Day 31

A month, and only one missed post - owing to work and driving - I don't think that is a bad effort at all.

It has been hard in places - yesterday for example!

However I have got there.

Today was pay-day so excellent.

Also lessons were pretty good.

The night has snuck up on me so I am to tired to properly blog.

Tomorrow we are out on a Scarlet House social. Should be interesting - all you can eat! Hooray.

Year 7's were lush today but not really down with twitter, meant the plenary was interesting.

My year 8's were brilliant and seemed to enjoy learning about volcanoes - who wouldn't? tomorrow we are making temporary magnets!

Which should be class.

Year 9's were better today, still to noisy but at least no fights!

Bonus.

Battery is dying, I am sleepy.

Oh I did write a song/poem about dwarf planets today - it was during a lesson I am not THAT geeky, well maybe a little?

Dwarf planets are small,

Can’t clear their orbit at all,

Ceres is the first in line,

They orbit in space and time,

Pluto was a planet,

Got downgraded – damn it!

Got small gravity,

But more than you and me,

Haumea and Makemake together,

In space forever?

The last dwarf is Eris,

But it couldn’t care less!

Have some of that! 

'I've been to the Moon!' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqIr7e709L8

Well, one day...

30th day

I missed a day I know.

Not a good day, but there was some good points.

Hard to find them though.

Funny questions from year 8's were a highlight of the school day.

Aaaaaaand that was it.

Food was amazing - thanks Maria.

Sounds like my sister has had a good birthday too.

Which is all a bonus.

Will blog better tomorrow.

28th day

I am a day behind on this, I will rectify this as soon as I can!

Got a new phone yesterday, a HTC Sensation or something. All I know is it has a good camera, internet access and all the aps I used to have on my Blackberry.

My Dad is very happy with my old Blackberry. So all is good!

My sister moved into her new house yesterday, the place is lovely and I'm sure she will be very happy there with her boyfriend.

Well once they have unpacked! Though I don't think Becki has enough room for her shoes, she rivals Maria for her shoe collection!

I submitted my reviews for some A level resources, it is nice to feel useful to a wider community sometimes. Though whether the reviews are accepted or not only time will tell.

I still have a huge to do list which is causing some annoyance, I seem to get it down to half a dozen things and then another 2 dozen items get added. Ah well I'm sure this is just a test of character or something?

Maybe.

With regard character I wore my St. Christopher for the first time in a year yesterday, still have it on. That got me thinking.

Now I'm not religious but I do like old stories - when does a story change from a religious parable to an ancient myth by the way? - and the one of St. Christopher is a favourite of mine.

I won't bore you with the story - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Christopher if you are interested - however the part I really like is the crossing of the river.

The river got swollen and dangerous, the child on his shoulders became heavier and heavier but rather than turn back Christopher forged on and eventually reached his goal, exhausted but safe - as was the child.

Now ignoring the religious overtones - here was a person who was under great stress, but kept going, not because he wanted to but because someone was depending on him not to fail. And eventually he reached safety.

That I think is life, you have a point you want to reach and everything going on makes it tough to get there.

But we can't quit.

It's funny how this all fits in with what I seem to be going through at the moment, a full on difficult time professionally but I can't throw in the towel, which is why I'm marking BTEC portfolio's on a Sunday.

But then again horoscopes fit with peoples days too don't they? http://www.dailyhoroscopes.com/

27th day

A slightly delayed blog today. Friday seemed to just come and go, which is nice!

I have changed the layout of the page on the request of Miss Helliwell - I hope this is better.

Year 11's are plowing through their BTEC folders at a pretty good pace, well most of them are, there are still a handful who haven't quite grasped the approaching deadlines.

Main success of the day was the choc-cycle with year 8. This is a way of showing the rock cycle - igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary - using chocolate.

1) Take different types of chocolate - white, dark, milk - and cut or grate them into small bits so you can layer them. This gives you sedimentary rock like sandstone or limestone.

2)  Fold your sedimentary rock into some foil and apply pressure. This squishes up the sedimentary rock making metamorphic - like marble or slate.

3) Heat the metamorphic rock in a tin tray over some boiling water. This melts all the chocolate together making an igneous rock like basalt or granite.

30 learners working in pairs on this was a recipe for molten chocolate mess. However the group worked really well and the experiment worked brilliantly.

Good times.

Football was a bit underwhelming as we only had 3 a side however the post football pub trip was graced by both Mr Grafton and Mr Veron.

This meant good banter and pseudo-intellectual chat was had by all.

Although I still don't know what Phil was on about with improper super-adjective-noun-not-a-noun-indefinite-article-thingy but in Spanish not English.

day 26

Sorry this week has not been treated as well as previous ones, but work has turned the screw a bit.

And I may have mentioned that I have a sty which has made me crabby.

Like seriously http://media.photobucket.com/image/super%20crab/sussexboys/super-crab.jpg

Added to this a healthy dose of January blues and mid term students and the energy to produce this blog plummets.

Add to this that on Monday we found out that our department is being shrunk by 1 for next year, which means I have to reinterview for my job, and yeah this week has been tough.

However a few positives have emerged in the last 24 hour period.

Firstly I am now officially - I think - writing for a publishing company, even if it is only on a trial basis. I have 2 weeks to produce some BTEC resources for the new specification. This is a tall order but actually I am almost looking forward to the challenge. Besides that coffee doesn't drink itself!

Secondly after cleaning out the dead mussels and resetting the experiment - for science club naturally - we got really good evidence supporting the use of mussels as biofilters. Which is excellent! I really enjoyed gathering evidence for this, reminded me of my MSc dissertation, I think the students really enjoyed it to - in case you were wondering!

Thirdly, good reports back from parents evening! A great uptake from my group into triple science for next year, which means that have chosen to do science - hooray! but also some nice comments from parents about how much they enjoy science and how much they seem to have learned this year.

Excellent!

Finally Maria made me an awesome combination wrap when I got in, bacon, cheese and avocado. Absolutely stunning.

And tomorrow is Friday!

Happy days, off to see Mum and Becki for their respective birthdays this weekend and my Dad who has managed to go for a walk which is a good sign.

Which means hopefully next week will be better.

Next week will be better!

Though busier!

Although I have nearly got my BTEC marking under control which will make a big impact on my workload.

Right off for a bath a read and maybe a night cap.

Have a good one.

25th day

Short post.

Did some research science today. Great fun!

Yeah 9's were very good today. Got some good levels in an assessed piece of work, also had lots of the enquire about triple science last night. Excellent.

Right I'm off, need to organise lots of things.

Laters...

day 24

I am sore.

My eye burns where the sty is developing. I keep bathing it and I hope an early night tonight will help it to go away.

However I have had a fairly good day. Had to scrap and experiment and re-set it up. Recorded some results and pushed my aching body as far as it would go.

Started an open university free course in astrobiology.

Will post more when I can see properly.