Dog-Gone!

2010-09-28, 2:59 p.m.
So. The Black Dog didn�t actually eat me after all. I hid from it for a bit, sometimes crying and sometimes just yelling at L for nothing (oh, and sometimes yelling AND crying at the same time � I�m the queen of multi-tasking, me!) and eventually it went away, leading me to face the creeping realisation that it may actually be a menstrual black dog, rather than one requiring me to spend a bit of time in The Priory, which is a bit of a shame as I could do with a nice rest and a new bathrobe.

Diaryland Ladies of my acquaintance, answer me this: I�ve never been much plagued with the kind of monthly mental anguish that some of you poor souls have had to endure since you were wearing pigtails (and not in an ironic Britney kinda way). It seems to have crept up on me over the last couple of years but I can definitely see some kind of pattern emerging � either that or some astonishingly timely coincidences! What�s the answer? As an apparent newcomer to PMS, is there some kind of cure for this? A pill to take? A well-guarded secret shared only with other homicidal, weeping, fat, worthless, deranged Medusa-mums? This is a serious question, girls. What do I do? I can only imagine, as I hurtle inelegantly towards some kind of menopausal epiphany (when it does come, in a few years time, I shall most definitely grow a beard. Probably a goatee, so me and L match, in an �Ancient Posh and Becks� stylee), that this hormonal rollercoaster will get ever steeper with my declining fertility and each rolling month will bring me new shit-to-get-bent-out-of-shape-over�.and possibly new husbands to ritualistically murder.

Anyways, before all the Diaryland Gentlemen of my acquaintance go all icky � or possibly all Beavis and Buttheadish � cos somebody mentioned periods, I can assure you that other stuff has been happening in my life other than me moaning about the deplorable state of my womb and its accoutrements.

I had another bloody birthday, for a start. I�m now Forty Fucking Four. The alliteration of adding the�.the�oh, what�s it called when you add a swearword in the middle of some other proper words? It�s got a real name. If I think of it later I�ll bung it in as a footnote or something. Anyway, the alliteration pleases me enormously and I think I shall keep it until at least next year when I shall be Forty Fucking Five. I got some pretty much OK presents, ta fer askin, some bits of cheap(ish) jewellery, a few bottles of bourbon (which I finished off within moments of unwrapping, natch), some cards which were too rude to put up (which I put up anyway)�.OH, and Theeeee best present EVA, a DVD of The Best of Magnum p.i.!!!!!!!

Oh Em Eff Geee! L keeps saying �shall we watch a bit of that Magnum thing?� but I am saving it for when he�s not here, crowding up the sofa and offering helpful �commentary�. Also, I don�t want him to witness me getting drool on the telly. I did magnanimously allow him and Jooj to watch (the feature length) �Don�t Eat the Snow in Hawaii� with me but they just chattered and munched crisps and generally pissed me right off until one of them had to be sent to bed and the other one had to be told to fucking well shut up or fuck off into the kitchen.

Actually, thinking about it sensibly, now would be the perfect time to be lying on the sofa and having a great big Selleck fest as I am currently bunking off school off sick with some kind of hideous cold/cough/fever type thing and could pretty much justify it. However, I do look like a big shiny red nosed pile o�shite and I don�t really want Tom seeing me like that. I think at the very least I should put on some clean knickers and a bit of mascara before indulging.

Speaking of school (well, more �mentioning in passing� rather than �speaking� but whatever), my new job is pretty weird. The Year 11 (age 15/16) boy I�m supposed to be supporting doesn�t appear to need/want any support at all so, to stop me going stark staring mad at the prospect of prolonged periods of inactivity (I KNOW! You�d think I�d be jumping at the chance, wouldn�t you!) I spoke to each of the subject teachers in turn and told them they should use me where they best saw fit. That�s kind of backfired on me a bit as I now have (amongst other things!):

  • 6 lessons/week of Biology and Chemistry with Tiri, a girl from Nepal who speaks almost no English. Oh, plus 5 lessons of English with the same girl. In all of these lessons she�s studying a different curriculum from the rest of the class as she�s so far behind so I pretty much teach her one-to-one while the subject teachers teach the rest of the class the stuff they�re supposed to be learning.

  • Then I have 2 or 3 lessons a week with KJ, Lee, Abi, Bunny, M-A and Holly, in various groups of one or two, where I try to go over what they haven�t learned in that weeks maths lessons. Which is plenty. I�ve also gone off piste on that one as I�m also trying to teach them their times tables as they only actually know their 2s, 5s and 10s (and they�re a bit shaky on some of those!)

  • 3 lessons per week of general Special Educational Needs, which could be anything from High Frequency Word reading with year 7s (11year olds) to hiding in the staffroom because the kid I was supposed to be teaching had bunked off and there was nothing for me to do.

  • One whole day per week at engineering college where, on my first day, the lecturers found out that I don�t actually know anything about engineering but that I used to be a trainer and had me write (and give) a presentation on Presentation Skills to 40 teenage boys (and 1 girl) with about an hours notice.

  • 4 lessons of Geography (which I dropped as an option at my own school) with a very young, new, teacher who has put all the naughty/difficult/dense/behind children in one group with me, so that he can actually try to teach the rest of the class without constant interruptions. Bless him. I was relieved to find that in my first week, Ox-bow Lakes were very much a hot topic, as it was pretty much all I could remember from the last I time I did geography. In about 1980. I�m pretty shit-hot on coastal erosion now, too, if there�s something you need to know.
  • This would all pretty much be OK, if it weren�t for two minor points.
    a) I�m not actually a teacher.
    b) I am getting paid more than �20K LESS than I was getting paid in my last job. In fact, my new MONTHLY salary pretty much equals my old WEEKLY salary. Eek.

    I keep telling myself �its only til May, its only til May�. It is, I�m not just saying that. It�s a temporary contract until boyo (he needs a nickname. I was thinking of �Ted Bundy� as he does have the slight air of �serial killer� about him, but I just did a google-for-research and that�s really not a very good nickname for anyone really, is it?) starts study leave in May. By then I hope to have made myself indispensable and they�ll give me some kind of proper job which, hopefully, will pay a proper wage and everything. If not, I fear I may have to go back into Corporate Hell, which is something I Don�t Want To Do. With a capital NOOOOOOOOOO!!

    I finally talked myself out of going to the Comedy Writing workshop that I was telling y�all about a few entries ago. The workshops themselves were free but they were on consecutive days, in Bristol, which would have meant either an overnight hotel stay (which I can�t afford) or two 160 mile round trips (which I can�t afford). I�m slightly comforted by annanotbob saying I didn�t need to go (or words to that effect) but it does, of course, mean that I now have to write down the sketch I had in my head, before I forget it, and put it up here for youz to read. Unfortunately it�s a bit �visual� so I�m not sure how that would work. Perhaps I could film it. Hmmm, needs more thought.

    Back to school tomorrow � always supposing my bogeys have dried up by then and my voice has returned from the Johnny Vegas tribute act it currently inhabits. Until then�

    Later
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