Weeknote, 31/7

This week, I have been mostly.....

Knitting:
Nothing. Shameful, I know. I carried the sparkly hat around with me but realised it was too narrow for what I had intended so had to frog it....Artyarns Beaded Mohair and Sequins does not like to be frogged, please note. I have started over, now fear it is too wide. But I have figured out how to get round that.
I also realised I was not going to finish Celia Cruz in time for my holiday, after I had to frog the first inch and a half because my gauge was way, way off, in spite of swatching it. So I am in two minds about that now; I want to put the yarn away and get it out again next summer. I don't want it to languish, though. I have a plan for it, I might make it a between-holidays project and take it to Prague.

Going to:
London. I went to the Grace Kelly exhibition at the V&A, which was a beautiful collection of dresses; I especially appreciated the information cards that went with each one, many of which showed the dresses in the wild, on Grace Kelly.

Then of course, there was the Google thingie.



It was just amazing. I have been so enthused by it. There was a lot of techie stuff, of course, much of which blew my mind: we were looking at it for 12 hours or so, and I was still unable to sleep when I got home for thinking about implementing it.....one participant tweeted the next day, "is it wrong that I woke up at 6am this morning, shaking with excitement about how I can integrate the Spreadsheets into my lessons?" - to which the answer is no, because we were all in the same boat. It was particularly amazing to spend the day looking at 50 of the least cynical educators in the world, none of whom said, "It would never work in my school" or "Our kids would just never do it" or any of the other stock phrases I am fed up to the back teeth of hearing.

The other thing I liked about Google was their ethics. They give their employees 20% of their time to work on their own projects; they have little kitchenettes all over the place fully stocked with good snacks for their staff; everyone shares an office, and it's very open plan and full of toys; there are laptop hook ups everywhere, and deck chairs; the toilet stalls have information cards in them for "Learning on the loo". It is inspiring to see a company treat people well, and now a lot more obvious why they are so successful.

We also discovered that Google is spelled that way and not Googol because an early investor wrote a £100k cheque for them but spelled it -le. So, they changed the name to fit the cheque. It was originally called Backrub: can you imagine it, "Miss, can you just Backrub that for me?!"

Enough geeky Googley stuff, I could really go on forever, but it's not really the time/place.

I also went shopping a lot, the results of which are pictured there in part: new wrap dress from Hobbs. Uberflattering and so comfy. See how the print is bigger in the central column than on the edges? Clever. And I finally found a new denim skirt that is not indecent/Mormon in length.

And on Saturday, I rushed off to Sheffield for Jen's barbecue, where I am as this post is published.

Eating:

I made pesto this week out of the billions of basil leaves in the garden. It went something like this...



50g basil leaves
1 tbsp pine nuts
6 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 oz finely grated parmesan/pecorino romano

Blend all the ingredients together, except the cheese. Blend until very smooth. Take care not to get any of this vibrant green paste on your clothes, it will stain (guess how I know....). Then stir in the cheese. Use roughly a third of the quantity of shop bought pesto, it's very strong.

Typically, the basil plant has positively flourished since I pillaged most of its leaves for this recipe. I now have at least the same quantity of basil back, and two other plants, and several small pots of it. I hope it freezes.

Obsessed with:
Google, and Twitter. I am having to actively put my phone to one side, I'm starting to become quite anti-social.

Entertained by:
Stories from one of the Google lead learners about his phone antics. This man has got through more mobile phones than anybody else I know. He once threw one out of his car window on a motorway, then had "phone chucker's remorse", went back and picked up the pieces and put it back together and it worked for another year. Then there was the iphone he dropped in the ocean, and the one he left in the gym....funny. Some of us went to the pub after the first day of Google and the lead learners from the US were very entertaining. It was such a good time. I wasn't kidding when I said obsessed. Completely obsessed.

Fed up with:
Not getting enough sleep. I went to bed much too late and on Wednesday night I couldn't sleep, so I have been awake on borrowed time most of the week. At least it's the holidays and I have lots of time for plane napping next week.

Feeling:
So enthused and excited about my job! Weird, to feel like this in the holidays, but nice nevertheless. I almost don't want to go to Malaysia next week because I want to stay home and work on projects.
Almost, but not quite ;)

Tuesday Ten

Ten Great Things About the Google thingie (and it hasn't even happened yet)
(Copied from my post on the official blog for the event, where, as you can imagine, I am a willing participant)

1. Through the application process, I learnt that I do a lot more than I realised. When I first saw the form I almost gave up straight away, but in the end I struggled to keep my word count down. I was also reminded of my favourite teaching moments, including my favourite kid comment ever: "Thanks for everything Miss, you taught me never think I cannot learn."
This is a good motto for life, I think.

2. I got a mini cardio workout when I got the acceptance email through. It set my pulse racing, followed by much jumping up and down; that has probably lengthened my life by several minutes at least.

3. I have started using Twitter more regularly, and found several extremely useful networks aside from the other participants. Thanks to this, I found a speaker for a conference I ran in June.

4. I have started plotting new strategies for parental communication for my job next year, with an online GDocs questionnaire and Gcalendar of events instead of the usual meeting/handout. Since my county network is looking for ways to feed back to parents more effectively, I know they're going to want to know more.

5. When I've shared what I've been doing or new things I've discovered, I really feel like the other participants are as excited as me. At school, my enthusiasm is often met with the confused, slightly pitying look that tells me I need to rein it in. I'm looking forward to not seeing that look at all this week.

6. I've connected with local teachers who aren't coming, but are interested and motivated and want to collaborate.

7. My school is working towards achieving international schools status, and with 23 participants at Google coming from abroad, I'm excited about the potential for making worldwide links which will broaden my pupils' horizons.

8. This Posterous blogging lark I've been introduced to is very helpful. I've blogged this from my phone in a coffee shop. I feel a new tutor group blog coming on.

9. It's already been so much fun. I've had fun watching other people's videos, reading their blogs and following their tweets, and we're not even there yet.

10. I was so inspired, I thought I had better start trying to be more innovative right away, which led to some of my favourite activities of the year, all crammed into the last week of it. I don't think I have ever been so energised in the dog days of the summer term before. If this is the impact it has had before I even go, I can't wait to see what's going to happen in September.

It is tres exciting, if we're thinking about it. Hence cross-posting to here, because I want to remember how energised I feel at this moment and how happy I am in my job. How sickening! Especially since it's the summer holidays. I am enjoying them, by the way, and I'm also quite excited about the impending trippage to Malaysia and Prague, but this comes first.

Weeknote, 24/7

knitting:
Mostly the sparkly hat. It is simple enough to carry around. I haven't done much other knitting this week, thanks to end of term busy-ness.

going to:
Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door, on a Geology field trip. It was amazing. I am quite embarrassed that this place is probably only an hour from where I grew up and not only had I never been there, I'd never even heard of it.



There was some larking about, of course.



Jika Jika, a lovely cafe in Bath, to meet up with somebody I met on Twitter who's also doing the Google thingie next week and wanted to chat about work stuff. It was very civilised.
Various establishments licensed to sell gin, in Bath. There was gin consumed, this being the last day of the school year.



Man, I'm graceful. Bath has lions dotted around this year. I might try and get round to see them all this summer.

The Hen & Chicken in Southville, for some dinner with Ben & Kirsty and some comedy courtesy of Stewart Goldsmith (I wonder if, when he Googles himself, he Googles both spellings of Stewart just in case some people use the wrong one, as I probably have? That would be terribly vain, but I can see myself doing it....) and some other guy who unfortunately was not very funny. I enjoyed the Goldsmith guy a lot.

eating:
Anything lying around, tbh.

obsessed with:
This work thing. I won't elaborate, but basically somebody is acting like a bit of a semantics-obsessed n00b, picked a fight and has blown it all out of all proportion. I don't understand why some people join a place in a voluntary role where they should be assisting that place in becoming better and more renowned, and then take the first available opportunity to drag it through the mud in the name of promoting themselves. It has made me, by turns, sad, disappointed, angry, frustrated and then sad again. Mostly a lot of sad, really.

entertained by:
My classes. Firstly we had our Spanish Armada lesson in the pond. I ended up with water in the waders, and I did several comedy stagger/grabs, thankfully before the pupils arrived, but it was a lot of fun. They made paper boats in their art lesson and I got to do fire ships and everything.



Then later in the week we did jousting. Each jouster wore tinfoil armour and for some reason I thought it prudent to tip the lances (pipe lagging) with chocolate spread to see where the hits occurred. This might have been a better experience if (a) we hadn't had a biblical rainstorm just as we were ready to get on with it, thus necessitating indoor events and (b) the kids hadn't decided that it was much more fun to repeatedly whack each other around the head/body with the lances, rather than actually jousting. Cue Nutella on the walls, ceiling, kids, me....

fed up with:
exam board work dragging onnnnn and onnnnnnn.....though, it is finally done. Hurrah. I had a phone call on Wednesday night:
EB: Hello, this is ... from .... calling about paper number ....
Me: Oh, right. Hello.
EB: Yes, there are still some responses outstanding on this paper.
Me: Um, yes.
EB: Yes, there are some 1as, 1bs and 1cs left.....about 450.
Me: (thinks) Yes, you cretin, I am the only TL on this paper and could probably tell you to within 3 responses how many there are left, get to the point!
EB: Will you mark some tonight?
Me: Yes, I will mark some tonight.
EB: Do you think you might finish them tonight?
(Long pause. I work very hard to neither swear vociferously nor burst out laughing)
Me: Erm. No. That's quite a lot of responses.
EB: Yes. OK.

BAH.

feeling:
Tired, but elated. I am amazed I have now been teaching for 7 full school years. I don't feel old enough! I also got a peek at the new year book and I was voted Kindest Teacher by the leaving year 11s (I am evidently not nearly sarcastic enough; I knew that concentrating my wit purely on the gingers this year would be my downfall) and they took my picture and it is a very lovely one, so that is good.

Tuesday Ten

Ten Things I'm Looking Forward To This Summer

1. The Monday morning lie in, on July 26th. Best lie in of the year.
2. Google Teacher Academy. It is a mere 8 days away!
3. Knitnation. I am going to the marketplace after GTA next Friday.
4. Malaysia. Caroline and I are going to bathe with elephants at the elephant orphanage. Amazing.
5. Prague, with Parpy Jo. Lots of drinking coffee in sunny squares and lusting after garnet jewellery.
6. Visiting Portsmouth, at the end of August, and seeing old friend Zoe, and swimming in the sea.
7. Reading a whole, actual, non-school book.
8. Finishing some knitting projects without feeling guilty about not doing school work.
9. Eating the fruits of my gardening labours. Well....Mr Z's gardening labours.
10. August pay day. I love August pay day, because it comes at the end of a month in which I've done no work.

Roll on end of term!

Weeknote 17/7

knitting:
YES! I have been knitting! I had knitting group on Thursday and decided that I couldn't take my shawl, because even though it's all I want to knit, I cannot speak to anyone while I am working it because I am constantly counting in my head. I have presisted in knitting it in company, which has led to me being annoyed with people for talking to me and making me lose count - which is ridiculous and irrational.
So on Thursday I decided to start knitting a Naughty Squiddy, because I need a circle time toy for my new tutor group. I got bored after the body and 4 tentacles but I'll get there. He looks vaguely phallic at the moment. I am dubbing him Paul the Octopus, so that hopefully I will never forget this slightly bizarre psychic-octopus story.

Then today I cast on for Celia Cruz, which I wound the yarn/bought & printed the pattern/swatched for in MAY. It is going well and should make an excellent summer top for my upcoming Malaysia visit. A lot of Ravelers say Blue Sky Alpacas' Hand Dyed Cotton is hard on the hands but I am not finding it so.

And finally, this evening, I wound one of my precious Artywarns Beaded Mohair skeins and cast on for a new hat. It will showcase some buckles I bought at the Button Queen last autumn.



If the beads and sequins in the yarn were gold it might make it slightly more perfect, but I love the combination nevertheless. I am creating my own design, based on a hat Kelly Osborne wore on DWTS last year. The hat was by Galadriel Mattei; I am pinching a picture in case she sells the ones she has and the pictures are lost forever -



She makes hers from recycled jumpers and watch straps. Very cool. I am inspired.

going to:
Lunch with Mr Z, at the boat in the harbour again. It was a nice lunch out, but I felt slightly ripped off this time round.
New parents evening, where I met almost more parents wanting to talk to me about AGT than parents of my new tutees.
LOOOOOOONG governors meeting. I was quite looking forward to my term ending, but feel like I should stay on for another year.

eating:
Courgette Oatmeal cake. I had some of this in Malaysia last November and now I have the bundt tin of my dreams, I have made it a couple of times. It helped that I had a monstrous courgette which needed using up. Here is my recipe...

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1 cup oats
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
1 generous tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
6oz butter
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed
3 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 cups courgette, peeled and finely grated
3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Grease and flour a 10- to 12-cup bundt cake pan. Heat oven to 160°.
In a bowl, combine the flour, oats, baking powder, soda, salt, and spices; set aside. In a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer, cream butter and brown sugar until light. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition; beat in the vanilla. Slowly beat in the dry ingredients, alternating with the buttermilk and ending with the dry ingredients. Stir in shredded zucchini and nuts. Spoon into the prepared baking pan. Bake for 65 to 75 minutes, or until golden brown and a cake tester or toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on a rack for 10 minutes; invert onto a serving plate to cool completely.

I also tried making mint choc chip cupcakes from Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache, in the dinosaur muffin tin I got. It was a big fail and ended with me scraping bits of cupcake out of the grooves with a wooden skewer. Epic fail.

obsessed with:
Peeking at my new timetable. I have seen it, but would like my own copy. It looks OK, mainly because they have timetabled me in the correct number of hours next year (I was 2 hours over this year, something I have disgracefully only just realised): but more than a third of my hours have been crammed into 2 and a half days. It works out at 15 lessons straight, without a free.
Oh well. Bring it.

entertained by:
This monstrous courgette, which appeared as if from nowhere on my plant on Wednesday. It quickly became a cake.



Coming up with teaching ideas for next week. No video week for me: I am planning History activities week. It started when I saw what an amazing job had been done of clearing out the school pond....



(I should point out that at this point, the dam was unblocked and the pond was mostly drained, so the clearing could take place. It is now a veritable oasis.)
I have since ordered British/Spanish flags and started to look up instructions for origami boats. It's time the Spanish Armada came alive.

fed up with:
Stupid people I am in charge of failing to follow instructions. ARGGGHHHHH! Please, please let all the marking be over with soon....

feeling:
Really quite excited about the next couple of months. So many exciting things going on!

Tuesday Ten

Ten Things I Want For My Birthday

1. This case for my HTC Desire. Gutted they only ship within the US, because I really like this one too.
2. Some really nice martini glasses.
3. Jo Malone eau de cologne, in Grapefruit, and Red Roses.
4. Some new puzzle games for my DSi. I will have finished Professor Layton by the time I come back from Malaysia, I'm sure.
5. Some more Artyarns Beaded Silk Mohair.
6. A new work computer. My laptop is now at the end of its fourth year and really isn't coping. I am considering buying my own laptop.
7. A posh ice cream maker - although I am also really keen on the idea of buying this one, which reminds me of making coffee can ice cream on Camp America.
8. A Neocube. Better to look at the YouTube videos for it, though, as the product is not very weel represented by the scantily clad woman gyrating on the website (rolly eyes).
9. One of these hoodies. How awesome is this!
10. That lovely garnet brooch on ebay that I've been watching for, oooh, 8 months but simply cannot justify.


I don't want for much though, really. It has taken me ages to think of 10 things for this list.

Goals for July

I'm so late with these, I am going to try and keep it simple.

• Attend at least two staff enrichment week events in the last week of term (evening events planned all week by the Staff Happiness Action Group).
• Not get sunburn on the geology field trip next Sunday.
• Try at least three new things with my classes in the final weeks of term and blog about them on my shiny new work blog, so I have something to share at the learning community meeting at the end of term.
• Read up on teachmeets so I can try and organise one.
• Finish a knitting project.
• Write up the pattern instructions for my watermelon bag. Somebody left me a comment on Ravelry asking me to do this and I am flattered, and will try to do it.
• Clean my make up brushes. This is long overdue.
• Use my gym membership at least three times.
• Sort out the magazine pile by the bed and clean/tidy my dressing table.

And I think that will do!

Weeknote 10/7

knitting:
I have managed to finish a colour repeat on the mariney shawl and I am half way through the chart, although it it's not really half way because the repeats are much longer towards the bottom of the shawl, of course. But I am getting back into it.
My secret Lushies swap friend sent me two skeins of Colinette One Zero and it has reignited my creative...erm...brazier, so I have been planning projects for it and other stuff. I'd like to knit some little toys.

going to:
Undercover Rock in St Werbergh's, with a year 8 Fed trip. The kids were really positive about it and they seemed to really enjoy themselves. It is an amazing space - climbing walls in an old church, with all the original stained glass windows and things like the font boxed in with clear perspex. They were really laid back, too.



I am feeling quite pleased with myself, because this is the final Fed event of the academic year and I've organised them all.
I also discovered an organic supermarket round the corner from here which is a bit like Fresh and Wild. I miss Fresh and Wild so I was pleased to see they had buckwheat and Rachel's Dairy coconut yogurt.

eating:
Courgettes from the garden. It has finally started producing and I had some courgette rosti this week with pork chops. Delish.
Cheesecake ice cream, home made. Here is the recipe -
300g packet cream cheese
1.5 cups milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup double cream
Beat everything but the cream together until smooth, then stir in the cream. Chill. Freeze. I used my crappy ice cream maker but the motor gave up before it was frozen so it's currently firming up in the freezer. It is delicious. I adapted the recipe from this knit blog but I used vanilla instead of lemon.

obsessed with:
new ideas and new technologies and trying out new things. I feel like I've woken up from my lethargy and I've been doing quite a lot of reading this week.

entertained by:
My new tutor group, who came in for induction day this week. I was expecting to like them as much as I liked my old TG straight away, but of course I didn't. They are quite funny and cute, though. One, who was crying at the gates first thing but became the natural group leader as the day wore on, told me he came from the best primary school - "It got an outstanding Ofsted". Great. Since when should that matter when you're 10?!
Amusing exam answers. Vicky, a colleague who is marking new spec, got one from a kid who wrote, "Stealing a mobile phone is a bit like stealing a message penguin." I now want to change the sig on my phone to "Sent from my Message Penguin."

fed up about:
Breaking a new year's resolution and getting sunburn, because I left the house on Thursday in the rain and thus without suncream, and so when we were sat outside the climbing centre, I got sun burn. ARGH! Thankfully it was only very minor and went away after one application of aloe and Badger Balm, but still.
The exam board and their continued lack of communication.
My local butcher - the miserable one - no longer being there. I went in today and it was all new, it's changed hands and today was the new owner's first day. I tried to be nice but I was quite choked up: the old butcher sold us the meat for our wedding and everything. Hopefully the new guys will be good; they do quite a lot of cooked meats and stuff which look great, but most of their meat today was pre-packed. But it was their first day. So maybe it will be OK.
The old butcher let me off 67p last week, we always round up or down so it evens out in the end because sometimes I overpay, but that's going to be on my conscience forever. He must have known he was leaving and that's why he rounded down such a big sum. I wish he'd said something.

feeling:
Pleased to have finally got the go ahead on the skiing, with sixth form, though a little annoyed about how it went down. Not really appropriate to talk about it here, though.
Really, really pleased to have finished my marking! Just the extras to do now....sigh....

Tuesday Ten

Ten Things I'm Going To Do When Marking Finishes

1. Crack open that bottle of gin my principal examiner bought me
2. Blog, every night for a week
3. Watch Big Brother when it's on, instead of in 20 minute segments on the following day
4. Sleep in until 6.45am
5. Go for a run or to circuits
6. Take Mr Z out to lunch
7. Go to the pictures on a school night
8. Mark some of my own books
9. Rush home from school and lie in the back garden with a magazine
10. Knit, knit, knit

I have definitely noticed the extra team members this year. I am almost done with backreading, then I need to do my own allocation, and then I'll have to get cracking on the leftovers. But I'll be doing that at my own speed. The exam board have excelled themselves this year in non-communication and I am not in the humour to run around on their bidding.

Induction day tomorrow. New tutor group! I met most of them at primary visits a couple of weeks back, and they're weeny. I'm exhausted at the prospect, but quite excited too.

June Goals round up

Finish one delinquent knitting project - likely to be the red cardigan I started a year ago.
Finish the new lace shawl I started this week.
No. Knitting has gone out of the window. This is partly due to being busy and partly to getting a new phone - I have spent hours browsing and my Twitter usage has rocketed, which is a bit of a time suck.

Properly plan and practice the opening speech and presentation skills workshop I have to give at the conference I've been planning for the end of the month.
I did do this, but it was quite a last minute thing.

Update the G&T list at work.
No, but I have chased almost all the faculty lists up now.

Arrange the Malaysia trip meeting and plan something for it.
It's not until next Tuesday so I have some time. I used Doodle to help me find a good date for everyone, it's very helpful.

Spend less money. Having all the car money in my account has made me more frivolous than usual and I've been buying a lot more than usual. I intend to not spend more than my salary this month....well, apart from when I have to hand over the cash for the new car
Yes, done!

Sort through The Shoes and get them into a proper sort of order.
Done. I threw out three pairs. Not bad for a woman so attached to her shoes. (Note: they had to be thrown out, not charity shopped, because they were too shabby to wear....so it's not a huge victory for me to claim, but a victory nonetheless).

Arrange to have the shelves and rails put up in the kitchen - which will then be FINALLY DONE - not even two years after we begun! We were speedy with this one (rolly eyes)
I have spoken to Father Z about this. He told me to mark on the walls where I wanted them. I'm getting to it.

Organise the spare room, and paint the corner that needs painting, so I can get shelving up.
I organised the spare room on the first day of the month. Then I ignored it.

NOT get sun burn. This ties in with my news year's resolutions, but I think this is going to be the prime month for it.
Oh, yeah.

Get up to 30 hours total time on the Wii Fit - I need to do another 5ish.
I think I added a grand total for 40 minutes. Pathetic.

Lose 10lbs. I can totally do this. I want to wear the nice Coast dress I bought in a charity shop for the year 11 ball on June 29th, and it's a little tight for the moment.
I managed to lose 5. The dress is better, but I wore something else to the ball.


It wasn't great this month, and I was so enthusiastic at the start! But, I have been so very very busy.
I have been pondering my July goals....expect them soon. Maybe even tomorrow if I get my marking done.

Weeknote 3/7

knitting:
still nothing. I managed one row on the shawl at the conference, but that was it.
I am finding it slightly ironic that I am blogging less too, since even though I seem to barely mention the knitting anymore in amongst all the navel gazing around here, it was knitting that got me back to blogging regularly.
I should try to make myself feel better about it by reminding myself that, actually, I've barely had a moment of downtime for nearly 2 weeks now.

going to:
Lunch by the harbour on a boat with Jo. A precious 3 hours off to shop and natter before the marking started again.

The Y11 leavers' ball. One of my history class, Brad, arrived by parachute jump. Amazing.
Oxford, for the conference. The college dealt with us admirably, since I get the feeling they are not used to being at all flexible and when you've got 100 kids on board, flexibility is vital. We stayed the night in Florey Hall. I thought this meant I could stay up past midnight and not suffer getting up at 6am the next day. I was incorrect.
Tarting around in my new car.
The garden centre, buying new plants. Salad and beetroot.

eating:
cake. I feel like I have had a lot of cake this week, including beetroot brownies from Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache. They were delicious. I made them for Jonts (at work), who observed that they were almost savoury.

obsessed with:
The progress of the courgette plants. One courgette grew - full size - literally overnight on Tuesday, when it rained.
GTAUK. Looking at the list of participants and feeling underqualified. Reading other people's blogs. Talking to them on Twitter. Setting up my own blog so I can start to track my innovations. Thinking about how to take it ofrward after the course - which is still almost a month away.

entertained by:
The kids at the conference. They were inspired. They were awestruck. They worked incredibly hard and I felt so proud.
Our speaker, who I found through Twitter. She's a PhD in psychology an education with a particular interest in underachieving gifted pupils.

fed up about:
how few of my monthly goals I achieved in June! Post on that to follow.
STILL not getting a decision about the ski trip. Not cool. I checked and only have 14 kids signed up, so I am tempted to just cancel the whole thing and go on a ski holiday with Mr Z and friends instead.
The exam board asking me to commit to marking more responses before the deadline because our team is short. ERM, HELLO. Our team is short partly because, against my advice, you took an examiner out for other tasks. You've got a bloody cheek asking me to increase my workload because you messed up! So I think I may be saying no, and you can pay me the overtime rate and I'll do them after the deadline. Also, I emailed you with questions a week ago: sort out your communication and respond. YOU ARE RUNNING A BUSINESS.
I feel deja vu....I have ranted about poor communication in this context before.

feeling:
stressed, anxious and nervy. Like there aren't enough hours in the day. It is better now the conference is finished, but I still have the marking to do. One more week and it's done.

I think I will take Mr Z to dinner by the harbour tomorrow, while the weather is good.