get any tasks done outside of lessons faded away. It's stress I tell you! I've been so overwhelmed I can't think straight.

So here's to one good day!

I'm sure it'll be WWIII tomorrow. :)