Christmas

After a relaxing and enjoyable Christmas with good company, food, nice pressies and some tiem sitting on the sofa I want to introduce my new dog.



This is Lester and as you can see is an adorable puppy. Before you question my sanity and remind me that a dog is not just for Christmas, I will explain. Lester is currently being puppy walked by a family. When he is a year old he will be trained to be a guide dog and paired with a blind person to help them get around. At the moment Lester is around 6 months old and will be living with a volunteer family who will train him along strict guidelines to intirduce him to as many sites and sounds as possible. When I was little we puppy walked a dog called Choat that went on to become a guide dog and started with another called Dandy. It is a nice scheme where you get a new puppy, kepp them for a year and then you get a brand new puppy. I then repaid Mum and Nick's kindness by winning the traditonal game of Monopoly rather too easily to derive too much enjoyment from it.

Orange

As I was trying to update my phone and I need to change the credit card as it had gone passed its expiry date. I ring up and am put on hold. After 15 minutes. It cuts me off giving me all this speil about it being peak flow and all their operators are working at top speed. My only observation is this at 10.15 on a Thursday evening. My guess it was the Christmas party.

Also, do Orange sell many phones in the Catholic parts of Northern Ireland.

Sudoku

So Juliet gave a book of Fiendish Sudoku not hard sudoku or relax at the end of a day Sudoku but fiendish. I was pleased when I maanaged to do the first one but the next 5 I got half way and then just got stuck. I mean I really studied those puzzles but just couldn't see a way forward. There was obviously a technique I was missing, or some way to solve the puzzle that I did not know. Using a website that solves puzzles step by step I wen through one and sometimes wish I hadn't. There are a lot of different techniques I didn't know about and while the geek side of my personality is interested I am not sure that it aids my search for a relaxing puzzle to do now and again.

If I find out who scheduled parents evening tonight or a non uniform day for Friday I would like to shake them warmly by the neck. The satff are tired and the last thing we need is hyper active kids. I wish management actually taught more as it might influence their decisions a bit more.

Roll on Wednesday

This time of the year is the toughest for teachers as you battle the tiredness of the long term, the rising level of excitement in the students and waking up and returning home in the dark. It is at this time when you need to teach the most intresting lessons while your body wants to relax and chill out and you want to go home early. Wednesday is my most difficult day and when I get over "Humpback Wednesday" it should be a downhill struggle to the end of term and I can start to feel a touch Christmasy. To anyone who thinks that this is easily I invite them to join us in the teaching profession, I hear that there are positions available in science and maths.

Dream

I rarely remember dreams so this one stuck in my head. I was bring chased across a lush landscape which was ancient (it had tree ferns but not trees so 60 million years ago) and populated by dinosaurs. I was being chased by a dinosaur that wanted to eat me but I was able to run fast enough to just keep out of reach. It started to bite another animal and when it did it and the dinosaur turned to stone. Analyse that puppy!!

Irritation

At the moment life seems to be irritating in many different ways.

1. The teacher and the teddy bear incident is irritating me as nobody comes out of the affair very well. The teacher should have known better, the Sudanese government over-reacted (do they seriously expect the fall of Islam to be caused by 50 year old teachers from Liverpool, religious fanatics are portrayed badly as people who over react, Sudanese democracy comes out looking bad as only government supported demonstrations are allowed, British government look bad for trying to mess with another countries justice system and my school's RE teaching looks shaky as few of the children understand why calling a bear Mohammed might be offensive to some (imagine if I called my classroom teddy bear Hitler or Jesus). The only person that comes out of it well is the Sudanese prison service.

2. Labours funding crisis is irritating as although they have done wrong they are taking heavy criticism from the Conservatives. The problem is that at least Labour are trying to be transparent whereas the Conservatives take a lot of money from patrons clubs. So I could set up a club, take money from lots of people, donate it to the Conservatives in the name of my club and no-one is the wiser. Labour did wrong but the Tories have no moral ground from which to cast their stones.

3. The last two weeks of term are always the most difficult so why do management schedule two parents evenings in the last two weeks. There is no rush to report back to parents especially in Yr 8 as we are only about half way through the year.

4. In the last two weeks there have been draws for the Euro 2008 football competition and qualifying for World Cup 2010. The whole system is hugely complicated, over elaborate and seems geared to support the big teams and I would love it just to be random. Put all the names in the hat and draw it at random. Lets see what happens.

5 About this time two years ago all the talk amongst my friends was of Lisa and Scott's wedding preparations. When they got married last October it all stopped. Now it is back with Kat and Andy. I can cope with the location/ dress/ flowers/ cake stand talk and it helps when the men in the group tend to head for sport as topics of conversation. The irritation comes from a sense of feeling a bit left out as my friends marry and try for families. Is this a sign of getting old!!

6. Weather. Stop being warm and damp and start being cold, clear and snowy.