The "I Love My Job" Thread
 

Since I started volunteering and then working in school, I've noticed I take up a lot of the Happy thread with very similar posts.

So I've set up this thread which will allow people to differentiate between everyday mundane happiness at work, and winning the lottery happiness or personal happiness.

I'm not suggesting anyone else changes their posting habits, but for those who have a good day, week, month or who simply love their jobs, this option is here. If no-one else posts here, at least you can avoid the details of my school days should you so choose.

And it goes without saying - although I say it often - that my job does not pay a living wage, so I'm not boasting.

So, to kick off:
Tiger had a new reading book, and in his reading record, Dad noted that he really struggled. I decided to read it with him instead of him reading to me.
It's good practice if a child shows an aversion or says a book is too hard.
This book had a lot of animal noises in it.
He went from saying "I can't" to giggling as he made a dinosaur ROAR sound.
I love it when a plan comes together.

Awesome Sundae:)

I had a really good day today, Had a meeting of all the Hist1050 tutors (that's the module I'm teaching this semester - same as last time, but this time I'm taking two groups) and it was really nice reconnecting with the other post grad tutors.

Kind of related ... kind of ...

Here's another reason to love my job. I don't have to deal with things like these.

These pics came in an email, apparently showing what workers had to deal with when laying a new pipe in Western Australia.

Exhibit one: 5.5 metres (18' 2") of Saltwater crocodile.


Attachment 33929

Exhibit two: Snakes in a drain. 87 of the mofos, apparently. Don't know the species, don't care.

Attachment 33930

OMG! I'm glad I don't lay pipe in Oz, either!

I hope you don't lay pipe anywhere in public!

Tiger today was really happy with the book. No problemo.
He's kept it again tonight, but I'll switch it for him tomorrow.

Also found out I do not have to pay for coach/ museum entry when we go on a trip next month. Our topic this term is canals, we're off to Stoke Bruene. This is an annual trip for the school and I am looking forward to it. Of course I'll technically be volunteering after 13.30, but I'm happy with that.

This Tuesday we're going to Broughton Lock on a class walk.
I might be able to take some pics.
This was my last one of Aylesbury canal.

What a great pic, SG!! We had loads of canal holidays when I was a kid, they were lovely! We need to rent a 70 footer and fill it with Dwellars for an amazing week's cruise round the waterways of England ...

I love the canal picture. Canals are beautiful. At least the ones in parks. I suppose industrial canals aren't all that nice.

Oh glatt! The industrial ones are industrial no more, and are frequently lovely green corridors through crumbling but interesting industrial architecture ...

Limey has it. It's not all interesting, and some of them are still filthy, but you see a side to cities you wouldn't see otherwise.

Friends of mine in Leicester ran two boats owned by the Narrow Boats Trust (do NOT call a narrow boat a barge! Glare of death!) They went on coal runs to and from London every year, so they could be classified as working boats. London's canals were a revelation to me - I thought I knew the city. But I hadn't seen its waterworks.

I went to a narrow boat event in Maida Vale and enjoyed it immensely.
I'm too claustrophobic to choose it as a holiday though.

Nothin' like layin' a little pipe...:cool:

My great aunt had a narrow boat, Beautiful it was. All vibrant colours, always looked freshly painted.

Their cottage overlooked the canal in Worsley. Narrowboat moored pretty much out the back of their house :p

Showed Tiger my binoculars today.
He was immediately taken with them.
His especial pleasure was looking through them the wrong way in order to see everyone far away. Not surprising when I think about it.

I don't really need them at school, but as they were my birthday treat to myself I may as well pretend I can use them for something other than checking out David Tennant's (and next John Barrowman's) crotch.

Have started carrying a small bag with me at lunchtime. In it I have wet-wipes, tissues, a post-it pad (not my personalised one) and pen, binocs, whistle and lip balm (for me).

I won't clean up every child with dinner smeared over their face, but at least now I have the opportunity to give a wipe to a child in my class or in Tiger's group of friends. If you send them in to clean themself up it rarely works. Ditto snottty noses. They sort it in front of you or not at all.

Oh and the whistle is to get attention. The school provides some, but I couldn't be arsed to go through the requisition procedure - especially justifying why I might need it. The playing field is BIG. If I see a child entering the nature reserve (forbidden, but accessible via the bushes in one corner) I want them to stop NOW. Not when I've jogged over there. Ditto a child deciding to skin up the netball goalpost.

If I've brought the whole field to a halt (the whistle is the sign to line up) I will justify myself afterwards. But I'd rather be on the carpet for over-reacting than see a broken bone, or an eye injury.

So there.

A good day today all round, although it was quite disrupted by a visiting group (which over-ran on each session).
Some frustration from the staff, having our schedules messed up, but on the plus side the work combined exercise with learning and the children loved it.

Sad part - just spoke to Tiger-Mum.
Tiger is signed up for Dance Class after school every Thursday.
He is also used to going to Cine Club (viewing a film in the school hall) every month.
It always used to be on a Wednesday - I'm not sure why it has changed, but there will be a good reason - probably availability of staff.

So this time there is a clash.
Mum explained it when they got home.
Tiger was still crying at 18.00.
He could not (note, not would not) accept that they would run at the same time.
He repeatedly said that he would go to Dance Club after the film.

I assured Mum I would be there in the afternoon, so at least if it was still an issue I would understand and if worst came to worst I could call her.
Quite often, he will wake up and not reference something that was a serious issue the night before.
But I do understand it might be a problem again when the children are split into separate groups at the end of school.

Given that today went off-curriculum my class will appreciate a hand tomorrow anyway.
And I have stayed for previous Cine Nights, so Tiger will not find it odd (this one came in under my radar for some reason).

Poor chap.

I love my job because connections are everywhere you turn. Getting free continuing education to keep my state professional fire card up to date through a local dept I know a number of guys on. And recently I got to down to the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and work track safety in pit row. A guy I work with at the private EMS does it every year, and he dropped my name to the head of the dept and I got accepted. Worked the last race of the season, EMCO Gears Classic featuring the Rolex Series of Grand Am racing. It was an absolute blast, can't wait to do it again next summer.

Bullitt, you are awesome. :)

What she said.
And hot.

Just came here to add that I have the loudest whistle in the world.
It might be because it's new, because it looks the same as the school issue ones, even down to the lanyard. But when I blow it EVERYONE notices. Including the children at the far reaches of the field or on the Timber Trail (wooden play area) who haven't already reacted to the previous whistle. Or maybe it's my blowing skill ;)

It's loud enough to hurt my ears.
And I do not have sensitive hearing.

I love the power.

Always use the right tool for the job.

My friend has the loudest whistle I've ever heard, and that's without the tool.

We'll all be drunk and arguing, as we're wont to do, and she'll get mad that no one will listen to her and she'll whistle. Last time I about beat her ass...because it really really hurts my ears. My ears are sensitive, I guess.

I sure do miss them. But I bet if she whistled from her new home 30 miles away I'd still hear her!

Why wouldn't the school give you a whistle and lanyard?

Sundae really knows how to blow a

whistle..

....but she has to pay for it herself?

[thread drift]
That's nothing Monster. We are discussing setting up a First Responders squad in my community, so that help, provided by trained volunteers, can arrive at certain types of medical emergencies ahead of the ambulance. We are expected to raise the £3,000 or so required to buy the essential equipment ourselves. Huh?
[/thread drift]

I am not a lunchtime supervisor.
I probably could have made a case and got one, but at least this way it is my private property and I can keep it in my personal drawer. It cannot be borrowed and not returned, like 90% of the other whistles in school. I've also bought a different lanyard (Angry Birds), just to make it 100% clear.

I swear there must be a blackmarket trade in whistles in Bierton. Thy simply disappear (teachers have them for PE as well as lining up morning and lunchtime, dinner ladies for calling classes into different lunch sitting or getting the attention of children at a distance - we have a large school field). And there are never any when they need them!

Mrs M's bell has gone missing this month. She uses it to signal Tidy Up Time when the children are in our outside area. We're all baffled by its disappearance.

No, I'm not buying my own to replace it.

weird. that's a lot of whistling. So you have one in case Tiger/Tennant don't hear the whistle? Are they not super-sensistive to noise? Wait... is Tennant an Aspie kid or just one you've taken a shine to? I get so confused, I probably need more caffeine

No, I have a whistle in case I spot a random child shinning up a netball post. Or squeezing through the hedge into the nature reserve (where there are deep ponds masked by reeds). Or throwing something over the gate into the road (which really annoys our neighbours). Or a child in Year 3 deliberately pushing over a Reception child. All of the above real circumstances.

Don't worry about the £2.50 I spent if it makes me happy.
I once spent far more on cigarettes.

Tennant does not have Autism, but is Tiger's best friend and constant companion, so yes, I have a lot of contact with him. And yes I have taken a shine to him, but the same can be said for many of the children in my class. Same with K who I can't quote as she has speech development problems, but is with Tiger much of the time. I have never had to blow my whistle to get their attention, but I'd be a lousy school employee if I did not try to react to any of the behaviour listed above.

ETA should perhaps have said - I cover 40 minutes at lunchtime every day and one 15 minute break a week.
Although I am employed primarily to work with Tiger, the school has 5 hours a week to employ me as it sees fit.
I work at lunch time because Tiger broke his wrist at lunchtime back before he received his statement. No one knew. in fact even his parents didn't realise after they picked him up form school - it took until he was changing clothes for bed from what I remember.

Another TA also covers lunch for the boy she is employed to look after.
She acts as part-translator, part-counsellor and part-bouncer - she's on the door at lunchtime making sure the children don't come into school and wander about. But her pupil is older than Tiger.

Hey I gave up worrying about your spending a long time ago -there is no hope for you :lol:. it just seems weird you didn't get issued with one when they require you to supervise kids in that way! But I think I'd get my own too -sharing whistles -ew. i even get skeevy about the life guards sharing whistles and they can dunk them in the chlorinated pool. They only use whistles here to signal the end of lunch. I asked Hector what they do to attract your attention if you're doing bad things and he said they just come over to you.

Poor Tiger, that must have been scary for him.

What I find odd is that the teachers share their whistles, but are all so worried about sharing things with children. They wondered at me using the outside water fountain for example - because the children use it. And they very rarely eat homemade cakes or biscuits, and certainly not those made in class, despite supervising the washing of hands first. I mean I know children are - generally - less hygenic than adults, but germs are germs are germs.

Feel free to laugh like a drain when I come down with something awful in the next week or so.

Acme Thunderer, loudest whistle eva. Used by rugby referees the world over.

http://www.acmewhistles.co.uk/xcart/home.php?cat=1

Kids are a lot less hygenic than adults. :) They stick their hands down their pants to scratch at their butt cracks. They rub snot off with the back of their hand instead of getting a tissue. They pick at the bottoms of their shoes, after those same shoes went walking through the bathroom where the boys regularly have aiming problems. And when they have those first signs of getting sick, they get even less conscientious, not more. Children are filthy, filthy creatures.

I guess what I meant is, germs from the mouth :)
And trust me, I do know how icky they can be.

I was lucky to sit near "accident boy" at CineNite last night.
He's the one who had brown tipped fingernails the other week.
He was already in his PE top, so I assume he'd had a problem of some sort earlier in the day. I didn't know whether the pong was from the previous situation.

I behaved abominably.
I asked him if he needed to go to the toilet and then directed him to the nearest teacher.

In my (slight) defence, I had seated myself pretty much in the middle of the room, as it was close to Tiger and in truth I'd steered him there because it's the most helpful location in terms of helping to hand out drinks and hotdogs during Intermission.

But yes, as I suspected he had had another... evacuation. And the poor teacher had to do a thorough decontamination. He went home in the school's spare clothes.

All that aside, another reason to love my job; at lunchtime the children decided to do an imprompu conga line around the field. Small groups of children occasionally do this, but this was quite spectacular. I'd guess 2/3 of the school joined in, from the cool year 6's to the giggling Receptioners. It was only the whistle for lining up that stopped it.

No idea why this one hit it off so well, just chance I guess. And a windy day, which often whips them up into some kind of frenzy. A conga frenzy this time :)

kids and cats go crazy on windy days.

There was a programme on 5 live about education and failing schools in general.
I felt so sorry for one school governor, who suggested a small part of his school's problem was the exposed location, and the old design of the buildings that meant children had to queue up outside classrooms on windy days.

The amount of scoffage he came in for!
Some teachers & ex-teachers mailed and texted in support, but the public were all, "Bring back the cane! How pathetic! Children can't behave because of the wind?! They would behave if we employed ex-Army staff to thrash the badness out of them."

But as you say, it does make a difference!
I flew a kite with Tiger today in our one-to-one. He said some lovely full sentences about Autumn, including "The leaves are dancing!" and "Autumn is good for kites."

I'm digging my job these days because it's allowed me to do what I really love to do. (I'm now developing and delivering training materials to a multinational support team). I've also had a chance to see a lot more of the world than I would have otherwise - (Currently, I'm in Pune India - and am enjoying being here for the Festival season and the start of Diwali).

Wow! That's a long way from North Cackalacky!

28 hours of flying - but definitely worth it :) My second trip this year - and I have found that I LOVE India - the people, the culture, the food....worth every single one of my immunizations :)

Oh wow. Always wanted to visit India, even if it was just as a tourist.
Never could persuade anyone to come with me.
One of my first decisions of single life was to go to Sri Lanka. It was exquisite, but sadly the closest I ever came to India as things went downhill financially from there (for me I mean).

Photos. And lots, please.
Mundane, every day, food & drink, shops & cars.
If I could go back in time I would take 100s. But it was print film in those days and I felt extravagent using a whole roll!

ETA - K (mentioned previously, Tiger's friend with speech difficulties) is coming on so fast now. She is getting far more help and it shows, although she did come back from the Summer holiday with improved speech, so home is obviously working hard too. There are many words and phrases I can now understand, and I feel I am talking with a little girl, rather than just indulging a toddler (something I hated, knowing there is a bright spark there)

Yesterday she was obviously angling for a sticker. Tennant got one for eating all his dinner. And I sort of guessed that was what she wanted too, although it was 20 minutes later. I checked with one of our signers after lunch who confirmed that she was trying to sign "food finish", although it was a little fast (I wouldn't have known the difference anyway).

I was so proud of her. I had given her a sticker anyway, which said she had been good at lunchtime. Mrs K checked her lunchbox and we both gave her another one, because she had eaten all her food. It's not really an issue with her (although it can be with Tennant) but more a reward for her communication.

I'm picking up some Maketon, but without official training I will never be fluent. And K does adapt some, or sign fast or inaccurately. As long as I keep asking I'll pick up her usual ones - it's up to the experts to teach it properly.

Sundae, you could come with me, I'd love the company :)

I fly from NC to Newark NJ (2hours), then over the ocean to Frankfurt Germany (11hours) (I pretend to wave at England, although I know I'm nowhere near it!) Then after a 4hr layover, it's another 11 hour flight into Pune, India. We're going out and about tomorrow, (later today?) so I'll take lots of photos as we go :) (Shopping for sari's and kurtas, and baubles and things)

I'll wave back - at least I'll wave at the sky just in case.

Harvest Festival.

I come home every day with completely inappropriate lyrics in my head to Cauliflowers Are Fluffy, Cabbage is Green. I seem to be creating a Halloween version.

Brown potatoes in maggoty heaps
Come and poke your eyes out when everyone sleeps....

Anyway.

They've pretty much all behaved beautifully at the rehearsals.
Oddly, Tiger was paired with the most disruptive boy in the class, which means he walks with him to the church and sits next to him during the service. That's the trouble with working part time - I wasn't there to add input.

Neither have gone off the rails, just needed lots of reminders to behave (A. needs this anyway, all the time, but Tiger is mostly good if not distracted). Although both have been shouted at (not by me!) every single walk there and back.

Despite general input from the class teacher, Tiger is unintelligible when he reads his part.
I've simply not had the time to work on this with him as it is Assessment Week (a series of tests the children must sit) and the time we have together reading and in conversation work is more important than getting his Harvest Festival lines done well. No-one watching would be able to tell the difference between him and 2/3 of the class anyway.

He is so proud of being able to read his lines. But he puts his head down and gabbles. I'm sure we could work on a BIG VOICE, but as I say, you choose what you give time to do.

And watching him join in the actions for Hooray for Harvest is lovely.
He loves singing.

It is so lovely to read your joyful reports Sundae. They always make me smile (and I don't even like children!)

Off to Stoke Breune tomorrow - Canal Museum and Narrow Boat trip.
Day out my class and the class above.
I'm looking forward to it, just hope we have no travel sick children on the coach.
I might embarrass myself by retching along with them...

Oh - we had an exciting day today.
We were just settling down for some numeracy work on the carpet and Mr Headteacher stuck his head round the door and said, "The alarm is about to go off. It's not a drill, okay." Now in hindsight, we were the nearest classroom to the staffroom, which had just filled with smoke. He was trying to warn us to evacuate immediately, without frightening the children.

What we understood him to say was the alarm is about to go off, but you can ignore it as we're not actually having a fire drill.

Common sense meant we got moving as soon as we saw the class next door filing out.

It was an electrical fault in the staffroom dishwasher. A bit of smoke and nothing else. But it meant we were out of school for about half an hour, and we got to hear two fire engines wailing up the Aylesbury Road towards us (we were on the field and couldn't see them when they arrived).

We pulled together some school spirit and sang some Harvest Festival songs and a couple of the more upbeat ones about God. Tiger was pretty unperturbed, but I made sure I was there to answer his questions in a logical manner. In fact I'm more concerned about how he fared this afternoon as they were doing Taste as part of Exploring Our Senses. He might not have been up for the blindfolded taste test, given that he is still very fussy about what he eats and definitely does not let other people put surprises in his mouth! But I explained this to the teacher and TA covering the session and they assured me they would allow him to choose how far he participated.

No doubt I'll go in tomorrow and he will have sailed through it all with no problems, making me look neurotic :)

Ooh! Stoke Bruerne :)

Stoke Bruerne was lovely.
It always seems to be push, push, push on trips.
A bit hurry up and wait.
This one went pretty smoothly. Not saying there aren't things I would change though. I wasn't going to moan, but really... don't fill the coach up from the front! That way no-one has to run the gaunlet of occupied seats AND you can let the known travel-sickers sit at the front because they are the seats that remain, rather than having to shout at every child getting on "No, not those seats!"

Anyway.

Was a sunshine and clouds day when we left Bierton, and continued to be apparently.
But in Northamptonshire it wasn't cold, but it was overcast.
It's grim up North.

We were split into three groups which did the three different activities in a different order. Each group was further split amongst teachers, TAs and parent volunteers.

My group went to the Museum first.
Only four out of seven wanted to try on the hats.
One chap in a cap and one with a scarf, simulating the mufflers that men on the boats wore. And our resident dresser-upper (usually in Disney Princess gowns) in both.

And another inveterate dresser-upper, looking oddly Russian...?

Off for our towpath walk, except as we came out of the museum there was a boat about to go through the lock, so we were hustled onto the bridge by the volunteer. It was great for the children, because seeing it is so much better than talking about it - especially at that age.

Off we go.

Looking forwards under the next bridge.
And back to the boat entering the lock.

I have a photo of Tiger taken at this point.
He looks teh evil.
I mean, like that girl in front of the burning house.

I would love to share it with you, but it would be so wrong, especially as there is a chance it might escape this board. Trust me, it is a classic though. I'm going to email it to Tiger-Mum.

Watching the lock.

Then off to the second lock, not far away.
Boat about to enter.

Remember how I mentioned A, who it was perhaps best not to pair with Tiger?
Note detail here and below.

Looks very nice, Sundae.

But...

Lovely, Sundae! (Oh, and I think the dude looks like LJ ...)

So, the children wear school uniforms, but are allowed to wear their own coats to school, is that right? It's so easy to see their gang colors. The pink gang is the one I'd be most afraid of.

He's a very bright boy and I really like him.
Just sometimes I do turn my head and grin into my hand.
And other times I feel like turning him upside down and dunking him in a bucket of cold water.

Anyway - child cruelty aside...

We were SO lucky.
The Tessa was crewed by two wonderfully relaxed people. The lady steering was so good she got through locks with only one gate and never touched the sides. I know people in the boating community who could not do that and she did it twice in a row - effortlessly, gracefully - with many staring eyes.

As they came through the second lock they asked if the children would like to walk through their boat! What? A bunch of 20-odd 5-7 year olds you have never even seen before? Wow, that's altruism. And the mark of people with absolutely nothing to hide!

So we did, and they did and the children behaved beautifully. And I am so grateful to them. I know boat-folk are supposed to be friendly, but this was so generous.

After that, hot-foot it back for our rendezvous with Charlie.
A short trip taking us into the Blisworth Tunnel which runs 1.3 miles. On a narrow boat it takes approx one hour, but of course we just dipped into it. It's a popular river boat trip, especially for wedding parties in the summer. You have a bar and a disco and go from a sunny afternoon into pitch black for a while :)

Boarding Charlie.

Clod - yes, school uniform does not include coats at this age.
Although some of them are wearing Bierton School kagouls or fleeces.
I think it becomes uniform after 11 - at least it did when I was at school.
Although these days the girls the older girls mostly throw on jumpers, scarves, hats etc. Coats and jackets are a bit passe.

I'm down with the Pink Crew.
They are horrified at my coatlessness, but they accept that if it snows I do have a pink coat.

Infi & Limey - that is a parent volunteer.
I often get a lift home with his wife - both members of the PTA and she works lunchtimes at school as well as being a parent volunteer reader. Very good people.
There is a further pic of him coming up. He looks like neither, but I had to google Ned Beatty :)

Say Hello!
Here comes the tunnel.

Just to clarify - wedding parties do not use narrow boats like this :)
Obviously more than one type of boat uses this canal.

I took this pic in the dark, pointing and shooting blindly and using the flash.
None of the childer at that end of the boat were spooked anyway, they loved it.
I had an apprehensive girl either side of me, and Mrs M and Mr G had once each. There were screams when they turned the light out (only briefly, but three times) but they were just for the thrill of the noise.

We passed the blacksmith on the way in, but my shot was blurry.
So I took another one on the way back, only to find he had come out to greet us.
It's a real working blacksmith, not a part of the museum, but my photos do make him look a little like a Halloween figure :eek:

Pic and detail

Lock me, Amadeus!

From here we ate lunch by the canalside.
I kept my six on a tight rein - we ate on some steps as the others were there before us and there were no tables left except those right beside the canal. Oh,nononono.

Unfortunately my personal draw meant that I ended up with about 18 children, like some deranged child catcher. Okay - it was mostly children wanting to sit with friends, but I do attract some of the more talkative ones.

Next we went to do some dressing up.
After the earlier refusals (in the museum) I think some children felt left out of the fuss I made of the three who tried things on.
Who had his hand up first and was chosen (probably because of his height)?
Tiger.
I was surprised but very pleased.

Here he is with his fellow volunteer.

And of course after that (not being selected makes things so much more attractive) there were only four children who didn't dress up.

Our group.
And Tiger with another child from my class (who looked very dapper).

These aren't current pictures of course.
We went back in time to get them.

Cute kids. I love the one in the front with his arms crossed and the big grin on his face.

He has bright red hair in colour.
Lovely kid, but has a constant-toxic looking ooze... from his nose of course!

Not to ruin your illusion of course.

Funny thing is, when Mum came to school to see the Nativity last year (when I already had a contract to work with Tiger but was waiting for my CRB) we met him outside, working with a speech therapist.
Mum said something like "Maybe that's [Tiger]. That wouldn't be so bad, he seems... normal." Because she assumed I would be working with a creature that had no skin and a vestigal tail...

These are awesome! I wish we had more canals like this in the US.