Chasing my tail?

Fascinating day yesterday, as expected. Papirbredden in Drammen was a positive experience, too. There were three lectures, the first was a teacher from Drammen vgs talking about second year English and internet sources but he soon lost the plot and started doing film analysis which is a subject all young jet-setters like to talk about. Hanne N was there and it was nice to chat and hear her take on things. We both wondered how much relevance this had for our own teaching. Not much. Second up was a post doc from Blindern who gave us a run through of British politics from Thatcher until today. He seemed to know his subject, at least as well as I do, and he was interesting and pleasant with it. He said he had read Thatcher and Sons but when we talked about it, it proved that he hadn't. But altogether a good lecture. Number three was Per Egil Hegge who was both a disappointment and an enjoyable ninety minutes. He was totally unprepared for his talk about English in the world news, something I feel I know a certain amount about. But regrettably, he wandered off at several tangents and we got a sort of series of amusing anecdotes, mostly about stuff he had read about or seen on the net. He was either being polite or he was a bit off his bike when I spoke to him and he said he remembered listening to me on the radio. Nice of him though!

Today is a long one. I will be listeneing to oral presentations, and have already got three messages saying they can't come in for different reasons from
3PBB. Probably genuine, these messages are symptomatic of this gang of skivers who generally expect something for nothing in my lessons.

Time is of the essence at the moment. There is far too much to pack into far too little time and I must sit down and sketch out what is happening every day before and after the Greece trip in a fortnight's time. There are so many changes to my timetable, classes are having exams, the staff have to go to Vestfossen for this Ped Platform thing which looks like being a waste of valuable time, and I am afraid of forgetting something important. The news that the IB course is being kept is good, of course, and if I understood the news correctly yesterday, there will be another class set up here in the autumn. These are positive pieces of information in a sea of confusion which is making life a bit hectic. When am I going to get the warning lamp in the car seen to? What about the script for Allen's film about Ålesund? And if Odfjell ring up now, what am I going to say to them?

And the choir has a concert on Sunday with a final rehearsal tomorrow afternoon. This looks like being a shambles in more ways than one, but I feel strangely detached from it. I think I know the music and can follow the conductor's changes of tempo. Can the others? We'll see.

And this afternoon, I can report that there were as many as eight messages cancelling the English presentation in 3PBB but those who were there did a fair job. And the warning light in the car is now out. It was a valve in the exhaust cleansing system which will be fixed early in June, so that's OK. So now I think we can go into the weekend with no worries other than those associated with Cæciliaforeningen. And reindeer meat for dinner, it smells good already!!