Wonderful Wednesday

What a lovely day.
The relief is all set, and I've only got two classes today.
I've no meetings tonight, so I'll get home at a reasonable time.
I'm getting to know our relievers a lot better, and they're a nice bunch. It feels strange to be in "charge" of such a group, especially when I realise that I'm the guy who says if they work or not, which means of course if they get paid or not.
So the attitudes of the relievers to me is also a bit ambivalent. I'm the guy who phones them at 7:00 in the morning, and drags them out of bed to supervise a bunch of noisy kids. I'm also the guy who decides if they make any money.

Actually the money side is a bit of a concern on a couple of fronts.


When Ringo was in charge of the relievers, he was a little bit careless about putting in the claim for pay for many of our relievers, and some of them didn't get paid for quite a few weeks, even though they'd worked the hours.
My other concern is the amount of money paid out. Not that the relievers don't deserve the money, but the get about $250 per day. If we have many teachers out, as happened on Monday, and will again on Friday, then we may employ up to 5 relievers. That costs the school $1250, and it comes out of our operating funds (sort of)which are not exactly abundant. It worries me sometimes, that our staff are not aware of the costs, and book days of, and expect cover for unnecessary meetings and events. I'm not complaining about taking a day off sick, but arranging a meeting when you're supposed to be teaching, when it would be fairly simple (mostly) to re-arrange it for a time when you have a non-contact spell.
Maybe I should start to educate my colleagues.
I am a teacher you know.

On a different tack, my beloved dragged me of to the cinema last night. It's the Ascot in Upper Hutt, and Tuesday night is $10 each night. (Actually it was $9.50 each, but I didn't have the moral courage to ask the dreadlocked teenage Pakeha who served us why the 50 cent reduction. Maybe I just looked like an old tired decrepit teacher and he felt pity for me. Maybe he was the product of our amazing educational system and thought that $9.50 was the same as $10.00. Maybe he was just an idiot.)
We saw Inception.


Go and see this film. I won't spoil it for anyone by saying that it makes you really think about reality. It works on many levels. Plenty of bangs, crashes, fast cars (and speeding trains), shooting etc, mostly in the James Bond style. Very little mushy stuff, except that love is at the core of the film.
Completely recommended. make the time and go and see it. The special effects are fantastic, but it's not really a special effects film like Avatar was. The special effects are an intrinsic part of the story-telling. For those of us at Nuova Lazio High, if a certain lady (with the same first name as Superman's girlfriend) teacher sees this she'll be raving about it for weeks, and probably base her entire Film & TV course around it.

Magic.