Where's the karaoke??

First off, please accept my deepest and sincerest apologies that this first blog has taken so long to post. Access to a computer has been frustratingly limited, mainly because my three roommates and I have been sharing one laptop, so I feel bad taking up too much time on it. This blog (I predict) will take a while to write and I don’t want to bogart the only computer in the house. I would have typed it after hours at school, but classes aren’t over until almost 4:00, then I get kicked out of the school at 6 p.m. This is crazy: they completely lock up the school at 6:00 and no one’s allowed access without a special pre-arranged reason. No more 11:00 p.m. nights at school for me, it looks like. This is going to take some getting used to. I’m accustomed to having a master key to the school and the phone number for security on speed dial on my cell phone, allowing me to come and go as I please. My whole life is much more scheduled now. I’ll explain when I get to the teaching bit of the blog. **Disclaimer** I’m typing on a British computer, so Microsoft Word is automatically changing my spelling on words like “favourite” and “centre”. I’m not being pretentious! Okay, let’s jump in:

Getting Here:
The trip was thankfully uneventful, and went surprisingly fast for an 8 ½ hour flight. It’s nice that it was overnight, because I was able to sleep for a good 4 hours, which NEVER would have happened on a flight not during my usual sleeping hours. I’ll tell you another thing, every time I have the option, I will definitely be taking non-stop flights. What a relief it was not to have to deal with a layover. You wanna know the best part?? Now sit down because you’re never going to believe this….my luggage got to England at the very same time I did! I went to the baggage claim, and 1, 2, 3…there they were! **Shock! Gasp!** (In case you didn’t know, this phenomenon of luggage arriving at a destination at the same time as the traveler is damn-near unheard of for me.) My British roommate Angela and her friend Richard were at the arrivals gate to collect me. They miraculously knew who I was as soon as I came through the gate (is it that obvious that I’m an American?) and carted me and my four massive suitcases off to the car.

It was now about 6 a.m. my time, but around lunch time in England, and Angela and Richard were starving. So we stopped at a little pub on the way to the house. I had a lovely breakfast of an omelette and a beer. That’s right…I don’t mess around. Twenty minutes in England – it was time to drink. I thought it was a great idea since I fully intended to crash onto the nearest flat surface as soon as we walked in the door of the house, but it wasn’t until after I had ordered and was drinking my pint that I found out that there would be a houseful of people moving in furniture and boxes when we arrived. I didn’t realize that the moving wouldn’t already be done by the time I got there. So…oops. Now I was exhausted from the flight and I had taken the equivalent of a sleeping pill by drinking that beer. Time to move furniture!

It actually wasn’t too bad because there was plenty to do to keep me from thinking about how tired I was, plus it was probably a good idea to stay awake as long as possible to try to get onto England time. I stayed up and helped move all afternoon, then went to a very nice dinner with Angela and Richard. We went to a nearby village and ate at an awesome little historical pub. The food was delicious. By the time we got home around 8:30 I was literally ready to drop from exhaustion. I fell onto a random bed in a random room and didn’t move again until nearly 2:00 p.m. the next day. So much for getting on England time…

The House, the Town, and the Roomies:
I remember very little of the first week because I spent most of my days in a complete fog – exhausted from trying to get in the right sleeping routine. Trying to function on a schedule seven hours ahead of my internal clock turned out to be harder than I expected. Mostly, I spent the first week or two continuing to get settled and unpacking, checking out the school and planning for classes, and getting to know my roommates.

In case I didn’t already tell you, let me give you the background about how I came to find this house with these people. The principal at my school, Rob, initially put me in touch with this crazy Canadian chick, Samantha, who had also been hired at St. Bernard’s through Bluewave. Since we were both going to be new to the country and the school, it seemed like a logical decision for she and I to consider sharing accommodation for financial and companionship purposes. We started chatting through email and it was pretty clear we were compatible. As we started apartment hunting via the internet, we started to worry that we would not find a place with a move-in date that coincided with our arrival in England. I sent Rob an email asking him if he could put the word out with the staff asking if anyone knew of a place that Samantha and I would be able to crash temporarily, should it be necessary. He wrote back almost immediately and told me he’d already been asking around about that (how great is this guy??). He put me in contact with a woman named Angela who was just about to move into a new house and was looking for two leasers for the extra bedrooms. I spoke with her, again through email, and found out that she and her 18-year-old daughter Laura were moving into the house around the same time I was arriving. The circumstances really sounded ideal and the rent was within my price range. However, I never spoke with Angela or Samantha on the phone, and I never saw a picture of the house. I was taking a whole lot on faith. What the hell…it’s an adventure, right?

Naturally, there was certainly a level of uncertainly and nervousness about this move. After all, I really knew nothing about the house or the roommates before I arrived here. Well, God must be on my side, because everything about my accommodations is perfect. The house is wonderful. It’s a lovely house, we have plenty of space, the back garden and yard are beautiful, and there’s a trampoline!! Hooray! The location is ideal as well. I’m about half way between the town centre and the school – less than a mile to either – so the walk is totally reasonable. The train station is also about a mile away. It means that almost everything I need is accessible on foot, and everything else is accessible through this town’s excellent bus, train, and taxi systems. It’s wonderfully convenient.

High Wycombe is a decent little town. It has some sketchy parts, but those are easily avoidable from where I live so I don’t worry about it much. The old town centre is really charming. Lovely old buildings, cobblestone streets, great pubs, outdoor markets on the weekends…all great. The new town centre has a huge partially outdoor shopping complex with great stores (Topshop, H&M, House of Frasier, and lots of other amazing British chains), a Starbucks, a grocery store, a brand new library (which I’m already a member of), a bowling alley, a movie theatre, great bars and restaurants, and lots more. Wycombe really does offer everything I need, and it’s only a 25-40 minute train ride into London, depending on the train. Perfect! The only thing I haven’t found here yet that I MUST locate soon is a karaoke bar. Angela says there are a few in town, and I think it must be my mission this week to track one down and check it out. If I don’t sing karaoke soon, I might just explode.

The roommates are equally ideal. I am living with three sweet, fun, considerate women, who have already become friends and comrades, instead of just roommates. My living situation truly could not be better…except maybe if there was a little more closet space. ;)

The Teaching Bit:
I swear, if I ever end up teaching in the U.S. again, I’ll never complain about my schedule, assuming it’s anything like the schedule I had at Arvada, Columbine, or Alameda: 5 classes to teach, 2 planning periods for every 5 that I teach, the same class schedule from week to week. I had absolutely NO room to complain. Looking back at it now, I had the most relaxing schedule in the world, hardly anything to grade, and all the planning time a person could want. Let me try to explain it:

The scheduling at my school follows no logical system with which I am familiar. Essentially, we are on a 10-day schedule. That means that I teach a different schedule of classes every day for 10 days (two weeks), then I start back at day one and run through the ten days again. This also means that I can have up to ten preps. I have seven. Seven preps! Seven different pieces of literature, grammar, writing, reading, and theatre lessons to plan for! I’m even more special because my seven preps are each for a different grade. Secondary schools out here have grades 7-13. I teach every level of student at the school, which means I teach kids from 11 years old to 19 years old. Talk about differentiation! I hardly need state that the first two weeks of school have been incredibly overwhelming and confusing; in fact, I don’t remember the last time I was so stressed out….not even during tech week for a musical at Arvada. If you remember how stressed out I always got during that week, then you’ll know that it’s REALLY saying something that this is worse. There is also a stupid, confusing schedule for homework. It’s this totally baffling system of assigning/doing homework for the staff and students, which I’m still struggling to understand much less follow. Apparently, each subject is only supposed to give the students one hour of homework a week, so they don’t get overloaded. To manage that, there is a week by week homework calendar that tells what day homework should be assigned in each class. AHHHHH! I don’t work like that! I don’t schedule homework! If it doesn’t get finished in class, it’s homework. Isn’t that the way it works??? Not here. This is so incredibly frustrating and hard to follow. I’ve never been so scheduled in my whole life.

Then there’s the issue of planning time: it is almost non-existent. I am only “guaranteed” five hours of planning per ten days, and they can distribute it however they choose. I, for example, go four days of teaching without a planning period. Additionally, every teacher is required to be available for “cover” on their planning periods. As far as I’m concerned, this is the worst part of the whole system. There aren’t really substitute teachers out here. If a teacher is out, the other teachers in the school cover their classes for the day – a different teacher taking each period based on who has a planning period. So essentially, I am never completely guaranteed my planning time. I do all of my planning a grading before school (which thankfully doesn’t start until 8:40) or after school, which has been difficult because I have had an after-school meeting almost every day since I started, and then I get kicked out of the building at 6:00. I’ve been doing all my planning at home in the evenings, mostly without the use of a computer. If I thought I was going to be able to have a life while working out here, I was sadly mistaken.

Oh yes, and let us not forget about mandatory supervisory duty. We have to be on supervisory duty in the hallways, cafeteria, or school grounds at least twice a week before school, during mid-morning break, or at lunch. I have three shifts a week.

I wonder what Vinny Castelano would have to say about that, eh Arvada folks??

Thankfully, the staff and administration are incredibly supportive. The other teachers have supplied me with tons of materials and schemes of work for certain units, making the planning a tad easier, but I can’t even express to you how much I wish I had all my teaching files from home! It sucks that it’s so expensive to ship things overseas!

The kids are also really awesome. I have been stunned by how respectful they are. I’m not sure if this is a British education thing or a Catholic school thing, but these kids all know exactly what is expected of them, and as a rule, they do it. There are a couple of shitheads, of course. There always are. In fact, I’ve already had to get a kid suspended. In general though, there is an expectation of obedience and respect in this school that is upheld by most of the students. I’ve got to tell ya, I almost died of shock in my first class on the first day of school when the students lined up outside my classroom, waiting to be invited inside, then came in quietly and stood behind their desks, waiting to be invited to sit down. The craziest part was when I said, “Good morning” and they responded, “Good morning, Miss” is unison. I almost burst out laughing. Do children actually do that? I thought that was just in the movies! It was even weirder coming from teenagers. I’ve never seen anything like it. They aren’t zombies, though. They definitely have spunk and attitude and moments of apathy and defiance, just like all teenagers have. Before I came here, everyone kept asking me if I was nervous about what English kids would be like, and my thoughts on it were always, “Kids are kids,” no matter where they are raised. So far, that statement appears to ring true. The main difference is the structure. These kids definitely have more structure.

Although I’m sure I’ve made it sound generally awful, I have to admit that I like the school. It has an atmosphere of support and respect that I really enjoy. The staff all appear to be kind and sympathetic, as well as extremely dedicated. The aspects of the school that I find so frustrating are due to the fact that I’m simply not familiar with the system. I’m sure if I were raised here, if I’d gone through my teaching certification here, and if I’d done my training here, it wouldn’t be a big deal at all. It’s just new and very different; therefore, I need to adjust. It’ll just take some time, and in between times, I get to enjoy England! It’s not a bad deal, I’d say.

London:
I’ve made two trips into the city so far and enjoyed myself thoroughly each time. It’s been so fun just to walk and get lost on purpose just to be able to become familiar with this awesome city. This really is a cool town. I’m not going to go into too much detail just yet about the places I’ve gone and the things I’ve seen, mostly because this blog is already ridiculously long. I’ll save the details about London for the next blog, but here’s a quick run-down of where I’ve been and what I’ve seen so far:

Camden Town Market, Covent Garden, Tottenham Court Road, Leicester Square, Piccadilly, Regent Street and Oxford Circus Shopping, Chinatown, Soho, the Thames, a few bridges, Parliament and Big Ben, The London Eye, The National Theatre, and of course the Gielgud Theatre, where I saw my first London West End play. I am going to give you details about that.

Theatre:
I’ve already seen my first show in the West End (I just got home from seeing it in London a few minutes ago, actually. I couldn’t wait to write about it!!), and it was absolutely freaking incredible. Our seats were two rows from the front, which isn’t usually my preference. But since this was a straight play instead of a musical, I figured it wouldn’t be a huge detriment to be that close. Turns out…it really wasn’t a detriment, because the show was incredibly intense, and I think being so close only amplified the intensity. The play is called 6 Characters in Search of an Author, and it starred Ian McDiarmid. I will assume you don’t recognize the name, but I can almost guarantee you know who he is. This actor played the Emperor in all the Star Wars movies…that’s right, the hooded, melty skin, evil Emperor dude was about 5 feet from me on stage tonight. I practically could have reached out and touched him. His performance – as well as the show in general – was brilliant.

It’s starting to look like theatre-going will be consuming quite a lot of my paycheck, because there are just too many amazing shows with amazning actors playing now or opening soon for me to not take advantage. It would be a sin…a sacrilege…a tragedy…and lots of other bad things! So, here are the shows that Samantha and I are already planning on attending: Rainman, starring Josh Hartnett (OMG!) and Adam Godly; Ivanov, starring Kenneth Branaugh (OMG OMG!!); Madame DeSade, starring Dame Judi Dench (OMG OMG OMG!!!); Hamlet, starring Jude Law (yummy); Hamlet (again), starring David Tennant (he played Barty Crouch, Jr. in the 4th Harry Potter movie) and Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard!!); Oedipus, starring Ralph Fiennes (yummy); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, starring I don’t know who but I don’t care because it’s my favourite Shakespearian comedy and it’s at The Globe and we’re going to the final performance of the entire Globe season; The Royal Shakespeare Company’s performances of The Taming of the Shrew and Othello; plus zillions of musicals like Avenue Q, The Lion King, Chicago, Mama Mia, Oliver, We Will Rock You, Wicked (we’ve already got tix reserved for this one!), Phantom, Les Mis, Grease, and many more!

I tell you what folks, if this trip ends up failing in every other aspect, it’ll have been worth coming just for the theatre.

Well folks, that’s about it so far. I hope this serves a decent account of what I’ve been up to for the last three weeks. It’s probably way more than you wanted to know! I will definitely try to make sure that my next blog isn’t so long in coming, and since I finally have a school laptop at my disposal, typing these at home will be much easier. My school laptop won’t access personal email accounts, so my time on yahoo, gmail, myspace, and facebook will continue to be very limited, but at least I’ll be able to post these more frequently than every three weeks! The next one will be shorter, I swear!

Stay tuned to my blogsite for more! I miss you and love you!