The bane of being a teacher

It's that time of year. There's no avoiding it. You can run. But there is no where to hide. Like a nuclear powered GPS missile tuned to target your DNA, they WILL find you.

That's right...report cards! Teachers everywhere are finding things to do that have merrily sat unlooked at for months but now, right this minute, they must be done. Hoovering? Essential. Ironing? Absolutely must be done. Alphabetising your DVD collection by Director then cross-referenced with Producer and Genre? The fate of the free world depends upon it. Stock-taking the English cupboard and putting the books into some vague parody of a sensible order? Well...maybe not that far!

However hard you might fight against it, there comes a time when you just need to suck it up and get writing.

I'm at that stage now, and I can feel my life force ebbing away. Methods of procrastination are screaming out to me - like this blog, for example. I have played Suduko. I have caught up on my emails. I am itching to organise my DVDs (perhaps not by director, cross-referenced by producer and genre, but still). But...they need to be written.

And so I am tackling that timeless challenge faced by teachers the world over. Exactly how many different euphamisms are there for "Your child would require a divine act of providence to reach the dizzying heights of idiocy."? Or perhaps "X is not achieving their full potential. Tesco are fairly unwilling to hire shelf-stackers who cannot yet spell 'Tesco'."? Or, my personal favourite, and the one I am currently trying to resist the urge to write: "Y is a gobby little shite and is a monumantal pain in my arse. I am counting the hours until I can palm him off on the next poor sap who loses the annual departmental dance-off and so is consigned to the seventh circle of hell, otherwise known as class 4B. I have been practising my moon-walk especially. Frankly, I think it a huge pity he was not drowned at birth, I daily mourn the passing of corporal punishment, and I shall be forwarding the bills for my summer's residential psychiatric treatment to you forthwith." Do you think writing that would be considered a bit TOO blunt?

Righto...suppose I'd better get back to the buggers, especially if I plan on getting any sleep tonight...

Ooh...Big Brother's about to start...