look before you lend

One danger of being a sub teacher is having to use what is available to you. You go into a room blind, not knowing how well equiped it is or whether you are going to have to spend twenty minutes searching cupboards for pritt stick or felt tips.
Of course you could always carry an emergency pack containing enough rulers, pencils, pens, erasers, set squares, sellotape, tipp ex, pencil sharpeners, compasses, protractors, exercise books, calculators, dictionaries, scissors, glue sticks, staplers, colouring pencils for thirty pupils... but sometimes I don't get up early enough to pack a transit van full of stationery. I make do with what I can - I am the Ray Mears of the classroom.

But sometimes it goes wrong.

Just now a pupil asked to borrow a pen. I was in the middle of helping a year 11 with imagination deficit disorder so I absent mindedly grabbed a pen from the teacher's desk and gave it to him.
At the end of a lesson punctuated with various giggling fits from around the room the pupil returned the pen with a look that can only be described as extreme pity...

reasons to be cheerful, 1-2-3 (four and five)

I was just thinking. My bank balance has seen better days, my car is long overdue a service, both my cameras need major repair work, I'm starting a new school with a whole new set of challenges, I'm under pressure with video editing work piling up around me... but it's all good.

Why?

Well several reasons:

1) I'm actually looking forward to the whole new school thing. It's a lot closer to where I live so I get an extra 10 mins in the morning.

And you know what they say, 'a change is as good as a rest.' They are clearly stupid; but there is an element of truth in that. As the school year goes on I notice distinct mood and behavioural changes. Usually in September I get up early in the morning and am one of the first to arrive at work. I am full of the joys of my profession and sprinkling idealism as I skip through the corridors. By May I am usually struggling to get out of bed in the morning and spend my days inventing new levels of cynicism. This morning I awoke and was ready to go at some ungodly hour. It's like I've moved back six months. Unfortunately it's my pupils perfecting the art of cynical thinking now.

2) Ireland won the grand slam - yes I am still living off that one.

3) The weather has been bizarrely clement, at times summery even. It's amazing how a change in the weather affects people. I know the weather we are having is happying people up because they're filling their facebook status (what's the plural of status? stati? states? status? statuses?) with messages of love and joy. And what could be a more scientific socialogical survey than a glance at facebook status?

Anyway, the sun is shining, the breeze is refreshing and I for one am much happier.

4) It's spring. And spring for my family means lambing time. My father has a flock of sheep and he usually spends his februarys (februaries?) and marchs (marches?) playing midwife to them. I help out when needed but luckily this year that only meant one call at 3am to come and help a ewe going through a difficult birth. I remember one year, during the foot and mouth outbreak when he was working nights in Belfast, that I was up most nights. But usually I am only the reserve help and I get to enjoy the postives rather than get my hands dirty.

So this time of the year means the fields are full of lambs. And there is nothing in the natural world more amusing than those little wooly comedians.

5) Mysterious laundry. I love a good mystery. Last week we had a power cut. They've been doing work on the power lines so it's been a regular occurence. From 9am to 5pm we were without power and I couldn't do any video work. So I jumped in my car and headed into town to pass time.

When we returned our washing line was filled with still wet laundry. We don't know who put it there, who owns it, why they put it there... It can't have been washed in our laundry room because the washer had no power... there seems no logical rationale. I love it. And I thought I'd tell you all about it now because eventually there will be some uninteresting explanation. Until then I'll enjoy letting my imagination run wild.

what a send off

I shaved this morning. I never shave on fridays - it's a quirk. But today is my last day at this school and they arranged for someone special to be here to mark my leaving - the President.
It seems they were in the UK on business anyway so it wasn't such a big deal for them to drop by for Mr C's swansong - it was the least I could do to shave.

Okay, it isn't Barack Hussein Obama II, it was the Irish President, Mary McAleese. And she isn't visiting because it's my last day in the school. I don't actually know why she's here; truth be told I'm not sure anybody knows why she chose to come here. I heard someone or other mention that she was attending some function or other somewhere... or other. But why the Irish head of state, the figurehead of Eire, Uachtaráin na hÉireann, the eighth President of the Republic of Ireland, then chose to visit a tiny town on the coast, go past the big shiny convent school, and stop at the tiny little state school with its crumbling buildings, cramped corridors and only three hundred and forty one (I counted) pupils - I can't think why she'd do that. I just checked her schedule on her web site and the visit isn't even listed - but she's here. Intriguing.

Not that it makes much difference to me. While most of the the teachers are attendinga meet and greet with President McAleese I'm out in a mobile covering two classes merged into one. The life of a sub, eh? I won't see the woman let alone get the chance to ask what she is actually doing here. My life will be unaltered.

Actually, that's not entirely true - I will see one benefit. You see I am on bus duty again today (and yes it is raining.) But today I will have a few big men in shades and sharp suits giving me a hand - I'm thinking there won't be any trouble.