Friday, July 21, 2006

#83 on the light at the end of the tunnel

current mood: stressed (so much to do so little time to do it in)
current music: none

Firstly may I welcome my new bloglings aboard the good ship mediocrity. At school today I dropped my blog title to the pupils so that they could keep in touch as both they and I head for pastures new. Some have already posted and others may choose to do so yet.

What a week. No time for details suffice it to say that the heady cocktail of meetings, parties, graduations, deadlines and heat that saps one of both mental and physical energy has left me an empty shell. A has just got in from work and I can barely cope with being in the same room with her. It's not her - I love A and cannot wait for her to get home each night. It's me and my inability to cope with just about anything at the moment - that's the problem.

But, as the title of tonight's download suggests, there could be some light peeping through at the end of the tunnel. School is done. Isle of Wight beckons. Greenbelt deadlines just about stuck to.

Now i just need to go and make my peace with A.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

#82 on cowardice

Current mood – bemused
Current music – ‘Die Another Day’ by Madonna

So I get to work and check my pigeon hole for paper work etc. only to find a page from my blog printed out – the last entry ‘#80 on meetings’ to be precise – and the words ‘YOU ARE SO OUT OF ORDER’ scratched across the top in biro. It’s the first page of seven in the print out and so I can only assume that someone has printed out my blog and decided to comment upon it in a not so hi-tech fashion as posting a comment on line.

Now I’m a glass half full guy. In fact I would say that the glass is twice the size it should be. I trawled around my friends on the staff who read my blog and none of them said they wrote it – not as an ironic comment nor as a serious criticism of my actions in bringing alleged misleading declarations by the head teacher to the attention of the Chair of Governors. So whoever it was – friend or foe – someone was trying o tell me something.

So my response takes two forms to cover all the bases…

(A) If you wrote the note and you were having a laugh (and I must confess my initial reaction was to laugh) then please let me know who you are and we can share the joke.

(B) If you were making a genuine comment please have the balls to post your comment publicly in the same way that I post my comments publicly to allow free and open debate. This, of course, assumes that this was your intention. Some of my friends think it is bullying and harassment.

I am not ‘so out of order’. Firstly, I did not betray any confidences in bringing to light the information that I did. Everything I told the Chair of Governors was information in the public domain; not a single jot of it was confidential. Secondly, I have not done anything illegal. I have not incriminated myself in this plot and claimed ‘I was only following orders.’ I had nothing to do with the Head Teacher’s actions. Thirdly, I had a moral and ethical duty to advise the Chair of Governors of what I did. Is it right that allegedly false declarations of interest are made for me to turn a blind eye if I happen to chance upon the information? And fourthly, I may even have had a legal responsibility to report what I did. I’m no lawyer but if you think something illegal has occurred am I not bound by the law to report it?

I have acted properly throughout the whole of this sorry business. I have no personal agenda, no axe to grind – I’ll not even be working for the school or the local authority beyond August 31.

All I want to see is a proper investigation carried out, the findings made public for the whole school community to see and the appropriate course of action taken so that the school is seen by the whole community to be publicly preserving it’s integrity. And if by my taking up this little piece of cyberspace I have made more people aware of the alleged wrongdoing at my workplace then so much the better. I do not force anyone to read this blog, and I certainly don’t demand that anyone believes a word of it. Free thinking people in a liberal society have the right to make that decision for themselves, they don’t have to scratch a comment on a print out and stuff it in a pigeon hole.

If I’m ‘so out of order’ you might want to reconsider your own motives for scrawling the note. What are you scared of? That the truth might actually come out? That people should be held to the highest professional standards of conduct especially when the education of children is at stake?

Post a reply if you dare or care. Or else shut the fuck up and go and look up integrity in a dictionary.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

#81 on meetings

Current mood – hot and tired
Current music – ‘Bird Land’ by Man Tran

I’ve had several meetings this week, some planned, some unplanned, some enjoyable and others not so. Here’s a digest of some of those comings together…

Readers of my spilling the beans on the Head Teacher at school and her alleged misleading of the Governors (I say ‘alleged’ because that’s what they say on Have I Got News For You to avoid legal actions in spite of what they may actually think) will be pleased to know I had an informal meeting with the Chair of Governors who told me it was all an administrative thing, not too worry, it’s all sorted now, don’t worry about, bullshit, bullshit, etcetera, etcetera. I’m still waiting for it all in writing and will let you know in due course dear readers. Later on a glance through the school diary to pick up some dates showed a meeting between the Head Teacher and Director of Children’s Services for tomorrow (Monday). I don’t know what it’s about but I can put 2 and 2 together.

I met with my new Head Teacher to sort out how my new job is going to work out. She seems like a lovely person (listens with fingers out of ears) and I’m so looking forward to starting in September.

A phone call from my big brother to say he was in town and wanted to stay over led to a nice meeting that included curry and wine and DVD’s and chat and more chat. It was a wonderful surprise and just what I needed after a shitty couple of days. Since then I’ve gone back to carry on repairing the fabric of my psyche as far as my Dad goes culminating in a very strange dream last night that started with my Dad taking me to football (something we only did a few times) through to me taking my sick uncle (now passed on) to football. Circe of life stuff. Sad but uplifting.

Saturday saw me meeting with the Greenbelt Programming group at Cheltenham that also included the wonderful Site Operations Group. It’s always exciting attending what will probably be the last programming group meeting before the big event itself and meeting with the site ops mob is always a special, if slightly odd experience. Given that most of my readers including one of people who inspired me to concoct this daily download of drivel are part of that very team, I should point out that by odd, I mean quirky in the most beautiful ‘northern exposuresque’ sense of the word. To be embraced by a group with such a close nit identity is strangely powerful. I’ve even learnt several nicknames.

Today I met with my church congregation to lead the service. It was hot, too hot and although I kept the service short and the liturgy simple, I also think (and this was the best meeting of all) that Jesus met with us too.