CA3: No longer continuing

It took half an hour in Green Café this morning before I gave up on trying to read through my first draft. Almost a new record. On the plus side, I did manage to add a new paragraph on implications of my study on my professional development, which has bumped the word length up to something more respectable. And most importantly, it means my final assignment for the year is now submitted. Wahoo!

Now, lesson planning, I think that can wait until tomorrow, it's such a nice day outside...

CA3: Continuing...

First draft done. Might actually be a first draft rather than my normal lips service of intending on reading through and tidying up...

Incidentally, I mentioned yesterday that sanity was being maintained by old music. That's not the entirety of the truth - YouTube has also been helpful in letting me watch lots of stuff like this:

"New" music purchases

On more positive notes, I've just received "Minutes to Midnight" by Linkin Park and "Jagged Little Pill" by Alanis Morissette. I don't claim to be cutting edge, but I'm enjoying the listening. Should keep me amused for the next few days...

Curriculum Assignment 3: This time, it's personal...

It's the last one, that's what I keep telling myself. Gah. Really slow going...

1,750 words down. It's looking like I'm going to do my usual job of pushing my essay over the minimum while everyone else is trying to cut theirs to below the maximum...

Traveller's dreams...

It is half term, which inevitably means time to write my assignment due the Monday back from holidays. At least this is the last one. I've had the normal first day of work for it, which in short is not much at all, which is leading me to think that I should probably give up and consider tomorrow a new day. In the meantime, I've turned my thoughts to next year, when these holidays, to the most part, will actually be holidays...

Last year, I was forced to take a holiday every three months due to the fact that my visa ran out and I needed to leave and re-enter the country to extend it. Oddly enough, I didn't complain too much about this - it was rather nice to take a few days away somewhere, relax and look around somewhere new. It also offered something to look forward to when work was tiring and I was feeling a bit stressed. I'm now being given advise that during my NQT year, adopting a similar policy would be wise - especially for the October half term and February Half Term (I've been told these are particularly rubbish times, which I don't find hard to believe given my experience this year). Hence, I've been joyfully making plans...

Here are some of my initial thoughts - any recommendations or willing co-travellers welcome!

October: Geneva, Berne and Zurich by train - was thinking about this for past February half term but it didn't work out.

Christmas: Weekend in Dublin before heading up north to Belfast for Christmas.

February: Back to Belfast and then travel back to Bristol from vaguely "up north" England, maybe Durham.

Easter: Hopefully Pwllheli for New Word Alive. Shall be looking for people interested in going on Week 2 in due course...

May: Probably few days in Oxford.

Should be enough to keep me busy. Most of it is laid around getting time to go back to Belfast and taking detours on the way there or the way back, but definitely a couple of big escapades to keep me amused...

A realisation...

It's quite easy to order stuff from Play.com. Perhaps too easy. Hmmm.

It's quite cheap though...

Folly and the Criminal Records Bureau

I'm just about to fill out another CRB form. From the amount I fill out you'd think they know something...

It's a rather silly system that you need to go through. Most places only require a CRB check every two or three years, so you'd think that it would be enough to go through the full disclosure once, and then be issued with a certificate to say that nothing has shown up. Then, if any role or job requires CRB clearance, you could just present the certificate. Simple.

But no, you need to go through a CRB check for every specific job. As a result, I presently have a full disclosure used to approve me for studying for my PGCE, I'm applying for another for the purposes of working at my new school and now I'm about to fill in a form to apply for yet another one so that I can clean toilets on a camp that children will be attending. Craziness...

Not as unusual as I'd like...

My fellow maths teachers may be able to testify to how familiar this is...

From continued pondering about my accent...

My kids are getting closer at least. Today I was asked whether I was Scottish by my Year 8s, which I would say is a good deal of improvement on the usual guess of American.

As it is I had one of those days that makes me think a bit more that maybe I've picked the correct career path. I'm teaching a bit more, and I'm more relaxed when I get into a classroom, the result being that I'm having better lessons. Praying this will continue, but considering I have a (probably unhelpful) tendency to write here when I'm discouraged about teaching, it's probably worthwhile writing at a time when I'm feeling a little more positive. :)

I'm sure they have some sort of survaillance watching me...

This is probably a little to close to a diagram explaining why I'm often quite tired at school. Considering it has pretty much been the model for most of my time at university, this is somewhat unsurprising.

Thanks again to PhD Comic providing uncomfortably true commentaries on my life... I think I'm going to go to bed now, or maybe I'll just surf the 'net for a bit longer...

Maybe it is just for the good of my health...

The TES magazine reports a Year 1 pupil's question to their teacher:

"What job do you do?"

Before you think that this sort of mistake is unique to 5 year olds, one of the teachers today reported that she'd left her payslip on her desk, and was asked by one of her Year 7 what it was. She explained that it was her payslip, and that she'd just been paid. The response,

"Oh, so what do you do then?"

It's hard to know how to respond to that...

Thoughts on Baptism (possible first of many)

This is quite possibly the first time I have written about this, so here goes. It seems that the most controversial view that I have held onto since arriving in Oxford concerns the issue of baptism. I have become rather widely know as a credobaptist (that is the belief that baptism should be conducted in adulthood post-conversion). The majority of my peers, not to mention the leaders whose teaching I sit under, believe in paedobaptism (otherwise known as infant baptism). Hence, much conversation has been exchanged to convince me of the error of my ways. I have thus far resisted - nearly six years now and counting.

My defence of my belief has always pointed to the simple reading of the New Testament. It suggests from the flow of the narrative is that apostles called for conversion, and baptism was administered in response to that. That would seem to suggest this to be normative, and it also seemed to be common sense. I do now realise that there are a few of problems with this approach. Firstly, the situation in Acts does not allow much insight into how infants were treated - the situation was that the gospel was going out for the first time and so we read of conversions of adults, and so it is rather likely that the examples we read of in Acts are shaped massively by the temporal setting of the activities. Another reason for not considering this argument to be a sure foundation is that it demonstrates a fallacy of treating a specific example as normative. An example of this approach elsewhere would be to take Daniel’s model for prayer in Daniel 6 and insist that proper prayer must be conducted three times a day and directed towards Jerusalem. To make such an application would be to read too much into the specific example, and in fact may lead to miss the teaching point of a passage. Basically, to make a sure conviction about an issue, we must base it on much surer theology than being backed up by examples.

It is in the spirit of searching for this surer theology that I may consider writing a little more about my present conviction on baptism. I shall give away the present state of affairs - I am still a credobaptist, and am as yet unaware of an argument to convince me otherwise. I am at the same time aware that my being a credobaptist has become a bit of a cherished distinction that I hold on to, and it may not be for entirely biblical reasons. Luther famously commented that “Ecclesia Reformata est semper Reformanda”, that is the reformed church is every reforming, and it is in this spirit that I do intend to carefully consider this issue.

I encourage my paedobaptist brethren not to start their celebrations yet though, they could well be premature. Expect further ramblings on this in due course...

The Countdown begins, so to speak

I have realised that in two months tomorrow, my lease for my college room will have finished, and I shall have moved to Bristol. Scary.

My hope that admission and realisation of this fact will aid in the fight of sentimentalised feelings about Oxford in the run up to my move. Experience suggests that there is a fat lot of chance of that happening, but one lives in hope...