Wonderful and wonderful to downright frustrating
Hello! Last week i spent one exhausting, but thoroughly enjoyable week in my local primary school working with littluns. They are sooo much nicer than teenagers it's almost unbelievable that in just 6 or so years they'll be turning into the horrible creatures that are the teenage race. I wasn't sworn at once, and the worst that happened was a little girl coming to me saying someone had called her a 'poo' - well if that's the worst that's happened to you, you've had it pretty good, right? Right. Luckily i received a glowing report, of which i am particularly proud of the phrase "i have nothing but praise for Miss Lambert and would welcome her back at any time". Cool! it did make me wonder temporarily if i was doing the right course, as i think i would really love to work with juniors one day. Still, i have my whole life ahead of me and can probably do a downsizing of skills course in later years if i don't like being shouted at and criticised everyday, and go do littluns again then. So that was the wonderful part. This weekend Paul and I went up to lincolnshire to visit his parents, and in particular his empty nest syndrome mummy. This was also a wonderful trip, as i really like it up there, we got to see a film in the kinema in the woods which i really like (it's a cinema that still has an intermission! how quaint), we got fed lovely homecooked meals and they had re-decorated paul's room back home, and put in a double bed for us, which was a lovely touch and the room looked gorgeous. So that's the next wonderful bit. However, now we get down to the nitty-gritty.
Today i started officially my PGCE course. It was like my first day at school waking up this morning all nervous and worrying you won't make any friends, and i begged paul to let me stay at home and not go, but he wouldn't allow it, so i went. I did meet some new people and get chatting to them, and i've been invited round someone's house for dinner and another girls house for drinks, which is nice. I also found out one other girl hadn't done hardly any of the work we were set which made me feel a lot more relaxed about not having finished it, especially as it sounds like she's done even less than me owing to her full-time summer job. We had some interesting lectures which reminded me of a pep talk before a big sports game, or the calm before the storm. Then the afternoon session began. And the queueing. And the queueing. And the queueing. We queued up to hand in our registration form and fee (£30 just for them to process this form!). Then we began queueing for the next handouts. I was pulled out of this queue to go collect my degree certificate from the last place because they hadn't been able to post it. I had then lost my place in the next queue and had to go to the back. I checked my certificate was there, and my transcript of results. Whilst i had done well in my degree, i hadn't done THAT well. Low and behold, although the transcript was all in my name, i'd apparently gotten a first and done really well in my vikings paper. Yes, i'd got sally's transcript with my name on it. Whilst this is a pretty cool result, i was honest about not getting a first, so got back in the first queue to tell them they'd got it wrong. I finally spoke to the guy, who said "as long as you did get a 2.2 or over we don't care" so i got back in the second queue, at the back now for the third time. Once processed, we went to another room to matriculate. Here i got in the wrong queue, as it turns out 'lambert' isn't alphabetically between 'freeman' and 'johnson' - ok, so that one was my fault. But after getting in the queue for 'jones' to 'pullman' the girl at the desk decides to leave for half an hour to go for her tea-break, despite there being about 20 people in the queue waiting to be seen by her. So we wait. And wait. And wait. She returns all smiley as if she was only gone a second, and starts processing us. Finally i get to the front. "Lambert, Lambert, i can't find Lambert here. Were you a member of the university before? Yes? Then you don't need to sign anything here. You could have got your card and gone straight on to the finance queue." Grrr. During the time she took to have her tea-break the finance queue had snaked all the way round the room like an amusement parks queue, but at the end you knew you weren't getting a ride on space mountain, but were going to pay £96 for the privilege of standing in that queue. I was in this queue for one hour and 17 minutes, i know, i timed it. After handing over my money to the college for doing absolutely nothing, i went to stand in the 'IT admin' queue. Can you see what a fun day i've had? I was stood in that queue for just 15 minutes before some guy came to get us out of it and take us across the college to the IT room to do it quicker. I logged on as usual, and found i didn't need to have done so because i'm already on the system. So i asked if i was finished and his response was "have you handed in your blue form?" to which i replied "no, you took me out of that queue" and so off i went again, back to the back of the queue i was in before. What splendid organisation they have there! I handed in my blue form eventually, and looked around for the next queue. To my relief and amazement, there wasn't one, so i headed home to queue up in traffic. I think by now i'm so used to queueing that when paul gets in i'm going to line up behind him and follow him around for a bit, reliving the immense fun had today. I hope tomorrow is more productive. In fact, i hope i get where i'm meant to tomorrow, as they haven't told us where or when we're meant to be. So that'll be interesting. I always fancied a wander round cambridge looking as lost as a tourist. So take care all, and if you see me wandering around cambridge, remember to get in line behind me and we can have some more fun. Goodnight.
Today i started officially my PGCE course. It was like my first day at school waking up this morning all nervous and worrying you won't make any friends, and i begged paul to let me stay at home and not go, but he wouldn't allow it, so i went. I did meet some new people and get chatting to them, and i've been invited round someone's house for dinner and another girls house for drinks, which is nice. I also found out one other girl hadn't done hardly any of the work we were set which made me feel a lot more relaxed about not having finished it, especially as it sounds like she's done even less than me owing to her full-time summer job. We had some interesting lectures which reminded me of a pep talk before a big sports game, or the calm before the storm. Then the afternoon session began. And the queueing. And the queueing. And the queueing. We queued up to hand in our registration form and fee (£30 just for them to process this form!). Then we began queueing for the next handouts. I was pulled out of this queue to go collect my degree certificate from the last place because they hadn't been able to post it. I had then lost my place in the next queue and had to go to the back. I checked my certificate was there, and my transcript of results. Whilst i had done well in my degree, i hadn't done THAT well. Low and behold, although the transcript was all in my name, i'd apparently gotten a first and done really well in my vikings paper. Yes, i'd got sally's transcript with my name on it. Whilst this is a pretty cool result, i was honest about not getting a first, so got back in the first queue to tell them they'd got it wrong. I finally spoke to the guy, who said "as long as you did get a 2.2 or over we don't care" so i got back in the second queue, at the back now for the third time. Once processed, we went to another room to matriculate. Here i got in the wrong queue, as it turns out 'lambert' isn't alphabetically between 'freeman' and 'johnson' - ok, so that one was my fault. But after getting in the queue for 'jones' to 'pullman' the girl at the desk decides to leave for half an hour to go for her tea-break, despite there being about 20 people in the queue waiting to be seen by her. So we wait. And wait. And wait. She returns all smiley as if she was only gone a second, and starts processing us. Finally i get to the front. "Lambert, Lambert, i can't find Lambert here. Were you a member of the university before? Yes? Then you don't need to sign anything here. You could have got your card and gone straight on to the finance queue." Grrr. During the time she took to have her tea-break the finance queue had snaked all the way round the room like an amusement parks queue, but at the end you knew you weren't getting a ride on space mountain, but were going to pay £96 for the privilege of standing in that queue. I was in this queue for one hour and 17 minutes, i know, i timed it. After handing over my money to the college for doing absolutely nothing, i went to stand in the 'IT admin' queue. Can you see what a fun day i've had? I was stood in that queue for just 15 minutes before some guy came to get us out of it and take us across the college to the IT room to do it quicker. I logged on as usual, and found i didn't need to have done so because i'm already on the system. So i asked if i was finished and his response was "have you handed in your blue form?" to which i replied "no, you took me out of that queue" and so off i went again, back to the back of the queue i was in before. What splendid organisation they have there! I handed in my blue form eventually, and looked around for the next queue. To my relief and amazement, there wasn't one, so i headed home to queue up in traffic. I think by now i'm so used to queueing that when paul gets in i'm going to line up behind him and follow him around for a bit, reliving the immense fun had today. I hope tomorrow is more productive. In fact, i hope i get where i'm meant to tomorrow, as they haven't told us where or when we're meant to be. So that'll be interesting. I always fancied a wander round cambridge looking as lost as a tourist. So take care all, and if you see me wandering around cambridge, remember to get in line behind me and we can have some more fun. Goodnight.