I am an English teacher as you know, so once I absorb the shock of each day’s new Corona headlines, my guilty secret is a fascination in our ability to quickly forge new words and sayings to deal with this pandemic – words and phrases that we didn’t have a few weeks ago. I take…
Author: thedragonflyjar
I'm a sixty something working, single woman, navigating through all the challenges and opportunities of life - hopefully with a little irreverent humour and grace.
Every day’s a school day …
This particular week in teaching is summed up nicely in a thank you message from one of our Year 11 students, ‘I hope you stay safe in these uncertain times’: Student turns teacher – we weren’t needed after all. Perhaps young people don’t need a clutch of exam certificates if they can show such empathy…
A bubble run
I am so gutted to see the steady stream of event cancellations in response to Corona. If this news had come straight after Christmas – when we were all willing to hibernate after a frenzy of social contact (some enforced) – it may have seemed more palatable. Now that the evenings are getting lighter we…
Cleaning up social distance
I was too blasé about gliding easily through the January Glums; I can see that February and March are not exactly smoothing our way to a fiesta of Spring sap-rising. I spoke too soon about being through the worst, so I am determined to find some positives in these dark storm days of corona virus…
Are we there yet?
Being a fifty-something blogger, it may surprise you that I have never written about the Big M. Not the Big M in Marathon – obviously I have written far too much about that – no, the Menopause. My lack of noise on this subject is not because I think I should remain silent – indeed,…
Stretcher Case
When I wrote last week about upping my marathon training, in my head I was actually thinking about slowing down. Over the last seven days there have certainly been plenty of opportunities to note that Life sometimes just puts a big road block in your path to ensure she has your full attention and that…
Spandex Speedypants
Confession time: I am out of self-inflicted retirement again and marathon training is mission-creeping my life. I spot my tell-tale anorak behaviours and the snarkiness which always accompanies the pyramid schedule of long distance runs. If you zoned out on reading the word ‘marathon’ I don’t blame you. I am even boring myself. I promised…
Name and Shame
If you believe what you read, January should be a mammoth slog to get through. I must be bucking this trend because relatively speaking, January – so far – has been very good to me. I think the bad press January gets arises from the media’s obsession with naming days. If I found myself a…
It’s a wonderful life
On the last day of term I realise that I still have deeper depths to plunge on the chocolate orange front. It is the Sixth Form Christmas Review and one tutor group challenges the others to take on their Chocolate Orange Challenge. I am officially teacher tired and tetchy but my interest is piqued by…
Work, rest and play
Now that we are actually in December, I can feel my inner Grinch starting to slowly thaw. The students have a Christmas playlist ear-worming its way through the Common Room and I have reluctantly relinquished THE master key to the Sixth Form store cupboard so that they can unleash the box of tat they like…
The Dragonfly Jar 