A lizard onlooker shouts for both sides
The winners and losers, just along for the rides
The best place to hide is out in the open
There are no promises that cannot be broken

There is no yin and yang or balance
The race is run purely by marketing talents
They’re all donkeys dressed up as horses
Rides into the sunset as democracy endorses

Submitted to Bad Jonny’s competition at AllPoetry.com “Why have we only got 2 lunatics to choose from?” concerning the USA election this year.

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Today I’m feeling:

Tired still and my sore throat, whilst not as painful, feels weird and is making me think that I have some form of Covid.

Last night I tried to sleep at around 9.30 but it took a while as I had a bad headache and eyeache.

I also had a weird dream about finding snakes under the bed in my old Forest Cottage bedroom and mum came in and just picked them up and threw them out of the window, no fear!

Today I’m grateful for:

It being my low-pressure day today, giving me chance to relax a bit and catch up on some reading and writing.

The best thing about today was:

The challenge of getting my poorly skilled grade 8 students motivated and awake this afternoon. A few of them are sick too. Somehow, I feel like I kind of managed it and everyone was reasonably happy.

Something I learned today?

Just by chance, I was in the teacher’s room with Kru Mai and I started talking about the Integrated Program for next year and that I thought that I could probably do it with the type of lessons that I have already.  Kru Mai was grateful for this information and then let slip that the school is not happy with George as he didn’t talk with them about not wanting to teach Integrated this year, instead, going to Nancy and having her ‘fix’ it for him.  He also said that students are not happy with seeing one teacher so much of the time (as George only teaches grades 11 and 12).

I told Kru Mai that both David and I are exhausted by the weekend, having to deal with the grade 7, 8 and 9s all the time too.

I asked if students had raised any issues about my classes and he said no, everything seemed to be fine, which was nice to hear.  He seemed to be happy with both me and David.

Also, I can’t remember if I wrote about it here before but last week there was a message from the head of our department that parents had made complaints about the quality of teaching in our classes, as their children had reported back that other students would be sleeping, playing on their phones or doing their make-up instead of paying attention.

Complaints were made in person to the director so our department was warned that we would be checked up on this week. I hadn’t noticed any real changes or effort on the part of the teachers but I also haven’t been around much either. 

With the exchange students being here, it has also made things a little more chaotic with teachers being pulled here and there at random times, too.

At the weekend, I showed Bruno and Amy the warning from the head and we talked about it a little bit. Today, Kru Mai mentioned it to me too, telling me that it was a grade 7 student who had complained and it was particularly about Kru Ren’s class.

I could’ve guessed as much but didn’t think much else about it until I got home and Amy said that it was actually her friend Goy’s sister-in-law who complained to the director and her daughter, who is a smart student and is attentive and wants to learn is being bullied by the other students for being a goodie-two-shoes and to give them her work so that they can all copy it!

Chiang Rai is so small that everyone is at about three degrees of separation rather than the stereotypical six.

Anyway, the kid seems smart and I want to meet her.