15 days or less

Actually in truth I don't finish for another month, but with the slant that I take on this course, of only counting actual teaching days I can safely say that I have less than 15 days left to go, what with half-term in between.

This course has been an obsession, a burden and a focus this past year and has altered who I am, how I behave and how I view the world. Some of this has come across in my writings on this site, from being mischievious and fun to a much more sombre and tired voice speaking through the ether. As a result of the course I have become ground down, tired like never before and a whole lot more nagative in my outlook on the world.

If I've learnt anything on this course it is that our teachers taught us far more than we realised. Not only were they teaching us subject knowledge but in many ways that subject knowledge is just by the by. In school it seems that I have to instruct in social behaviour and life skills much more than I teach any physics. Indeed someone said to me that actual teaching takes up about 20% of the energy they put into the job.

I am inclined to agree with that sentiment, reluctantly I must add, as I still want to hold on to a naive ideal that what I teach is science. It's the added responsibility of teaching young people the skills to cope in society today that drives us away from the profession, whereas that responsibility should really be shouldered by every one of us in society who have contact with young people.

I'm still here though, still standing, a dishevelled figure unable to grasp concepts like humour and without the ready smile that I once wore. Still here in body though that body cries out for forgiveness. Still here, eyes transfixed on the end of next month like a displaced sailor lamenting a lost love.

Yet it drags on still, class after class after endless class, seemingly without end, crushing and suffocating. It will end though, I keep telling myself, one day it will end and all this will be a distant memory and you'll be able to laugh again.

It will end and when it does your friends will be there waiting with open arms to welcome you back into the world that you left so long ago.

Teaching is a great profession if you are 100% committed to the cause and ready to give everything you have. I have had to give everything I have and more but my heart was not in it and that's why I'm so crushed really. If you're not prepared for the extraction of your will, this job can crush you as it has me. Take up a PGCE at your peril.

Alan Moore - A truly extraordinary writer

I've been reading "Watchmen" by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Gibbons' artwork has conveyed many a storyline by Frank Miller, another great writer and after the majesty of "Swamp Thing" by Alan Moore I should have expected the combination of Moore and Gibbons to produce fireworks.

But I didn't expect it to be this good. I was meant to be planning lessons for this week and making a start on my 3rd PGCE assignment but I can't put it down. Watchmen is fucking amazing. Alan Moore's potent narrative combined with Gibbons' pinpoint timing has me completely hooked even more than Swamp Thing. When I read Swamp Thing I thought comics didn't get any better but this is a completely new experience.

On closer inspection I see that there is talk of a Watchmen film, but having read about the hash that Hollywood made of Swamp Thing, and the flop that was Alan Moore's other work, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I can't say that the idea of bringing Watchmen to the big screen fills me with joy. It's been proved time and again that when stories make the transition between the medium of comics, if it's handled by fuckwits it will detract far more from the original comic than from the movie. Comic characters come with history that is tampered with at will by unfeeling directors in Hollywood, who are often in for the quick hit with no real understanding of the characters.

I am off back to my copy of Watchmen anyway, as I'm not really breaking any new ground here. Just make sure you pick up a copy of it next time you're in the shops and for god sakes don't watch any more crap comicbook movie adaptions.

Summer kungfu camp 2004 announcement

This years summer planz are startin to come together and my overwhelming desire to learn and practice more kung fu is the overriding theme for this year. I have suggested taking myself and some devout practitioners off to somewhere very remote, perhaps in Scotland or Ireland and live in a tent for some weeks, gettin up at the crack of dawn and doing mad skillz training a la Tom Cruise in Last Samurai.

TrizzleDizzle the one-legged samurai has suggested Cornwall which seems like a stunner of an idea. As long as we can get away from humanity and live in a tent or something away from prying eyes in order to perfect our art then I'm up for some. Any suggestions welcome

The plan is thus. Me and a group of my friends and their friends will take off and set up camp in somewhere remote. We'll take with us, beers, food, weapons and martial arts manuals and teach ourselves. Anyone up for some martial self-learning with some like-minded souls are free to join us, but you will need to bring your own tent, your own weapons and your own food.

Suggested dates based on my availability
28 June to 11 July
26 July to 28 August
September

Any suggestions in comments or by mail please

30 days left...No I haven't lost the ability to count!

FUCK!

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!

I got assessed yesterday at school for my PGCE and delivered quite possibly the best lesson I've ever given, to my top set year 8 who absolutely think I'm great. I stormed it and my tutor was impressed at the leaps and bounds I had made, so I could well be on my way to passing this goddamn course at last.

On the downside though, given my time off last term, I have to make up 2 weeks of teaching. While everyone else will be back in college next term I'm stuck in school teaching for 2 weeks. So I've got to grit my teeth and get down again. Dammit. The light at the end of the tunnel has just got a little more distant.

My year 8s were brilliant though - on the way out they said to Graham, "You've got to give him an 'A' sir, he's brilliant!" I thought they were so sweet! Of course there was chocolate involved...