Yellowstone and Hugging

Is Yellowstone actually yellow? Whenever you see it on TV it’s either covered in snow or Bison shit. Yellowstone is a volcano, which produces sulphur which is yellow. I am looking at Yellowstone, I am staring into the sulphur ridden abyss. No need for larva the smell will kill me. How are those teeth so yellow? I can’t stop looking though. It’s like watching plastic surgery documentaries. The problem is I keep having to talk to him. This is the torture that we must endure at the beginning of the year. Once again it’s like our own private torture of useless crap that we really don’t need to know. We all spend the day watching the clock and wondering who will be the first to fall asleep. We’re also forced to work with people. This week I was actually told to stand up, turn to the person next to me then...hug them. I did not hug. I do not hug. I displayed my pen like a weapon and made my feelings very clear. Apparently at this time of year we all suffer from some very specific, work related Alzheimer’s. This leads to higher management telling us what we did last year.

“Holy fuck we had students, you are shitting me. We had TWO inspections. TWO? Wow I would never had known if you hadn’t fucking told me”

Clasping my pen its one of those occasions where I would consider my own death before others. It would just take too long to work my way through to the bastard at the front as he attempts to get us to turn to the right and massage the person’s shoulders. Fucking touch me and I will crush your oesophagus with my note pad.

I wouldn’t mind the constant reminders of what I did last year if it was done in a more exciting way. If senior management appeared to walk out of a blue police call box, I’d spurt geek everywhere and my mind would be distracted enough thinking of playing with my sonic screwdriver at home to consider the insult that I was suffering a debilitating brain disease. It’s not just the past that management are interested in it’s also the future. What are we going to do this year?

Well all those things that we agreed at the end of last year because let’s face it if I’ve turned up 2 weeks before the students arrived with no clue what I’m doing I wouldn’t be employed. We’ve had this meeting already. So it’s not even the future. It’s still the past. It’s still repeating what we did last year.

“Oh my god! Is that what I have to do? I had no idea. I have never EVER heard this all before”

These conferences all require us to work with others hence Yellowstone. The death breath is circling the room. I have placed a seat between us to keep some distance and yet he leans over. I choke down my vomit and the quality of my answers depletes as I now think about crying in the shower and scrubbing with a Brillo pad.

I’m keeping this short because I must now go and do this. 

End of term and care bear murder

One does not simply walk into the office to collect work at the end of term.

If it is at all possible the students become all the more demanding at the end of term. These are usually the students who have spent all year not handing in their work. To be fair to them this does show some sort of commendable behaviour. Any student who can go a whole year ignoring the continuing looks of death, the slow stroking of bolt cutters whenever a lecturer asks where their work is or the extraordinary amount of sadistic sarcasm dripping down the office walls, has some real determination of character, or they’re just really fucking stupid. I place my money on the second one. These students seem to slither their way out of the woodwork at the end of the year when they realise they are about to go out into the world without a qualification, and as it turns out a qualification is essential to their working lives. The student population seems to double like a parasitic swarm as student after student shamefully make their way into the office. A lot of time you didn’t even realise these students existed. They stumble in showing about as much spatial awareness as they have academic and you spend a good few minutes thinking ‘who the fuck are you?’ as they whittle on about how much work they have left to do. I like to give them names based on where I think they are going to end up in life, so at least I have some sort of reference in my head. For example in the last week I have encountered; Bin lid, JK (Jeremy Kyle) and dead. The last one is more of a hopeful dream than a reflection on their abilities. Unfortunately the education system has changed and you are no longer allowed to throw out an insult scattered with swear words and kick them out the door. You are supposed to help all students achieve. Quite frankly this disgusts me. Lecturers end up doing more work than the students as we attempt to wrap them up in a soft little cloud so tightly that it could strangle a care bear. However apparently this is not a concept universally accepted by the higher ups so we are forced to bow down to Ofsted and make sure every student passes.

Whilst this concept is most irritating (I’m not overly enamoured by the concept of rainbow based murder), it is nothing in comparison to the attitudes of the students around this time. The universe suddenly jolts to find a new centre of gravity and revolve only around this one spot. A typical conversation goes as such:

“Have you marked my work yet?” Notice no “hello”, no “please”.

“What work?” I know exactly what work bin lid means but I like the cause a little bit of frustration considering the jealousy of their blood pressure over mine.

“You know that one we had to do that table for” proving that they have no idea what the assignment is called, what it’s for and clearly they have not learnt a thing.

“When did you hand it in?” Blood pressure beginning to rise again.

“Yesterday” Assignment hand in cut off time is 3pm. It’s 9am the next day. I believe the expectation here is that at 3pm the previous day I would have rushed down to the reception and grabbed the assignment whether it had been tracked in or not. Perhaps a lord of the rings worthy battle would have ensued with the reception staff. I of course would have ran straight back to my desk and marked the work, or perhaps if I was still teaching or doing any other work I would have taken it home, because this is what I live for. I live to mark the work of students who apparently have no concept of time or space, lack the ability to construct a polite sentence and contribute to my never ending reliance on my homicidal imagination.

“Oh yesterday well bin lid I thought I would use your measurement of time which seems to be completely different to everyone else’s but according to you completely acceptable. So lets see; this assignment is 3 months late, I’ll drop you an email in September” Blank face.

“It’ll be marked when I get round to marking it” blank face.

“Leave”.

Bin lids assignment is sat on my in tray at the top of the pile. It instantly makes its way to the bottom of the pile. It’s these little tricks in life that bring a smile to my face.

Covering lessons and Drag queens

Death to all. This is the only motto that I can really live by and has been of constant thought as the plague heads through all the staff. Apparently my place has work has regressed to the 1600’s where every touch is like playing Russian roulette and the coffin makers seem to be the happiest of folk. Whilst the absence of certain students could cause one to replicate a yellow obsessed munchkin, the constant absence of staff can lead one to wonder if Ted Bundy had a reasonable excuse. I have found myself covering a multitude of lessons with students whose graves would be shallow merely from the fact that I wouldn’t want to waste my energies. Such was my time with a particular class during a rather stressful animal handling session. First of all I had to deal with the barnacle. An annoying little sucker that wont fucking shift. The barnacle is small and likes to invade your personal space. I saw my granddad use all sorts of sharp implements to remove them off his small fishing boat and now I am sure it would provide some satisfaction. After I ditched the barnacle there was the ‘I get makeup tips from a drag queen’ bunch. I saw one rather snottily cry last week; I watched in amazement as the tramp lines formed and the tissue looked progressively like it had been used by a masturbating oompah loompah. Conversations were very traumatising:

“Do I have to hold it”

“Yes”

“But I don’t like animals”

“Well then you chose the perfect course doing animal care didn’t you? Really your genius knows no bounds. What do you want to do?”

“Er hair and beauty”

Drag queens of the world rejoice, your saviour has arrived.

Upon turning around I saw a student happily going into the enclosure of a particularly nasty socpion. Apparently the big red skull and crossbones on the tank only served as an enticement.  I considered for a moment simply watching it unfold, however it would have been a lot of paperwork. So instead I settled with the bollocking of his life whilst pointing out that he should feel free to wet himself as it would be the highlight of my rather boring week.

The one lesson worth covering was a heart dissection. However my turning an ox heart into a hand puppet was not received well. Some people really don’t have a sense of humour. When I was a student it was perfectly acceptable to hide a pigs heart in someone’s bag for being a pathetic drama queen. Ok so it wasn’t acceptable but it was funny.

So after a two weeks’ worth of covering peoples lessons I am now holding out for the Easter holidays. 

TRIO...TR..I..I..IO

A disturbing plague has gripped colleges everywhere. As development of teaching and learning has embedded itself like a cancer, CPD has spread across all areas we once considered holy, to the point that even chocolate is not safe. Yes that’s right it has infected chocolate. Ok so not really but it’s chocolate associated.

At the beginning of the year we were introduced to a concept that immediately meant that I would be absolutely useless in all future meetings but sit there consumed by the song. Trio’s. If you don’t understand the chocolate reference now then you are obviously too young and should stop reading immediately. This form of group meeting has plagued us all throughout the year. And when I mean plague us I mean we have been sent reminders about meetings that we have never had. This has been a generally acceptable practice to me until today. I was forced to write a case study on the use of trios and how it has helped us develop. WTF?  Well I can spin a good yarn but the truth would be much more acceptable.

Trios

Trios were initially put forward by the college as a step towards world domination. This failed.

The initial meeting consisted of one member of staff singing the trio song. This embedded a feeling of nostalgia within the group and is largely considered to be the highlight of the year. In a bid to abide by the disguised dictatorship of our educational democracy, we briefly discussed what we wanted to achieve. The suggestion of loaded shotguns as classroom enforcement was immediately disregarded by one, whilst still firmly within another’s future career goals.

The topic of IT was of course raised; this caused grumbles amongst the other group members. One member of staff unhelpfully suggested that social media was the temple in which students prayed to their digital god and go to complain about their lecturers, and as the sacred place of their ignorant religion it was probably best left that way. It was immediately noted that any expectation of our student’s ability to draw comparison with religion was over ambitious. Agreement was made to use Facebook. This failed.

A final note was made about getting students to interact across the agriculture and animal management sectors. This could easily be veiled as an attempt to incorporate employability skills whilst in reality would provide great amusement and possibly the destruction of many a student. Raising the subject of the badger cull would allow for discussion to break out across areas of the college, infect the minds of the younger FE students and lead to amusing fights, ignorant speeches and blinded belief in a flawed ideal.

Further meetings were not held. There were occasional emails. These were largely ignored. We still like to sing the trio song though.

Half Term and Pigeons

My violent tendencies are flowing over to the point where I no longer need weapons. I can quite happily imagine skewering people’s eyes with my own fingers. This was the eventuality of this week. Yes I did say this week. There seems to be some sort of delusion among the non education folk that we get 15 weeks of a year off. Well actually no. We do have to work during the holidays. We get X-mas, Easter and a few weeks in the summer off. And yes I know this sounds like a lot but have you ever tried to take a holiday during these peek times, I know a lot of parents out there have and we are in the same boat on our crappy wages.

This half term saw me in lots of boring meetings that really achieved nothing but to remind me that whilst I enjoy my job I know I will never be satisfied until I am in a position to change things. Wednesday saw.... wait what the hell did I do on Wednesday. I’m being serious now I cannot remember. I must have reached a point of such all out boredom that I can no longer remember it for the sake of my own sanity. Well Thursday it is then! Thursday was a meeting about employability. Within this meeting there were some fundamental errors; The 3 guest speakers effectively all spoke about the same thing; that you cannot put a definition on employability. They then of course attempted to put across their own definition on it, each contradicting the last. The second error was a simple one, in a conference about employability there were no employers there. The organisers obviously felt that this would be a little too ‘on the nose’ and that we should all instead join the thrilling philosophical debate on what employability is. No wonder the best philosophers were Greek where they had wine and orgies to make up for this lost time. There was also a complete lack of careers staff/advisors there. This doesn’t really upset me too much as I have no respect for the profession however it does still make me wonder what exactly the organisers of this event were hoping to achieve. As far as I’m concerned the careers advisers are the lowest of the low. This stems from personal and professional hatred. I remember when I was making my decisions during my GCSE’s it was compulsory to go and speak to a careers advisor. I sat down and told her that I was going to work with animals, I didn’t want to be a vet and I more saw myself studying behaviour and conservation. Upon hearing this she asked me what else I wanted to do. Errr nothing. I’ve chosen what I want to do, I have all the right grades to get me onto A levels and beyond. And yet  for 15 minutes she insisted that we discuss something other than working with animals. I saw no point in continuing in the conversation and walked out. Apparently I said some rather flowery phrases upon walking out, which I am glad my mother completely ignored on the retelling of the story at home, and was happy to also overlook this fact at the next parent meeting when pointing out to the head that their careers advisors need to reassess their own professions. I would like to point out that the parents meeting wasn’t even mine! My parents gave up on going to mine in an apparent avoidance of hearing how great I was, something that seemed to be contradictory to my behaviour at home. Certainly my organisation skills never quite made the leap from revision to actually tidying my room. On a professional level I see no use for them. It is written into every curriculum that tutorials must have careers focus throughout the year and that every lesson should have an added value. It’s even included on lesson plans and schemes of work and OfSted look for ‘employability’ aspects within lessons. Why am I working my ass off looking for an employability angle for cleaning a fish tank when there are apparently people who devote their whole lives towards it. Either they do it or I do it, but don’t pay us both.... pay me more.

The employability conference was made good by one thing: Chocolate cake and mint custard. I haven’t had that in years it made me so happy. And then I realised it was poisoned cake. It was the custard of doom and bribery. It was a way of making us happy and nostalgic for school days past, when we were the students off on half term and spending all our money on crap and sweets and not the grown-ups about to do ‘Breakout sessions’. The breakout session was to reflect on what we had heard today, share best practice and outline how we were going to implement this into our own programmes. This is another fatal thing that management love to do; put you in mixed groups. This is both stupid and irritating. For one thing if you want me to start making plans about implementing new work into our programme then I need to be with my programme team. Secondly the people in other teams are dicks. I had to be with people from the computing courses. I could not care less what they do on some ICT course. By the way they get really upset if you call it ICT or computing. Apparently it’s got some long freaking name and it’s vitally important. From what I can gather though you need to be a boring bastard and then it might actually matter to you. The facilitator to my group........, yes I said facilitator. Did you know that lecturers aren’t lecturers but are facilitators? No? Well it’s an exciting new concept and basically a way on putting the onus on the student. We can be really lazy sometimes. The facilitator to my group was that air quotes twat, the area head. He has a new thing he likes to do now. He thinks it makes him more like an OfSted inspector, I think it makes him more of a C***. Whenever you say something he will bob his head at you like a mangy London pigeon with a nervous disposition and say ‘so’. This will continue every time you add something until he’s so far in your face you could start figuring out what brand of chip fat he uses in his hair. He did this to me several times. The violent hallucinations of using his eyeballs like finger puppets only ended when I realised I was actually stroking my hands manically. I would like to think that from all this pain and anguish something was actually achieved from the day. No. Nothing was achieved.

By the way in case you were wondering, employability is........ Moot, if a schizophrenic pigeon can get a management job we might as well just give up.

MockSted and Gay rain- Just a normal week!

It’s taken me a week and one weekend full of drinking to get over the hell that was the Mocksted. To be quite honest I’m still doing all the marking that took a back seat during the event so it may take a while yet to completely get over it.

The only way that I could survive the week was with the support of others around me and I like to think that I did the same for them. However you really require the people who know you. Otherwise you are likely to start imagining ways to kill someone with a ring binder.

Steeeve was a dick. And yes he did get an outstanding and yes I did point out to him that it was half mine, I said it very loudly, in front of the boss. His increased ego was nowhere near as irritating as him listing off all the things he had done to prepare for the week and how he had included everything. No one wants to fucking hear it. There is sharing ideas and showing support and then there is just making everyone doubt themselves until their brains explode. I watched as the office was engulfed in the stench of management’s arse where Steve clearly hadn’t washed his face and the rest of the staffs eyes began to bulge under the pressure of their increasing brain size. We all have these irritating people in our work lives I am sure; that person who is so fucking perfect and can’t wait to tell everyone about it. Well I have come up with a plan for these people. It’s called cyanide.

There was only one person worse than this during the week. Her name is hysterectomy fingers. Honestly her finger nails are sharpened to medical scalpel precision and her sexual activities (or those we presume her to have), have led to the conclusion that one good swivel and all lady problems would be solved.

I get nervous when I know I am going to be observed. Mainly because I set myself impossible standards to achieve, it’s a middle child thing and I’m sure I irritated many of my friends during the week. Those who know me well know to just tell me not to be an idiot, tell me I’m awesome and then leave me alone to deal with my meltdown. HF does not understand this. HF witnessed my running through the lesson plan to check everything was there, which at the end I was told it was all good and not to worry. Obviously I was still worrying and I went back to look through a few extra notes, hoping to be left alone and quietly ponder. This was the point that HF decided to slide up to my desk and continuously go on about how it was going to be fine. I’m sure she meant to be nice but she seriously could not shut the fuck up. She told me I was going to be fine in so many different ways I was mentally checking off the thesaurus in my head. Even after I found out that I would most defiantly be dropped in on and all I wanted to do was check over my work she stood there talking. I looked at my computer; I made it obvious I was working. I even said ‘I’m fine now, really’. She was still there talking away. It was like being tied to a chair whilst a fly buzzed around your face. All you want to do I swat the little fucker but you just can’t move your hands. My violent dreams led me to a place where I tackled her to the ground before ramming her finger in her ear and giving it a good twist before removing her brain.

My actual drop-in was a rollercoaster. I’m scared of rollercoaster’s. Machines of death. It was only for 25 minutes and in those 25 minutes a range of things happened. Unfortunately the class was quite chatty. And for a second I was worried, when somehow out of the mist occurred something that could make or break my lesson; Gay rain. Whilst discussing natural disasters my students brought up that fact that flooding was being blamed on the gay community. Equality and diversity was ringing in my ears. My students were in a fury. They were outraged and yet topical and grounded. They were ready to argue the over religious beliefs and accept them as long as it didn’t put down the beliefs of others. I was amazed. I was proud. I was on a roll. I had no idea they were such little activists.

“I hate all the Dutch though” I had no idea they were such racist little activists. The observers smile begins to slip.

“Honestly we should just kill all the fucking Dutch” I had no idea that they were such violent, racist little activists. The smile was completely gone now.

The outburst had come from a noble cause, after witnessing the brutal murder of dolphins in a coming of age ceremony. However I had to recover this lesson as it was slowly plummeting into hate crime, and ideas of violence started to parade across the room. It was at this point that I saw how much my students know me and how good they really are. I dug deep, deep down into my tolerance (it's usually buried really fucking low) and dug out the part that could both calm the class and allow for acceptance of the Dutch people by pointing out it was a minority and we should allow them to make it right. I saw their little faces turn into confusion. Was this the same lecturer who had pointed out that the world would be better off with the culling of 90% of the population, and then proceeded to name the 90%? Was this the same lecturer who taught them how to escape a zombie apocalypse?

“You are so right. We should be careful before we paint an entire country with the same brush”. Thank you God. The stern look to the others from the smartest of the class got everyone to click onto what was happening. They have been rewarded for their good work. Except for the one that said “I can’t do maths”. That one deserves a slap; I can’t give a physical one so I gave an emotional one instead, no rainbow vomit for that child.

So to conclude (as OfSted like to see you summarise all lessons), I can share three lessons for those people who also must suffer the pain of inspection.

1)      Carry cyanide capsules. Either for yourself or others whichever you are most comfortable.

2)      Gay rain makes the perfect lesson as long as you don’t mention the Dutch.

MockSted and a whole lot of other bad ideas

Ass-plant: the process where your head is replaced by your ass resulting in a continuous pattern of thinking and talking shit; a necessary procedure for higher management. This results in a lot of fucking stupid ideas and an idiotic tendency for pushing two words together in the formation of a fucking stupid idea. For instance: MockSted. I can only assume that this is further continuation of the ass obsession and the sexual high it apparently brings to watch everyone else's tighten. MockSted, in case anyone has had one of those days that diminishes brain function, is a practice OfSted. This is the brain child of our principal, a man who everyone really needs to stop laughing with because it's just ENCOURAGING HIM!. We are enabling him to tell us even more terrible jokes that are usually reserved for embarrassing dads at weddings and are made even worse by his monotone. The end of year meeting was an abysmal display of ass-kissing. He told 2 very long, exceptionally awful jokes to which everyone roared with laughter and I maniacally looked around crying "stop it. What are you doing you fools?" Much to my line managers amusement and despair. (I love it when you do naughty things in front of her, it's entertaining to watch her brain battle over being amused or managerially upset). I believe this dismal display of ring lubrication has led to a confidence that made him think we would like him no matter how bad it got. So what did he do? He went and tested that conclusion with a MockSted. This has led to the tension in the office increasing tenfold and of course lots of meetings. The saving grace of our principal is that we don't have to see him often as we are on a different site, our area manager however.... Well there's nothing that is going to save him from the hatred of the people. Actually there may be something but it includes bathing with a wire brush and a personality transplant. One might compare some of his mannerisms with a camp gay but that would be doing them a great injustice. With a gay brother (camp when he's drunk), I can honestly say he pulls those movements off with much more finesse. He's just got a face that says "punch me" and a hairstyle that's says "you'll come out of it covered in grease". He does the "air quote" sign, with one finger, All The Time. When he's not "air quoting" he's pinching the skin beneath his chin. How does someone have that much chin skin? This is all before he's even opened his mouth. This was mainly put to use this week in our 'MockSted readiness' meeting where he proceeded to tell us lots of things that I didn't notice, some stuff I did and sickened me to the point of vomiting (standard vomit not rainbow) as I had to endure him sucking on his favourite team member: Steeeeve. Steeeve knows the answers to everything. Steeeve can do anything. Steeeve stole two of my lesson plans this week! That's right people, perfect Steeeve is stealing MY IDEAS. OK stealing is a bit harsh, he asked to use them and then have me explain them. God damn it I even had to relinquish my last bag of skittles. The likelihood of me getting inspected next week is pretty low due to some genius forward planning and an off-site trip. The likelihood of Steeeve getting inspected is pretty high. Steeeve will get an outstanding. Steeeve will be giving that outstanding to me. He's not aware of this yet. However if he does not acknowledge my contribution I will take revenge 'girl with the dragon tattoo' style and tattoo abusive phrases across his head. I know we're a team and I don't have anything against Steeeve. Yes I have wanted to staple his fingers to his desk a few times but in all seriousness I cannot express the effort that I have put into these lessons and no one wants their best ideas sold as someone else's. I get enough of that from the HE manager, but that's a whole other story......a really really BIG one. (She's fat). 

In the one lesson that I may be observed next week the students will be re-vamping enclosures. One enclosure they are doing however has made me think this may be a giant mistake. I don't really care for rodents and I really don't care for rats. I've handled a lot of snakes (don't let your mind go there), and not been bitten. I've been bitten by nearly every rat I've handled. I had a pet rat when I was little. She was the bitch queen of rats. She was the empress of evil. She once made my sister bleed so bad she was probably anaemic afterwards. I have never been so happy for an animal to die! So, considering all of this why the hell would I let my students do a gambian pouched rat enclosure? Do you know what a gambian pouched rat is? It's a giant fucking rat! I blame one person for this and its not me. It was her stupid idea. Yes she may be my friend and the best person to do training with because she actually makes it fun (she is now encouraged not to go to these things because she can't be trusted to behave). However if that thing rips out my throat I'm going to designate her my speaking bitch and whack her every time she says something wrong. That's just what friends do. I can only hope that my gushing blood does not reflect poorly on my outstanding lesson. 

Vomitting rainbows and spunking rabbits

59p? 59 Fucking p? That’s how much you’re going to charge me for a crème egg nowadays. Lets skip over the fact that it’s only January and I can already see the checkout littered with eggs like a chicken brothel, I refuse to ever pay 59p for a crème egg. They’re half the size they used to be and double the price.... and with that line I am officially old. It’s also sad that this is the biggest thing that has happened to me today. I have done nothing all day. It’s always like this in January. The HE students are doing their exams and the lack of lesson planning for them seems to infect my lesson planning for the FE students as well until it becomes more appealing to have dysentery. Last week I did manage to vomit rainbows. This is not a name for some new computerised teaching system. It actually involved me eating skittles until I vomited a rainbow. For the most part it also involved interactive teaching with not a computer in sight. Well colour me rainbow, who would have thought it was possible! The sad fact is that there has been a huge drive to get computers into every single class room and make everything interactive and online. I’m not saying technology doesn’t have its place but when that beautifully sadistic error bar pops up you’re going to need to rely on being a ‘good teacher’ not a screencast. I have been lecturing both FE and HE students for 3 years and even in that time I have wanted to drill through my eyeballs as they started to add an IPad budget. Want to know why none of the young people can actually write with a pen and paper, spell or doing any maths? It’s because we give them computers that will do it all for them. I’m ranting I know but I have a lot of energy to waste due to my highly unproductive day. The only thing I really succeeded in doing (apart from becoming outraged by crème eggs) was get spunked on by a rabbit. They say not to work with animals and children; I do both. I have the joy of lecturing the post-16 age through the melancholy of animal care, conservation and pretty much anything else you wanted to know about animals. This has filled my brain with useless information like the largest animal penis in relation to body size and what happens to sheep wool if it walks through a river. This is unfortunately the things that students go away with when they leave the college. Sod what it says on their wonderful certificate about animal behaviour and welfare; they know that a ducks penis looks like a corkscrew so they’re happy. This is one of the things that actually gets me through the day; the multitude of stupid and insane questions that students ask. If it wasn’t for that, I probably would have gone on a cull by now, allowing only those I saw as worthy to live in an act of cleansing that the world would both fear and worship me for. The post 16 age is a difficult one to manoeuvre around. I have a lot of respect for teachers and their ability to keep the students from killing themselves in acts that natural selection would have seen to by now. However I refuse to let them take all the sympathy of the job of teaching. They get a lot of support (well compared to slugs entering your home through cracks that you will never find), however they have a few things in their arsenal that just disappear once they leave the school grounds. There is a certain amount of manipulation that goes with teaching an adolescent. You can mould their character slightly and threaten them with a terrible future that gets the work handed in and the exams completed. Manipulating a post 16 student with a degrading future is pointless. They have already messed up their future by achieving a G in English, the letter representing both their greasy future in the fast food industry and how far they made it through the alphabet before asking for help. They’re suddenly very aware of their own short comings and this makes it very difficult to manipulate them into any sort of work. We try to use fear of us instead. I had a student avoid me for 4 months last year for fear of being hanged due to his failure to hand in his assignment. I heard some students whispering about the castration set I keep in the office. I’m quite happy to keep these rumours going and in fact actively encourage it. Not only does it scare them into handing in their assignment for me before any other lecturer but eventually it might help to extinguish this myth that the students have that I’m a nice person who wants to hear about their problems. I’ll admit that my sanity can cross the realm of questionable at times and this can give the impression of being a happy person but in reality I just want to be left the fuck alone!

Today I managed to avoid most students as I had no lessons to teach. This seemed like a good opportunity to get some marking done, maybe prepare some lectures, write up the new semester’s lessons for when my HE students come back... and yet, nothing. I did read about a man who got strangled by a reticulated python after putting it around his neck. This kept me entertained for a good 20 minutes and I printed out copies to show my students the next time they attempt to do the same thing with any of the snakes at our site. I may edit it slightly to make it sound scarier, input their names and change the date and say it arrived in an unmarked envelope. I also got the absolute joy of it raining. Rain on its own doesn’t provide the most entertainment but watching all the students run from one building to the other, getting soaking wet because they’re ‘too cool’ to wear a coat is so good I actually put down my coffee to watch. Then of course there was the rabbit spunking. It was more a happy dribble. He’s been very horny of late and enjoyed my stroking him a bit too much. It’s nice to know that I am appealing to rabbits if no-one of my own species. You never know what reincarnation has in store. I ended the day with some safeguarding training. Training where they basically tell you not to touch kids. I never really felt like I needed to be told not to touch kids but I suppose if you weren’t told you could claim ignorance. It’s a depressing training session to be honest and about the 5^th time I’ve done it. However there seems to be a complete lack of ability to actually record my attendance at these events, or some sadistic bastard is testing me to the point of suicide. They really needn’t bother with the depressing child abuse; they’d be better just locking me in a room with the level ones; our version of Sloth from the goonies if he had violent outbursts and a fascination with prostitutes. It’s the point they tell me I shouldn’t be sarcastic at work that I decide there is nothing good that can ever come out of this repetition of training. Maybe that’s why they keep sending me back, whilst I have never shown negligence in child safety I’m clearly failing to learn some of the main points. I’ll try to work on that......... nope not going to happen. Tomorrow though I will at least try and do some actual work.