As I'm forever complaining about my workload, I might as well mention that I have assessments to mark as well as the usual planning, but it's half term all the same and I won't need to think about it for a few days.
My confidence has been building the more I've taught these slightly bigger classes. I've done seven weeks now, and I do still have my moments - I think it's just in my nature to worry about little things, and to be perhaps a bit too lenient. I've got good at being firmer with the younger ones (11-14), and am now getting on pretty well with the class of boys. The girls drive me mad, but I'm getting better at controlling them. I now need to start being firmer with my GCSE literature class, who are older (15/16) and more confident in their backchat.
There's a very nice teacher who's older than me, who drives me to the station so I can catch a mid-afternoon bus on Thursdays, and she reassures me. She says things like, 'Well, you can only do your best,' and, 'They're lucky we do anything, the amount they pay us!' (I've never been rich and am very happy with the pay - and actually my boss is now giving me an extra pound an hour, which I'm thrilled about.
) Obviously she has developed a thick skin over the years. I still worry about getting something horribly wrong and ruining kids' lives, and/or my own. 
Anyway, don't forget to enter Jay's contest in the last remaining hours if you can, and do, do, do check out the FFM 2015 Winners. I was particularly thrilled to see that IntelligentZombie won a mug, as she and I were great supporters of each other in comments and chat throughout the month. She is ridiculously talented for one so young, and a wonderful addition to my watchees. So extra congrats to you, hon!
Two of my pieces have been featured. I confess, I was a little disappointed not to see my Enid Blyton tribute there, which is being very egotistical I know.
It's just that some people absolutely loved it... all of them British. I knew it wouldn't appeal to people of all cultures. Oh well. I was very happy, though, to see 'Guinevere' there. That day was mythical characters, everyday items and modern problems, and I made no secret of how bored I got reading comedies about gods and the like not being able to use their smart phones and such. Sorry, everyone who went that route! 
That challenge was also common things too shameful to talk about, wasn't it? I don't remember feeling strongly about any of those. Of course, I'm not saying I'm the only one who went with something more, um, (original? interesting? deep? meaningful?) different. Just check it all out, 'kay? 
I got my contest entry sent to Jay yesterday. I decided not to embellish or fictionalise my ghost encounter, so it is now in my gallery exactly as I remember it. I'm glad, because as far as I'm aware, all the other entries are fiction. So what, the rest of you people never saw a ghost?
(But really, I'm not crazy, as I am most anxious to explain in the story.)Jurassic World came out on DVD this week!
My week off began with me getting into bed with a bar of chocolate and watching it, right after I got home from work. It was my reward for all my hard work this half term, even though I don't actually get paid for any of it until this Tuesday (I bought the DVD last Wednesday). I know some people issues with the movie - I mean, I have my least liked moments - but it is just a movie and overall I like it a lot. After all, it's not as though it could ever have actually been as good as Jurassic Park, so why worry about that?I also watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory lately, as reading the book made me want to do so; I have it on DVD, even though I don't greatly like it. I do not like Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka (although I could cry with how much I like Johnny Depp), and I do not like the addition of his father into the plot, and the way that the English Bucket family use American money and speak of chocolate as 'candy' is just bizarre. All the same, it has its moments. The children are well cast, their stories played out pretty much exactly right, and Danny Elfman setting Roald Dahl's words to music works really well (for me, anyway). The bottom line is, I would rather watch this adaptation than Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Gene Wilder was a good Willy Wonka, but that's not enough to make up for how much they missed the point. Stealing Fizzy Lifting Drinks makes Charlie no better than the other kids, and anyone else would have been mashed in those ceiling fans! The Oompa-Loompas should have to take Charlie and Grandpa Joe to the gluing room or something, so then Mike Teavee would win the factory
(provided he returned that spy-trap sweet - and who's to say he wouldn't have?).Anyway! Next, in my Roald Dahl read-through, I have to read Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. Yes, I have to, even though I actually hate that one. What was he thinking?
