It's been a while, right?

Left.

It certainly has been a while. Laziness strikes. Especially after two holidays. I believe that the last time I wrote anything was just before we went away for the second time? MT tells me it was 22nd September, which was the day before. Goodo. Our holidays were nice. Both of them. The second place we stayed had a hot tub and a sauna. I used both. I got the sauna up to a little above 50ºC. I was sweating at that point, but wasn't feeling light headed. I got out because I had been in for half an hour at that point, and I didn't want to overdo it, as it was an infrared sauna. And the hot tub? Well, that was outside, and I used it on our last night there as it was a pleasant evening. I was glad that it wasn't windy - the cover was hard, and if that had blown onto me while I was in there...not good.

The place that we stayed second time round was on a private road. Yeah. A private road that was over a mile from the public highway to the lodge. Good stuff. So quiet. All that we heard was fighter jets and geese. Good stuff - we will return there.

The entire time we were there, I was waiting for my period to start. Did it? Of course it freaking didn't. I have a problem with my periods. It finally started last night, some two and a half months after my last period, in July. Dude, please, sort it out. I would much rather not have any at all. Fuck me, does this one hurt. Painkillers required. If it hadn't have been for the painkillers that I took this morning, I may not have gone to work. It really was bad, I couldn't believe how painful it was. One hysterectomy please, Mr. Gynaecologist!

Then it was time to come back to work, and that happened last week. Eugh is all that I can say about that. I don't like working. Does anyone? Well sometimes I do, but not at the moment.

I need a cup of tea.
[Pause...]

We just seem to have had such a shower of bastards coming in or demanding our help. From the stupid new knob head of department who decided to set his own date on when something must be done by us, and continued to push us for that date, despite our department never agreeing to that date. To stupid retards being handed the items that they ordered, and then saying "I ordered 'blah blah blah'. Err, no you put down "blah blah", you never mentioned "blah blah blah". Fuckwit. And to the dude who must weight at least 30 stone and is such a pompous twat. I can barely stand to look at him, let alone be in the same room as him. He either stinks of BO or shite. Today it was shite. He's worse than the drunk retiree who keeps coming in, twitching and utterly pissed as well as stinking as though something crawled into his throat and died.

For fuck's sake, would a gentle return have been so difficult? We had a nice holiday, and what could have been a nice, quiet return to work was plagued by stupid fucks simply existing. While I realise that the start of term is "busy", it is not just busy for the academic departments. In fact, the start of term would not be busy for the academic departments if any of them had good teachers who did planning during the holidays. They just fuck off to their far flung countries for 8 weeks each summer and do sweet FA. While we, the support staff come in during the holidays, or in the case of The Boss, ends up spending half a day while he is in deepest, darkest Norfolk fixing a problem at work because they just can't cope without him. Teachers have it so fucking easy. Sure the kids can be a handful, but they only work part time, and have about 16-20 weeks holiday per year. While the support staff do not, and we get abused, bitched at, have people try to go above us, and generally get treated like utter shit by these "teachers".

A nice little message to all the teachers out there. Not only: Fuck you, for the most part, but also, you need to realise that without us, you really would be fucked. Treat us with a little respect for once, and you might get good, clean, nice service from people who want to help you. A smile, a please and a thank you go a long way. Stop thinking that you are the only reason that schools exist. You forget - the only reason that schools open after each holiday is because we, the support staff have been slaving our arses off to get 3 times our normal workload finished before you lazy cunts return. As soon as teachers start respecting me, I will return the respect. At the moment, respect is pretty thin on the ground.

What else? Oh yes, I started my course last week. I'm a week ahead of schedule. And I went to the first tutorial last Tuesday. It was in Chelmsford, I was late because I couldn't find the building, and the room was full. There must have been almost 15 people there. I'm used to just me and tutor in the sociology ones. I realised that while I was there, I seemed to be the only one who had any knowledge of, well anything. I know it sounds like I'm blowing my own trumpet there, but as I sat amongst all of these other people (about 95% of whom said they were doing the course because they wanted to be a teacher. FFS.) I realised that this course was the kind of stuff I did at primary school. Hell, Doctor Faustus? - I read the Canterbury Tales in Middle English without a translation when I was in my first year at Grammar school - I was 11!

There were also people there who obviously didn't listen as one particular question about referencing was asked by someone next to me. That person listened and took notes. Then, someone behind me got the tutor to repeat his answer. FFS - seriously. He spoke loudly and clearly the first time round, and the second time he said exactly the same thing. How could that have made such a difference? At times it really felt like being in a class back at primary school. Particularly so when I realised I was the only person understanding a lot of my tutors references to other things in the arts/humanities. I know, that really does sound as though I am three miles up my own arse. But...ugh, I can just feel that subsequent tutorials are going to be painful. Maybe next time I will pipe up with stuff that I know, especially as we should be getting onto iambic pentameters, and Christopher Marlowe.

Maybe it will get better? Maybe some people will drop out, or no longer come to the tutorials? I wish I could skip OU Level 1 courses completely. That way, I could just go onto A210 or U211. It is one of these moments when I wish there was a bit of an OU selective entrance exam. If you can pass to a certain standard, you can begin at Level 2 and get your degree from there. If you can't pass at that standard, you can starting with the groundings in Level 1. Bleh. Just keep reminding yourself, young lady, that it will be over by June.