Oh the joy of teaching

Right, I am to work in the following departments

1. English
2. History
3. Classics
4. Modern Languages
5. Prep. Dept. (Primary School and Kindergarden)

I start with Wednesday, as this was the first real day of work. As I was trained to be a secondary school teacher, it is a bit strange to work with kids that young. I have a year 3 group (age 6/7) in English, a year 5 group (8/9) in History, a year 6 group (9/10) in Arts and a year 1 (4/5) in Storytelling. I was also asked to start a German Club, which will be held once a week. I am not sure what to do with them yet, as the club is open to year 3 to year 6. Kristin, one of the German Gappers volunteered to help and I am glad for it. In the various classes it is mainly helping the kids to do what they are supposed to do, practice reading and writing with them and mainly have fun. Will be a whole new experience!

I am sure some of you remember Leslie Adams from the English department? Well, I have one of her year 7 groups and the first thing she asked me was: "How is your Shakespeare?" I was honest and told her that I am not too fond of him and that I read only three of his plays. Well, from next week onwards I will be teaching "A Midsummer Night's Dream" on my own. I don't really know if this is really working out, as I have never taught Shakespeare, especially not to 11 year olds, they are supposed to have fun with it! I also teach Grammar once a week. So, lot of teaching practice.

In the history department I will do the Middle Ages also with the same year 7 - on Fridays they have to endure me for 4 lessons in a row! As I am preparing for my final exams in Germany as well, the Middle Ages are a good revision for me. I also do two year 10 classes, who are working on the Treaty of Versaille at the moment.

As there are only a few students who do German, I will help them individually, preparing them for their exams in June.

So this leaves Classics. I don't know who came up with the idea that I can teach Classics, I don't know. But now I am stuck with a year 8 class in classics. Fortunately Mr Young volunteered to do the language bit (LATIN) and I only do the Cultural part of the lessons. It is a bit hard to teach Latin. First of all I have not done any Latin since I was 18 and I always have to translate Latin into German first and then I can translate it into English - so there are obviously many mistakes to be made.

Right, I will let you know how things develop. This weekend 3 of my friends are coming over from Germany to see the Sunrise. Vanessa is in town anyway for an internship and so we decided to meet in London. I am sure it will be a great weekend, I have only been to the National Theatre (The Rose Tatoo by T. Williams) so far and I am looking forward to get back into the City.

"You seem to be coming back like a bad penny!"

Oh well, the first day back at RMS felt weird, really weird.

• There are many faces I recognize, but cannot put a name to them.
• Everybody seemed to know that I am coming back.
• Everybody has been talking about me and REMEMBERS me!
• Many cannot understand why I am back - well, I have problems with that myself!
• RMS has not changed a bit - okay, the top table in the great hall is gone!
• Drew and Phil are still managing the ICT department: joking with Phil has not changed a bit!
• The girls I still know have grown soo much!
• Many do not know how to treat me, as I am definitely not a GAP-girl anymore.
• There are 10 Gappers now, all having shared jobs which means they have half a job in the house and half a job in the school (working in departments like Maths, Modern Language Department, Arts and DT, HE, Office, Alpha,...). They are coming from Germany (3), South Africa (1), Mexico (1), New Zealand (2), Canada (1), Poland (1), Australia (1) and there is of course the French Assistant.
• The Gappers are a bit strange, they are so demotivated and everything is negative for them, especially the Polish girls and two of the Germans are really dissatisfied with everything.
• Connaught is closed now and Zetland has become a house for weekly boarders only.
• There are locks with number codes at every door now. But every door has the same number! All members of staff have ID-Cards now.
• My front door key still fits for all houses around the Garth!
• Had to equip my kitchen with the help of the HE-ladies as there was nothing in it.
• I did not remember how long it takes to get from one end of the school to the other!
• The girls returned Tuesday night and just guess what we had for tea? Right, Chicken Burger!
• The school uniforms changed, they have new ones with dark blue pullovers and RMS in light blue on it. The skirts are now really dark blue as well. All sixth formers are allowed to wear normal clothes, even trousers and jewellery.
• I have one of the tutor flats in the Prep. Dept. and it is quite nice, even though I am longing to see my old flat. My name at least is still at the door!
• The price for Travelcards has moved up to £7.20! So I try to get a Young Person's Railcard, then it will be only £4,80.
• So let's see, how the first day of teaching will work out....

Getting started

view from my bedroom window
The last days at home were strange. I cannot really describe the feeling, but it had some kind of routine about it. Somehow I managed to pack my bag on Friday night which is quite unusual for me. Normally I do all the packing the night before I fly! Even my mother was worried about that. The reason is simple, I had hand all luggage that did not fit into my bag over to Christian, Hildegard and Tobi who are coming tonight.

Getting started was not as easy as I thougth it would be. Saying goodbye to my grandparents was surprisingly smooth, as it is usually quite hard for them. They always fear that it is the last time they see me.

down at the pond

So I left at 3.30 am to catch the train to Frankfurt Airport at 4.18 am. That went all very well and I arrived at the airport on time. Flying with British Airways has some advantages, especially the baggage allowence which is 23kg and their hand luggage regulations. But it took ages to get to my gate and I had to pass 2 security controlls. I got myself a blister and it

seems my laptop got a few scratches from being dragged in and out of the bag all the time. As I was carrying many electronic items in my handluggage, I had this nice "special security check", which took ages and when I finally arrived at the gate the
plane was ready to board. Then we had to wait nearly an hour on the plane before we were allowed to take off, as there was heavy traffic in London and so instead of flying circles above London we remained in Frankfurt. So due to this the flight was 45 min delayed.

But that is not the end of the problems, because when I arrived at Heathrow I thought I had lost my mobile and one of my bags took ages to come through. So in the end it was 10 instead of 8.15 am when I left the luggage reclaim area. The school had told me that someone would be waiting for me at arrivals, but I could not found that person anywhere and I checked all the people carrying signs with names on it. Well, so I decided to get the next possible bus to Rickmansworth.

Arriving at Ricky Station I got a phone call on my mobile from Miss Batty, asking where I am and when I told her I had just arrived, she started laughing and told me that there were still 2 men waiting for me at Heathrow. Great, that cost me an extra £5 and a lot of nerves! Fortunately at least my mobile turned up again.

So I moved into my flat (Prep. Dept. 3) and later on had some lunch. For those who have been to RMS, the food is still the same! And this apple-crumble is still delicious!

Later on I had a walk around the grounds, which have not changed much either. Here are a few more impressions. Trinity Term is definitely the nicest term of all!

the alley to Southgate

I tried to get one of the squirrels that live on the grounds on the picture, but they are so fast and not as tame as the ones in Hyde Park. But I got one in the end, even though I did not manage to get a real close shot at it. Even though I prefer the red ones, the grey ones are cute as well!

Mission: Complete

The last few days were hell - involving 60 hours without sleep, spending 2 nerve-wracking hours at the copy shop (thanks to ms word), not eating at all, throwing a whole chapter in the bin only 2 days before I had to hand it in... - but somehow I managed. There is no denying that everyone told me that the last few days would be like that but I had sworn to myself that I'd finish my thesis DAYS before the deadline...

I handed it in this morning at exactly 10.34 am.

Here a few facts...

title: The narrative creation of fantasy worlds in the novels of J.K. Rowling, P. Pullman and C.S. Lewis
pages: 129
footnotes: 341
number of books/articles I read: 178
number of mistakes that I found after I handed it in: 3 so far (in the bibliography, so not too bad...)

Friends told me that now a feeling of "relaxation" should start - this has not happened so far. I don't know why but maybe this is because I am not really satisfied with it. Rewriting a whole chapter in two days is not the best of all ideas, but not rewriting it - the feeling would have been worse. Unfortunately the thesis counts 40% of the overall grade for my degree.

All right, I stop complaining now and the only thing I can do now is "wait and see" (probably till July!) to get the results. A friend of mine uses to call me "Paniknudel" (panic-noodle/pasta) and I guess he is right.

I just want to say thank-you to all who endured my bad temper over the last month or so, all who were willing to spell-check my thesis and all who told me again and again that I can do it. That really helped. I promise to be better next time ;-)