It almost makes up for it, really!
2014-01-12, 10:51 p.m.
Tuesday 7thToday, one of my students screamed FUCK OFF in my boss�s face, threw my radio at the wall and wrecked my classroom � posters torn down and shredded, boxes of paperwork wrecked and kicked all over the floor, etc etc.
Then she picked up her handbag, marched out of the room and jumped the gate.
3 day exclusion. She�ll be back on Monday.
Tomorrow Ive got a meeting with an Educational Psychologist to discuss a Special School place for one of my other students. In a school with about 60 teachers, there is nobody available to cover my classroom while I go to the meeting. One of the reasons I was given was that �there might be people off sick tomorrow and we�d need to cover for them�. Might be?! WTF?
I have a rota of teachers from various subjects scheduled to come to my class to be �experts�. When they are there I either take a supporting role or I take some students away to another room to do another subject, if that�s more relevant to their needs. One teacher, who was supposed to be with me at 10.15 this morning, showed up at 10.45.
Another student has (finally!) been charged with a serious criminal offence and is expected to go to trial within the next six months. In the meantime he is expected to return to my class and we are to carry on as if nothing has happened. Innocent until proven guilty is a most excellent tenet by which to live, but there has never been any doubt over his guilt and his crime is something I find personally abhorrent. He has missed about a month of school and I will have to work with him 1-to-1 when he returns, to help him catch up.
I have compassion fatigue. I don�t know what to do.
Jooj has changed into some �comfort wear� so she can feel cozy while she�s doing her homework. She has a sweater (of indeterminate hue � possibly �mud�), made to fit someone of incalculably larger proportions, some Sex Pistols �God Save the Queen� themed pantaloons and a pair of grey, hairy, apr�s-ski boots (think �Yeti feet�).
It actually HURTS my dress sense to look at her.
Sunday 12th
OMIGOSH OMIGOSH! Literally NOTHING else matters right now. You know why? Because
I
Made
Bacon
Cake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(and Jooj very kindly took photos, so you can make it, too!)
Bacon is very much the ingredient du jour and its in EVERYTHING, n�est ce pas? There�s a metric fuck-ton of bacon based recipes on the internet and, it seems, if you aren�t cooking with bacon and making candied bacon and bacon salt-water taffy and bacon meringue and Bacon Peanutbutter Grey Goose Oreo Milkshake, then you�re NOBODY! (Mightve made that last one up. Maybe) However, this bacon cake is actually simple to make, and quick, and tastes great and doesn�t need a whole bunch of special stuff, or even a great deal of skill.
What you need
1 pack (1/2 lb or 250g or as close as you can get to that) streaky bacon rashers
2 oz/quarter cup butter
2 oz/quarter cup caster (superfine) sugar
2 eggs
4 oz/half cup self-raising flour
Maple syrup
Preheat oven to 200C/400F.
Oil and flour (or line with baking paper) a 7" sandwich cake tin
Line a baking tray with oiled foil or baking parchment.
What to do
Weave together 6 of the bacon rashers on the baking tray to make a lattice & lay out the rest to cook separately.
Bake in the oven about 10 minutes until firm and just starting to crisp up (leave the oven on to stay hot). I left mine a bit too long as the recipe said 15 mins. Personally I think this is too long.
Leave the bacon to cool enough to handle then chop the single rashers into chunks for adding to the cake in a minute.
Mix all the cake ingredients � use an electric mixer if you like or just get busy with a wooden spoon.
Keeping the lattice separate for now, mix in the cooked bacon pieces.
Put the mix into the cake tin, carefully placing the bacon lattice on the top and letting it sink in a little.
Drizzle maple syrup over the bacon and bake for about 15 minutes or until cake is firm but still springy. (the recipe said 35 minutes � I don�t know what they were thinking, that is WAY too long!)
While cake is still hot, drizzle more maple syrup over the top.
Eat hot or hold.
Hold on! Hold on! OTHER fantastic things have happened!
Oh. Sorry. I�ll wait til you�ve made it and then you can read this bit while you dine on its bacony, syrupy cakeyness �������������������������������������� ready? Excellent!
Slaveboy casme to see me the other day and was much taken aback to find that I had not been on holiday for several years as he, being single and dependentless, is always disappearing off to some little gay corner of Europe, there to peer through mirrored sunglasses at handsome brown-skinned men with their tops off and to silently weep at his misfortune at being born English and therefore predetermined to be pallid of complexion and flabby of torso.
Anyways, his incredulity at my perpetually vacationless state preyed on my mind and barely nine or ten days later, on a whim of truly magnificent proportions, I have booked us (me, L and the girlies) a two week sojourn in Corfu! Remember when I told you all about Corfu? Not once, but TWICE! (PG warning on some of the content there, Bs and Gs).
I know! I KNOW!
Im SOOOOOOO excited! Im so excited, I cant write ANY more today!