Thursday 10th October

I have come to the conclusion that I live in an area of eccentricity. It's bad enough knowing that the bottom of our garden might disappear into the hundred foot hole of an old coal mine during any given rain storm; and I've only just got used to being bleated at by the goat who lives in the front garden of the house around the corner and eats the pampas grass. Now this - last week I was on the bus home from uni and I happened to spy a man on a unicycle, smartly dressed, with a helmet on. That was a bit odd, but then as I rounded the corner for home, walking from the bus stop, he passed me and rode his unicycle straight up the drive of the house next door to the goat's residence and through the gate, the neighbourhood brats crowded round wide-eyed in astonishment. Yes, he too is my neighbour.

I am beginning to wonder if this famed Mr Rogers the Americans are always talking about wouldn't be so bad after all. Next door's cat is always harrassing me to smooth her when I go and hang the washing out, and then scratches me when I put myself to the trouble of bending down, and then lies in the grass like a rug with her nose in the soil and sulks when I tell her off. The man who lives in the house opposite ours seems incapable of driving into or out of his parking space without honking his horn, and according to our next door neighbour has been doing it for 12 years (I told Mr Z to sneak over in the dead of night and cut his horn cord, which he found, for some inexplicable reason, side-splittingly humourous).

Still, it seems that recently I have not had the luxury of spending a great deal of time at home, since I signed my life over to the guru of history teaching (Michael Riley, aka "The Best Tutor...In The World...EVER!!" according to just about anybody who's had the fortune to come across him). Wednesday nights are now spent in Swindon (or more precisely, trying to get to Swindon on public transport, but more on that in a moment) in preparation for Thursdays spent in Westbury, a trip that involves leaving Elaine's house at 7am and getting back to mine around 6pm. Fridays in Bath make Friday evenings in Bath seem more tempting which only leaves Saturdays for Cherry Tree employment, and by that time I'm so tired I could be in Beirut on a bad day and not really notice. This stupour lasts until some point on Monday afternoon, after my step aerobics class, an hour in the swimming pool and an hour of driving lesson, after which I have clawed back some grasp on reality and am only suffering from mild sleep deprivation. Monday nights are then spent writing the assignments for Tuesday that I promised myself I'd do on Thursday night (like now - this is an assignment *cough* HONEST...) which leaves me with an average of six hours to sleep in preparation for a day at Mr Z's school. This is never enough (I am still young enough to need my sleep). Thus, on Tuesday afternoon I vow to stay awake and go to bed early, then invariably drop off, usually on Mr Z's lap (awww) dribbling on his shirt (retract that awww) for about five minutes. Then, I go to bed at a reasonable hour (11.30 seems very reasonable to me) and lie awake thinking about the reading for Wednesday I've been too tired to attempt, unable to sleep because I napped for five minutes earlier in the evening. I attend eight hours of classes on the Wednesday and then the whole cycle starts again.

In case you hadn't guessed, I am not handling my time terribly well. I think if I whinge, "I'm *SO* *TIRED*" one more time within the next 24 hours I'll be the world record holder for repeating that phrase sixty million times within any given week. I'm smoking three times the usual amount and am regressing - I've had two baths in the past week, curled up on my side in the hot water whimpering. All of this is just an elaborate apology for the sporadic nature of my updates of late. But you'd better get used to this - I have a sneaking suspicion it's going to be the new status quo, and not just for this year, either.

There've been various mishaps involved in the journey to Swindon, which I have thus far made twice. Last week we got to the station to find that some inconsiderate bastard had left a hand grenade on the platform at Chippenham station ("Was it World War Two era?" asked Elaine, proving that she's just a born history teacher) and we were obliged to get a bus to Chippenham and beg a lift from Elaine's rock-star-esque boyfriend, Neil the Irish, vegan, communist taxi driver, who was getting his flares confiscated at the Albanian border before I was even a twinkle in Father Hand's eye. Then this week, Elaine, Nadia, Paula and I decided that a nice drink in Bath was necessary after a four hour lecture examining the use of sources within lessons, and one drink turned into...well it was only two, along with just about as much talking as you would expect from four girls in All Bar One, but as a result we missed all the early trains and had to wait for the one that was an hour late, which got us back to Swindon around 11pm. It's just one disaster after another! Still, between that and the hour and a bit drive to Westbury in the mornings, I've related almost my entire life story to Elaine already. Lucky her!

The Thursday school, in Westbury, is really interesting, and the history lessons are inspirational. The kids can be a bit obnoxious, but no worse than Mr Z's school. Today I was making notes on their use of a source; the girls sitting in front of me (who, every time I see them, turn around and gaze in admiration at my notebook, and chorus, "Miss! We LOVE you handwriting! It's gorgeous Miss!" &c.) were doing their best to get on with what I thought was quite a hard activity, because I'd told them that I had to base a ten page essay on their reaction to it (well..it would be ten pages if I used the 16 point font they all favour); meanwhile the boy sitting next to me was doing nothing but chat to his friends. I did my best not to listen (since I have no authority when it comes to disciplining them) but it was disctinctly un-Treaty-of-Versailles-like talk. Eventually, when the teacher had given his "two minutes left" warning and the boy still had not written anything down, I said...
Me: OK...you haven't written anything down
Kid A: No
Me: OK...is that because you don't feel that you can answer any of these questions from this source?
Kid A: No, I'm talking to my mates
Me: (Flabberghasted stare at his outrageous cheek)
Kid A: (Displaying some survival instinct late in the day) Er....about the source

There's just no helping some people. Unfortunately, I helped the girl in front and she repeated my answer in the whole class discussion and had her answer discounted for being "too clever" so I suppose as far as I'm concerned today there's just no helping anybody (mutter). Next week I have to do some whole class questioning on these children on the Treaty of Versailles and its effects on Germany. Some of them are interested, so I suppose that's better than nothing. One of the essays on why people joined up to fight in WW1 was off to a flying start last week when one of the boys wrote in his introduction that he was going to examine, "whether the soldiers were brave or foolhardy". He hadn't reached a conclusion when I spoke to him but said if he had to go off and shoot some Arabs then he'd be really enthusiastic, which I pointed out was foolhardiness, so hopefully that's one young mind shaped.

One down, twelve million, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine to go.

Tomorrow, I was supposed to be visiting my cushy, nearby placement school to discuss what I need to know before I have to start teaching there in a mere month. Then it turned out that I had the day off because they're all going to Hampton Court on a history field trip tomorrow. Then my affiliated teacher rang up this afternoon and invited me to join them, so I am off on an impromptu trip to Hampton Court tomorrow, followed by a nice long shift serving obnoxious little twerps at the Cherry Tree (and some nice people). Am ashamed to admit that I'm not really sure where Hampton Court is, but since the buses are leaving at 8am and returning around 6pm, I am guessing it is some distance. But it's all good experience.

Last Friday, armed with a night off work and forty cigarettes, I turned out for a night in Bath with Rachel, Sarah, Gail, Adam, Andrew and Dan, all going through the PGCE he...fty course with me. After borrowing a scarf and money off Sarah, her flatmate's hair straighteners, and a pair of Rachel's contact lenses (nobody tell my optician, she just might have me murdered and my body thrown in a shallow grave on the ring road layby for daring to put something into my eyes which, if you believed her, are on the verge of falling out any minute) I was ready for my drunken night of September, past due. I duly got it. We went to RSVP and O'Neill's in Bath, which was a bit disappointing considering what else was on offer, but then I had a wicked time so it wasn't so bad. It's funny seeing different, pissed sides to people when you're so used to blinking sleepily at them across a frosty classroom. At the end of the night Rachel and I even bunked someone's taxi home; the girls we pushed in front of (there was a HUGE queue) tried everything from appealing to the taxi driver to physical violence, but at the end of the day, people in Bath are wimps. A bit snotty, yes, but no oomph. I think they gave up when the taxi driver said, in a tired sounding voice, "Well, they WERE standing at the end of the taxi rank", and since Rachel was already inside and I was in no danger of being dragged anywhere by two lycra-clad twigs, they just made outraged noises and tried to slam the door on my leg. It didn't work because one of them still had her hand in the door - that was quite funny. Rachel and I bitched about how rude people were in Bath for the whole journey home, just to cover ourselves, and then collapsed with laughter when we got back the Sarah's. I've never done that before, and, it seemed, neither had Rachel. Don't feel bad for the Bath bitches - another taxi had pulled up for them even before ours had pulled away.

Being me, as ever there is more to say (I haven't even begun the latest installment of Cherry-Tree-Enders), but sadly the time has gone, and since I have to be up in nine hours for my day trip to Hamtpon Court, I think the best idea now is to just stop fighting it and go to bed. I have a feeling I'm going to turn into one of those weirdo, freaky radicals who actually sleep when they're tired. Contro-ver-shee-al!

Thursday 17th October

Tonight at Asda...."Sideshow Bob Gets Beaten Up By Local Wankers"

We heard them first, coming out of the shop while we were loading the shopping into the Mini, around 11.40pm. They were yelling at this man with long, sandy, curly hair, calling him Sideshow Bob, Bob Marley and other taunts, a boy in a red O2 t-shirt, a denim jacket and a red baseball cap, and his friend. The man wasn't very pleased. The woman he was with tried to stop him from going back but he made her take their shopping bag and went back towards the boys, with his hand hovering on his hip. I couldn't see if he had a knife.
Man: You talking to me? You talking to me?
Boys: (scurry around the car) (don't really say much)
Man: (turns and walks away)
Boy in cap: (to man's retreating back - very brave of him) Yeah, put your tool away and we'll do some business....get rid of your tool...
Man: (turns and rushes back)
Boy: (runs to other side of car)
Man: I ain't got no tool! I don't need a fuckin' tool to deal with the likes of you...a tool? For you? Don't make me laugh!
(Various tool banter...ends in stalemate)
Man: (knocks bags of Snickers off the bonnet of the car) (walks away)
Boys: (yelling to his retreating back again) Bob Marley! Bob Marley! Sideshow Bob! Sideshow Bob! Bob Marley!
Man: (still walking away) Mummy's Boy!

At this point the boys laid down their four bags of funsized Snickers bars and began walking qucikly after the man. The one with the cap lagged behind the other, and tried to grab one of the small trollies, which just proves he was a boy of very little brain because it was linked to about a dozen others and he couldn't move them, although he had a good go. In the end he settled for a big one, and went running across the carpark after his mate with it. I got out a pen and went over to the car they had been standing next to and wrote down the number plate. We saw them push it right up to the ramp and then pick it up and throw it over to the lower part. Then - nothing. Out of sight, we concentrated on the shopping. We heard a pretty nasty scream shortly after that, but couldn't see anything, and decided driving round was best.

As we got to the access road, we saw the man crumpled in a heap against the wall, and the two boys milling about in the road. We pulled over near the petrol station and got out. The boy in the red cap came up and started pointing in my face. "We didn't do nothing!" he yelled, which I suspect was the absolute truth, although being of very little brain he didn't realise what he was admitting to. "I know, I know," I said, "I'm just going back to get some help." The boys left me alone and disappeared round the corner. The woman with the man looked at me and said, "We didn't start on them or anything." I said, "I know, don't worry, we've got their descriptions," and ran off in the direction of the shop to get some help. About half way across the carpark I saw a boy with a girl standing by the car, surrounded by Snickers, looking puzzled. The boy in the red cap hauled himself over the railings on the edge of the carpark and yelled across, "My stuff's by your car! There!". The boy, who I assume was driving, looked angrily at him and yelled, "What the fuck are you playing at?" The girl looked on, puzzled. She was wearing a pink hooded top, pale jeans and sported an eyebrow ring and some really badly weaved blonde braids. "Are those your mates?" I said as I ran past. "Urhhh?" she grunted, looking stupefied. "Because they just beat somebody up!" I called over my shoulder as I ran inside. They all got into the car and drove off. Shortly after the police arrived with an ambulance. By that point lots of people had pulled up, one man was on the phone to the police, Mr Z had donated his jacket, and several older Wyatt Earp types were prowling around saying justice needed to be served to these evil young punks.

Unfortunately, I don't think it ever will be. The police round here are as bad - or maybe as impotent, would be a kinder way of putting it - as the police in Portsmouth. They just don't bother. It takes them five weeks to get statements. They lose paperwork, misfile it...unless it's a mobile phone theft. Maybe Mr Blair thinks mobile phones are more important than people's confidence to walk the streets safely. Teaching is a depressing enough prospect - I could never think of joining the police. The other thing was, the man didn't look particularly...shall we say, middle class? He looked poor. The woman was nervous around the police. And the police knew their names without being told. The woman also moved the man away from the wall, so he was lying in the road when I got back to him, which suggests that maybe she wanted to get him home without involving the police. So I get the feeling, his case won't be a priority. Unless my cunning bit of recording means that they catch the felons driving around in their shiny silver car with their little blue lights in the bonnet tonight, in which case, presumably there will be anough evidence to charge the evil little sods and get them off the streets.

Because, at the end of the day, I can't believe the police don't want to put them away.

All in all, it's just not what you expect from Asda.

I taught part of a lesson for the first time today, and it went quite well. I have lots of things to realte, particularly about Kid A, who was talking to his mates, as reported last week. Oh yeah, about the source, of course. However, the late night drama at Asda has left me all ready for bed. I'm very tired - the weekend approaches. Have decided - this is not student life. This is a cruel trick, a facade created with student loans and bursaries and NUS cards and stripey scarves and reduced bus fares to make us THINK this is student life. But this is REAL work. In fact, having done REAL work, it's WORSE than REAL work. This isn't cushy, lie in bed most of the day, burn the midnight oil once every couple of months, spend too much money and time in the bar, undergraduate life. This is "Life? What life?" This is Pro Plus territory. This is my brain feeling like it's being rubbed through a sieve by the end of every week. Luckily some of it is familiar - lesson plans and essay plans are quite similar, and the ICT sessions are such a doddle I am starting to question whether they are good use of my time. Classroom management techniques are becoming easier to spot - Michael is so good at pointing them out and reminding us to write them down (sounds patronisingly simple but is surprisingly helpful) that they're becoming second nature - at least in theory. But whoever said we were students was lying. And whoever said this is the most intensive and difficult post graduate course in the world and we should forget having a social life for the year was, disappointingly, right. And the most depressing part is that I'm going to have to struggle to find a job at the end of it, and go up against all the other newly-graduated history teachers competing for the few jobs left for us.

Luckily, I have a feeling I'm getting the best possible training. Every time I speak to someone doing a different subject, I become more grateful that Michael is our tutor, because he is so helpful, and also realistic in his expectations. I am inspired to do well for him - I am actually reading the recommended texts (when I am not snoring and dribbling on them) which is a change from being an undergraduate. The other day I had a go at two students (not historians) who were whining about the course being really badly organised and nobody bothering to tell them that they were supposed to be visiting their host schools and they're arranged things and yada yada yada... I pointed out that we're not children anymore, the full course is in print in our handbooks, the course tutors aren't there to spoon feed us and we should be mature enough to open our eyes and make the effort to oragnise ourselves. They were a bit taken aback; one of them afterwards said she could really see my point, but the tutor wasn't even aware that they were supposed to be in school on Friday - which I conceded was a fair point. And I really shouldn't be going on about independence and organising oneself, when all the historians are quite blatantly being spoon fed and loving every minute of it. "Hi Pot? This is Sally - you're black!"

Sunday 20th October

People find my website via the strangest routes. Long-term readers might remember, a couple of years back, that I had an email from a bloke who tapped "cycling holidays to Cuba" into a search engine and found my page. I thought that was pretty weird, until now.

Hi Sally
This is probably strange but I recently put Cosmic Hair Gallery into a search engine and got to your website!
I live in ealing and go to the branch of Cosmic there - it's my favourite hairdressers (cos they give you a nice head and shoulder massage!) and it's suddenly closed down! I know there is another branch somewhere and really wanna find out where so I can go there. I can't find an address or phone number on the web - and since you mention it I wonder if you can tell me where it is?
Thanks a bunch and sorry to bother you
Mox

I think that just takes the biscuit, doesn't it? In fact, to quote myself (how vain I am becoming), it takes the entire biscuit aisle. One little throwaway comment from February 2000 about buying crisps from the shop next door to aforementioned hair salon for breakfast one morning, and now a nice person from Ealing is going to be able to continue getting decent head massages. I wish I'd known about that when I lived in Colindale, it might have come in handy when I was stressing about those dissertations. I actually cringe when I read back over that stuff now, I get the impression I was hanging on by a very thin thread. Thankfully things have improved somewhat since then, although I still get mostalgic for good old Colindale, with its smelly little stream, its well hidden park, its Hello Kitty shop at Oriental City, its boarded up warehouses, its scary non-cider-serving pub....

Speaking of nostalgia (how about that for a link - seamless, that was), miracles do happen. Sibling is returning to Frank Charlie's! Frank Charlie's is, of course, the Kentish Town bar where I frittered away large portions of my student grant on bottles of red wine in the company of a fine variety of people when I should have been slaving in the library for the 1st that was within my reach. When he left, Jen and I had to boycott it and were a bit lost for a while until we realised the Union wasn't quite such a bad hole. And now he's back, and, being in Bristol, I have no opportunity to go and drunkenly dance the Macarena in front of several pissed regulars and sober, achingly embarrassed Sib during a lock in. Shame.

The miracle part of it is quite fun. Sib's been in London for over a month now kipping with a friend and has been aiming rather high on the job front, and consequently was unemployed until today. He's doing college courses in the evenings which kept him motivated, but refused to apply for anything less than assistant manager. Having no money began to grate, particularly since his friend is the son of a rich naval officer, and last night it all came to a head and they had a massive row, after which Sib found himself on the wrong side of the double locked front door, broke in and continued the row. Things got well out of hand and Sib ended up in the cells over night for breach of peace (the irony is, he called the police himself because he thought he was being wrongly evicted). His friend refused to have him back. He was released from the cells today around lunchtime; he had no idea where he was, it was raining, he had no coat, and he realised he was homeless. I'd have been in floods if hysterical tears by this point and I imagine he was at the bottom of the pond.

Suddenly....hark! What's that! (Ring ring....ring ring....ring ring....) "Hello, this is Aunty Annie's (sister pub of Frank Charlie's). We got a copy of your CV, and based on your previous experience we'd like to offer you the manager's position at Frank Charlie's. It's live in, flexible hours, and the wages are £250 a week. Whaddya think?!"

Well, what a miracle. It turns out some well meaning angel who's a bit handy on the computer (his friend Sarah) revamped his CV and sent it out to everyone she could think of. So it was a bit of an assisted miracle, I suppose. But you have to hand it to The Man, he's got his timings down to a tee.

I had to teach the first part of a lesson on the Treaty of Versailles and Hyperinflation in Germany in the 1920s this week, which was OK because I know the topic like the back of my hand, although I was suitably nervous when it came to actually standing up in front of 25 Year 9s all smirking like a pack of hungry wolves. In fact, my legs were shaking. I was very well prepared - after scoffing at a two page lesson plan for an hour's worth of activities in lectures last week, I was forced to scoff major humble pie, since my lesson plan, for 10 minutes, was four pages long. It was more like a script, actually. I had paragraphs to read out, and various leading questions. This was a bit of a hobbler to begin with because I was reading from my book and not really addressing the class, but I noticed my mentor looking less than ecstatic about that state of affairs and realised the time had come, I just had to let it go.

And I did, and it was fine. He had lots of good things to say - my voice was clear, I picked a variety of hands to answer questions, I filled the space, and I was quite commanding, apparently. He said that there'd been some kids talking and I turned around and said, "Excuse me!" and they shut up straight away....I don't even remember doing that. I was born for this. Ten minutes of activities lasted for 45 minutes, and to think I was worried that I hadn't planned enough!

There are a couple of real characters in that year group. Oh, how they make me laugh. Firtly, we had - let's call him Kid B (we're saving Kid A until last). Kid B looked bored when I stood up, and then looked at me and said, loudly..
Kid B: I can't be bothered with any of this today. I'm not going to do any work. I can't be bothered, it's boring
Me: OK (shrug)
Kid B: (to his mates) She thinks it's OK! She's not going to tell me off!
Me: OK, YOU (point to Kid B) How would you have felt if you'd have been a German and your government had signed the Treaty of Versailles?
Kid B: (looks horrified) Errr.....
Me: Ssshh, ssshhh, everybody, we're listening to how....what's your name?
Kid B: Kid B (obviously I can't use his real name)
Me: Right, we're listening to how Kid B would have felt if he'd been a German...
Kid B: Errrr....gutted?
And so on. The look on his face was priceless. Then later, when I was going round assisting them with the written task, he said he wasn't going to bother writing anything down, and I pointed out that if he didn't he'd only have to do it for homework and he wouldn't be able to play as much football. That worked a treat.

And now we come to Kid A, my favourite. Kid A was sitting chatting to the same to boys as last week and I went over and saw they hadn't written anything down..
Me: OK, you haven't written anything down again..
Kid A: No, I'm talking to my mates....about the work (smirk)
Me: (adopts worried look) I've made it too difficult haven't I, I was really worried about that...I'm sorry, you can't do it, I've set a task that's too tough for you and you can't do it...(wring hands a bit)
All Three Boys: (chests out) No, NO, it's not too difficult, it's not tough, it's fine, nothing's too difficult for us...(all scribble diligently)
Queen of reverse psychology, I am. Kid A didn't actually write more than the title, but apparently, he never does. When my little part came to an end I went and sat by him and told him I'd photocopied his book as an example of a clean neat page with no work on it, for my essay. In spite of a tone dripping with irony, he didn't bite, and actually seemed very proud that I should pick his book. Then this conversation ensued...
Kid A: It must be WELL cool to be a suicide bomber, I want to be one
Me & his mates: You'd be DEAD!
Kid A: Yeah, but how cool would that be....you'd get to see yourself blowing up....and I'd make a difference in the world
Me: (disbelieving noises)
Kid A: Yeah, all suicide bombers are on smack. The...what are they Miss? Israelis? Jews?
Me: Errrr....(I don't know) Palestinians?
Kid A: Yeah, them. They keep their babies on smack, and they take it all their lives so when they grow up they don't mind being suicide bombers. That's what I reckon.
Me: (I just can't let it slide) Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Suicide bombers live for their god. They don't drink, they don't smoke, they don't have sex, they don't take drugs, they don't do anything apart from praise their god and then blow themselves up.
Kid A: (gapes)
Me: It's true. They don't get to do any of that fun stuff. They just pray a lot and read the Bible (possibly the Koran, I am not very up on the Middle East)
Kid A: God, how BORING! I don't want to be a suicide bomber anymore, it sounds well boring...(turns to mates) here, you'll never guess what I've just found out about suicide bombers....
Me: (smirk smugly)

Later, though, he came up to me and said, with real, heartfelt pity in his voice, "Miss, why do want to be a teacher? Nobody's going to listen to you..." I pointed out that I'd listened, so there must be a few who do, and anyway I got to continue doing history. He wasn't as convinced as he was about the life of a suicide bomber being boring. I need to find a way to sell it better.

Have just got back from a fun weekend in Portsmouth. I attended the Portsmouth Cathedral ringing dinner last night, and then went back for bacon sarnies, Amaretto and drinking games at Stuart and Annabel's. Needless to say, a fabulous time was had by all - we even got to see a video of a program David Baverstock made for Channel 4 about bell ringing, which was full of familiar faces from the brief time I spent as a member of the London University society. It went on very late: Greg, an ex member, very kindly gave up his bed at S&A's so I got a decent sleep for the four hours I was asleep for. Now I am in need of more of the good dreamy stuff, so I'll be off.