Not dead .. really ...
So, yes, it's been about a million years ...
Actually it's not so far off one year, but the internet has time dilation like nothing else. Honestly, you can either accelerate to 99.99% the speed of light or you can connect through your router ... the effect is much the same. Of course it's not much helped by the fact that I'm very bad at keeping in touch with people.
Let's see ... I guess the big news it that I'm now working at a Catholic school. I think some people knew that and some didn't. And, yes, for those of you who knew me when I was living in a Baptist institution this is much much worse. Funnily enough it's not the overtly religious aspects that get to me the most. I mean, yes, I am contractually required to attend Catholic church services and they are horrible ... to the degree that non-Catholic values are enthusiastically attacked in sermons ... but there's about three a year that I can't get out of and if that's all it was then I could grit my teeth and bear it.
(I have yet to spontaneously combust when setting foot on school grounds. I'm not sure whether that means the school isn't as holy as it thinks it is, or I'm not as profane as I think I am.)
What really shits me about the school (the usual tech support detritus aside) is the way it's run. The supreme authority here is the 'Leadership Executive', our Principal and his two Deputy Principals. Utterances from this group are as good as commandments form God (literally!) and while they take advice from others they are law unto themselves. In theory this may not necessarily be a bad thing. In practice it means that people like our Business Manager and our Director of Curriculum get ignored wholesale because one of our Deputy Principals thinks that can't *possibly* be right. But it always is.
The current case in point is the new campus, into which we're casting out Year 9s for their year interning as hellions. I was really dreading the initial meeting out there because I thought I was going to have to stand up and say the IT infrastructure wasn't ready (despite the fact the IT staff had busted themselves getting hundreds of laptops ready) and basically have to get pilloried for twenty minutes or so. It turned out that I was just a voice in the choir. The buildings weren't ready. The landscaping wasn't ready. Transport arraignments weren't ready. Facilities that had been promised to the students weren't ready. Admin wasn't ready. On the one hand it was great not to be getting the shaft, on the other I was kinda appalled that we were putting students into this facility.
Appalled, but not much surprised. I don't think anyone was. I can see why it turned out this way, of course. Leadership had made promises that things would be ready at the start of the year, and they felt they couldn't hold back past term 2. I don't think anyone except them actually believed it could happen (assuming they genuinely did themselves) but they nailed themselves to it and now they seem determined to make it all someone else's fault.
That's the main thing I've learned about Catholicism while I've been here. No-one else (whether it be council, or government, or other schools) really understands what we're about or how special we are ... so it's their fault that we haven't achieved what we set out to, or that our budget is short, or that we have to abide by the same planning regulations as everybody else. Because we're special, and wonderful, and chosen, but other people just won't see it.
Ugh.
The worst part is that the new campus could be really good. I was out there today after hours, looking about the place as I was ready to go and no-one else was around ... ther's real potential there. When it's done it could be really good.
And everyone could have had a really positive first experience of it, without all the argo that's going on now, if only the people in charge could have waited until it was ready.
Actually it's not so far off one year, but the internet has time dilation like nothing else. Honestly, you can either accelerate to 99.99% the speed of light or you can connect through your router ... the effect is much the same. Of course it's not much helped by the fact that I'm very bad at keeping in touch with people.
Let's see ... I guess the big news it that I'm now working at a Catholic school. I think some people knew that and some didn't. And, yes, for those of you who knew me when I was living in a Baptist institution this is much much worse. Funnily enough it's not the overtly religious aspects that get to me the most. I mean, yes, I am contractually required to attend Catholic church services and they are horrible ... to the degree that non-Catholic values are enthusiastically attacked in sermons ... but there's about three a year that I can't get out of and if that's all it was then I could grit my teeth and bear it.
(I have yet to spontaneously combust when setting foot on school grounds. I'm not sure whether that means the school isn't as holy as it thinks it is, or I'm not as profane as I think I am.)
What really shits me about the school (the usual tech support detritus aside) is the way it's run. The supreme authority here is the 'Leadership Executive', our Principal and his two Deputy Principals. Utterances from this group are as good as commandments form God (literally!) and while they take advice from others they are law unto themselves. In theory this may not necessarily be a bad thing. In practice it means that people like our Business Manager and our Director of Curriculum get ignored wholesale because one of our Deputy Principals thinks that can't *possibly* be right. But it always is.
The current case in point is the new campus, into which we're casting out Year 9s for their year interning as hellions. I was really dreading the initial meeting out there because I thought I was going to have to stand up and say the IT infrastructure wasn't ready (despite the fact the IT staff had busted themselves getting hundreds of laptops ready) and basically have to get pilloried for twenty minutes or so. It turned out that I was just a voice in the choir. The buildings weren't ready. The landscaping wasn't ready. Transport arraignments weren't ready. Facilities that had been promised to the students weren't ready. Admin wasn't ready. On the one hand it was great not to be getting the shaft, on the other I was kinda appalled that we were putting students into this facility.
Appalled, but not much surprised. I don't think anyone was. I can see why it turned out this way, of course. Leadership had made promises that things would be ready at the start of the year, and they felt they couldn't hold back past term 2. I don't think anyone except them actually believed it could happen (assuming they genuinely did themselves) but they nailed themselves to it and now they seem determined to make it all someone else's fault.
That's the main thing I've learned about Catholicism while I've been here. No-one else (whether it be council, or government, or other schools) really understands what we're about or how special we are ... so it's their fault that we haven't achieved what we set out to, or that our budget is short, or that we have to abide by the same planning regulations as everybody else. Because we're special, and wonderful, and chosen, but other people just won't see it.
Ugh.
The worst part is that the new campus could be really good. I was out there today after hours, looking about the place as I was ready to go and no-one else was around ... ther's real potential there. When it's done it could be really good.
And everyone could have had a really positive first experience of it, without all the argo that's going on now, if only the people in charge could have waited until it was ready.