Today was our second day back at school before the Rug Rat Army infiltrates the grounds wearing their spanking new shoes and wrestling with huge cardboard boxes full of books, pencils, and glue sticks for us teachers to spend hours sorting when we’d much rather be horizontal on a couch with a crisp Chardonnay in hand.
What do teachers do when they have no kids to teach?
Sit on chairs designed for three foot hobbits with our lower backs going into violent spasms and suffering the exact same droning lectures we inflict on our students that’s what.
At ten-thirty we plodded up to the staffroom like a herd of weary cattle for a recuperative cup of tea and a snack.
A symphony of twenty cans of tuna snapped open simultaneously; a legacy of too much festive cheer and indulgence over the six week break.
You want to know what we talked about?
The main topic of conversation centred on our Christmas break up party in November and where we should hold it in 2014.
Jaded as it sounds for only our second day back in the trenches, there is a fresh wind of change at school this year.
My Grade Four cohort has been transformed and Pinky’s long-suffering buddy teacher Rach, has moved into an administrative role.
O’Reilly’s buddy, Joe the Irish teacher, wisely absconded back to the mother country and has been replaced by the boisterous and dynamic Shazza.
(Placing Shazza and Pinky in the same year level may prove to be slightly dangerous and was possibly an oversight by the bosses but we’ll try to behave ourselves and keep our heads low so they don’t realise their mistake.)
My new buddy teacher is a graduate teacher, fresh from University.
“You’ll scare the poor girl to death!” commented Kaz, when we met the quietly spoken, slender, slip of a girl yesterday.
“No I won’t! I’ll be a great mentor to Gemma!” I retorted with all the confidence of a nonlifejacket-wearing saxophone player on the Titanic.
“Well for a start you can stop calling her ‘Gemma’,” replied Kaz drily, “her name’s Jenna.”
The truth is I’m delighted to be in the position to act as a tutor, supporter and cheer-leader for my new buddy and have compiled a list of important items she may like to take note of;
The Chicken Caesar Salad Wraps at the tuckshop are glorious and very cheap when you compare prices around town.
Never ask Pinky anything about computers, Smart Boards or anything technical because she will just stare at you with her mouth open until she begins to dribble.
Pinky is quite selfish about her Blu Tac and Sticky Dots so don’t bother asking to borrow them. However, she will be very generous with her Smart Board peripheral cable.
Don’t steal Pinky’s special parking spot in the morning. Anne, the office lady, tried it on one day and a bitter feud resulted which lasted for two weeks, until Pinky needed a sick bucket and saw dust sent down from the office after an unfortunate regurgitation by one of the students and was forced to apologise to Anne on the telephone.
Finally, never approach Pinky in her classroom before school as that’s her precious preparation time. Also... because old ladies like Pinky tend to suffer early morning flatulence of the kind that no Glade plug-in air freshener can ever hope to disguise. Just ask Rach!
(Placing Shazza and Pinky in the same year level may prove to be slightly dangerous and was possibly an oversight by the bosses but we’ll try to behave ourselves and keep our heads low so they don’t realise their mistake.)
My new buddy teacher is a graduate teacher, fresh from University.
“You’ll scare the poor girl to death!” commented Kaz, when we met the quietly spoken, slender, slip of a girl yesterday.
“No I won’t! I’ll be a great mentor to Gemma!” I retorted with all the confidence of a nonlifejacket-wearing saxophone player on the Titanic.
“Well for a start you can stop calling her ‘Gemma’,” replied Kaz drily, “her name’s Jenna.”
The truth is I’m delighted to be in the position to act as a tutor, supporter and cheer-leader for my new buddy and have compiled a list of important items she may like to take note of;
The Chicken Caesar Salad Wraps at the tuckshop are glorious and very cheap when you compare prices around town.
Never ask Pinky anything about computers, Smart Boards or anything technical because she will just stare at you with her mouth open until she begins to dribble.
Pinky is quite selfish about her Blu Tac and Sticky Dots so don’t bother asking to borrow them. However, she will be very generous with her Smart Board peripheral cable.
Don’t steal Pinky’s special parking spot in the morning. Anne, the office lady, tried it on one day and a bitter feud resulted which lasted for two weeks, until Pinky needed a sick bucket and saw dust sent down from the office after an unfortunate regurgitation by one of the students and was forced to apologise to Anne on the telephone.
Finally, never approach Pinky in her classroom before school as that’s her precious preparation time. Also... because old ladies like Pinky tend to suffer early morning flatulence of the kind that no Glade plug-in air freshener can ever hope to disguise. Just ask Rach!
Tomorrow night, a dear friend of mine, Sinead, will be presenting a guest post in which she tells a few lies and litigious falsifications about how she met Pinky.
