A Thorny Kind of Day

Well, today was certainly not the cruisey day I had yesterday. Today I had two double periods of Year 10 Physics. The first one went fine but the second? Wow. I was not prepared at all for the chaos I walked into in period 5 and 6. I had observed this class once before, but they had a test, so were acting relatively sane. Today they were completely out of control. It was definitely a learning experience, if nothing else. I think it is a strength of mine that I don't take things personally, and I don't react extremely in any way, so when the main perpetrators didn't get the response they were after they did eventually calm down. For example When one girl, who had 1) carried a wet floor sign into the classroom she'd clearly taken from somewhere, 2) answered her mobile in class 3) was blatantly eating and drinking in the science lab and 4) found some scissors and began trimming her own hair, preceded to ask me "Are we the worst class you've ever had?" I responded with a small scoff and a calm "Not even close" before continuing helping another student with a question. After that she toned down the craziness by about ten fold.

It's funny - technically I'm the teacher now, but I still feel like I'm the one being tested.

Following a long moderation session after school until 5:30, I was kindly offered a lift home by someone in the office. Unfortunately, as she pulled out of her car space we had a small collision with another car. In any regular circumstance this would have been a 5 minute swap details and carry on scenario, but the lad in the other was...how do I put this nicely? Crazy attention seeking drama queen? Yep, thats about as nice as I can get. This is about how things progressed: I need to sit down my heart is racing... I need some water... I need an ambulance...I feel faint...then lying on the pavement at the bus stop, refusing to get up when the paramedics arrived. Eventually it took two policemen and three paramedics to get this lady to stand up and walk to the ambulance, by which point they had all exchanged some knowing looks, and apologised to us several times. She was fine by the way, they just gave her a ride home.

EVENTUALLY we were allowed to leave. At 7 pm. There's nothing quite like a 12 hour day of crazy to warrant pizza and wine in bed on a Wednesday.