Thoughts

Thoughts, rants, musings and more...

A selection of the variety of matters that occupy my mind from time to time

Thursday 25 November 2010

Snow day...well almost


So it snowed last night...and for those of you that don't already know, we don't deal with snow too well in England. Or at least we don't where I come from in the south of England, apparently here in the north they're a little more accustomed to it and their schools and public transport don't descend into full blown armageddon. It was my school placement day today and when I looked out of the window I was already thinking about how nice it was going to be getting back into bed, but it seems schools are made of tougher stuff up here and it takes more than a little snow to divert them from everyday activity. The children on the other hand, not so much; mix a class full of 6-7 year olds with the first snow of the season and you have 30 or so over-excited and generally soaking wet little people. Needless to say getting them to focus on some work was going to be a challenge so I was more than a little impressed with the class teachers skillful handling of the situation. Instead of attempting to divert the children's attention she got them to do a story about what it would be like to experience snow for the first time. All in all it was a successful tactic and definitely something to remember for the future, if I ever manage to make it through my degree!

When I started my placement 4 weeks ago I was really nervous and the thought of teaching a lesson on my own was enough to bring me out in a cold sweat. I cant believe how much my feelings have changed in the 4 days I've spent with my class. I look forward to Thursdays each week and I have to admit that the little monsters are growing on me ridiculously fast! They're far from angels but I think that's half their charm! I already know it's going to be a sad day when I finish my placement in June, but right now that seems forever away so I'm content to just enjoy it for now and look forward to when I'll be spending a solid 4 weeks with them in June, actually teaching!

At the moment I'm mentally and physically preparing myself to venture out into the frozen wasteland that lies beyond the safe confines of my flat. Rest assured that I would not being going out tonight unless it was completely necessary, but it is. It's my flatmates birthday today and going out to celebrate is not optional and I am now dutifully getting ready to venture out into the sub-zero temperatures that await. It's becoming clear to me why the 'quick blog' I intended to post has grown so much in length, however I feel that I am only delaying the inevitable and that I should probably just surrender now and hope that copious amounts of alcohol will improve the outlook!

Another somewhat mundane post, but I can feel a good rant coming soon and a night out almost always gives me something to rant about so watch this space!

L
Xxx

Wednesday 24 November 2010

Any distraction will do!

The approach of the Christmas break brings mounting work and looming deadlines. Lecturer's love of setting deadlines at this time of year can only be attributed to...er...their love of marking over Christmas? Somehow I'm not convinced, but, whatever their reasons, it's inconvenient to say the least. As if life isn't demanding enough at this time of year, managing Christmas shopping with extensive social demands, we are now forced to squeeze actual work into our busy student schedules!

So with uni work, shopping, socialising, the occasional lecture and my school placement, I figured I would be at a loss as to how I could spend all my free time. With this in mind I thought it was about time that I started a blog because, let's face it, when there's work to be done everything else seems so much more interesting! A blog seemed like the perfect excuse to take a break from planning and writing assignments. My old distraction was facebook, but, having realised that it consists of largely the same comments, from the same people, every day, it has somehow lost the ability to entertain me for more than a few minutes at a time, also blogging allows for much lengthier rants, the excitement! So, decision made, it was just a case of finding a suitable site, setting up an account and putting fingers to keys. All in all not too demanding. I think I could get used to this, but we'll see.

Consider this my introduction and I'll try for something a little more engaging next time!

L
Xxx