When I first arrived I thought ‘Oh good, the toilet is conveniently near my bedroom’

Date: Fri, 17 Sept 1999 22:14:07 +0100 (BST)
From: Ceels
Subject: When I first arrived I thought ‘Oh good, the toilet is conveniently near my bedroom’.

As of Wednesday I was no longer an assistant for games and I cannot tell you how much happier that makes me.

I am now working in pre-prep and nursery [with all the snotty noses and pooey bums] and helping with remedial reading.

Tonight we had a fire drill.

I personally think that having a fire drill at night is really dumb. It takes us long enough to get the girls to bed in the first place without waking them up and scaring what little sense out of them they had to begin with.

One girl ended up hysterical because she is convinced that the school is going to burn down tonight, one girl is hysterical because her dad has just gone away for a month, another girl is hysterical because the first two are. Then there is the one who panicked and sprained her ankle on the way down. It never ends!!

I had hoped to have a shower tonight, but it might now be too late, what with fire drills and email. I live on the end above the old coach house with the alpha girls. The alpha girls are the oldest (12-13 year olds).

Each morning I wake up at quarter to seven and if I don't get in the shower straight away I miss out, because they are woken at ten to seven and I am not allowed in the shower after that. You would be surprised at the number of mornings I have bolted down the fire escape, past the kitchens and up in to the main house just in time to wake the girls there as their bell goes at ten past.

Today I worked in nursery for the first time. We made bread (and sneezed in it and coughed on it and wiped our snotty noses and went on kneading it) and counted things. My memory for playschool days also got a good work out when we sang nursery rhymes. It was all very soothing (except for the taking them to the toilet part, there are so many things I did not know you had to know about taking a very young child 'to do wees').

I think I have caught about eight diseases in the course of a day, dreadful germy creatures children. My immune system is proving just how tuff it is, given that I have not yet come down with anything.

Speaking of which, it is probably time for all good aussies to be in bed. The rotters go to school on a Saturday so they still have to be woken at ten past seven, but there is a jumping derby tomorrow, which makes it all worth it.

love you lots

ceels ____________________________________________________________