Woeful Wednesday

After saying I didn’t want to bore you all with tales of woe, I’m really not having a very good week.  Monday was OK but yesterday was just a catalogue of disasters. 

Regular readers will know how much I am enjoying my college course (not).  I have got less than 3 weeks left until the final deadline and then I’m done, so there is light at the end of the tunnel… or so I thought…

I still have one fairly substantial assignment to finish, part of which is ‘mapping’ my skills and learning against a set of competencies set by the examining board.  To complete this, and more importantly identify any ‘gaps’ I need to fill, I need to have been observed teaching on four separate occasions over the academic year and all before Easter.   Typically, as I’m rural based and therefore difficult to get to, mine started late and through no fault of my own, I’m now way past the Easter deadline.  I was booked to have my final observation last week, which was moved to this week.  Annoying, yes, but still manageable.  Well surprise, surprise, she emailed and cancelled on me again, leaving me no option but for her to come next week – which is my last actual teaching session  – and more importantly then only leaves me ten days (a week of which is half-term) to ‘plug the gaps’, with no further teaching opportunities before the deadline.

I was then called out of class during the afternoon by the department head, who also happens to be the person marking our action research project.  I was hoping for some feedback on the assignment (or at least a pass/fail indication) but instead she asked me if I would teach some classes at the college next year.  I know her already on a professional level so I know that she’s a really lovely woman and I imagine she’d be great to work for.  Plus, of course, the money as a sessional teacher is great!  Had we not been moving I would have seized the opportunity with both hands, but we are so I can’t.

Then to top it all off, when I got home I had a call from the agent managing our property in Essex yesterday informing me that our tenants have indicated that they have no intention of moving out at the end of their notice period next month.  This means we’ll have to take them to court to gain a possession order and on expiration of that, apply to have them evicted, which will take time and cost money, neither of which commodity we have in abundance.  We already know that they have wrecked the house and it needs a complete refurbishment before we can move back in and that the deposit they paid won’t come close to covering the cost of the repairs and so on.

They say these things come in threes.  They certainly did yesterday.  I could have cried.  In fact, if things don't improve today I still might…