So here I am at Stoke rail station again, waiting for a train over an hour away. Why? Because Newcastle United are playing at home.
I do so wish I had a car. I would certainly save a lot of hassle. It would definitely lead to me being less tired!
I taught today. It’s not the first time: it’s just the first time I’ve mentioned it here. It didn’t go terribly badly, there was still a lot of criticisms but I’m still learning. So despite being catastrophically tired, it’s all still good.
So great to be on a train again. Mother trying to navigate three very young children with her limited but nonetheless colourful vocabulary. I’m trying to do an assignment here!
I finished my week-long primary placement on Friday. I’ll miss those kids! They were cheeky at times but they were friendly and we had a laugh. I most likely cemented myself in lore by falling unexpectedly and acrobatically trying to play football with them. Lesson learned.
And now I’m on my way back to Keele having watched Newcastle draw again. Thinking about a nice cup of tea…
I’ve taken respite from the world of… nothing. I’m in Lincolnshire to visit my grandparents. We went to Lincoln today, which was quite nice but it rained a lot. They say the weather is very localised around here. I’ve noticed that. It’s reminded me of that song… “Why does it always rain on me?” – Travis, is who that was.
I have received some sort of confirmation that I’ve been offered a place on the PGCE course – conditional on my satisfactory criminal record and health. They should be fine, except I’m not sure whether I’m a hypochondriac or a hyperchondriac! I live with the determination that there must be something wrong with me, but not the inclination to go and find out what that is! So I could get all-clear good news or double-whammy bad news. However, seeing as I’m in Lincs at the moment, I’m not likely to find out any time soon.
So in some regard, I can’t wait to get back and sort things out. However, that’s also something I’m very much not looking forward to!
Well, the interview went badly. It was an hour and a quarter late in coming, and despite my best efforts, all my best one-liners stayed firmly within the sanctity of my brain. I wanted to show how passionate and dedicated I was, yet neither of the words “passionate” or “dedicated” transpired to pass my lips.
I wanted to really emphasise the significance of the voluntary work I had been doing: working at one of the country’s most celebrated schools in a hugely achieving mathematics department, creating high quality resources the teachers and students can have fun using.
I wanted to demonstrate my eagerness to teach, my ability to teach, and the comfort in which I can converse and talk to children in an education environment. I stumbled over the question: “what would you do if a teacher asked you to take a lesson at ten minutes’ notice with no further input or help?”
But it worked. I’m going to be a student again!
…but I have to. Another interview, miles upon miles away. Despite being in a fantastic position, with the experience I have accrued, I can’t help but feel I’m still not a teacher, qualified or otherwise.
But having spent so much time, effort and money in order to get to this point, I mustn’t let my hesitations impede the interview.
It’s quite funny really. After six months of unemployment, Jobcentre Plus will send you on a “13 week course”. Putting you on such a “training programme” gets you off their books for the time being, and they give you about £15 a week extra. While you are on there, you are no longer regarded as unemployed as such: government figures on unemployment for July will exclude me.
I have an interview next week, which requires hotel stays and long train journeys again. It’s cost me about £150 so far. JC+ are, of course, unwilling to help remunerate that cost, for it is not a job I am applying for… it’s a course. Annoying.
Talking of annoying… and of this 13 week course…
Before I started, I was volunteering at a local secondary school, getting good quality experience. I had enrolled on two short courses to get decent qualifications. I was sending up to six application forms a week and getting a rather good ratio of applications to interviews. Now I’ve started, I’m not able to carry on my volunteer work, and the placement in exactly the same place doing exactly the same thing they have meant to have organised has not materialised. I have been told I cannot attend those two courses and must do one rather pointless one instead, because they can get double-funding. I attend this course for about 30 hours a week, doing six hours of “jobsearch”: which actually prevents me from filling in application forms.
When you add communist protesters camping outside, weekly bomb scares and fire alerts, crying staff and violent outbursts, it’s not a great place to be. Having said that, I’ve been allocated to a group that’s actually quite nice. But I still feel I would have been much better placed carrying on what I was doing off my own back.
I wanted to talk about my graduation on Monday, but I am also going to talk about faith. Faith is a fantastic thing. Faith is the belief that something good will come of something. It isn’t really a tangible thing, and the degree of its existence is purely at the discretion of the beholder.
But what does faith do? It can do good things and bad things: it spurs people on to support others; it gives people the conviction to do certain things; it gives reason when otherwise there would be no meaning. These can be interpreted in different ways, and not just within the confines of religion, either.
Faith can be bad for other reasons. Finding that your faith has been misplaced is soul-crushing; and the more you commit to a faith the more destroying it can become when that faith comes undone. But faith isn’t a one-way thing. You do not have to be a deity to have faith placed in you. If you find yourself in that position, it immediately becomes a role of responsibility. Letting such faith slide will be of great disappointment to those that entrusted you with their belief.
Lastly, I mentioned before that faith inspires people to act and gives them reason to do so. This applies to both the faith-holder and the faith-giver.
I would like to thank the lecturers at Newcastle University that have placed in their faith in me: in particular to Dr Michael White, Dr Alina Vdovina and Dr Zinaida Lykova who spoke to me on Monday. They have shown trust in my ability (despite my doubts!) beyond the course, and have urged me to look into studying towards a PhD. I’d also like to thank Mum and Dad for being there and making the best of the day (even though there was a lot of standing around in the drizzle). I would also like to thank anyone else that has shown any sort of faith in me of whom they may be numerous.
A final note: the ceremony was recorded and can be viewed at the University congregations website (fast forward to 40 minutes if you don’t want to see the entire hour’s ceremony!). I’d like to thank Lord Patten that presided over the ceremony in his position as Chancellor of the University (I understand he was not present at all ceremonies) because that was pretty much a bonus!
I read this morning about Lord Coe’s glowing view of the legacy of the 2012 Olympic Games. He says:
I don’t see a generation out there who are lost or are hoodies, I don’t see the world like that, when I go around that’s not what I see.
I’ve taken a rather pessimistic view of sport in Britain, and that the Olympics will do little to change that. In my personal experience, sport is only pushed in the way of those that display early talent. And even then, only those that get personal attention early on have a chance of making it into the big time.
It was a gripe of mine that while at Borden Grammar, that despite years of concerns from teachers about lack of funding and teaching resources for academic studies, funding was made available for and spent on a huge astroturf pitch, a new pavilion (with impressive catering facilities) and an additional all-weather area for other sports. It felt like a betrayal, in part, that I spent time in a school supposedly encouraging academic excellence, which maintained a firm eye on improving the sports facilities. This wouldn’t have irked me so much had there not already been an astroturf pitch in Sittingbourne, and had the school not been surrounded by a park, a leisure centre, further field space and a local workers’ group recreation centre.
But despite this, during my time at university and at school, I’ve found that time is invested in you only if you are a marketable asset. If you can represent the school or university at a competitive level, you are open to all sorts of time investiture, financial investment and perks. I never felt welcome at football or cricket trials at school and was never really encouraged at all during that time. At university, participating in any sort of sporting activity requires money (and a substantial amount): that is, of course, unless you show any sort of finesse. In which case, you are not only treated to free gym membership and use of all the university’s sporting facilities (and I dare say priority in obtaining them), you are also privy to free personal attention, performance monitoring and any advice they can spare (see the CPRS site).
In essence, sport is for those that have the time invested in them. This is the kind of thing Lord Coe sees. If you have been able to build on early talent, you will never see a locked door. If you are like me and want to get into sport, I hear tiddlywinks is quite affordable.
Well the exams have passed. Now it’s a waiting game for the results. It wasn’t a great exam. Everything I had studied on Monday had pretty much vanished from my short term memory… perhaps occupied by recent events. I relied on my long term memory which thankfully wasn’t too shabby as usual, so I should have done enough to get a half-decent mark, though I suspect it won’t be as high as I might have expected. It’s all rather unfortunate.
But I haven’t been allowed to feel sorry myself for too long. I am getting constant reminders of what should be my current preoccupation: finding a job. And I am still being too picky. I’ve decided I won’t work or live in London. I really don’t like the place and I cannot see why so many love it so much.
I am thinking of becoming a personal tutor again: and that is no easy option. I need to seek some advice on that score. In the mean time, I do have a couple jobs that should see me through the summer at least.
I received an email from Newcastle University recently about the tickets they have allocated for my graduation. I was hoping to receive my basic allocation, plus the two seats in the TV relay room they advised we should apply for. This email told me that they have received more applications for these TV relay tickets than expected, and that they will offer me… none. This angered me: they have not set aside tickets equally for their students. So I complained, but to little avail.
Dad rang this evening, to talk about the graduation amongst other things. He seems all sorted and he will be coming. Mum doesn’t like it (at all) but thankfully she is overlooking that fact to come. However, the remaining problem was that of my maternal grandparents. My original plan was to give them the two seats I had been expecting to receive for the relay room. However, not being given these tickets meant that they would not be able to come at all. After I had spoken to Dad, Mum decided it would be the best to inform my grandparents of the news.
I’d wanted to invite them to thank them for the help they gave me in my first year. However it had always been their intention for me to show a greater gratitude by turning my father away and inviting my grandad instead. On receiving the news from Mum that Dad would be coming, I am now excommunicated from the family in their eyes, and Mum’s position isn’t all to rosy either. Even had I got those tickets, they made it clear they would have refused to come. They have made some childish threats and have effectively sought to make Mum choose between ties with me and her ties with them.
Oh… and wish me luck for my exam tomorrow.
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