The lyf so short

So yesterday was the annual teachers' excursion. Unlike excursions so far (which were a low-key visit to some nearby destination - such as a bowling alley, farm or - last year - handcar treck, with a barbecue afterwards) this one was a bigger affair, including a bus trip to the Moselle, a boat tour on the Moselle, a castle visit, and a fancy dinner. Accordingly, it was a lot more expensive than usual teachers' trips, and also taking up a lot more of the day (all of it, in fact - we left at 10am and returned at 10pm).
And a lot more frustrating.

I had weighed the pros and cons of going along for a while - teambuilding, fun with the colleagues, enrichment (TM), visiting a town I, personally, didn't know yet vs. giving away yet another otherwise free afternoon, sitting on the bus for a long time, the tourist-trap destination, and above all, the cost. I decided to go because it always looks slightly bad to skip the social events (no matter how full the work week, which this week included parent-teacher conferences) and the last ones were fairly fun. I figured I'd be able to do some work on the long bus journey (3 hours one direction) so I could maybe have some unexpected free time on the weekend. And let's face it, I've become fairly stationary and need to kick myself out of my remaining comfort zone occasionally. So along I went.

The bus trip was a horror. I did in fact correct a whole set of geography exams, but that was done while trying to ignore the increasingly drunk crowd (all colleagues) at the back of the bus (I was sitting in one of the front rows with the other boring people who were not in fact on the trip in order to get drunk before the bus had even reached the Autobahn). I don't mind people having fun. I do hate drunk crowds though, even (or especially) if I know them and all they're doing is being noisy, playing loud Ibiza-style music while singing along very badly, and trying to get everyone to participate in their schlager music karaoke. One (normally reasonably nice) colleague kept yelling that he needed a smoking break and when the bus driver ignored him, said very loudly that this was the worst bus driver he'd ever encountered.

The funny (not ha-ha funny, the other funny) thing is that when the students asked where we were going, they all nodded knowingly and expected us to get drunk (the Moselle valley is one of Germany's wine-growing regions) but when they heard that the principal was coming along, assumed that the trip would be boring because we'd have to behave. Instead, he was among the heaviest party-ers, which doubtlessly encouraged the bad behaviour.
Anyway.

The schlager music singing continued while running up the steep streets of Cochem to reach the castle in time for the guided tour (the Autobahn was crowded and we also eventually did take a smoking break so we were late), and during the guided tour, which was therefore heavily abridged. I tried to enjoy the nice aspects of it (pretty castle, lovely weather, nice panorama) but it was hard. Some colleagues were displaying signs of alcohol-induced dementia and it was hard to remain patient. Eventually there was a chance to leave the crowd (which wanted to go to a pub) and have some ice-cream and window-shopping with the other uncool colleagues who also didn't think getting drunk constituted a good time. We met the others again for the boat trip, which despite of cold temperatures and strong winds was very pretty. At that point the drinkers started to grow tired and a little more quiet but it was still embarrassing to have them around.
The fancy dinner was nice (and most people managed to behave themselves) and I managed to sleep a little on the bus trip back.

What remains is the feeling of some nice sights but a day otherwise wasted, and my opinion of about 70% of my colleagues (+ the boss) damaged. We will see if the damage is repairable.

In order to be not just a Negative Nelly, here are some pretty-ish pictures from the trip.


Inside Cochem Castle


View from the castle across the valley


View from the boat through the valley (castle included)


High-water marks on the wall of the restaurant (2003, 2018 and 2021 missing).
Name has nothing to do with the God of Thunder but ye olde spelling of Tor ("gate") instead because it's next to one of the old city gates.


This is where we had our fancy dinner (before everybody crowded in).

Final exam is on Monday.

I have half the work sheets prepared, and about one third of the plans I need to hand in.

Had planned to have the plans finished at the end of the summer holidays, one month ago. That worked out great, didn't it.

Yesterday, I fetched my class after lunch break and one boy was in tears. Didn't want to say what was wrong but his co-students told me that another student had stuffed stinging nettles into his shirt. As it turned out, that student and his croneys have been bullying the crying boy for weeks. Cue me dropping both English lessons to talk about bullying, why it is despicable, what sort of people do it, and what the kids should do when they witness it. Letter to parents of the bullies forthcoming. Today, I got an email from the bullied boy's mother describing the situation and complaining that other kids had seen the scene and said I just took the class inside. YES. I FUCKING TOOK THEM INSIDE BECAUSE THE FUCKING LUNCH BREAK WAS OVER AND THE PLAYGROUND IS NO PLACE TO TALK ABOUT SERIOUS MATTERS. WHAT EXACTLY SHOULD I HAVE DONE. I SACRIFICED TWO ENGLISH LESSONS THAT I WOULD HAVE NEEDED TO GET THE CLASS INTO SHAPE FOR THE EXAM.

Just moments ago, another message from another mother. One of the girls in class got death threats from a co-student. She will talk to the principal tomorrow. Don't know who sent the threats yet because she didn't bother to tell me. But there will definitely be consequences and because this is so serious, I'll probably have to tackle it on Thursday at the latest.

I can't. I have no clue how I'm supposed to get any of this done. Didn't have the time to write this entry either but I needed to get it out of the system so I don't break down crying in seminary tomorrow. I just... can't.

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.)

This year, thanks to the inscrutable workings of the German holiday system, my federal state has its fall holidays exactly between the end of the summer holidays and the start of the Christmas holidays, with eight weeks of regular school on either side. Well, eight weeks of regular school between summer and now, at my school, which is located in a blessed little city upon a blessed little hill where, apparently, the Rona doesn't really want to go. (There have been five confirmed cases - no casualties - between March and May, and none thereafter.) In cities all around, classes or entire schools have had to go into quarantine for a couple of weeks, but B-feld (no, not the conspiracy one) has been spared so far. Who knows how it'll go after the holidays. As our principal said meaningfully when he reminded everyone to remain cautious and stick to the rules, "Winter is coming."

Winter is coming. Already, our lessons start in the dark; and when the holidays are over, even the return to regular MET won't help the fact that the sun just doesn't rise before 8:30 in our latitudes, and soon it won't rise before the first recess. (For some reason, I have a really striking memory from back in grade 8, when we had an east-facing classroom and sat translating Caesar under a spectacular sunrise. The things our brain chooses to keep!) Moreover, the end of the decade is coming, so there are even more road constructions than usual. The Powers That Be have decided that, when there are major roadworks on one of the two connecting roads between the two towns I have to pass through on my way to work, it makes total sense to block the second road for construction, too. Then one week later, another road I need to take was blocked as well. It's hard not to feel targeted personally. I can now either take one of the official detours, which of course all the trucks are taking, or I can take three little detours of my own which, in spite of being longer, still get me there faster than the truck-infested official way. (Yes, yes, I know, until they can send goods via e-mail, I shall have to share the road with trucks.)

Winter is coming. One of the cornerstones of our COVID protection concept is that the windows are open as much as possible, ideally at all times. For a variety of reasons, it isn't possible even now - my classroom faces out to the school bus stop, so by 12, when the elementary school kids start gathering there, no lessons are possible when the windows are open. It's not even that they're playing and talking - which would be distracting enough - but that they keep rubbing their noses on our classroom window, waving, talking and even throwing things inside.I, the teacher, should be able to stop this with a few stern words. I am not. They don't care. All we can do is shut the window. We don't even have curtains that we can draw shut against the distraction. We don't even have those sticky foils that you can put on the windows to darken them. Talked to the janitor and he said "Well I'll have to ask the architect about that." Yeah, putting some darkening foil on the windows definitely sounds like something that's got to be cleared with the architect. Apparently, we aren't even allowed to stick window clings or other cafts stuff to the windows, let alone foil! (The frames, on the other hand, are made of metal, so I've been considering buying a set of neodymium magnets and hanging posters from the window frames. Daylight? What daylight? Winter is coming, anyway! Or maybe I'll use fabric?)

One positive effect of the open windows and the incoming cold season is that I'm no longer getting into trouble with colleagues for not telling my students to hang up their jackets in the corridor. "No jackets in the classroom" is one of those unwritten etiquette rules that I don't get, don't remember, and certainly don't care to enforce. I don't see the problem. That is, I don't understand why it's supposed to be a problem, and I also genuinely don't perceive the jackets unless I specifically pay attention to them, which I usually don't, because I don't remember the rule. I have jacket blindness. There can be a full classroom of 25-29 kids, all of them huddled in their jackets or using them to cushion their chairs, and my eyes will glide right over them. When other colleagues are in the classroom with me they'll immediately spot the students in the fourth row wearing their jackets and snap at them to take them outside. Then ten minutes later one of those students will notice another student having stealthily hung their jacket over the back of their chair and rat on them, so there's another student you have to send outside to hang up their jacket. And of course, a lot of students will argue for why they want to keep their jacket or why they shouldn't have to take it outside now. It's a self-made disruption and I don't see the point in the first place. I don't feel disrespected by students in jackets. IMO, it's a completely arbitrary rule. Besides, all the jackets right next to each other on the coatrack in the corridor seems like a surefire way of spreading lice or scabies, should someone have them! Not Worth It. But most of my colleagues are adamant about the "no jackets" rule - or were. Now that we have to keep the windows open most of the time, and many students forget to bring warm pullovers (or maybe they don't have one), we have been told to permit the wearing of jackets. That's a small blessing for the students and also for the jacket-blind, like me.

Another blessing! I've only been teaching there for two and a half years, so I've only heard it twice, but the "plastic building" is finally going to be demolished! The plastic building is one of those fugly 1970s modular container buildings that were used in schools all over the country for a couple of years until the cheap materials and the asbestos in the insulation made them unuseable. Our vice principal announced it during the last conference, starting with a little story. "When I started working here in 1984, the principal said, 'Oh, and don't worry about our plastic building down there, we don't use it anymore. In fact, it's going to be demolished any day now.'" General laughter. As we all know, it's 2020 and the damned thing is still there. Some students hate it because they're not allowed to play ball because too many hard kicks have damaged parts of the already damaged building (not all of it is plastic). Other students like it because they hide behind it for their illegal smoke. The teachers all hate it because we occasionally have to round up the secret smokers behind the building, which means climbing through a sizeable bramble and stinging nettle thicket first. Also, it's taking up a lot of space on what could otherwise be another nice part of the schoolyard. It's ugly and broken and sits in the way and is vandalised regularly, which is still technically a crime even though in this case, the building really is asking for it. But of course, it's not up to the school to decide to get it demolished; this has to be decided by the district council, and the district council always put it off. But now the state has announced that it won't be paying for the sins of the 70s after this decade is over, so the district council has finally signed the permit. The construction (or, in this case, destruction) company rolled in last Monday, started and will (hopefully) manage to get all the dangerous bits dismantled during the holidays and the whole thing gone by the new year. Oremus. After that, maybe we'll actually get an outdoor seating area? The kids aren't currently allowed to sit and eat in the cafeteria because it's too small for safe distancing, so they have to pick up their lunch (in plastic bowls or paper bags) and eat outside. The last two weeks were rainy and cold, and it's not like that's likely to get better in November. I hope our principal will finally allow the kids to go back into their classrooms, for lunch at least if not for all of lunch break. As usual, a few kids who couldn't behave have so far ruined this option for everybody. But we will see. After all, winter is - I may have mentioned this before - coming.

But first, I have two weeks of (theoretically) no school work, which (practically) will be used trying to tidy up and preparing for after the holidays. No rest for the teachers. And maybe I'll be able to look after the garden, which I've been forced to neglect since August? Jörg really wanted to go on another vacation AND start some major renovations (the fact that we now have two incomes is going to his head) but he ended up not booking as one option after the next turned into a high-risk zone. I'm a bit wistful - this time last year, we took the kids to London and Bristol during the fall holidays and it was fantastic - but also grateful, TBH. I just... don't want to have to go anywhere for a couple of days. Is that selfish? Maybe it is. But there's just so much to clean away and catch up with and prepare. The mere thought of going on a trip and leaving all that stuff for (yet) later is making me want to curl up and cry and threatening to start the self-loathing spiral (Why didn't I deal with this paperwork months ago? Why can't I stay on top of things for once?!?). And the long, dark tea-time of the soul hasn't even started yet.

I forgot to mention that this year, there were actually very few game and film lessons. Since the students have had five to seven school days since March 13, most teachers did real lessons until the very end. Because I am a big woobie and also because I have not yet found a way of motivating kids that know that their report cards are printed (and, in some cases, have actually received their report cards in the first lesson of the day), I went for a sort of compromise lesson. With the sixth graders, as I planned, I did a schoolyard letterboxing treasure hunt. Reactions varied. Some kids were happy, others whined that they had to walk. (Our schoolyard is not that large, although, thanks to its layout, it's possible to let three teams of children with different sets of directions walk around it without seeing each other for the most part.) In this heat! (The first half of the class started at around 8, at which time there were still plenty of shady spots.) With their masks on! (Yes, well.) But on the whole, it worked out OK.
The cheap keychain compasses that I had bought only worked if you held them exactly level, while being lucky enough for the sloppily suspended needle not to have got stuck. Only one group noticed. "That can't be right," I heard a voice from the bushes, "because it's pointing exactly where the sun is. The sun is never in the north!" Nobody believed him! They all learned this in geography in grade 5, and yet they wanted to trust a cheap plastic compass that they didn't even know how to use. Admittedly, this boy probably knew better not because he had paid better attention in geography (although he's an attentive student on the whole), but because he's a passionate boy scout and they still seem to learn things in the boy scouts in Dahl. "Trust the boy scout!" I shouted back at the bushes.
They remained unconvincced. "Well, we're not looking for north, we want to find south and then east."
"Yes," Boy Scout patiently said, "but a compass always points north. You sort of have to figure out the rest from there."
"The compass lies," I supplied, "think of it as Captain Jack Sparrow's compass, not a real one."
That worked better, and the boy scout managed to explain that the sun would be in the east at 8 am (south-east, technically, since it's midsummer and the damn thing rises at 3:30), which was good enough for their purpose.
But hey, they were outside, most of them managed to follow the English directions, and some of the stamps actually landed on the worksheet where they were supposed to land. I had written some directions in invisible ink and put UV pens in one of the letterboxes, which was (no pun intended) a highlight. They were also surprisingly excited about the magnifying glasses I had put in another box (for reading the small print); if I'd known that 12-year-olds are still enthused about cheap kindergarten-level magnifying glasses, I would've bought more of them.

For my 8th graders, I had prepared a geography crossword and grid, which was met with very little enthusiasm.
"We've had to actually learn things in all lessons today!" they told me. "No games or films at all!"
"Probably everybody thinks that all the other teachers are doing games or watching a film, so they want to do something else," I answered, because that had certainly been my reasoning behind doing something learning-related.
"You know what [Math Teacher] said when we asked if we could play games? 'How old do you think you are?' But then she made us do crafts! How old does she think we are?"
I was very much tempted to laugh now, both at their outrage and at [Math Teacher] not realising that they would associate crafts with preschool. (They had "crafted" a mini formulary.)
"So pleeeeease, can't we watch a movie now?"
"We only have 45 minutes. Besides, I don't have a movie with me."
Someone from the back row shouted, "YouTube is free!", while someone else sugested, "I'll give you my Netflix key!"
"No."
"Or my Disney+ key!"
"Tempting, but no."
"Are you watching The Mandalorian?"
"Only the first episode so far. Keeping the rest for the holidays."
"Let's start right now!" Big puppy eyes. "Don't you want to know what happens to Baby Yoda?"
"I do, but I also want you to learn earth geography. Come on, one last day."
Eventually, they did the quiz - with much grumbling. We went outside, though, so instead of their south-facing classroom (keep in mind that there's no air conditioning in German schools!), they could sit in whatever shady spots the school yard had to offer.

Yesterday, I got to teach one of the most challenging classes - during their very last lesson. After they'd already got their report cards. Initially, their class teacher had planned to hand out the report cards then, but then she decided he wanted to team-teach (or rather, team-hand out report cards) with the German teacher in an earlier lesson. So there I was, with a class that is hard to motivate at the best of times. Principles be damned; I watched a very old episode of The Simpsons with them. (In my defense, it was in English, it was at least tangentially related to next term's main focus in English, namely, Going To School In America, and it was about a situation they could relate to (we watched "Bart gets an F".) Even that was tough going. Only two or three of them were actually interested in watching; three more suffered in demonstrative boredom; the rest were acting up in more or less disruptive ways. Oh, and one girl declared that it was a "baby show" and beneath her dignity. -- Due to circumstances, I don't yet know what classes I'll teach next term, but since grades 5/6, 7/8 and 9/10 are generally treated as units, it's quite likely that I'll continue to teach this class next year. And like - I like these kids, individually. But getting them to learn something is like milking stones.
But that's a problem for next term.

Today, in accordance with the prophecy, we released our tenth-graders into the wild. And by "the wild", I mean either vocational training or three more years of school, but it was still epic.

Actually, it wasn't. Usually, Certificate Day is a fairly spectacular event, and we tried our hardest, but it just wasn't the same. We got permission to use the church, provided that no more than 50 people were inside at any one time, and that after each class 10, we would wipe down and disinfect every surface that had ostensibly been touched. So the service/ceremony consisted of the students of each class (~28 not-quite-adults), and the last set of teachers that had taught them (~10 adults), and the principal, and the minister. (Religious minister, not political minister. We're a Lutheran school, which is why the minister is relevant.) The parents/guardians (one per student) were permitted into the marketplace in front of the church, where a projector and screen had been prepared to transmit what was going on in the church, with their positions marked on the cobblestones so they'd know how far apart 1.5 metres are. Mandatory facemasks. Strictly no singing because singing releases more aerosols. After the ceremony, five graduates at a time were permitted to exit the church, and five parents at a time were allowed to go around the church to join their kids, who were then - separately - presented with their graduation certificate. After that, they had to clear the space to make room for the next.

To make up for the absence of most teachers (who would normally have been present) and the involvement of graduates from all four classes in the ceremony (for readings, speeches, etc.), the class teachers had prepared four video clips. To make up for the lack of singing, one of the teachers played "Fly me to the moon" on the cello, one of the guys played "Applaus" on the guitar, and one of the girls played "My heart will go on" on the piano. Reader, I nearly cried. I was never one to bawl during "My heart will go on", but I certainly was emotionally compromised during this rendition. Part of it was the unnaturally quiet atmosphere of the whole event, and part of it is, well, the strange sadness of having taught some of these students (not all of them succesfully) and now seeing them go away. Gave me enough of a headache, but they were still part of my life! And I only met them when they were already in grade 9! Much tougher for the teachers who accompanied them all the way from grade 5 to 10, of course.

Some of the graduates had dressed up for the occasion, sometimes impressively and sometimes hilariously. (One girl and her mother were already running late for the service, and then they stopped in the entrance to the marketplace and we all thought "Huh? What's going on here?" Then the girl changed from the comfortable slippers she'd been wearing into stilettoes! Another girl was wearing a strange miniskirt/split robe combination that wouldn't have looked out of place on a very fashionable wicked witch. And one wore a cocktail dress in neon green. ?!?!)

I suppose it was the best that could be done under the circumstances. At least they did get a ceremony, even if it was a weirdly subdued one.

One more week of this strange term to go for the rest of us. How things are going to be after the summer holidays? Nobody has the slightest. Right now, the political intention is "back to normal". Will that be possible after everyone from everywhere has mingled during the vacations? I cannot say.

Seminary started again this week. Because of reasons, instead of one long seminary day (Wednesday), there were two half-days (Wednesday and Thursday). Pleasant work-time wise, except that I drive three hours to get there and back again, so I'd infinitely have preferred going just once. Next week, because of schools opening again, it'll just be Wednesday.

Did I mention that I passed the education science exam in March (on the first day of lockdown)? So now I'm qualified to sit through the regular classes in my specific subjects (as well as the general practice class or Kernseminar that started back in November). Under normal circumstances, I'd have all three classes every Wednesday, but this year, they had to split various classes (so we can keep a distance of 1.5 meters to our classmates at all time), so they're running out of room (and every room has to be sanitised after use), so instead, we have one class per Wednesday but lasting six hours instead of two. In this manner, we'll be going until the summer holidays (starting June 27). And whither then? I cannot say.

English, of course, is one of the classes that had to be split up in three. Seeing the size of the English class honestly makes me wonder why there ever was a shortage of English teachers, but hey, now I'm inside the system and they can't kick me out anymore unless I misbehave or fail the final. I am certainly glad now that - in spite of the endless drive - I opted to start qualifying last November, as I did, instead of waiting until I could start in a seminary closer to home. Technically, the country still needs teachers, but it would probably still have been more difficult to get in.

Anyway, English class has been split into three classes, and yesterday was our first meeting. My English teaching teacher seems very friendly and supportive so far. Most of my classmates are "proper" teaching students (who got a Master of Education at university and then applied at schools right away), so they're in their mid-twenties (which currently feels very young). But there are three other aftercomers like me, who did something else first and now want to go into teaching, and who are married with kids already. (That is, two of them actually studied teaching, but one got her degree in Italy so she has to finalise it by taking the same exam as other German teachers, and the other went on a gap year in Australia that ended up lasting twenty years.) Anyway. Most of them are young and sweet and have that sheltered, clueless feel of kids fresh out of university about them. I feel old. Also, only two dudes in a class of 15 (and one of them is the teaching teacher).

Geography class, in contrast, consists of three people (teacher included), none of whom got a degree in teaching geography originally - even the teacher originally planned to do something else and then got roped into teaching sideways. I suspect that he may be more understanding of the difficulties of qualifying in this manner because he went through it himself (albeit twenty years ago, under very different conditions). Since we are only two students, he has announced that he'll more or less tailor our curriculum to fit our specific needs, rather than the curriculum of the general class. That is a good thing. But since we're such a tiny class (they put us in the first aid cabinet so we wouldn't take up a whole proper room XD), there's no way of hiding or zoning out, which is going to be a new and probably stressful experience, like a six-hour oral exam. :/ We'll see how that goes.

Now as I said, schools are also opening again next week -- one day for every grade except grade 10, who've been back to school for two weeks to prepare them for their final exam. (They all have to sit a final exam at the end of grade 10 and then either move on to something-like-college or vocational training.) This is - again - because current circumstances don't allow us to stuff thirty kids in one room (except perhaps the gym), so the classes have also been split. They'll use one classroom for the duration of their single school day (no chemistry lab or music room), on which they'll have classes ONLY in the core subjects (Math, German, English) without their elective. The other days will continue to feature distance learning. But at least we can print out worksheets and give them to the kids on their one school day. (There's apparently been a shitstorm in at least one class WhatsApp group because there were so many worksheets to print. But this complaint only reached us after the Easter holidays (five weeks after it originally came up) when one mother finally thought of *gasp* contacting the teachers. We could have printed all the sheets and sent them to the kids via snail mail in those five weeks, if only they had TOLD US that they needed them! But that, unfortunately, is typical of the parents at our school: they love complaining to each other instead of contacting the people who can actually do something about it. Same with the workload.)

I don't know yet when I'll be teaching. I usually teach English only in one grade 6 and one grade 7, but due to the split classes and the disappearance of geography for the rest of term, I expect that I'll be getting some new groups as well. But the schedule hasn't been worked out yet. Things remain... interesting. Julian's kindergarten still can't offer more than emergency supervision (only two and a half rooms in the building). Felix' school, likewise, has classes split in half and only one group per day. He'll be in school on Tuesday for the rest of May, and on a couple of random days in June. In all, he'll have seven days of actual classes. (Kids at my school, aside from the grade 10th, will have five days.)

It's a new phase. In theory, it's expect to last until the summer holidays and then the situation will be re-evaluated. In practice, it's entirely possible that two weeks from now, the second wave is going to force everything back into lockdown because keeping kids 1.5 meters apart at all times, washing their hands when entering class, and wearing face masks for the duration of the school day might not be as realistic as the general public seems to believe. And even if the kids stick to the rules in school, their parents probably won't.
It'll be good for the kids to have some social contacts outside home, to be sure - more for some than for others - and it's going to make the logistics of getting material to the kids a lot easier. But the risks are significant - especially as we don't know how responsible people in general will behave outside of school.

Jörg, who (he thinks) is a rational science-minded kind of person, has apparently been infected by the rampant "we have to go back to normal" idiocy going around. He can't wait for trainign to start again and has invited his brother over for the weekend. I want to kick him. He says if the kids go back to school and kindergarten, they're going to be exposed anyway. Never mind that Julian's specific kindergarten will continue to do emergency supervision only. Never mind the precautions the schools are taking. Never mind that kids who are at risk or who live with people at risk can easily be released from their duty to attend until the summer holidays. Never mind that both Jörg (high blood pressure and somewhat prone to pneumonia) and his mother (79, high blood pressure, asthma) are at risk. (So is Uncle Marc, for that matter, after the heart attack that cured him from chain smoking.) This is absolutely something we could apply for, if we took this seriously. Heck, I've been released from teaching in person or doing emergency supervision these past weeks because I'm living with at-risk people! I now feel pretty guilty about it (especially as the mother-in-law has been going to various non-emergency doctor and dentist appointments all this time). Evidently, the danger of them contracting the virus through their own actions is easily as high as that of me catching it from my students and passing it on to them. The mother-in-law has announced she wants to return to gym class, and thinks she's being responsible by waiting until June to do so. It's *throws up hands in despair* you know, whatever. Do what you want in your madness. ("But I'm growing fat!" You literally have zero fat under your skin which is why you're cold all the time, but if you feel you're getting rusty, go for a walk or something. "Oh no, that's boring on my own." Then go with us. "No, you walk too fast for me." Not with the kids, honestly.)

(Curiously, Jörg has been dead-set against letting Felix visit my parents, because contamination, and been very grumpy about our compromise of my parents driving over, parking under the walnut tree, and talking to the kids from the driveway or over the garden fence, because contamination. Dad is at home except when he buys groceries, and the safety measures at the nursing home where mum works are, understandably, extremely high. The mother-in-law visits her dentist and the optician and whatnot, but my parents are a risk to her health. Uh-huh. But my mum is also being absurd. She's still been seeing the kids every weekend, albeit at a distance, and they've been playing battleship via skype and whatnot, and yet she's all "This lack of contact makes me fade like a primrose!" Wow, melodramatic much? IDK. Maybe I'm just antisocial and uncharitable. Also, what are you even saying. Primroses are perfectly hardy little plants. Like. They rally after fading. They're coming back stronger. They're perennials, they know what they're doing. The primulae are fine.)

In conclusion, I'm tired. Again. Behold the field where I grow my fucks and see that it is barren.

... my sons'. Not necessarily mine. Situation unclear, further research necessary.

Officially, school and kindergarten are cancelled until the end of actual spring break (April 22nd). But we still have to come in on Monday and Tuesday for those kids whose parents didn't manage to secure supervision for them at short notice. And then we'll have to figure out how to keep emergency classes running for the 5th and 6th graders whose parents' jobs are on the "indispensable" list (police, fire services, HEALTH,...). Amusingly, teachers are not on the "indispensable" list, although they're presumably the people who have to supervise the kids whose parents have indispensable jobs. ?!?!?! Maybe this will be amended during the weekend.

Of course, the government left it for so long that a few undiscovered cases are bound to have infected their classmates. We'll find out over the course of the next weeks...

In the meantime, I have my educational sciences exam on Monday. Am undecided whether I should hope that it gets cancelled, too, or whether I should hope that I can get it over and done with. Urgh. According to the people who already had their exam this week, it's "fairly relaxed". I'm anxious nonetheless.

It's been A Week (TM). (A lecturer in university once said "I'd say it's been one of those weeks, but it's more like one of those lives I'm having". As the cool kids say, Big Mood.)

So it turned out that my free weekday was load-bearing.

Like. I knew that it was a really pleasant day to have. Unlike the weekend, when everybody is at home and clamouring for attention and expecting things because, after all, it's the free weekend, that was a day that I had pretty much to myself, and I needed that. I knew I'd miss it once it was gone. I didn't realise how much, though.

In November, the free day turned into an additional workday, with my qualification classes at ZfSL (or "seminary") from 9:30 to 16:00, which is already a lot of time during which I have to perform the role of attentive, highly motivated, sociable and fully capable adult (even during break time, which is after all spent with the other trainees). By the luck (not) of the draw, seminary is in Siegen. Siegen is 60 km from where I live as the raven flies, but unfortuantely I cannot fly, so I have the delightful options of either taking mostly country roads through the scenic Sauerland, which is every bit as remote as it sounds, or take the highway all the way to Cologne and then take the A4 eastwards, or take the highway towards Hagen and then take the A45 eastwards. (I'm currently going for a combination of "country roads until they meet the A45 or A4" but that probably won't work in real winter.) As a result, my commute takes an hour and ten minutes at a good time, and can easily take up to two hours during rush hour. So in reality, I'm away from home (and, what's worse, have to be fully focused) for twelve hours. I'm only teaching two additional classes, but those de facto twelve hours of seminary are grinding me down. For three weeks now, I've been constantly on the verge of crying just from exhaustion, and that's without anything sad happening. (That, or laughing hysterically. At seminary last week, I had an absolutely infantile laughing flash when a colleague told us how her four-year old daughter had stood in the living-room and declared loudly, "Alexa! Spiel Rotzi Kotzi!"* Which is funny, but is it funny enough to laugh-cry and get stomach cramps? Probably not.) Seminary itself is OK in parts and really interesting in others, but it's hard work. Lots of reading, lots of group work where you can't let anyone down. It's also slightly annoying that even with all the students being cooperative, highly motivated adults, the seminary teachers' plans never fit the actual time frame - something that would cost us trainee teachers points once they start observing our actual classes! On the plus side (I suppose?) it makes me appreciate more what the students have to do: Sitting through up to eight hours of lessons where they're expected to participate and perform, on top of going through puberty and trying to have hobbies and a social life. Student is a hard job, without a question.

It's a tough time in school. There are conferences, parent-teacher talks and other additional things every other week. Although I'm still officially a part-time teacher, I still have to participate full-time in these things, and it all adds up. It's also a stressful time for the students. We're half-way between fall break and the Christmas vacation, a time full of written exams and presentations and the usual problems that come with all that. With Christmas approaching, at least a third of the kids are exuberant with expectation and at least one third are frustrated with the gap between their real life and the glamourised image of happy families and unlimited wealth in the pre-Christmas commercials. Kids at our school come from all walks of life, so there's lots of material for conflict and crises. At best, teaching them is like herding cats; on occasion, it feels like putting one fire out while someone in the back of class lights the next three. I love the teaching! But believe it or not, it's hard work. In an attempt to summon some holiday spirit in the middle of this stressful time, I've packed an advent calendar for my 6th graders (they're 25 kids, so it more or less works out) when I packed the advent calendars for my own kids. They seem to appreciate it so far; I can only hope that nobody will be upset because they're number, like, 23 instead of 5. (I let them draw lots, so it was all in the hands of Lady Luck, but still.) We're having a class Christmas party next week (another long day), and I have to admit that I'm rather relieved that the class voted against doing an English play or rehearsing some English carols for the occasion...

Then, when I get home, of course there's still family life to maintain, because it's not the kids' fault that I'm now as busy and exhausted as their dad. And it's not Jörg's fault that things like buying groceries or doing the laundry or making dinner just plain putting the kids to bed are now an additional load on an already long list, rather than something that I can easily do on my free day or at the end of a manageable half-day. This is something we'll have to suss out anew, too.

Probably as a result of all this, my mind absolutely closes down when it comes to analytical thinking, which is awkward because I still haven't finished the fandom studies essay I've been working on since before the summer holidays. It just won't come together and it's so frustrating because I know what I'm trying to say but I don't know how to say it, and the mere thought of putting the bibliography together makes me want to cry (yet again). The only thing I want to write is TEA, because I currently know (more or less) what's happening next and also because it's currently offering the gratification of some really great comments. But even when I have the time to write (something other than tests and work sheets or assignments for seminary), I feel guilty about writing fanfic rather than the essay. I should just withdraw, but after already asking for an extension, that feels like a massive failure. I was so hoping to get a foot back in the academic door with that essay, with the long-term goal being possibly doing a PhD in Tolkien Studies (hey, if that's an actual specialisation in English Philology, I may as well use it). But whom am I kidding? I don't have the stamina for that kind of academic work if I can't even write a crappy essay.

In conclusion, I'm not a happy camper right now. I'm hoping that things will get easier with habit and that it won't be going like this for the full two years that seminary lasts. I hope my current state is just the normal adjustment to a new challenge, rather than actual burn-out. I really don't need that.

Adulting is haaard.



- - -
*Rolf Zukowski is a popular childrens' singer-songwriter in Germany. He was already hugely popular when I was a kid - my first "pop" concert was a Rolf Zukowski concert! The kid's rendering of his name as Rotzi Kotzi is doubly hilarious not just because it sounds funny, but also because Rotze is snot and Kotze is puke.

And thus ends my first year as a teacher.

I hope I'll manage to write more about it later (I know, I know, I always say that) but for now, let me just join my students in exulting at the beautiful prospect of FREEDOOOOM!!1!!