Back to school
Last Friday I started my part-time self-scheduled job as a "classroom associate" in a high school in an area of Newcastle called Killingworth, as part of a university-run Student Associate Scheme. I was supposed to be helping out in chemistry lessons for years 7 to 11, but the teacher who was supposed to be doing my timetable for that day wasn't there so I was just given a random timetable to follow.
The very first set of students I helped out with was a learning difficulties set. They were a curious bunch of year 7s, doing a bit of graph-plotting that morning. It wasn't boring graph-plotting though, the teacher had made it interesting by using a nice murder mystery to present the data.
When the teacher left the room for a bit, I told them about myself and to be honest I don't think they quite understood what I was on about but they were excited to have me there and even asked me if I'd be with them in their next lesson. They were calling me 'Sir' which made me reach for the Botox but it's alright, I'll learn to handle that kind of respect.
On the other hand, I got laughed at by a bunch of really giggly, insecure teenagers when I was trying to find my way out of the school. Can't have everyone's respect!
It feels weird being in a school again. It feels even weirder being in a British school. I went to school in India and Dubai and never once did any of our teachers use music or powerpoint slides as teaching aids so this is coming as a bit of a culture shock to me. And this isn't even a posh private school I'm working in, just a regular comprehensive school. It really makes me wonder where the fuckloads of money my parents paid as school fees went to, perhaps towards the purchase of a new Merc for the headmistress.
Medicine is a bit of a drain at the moment. There's a constipatingly huge amount of limb anatomy to go through and not a lot of time to do it! We could have done it next semester, but NO they reckon it'll be nice to shove us head-first into massive names of muscles and obscure ligaments all at once and leave no anatomy for next semester.
I went to my friend Aisling's tonight, just to get away from it all for a night. Aisling was making mulled wine on the hob, Heather had got a variety of cheeses, and I took some Swiss rolls along (they weren't rotten this time!). We also had olives, doritos and hummus. The mulled wine Aisling made was actually quite good, all fruity and warm.
It's been snowing every night in Newcastle. It's so cold. My bones hurt.