Getting There

originally posted on 12 May 2011.

A quick one this week.

It is beginning to feel like the end of term.  Yesterday, my students were legitimately playing computer games during class and it just needs an 'end of course' show or graduation ceremony, to make it feel like the end.  If this was CAFA, we would have had it by now.  Anyway, there are still 15 whole days of classroom time left.  I don't know how I am going to fill them.  Of course, the final exams are looming.  These fall at the beginning of June and I expect there will be some exam preparation to go through.  I can't see how the assessment team will come up with anything particularly different from the mid-terms, however.  So, it will be more of the same. Preparation, followed by invigilation and marking.  And then it truly is all over.  Except I have most of June in which to kill time.


Fortunately, I will have more than enough to get mentally and physically prepared for the summer school.  6 weeks will seem like nothing, by comparison to this.  I already know what my first two projects will be.  I would quite like to see a few familiar faces, but it wouldn't matter if there was a whole new bunch of teachers this time around.  They can't keep paying staff the same money year on year and expect people to return.  As far as KSU PY is concerned, I have just completed my staff appraisal form and opened up with some of my thoughts and feelings, ahead of my planned appraisal on 24 May.  I have neglected to answer questions relating to how I will approach the next semester (at KSU PY, in the autumn) and just stated that 'there would need to big a discussion about how I could be persuaded to come back'.  It is unlikely.  What is more likely is that I will stay in the UK and do a full-time DELTA, subject to options and costs.


In the meantime, I have agreed to be filmed for Saudi national TV - channel 2 - about the KSU PY programme.  I am the only non-muslim, non arabic speaker who has come forward.  I suspect this is because not many people want to be filmed saying anything remotely positive about the programme.  I, on the other hand, am able to lie through gritted teeth, make out this is all for good of King Abdullah and the blessed mercy of Allah, and rack up another media experience which will fit nicely on my CV.    Anyway, filming is within the next 2 weeks with a broadcast due at the end of May. Inshallah!



note: This is a re-post after Blogger's service went down for 2 days.