SIGHence

Ok, today was a little rough.

First of all: the weather. When I got to London about 10 days ago (wow, has it really been that long?) I was so excited to be wearing jeans! In Ohio and New York, the weather had been almost too hot for running outside. Pretty much everywhere I went, I broke a sweat, and at the end of every day I was . . . pungent. But here, no more overwhelming heat! I though I had moved to a place with weather like San Francisco. I hoped it was just going to be cooler. And I thought I was excited.

That was then. This is five days into non-stop rain. The sky is dark, the grass is absurdly green, and the water falling from the sky just doesn't let up. I joking smiled and asked my boss, as we worked together planning a lesson earlier today, "It's not like this ALL the time, is it?" Then he sort of smile-grimaced and replied, "Why do you think Brits are good at things like . . . thinking . . . and chemistry? Why do you think we are all so pasty? And why do you think we set out to colonize and conquer places that were . . . shall we say . . . warmer?"

I guess I had my answer. I guess the weather here is always horrible. I think I should just buy endless amounts of wool socks and a thick raincoat and call it a day. Cripe. Did I mention that I wore a scarf to walk the five minutes to work today? Because I did.

So I'd say I spent most of today doing SIGHence. Meaning I spent the day getting a little overwhelmed and discouraged about the giant responsibility of teaching 6 full classes that start in a week and a half. I guess before I explain my teaching load, I should explain a little bit about the British school system.

Seriously, think Harry Potter. The kids are at secondary school for 7 years. These years are called "1st through 6th form" and 6th form is 2 years, with an "upper" and a "lower" 6th. It's a boarding school, and most of the kids start to be boarders instead of day students during their 3rd form. Only about 60 kids total are boarders from both the 1st and 2nd form. Also, this school system is heavily based on nationally-standardized tests. They take what are called the "GCSE" tests at the end of their 5th form, and the "A Level" tests at the end of 6th form. The A levels are primarily what determines where the kids can go to University. Since the tests the students take are standardized across the country, the curriculum taught at each British secondary school is much more homogeneous across the board than in the US.

Ok, I hope that's enough of a run-down to help you make sense of what I'm going to be teaching. My the courses I'm teaching are as follows:

1st form chemistry
4th form chemistry
Lower 6th form chemistry
Lower 6th form science projects (research . . . ish)
3rd form physics (honors kids)
3rd form physics (regular kids)

Yup. That's right. A first-time teacher is teaching 6 full classes, and only one of them is a class that I get to teach twice. Everything else is a new lesson each class. And each of the classes meets three periods a week. Not to mention the differences in the level of difficulty between these courses is HUGE. In 1st form chem, we start out by learning how to light Bunsen burners and spend an entire day discussing lab safety (I'm gonna try to juice up that day by having the kids write narratives full of lab disasters and explain how a "lab super hero" would come in and rescue everyone from disaster. Haha.) In 4th form chem, the first lesson on the syllabus is the basics of covalent bonding. Pretty standard high school chem stuff. Then 6th form chem encompasses a good amount of hydrocarbon organic chemistry and some tricky spectroscopy topics. This stuff is all over the board.

I'm trying not to panic. It's one thing to understand a topic in chemistry. It is an ENTIRELY different thing to explain that topic to students who have never heard of it before. I spent pretty much all of today trying to figure out a clear and complete way to methodically explain the basics of covalent bonding . . . and I am not even sure I've done a satisfactory job.

It's a very good thing I decided to get here early. My two other housemates, Johannah and Allie, aren't here yet, and I can only imagine how stressed they are going to be when even I'm getting a little apprehensive. However, I've made an IKEA run and tried to furnish our flat just little bit to make the place slightly more inviting for when they arrive.

I'll hopefully put up pictures of my flat at some point. And pictures of the school. Both are very very pretty. The flat is three stories and very spacious, complete with gorgeous windows that face the street and marble-top counters in the kitchen. PLUS, the flat came with couches, a big-screen TV, a dinner table, and WIRELESS INTERNET. Win, right?

The school is GORGEOUS. If you were to imagine a quintessential small British town, this would probably be it. It's in the middle of the countryside, which truth be told doesn't look much different from a hillier Ohio, but the architecture in the town of Oundle is beautiful . . . and old! Cobblestone roads and Georgian architecture (so named because it come from when King George was monarch, or so I'm told) are the theme.

And then there are the rugby pitches. After having pretty my whole rugby experience on the Yale pitch (and the Beast of the East fields too . . . ) I had never seen a good-looking pitch before I came here. But these are almost monuments. Perfectly groomed lawns. Beautifully-painted and tall uprights. And all the other sports simply play on the rugby pitches. The football players have to bring in their goals and the cricket players have to bring in their . . . selves? Not gonna lie, I don't know what you need for cricket. I think the YWRFC girls would be drooling if they could see this stuff.

Well, for now I'm just getting to enjoy the calm before that storm. I'm taking time to read good books. My current one is . . . you get one guess. Your big hint is that you're probably reading it too. That's right. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It took me a while to get into it, but I'm about halfway though, and finally I'm really into it. Before this book I read Stone Butch Blues which was one of the best books I'm read in a long time. I recommend both.

Ok, now I go to return to my relatively flavorless pasta (it is a bit true what they say about British food being bland . . .), my beer (Newcastle, which isn't "imported" when you actually live in England), and my Swedish mystery novel.

Cheerio chaps! Give me a friendly comment or something if you've made it this far :)

Freddie