End
of working day 8 (of 20)
Ooh,
it is scarey, putting it like this as there remain several mountains of work to
be done.
When
I came back to have my lunch at the back of 2:30 today, I was not too concerned
that there was no electricity at the house. Went back to work after a quick
lunch and shower, still unconcerned about the lack of electricity. (The school
has its own generator and uses it every day until the electricity comes on
about 2pm). When I got home today, at the back of 7:30, the house was in total
darkness! Bother! (except that I didn’t actually say “bother”).
It
is now 9pm and I am in bed (to keep away from the mosquitoes) typing this with
one hand and holding the laptop with the other, my chin is keeping the
torchlight in place. My wee fan is whirring away, hooked up to my own battery
which is about 70% charged up. My ipod and ipad are sufficiently charged to
tide me over tonight, I hope! (oopsie – sorry Kate, I did bring all 3 of my Is,
i.e. phone, pod and pad; but they have kept me a little less disorientated than
otherwise!) What more could I want? Yeah, right! On a serious note though, I
will leave here in a short space of time whereas for an overwhelming majority
of the population here, this is reality 24/7!
I
was teaching one person to enter data (from a one sided entry petty cashbook) on
a spreadsheet and I explained that this will be used as a basis to prepare the
school’s accounts for the first 10 months of the current financial year. He
nodded sagely at my explanation and asked no questions. He told me that he was
done today. I was a bit surprised as I thought there was quite a bit of data to
deal with. So I went over and had a look at the source documents and could see
that there were a lot of sheets that have yet to be entered. After discussion,
it seemed that this teacher had only input data that he wrote himself and left
out data that was written up by a colleague (who is not around for a little
while). When I asked why he didn’t enter these, his indignant reply was “These
were not MY entries so I shouldn’t have to deal with them”. So taken aback, I
was lost for words, but just for a few seconds though… I guess there is some
logic in that if you are not used to collaboration! Anyway, I explained
patiently that that may be the case but we need to deal with it all the same
and if he is not happy doing it, it will have to be either of the other 2
teachers or me that would have to do it. After a bit of grumping and groaning,
he did work on it. I must admit that it never entered my head that I had needed
to explain this. I shall take nothing for granted from now.
I
got woken up at 5:30 this morning by hymn singing. Could not get back to sleep,
so, I started reading the contract between the EU and the school. Mad, I know!
It was not riveting reading although it is in French. Pity that it did not send
me back to sleep!
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