Yellowtrampoline

I have a job! Hooray! It was all very quick and sudden, and I only heard about the opportunity last thursday and now here I am 12 days later and two days in. It’s as a Hybrid Tutor in Epping Forest, and I’m enjoying it so far. Obviously not teaching yet as I need to learn how things are different here, but I’m settling in. So that’s good!

Lost Generation

Again, it has been far too long. I have still not given up on my yellowtrampoline, but life tends to get in the way a bit now, I’ve found. So what have I been up to? My job at Amersham was amazing, I adored it and the people I worked with. However, sadly there was not enough in the coffers to keep all of the trainees, and Teresa was the lucky one to get the tutor job, so after two extra months as a hybrid tutor (slightly more pay) I left the centre, and, of course, my new home and friends, Brownies, WI…
So now I’m back at home for a bit. I’m not as despondent as the last paragraph may make out, I promise. I’m fully aware that the tiny but perfectly formed centre at Amersham might one day have felt too cramped, and in some ways I’m grateful that I never got to that stage. In other ways, of course, I wish I was still there!
My job search has thus far borne no more fruit than a couple of interviews, and although that is a good start, it’s not a job, is it? The main, sometimes only, reason given for not employing me has been that others had more experience. But, if noone will employ me, how will I get experience?!
I’ve decided the answer lies in more applications, hopefully interviews, and Oxfam, so I’ve started volunteering in a local shop, about once a week.
So, there, I’m up to date. Back to the application grindstone.

I might even get around to photographing the one I made so you all can see it too. I’m impressed with how easy it was!

Paper Snowflakes – More DIY How To Projects

Once upon a time… from Capucha on Vimeo.

yellowtrampoline.com as a wordle.net cloud

I like!

This one’s Nicki’s site. Nicki – you need to take a look at your comments, there’s something going wrong. Maybe upgrade wordpress?

Gracious, I’m rubbish at keeping you all up to date. Sorry!

The job is still Awesomeness Incarnate, and I feel so so lucky to have landed a job I love, and where I get on so well with everyone I work with. There’s my Head of Centre Jackie, Tutor Jenny, Fellow Trainee Tutor Teresa, and Daisy, of course, Jackie’s dog. I live in a little house with Jenny and Teresa and Jenny’s cat Squish in a village about 3 miles from the centre. I’m helping with a local Brownie pack, and have joined the WI. (“What, the Women’s Institute? Aren’t you a bit young?” “Aren’t they the ones with the naked calendar?” and “I didn’t know you could make jam” are all apparently valid responses to this comment.) Life is good.

Anyway, back to the job, which I’m sure you’re all itching to hear about. I’m teaching so much earlier and with so much more confidence than I ever imagined possible. Even visiting teachers say I’m authoritative, and one even said that if I’d told her to jump in the pond she probably would have, although in hindsight that may not have been a compliment. We teach Reception (age 5) up to A-level, over the range of Geography/Biology topics. For example, urban studies in High Wycombe, downstream changes in the River Chess, Rocks and Soils, Energy and Electricity (the substation, see. One of our volunteers dresses up as Michael Faraday and tries to put knives in toasters and so forth. Cue thirty seven-year-olds crying “No, Michael, no!” in unison. I have yet to see this in action, but I’m looking forward to it.) Also A-level projects, Freshwater and Woodland Ecology and Barnaby Bear (awww! 5-year-olds walking round the woods is so Sweet!). Half term was fun, and I planned and ran a day rather grandly entitled “The adventures of Isaac the Newt.” We did a little treasure hunt (all the clues were in rhyme, of course) and a bit of pond dipping, and we made sock-newts (hooray! They worked really well, too) and as it had snowed rather heavily the night before, we had a bit of a run around in the snow and made a snow-newt too. What other job lets you do that?

If you think of anything else I haven’t mentioned, any questions I haven’t answered, please do comment, I like talking about work.

In other news, I turned 24 this week, and had a lovely weekend full of tasty food and wonderful people, all of whom gave me such perfect, thoughtful presents, so thank you all. Fabric bunting! A slow cooker! It’s all so exciting!

I should really go.  It’s gone midnight and I’m teaching a birthday party tomorrow, more’s the pity. We’re doing a Pirate’s Treasure day with a bit of pond dipping thrown in for good measure.  Assuming it doesn’t snow too hard in the night, that is.

Love to you all

S xxx

http://resurrectionfern.typepad.com/resurrection_fern/2008/09/cool-enough.html

The bit about the mushrooms is pretty cool, but keep scrolling, it just gets so much better.

I’ve started my new job and have so far been on a 2-day new tutor course, spent half a day at the centre, been on a 4-day first aid course (mud, rain, incident management scenarios outside in the bushes), been out for my head of centre’s birthday and spent my first full day at the centre – with students! They were an A-level group studying freshwater ecology, so we went to the meadow pond and to the woodland pond and did a lot of pond dipping. We found loads of baby newts (known as efts, but I think newtpoles is cuter, at least for the littlest ones) and a grown-up newt, lots of waterboatmen, plenty of non biting midge larvae (aka Chironomus, which we were looking for) and billions of Daphnia. A good day. So far I like the new job Very Much.