Months Later

For the past...what...4 months I have been telling myself to update and add more to this blog.  Well, today I was watching an episode of "Desperate Housewives" (which by the way is awesome, why did I never watch it before??) and I thought that at this point I have no excuse! 

I'm on school holidays for a bit, it's been great. Last I wrote, my Mom had just left Australia - I'm hoping to fill in some of the blanks later, but for now, I'll do a quick rundown, with the best intentions of keeping this blog up better.

My job at Dymocks turned out to be not so good. My boss has his two daughters, age 19 and I think 22 working there, and he gave them both manager positions. Problem is, they are both spoiled and horrible, and the younger one especially is unqualified.  These girls were always bossing everyone around, and talking to us like 4-year-old children, and we couldn't do anything about it, because they were the boss's daughters, and if one of them had a problem with you, it would be hell to be at work.  They were also known for being catty and perpetrating gossip at work.  It turned out that for some reason the younger one took a dislike to me. I would grit my teeth and bear it when she made comments about my work, personality, even my appearance, particularly my hair and weight. She would give me irrelevant jobs, like going upstairs to do everyones' dishes. At this point, I started looking around for something else, but not seriously, and I guess while I was at it, I stopped humoring the daughter so much. Several staff members came to me to tell me that this daughter didn't like me and that she was spreading gossip about me in the workplace. I just kept out of it. But then when the next month's roster was posted, I wasn't on it.  I knew what happened. The same thing had happened to another work colleague of mine who this girl didn't care for.  When I went to talk to the boss, I was floored by how rude and inhumane he was.  He told me that one of his his "trusted managers" had "reported" that I wasn't doing my job properly. That was preposterous; everyone there knows that I go above and beyond what is required over there.  When I told the boss this, he just smirked and told me that since I went back to school and went from full-time to casual, I no longer had rights in the workplace. There are a lot of other things he said to me, but I won't go through it all here, it was all very awful, mean and unprofessional.  I started to tear up in his office and all he said when he saw was "Are we done here?" Anyway. I'll be happy if I never see him or his daughters again!

I am about half done the Graduate Diploma of Education (high school teaching) and a lot of it has been pretty intense. I was terrified going into my first Prac for instance - I definitely didn't feel prepared to teach a high school class, and the first time I did it, my hands were shaking as I took the roll. It all worked out though, and I ended up really enjoying it. My mentor teacher, Rick London, was really cool, and we got along very well and had some great chats. He's an amazing person, and weirdly, he looks quite a bit like Bret Easton Ellis.

It seemed like moments after Prac that it was time for presentations, microteaching and written assignments, followed by exam week, followed immediately by Prac #2! Luckily, 2nd Prac was at the same school as 1st Prac, and I did well, and had a good time with Rick and the rest of the English department. I think I learned more in the three weeks of prac than in the whole school semester. It was really an eye opener to see what worked, what didn't, and to really get in there. I fell on my face a couple of times for sure, but that's how you learn.  I got to know the kids a lot better, and taught some year 12 classes. I was sad to leave some of the kids, and they told me that they really liked having me as their teacher. Really good experience.