OneAndOneIs2

*Deep breath*

Well, the first day of the Secondary Science PGCE is now done. Bloody Hell, they're not lying when they say it's going to demand a lot of time & energy...

Let's fall back on chronological order..

Woke up to my alarm clock at half five.

Half past FIVE! Such times have no right to exist in a civilized world!

Went through my usual morning routine, with the exception of the lack of sunlight and not going jogging. Then headed towards Bognor. Due to lousy radio reception along that route, I switched to CD.

Funny thing, I never much liked Pros & Cons in the past. Maybe my tastes in music matured a bit over the years. I still wouldn't play it at home, not start to finish, at least. But (and I hate to admit this knowing my mum's likely to read it) it may well be the single best album I've ever heard for playing on hour-long car journeys.

Even if it isn't, the first minute or so of the title track is worth an hour's wait :o)

The roads were mostly empty the whole way. There was one gem of a moment tho: I have the habit of sticking to the speed limit, which irritates many of my fellow drivers. At one point, I was trundling along at 30mph when the BMW Z5 behind me decided he'd had enough of being stuck behind slow old me, floored it, and rocketed past.

Only to immediately slam on the brakes and drop down to 20mph or so as it followed the large tractor for the mile or so before I turned off.

Childish of me, I know, but it put a smile on my face.

Because I had no idea of traffic etc. on my route at that time of day. I'd left with plenty of time to spare, and turned out to be the first of the dozen of us on my course to arrive. Only one familiar face in the whole mob: a chap named Neil whom I'd met on the Taster Course I did at the start of the year, and who had subsequently been interviewed for the course on the same day as me. Impressively, it's a 50/50 gender mix, and they all seem nice enough.

We did the inevitable "go round the room and introduce ourselves" bit, met a few of the key members of staff, talked quite a lot, did some group work & presentations, and gathered up lots of paper. Lots and lots of paper.

We were told by our tutor that the school head, who gave us a short talk first thing, thinks we're a good group - apparently, gut feelings count for a lot in this game. Our tutor said at the end that, having spent the day interacting with us & all, he agreed: There is, he said, an "X factor" that makes you a good teacher, and you either have it or you don't. If you don't, you're never going to make it, however much you try. We all have it, so he's happy. And relieved.

(I kinda know what he means by this. On our interview day, one of my fellow candidates seemed like a perfectly nice person, but within about 30 seconds of conversation, my only thought was "Please don't let this person get a place on this course, they'll ruin it!" - and sure enough, no sign of them today, which was a genuine relief. Sounds cruel, maybe, but it's the truth.)

We finished a little before 4pm. We have three exam papers to get through, each of which we have an hour and a half alloted to us for. We also have to hand in that critical commentary thing I mentioned before on Monday, which is actually the official start date of the course. So I reckon that's about six hours worth of work we've been given before we've even enrolled at the university!

I came back home & went jogging. I hate jogging in the afternoon instead of the morning - it's hotter, more crowded, and there are more bugs around. Going to have to work on this...

Then I went through all my paperwork from today and sorted it into some semblance of order. Wrote up my notes properly, filed everything away, and generally got organized.

I'm going to need a diary, as a matter of urgency. There's already a whole bunch of dates I need to note things for. I know I might be expected to use my laptop or a PDA, but for personal organizers, I always have and always will prefer something paper-based. You don't have to plug it in and/or wait for it to boot up, apart from anything else... and handwriting recognition isn't as big an issue for me as it is for a PDA :o)

(I spent eight years deciphering the handwriting of foreign doctors that had been through half a dozen fax machines, I can read ANYTHING!)

All in all, then, a very busy day. Things'll get easier later, as the routines get settled and so forth. Workload won't get much lighter, I suspect. But that's OK - it's for a good cause! :o)