Back in lockdown and online

Just seen that the last time I posted was end of May. Feels like a time warp since then. I finished marking all the exams for form twos which was quite an undertaking, and then did preparation for report comments. After that I was able to relax a bit. I went to art with Sarah Fynn and also managed a trip to Nyanga with good friends, which was icy but lovely. So glad we did it then, as we have now gone back into lockdown in Zim and interprovincial travel is blocked for the moment. I spent the last week of my holiday suddenly having to think about how to do high school online. Gulp! Art is particularly tricky but brainstormed with my colleague and we made a plan. 

It is a strange case of deja vu but also adaptation to new things for me at the moment. The whole period between now and the last lock down is a bit hazy and I've lost track of time. Sadly a few people I've known have died and funerals were limited in numbers. There have actually suddenly been quite a few deaths, some semi-expected, some not. My one dear friend lost her special dad and she had to travel out from the UK. Whilst travelling here was stressful with Covid, returning to the UK and having to stay in a quarantine hotel has been the pits. I am so not keen to do that to use my air ticket before it expires.

I have also been helping to moderate exam marking for IGCSE art. Art has definitely changed since I did high school art. You now have to put together a portfolio of work, experiment and explore a theme and show progression and structure through to your final exam piece. Some great art has been done by some of the girls. I am supposed to do an online course with Cambridge on marking IGCSE.

So yes, in some ways a lot has happened, but in other ways it's more of the same. My form ones in art are supposed to be thinking of ideas for a massive event to celebrate the end of Covid and design invitations, posters and a menu for it. My one dear student though said she was going to do it for a funeral - um, not quite what I was angling for in my brief. 

Africa Day and 1800 more minutes

 Today is Africa Day. Always makes me think deeply about this wonderful continent of ours and all the places I still want to visit on it. I'm very keen to maybe try go to Namibia with a German friend at the end of the year and then maybe Gonarezhou in Zim if I can with her too. Both on my bucket list. Still not sure when to use my England ticket. I'm not paying a fortune for quarantine and PCRs. 

The rest of this week is going to be a hectically busy one. Tomorrow, I go with the geo and drama departments to the Swedish Embassy for a workshop on climate change. I'm not sure if I'll be taking maths support before that, if I do, I will have to leave slightly early. Thursday straight after maths I hop on the bus with the A level art girls to go to Gallery Delta and then come back to school to do invigilating training. Friday I have professional development at Gateway in the afternoon. Three days, I can do it, just. Thank goodness no more really early mornings this term to do temperature checks at the gate. The guy who does it with me said last week he was manning the station on his own and because he was multi-tasking he accidentally squirted hand sanitiser at a girl instead of taking her temperature with the temperature gun. It went in her eyes, oops.

So looking forward the the three week break in June. Although I don't like having had a 6 month long term, the idea that I won't have to rush out of bed right in the middle of winter is a small consolation prize. Hope to go do some art with Sarah Fynn and maybe go to Nyanga. I might try my hand at doing a Bolivian multi-grain miellie. The other art teacher is having a go herself at the projects we've set our form ones and twos. Have to try using just primary colours and blending, like we've asked our students to.

My form ones are very sweet. Last Friday at the end of the lesson, one very petite girl came up to my desk. She had her mask on and I couldn't hear what she was saying, but eventually I heard her saying, have a nice weekend. They are all still obsessed with the concept of diamonds from peanut butter. I found a cool geology video though that had them bopping in their chairs which explained the rock cycle well, so hopefully they've understood it now.

Nearly the end of a half a year term

 I won't lie, the last couple of weeks have been a struggle. Especially with the very early morning temperature gate check duty which means I have to leave home at 6.15 to get to school on time. Lots of coffee has been needed and a great deal of exhaustion at the end of the week with lots of naps at weekends. The end of term is on the horizon though. We close on the 4th of June, but we have school exams before then and I have training tomorrow afternoon on how to write reports in the correct way and will also have training on how to invigilate exams. This Friday we have another professional photographer coming to give a talk in the art department and next week the geography and drama departments are going to the Swedish Embassy to do a workshop on the environment and the Sustainable Development Goals.

I might get a new NILD student from school. Am still trying to decide whether I will do Level 2 this year. At this precise moment I feel I could cope but school can suddenly spring extra work on you and leave you feeling very stressed. I am also not sure if I am using my air ticket to go to the UK in September or not. It all depends on the quarantine law. I'm not spending more than my air ticket on a crummy hotel and sitting isolated for 10 days out of my three week break in September. My form twos today were bemoaning COVID and how they haven't had a proper social life as teenagers so far.

Am quiz mistress along with another friend on Saturday. We're going to sit and try and gel our joint efforts together tomorrow. Tempted to ask whether it's true or false that you can make diamonds out of peanut butter. My form ones asked me this in geography and am afraid I dismissed it, until I thought I'd better Google and check, and low and behold you can, albeit low grade ones. My form ones are now theorising that if you sat on a jar of peanut butter with enough pressure you would create diamonds and make your fortune. I hope they're taking in the rest of the geo notes too.

Surfacing and reproduction of spiders

 The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a whirl wind of learning new things, new names and what I'm supposed to be doing. Am really enjoying being in the art department and am getting to know the girls and other staff. The form ones can come up with the funniest things. I get complimented on my dress sense and eyes but I also get asked random questions that have nothing to do with what we're learning. Today I was asked in a very serious tone, how do spiders reproduce. For a minute I thought about it and was about to give a biological answer but then I checked myself and was like, this is a geography lesson. They hadn't done reproductive biology yet and I was not about to go into spider reproduction. Nice try.

I have agreed to do maths support in the afternoons. You can see the effect of not having classroom teaching for a year. Some of my students just have no idea when it comes to algebra. Need to go back to basics. Had geo solar system projects to mark last weekend. There were a couple of projects that were really impressive and creative. From 3D planets made out of play dough or kaylite balls, I was really impressed.

This afternoon we had a dad who is a professional wildlife photographer giving a talk on photography to the sixth form. It was really cool and I learnt quite a bit on field of view, IOS and editing raw files. Had time at break today to sit on the steps with some of the other staff and photosynthesise which was nice. One of the staff was selling M&S, Woolworths and H&M clothes and another lady has eggs. Wish someone was selling milk, there's a shortage again.

Am back home to my beloved dogs. Was house sitting a big great Dane, a puppy great Dane and a pug last weekend and then Snowy, the black dog this week. Have marking and prep work but a friend is having a birthday at Domboshawa tomorrow and then have a braai and church on Sunday. Organising an online quiz tonight.

Music, photography and a long weekend

 We've been doing a hybrid time table this week with some of the school in and some doing online. It got jolly confusing as you had to have Microsoft Teams on video and recording while teaching those at school and it was tricky remembering to do this. I also had to quickly work out how to use Teams and how to do a shared screen, a bit different to Zoom which I'm more used to. In between I have been sprinting up and down to the computer lab to get help with Teams glitches and access to Senatical (a program we use for grades and report comments). I have almost made it through the first week though. Tomorrow all my classes are online so I can work from home.

It's Independence Day on Sunday, so we get Monday off as a holiday (yay!!) Will be going to get the second injection of Sino Pharm (although apparently Doha isn't recognising it as a vaccine for travel purposes). Might meet up with people in Ballantyne Park Conservancy on Sunday morning and hoping to Skype a friend in Australia Sunday afternoon.

Am loving that there is music in the art room (the girls bring their own and we've had Queen, Sia and other music playing) and then yesterday the orchestra was practising next door in the music room. They were doing a good job of Pirates of the Caribbean on strings.

Early mornings and Teams glitches

 I didn't sleep very well last night, so it was harder to get out of bed this morning at the crack of dawn again (well actually it's before dawn - not going to be fun mid-winter, I am not a morning person, much coffee needed. Luckily there is a kettle in the art room so I can make myself multiple cups, I just have to provide the coffee beans). Today passed in a bit of a blur. I had back to back form 2 art classes and I will next time make a note at the time of what each was doing and getting up to in progress as I didn't today and it is very hard to recap as they were all doing similar things but just got to different points. Before school started and then in my only free, I raced up and down to the IT department as my Mac was not connecting to Microsoft Teams and I really need to be. Have been using my mum's as a back up but need my own. There's a lovely lady in IT and she tried all sorts of things but none worked. I shut down and rebooted and tried reinstalling but Teams got jammed and wouldn't budge. In the end I phoned a friend who works where my laptop has just been upped in RAM and a new SSD and they managed by remote access to finally sort it out but it was a mission for them too.

I've started my first online marking. A different approach to how you comment and correct compared to when you have the hard copy but it does mean I don't have to lug too many hard copy books around. I will have to check classwork books on Friday though for geo and maths. Forgot next week is a public holiday so we get a mini break (yay) but it's thrown my hand in dates out a bit.

Saw yesterday that Doha is not recognising Sino Pharm as a vaccine for people entering from abroad. This is not great. We are due our second jab on Sunday at Wilkins Hospital. My sister is still keen for my mum and I to use our existing Ethiopian Airways plane ticket to visit the UK. Don't know what the travel laws will be then. 

A small cog in a big wheel

 As first days properly into the job go, today was fairly good. I found my classrooms, checked out and in adapters for Macs and projectors, ran a maths ratio treasure hunt and for now seem fairly on top things. The onslaught of marking starts tomorrow and navigating Microsoft Teams and marking online (a new one to me). I really am blessed to be mainly in the art department. I get my own classroom with a view out to the playing fields and lots of space. We use digital tools in art making with iPads and there are a couple of cameras. Went back to basic drawing and shading of seed pods today though. A friend who works at A.R.T. Farm kindly donated some beautiful multi-colour grain miellies to us. They are beautiful with red kernels and dried husks. I might even try some drawing if I have time. The art staff help with taking photos for the school and magazine (something I am more than happy to help with!)

Just as I started this new job a window of opportunity has suddenly arisen with getting students to teach English to online in China. It is something I was trying to gain access to after doing my CELTA qualification in Cape Town. The parents of one of my Chinese five year olds that I taught French to in China are looking at starting a school and they have lots of contacts in China to connect with. Definitely a market and there are lots of CELTA and TEFL teachers in Zimbabwe. I am feeling rather old today as another past tutoring student that I took when she was in grade two, is now in form 1 at my new school. I can't believe it is that long ago that I taught her. Her mum was in the flower growing industry and often gave me wonderful bouquets of roses.

On Sunday morning when we were leaving for church, a guy who lives on the street that we give art materials to and a cup of tea arrived. Someone had kindly donated a notepad for him to record his experiences on in a digital format. As a thank you he whipped out a box and said he had a present for me. I wasn't quite sure what he was giving me but it was a tiny black kitten. I felt terrible but had to say I couldn't take it, as I just can't with our dogs and also starting a new job, I'm not home to look after it. I really felt bad though as he was only feeding it bread.