by Teri Power
March
* * *
Tuesday 1st March
Arrived at school to find most of my class were wearing black armbands. I wondered if the Head was dead but Julie told me that it was a national day of mourning for laboratory animals and she added with some glee that the biology department were furious and likely to give out detentions to anyone who wears them.
What to do? I am tempted to wear one myself because I hardly approve of cruelty to animals for the sake of new cosmetics and I know that computer simulations are often better than animal experiments. On the other hand I don't wear black armbands for people so it would merely look silly if I started to wear one for animals.
What decided me was listening to Helen and Mary taunting Tom for not wearing an armband. Tom is a quiet, ostensibly repressed individual who does not want to get involved in anything which might get him in trouble with his science teachers. I took the opportunity to suggest that they should be expressing their opinions not trying to impose them on others. Then Helen hadn't heard so she asked me to repeat what I'd said, I suggested she should have been listening and Mary started repeating to her a version of what I'd said. Then I had to correct Mary's stalinist amalgam and by this time the bell should have gone had it not been sabotaged by high-spirited sixth-formers so off they went.
* * *
Wednesday 2nd March
I set my seventh years a traditional exercise: "Remove the word 'nice' from the following, replacing it where necessary to make the description more vivid:-
"It was a nice day so I thought it would be nice to go for a nice walk. I went to the park. There were lots of nice people walking their nice dogs."
I use this because it looks as if it was made up for the purpose. In fact it was submitted to me as a piece of coursework by a CSE student about ten years ago.
Neil adopted a novel approach.
"It was a bloody awful day so I thought it would be bloody awful to go for a bloody awful walk. I went to the park. There were lots of bloody awful people walking their bloody awful dogs."
Although it lacks variety it *is* more vivid than the original.
* * *
Thursday 3rd March
A perfectly normal Thursday, no free periods so no cover. Then the Man from OFSTED descended upon me from a great height in period eight. He was unable to fault my teaching - I found out later that he is a scientist - but he tore holes in my paperwork until you could see the plaster.
It seems I am using last year's system of recording oral grades instead of this year's - he did confide that they would be back to last year's next year because this year's was unworkable but he did not see this as undermining his criticism in any way... I kept a straight face, Oz would have been proud of me.
Things are back to normal (?) in bed now the twinges in the old arm have subsided. James has been - for him - very considerate. Tonight he rather took me by surprise when he put his hand between my legs because he had Algipan on his middle finger. I nearly called the fire brigade but as he said I hardly know them.
* * *
During my free period this afternoon I took the opportunity to ring the Computer Repair Experts to inquire after the health of Archie the Archimedes. Eventually I got through to CRE and spoke to the man who knows nothing about computers but answers the telephone. I know this because he opened the conversation with, "I know nothing about computers, I just answer the telephone."
I asked to speak to the CRE who does know something about computers but he was out on a job. I left a message about the disk drive and we shall see.
James, encouraged by last night, decided to bring home one of his dubious videos. The quality, by which I mean the film quality, was so poor we had to go to bed and improvise instead.
I sat on the edge of the bed, wearing a black blouse, black skirt (if you can call it a skirt, more a waistband) and black stockings and facing a mirror. James sat on the bed behind me and slowly removed my clothes.
He didn't use any Algipan this time so I didn't need to use a glass of water afterwards.
* * *
Started reading Chapter House Dune, I cannot decide whether Frank Herbert is a sexist or not - I suspect that is exactly the impression he wanted to create. If this were made into a film it would certainly rival one of James' videos. In fact, since it contains the dread word p***s, it would undoubtedly have that part of Miles Teg snipped off!
James did the shopping.
* * *
Sunday 6th March
We visited Wakehurst Park. The Skoda very nearly didn't make it and my enjoyment of the delights of nature was marred by anxiety about our ability to get home. This apprehension was justified because on the way home we did indeed break down and have to call out the AA.
Even so, I think we ought to visit Wakehurst more because it is free to life-members of the National Trust. I well remember the looks of disbelief on the faces of my friends at college when I announced that I had joined the National Trust. I went on to explain that I thought they were doing something to preserve our heritage and wildlife etc. and the looks of disbelief turned to looks of astonishment.
When I eventually demanded to know what they had against the National Trust, they told me that I had evidently used the work "Front" instead of "Trust."
The man from the AA was a surly bastard - not at all like the very nice man on the TV.
* * *
Monday 7th March
Information Technology is driving me barmy. It isn't so much that we have not got enough computers. It is just that they were all bought at different times, so they don't all run the same programs. At any one time my pupils are working on three different wordprocessors and asking me how to "justify the right margin", "justify both margins" or "switch on justification." which sound like different things but are actually the same thing on different programs - and require a different sequence of commands.
This is an improvement on my original timetable which had me teaching in a room without any computers at all.
Michael (Year 9) mentioned to me that one of the characters in the Lord of the Rings is called 'Shagrat'. 'Is that a name or an instruction?' he enquired innocently.
* * *
Tuesday 8th March
Then there are the windows. It was a warm enough day for March. I wanted to open the windows in the computer room. The windows are kept permanently closed and there are blinds down all the time. I eventually managed to get one of the blinds up by dint of tying the string to the leg of a table. Then I opened one of the metal-framed sash windows.
Fortunately I had sufficient reflexes left in these aging synapses to let me remove my hand before the thing came crashing down like a guillotine. The class cheered as I jumped back, the blind string came away from the desk and the blind came crashing down. I nearly sat on a ninth year which serves him right for laughing.
There wasn't much on the television this evening - except cat vomit. Still, I suppose anything is better than Wogan.
* * *
Wednesday 9th March
This afternoon we had an Inservice Training session on Drama - three hours of being a tree. This is better than working for a living. Naturally the poor sods who had to cover for us were less sanguine about it.
Victor is back! James has finally got around to recharging old Vic's batteries and he was buzzing away happily. So long, so hard, so Taiwanese.
* * *
Thursday 10th March
A phonecall to the alleged computer repairers brought news about Archie the truant Archimedes. They are short of parts and as soon as they get the parts they will repair the computer. When I asked which parts, he explained that he was only the man who answered the phone and didn't know anything about computers.
I had to face what can only be described as a tirade from PMT, who is now acting head of CDT. (Education is full of TLAs- three letter abbreviations). He was irate at the fact he had to cover for English teachers "poncing around" on a drama course. I resorted
to the defence of agreeing with him and asking him what he suggested I do - refuse to go, insist on teaching? It would mean a disciplinary at least and I am already in enough trouble with the lovely Olive as it is.
This would have mollified any sane person but I was dealing with PMT. He just went on repeating his point until I ran out of answers. I suppose the trouble is that English teachers don't like repeating themselves whereas CDT teachers do little else.
Masturbation. That is what Amanda wanted to talk to me about in the bar of Ruskin House after the NUT meeting. She has a voice which carries so well I thought for a while she might be a PE teacher.
In fact she teaches Maths but it was masturbation she wanted me to teach her about. I had to keep talking because as long as I was talking she wasn't and the whole bar didn't necessarily want to know what we were talking about.
Amanda has some techniques of masturbation which are frankly alarming and involve the corner of a table. (at least I assume she was talking from personal experience!) I came very close to some personal revelations when I talked to her about vibrators.
"VIBRATORS. HOW INTERESTING. WHAT EXACTLY DO THEY DO WITH THEM THEN?" She asked in a voice which was probably not as loud as it seemed but turned enough heads anyway.
It turned out that she didn't know anything about vibrators. By next month I may well have found another religion for her: the cult of St Victor.
Among other things, she wanted to know whether it was wrong. Why ask me? I do not know what is wrong for committed Christians and the Bible is strangely silent on female masturbation - we know all about poor old Onan pouring his seed on the ground but that is about it.
I explained that it wasn't wrong for atheists but I think her conversion may be a little more complicated than that.
She then started talking about lesbianism: "What do they do?"
Friday 11th March
Nigel produced the following piece of dialogue in an essay entitles "A funny thing happened ...":
Hey, you with the two broken arms, are you a Poll Tax collector?"
"Yes I am a Poll Tax Collector, but I don't have two broken aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!"
Not bad for a seventh year, but Oz would have a fit, thinking I'd brainwashed the child.
I confiscated a computer game from one of my pupils and out of curiosity I ran it on the Dell at home. It aroused James' interest but what I want to know is: if they play strip poker with their computers what do they do with their girlfriends?
Saturday 12th March
Shopping for a wedding present for George and Edie. Decisions, decisions. Should it be something decorative and impractical (like George) or sturdily unattractive but utilitarian?
I had explored every inch of two department stores before I decided on a toaster designed to look like a toaster. James said this was unimaginative and trite - and therefore entirely suitable.
We could have had wedding presents like this if we had actually told our families we were getting married.
James said we could buy our own toasters.
Sunday 13th March
Judo display at the Parish Hall. I attended in order to watch, then it turned out that one of the display team had a broken ankle and please could I ...
The long and the short of it is that I did, in a borrowed judoji which was too large for me and had not been very carefully washed. It wouldn't have been too bad if our enthusiastic Sensei hadn't decided that we should demonstrate breakfalls by doing cartwheels.
Why?
Does it make any kind of sense to the audience? Do they think that being thrown in randori is in any way like performing an inaccurate cartwheel? Would this encourage them to join the club?
Then on top of everything else I had to bump into Torquemada in a corridor. Naturally I was still sweating from my exertions and still wearing the disreputable judoji. He was there for a meeting of the Church of the Second Coming (a group of Methodist sexual deviants?) and accompanied by a couple of Second Comers.
He greeted me with a supercilious "This is our Miss (or should I say Ms) Power." and put a proprietorial hand on my arm - the right arm.
Where does that man get off putting his hands on me? I tried to step backwards but there was the wall. I excused myself on the spurious grounds that I had some randori to get on with and they looked at me on the assumption that I was rather strangely dressed for a cookery demonstration.
In fact I think the Second Comers are
(a) opposed to women wearing trousers for any purpose and
(b) opposed to sports on Sunday - this particular Sunday, I am inclined to agree with them.
I wonder what they would have made of me doing cartwheels (all right attempted cartwheels) without trousers on. A meal, if I know anything about Torquemada's mind.
Monday 14th March
I ache in places where I didn't know I had places. It was the cartwheels that did it. I now know what the phrase "broken on the wheel" is about.
There was a note in my pigeon hole this morning demanding to know why I had not filled in a 40d/487 - notification of return to work - the ranks for the filling in of. In fact it must have got lost among the mass of promotional material from computer companies which always arrives in my pigeon hole on any occasion when I have turned my back on it for five minutes.
Today a parcel arrived and James showed me a privately-made amateur video. Apparently a woman in Darlington makes these videos in the privacy of her own bedroom and sends them out to selected clients: I can only assume there is a lot of unemployment in Darlington.
The video - which consists of ten-minute clips: Susan strips; Susan and a friend have some bi-girl fun; Susan get's rogered by her overweight friend Roger from several different angles; Susan uses a dildo of ludicrous proportions for various purposes etc - was at least uninhibited. There weren't attempts to exclude penes, there were considerable attempts to get Roger's large member into sharp focus. The picture quality was fairly poor and, although I didn't think much of Roger, some of Susan's friends were more prepossessing and - yes - I was turned on by parts of this video because the amateur nature of the video suggested that they were somehow more real than the actors and actresses in James' usual videos.
Of course there is a price to be paid for all this entertainment, so I thought I'd start out by getting him to put some Algipan on my aching back to stress my decrepit state. This didn't help because he got Algipan in all sorts of other places as well and in the end we both got rather hot and bothered.
Tuesday 15th March
I thought I had back ache yesterday. This morning I had difficulty getting out of the car I'd vowed not to use again.
The day started badly with a major row about timetabling with the Maths department. I don't wish to record the details except to say that I am entirely right in every respect and they are entirely wrong.
To say that Pat and I are not talking would be inaccurate. We had a lengthy stand-up row in the staffroom at lunchtime. If he thinks I am giving up my computers (all right, his computers) for a group of seventh years to use when I am supposed to have a group of tenth years learning IT without computers, he has another think coming.
I have the backing of Oz, which is negligible, but for some reason Snooks dislikes Pat more than she dislikes me so could be regarded as neutral. It all depends on how Peter (the deputy head) responds. Fortunately he has had arguments with the Maths department before.
Wednesday 16th March
This morning I find that the Maths department have pre-empted the issue by taking all their computers out of the computer room and putting them back into classrooms. There is now a computer room without any computers in - in which I will be teaching Information Technology on Friday.
Big girls don't cry.
Thursday 17th March
The good news is that the English Department Archimedes has arrived back from the repair experts. The bad news is that the disk drive still gives a "broken directory" message with every disk we put in it.
Big girls don't cry.
Friday 18th March
Eleventh year Information Technology. No Maths Department computers available. Business studies have offered the use of two computers providing I only send my pupils up two at a time. I assume I have to do community singing with the other fourteen (it used to be fifteen but Ali dropped out of school and is only nominally on the register now).
In the event I got hold of two - count them two - old BBC B's and they played "Developing Tray" - it is not relevant to the course but it kept them more occupied than they would otherwise have been.
After school I tried to get hold of Pat, Peter and Olive but they had all mysteriously disappeared. Oz told me helpfully that he wouldn't put up with it himself, but then he doesn't have to put up with it, does he?
James had another of his videos tonight. This one - a pirated version of a European film - is called simply "Girls who suck." and does not feature lollipops in any fashion.
I assumed that he was making a request of some kind but I warned him that I was in a biting mood. He said that as long as I was in a biting mood, would I mind digging my fingernails into him as well. He is incorrigible, thank goodness.
Saturday 19th March
Today I did no marking and I made a conscious effort not to think about work. This was only partly successful because when we went for tea at the vicarage, John asked me how things were at work and - in a fit of bad manners - I told him.
He sympathised and suggested all sorts of unprofessional (and ungodly) things I might do to Pat and the mad mathematicians. None of it helped but it made me feel a whole lot better.