CELTA Week III

CELTA WEEK III

30.VII.2012 - 03.VIII.2012

It was Saturday and I didn’t much feel like moping around Maynooth on my own.  My little sister was driving back to Monaghan so I thought I’d tag along.  After a few cryptic messages and confusing phone calls I agreed to meet her at (or around) Samuel Beckett bridge.

I was running a wee bit late so out of courtesy I sent her a text.  She told me she’d be there around 1pm.  I got there and I waited.  She was late.

A group of small boys rushed by me and climbed onto the walls of the bridge.  Most of them, bar one or two, were dressed in wet suits.  No sooner had they mounted the wall that they jumped off of it.  All of them.  One after the other.  I was relieved to see they could swim but alarmed to see them climb out and back onto the bridge wall.  I looked around to see if there was a parent or guardian nearby.  There were none.  I began to worry that people would assume I was the guardian, and a pretty lousy one at that.  Then, the real fear struck me-that the public would not view me as a concerned bystander but an active pervert.  I loitered for a while but slowly and inconspicuously put some distance between myself and the reckless children.

After a while of nervously glancing over my shoulder fearing I would become a victim of circumstance I got a phone call.  When I was doing my best not to be noticed my sister had drove past in her car.  Further confusion ensued.  Eventually we established her location in relation to mine.  I found the car climbed in and we were off to Monaghan.  Thankfully, the most dramatic part of the day was at an end.  I didn’t much feel like doing CELTA work so I relaxed making only a cursory glance at my TEFL notes to soothe my guilty conscience.

My older brother and I discussed the prospect of going to the cinema.  I had seen the new Batman movie but unfortunately he had not.  I was certainly not opposed to viewing it again and we settled on a Sunday evening show.

However, an alarming prospect came to mind.  It was a Bank holiday weekend and neither buses nor trains would travel regularly on Monday.  My plans to disembark early Monday morning disintegrated.  I tried to find a feasible solution but sadly I had no choice but to make my journey to Maynooth Sunday evening.  A little over 24 hours since I left.  I begrudgingly accepted defeat.

I had a mug of tea to ease my pain.

They warned us that CELTA week three was when most students cracked.

I made a personal vow that they would not break me.

I had two half hour lessons that week and an assignment.

My first Teaching Practice (TP) was on Tuesday.

It troubles me to admit that at some point during the week I began to lose the plot a little.  Subtle at first.  The madness and fatigue crept upon me.

I was still feeling bruised after Friday’s lesson and avalanche of criticism (even if the tutorial suggested iit was a once off and things were going rather well).  Bror is a rather charming man.  If I am honest, my ‘bad’ lesson probably taught me more than my good lessons.

Events with quiet recollection can offer retrospective triumph.

In haste everything always resembles tragedy, moments evolve later defining you.

Week 3 was a week when the light never went out especially Wednesday-I tried to get a head start on the mountainm of work I had to prepare for my lesson and assignment.  I heard every tick of the clock those nights.  I scribbled a lesson plan and began scanning secondary literature for my next assignment.

I watched others like John and Imelda and listened to them talk of ‘all nighters’ when I could barely keep my eyes open.  I needed sleep.  The warmth of my duvet.

No amount of tea, coffee or red bull could prop my eyes open.

As usual I stayed back Wednesday evening flicking through the vastly meagre selection offered by the Academy.  As was often the case everyone left before me but one of my colleagues loitered for a while and we enjoyed a wonderful venture in the conversation of procrastination and oon occasion swapping sources for our assignment, before she left me to my own devices.  I pottered around and accumulated materials before packing it in and making my way to the train station (oh faithful rocky commute how you cradle me on the wings of sleep!).  Having ingested copious amounts of tea, a hasty dinner and stressed sufficiently over the assinment I decided to surrender for another night and give in to sleep.

The tutor gave me a few tips for my next lesson and because of her input it went splendidly.  I learned from the mistakes of past lessons anticipating problems.

It was a good lesson.  I got my satisfactory grade and I believe the students learned something as well (always a bonus).

I complain a little, as I often do, joking that if I passedd assignment number 3 on first submission it would leave me feeling perturbed so much so I would have to resubmit it regardless…

I got my assignment number 3 back to learn I passed on first submission.

I had stood on the precipice of madness and I had fallen (fortunately) backwards into sanity.

As was fast becoming a Friday tradition, John and I decided to go to the pictures.  We met Caroline in ‘The Living Room’ for a drink before making our way to Cineworld.  We had a choice of Ted or Grabbers.  We opted for the MacFarlene flick (I certainly wasn’t opposed being a Family Guy fan).

We enjoyed Ted and the general consensus was after that we should get some food.  We bumped into our classmate Shane and some of his buddies.  They were off to MacTurcails and so we followed suit.  There was no food but there were many fine beverages.

After some chat, John and I decided it was in our best interests to find grub of some description.  In the end we settled for diabolically bad Chinese.  I ate Thai Green Curry that I believed some drunken fool regurgitated.  Looking at it I was sure that some other poor unfortunate must have puked on the plate before it was placed before me and my knife and fork.  I ate what I could.

We rejoined Shane and the lads and swapped some more stories.  Shane offered some good advice regarding nights out while we lingered in the smoking area (ie outside the pub’s door).  I made an attempt for the night-link but my efforts were fruitless.  I returned to the pub but John had since gone.  We then moved on to Doyles for more drinks, chat and dance.  It was getting into the wee hours at this stage.  I was conscious of the fact that I had an exam to invigilate the next day and decided it would be good for me to get the next nightlink.  After briefly dancing with a young Russian lady I bid my fair thee wells to the lads and dashed for the nightlink.  I made it in good time.

Thankfully, the exam invigilation the next day was not overly strenuous (there were only two students in the venue) and I was able to siit and read some Graham Greene.  I had a lazy evening and for the most part took the rest of the weekend off-catching up on my TV.  I felt I was right to do so.  I had just survived week 3 of CELTA next week brought the final hurdle.