project 52 week 11

I really don't know where the time is going:-) Maybe it's a sign of age :-)
This week has been very busy. Not only were my trainees teaching for the first time, and having meltdowns, I was also teaching Business in the afternoons. The weather was weird, and the days long.

Sunday

Out and about today. The weather was glorious, and I spend some time in the garden. The weeds are now under control- and there is a large sack of garden waste to go to the recycling centre, where they will make it into compost- and sell it back to us :-) We had a walk along board-walk at St Brelade's, at low tide, and enjoyed the sun on the bay.

Monday

The start of a busy week at work. The alterations are coming on well, and I hope that the noise of the workmen will soon be finished. The TESOL trainees are in a room at the far end of the building, so we hear very little of the fuss, and our space is calm. I need to find some way to contain all the wires from the tech, though. It's very messy, but we use it all, so I'm not sure whether to box it in, or get some of those cable tidies. Had a walk at St Brelade's again- but this time in the park.

Tuesday

Today I handed over the control of the trainees to my Teaching Practice Tutors. They are a great team, and the trainees are in good hands. This allowed me to do a couple of hours of business English teaching for one of our proficiency students. It was nice to be back in the classroom. Afterwards, I had to wait for the first teaching sessions to end, so I decided to drive up to a local pub for coffee and a sandwich. The Old Portelet pub is not far from the college, and makes a nice place to sit in the summer. Today they had a fire roaring, and I needed all my willpower to go back down to work. We eventually went home after 7pm and I wasn't best pleased to find that no-one had done any shopping or cooking. By the time I was ready for bed it was the wee small hours of the morning. My disgruntlement paid off though, as I haven't had to cook for the rest of the week:)

Wednesday

#Eltchat day. I really enjoy the chats, but this week was a particularly useful one for my trainees too. We were looking at designing Instruction and Concept checking questions (ICQs and CCQs). I was co-moderating again and it was my turn to collect the transcript and put it on the wiki-thank goodness for Marisa, who sorted me out when it all went pear-shaped. Somehow I managed to lose all the formatting I had done on the spreadsheet. I must get some practice in before the next late one in a couple of weeks time. Another sunny day meant that the mogs were looking for somewhere to sit. This picture is unusual, as both cats can be seen. They don't often sit together. More typical is the fact that Maisie is in a puddle of sunshine, and Ebony is avoiding it. Maybe she gets hot in her long coat.

Thursday

Fog!!!. The planes couldn't fly and people were taking their lives in their hands driving inland. The coast was bizarre. It looked like you could drop off the end of the world. I stopped to take a picture of the Fort- or at least where the fort ought to be. This was the pattern for the next couple of days. The fog blanketed the island for the best part of 36 hours. It felt damp and miserable- not helping my stressed-out trainees at all. Today was another late finish, as I had some paperwork to do before going home. H. sent me an email, questioning whether one of the trainees had plagiarised some work, and passed it off as their own. I asked my PLN for a plagiarism checking website- and was given the option of half a dozen. In the end, the language was very similar, and I had no choice but to ask for it to be redone. As if we don't have enough to do!

Friday

It's the end of the working week, and we went down to the pub with the musicians for a relaxing session. We will be seeing a lot of each other this weekend. On Saturday there is a ceilidh, and on Sunday a St Patrick's Irish session in a local pub. We are certainly kept busy with our music. The tulips I bought at the weekend have been enjoying the warmth of the sun in the window. They are very pretty, but I think the petals look ready to fall off.

Saturday

 We went down into town to buy Cairis some new work clothes. On the way back we found some Irish decorated cupcakes, which I thought would be nice with a cup of tea, but they got a bit squashed on the way home. 

Cairis was invited to a birthday afternoon tea at the L'Horizon hotel. I dropped her off, after a visit to the hairdresser, and took a wander along the cliff path at Noirmont, where I could see the tower in the bay. On returning home, I had just enough time for a shower and a change into my ceilidh gear. The evening was for a 60th Birthday party with family and friends of the birthday girl. They all turned up in cowboy outfits, with cacti and anatomically incorrect balloon cows as decoration!

I hope that next week will be easier, as the trainees will not be so stressed, and things will start to settle down for them as they hand their work in.