This is Omar’s blog

I can’t claim to know a lot about good t.v. (I like a whole lot of US tv and in fact it’s all I really watch).

However, Dexter has outdone itself this season. I’ve not really been watching it regularly, just when I have the time to enjoy it.

Anyway season 3 has been flat out amazing. Episodes 8, 9 and 10, especially 10, have just hit me for 6. I haven’t felt so interested, enthused, shocked or captivated by any tv programme before. Episode 10 was just brilliant.

(I do like how each season has a different central strand, he’s still a serial killer but the focus of the season has been different each time.)

On an unrelated note, it’s nice when presents buy themselves. You see something and think, that’s just right. So much better then going looking and forcing it.

:)

I like to think I can do advice, I can be thoughful, rational, clear. Put me into the equation and it all goes out the window. Frequently I’ll say something, only to think ‘that’s what I should do’. Pah!

Changed my classroom round yesterday, big drastic changes. As the head said, just because the old way is what people have always done, doesn’t make it right.

We’ll see how it works…

They have three challenges at the gym. Easy, moderate and hard. Tonight for circuits we did all three…

(bigger version)

We did it for an hour but I choose to finish.

The hard bits were - the 50 shoulder presses, in the end I was doing them singularly, the second seated row (this close to being sick) and the final run.
The easy(er) bits - the 50 press ups weren’t too bad, the rowing was tolerable, the sit ups were good.

Edit: Also, the person who normally does circuits at GL1 is leaving next week - bigger and better things. Which is a bit disappointing, as in some regards it’s the highlight of my week, as that class is the reason that I’m cancelled my gym membership at Riverside. Always the way, I just get bored of going to the gym. Whereas I’m still not bored of circuits, I just liked that it was more focused on Sundays and not just random exercises you went round.

As is the way with these things, I’ve just started talking to people. Pah.

I am undecided how I feel today. If I had to answer, I’d whisper “both”.

There was a bit in the story (it’s not high-literature by any means but I could read them forever, I like the characters and I’ve got a soft spot for magic. It’s the fact that it has elements of real life in but also a bit of the arcane.) where they were discussing that to keep your skill in something you need to keep practicing the basics. The things that you take for granted, in whatever you do. That it is important to do so. It grounds you, reminds you where you started from and benefits the high level skills you’re now capable of. For me it’s my writing. I mean I can use a full stop and capital letters, but it doesn’t hurt to think about using conjunctions or punctuation every now and again.

(I kind of know I don’t write so good, my problem is that I tend to lose interest in what I’m writing about. I don’t like getting bogged down in too much detail. Short, brief, that’s me.)

I’m not that social, I never have been. I’ve always tended to get on with most people, I’m easy going and have a high tolerance of ‘annoying’ people, a low threshold for forgiveness and a high threshold for getting angry. It’s just I get on really well with a relatively small number of people. I think that I’m just not someone who has lots of friends, I mean I do. For example I’m in touch with a very small group of people mostly and rarely go out in groups. Which has it’s benefits and it’s not-benefits.

Facebook puts me in the position of suddenly being in touch with lots of people I know and it’s the complete opposite of my everyday life. It makes me uncomfortable I think. I’m fine with having a small group of friends, I’m jealous of people who have bigger groups of friends. Opposite, but it just depends on how I’m feeling.

Every single morning I think about writing this and then work gets in the way and I forget to, until the next morning.

I was trying to think about how it made me feel ((are schools too focused on feelings?). It’s one of those things you forget about all of the time and then you see them. It’s the people you see every morning, the lady who walks into town everyday. It depends how far down the road she gets, I started trying to guage whether I was early or not by how far she gets but then I realised that’s ridiculous. The people I always see at the bus stop that get the 7:35 bus to Cheltenham.

I like it, it cheers me up the morning. Seeing them on their way to work too.

like the girls I like are like me.

Which means they aren’t going to come and talk to me.

And I’m not going to talk to them.

(The two of them were sat on their own, they were, they were just themselves.)

I will freely admit that the internet has somewhat ruined my attention span. Anything longer then a paragraph and I’m zipping away.

See, I ran off them to have a look at a website. (justin.tv)

Then again. (hypem.com)

Still, I read this through in one go (all 2622 words). It’s another reference to Hazel Blears comment/speech that has got people talking (see here) and it effin’ awesome, it really is. For example >

” …and in recent years commentary has taken over from investigation or news reporting, to the point where commentators are viewed by some as every bit as important as elected politicians, with views as valid as cabinet ministers.”

Views as valid as cabinet ministers. Views as valid as cabinet ministers? You see? I’m gibbering with fear already. This woman thinks that no-one else’s views are entitled to be seen as being as valid as those of cabinet ministers. She is suggesting that it is wrong for people to have views which are taken as seriously by the electorate as those of cabinet ministers. She thinks that cabinet ministers have a special claim to have their views prevail. She has genuinely, totally forgotten that cabinet ministers are supposed to serve the people, represent their views. She has genuinely, totally forgotten that this is a democracy.

I read it and I think, I hope there’s a very real possibility people might have actually start thinking they’ve had enough.

Yes we can?

This was me last night. This week it’s really hit me, I’m just tired. Well not so much tired as just weary. It’s my first proper 6 1/2 weeks of teaching and I’m just looking forward to half-term.

I have no point of reference for other jobs, so this is just how I feel. I say other jobs and I mean other office based graduate type jobs. I worked in a hotel and could easily work 12 hours - we used to joke that it wasn’t a proper shift if you did less then 12 hours. Where I would be on my feet all day, wouldn’t stop and then I could turn around and do it again. So, this is just my take on teaching.

I suppose I have to say something now. I’ve said to Jenn in the past, it’s a job where you have to work 9-3 doing the ‘doing bit’ and then are expected to do all your paper work after that, in what is essentially your own time. Except, I find it really hard to. Picking yourself up and working in an empty classroom is taking some getting used to.

The children rock up at 8:50 and then you work through until they leave at 3. The thing about it is apart from ‘break’ (read time to prepare for the next lesson) and ‘lunch’ (read time to sort things for the afternoon, maybe mark some books) there’s just no respite. You’re there and focused the entire time, keeping track of 27 moving targets, because you have to be. Trying to make sure every child is working, that every child knows what they are doing, that the child who needs a push to get going gets it, that the child that needs extending gets it and that they don’t spend 10minutes waiting for a rubber. I think that’s the thing that makes you most tired, the being ‘on’ for such a long time. You can’t stop for 10minutes and have a sit down.

It’s hard, it really is. Still, I still love it. When a child comes up with a way of sorting that I couldn’t work out, or comes up with an idea that leaves you speechless, it’s just plain awesome. When you find the things that work, when you find the best way to get the best out of a particular child. Ain’t nothing like it.