Run Benny Run

Haha, thanks to Katie for the Ben Cousins email!

Well it has been a pretty full on week with me officially starting work! I had my orientation with the agency on Tuesday and began working on the Wednesday, it has been really…interesting so far? I had a Year 1 class on my first day, the kids were so hyperactive and I felt really drained at the end of the day. I even had a teaching assistant with me, who spent most of the day screaming at the kids to be quiet and stay still (they would not stop moving!). Yesterday I had a Year 5 class, with only 1 child in the class being Caucasian. The kids really liked me and were generally very well behaved, even though I had 5 kids on individual behaviour plans! They thought I was “rich” because I lived in Fulham, which I guess shows the division over here between the social classes. We played Celebrity Heads at the end of the day and the first thing the children would ask when trying to figure out which famous person they were was ‘Am I white?’ or ‘Am I black?’ – totally unexpected! It was strange because I play the games with the kids at home in Australia and they never refer to skin colour…but I guess over here there’s just a completely different mentality about what race you are.

My flatmate Amy had a really bad day at work yesterday and we’ve agreed that the kids over here have trouble just sitting down, focusing and being quiet…so its little wonder not much teaching gets done! I do enjoy the fact that you go in, do your day of work and then can go home and forget about it. I found it really hard to switch off from work last year because I was a bit of a perfectionist, but that’s gone out the window here. I’m not here to work and focus on my career, I’m here to travel and enjoy a big new city. Speaking of travel, one of my other flatmates - Felicity, left for Germany yesterday. She’ll be gone for about a week I think? Its going to be really strange when 3 of the girls leave for ANZAC Day, then there will only be 2 of us in the house for 11 days…very empty!

The weather has changed back to being cold again; it snowed yesterday morning as I was walking from the train station to the school! It’s down to 2 or 3 degrees during the day again and we’ve had wind blowing in from Siberia, which makes things feel even colder. Next week the wind is coming down from the Arctic which is going to make it even colder?! I thought it was starting to get warmer and lighter, boo! I'm still not acclimatised to the cold and permanently feel freezing, even inside the house with the heaters on! I just came home from the bank and have the heaters on high (wearing a big warm bomber jacket with hood) and my hands still feel cold!

I had a bit of a hiccup catching public transport yesterday; I took the tube from Fulham Broadway to Victoria and was then supposed to catch the overlander (above ground train) to where the school was. I got to the station and tried reading the schedule – there are like 20 trains leaving and coming every minute so it was quite confusing. I thought I had the right train and walked over to platform 1. I asked one of the workers at the station whether it was the train going to the station near my school and he says ‘Oh no that’s on platform 10, I doubt you’ll make it because it leaves in 2 minutes’. I grabbed my bag and literally ran through a sea of people to platform 10, jumping onto the train at the last minute before the doors closed. Had I missed that train, I would have been waiting for at least another 10-20 minutes and probably would have been late for work. Relying so heavily on public transport every day and going to new places everyday is probably the most stressful part, as you always have your map in one hand and your teaching bag in another.

Bad weather just adds to the stress, especially when it rains like it did yesterday afternoon. I looked at my map, decided it wasn’t too far to walk to the tube station instead of the overlander (I hate the foverlander and find it difficult to navigate). It was too far. Jumped on a bus after soaking my shoes and pants thoroughly from walking for 15 minutes in hard rain (umbrellas are useless!) and managed to get to the tube station okay. Still, I had to swap tube lines 3 times before making it to my tube station, where I then had to take a bus which drops me literally around the corner from our house.

Tonight were are taking Steph O to Elk Bar, which seems to be a common initiation process in this house! There is netball registration on Sunday which a few of us are considering joining, that will be held at the Walkabout in Sheperd’s Bush. I hate not going to the gym and working out, I've been checking out a few but they are pretty pricey (60 pounds a month or more for the local ones, the cheapest so far is Fitness First at 40 pounds a month but I don't think there is a branch in Fulham). Netball will be a great way to keep in shape and have a bit of fun, plus after training on Sunday they head down to the pub with the football teams (my flatmate Amy really liked that part of the deal).