Into The Swing of It

 I start to chase up and mark student paragraphs from their reseach. It's taken all term and some have done no write ups. Work on the computer gets lost in the computer- many kids have trouble processing on screens. They read and stop. What their brains do with the information is a mystery. And writing can stop some in their tracks. I have spend the week looking over what some have done, my form class who are bright have got on reasonable well, but I haven't had time to teach them the skill of paragraph writing. There will be long term effects of absences, both student and teacher, as skills are not being taught or learned. We have kept them busy. The positive is that they have been able to come to school when well. In comparison to the northern hemisphere where schools were closed for most of the 2021/2022 school year. I start to think with dismay of writing junior reports. It's like climbing a mountain. I take a deep breath and start.

The weekend is spent with electric remediation, Hudson is a wizard, running round taking Kahu to rugby and watching in the wintry gloom in skeletal Burwood Park, the bones of the trees visible without their raiment of leaves. Scoff has a party, I buy the perfect garage bench from a young woman who purchased it to start a shop during the earthquakes in 2011. I give her $500, she paid $600 ten years ago but it's steeped in character. And Bertie sees the borer holes when we get it home. Totally went over my head...old, borer so I brace myself with Metellex. Douse it in chemicals.

The work week is long afternoons marking and writing reports. I miss the deadline as I knew I would and don't usually, but don't care. It's a slog and I want to do a proper job. So I plough on at a small, shitty computer in my classroom. I feel the load shift from my head to my body. Computers and people are not suited.