What I learnt today

Working in a school means that occasionally I learn a few things too - both academically and about myself -  and today I thought I'd share with you a few things that I have learnt in the last eight or so hours. The lessons will be presented in chronological order of when I learnt them...

7:35 am: I can get a little bit further up the massive hill
As mentioned in a previous post I now cycle to and from work. This is to try and save money and to get fitter. On my journey into school I am faced with a really, really big hill. Usually I get off my bike at the bottom and walk all the way up. Today however, I pushed myself that little bit further a got a quarter of the way up before my lags gave in (poor legs). A quarter may not sound far, but trust me when I say it's a BIG hill. So lesson one of the day is that I can do it and one day I will reach the top of that bastard hill on my bike and it shall mock me no more!!

10:50 am: That I'm 'good' at my job
It was officially confirmed today that I am actually 'good' at my job. This was decided by the school's management and upper management (it's a large hierarchy at this school) who came to observe me in lessons last term. Hearing this gave me a warm glowing feeling that I've not felt from a job in a long time because, I thought, you had more chance of finding rocking horse shit than getting a pat on the back from my old employers.

Let me now put this 'good' into context for you non-teacher people: good is the second highest ranking there is after 'outstanding', then there's satisfactory and finally inadequate. I won't lie, I can't admit that I wasn't a bit disappointed that I wasn't 'outstanding', but that's only because I'm an over-confident, cocky fucker when really I should come to realise that I am, have been and probably always will be 'the nearly there girl'. By this I mean it doesn't matter if I work my tits off, I never seem to quite get the highest mark or grade or promotion. It's been like that ever since I did my GCSE's and I only got an A in English when I should have got an A*. When doing my degree I got a 2:1, but I easily worked as hard as someone who managed to get a  first. (NB: I know this sounds quite selfish and up my own arse, because they're still very high grades and awesome, but what I'm trying to say is I set myself high standards, so I'm disappointed when I don't reach them.) In the employment arena I'm the one that gets called back for a second or third interview, but still never quite gets the job, which happened to me 3 or 4 times before I landed my teaching assistant job.

Now, now dear reader I'm not looking for sympathy, I've come to accept that's just how natures made me, there's nothing you or I can do about it, so I'll forever be the 'nearly there girl.' It's all cool, and so my second lesson of the day was learning that I am just 'good' and I'll settle for that.

11:10 am: I'm not bad at playing samba!
In terms of lessons I really like Thursdays, in particular the year 7 music lesson I get to support in. I only get to do it once a week and the kids I'm in with are really lovely. What's more awesome at the moment though is that the kids are doing samba at the moment, and when I say they're playing samba I'm not exaggerating. The teacher has literally transformed them into a proper samba band. With a few more weeks practise I reckon they could easily give some semi-pro bands a run for their money. We have whistles, dancing, huge fucking drums, the lot. It's tops and I get to join in! Third lesson - my rhythm isn't as bad as I thought it was.

12:10 pm: I can't jump very high
I've never claimed to be particularly athletic; when I was at school I didn't do particularly well and the times that I did it was by complete fluke. Like I said, nearly there. So today I was pressured by students and fellow TA's, into giving the high jump a go. I managed 1m, but unfortunately got knocked out of the competition at 1m 10cm. There we have it, that is the highest I can jump. Fact.

I feel this has been quite a self reflecting blog post which has been quite cathartic as I've been on a bit of a downer lately. That's all I've got to say really, so I guess the final lesson learnt today is...

7:14 pm: Bad blog endings
Think of better, more witty and exciting ways to end my blog posts in future.

RoseC -x-