No creative title

So where have I been?

We went to Athens over half-term (there are only 3 school terms here and there is a single week break halfway through each of them). It was nice to get away from school and go somewhere a bit warmer for a few days. I would direct you to our website, but since I haven't had time to upload any photos or anything, its probably not all that interesting...

School started back last Monday. I REALLY didn't want to go, for various reasons combined. Then, on Wednesday, we found out that the school was going to get inspected this week. One of the side effects of the British love of paperwork is that everyone is held accountable for everything, even stuff they have no control over. So there is this company/ organization/ government-department/ i-have-no-idea-what-they-actually-are that go around and inspect schools and say how good they are at various things then give them an overall rank. Then their report and every statistic under the sun is available to the general public, which basically means the good schools get better as the competition for places gets harder and the bad schools get worse as good students and teachers go elsewhere. Anyway, the inspectors have been and gone and our school, which was struggling, is on the improve and has been OKed. Not that I really care, but the British teachers sure do, so everyone spent a week stressed out and on-edge about the blooming inspection and everything else got put aside or on hold. I lost my afternoons for the week and spent most of the weekend in bed with the flu. I knew I was getting sick, but stupidly went out with Graeme and his brother to Windsor and got hit hard on Saturday afternoon. So a tonne of stuff that I was planning on doing never happened - the school musical is in like 4 weeks and there are a bunch of set pieces and costumes to make that aren't even started yet...

So basically, what that probably incoherent paragraph said is that I have been sick and busy. And the weather took a sudden cold turn and the sun sets at like 4.30 and its miserable and depressing. So obviously I'm loving being in London right now... NOT.

On the plus side, some of the teachers I am working with are awesome and a couple of the other Aussies (and one American chick) and I had a great laugh at how serious everyone suddenly became when they found out about the inspection. They keep me sane. And a couple of my classes are super (like 3 out of the 11) and help me to remember why I put up with the kids I want to kill. Like my year 9 class I had this morning. I taught them for 2 hours (a double lesson) this morning and it was the first time in ages I hadn't had to raise my voice during a lesson, well, other than to tell them that I wasn't joking when I told them they needed to pack up - they were so into their projects they didn't want to stop and that made my day. And they're producing top quality work, which is ace.

So now I've babbled on for ages - hopefully I've given some insight into whats been going on. If it makes no sense, I will just choose to blame the fact that I'm still sick, OK?

Here's a pretty picture I took of the last rose of the season outside our living room window (that's it in the background). I'm on a mission to take more photos and get better at doing so, so I will try and post some more often.