Brief

Week1 of the new teaching job done. Making flash but still a successful week carefully negotiated. It's always the case with the 1st week. It's not always easy to know what your classes are going to be like both in terms of the abilities and the personalities that the students have. It makes it difficult to plan for actually. Not only that, it will be the same students for the duration of the academic year so its important to get off to a strong and capable start - lying down the rules and letting the students know what is expected of them and of course, for them to know how to react in class and to seek out what they can get away with and how far they can push me. A couple of students I will have to watch but generally, it seems like a good mix of Eastern Eurpeans coupled with Spanish and Italians also. I guess the hard work starts when the initial honeymoon period begins.

The travelling though is tiresome. As I've mentioned before, 3 hours door to door is less than ideal but the possibilibity of having my classes condensded from 5 days into 4 might ease the boredom factor and indeed the very early mornings. So far so ....*

*insert desirable word.

Shadow

Been abit of a hectic week. The McGoogleberries 30th last saturday...and no gossip? Hmm, something strange there unless of course you consider a certain man who should know better getting his pants out. It's neither cool nor clever - though I think he uses Daz.

Alas, I have a job. It is at a certain Further Education College outwith Edinburgh. Indeed it is almost a 90 minute commute to it. I've been offered a temp. part time position teaching 9 classes over 5 days. Not enough to merit moving to the town in question. In fact, the only thing that I can say that justifies taking the position is that it: 1. its not taken much time to find a new job after finishing Uni. 2. it'll look quite good on my CV and 3. the hourly rate is quite good, in fact its the best hourly rate I've had in Britain. But, the 5.30am start in order to get in for 9am class might well suck the life out of me and thats a major concern. It's not a job that is completely new to me - in fact its much like my Uni. job back in Korea but its in Scotland which given the paucity of ESL jobs with decent hourly rates of pay dictates that I have to consider this job as a good move even if it doesn't seem like it to others. This then would also extinguish any urge to return to a certain Republic out East. I would say that that would be unlikely; certainly in the short term and although you can't predict the future I think it wouldn't be controversial to suggest that I won't be going back but that is a completely different story and not one that I'm willing to formally commit to putting into words here.

Not really sure what else is happening out 'there'. Kind of been in my own little bubble of late. Think that might be another way of saying I've been being selfish and inconsiderate of others and other situations but then it wouldn't be the 1st time I've been accused of that. Looking after number1 as the idiom goes. Think I'm going to continue in that vain for alittle while, so apologies in advance. Everyone else is at it, so why can't I.
over and out.

spaceman.

imponderables:
1. Scotland qualifying for Euro08. 3 games to go. We could get 26 points and still not qualify. Or we could play crap and in all 3 games and lose and not qualify.
2. Since Spetember has arrived, it has become increasingly windy. Has anyone else noticed? It wasn't that windy in July.
3. The chances of you being well chuffed that you managed to catch the coach back to Edinburgh with 2 minutes to spare. Only for it to break down en route.
4. Why people have a blog and don't write anything in it for months.
5. Whether or not taking a job that entails a 2 hour commute is worth it, particularly if it is a temporary position and constitutes only 10 hours of work per week - over 5 days. Might be good for the CV but...
6. Why '-tastic' is an ending that could be used with so many prefixes. Chebtastic, blogtastic, eight-tastic, goaltastic et al. And why are they not in the dictionary.
7. Suddenly I've lost all ability to complete 'spider' - level 2. How can I get 4 runs and not finish the job off? It's a farce. I think the last Window's update has done something to it.
8. If I was that woman that won £35 million on the lottery. Not literatally 'being' that woman, clearly but having the amount of money in the Bank. It would be mental. But quite a nice 'mental'. Think I'd try and do something about the wind .
9. The actions of others. At a fundamental level can you really trust anyone apart from yourself? Is there always an element of doubt, however small, when needing to rely or whatever on someone else?
10. Females. Kind of follows on from point 9.

Submitted

Oh my. Think we might have pissed the French off. We pissed them off last October when we beat them at Hampden. And we've deeply pissed them off again by beating them in Paris. The 1st one was cheeky, the 2nd one - well, arrogant I guess. What else can you say when you beat them with a 30 yard shot?

Mental.

Top of the group after 9 games. The World champions Italy 2nd and the French back in 3rd. Might be far to say that Ukraine are pretty much out of the reckoning. I wonder if 2 more wins from our final 3 games would be enough to see us qualify? Even if we go into our final game against Italy with a chance of qualifying, that would be something. But, lets not get carried away. We'll be expected to win at home but it doesn't always go like that. That said, its not minnows that we have at home, so that might be our saving grace.
Just can't quite believe it.

Actually, thats a sentence that could be applied to the week in general.

agency

The infinite dullness that is job-hunting. It's actually soul destroying. I wake up each morning in the belief that today will be the day that I see something that I want to apply for. It's happened 3 times so far. But the rest of the time has been time spent being frustrated by nothing that really hits the spot in terms of what I could do. In actual fact, I probably could do alot of the jobs that are advertised. Alas, its not that simple. Search for jobs and thats it. Nothing else to look forward to until the following day when more jobs are posted. And that's the depressing bit.

I might have to apply for jobs that I care nothing for, just so that I can get some money in. Supermarkets and the like. My goodness. Has it really come to that?
Well, no. Not yet. I literally could choose a country and get a teaching job. But, thats what I was doing, before going back to University. What would be the point in that then? None really. Again, it might come to that.

.
.
.and in other news:
1. Klaxons winning the Mercury. Hmm. They were quite touched by it. Think I might have went for Maps instead though.
2. Explosive corrosive if that mother bumped off her daughter in Portugal.
3. Dirty Jambo B-----D. Yes, you Lithuninian. 9.6 for your dive and I hope you get abuse for it in every Scottish ground you play in. A disgrace.
4. Can't be arsed with people getting touchy over asking a few questions enquiring about how they are getting on. It's as if you can't be concerned or interested in other people without being suspected of saying something you shouldn't have, like asking questions. Where would be all be if we didn't ask each other questions?
5. It's all a faff.

master

mr pf. is not a happy person.