I'm not a fan of this heat wave

[oloriel]

One month ago we had 10°C days. Now we have 35°C days. Neither is seasonal. What the fuck.

It's been... a couple of weeks. The end of the school year is always a mess up until the final conferences (tomorrow and Tuesday), and then everything suddenly grinds to a halt and we all try to just make it to the holidays (two weeks later) in one piece because technically we still have to teach the kids but they know as well as we do that nothing that happens now is relevant to their report card. Can't spend two weeks just watching movies, though...

I had my final audit in geography two weeks ago, and my final audit in English last Tuesday. Now only the exam audits & colloquium are left (in September) until I'm an actual fully licenced teacher. Seminary is in session again, which means that I have to drive all the way to Siegen again. The long drive and the long sitting on the uncomfortable seminary chairs mess with my thoracic spine and I always have a killer tension headache in the evening and most of the next day. I have to say, remote seminary truly was a blessing.

Currently, classes are actually happening in full and in situ, with all kids present. From Monday on, we'll even be allowed to take off our masks outside in the schoolyard (not inside the building, of course)!

Somewhere in between preparing for audits, just "normal" lesson prep, trying to make up fair grades from the patchy bits of contribution and the single exam we managed to write between lockdowns, and mock lesson prep for seminary, I got my second shot of the vaccine. As it was at the end of a seminary day, I suspect that the subsequent killer headache (see above) was more to blame on the drive than on Biontech. The vertigo and fatigue... might have been Biontech, or might have been the heat. Who knows. Now, at any rate, I'm just groaning at the heat. If this is June, what will August be like?

(Monsoon season, probably. We had monsoon-like rain a week or so ago, which is also Not Seasonal, but at least it filled up the cistern again...)

Two weeks to the holidays. Which will be a time to prepare for the exam colloquium, but also, one hopes, a chance to recover. (Whom am I kidding? I have so much to clean and tidy up that I won't actually get any rest. There's a new building project, too, which will mostly be done by actual craftspeople, but I will have to make room in the attic first, and that's unfortunately going to be... hard.)

Comments

[heartofoshun]

Sorry about the heat! We have had some hot weather here also alternating with temperatures which in the olden days used to be seasonal June weather. Nothing is predictable here anymore! We cannot believe that Alex is still in school. Tomorrow we are attending his graduation from Middle School to High School--live, in-person, outside on an athletic field. It will be the first in-person school-related event he has had this year. We have our fingers crossed that online schooling is over for him. These last few months have been sheer torture for him.

Sorry you have not been feeling well. Wonder if the pain will go away when school ends.

Sorry for all of the corrections!

[oloriel]

We currently have some seasonally mild and rainy June days. But it really isn't predictable anymore.

Can't believe Alex is already entering High School! Time flies. Felix is graduating from Elementary next week. We won't be able to attend because the celebration - while in-person - takes place at 11 am. I'm asking you! The mother-in-law will go, though, so he isn't alone. Such a strange thought that he'll enter Middle/High (it's the same institution here) after the holidays. I hope he'll settle in well. For me, it was a bit jarring back in the day. :/

A lot of the pain is tension, so I'm sure it'll get better during the holidays. At least if I don't spend too much time in front of the computer trying to catch up with fandom! ;)

[satismagic]

I hope things go smoothly for you to become a full-fledged teacher at long last. It sounds like a LOT of hurdles to take... And it's such a hard job with so much responsibility and not enough pay and not enough recognition. I sincerely admire you and all others who do it. ♥

The weather this year is... interesting. People assure me that in fifteen years they haven't seen such weather in the garden or that many slugs. (In my garden, there are a lot less slugs than last year! ...they still managed to kill all my cabbage plants.)

Good luck with the building project. I love it when actual craftspeople do things. But OMG do I know how much work still ends up to be done by us not-craftspeople.

[oloriel]

The though part is basically that we get to speed-run the normal qualification process, with the same performance expectations but instead of teaching 6-8 lessons on our own and accompanying experienced colleagues for 6 more lessons per week, we're expected to teach 18 lessons ourselves and just accompany colleagues for 2 lessons. Because we... haven't studied didactic and pedagogy so we... don't need to see how experienced teachers structure their lessons so much? Don't ask me. But soon it will be done! (Recognition-wise, hey, we've risen from "lazy nuisance" to "essential workers" this past year! :P)

The weather really is all over the place this year, isn't it. The slugs have been getting fewer here, too (making raised beds was clearly the right choice), but one of my melons and some cabbages have been murdered and another melon is only just starting to recover. :(

Yeah, it's just too expensive to let the craftspeople do the menial tasks. :/ I'm always a bit worried about craftspeople doing things, actually, due to the bad experiences from our first years here (and the absolute desaster left by our predecessor - a bona fide constructor!), but we can't make windows ourselves, and we've worked with this window fitter before and his team did a good job the last time. So there's hope!

[hhimring]

Good that you had your second vaccine and are making good progress towards the licence, but sorry to hear that some of this has been so painful!
I do hope you will manage to get a bit of rest in, too, during the holidays.

[oloriel]

Thank you. I have it better than some other colleagues in seminary, some of whom are working with super uncooperative schools and mean instructors. My instructors have been critical too, but in a constructive and helpful way. And my school, for all the stress the work brings, is really supportive. So I shouldn't grumble.

[independence1776]

I'm glad you got your second shot!

Curious American who always had final exams during the last week of the semester: why is there two weeks between the conferences and the last day of school?

Oof. I'm sorry the chairs and the drive is so horrible. And I hope the weather is seasonable for the rest of the season. I do hope you get some time to rest.

[oloriel]

Basically, it's because we don't do final exams (until 10th/13th grade for graduation), and we have to hand out report cards on the last day of school, so the grades need to be decided and approved (-> conferences) early enough to print, check and sign the report cards, which is done in the week running up to the last day of school. So basically, administrative reasons.

The grades are determined on the basis of classroom participation/projects/tests/presentations in most subjects, except for the "main subjects" (German, maths, English and electives) in which there are (normally) 2-3 written exams per term, as well as the other stuff. And because it can take some time to figure out appropriate grades on that basis, we get an early deadline. ;) There's enough material, so that isn't the problem; it's just hard to motivate most students to keep working after they know the grades are already made.

Thank you! Currently it's wet and cool, which is not unusual and a relief after last week.

[independence1776]

Thank you for the explanation! In the American schools I went to (all private), and I think this is how it works in Dad's public school, there are final exams at the end of every semester and teachers have a set number of days after to grade them and determine final grades, which are inputted into the school grade software. Then the report cards are printed and mailed home. Or they were; I have no idea if they are still printed or if they're entirely electronic now.

it's just hard to motivate most students to keep working after they know the grades are already made.

Yeah, that's… Have to admit, even though I was a good student, I'd be in the this-is-pointless camp. Except I'd do the work no matter my opinion because I'd be Worried About Consequences if I didn't.

[oloriel]

Yes, it was like that in the Canadian high school I went to as well. Here, we aren't allowed to mail report cards except in rare circumstances (illness, moving house shortly before the end of the school year, or, last year, lockdown) - they have to be handed over personally. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In a normal year, that last week rarely sees ordinary lessons; rather, we use it for "project week" (where students can choose the project they participate in so hopefully they're interested in it), sports days, etc. But of course we aren't allowed to mix student groups this year. So they have to stay in their classses. And as (try as we might) we didn't manage to complete the curriculum while remote, technically they still have to learn things they'll need next year! But it feels pointless, of course.