Tag: stationery

Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why Teaching Is (Mostly) The Best Job In The World

A few weeks ago, you may remember Liz Gregory telling us why Summer was great. There was so much agreement with her in the 7 Reasons HQ that we just had to get her back on the sofa. Thankfully, Liz was only too keen to make a reappearance. And this time she’s bought along her box of chalks. Or are they marker pens? I can never tell when I’m sans contact lenses. If you didn’t check out Liz’s blog – Things To Do In Manchester – last time, then you better do it today. Unless you want detention. Right, enough of the stupid school quips, I’m off to the bike sheds.

1. Holidays (Part One). We may as well deal with any resentment up front, so we’ll start with holidays. I get 11 weeks per year. Teachers in schools get more. I understand that people in the real world get insultingly poor amounts of annual leave, and I feel bad about this. But no-one, anywhere (that includes you, Cameron) will take my glorious six-week summer off me.

2. Holidays (Part Two). Last year the afore-mentioned six week summer break began on July 7^th. The Ashes series started on July 8^th. This point needs no further expansion.

3. The Students. Yes, I know this one is hard to believe; even a cursory glance at The Daily Mail will indicate that the youth of today are a snarling, feral mass, pausing from their casual sex and drug-taking only to mug passing old ladies and commit knife crimes. You may be disappointed to learn that actually, today’s teenagers are pretty much the same as any other generation of teenagers: moody, unpredictable, funny, witty, charming…in short, they are good company. Although I do query some of their musical taste, and the overall aesthetics of wearing one’s jeans halfway down one’s backside.

4. Talking About What You Love, All Day Every Day. I teach English, which means that rather than answer telephones and push bits of paper around a desk all day, a typical Monday might include reading Wuthering Heights (and indeed performing the Kate Bush caterwauling classic as a Christmas treat), acting out bits of Streetcar Named Desire (Stellllaaaaaaa!), and teaching how to write scripts, articles or short stories….it’s amazing.

5. Seasonal Celebrations. Christmas is fun, sure. Christmas in a college with hundreds of sixteen-year-olds who are desperately excited but are trying equally desperately not to show it is even better. Students are also very keen on the confectionary that tends to accompany such seasonal celebrations, and bring it in by the bucket load; there is surely not a teacher in existence who has not felt their waistband constrict at Easter or Christmas due to a surfeit of Quality Street.

6. Stationery. This may actually be specific to English teachers, but every September the pain of a new academic year is soothed by an almighty trip to Paperchase to stock up on novelty pens and notebooks with monkeys on. This is an essential part of teaching, and its impact on the economic stability of Britain must not be overlooked.

7. Students Suddenly Realising You’re Not Ninety. I am not particularly advanced in years, but to my youthful charges I may as well be approaching my hundred and twelfth birthday. Until, of course, you are spotted outside of work, wearing jeans, talking to friends, and maybe (gasp) drinking wine. This prompts much admiration, as students recognise you for what you truly are – a plucky old person with a life outside college. This will raise your kudos above every member of the maths and science departments almost instantly.

July 10, 2010
7 Reasons That This Pen is Stupid

1. Shape. When the lid is on, the pen is oval-shaped and it puts me in mind of a rugby ball. That should be a good thing as the Six Nations is on at the moment, but look at the colour. It’s blue. And it’s not even the dark blue of France, it’s light-blue, the colour of the Italian team. Italy are the worst team in the competition – worse even than England. This pen exudes the acrid stench of failure. And I don’t want to smell failure when I’m writing. I want to smell coffee. Or soup.

2. Emasculation. The pen is two inches long. Two inches! To men, having a two-inch-long pen is bad. Having a two-inch-long pen is unmanly. To women, a two-inch-long pen is unsatisfactory too. A big pen is much more desirable to both sexes. Big pen is good. Small pen is bad.

3. Gift. The pen is a gift. The worst kind of gift – it’s a gift from someone who lives in the same house as me. This means that I can’t just put it away in a drawer or re-gift it. I have to keep it here on the desk where I can see it. I can see it right now. It’ll be months before I can move it to the box in the loft where I hide all of the unwanted gifts. Months.

4. Writing. Look at this picture of my hand. Do you see that blue speck in the centre of my palm? (you may need to fetch your glasses for this one) No? I’ll tell you then. It’s the pen. How, you may ask, does a hand that size write with a pen that size? The answer is badly. Very badly. In fact, if I had to use the pen to write this 7 Reasons post, it would be four words long and those words would be “bloody”, “fucking”, ”stupid” and “pen”. And they would be illegible.

5. Blue. It’s a Highlighter pen. In blue. I – like a lot of people – write in blue ink. This means that the pen is completely useless as a highlighter. It has the opposite effect. It’s an obscurer. If I want to make my words appear fuzzy and indistinct, it’s the pen to use. Otherwise, it’s useless.

6. The Horatio Pyewackett Caractacus Fearns test of Pen-Stupidity. I own a cat that attacks pens. If he sees one, he pounces – whether I’m using it or not. When hoovering under the sofa (infrequently), I always find several pens that he’s stolen and then lost under there. Can I get him to attack this pen? No I bloody can’t. And I’ve rubbed catnip on it. Even my cat knows that this pen is stupid.

7. Suppository. I’ve just realised what else the pen reminds me of. It looks like a suppository. Appropriate really, given what I’d do if with the pen if I ever encountered the feckless cretin that designed it. Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid bum-pen! Grrrr! I hate this pen!

March 19, 2010
7 Reasons People Love Lists

1. Order. Your life is busy. You just have so many things to do. So many things that, sometimes, you forget to pack your knickers or eat more than spaghetti hoops all day. A list is a cure. It brings order to the chaos of your mind. You won’t embarrass yourself again.

2. Stationery. A list gives you a chance to use those highlighters your grandparents bought you five years ago. And the A4 pad. Andthe gold star stickers. And the 23 pencils. And the car shaped pencil sharpener that has moving wheels. And the book, How To Write The Perfect List.

3. Format. ‘The Nation’s 50 Favourite Types of Sock’ will easily take up an hour of Channel 4’s schedule or a six page spread inHaberdashery Monthly. Why waste time doing something that will involve thinking? Lists are a part of ‘Broken Britain’ and we should be proud about that.

4. Focus. You can prioritise what needs doing. 1 – Watch the rugby.2 – Watch the wife do the ironing. 3 – Mend the iron.

5. Targets. History shows that if you write your targets down when you are a young whippersnapper, they will more often than not be accomplished. Think about it. Benjamin Franklin had targets. Jonny Wilkinson had targets. Jack The Ripper had targets. Exactly.

6. Throwing. Is there a better feeling than screwing up a now completed list and chucking it across the room towards the bin? Absolutely not. Especially when your boss walks into the trajectory of its flight and it lands in his coffee, splashing hot liquid all over his shirt and causing first degree burns on his stupid Mickey Mouse tie.

7. Prevention. Drawing up a list stops us getting on with what we should be doing. And as that’s picking up next door’s children from the swimming pool, it’s good thing. They’re ugly and should not be seen anywhere near a 1998 Volvo Estate.

November 12, 2009