When will the holidays arrive????

Is anyone else desperate for the school holidays to start?

Don't get me wrong; I'm a dedicated educationalist with my whole being focussed towards my students, their wellbeing and their VCE results. I think of nothing else.

But I want this term to stop dragging its feet and just END! Here's a shot of Jack in school uniform, looking how I feel.....

It's not because we're flying off to Phuket in a week, to spend 9 days in another country with elephants, green foliage and ultra-cheap shopping. I'm so busy racing around that the reality of Phuket hasn't quite surfaced. My brain knows that it's coming soon, but my stomach is lagging behind. When I feel the butterflies I'll know that I'm excited. But at the moment it's all school.

I'm trying to get all of my year 12 essays marked before the holidays. That on its own would be no problem. It's the fact of cross-marking. To make sure the marks the year 12s get are fair, every essay is marked by two teachers, and if those marks differ by more than 3... then they're set aside to be marked by a third teacher. (And occasionally a fourth, if opinions are passionate.... doesn't happen often, thankfully!) To sum up... at certain times of the year there's a bucketful of work to mark.

My ESL (English as a Second Language... ie. migrant kids) have been marked/cross marked and are OFF the radar (yay! I was up at 4.30am on Monday to get those ones out of the way), and now I'm grimly chipping away at the English ones. Though I have to say it's lovely when you get a good one to read... when the student really engages with the novel/film and writes beautifully; it makes it all worthwhile. I won't comment on the ones that are an excercise in endurance for me to get through, (and probably the writer as well.) I've got 12 more to mark for other teachers, then I'll tackle my class of 22, and then I'll be FREE!!!!!!

Today and tomorrow to go...... counting down.....