Current weather- 30 degrees, not a cloud in the sky

Next week, I start teaching A-level and AS-level chemistry. It is the first time I have taught this so I spent most of Friday worrying about it and hunting round for resources. I had the morning free so by lunch I had spoken to loads of people and filled my desk with chemistry books and CDs full of resources.

In the morning, I met the Head teacher who is a lovely Scottish guy and has lived in Guyana for 20-30 years. I got some advice from him about teaching A-levels but my main source was my head of department. After the chat with her I felt a lot more relaxed about it and came up with a rough plan of action for the year. I don’t know if this is normal but I only have 23 weeks to teach these A-level courses!

My lessons in the afternoon were just another continuation of the dream. We did transition metals in grade 11 then had a lab session for grade 10. I had told grade 10 that the torrential rain this week had caused a serious flood in the Diamond mineral water factory and that we had to test the purity of the water for them (not sure if they brought it, I enjoyed it in my head). Somehow they had never used Bunsen burners before so we had a bit of a safety chat to avoid gassing ourselves to death.

I arrived home to find it was my turn to cook that evening. Javan taught me how to cook rice and how to pressure cook beef (brilliant invention) then I whizzed up a pretty tasty beef curry, made even tastier by the MSG that everyone adds to their meals in Guyana. Even Javan said it was really good; possibly my proudest moment of the week.

After dinner we headed over to Mael’s house and played a competitive bottle cap game followed by a hilarious game of fight club. The only rule of our fight club was no punches in the face. I lost every round and managed to get a bruise on my stomach! I had a Skype conversation with Morag today and when I told her this story she thought it was weird so for some reason I have blogged it. “You had to be there man!”

This week I have decided to stay at Mael’s place. It is a 2 minute walk from my school so it will save a lot of time, especially as the A-levels are starting this week. I’m trying to pre-empt the hard slog that this is going to be!