Assorted School Happenings and an Ajarn Piss Up

Well, it’s been a long time since I slagged any of the staff off so I suppose it's about time.

Well, we finally got a copy of the exams we are going to give out darling beloveds in a couple of weeks and it's the usual cries of horror and bewilderment. And that’s just the teachers.

The Cambridge Exam is one of these tests that supposedly tests the knowledge in a real life type of conversation / instruction. To me it doesn’t do that, it just over elaborates the instruction unnecessarily. I will post the exact script tomorrow but it's along these lines.

Listening test – the student have to draw a line between two objects. Now if the instruction had said “ draw a line between the cat and bus” it would be ok but instead it goes.

Examiner - Put the cat into the bus.
Student - The car?
Examiner - No, the bus.

Now, if I was faced with that I would be going, how can I put the cat into the bus? It's on the paper, I cant physically move the drawing, do I have to draw the cat in the bus? Do I draw a line between them? What am I supposed to do? And the rest of the test carries on in that vein.

One of these days, I am going to find out at what age these are actually aimed at and at what language level. As I said, reading the script, It would take me quite a few seconds to work out what I am supposed to do never mind these kids.

Quite a few long faces I can tell you in the staffroom.

Now, I haven’t mentioned Cleric for a while so here is his chance for glory again. In some ways life has actually improved between the two of us. I don’t speak to him and he doesn’t speak to me. Suits me fine and lately he hasn’t been in the staffroom as much as he used to. Until the last week or so when he started hanging around it again spouting his usual I know best crap. “ This is what you want to do….”

He has started hanging round the back of peoples chairs again reading what they are doing and hoping they get pissed off at him and leave a pc free. Today, he was hanging around and started reading someones CV then he goes “ Oh, it's your CV!” and starts giving advice on layout and stuff. Now OK, this was someone who he is friendly with but.. MY GOD. This is someones personal details!

I don’t care if it is a friend of mine or not who says that but they are intruding on my personal information and space. If I choose to let someone see it or ask them for help, it's my right to do that. Someone imposing their help is unwelcome and frankly unwanted. Even if you do catch site of what someone is doing – email or reading an article or doing a CV it really is quite rude to be nosey. You can’t really help but see a screen if a pc is right next to another but you should really try and be as discrete as possible about it and pretend not to see anything personal.

The other thing is that he has started staying after work which bugs me as well as I write for a few different web sites and forums. Some of which I most definitely don’t want him to know about. So most times I end up going home and to my crappy home connection rather than give away any “secrets”. But, he is supposedly going home in a couple of months so with luck it will only be another 8 weeks or so I have to tolerate him for.

Sometimes people complain about their connection at home and I ask what connection speed have they got? Oh 29.8kbps they say or 30 or 25. Well, tonight I have hit a new low. 6.4kbps. I can only hope that I can actually upload this. Yes, I am typing this on Word and then will copy and paste it over. ICQ can function – just. The BEST speed I have ever got was 26kbps and even then it took about a minutes for a web page to open. Anything with heavy graphics is just a joke. I rarely bother surfing at home. ICQ & MSM messenger and sometimes not even they work until I disconnect and redial. Oh, how I would love broadband!!

Finally got to meet some of the http://www.ajarnforum.net crowd on Saturday night for a piss up. So hello to Reg Young - totally not what I expected him to be like, LDMA - taller than I thought he would be, DJ Pat - pretty much how I thought he would be, Wally Raffles - didnt really have a mental picture of him so no preconceived notions and the same with Mangoedout. Cheers guys.