Friday the Thirteenth

Is that how you spell 13th?! Anyone know? I was gonna be patronising about how we should all write out numbers in full more often but seriously, do they ever look right if you do?!

Ahem anyways, a short blog today to tell you about my day at Dormston High in Sedgeley.

Was very straightforward really. Got phoned the other day saying there was work available, and despite my bad back I leapt at the chance for some pennies as now the iPhone 3G has been announced, I know I’ll have to get one (faster downloads will be awesome for me, as the iPhone is mostly a mobile internet for me!) Went to bed earlyish last night, made sure not to take any of my painkillers (as they fuzz my head up), and slept pretty well.

Up at 6:40am this morning, had breakfast, shower, got dressed, out the door buy 7:45 —well within the timeframe needed to get me there via the power of MomTaxi. Got to school on time. VERY nice-looking place. Lovely reception area and nice lobby/courtyard. Really impressive to look at. Start to think positive.

Staff briefing is VERY brief, and then a woman approaches me and asks me who I am. I give her my name and supply agency, and she passes me on to the supply coordinator who informs me she has no idea why I’m here.

Ooookay. So she takes me to her office and explains that the guy who has been there recently has turned up for work today. I knew about him being there, but I’d been told he wasn’t available for that day so the agency had asked me to come instead. But now apparently they had both of us.

Couldn’t get anyone on the phone so I say my farewells, being not massively bothered about not having to work, and get on a bus heading for Dudley in an attempt to get home cheaply.

Ten minutes into the journey, I get a phonecall from the boss, explaining how wires have got crossed and the guy who had turned up at Dormston was actually supposed to be at Pedmore, and could I get there.

Well yeah, I could, but I was on a bus to Dudley and it was gonna take me a good while to do so. “Get off the bus and I’ll come pick you up,” says the boss. So I do. I’m standing on Wolverhampton St. next to Kwik-Fit. Wolverhampton St is the main road into Dudley from Sedgely way. Easy enough to find says Mother, who I inform of this.

But I still don’t manage to get to school until just after 9:30, 15mins before the end of first lesson. By the time I’ve got my timetable, got over to science, and apologise to the necessaries, its 5 minutes before period 2. Still, means I only had to teach four lessons today. 1 on chemistry, 1 on physics, and 2 music (and I didn’t really teach the last music lesson either — the normal teacher’s son ran the class, which was weird.)

Sounds like a reasonable day, apart from the somewhat shitty start. Remember what I said about the no-painkillers though? Well, turns out by 10:30am I was in considerable pain and had to risk head fuzziness so as to counter the shards of glass being thrust up and down my spinal column (that’s a metaphor people, don’t worry!) So as the day wore on, my head was just going more and more whooooo and by period 5 I’m not sure I was all that coherent. Good job I wasn’t really teaching the lesson.

And then I realised I’d forgotten to print out and take a timesheet with me, so I couldn’t even get that signed off. Popped into the office and sorted out my availability for next week and asked them to sort out the timesheet for me, bought myself a baguette from the French Deli to eat while I recuperate before the weakly shop, and I’m now sitting here half-tempted to go have a nap/try not to pass out.

That was my Friday 13th. How was yours?