Exams, Illness, Spiders and Parties!
SpiderAs usual, life still rocks.
Last week, my life was (as it is this week) consumed by marking exams and invigilating. I’m still marking the Grade 11 Pre-CXC Exams (like Prelims or Mocks) and haven’t even started marking the End of Term Tests for Grade 10 or 11. Thankfully some other teachers took pity on me and have marked all my Multiple Choice papers, so I ‘just’ have Paper Two’s to do. It’s mind numbingly boring and quite depressing when you realise that they’ve forgotten virtually everything you taught them (probably because they weren’t paying attention in the first place, and didn’t revise for their exams anyway). Sometimes the exams are so terrible it’s just funny. One boy wrote an entire essay that consisted of ‘sentences’ like: “Befoude you mo wate is the God muse and coucheng coilcouse hoise the louse thoiec gaheuirs with couse tha mourd”. So far I’ve had 3 passes … out of about 100 papers marked so far. Oh joy …
As for invigilation, that’s also as boring as sin, and makes me quite angry. My class is a Grade 9 class, so they’re much less mature than Rosie’s Grade 11s. Despite me reminding them at the beginning of every exam not to do this, they still call me over and inform me that they’ve finished and tell me to take their paper. Now I’ve taken to just glaring at them and shrugging my shoulders. One of the boys also had a giant, green grasshopper in one exam, which he kept putting in the girls’ hair and on my bare feet. I doubt the invigilators at home have this problem! To stop them from being particularly annoying after they’ve finished their exam, I give them paper to draw on now, which keeps them quiet for a while. They all run out of the class faster than lizards when I dismiss them though!
Last weekend was Calum’s Birthday, Rosie and I went across the Kato to celebrate. Rosie wanted to beat her running record and do it in under 1h, 35m (she got 1h, 39m), so she said that she’d do all the washing up for the rest of the year if I was fine walking on my own. Obviously, this opportunity was too good to miss, so I agreed … much to the hilarity of the other teachers, because both of us were grinning like maniacs, convinced that we had the best deal. The walk was pretty dull, though I did see a very, very large black spider on a rock when I stopped at the creek to top up my water bottle. The bag was rather heavy as it had our stuff in it, cake ingredients and two large parcels for Calum which had come in the post. One parcel was wrapped in a plastic bag and tied to the back of the rucksack, so I spent the whole walk afraid that it would fall. Rosie came back after her run, and we walked for a short while. Then some young guy came past with his motorbike (two women on the back, probably his mum and granny). The ladies then told him to go and pick us up, so we got a motorbike ride to the top of the Big Hill. Bloody terrifying, but also very fun! At Kato, we swam, plotted our journey to Lethem at Easter, watched QI on Rachael’s laptop, make curry and roti for everyone at the party with the help of Granny (Gomes) who gave me her cold, and partied in the shop. The next morning was spent recovering in bed, making bread and watching Shawshank Redemption. The boys then went to Toushao, who let them borrow his ATV, so Calum drove us all to PK. It was a very enjoyable ride after our fear of death had diminished. I’m getting better at no-hands too.
Was off school on Monday and Tuesday with headaches and an awful cold. Found a large, scary spider in my bed, been planning some new project ideas (I’ll mention them in my next blog), found a new grid for the fire, got told off for shooting someone’s dog with a slingshot (in my defence, it was having a dump in my garden), been given some grapefruit wine (virtually a liquor!), marking, marking, marking, marking.
Loving life. Adios!