Stage Fright!

Today was the return to school after the two week break. Last night I slept very little. In the general routine of things I'm fairly confident as NQTs go I think. I don't have a great deal of pressure on me, my classes are generally populated by decent kids and my boss is perhaps the most laid-back person in the world.

None of this assuaged my feeling of dread last night, or on the drive in to school this morning. I felt mortified at the thought of all those people looking at me. What if I say something wrong and they laugh at me? Supposing I get one of those impromptu visits that the headmistress is always promising and I'm suddenly found out? (The last of these is unlikely, to be frank, as I am a department of one in a quiet non bacc-water of the school.)

I wondered last night if these spasms of self doubt are a peculiar neurosis of mine, or if it something more endemic to the profession. A quick unscientific poll of my teacher friends was revealing. K an NQT in primary agreed with my use of the words 'stage fright' and said that she feels knotted inside on Sunday evening as she practices her 'lines' for the next day's performance. C, a primary teacher with 8 years' experience, while less dramatic than we newbies, admitted to getting 'very bad back-to-work dreams at the end of holidays - they always involve me screaming at children who don't even turn to the sound of my voice'. 

So, I am not alone, we all feel slightly as though we are performing for 5 hours each day. I wonder if this is heightened in me, because of my academic and professional volte-face relatively late in life. I didn't do A'levels. (I stayed on to sixth form but the things I did with my time did not amount to any qualifications.) I got    a job at 18 in the civil service, got married, had a number of children, became a housewife until suddenly at the age of 30 I realised *WHAM* that I needed more.  So I got a degree (and an extra child during) followed by a PGCE and most recently a brilliant job 300 miles away from my (now estranged) husband. It's been a whirlwind and I often find myself staring at my reflection thinking 'who are you?'. I keep wondering when someone will notice that this brilliant new life is not mine; I don't deserve it. That I'm really not this fulfilled and independent woman with an ID card that reads 'Law Teacher'. When will the curtains come down?

Procrastination

Today I'm mostly drinking tea, trying to ignore dieting pangs and looking at a pile of text-books and specifications without feeling the slightest inclination to GET ON WITH IT.

I'm fairly sure that I have some sort of psychiatric disorder that involves getting a kick out of leaving things far beyond the last minute. Planning lessons and learning the syllabus actually in the moment is certainly adrenaline-laden but perhaps not an OFSTED approved approach.

I need a plan and structure for today, a giant pot of tea (check!) and someone standing over me with a big stick.
Someone who is variously not:

• distractingly attractive 
• fascinatingly unattractive
• entertainingly bright
• amusingly dim

. The entire cast of The One Show seem to fit the bill.

I hasten to add I don't watch The One Show deliberately. It has an annoying habit of slipping under my shit-telly radar after the news for a few minutes occasionally. It's a surprisingly wily thing considering it seems to lack any sort of wit, guile or intelligence. Perhaps it operates like white noise in a sci-fi, delivering simpering 'celebrity' and presenters drinking from (clearly empty) teacups while you drool.

Enough nonsense. There are word-games to be played.

Half term woes

So it's February. A bleak sort of month. And my school has a 2 week half term so I am now wallowing my way through the 2nd chilly grey week. I am feeling glum and lazy. I should have booked a cheap ski trip. But my children's schools are in this week, oh! and I am broke. (£350 gas bill that arrived makes doubly sure of this)

We had 2 weeks off in October too and by this point in week 2 I was actually slightly mad. Over-thinking every decision I have ever made and hiding from all the actual things I ought to have been doing. Crying a lot.

I think I largely have avoided the madness this time around. I haven't cried at all this week. There was a momentary slip where I indulged in a bit of seriously unhealthy cyberstalking. It's never a good idea to go and re-find those accidently unsecured photographs that tell you "yes she really is much thinner, prettier and richer and 'yes' she has the man too".

Still have a lot of NQT business to attend to before next Monday too. I have an A2 unit to teach that is feeling very foggy at the moment. I  MUST get to grips with that. It's a new unit, so there are no resources to bastardise on the usual websites. Lots to do from scratch. That will keep me out of trouble. Mostly.