God, I feel tired. Tired and ill: had the snuffles all week. I look awful: I caught sight of myself in a shop window as I came to work this afternoon. The face of a haunted, frustrated man. I feel stuck - trapped by everything about me, but most especially by myself. There is an explosion pent up within me, a desire to yell, shout, kick out and live, but I can't seem to find a way forward. each time it comes to making a decision, I go into agonies of doubt about whether it is the right thing to do or not, and by the time I've sort of made a decision, the time and opportunity have passed by. Why am I like this still?

5.40 in the evening. I feel knackered, but I've still got another 3 hours plus to go before I can weave home on my bike, avoiding the traffic. If there is any justice in this world, the fire alarm will go off mid-lesson, and I can escape to a pub or something. Actually, scratch the pub: I just need to curl up in a bed and sleep for a good twelve hours. Lesson today: not too bad, actually, tho the class screwed up at lunchtime. For some reason, they stopped listening, and I had to curtail the exercise and let them eat.

my throat is dying. I'm teaching all day and my voice could go at any minute. Oh well, back to EFL miming. It is today that marks exactly ten years since my first ever lesson. I was bricking myself before it: I hid in the bogs, staring at myself in the mirror, telling myself, 'I can do this! I can!' In the end, it went ok: No-one tried killing me. Well, not that week, anyway.

Ahhhhhhhh, Friday. Just finished class: exam techniques in writing. Piece of piss.

God, some drivel doesn't half get written on these blogs, and I'm painfully aware I'm one of the contributors. It's taken me the better part of two hours to get the OFSTED paperwork done for our up and coming inspection: I still have several more hours ahead of me, plus I must fake a load of lesson plans to give the impression of being an honest, paperwork-minded, conscientious teacher rather than the brilliant but bureaucratically errant firebrand I actually am. If I must teach, let me teach, for God's sake, rather than drown me in paper. Well, let's see how this evening goes.....

Only another four hours to go before I cycle home. I missed the action at the college this morning: Apparently, two gangs of Asians squared up to each other outside the main gates and all Hell broke loose. A few people ended up in hospital with hammer wounds. Honestly, what is the fucking point? I hate the gang mentality: The commonwealth of the lowest denominator. Groups of people who are metaphorically dragging their knuckles in the dust.

Nur started her ESOL course yesterday evening: I don't think she was entirely impressed by it. However, she came home and talked solidly for an hour about it, non-stop. She also had the cheek to be offended by the fact that I hadn't cooked anything for her. This is the person who, over all the years I have done evening classes, has never, not once, even bothered to put something in the microwave for me.

Lunchtime. I must plot a credible 3 hours' worth of lesson for the mong class now. Hmmm....

Halfway through the week.....I want to sleep..........

My word, I do seem to be writing a lot in here today....probably cos I'm not working...Two teachers just stormed and humphed their way in to the staffroom, annoyed at having to do a v. busy placement testing session, and not even of putative studentsn for our department. I have to consider what to do now for the evening class.....probably something straight from the book again....how professional, I hear some tightass EFLer mutter. Sod it, mate, I've had a long day. Besides, I got all my class through their CAE last year doing pretty much the same thing. So there.

What Egyptian Deity are you? go to:the quiz!

5.34 in the evening. just finished class, only the evening lot ahead of me now. God, Tuesdays are so long. And, after slogging my guts out over a hot lesson, I must cycle home and (almost certainly) cook for myself. My wife makes great soup on rare occasions, but I can count on the fingers of one arse the number of times I've come home to a hot meal. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I expect to be waited on hand and foot, it'd just be nice, every now and then, to come home and not have to do more stuff. Actually, the cycling home isn't too bad. It sure beats using the car, especially in the morning, and I'm starting to see the emergence of long-buried muscles in my legs and stomach.

Lunchtime. A quick chance to write up and look busy. I need to put something together for this afternoon...... I have half an hour to do it in....people faffing round the office....bollocks to it all.

just had the first half of the lesson. One of the students, a new face who turned up yesterday having unilaterally transferred himself from another class, spent the entire hour and a half either asleep or banging his head against the table. Oh, the stresses of English grammar...

mnnggh. Drank a bottle and a half of good red wine last night, went to bed at 1.30, arose at 6.15. I do this far too often to be good for me. Now I must teach from 9.00 until 9.00, a full fucking twelve hours. well, 8 and a half in the classroom. Six and a half of those hours are with the same fucking class! I just love Tuesdays.....

One of the things that gives me joy in this job is the weird variety of western names that the Chinese students give themselves. I often wonder why: I dislike using them, as it strikes me as a kind of colonialisation of the person. Then again, maybe they dislike having their real names mashed out of all recognition in the mouths of their teachers. Some of them have had names given to them by British, Australian and, in particular, American teachers back in China. These instructors clearly take a deeply sadistic pleasure in giving them, as evinced by some of the following examples:
Fanny (who rapidly changed her name to Judy after finding out its slang UK meaning)
Monty ( a name not used in anger since about WWII)
Branch
Clementine
Jet
Ames
Patty
Stimpy (yeah, I wonder if he had a friend named Ren?!)
Woodstock
and two of my favourites:
Nemesis (a thin, weedy kid with really big glasses)
Turbo (Small, rotund, very slow with a dead hedgehog for a haircut)

bluhhhh. Monday.
I ahve been trying to plan my entire week's lessons this morning, but to no avail. I can't get my head round it.
I had a miserable weekend, by and large. Friday evening's freedom from no.1 son degenerated into a pointless, silly argument. Not my fault: it seems I can't do anything right these days. I really don't know what my wife wants from me. If I do something, it's wrong. If I don't do something, it's wrong too. We seem to be caught in this hideous cycle of annoyance and recrimination. I hate it.

Hurrah! The end of the lesson!
I just read some guy's blog just before signing of for the day. Dear oh dear. It was very redneck. I won't honour it with a link. Just suffice to say that, while purporting to be the true American voice, it flies in the face of every principle of the American constitution. Hey, pal, just listen to this. The right to free speech does not mean that only the voice of the loudest must be heard. Stop calling me 'weasel'. Stop calling me 'Commie'. stop objectifying me. I am a human, like you, yet seemingly unlike you, I can bear to listen to others' voices without stopping my ears or turning away.

Friday! Just one lesson to go. My mum is taking No.1 & only son off our hands tonight, so wife & I can go out together and get pissed up. Or maybe just stay in and have copious sex all round the house. Or maybe go out, get drunk and have a shag. or something.
Just had a faculty meeting: Not many of us there. Two were off on a BASELT freebie, one at an aunt's funeral. The two ESOL teachers, Elaine and Rachel, were screeching and clucking like a pair of hysterical chickens. They wind each other up into paroxysms of worry. Thank Christ I don't share a staffroom with the buggers. Right, time for some work.

grrrr....students running back and forth, waving visa extension applications in my face, screaming 'You gi me attendan recor!' and now I have to go and teach some of them...oh joy....

half past two on a lazy thursday afternoon....I'm writing up the blog to give the impression to my fellow instructors that I'm engaged in profitable labour. I actually have a shitload of stuff to do, but I am, as ever, seeking to avoid it. The story of my life, that is.
We have an OFSTED inspection coming up, and everyone at management level is bricking themselves. Not only have new mousemats and post it notes been ordered, but projectors, computers and screens have been shoved in every classroom, along with orders to use them or else. It would be nice if half the bastards worked, or didn't fall on heads. Again, it is an example of senior management being obsessed with image, not substance. They see people as things, units to process or be used, and that's a sad failing in an academic (ha!) institution.
Right, that's enough of a rant for now, time to do some work. Or not.