...and finally...

....But here's some good news!! (For 'Bad news' read below)

Its my birthday tomorrow! 27 years old!

I demand cakes, pressies, paper hats, bowls of skips, a video of 'Karate Kid 2', jelly, a goodies bag, cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off, bucks fizz on the stereo and ghost stories before 6 0'clock in the evening.

Interviews 1 - Bonobo 0

...Bonobo didn't quite make the grade this time around....



Above: Mr. B. Love, 2.00pm today (Artist's impression)

Aw shit, fuckles, sods, buggerts and flange.

I was really hoping to do well from this interview as well. I'd prepared my lesson, ironed my shirt and put the word out on the street that I was looking hot for a job, you know, dressed to impress and all that jazz.

I left this morning and immediately got caught in traffic in whichever direction I went in order to try and avoid the onslaught of even more traffic. I mean, how is it possible for traffic to grow? Its certainly not organic, let me tell you that now..

However, through the traffic, I made it on time (9.15am), feeling very hungry. I'd forced down a single piece of toast as I think I was feeling tense and nervous about the whole shebang. And I cleanly forgot about the banana and the orange penguin and the bottle of water I'd handily left on the kitchen sideboard. Looking back, if I'd have included them on my trip I reckon it would have swayed me getting the gig.

When I got to the school I met up with the other two candidates for the interview, a very friendly girl from Swansea and a guy who was on my PGCE course and who I knew very well, (lets call him 'Mike Hunt' for arguments sake) so as you can well imagine it was strange pitting myself against a friend to try a get the job.. A bit like backstage at "The Weakest Link", but this was entitled "Who'll be employed by the end of the day?"

At 10.15 I taught my sample lesson, which went swimmingly, I really enjoyed it. Then, I was given a tour around the school with some of the pupils. It was lovely, a real dream of a school, and I know thats sounds weird, but I really liked the look of it. Steeped in tradition but had a very modern sense about it, plus all the staff we bumped into welcomed us and wished us good luck.

Then came the interviews in the afternoon. With no lunch I pottered into the first interview room with the Head and the Head of ICT. I talked a bit about my history with ICT, how I'd approach teaching certain areas and where my strengths and weaknesses were. 20 minutes later I changed rooms to my second interview, a more general pastoral approach into how I would react in certain classroom situations.

'Beautiful' I thought. 'In the bag'. But take heed, never be so optimsitic to think you could win these competetions! I forgot the most important factor of always thinking you've lost before you've even won.

...Well, to cut a long story down a few sentences, I didn't get the job. Mike Hunt got it. He does know a lot more than me in terms of subject knowledge, I'm still a fledgling at this type of thing. The girl was gracious in not getting the job (I think), and I'm sure she'll find a job somewhere where they need her.

Nice school, but apparently I didn't come across well in the interview. A sore point for me because I thought I'd done OK, which means I'll have to sharpen my skills on that particuar, er, forte (?- as you can see, my sentence structuring skills haven't improved via blogging!)

I did appreciate the feedback telling me where I needed to improve my game and I needed the experience because this was, after all, my first interview to start my whole career.

Bonobo's words for the day:

These interviews are for the school to judge how well you are as a teacher, and for the would- be- teacher to judge if they really want to stay and invest a year of their lives at least into the school they are viewing.

Nerve wracking, but good experience....now bring on the next interview! I'll show 'em!

Oh shit,I'm in danger of being employed

I've got an interview!!

I've got an interview at a school in Gloucester!!

Ok, I know the score on Gloucester. I've lived there before and know how it is, what its like to live there, how the people are, what there is to do blah deblahdee yada yada.. -

BUT, its the first interview that has been offered to me since I've been applying for teaching posts, so I'm well chuffed! Yippee! Could this spell an end to my worries and concerns on a whole spectrum of matters?? Time will tell, but I'm going to give it my all.

I've been asked to take a 30 minute lesson for a group of year 7's (11-12 yrs old for those of you still on the 1st year, 2nd year scales..) on Desktop Publishing. Should be good, I'm actually really looking forward to it. (Its on Tuesday btw!).. All suited and booted and ready to impress I am! (Oops sound like Yoda there).



And only the Fluff has graced me with an email on my newly set up email address. Being the first she wins a crate of champagne, a hamper of sandwiches (Caviar) and a weekend break in Abergavenny up a mountain. The next person to email me will win their own body weight in back issues of Womans Weekly and five cats.

*stands back waiting for the flood*

I think thats given you incentive enough to email me now...

I need a holiday..(2)

Didn't go to Brecon in the end. Ended up in Abergavenny and then Hay- On- Wye and bought some Welsh bread. V. nice- mmm...

I need a holiday.. somehwere in the suuunn..

True, I do need as a holiday, as does everyone else in this country. We work far too hard for the rewards we get. Our hours are too long, we have to put up with the daily grind and only get a handful of bank holidays in the year.

Me and my girl are off to the Brecon Beacons today for a spot of bird watching, climbing, fell running, panning for gold and shooting hill- billys. Its kind of a holiday in one day for me, so I'm going to take it.

I need excercise anyway, this week has been quite tough on Bonobo, he's not got out much and needs to remember what life is all about- knowwhaddamean?

See ya'll later (Complete with aching legs, knackered, bramble cuts, bee stings yada yada yada..) X

A post about AC/DC and my opinion of them and what I intend to do about this opinion

I have to listen to more AC/DC.



I've just decided I think they're ace.

(Has anyone else suddenly had a revelation on a band or group thats been around for years but only realised until recently realised how much you appreciate them?)

Soft cursing

Here you go:

"Oh flaming heck."

"Crikey."

"I'm.. really annoyed."

These and many other non- fuck related words are the kind of lexicon I have to adopt in the classroom nowaday. I had an instance today where I was desperately trying to find someone's file on the network. I searched and searched and search some more but I couldn't find it. And so in front of the whole class I said that I couldn't find the flipping work.

Many of the class softly parroted what I'd said under a blanket of Beavis and Butthead style laughs. I didn't mind them doing that, I would have found it funny too.

I just wish I could have let rip and burst my top with post-watershed style, red hot, too blue for kids profanities. It would be so satisfying to let out a big FUCK or TWAT..but I can't, and I didn't. As much as I want to, I can't do it. It shows I'm not professional at my job and that I can't use other alternative, more better words.

I think this is something that will come to not bother me as time goes on, its just a case of getting used to it. I'll soon not be so reliant upon swearing to show people how I feel which can only be a good thing, don't you think?


*twitch*

*tightens up mouth..*

"...'NADS!!!!"

(Ooh, thats better.. .. Swearing that is. Not 'nads.)

Clue: 4 legs, a head, lots of hair, likes mice. ..No, it's not another mouse.

Take my cat for instance. No do, take her please! (Arf! Fnarr!)

At the house at the moment, its just me (Bonobo) and the cat (Buffy). She used to be my cat (She was called Spikey back then), but my mum wanted a little company with her during the day and I thought, instead of buying Gary Coleman for her to look after and dote upon , something even smaller and less hairy might be cat- so I gave her mine. Also the cat was the final part to a crap relationship that I needed to nail in its, erm, relationship coffin (?)

Buffy as she is now known (My Dad is responsible for the name change, as he is fond of that girl on TV that destroys the undead each week) has settled in well to he new pad. She goes out whenever she wants to, and that means a lot of garden to explore, a lot of birds to bother and other cats to sniff their arses- hang on, thats dogs. When she lived with me I couldn't let her out because she had a tendency to cross a very busy road. I once accidentally left the front door open which was a mistake. WHOOSH!- like a hairy bullet she was out of the house, across the road (thankfully no boy racers ripping up there at that moment) and into peoples gardens.

It took me half an hour to get her back, together with some dry cat food I managed to coax her out of someones front garden. The embrassing thing was, the people living inside could see what I was doing through their bay windows, so I had to keep shouting "Spikey! Spikey! Hey, come her you silly CAT!", and really try to emphasise the words 'cat' in order to prove I was there for a valid reason as opposed to just trying to peer in to their front room or piss through their letter box. Spikey (Buffy) ripped a hole in my favourite Super Furry Animals t-shirt, and I still haven't fully forgiven her for that, so I decided that was the last time to let her out.

However, now in the semi- country, she can roam whenever and wherever she likes. She now has a cat flap to come in and out when it suits her and she's spoilt for choice as to the number of sofas, beds or peoples laps she can sleep upon.

There is, however, one unique trait Buffy possesses which I haven't seen in any other cat to date. Buffy can talk to you. You can go up to her and say "Who's a clever cat?", "Do you want something to eat?" or "Blah blah blur bluh" and she will talk back to you. It usually sounds like Charlie the Cat, but Buffy will talk to anything.

I caught her the other morning sitting on a windowsill and talking to the birds outside. It must have ran along the lines of "Right, I'm gonna git ya, you just wait.. yeah you Mr. Bridy, I'm talkin' to you.. Grr", a bit like Muttley I thought. When she comes in through the cat flap she'll mutter a quick summary of the day. Christ knows what she's talking about, but she talks regardless. All you hear is "Mew mew mew mew mew mew mew mew". Its great. And sometimes she talks to walls, sometimes just when walking on through and sometimes in her sleep.

Which leads to me to this morning. As I'm the only human in the house, when she's hungry its me she wants (To provide food for, not to nibble on). So.. at around 5.30am she came a-mewling at my door. I've been awake since. I don't mind it. She acts as a nice little furry miaowing alarm clock. But it is certainly true what they say (whoever 'they' are) about cats owing the owner and not the other way round.

*miaow* (That was Buffy saying 'Hello')

On your own

For the first time in a long old time, I have found myself on my own. Its Saturday night and I'm all by myself. All day the wind has been very strong outside and has nearly ripped the walls off the house. The cat flap has been flapping like a cat flap is prone to do in a storm and generally its been a day not to venture outside. The weather, it must be said has been very bad.

So, I've spent a lot of today doing some precious work that needed doing. Lesson preparation mostly. Tomorrow I'll be doing my application forms for some schools as well as a few other bits and bobs. But for the most part, all of today has been occupied with me, myself and I. My girlfriend left me.. No , only for the night. I said I would go with her but found if I didn't make a start on my work I'd NEVER start it. Tonight would have been a night out in Bath with some friends but as well as being stressed about work, I'm poor to boot. Not so much as a penny to rub against a pot to piss in. Nothing. And my parents have gone up to Liverpool to see my sister for the weekend, leaving me to get on and do ma own thang.

So what have I been up apart from work? I've just watched 'Panic Room' on Sky movies. I'd not seen it before... I didn't think it was up to David Fincher's usual standards but entertaining and quite suspenseful (Word validity check there...no, don't think it is a proper word..) Did some interweb research.. Made tea, drank tea, fed cat... Nothing really mind blowing.

Before that I played some more on my bass- and cranked up the volume seeing as there's no-one in the house!
"Oo that was satisfying" I thought as I strummed some nonsense tune (Just managed to play 'I was made to love her' by Stevie Wonder- I'm still learnin' here..) You can really make any bass guitar, with the right amplification, sound very good, it just sounds like a deep growl.

Spending the day by myself has made me think (I hate it when that happens..).

.... I definitely think there is a lot of truth in the way we define being on out own. Some of us can't hack the idea of not getting interaction with anyone, either via PC or in real life. Other people, well, they just know how to get on with it. Being on your own and being lonely are two different entities and it sure does depend on the kind of prson you are that reflects on how well you can cope with having time to yourself.

Gaimanagain

Check out one of the December posts at Pencil's site and you'll read an e-mail I sent to him concerning Neil Gaiman. Mr. Gaiman is a fantasy/ horror/ comedy writer of the highest praise and I have nothing but, er, praise for him.

(Fuck! Words, er, fail me at this point and stuff.)

Issues of copyright aside, I feel the need to repeat his work. Its ok, I bought his book so my pound of flesh has been taken already (Actually it was £6.99 but lets not get into that one..) This here sweet gem of his is entitled The Sweeper Of Dreams...

Sweeper Of Dreams

After all the dreaming is over, after you wake, and leave the world of madness and glory for the mundane day- lit daily grind, through the wreckage of your abandoned fancies walks the sweeper of dreams.

Who knows what he was when he was alive. He certainly will not answer your questions. The sweeper talks little, in his gruff grey voice, and when he does speak it is mostly about the weather and the prospects, victories and defeats of certain sports teams. He despises everyone who is not him.

Just as you wake he comes to you, and he sweeps up kingdoms and castles, and angels and owls, mountains and oceans. He sweeps up the lust and the love and the lovers, the sages who are not butterflies, the flowers of meat, the running of the deer and the sinking of the Lusitania. He sweeps up everything you left behind in your dreams, the life you wore, the eyes through which you gazed, the examination paper you were never able to find. One by one he sweeps them away: the sharp- toothed old woman who sank her teeth into your face; the nuns in the woods; the dead arm that broke through the tepid water of the bath; the scarlet worms that crawled in your chest when you opened your shirt.

He will sweep it up - everything you left behind when you awoke. And then he will burn it, to leave the stage fresh for your dreams tomorrow.

Treat him well, if you see him. Be polite with him. Ask him no questions. Applaud his teams' victories, commiserate with him over their losses, agree with him about the weather. Give him the respect he feels is his due.

For there are people he no longer visits, the sweeper of dreams, with his hand- rolled cigarettes and his dragon tattoo.

You've seen them. They have mouths that twitch and eyes that stare, and they babble and they mewl and they whimper. Some of them walk the cities in ragged clothes, their belongings under their arms. Others of their number are locked in the dark, in places where they can no longer harm themselves or others. They are not mad, or rather, the loss of their sanity is the lesser of their problems. It is worse than madness. They will tell you, if you let them: they are the ones who live each day, in the wreckage of their dreams.

And if the sweeper of dreams leaves you, he will never come back.

Counter Productive

I have just now installed my counter (thank fug!). Now, you know as well as I do that you've visited this site more times than it actually shows. I could have even set the counter at a number I thought would be appropriate considering:

(a) the time this blog has been in existence

(b) the number of great friends I have who regularly visit this site

But I haven't, Ive been good and decided to start from the start. So with that in mind I put it down to '0'.

Now its up to you.

Yes, YOU.

(And some friends I've paid quite handsomely to visit the site every minute of the day to make it look like its really popular...)

And another good thing for tonight is that I don't need to plan any lessons for tomorrows stint in school as I'd planned everything last Friday, but didn't go in owing to the snow! Aaah...

..But no rest for the wicked, I'll be filling out job application forms left, right and bloody centre... Faaaahhck...

Unheard pleasures

Why oh why oh god- damn why haven't I been sampling the sheer heavenly delights of Herb Alpert sooner?

I feel pissed that I haven't heard more of his stuff sooner!

I was in the kitchen yesterday singing a tune which I love, but never knew who actually composed it/ played it etc. Then my dear mum came in the kitchen and said what the title was. Only the 'Spanish Flea' by Herb Alpert!

Wow! I immediately downloaded it off the interweb and have listened to it non- stop (In between teaching though). Its just so funky that it lead to get more of his tunes and each one is a winner. Each song does almost sound exactly the same as the previous one, but try to ignore that and just listen to that lovely brass section kick in on top of some downright comfortable percussion. Each song just makes you want to run to a beach somewhere and drink cocktails in the sun whilst reading an Ian Fleming novel (Probably James Bond if anything).

Herb Alpert is a classic tunesmith I think, and I may have to deck anyone who says he isn't.


Above: A tunesmith, yesterday.

GCSE Gaffs (1)

Every Monday, when I don't arrive for the staff meetings at around 8.20 in, unsurprisingly, the staff room, I totally miss the handing out of the weeks newsletter which is published solely for the benfit of the staff.

However, this Monday I was told half way through the day, in no uncertain terms by a fellow member of staff to 'stop being a twat' and read one of the newsletters (Please- I make poetic license for the 'twat' comment, no such real comment was made- teachers are never rude to each other, they just put each other in detention).

Following this bead of golden advice I do go and did pick up a newsletter from the staffroom. I browsed through all the pupils who had been declared on the weeks report, those who had been put into the 'special unit', and those who were evil beyond reasoning, with behaviour which is darker than satans worst nightmares. Also in this newsltter I found some genuinely funny and good material which *ahem* if I may share with yaw all.

The subject is of real answers to various GCSE exam questions. (I feel like Dennis Nordern about to introduce some blooper clips starting with some American News Anchorman say the word 'fart' instead of 'election'). Anyway, just take a look at the following and see what you think....

(1) Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife dies and he wrote Paradise Regained.

(2) During the Renaissance, America begun. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Fe.

(3) Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrims progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for this.

(4) Soon the constitution of the United States was adopted to secure hostility. Under the constitution the people enjoy the right to keep bare arms.


Tee hee.

A week in teaching: Pros and Cons

Just had a great week at school. The kids were fine, no dodgy lessons although I did have to make some kids move their places around in a few lessons because they were being so lippy to me. Other than that its all been peas and gravy baby.

But.. one little thing... I want to let everyone know I can't wait till September, just can't wait. Know why? Come September I'll be doing all the work that a teacher does AND get paid as well.

Yeah, thats right. Its just about starting to rub, the fact that I'm experiencing all of these 'on the job' skills which involves pretty much everything a teacher would have to do yet not getting any wonga for it.

Gaining valuable teaching experience each week, yet getting impatient and poorer by the day. But I know this will all be worth it.

Another week away.. I do still care for you all...

Hey guys, hows about leaving a blog site for, say, an eternity. Then, when you fee like it, update it from time to time?.. Sound good?

NO_ SOUNDS RUBBISH!! I'm so sorry I've been so lax of late... The problem is I'm busy preparing lessons, taking lessons, evaluating lessons and drinking mugloads of Gold Blend in order to create delicious teacher- coffee- breath for the kids! Don't you understand!!???!! I'm an embryo teacher! I'm a nubbin of a 'sir'. Before long I'll be bellowing "Tuck that shirt in Wilkins!" down the corridors and kicking bins over and asking year 7 kids to pick up the litter..

But until then I need to work at my trade and this means neglecting the ol' blog site from time to time..

But anyway, things are going good up here in Hereford, locked away from all that is 'urban' and 'daddy cool', I'm left in the countryside wastes full of cider farms, flat badgers on roads and tractors every 5 miles. Its a different way of life, the pace is HELL of a lot slower believe me. The kids at the school are of the same persuasion, chilled and relaxed so its up to me and a few other dedicated teachers to give them an academic boost! (I wonder what kind of Boost that would taste like Mr. Crumb?)

Just taught two year 7 classes this morning, they both went well- covering spreadsheets and information handling. The spreadsheet lesson was based on a simple disco model, getting the kids to put themselves in charge of running a disco and asking them to add up all the ticket prices, the costs like how much the DJ would charge whereas-

Sorry, I think I've lost you already.... I'll leave this stuff for the kids.

Just got broadband installed at home so now theres no excuse not to talk pap every single day!.. Right, the bell is about to go again...