Friday, April 19, 2013

I am a worthless employee, just like Homer Simpson! Give me a promotion!


Yesterday, I was with my September kids in class and R comes in and asks to speak with me at 330, when I am done class.

OMG. WHY? I know I missed the staff meeting in the AM but I SMSd him and said I was at the docs.

Apparently, during the meeting, he was crapping on about the upcoming Audit, which means he will be super busy. Well duh, we all know that.

Due to that, he can't really devote as much time as he should (and has not been doing AT ALL) to Research. He needs help. He needs someone to take on a leading teacher role in Research.

He asked me to do it.

3 weeks ago, I more or less felt like he was going to fire me or at the very least, that my contract would not be renewed. Now, he wants me to do more or less all of the co-ordinators duties (without all the co-od pay). I will be paid a little extra for doing this leading teacher role, but not that much (Maybe $4K a year, which works out to about $70 a week extra! WHHOOOOTTT VEGAS BABY! :P)

Being a teacher, however, is never about the money.

Keeping my job at IES for the future is. I love working there for the most part. I fear if I say no, I will be toast at the end of the year. If I say yes, I will have to work more with R who annoys the fuck out of me. That said, at the same time, I can make sure that Research is some what more organised than it is now. I may have issues trying to get one of the teachers on board, but for the most part, I know I can do this job.

I could type out what he wants me to do, but suffice to say that other than writing Performance Criteria and evaluating the teachers, it's mostly being a co-ordinator of the subject.

I have to let him know by Monday.

Do I want this?

Monday, April 8, 2013

“You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning."

Margaret Thatcher died yesterday.

I am somewhat grateful (and partly shocked) that my FB feed is not more filled with reactions.

When I said to G last night that she died, his response was "Good", which saddened me.

I grew up in the 80s. My only real memory of anything to do with Thatcher and Reaganomics was his shooting attempt because it was John Hinckley trying to impress Jodie Foster. I love Jodie and that bit of news freaked me out.

I admit to be ignorant to her politics and what she did to England. I'm relatively unaware of her ties to Reagan (who, apparently, my husband hates even more than her).

That said, I am disgusted by articles like this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-death-party-brixton-glasgow
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2013/04/09/09/54/parties-break-out-to-celebrate-thatcher-s-death

Celebrating someone's death is harsh. I feel like a hypocrite because I am one of the first people to think that something is never OMG TOO SOON, but for some reason, I feel this is so distasteful.

The Maggie who died is not the same Maggie she was when she was in power. She was a frail old woman, suffering badly from dementia.

Writer Mark Millar tweeted: "Anybody sad about Thatcher today has clearly not read a newspaper since 1979."

Well, Mr Millar, I have. There are worse people out there controlling various countries than Ms Thatcher. Hell, even when Hugo Chavez died, I asked one of my students how he felt about it, since he is Venezuelan and very politically minded. This student, at the start of the year, told me about his distrust and dislike of Chavez in no uncertain terms. However, when told of his death, the student admitted to me that he was really unsure how he felt. Would it change his country? Probably not. Could the damage be undone? Probably not. A human life, however polarizing, was still lost and he could not bring himself to celebrate or mourn.

I'm not sad, per se, having no attachement to that era politically but the reactions of people has really made me think about my own rather bleak and perhaps knee-jerk reactions to bad news. Around our house, bad/shocking/sad news of often met with scorn and bad jokes. I can guarantee you don't want to know what was said when the news broke of the Oscar Pistorius shootings or when Steve Irwin died.

I will be interested to see how this plays out in editorial cartoons over the next week. When Steve Jobs died, all the cartoons about his death showed him in 'heaven' and when Quaddafi died, all the cartoons about him showed him in 'hell'. Where will Maggie end up?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-death-steve-bell-cartoon

RIP Maggie. I don't doubt that you made tough choices that hurt the UK but I have to admire you for your convictions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-death-world-reaction