Rabies

My visa, when I finally went back to get it (in a different glamorous sun hat and summer dress that suited the Gloucester Road post code) ended up being pretty cool.  The picture comes out upside down because Vietnam is on the other side of the world and this is how they do things there.

Incidentally, I then had the most uber-cool panic attack which involved the realisation that because I have been so cool and travelly since the issuing of my passport in 2005, I may not have enough pages to fit all the visas to all the awesome countries I will be galavanting off to in the next two years.  That is a pretty cool predicament, albeit a little travel-knobby.

I also had my last set of jabs, hurriedly stabbed into me by a rushed nurse who was annoyed with me for being late to the appointment.  I stumbled into the room apologising for my poor time keeping, she gasped and cried, 'you're very lucky I was able to see you!' and then shook her head at me as I explained that I had been too disorganised to get my rabies prescription in time for the appointment.  You see, for rabies, you go to the pharmacist and pay for the vial over the counter and keep it in your fridge with your genetically modified cells, and the urine sample you may need one day, just next to the milk and orange juice, and then you take it to your doctor and they jab it into you.  In my defence, in the previous 24 hours I had gone to about four pharmacies (I told everyone six - hyperbole much?) and asked if they had it, but apparently pharmacies in the UK do not keep rabies vials in stock.  This is too bad as, of all the four jabs I had today, rabies is probably the most important.  If you get bitten by a rabid animal, the rabies jab doesn't even save you, it just gives you a sacred 24 hours to get to a hospital to receive treatment.  Without it, it is my understanding that you begin frothing at the mouth instantly, and dissolve into a puddle of saliva, which is then licked up by whatever dirty creature has nibbled you in the first place.  This is obviously absolutely no help if you are in the middle of the jungle/desert/mountainous area/ocean/savannah, three days' walk away from the nearest first aid shack, where most rabid beasts are to be found.  It seems like a Catch-22 situation to me.

Anywho, having charmed the nurse out of her fury with delightful small talk and £25 for a Hep B jab, I wrapped my dead arms around my neck for safe keeping, much like the fashionable arm scarves you see the top models wearing nowadays, and sloped off round the corner to the local pharmacist.  On a whim, and because I love irony more than anything, I popped in to see if they had a rabies vial in stock.  Obviously they wouldn't, since all the Boots-the-Chemists and Superdrugs across the whole of Greater London didn't.

Except they did.

Lolz!  I wonder if this has anything to do with the proximity of the pharmacists to my dearly beloved school, termly resting place of numerous children who froth at the mouth with alarming regularity?  Metaphorically, guys...

I now had four options:

1. Re-book an appointment with my nurse, who only works on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings (today was Tuesday morning), and is booked up until the middle of September (today was the beginning of August.  I leave next Tuesday.).
2. Administer the jab myself.  Millie did it at Heathrow Airport with her Hep B, so why not me, Stockingstone Road, and rabies?
3. Find a drop in centre and hang around until a doctor could shove a needle in my arm again.
3. Seek out a friendly medical professional who would be happy to administer the jab in exchange for a glass of red wine.

Other than #2 (dangerous) #4 sounded like the most fun, so first port of call was Dr. Clay, esteemed sibling of Bridget Clay, but turns out she's too busy delivering babies and watching volleyball to be of any use.  Luckily, however, my dearly beloved sister has a friend who has a) brains b) medical qualifications c) a generous heart, who will apparently delight in the intra-muscular pain that the impending injection will cause me.  Thank goodness for highly and usefully qualified - if not slightly sadistic - friends of siblings.

Today I bought more clothes...

... that is all.

I do not know if they will fit into the suitcase I have not yet bought.

Visa-vis... aha!

So.  Having sobbed until I couldn't breathe on the penultimate day of term and wailed all my sorrows and overwhelming emotions to Bridget through a glass of red wine, punctuated by the occasional hiccough, I spent my last day brutally dismissing any attempt to capture a sentimental moment.

At 8:15am, my previous year 11 class, 98% of whom I have not formally taught this year, rocked up with an enormous bunch of flowers, a framed photograph, chocolates and a card.  To be fair, I threw child protection out of the window for a group hug with them, the legends.  However, non-uniform day had to be organised with a very disorganised form so I shushed them away to let me 'get on with it'.

Throughout the day, little people bleated, 'Why are you leeeeaving?' whilst handing me chocolates and cards.    Because the alcohol here is too expensive, the weather atrocious, and the children ask too many questions, small person.  That's why!  One darling handed me a little book of 'good luck' and 'thank you teacher' poems she had compiled.  I hugged a colleague in front of a year 9 French class when she came in to give me After Eights.  How did she know I love these?  They are my Christmas-gorge-yourself-and-feel-sick favourite.  I sat through two deathly boring assemblies, and at the end of the second, was handed roses and thanked in the awkward prepubescent way that teenagers show their gratitude, for being the best form tutor ever.  I said, 'Great, thanks, you guys.  You better run before you miss your buses.'  I wailed goodbye repeatedly to the most difficult child in my form, just for shits and giggles: he completely ignored me and left without even so much as a goodbye.  Fool.

The only way of taking all of this in, obviously, is to lay out all the presents in a sea of cards and chocolates and flowers and bookmarks whilst you, the island, sit absorbing the adoration whilst drinking your third glass of end-of-term champagne with the Bridge and listing all the things you definitely will not miss, ever.  Including the bell that rings at 9pm that can be heard from your house, and at all lesson times over the weekend as a constant reminder that you have work on Monday... work on Monday...

Turns out, I haven't got work on Monday!  Ahaha!  It's Tuesday and I haven't had to do any work at all (but I have still been having anxiety dreams about marking and detentions and telling children off who deserve to be told off).  Today, I spent my time on more important things: addressing The Vietnam List of Importance and Urgency.  So far, I have ticked the following off The List:

- Purchase appropriate shoes for enormous Western feet as Asian feet do not grow to this size;
- Order, try on and prance about it Summer Wardrobe from Dorothy Perkins;
- Organise Last Suppers with various friends and family in various locations;
- Return to the womb and hibernate in parents' house;
- Acclimatise to Vietnamese heat by getting sunburnt on neck, arms and face.
- Apply for, but not pick up visa.

Now the last one is a funny one.  In a state of holiday relaxation, thinking, 'there's nothing that needs to be done today, now or ever', I strolled to the station and hopped on a train at around 10:49am.  I got to the Vietnamese Embassy at 12:05 (it closes at 12:30).  Having travelled before to various silly destinations, I know that embassies fall into two categories:

a) The Russia: arrive at 9:30am on the first attempt to find a queue of 60 people.  Wait in the queue until 12:30pm, and then get turned away.  Turn up at 6:30am on the second attempt to find a queue of 15 people.  Queue until 11:30am and get visas.

b) The Syria: turn up at 6:30am to find no queue and abandoned square.  Sit on pavement, visit Starbucks, walk around the block, snooze against a lamppost until 9:30am when embassy is opened by friendly looking man.  Be first in queue and have visa processed in 20 minutes.  Leave at 9:50am and go straight to work for eight hours.  Commit suicide by 4pm due to fatigue.

Luckily, the Vietnamese Embassy falls into the 'b) Syria' category and when I rocked up at 12:05, I had just enough time to fill in the form and pass my beloved passport over to the kind lady behind the counter.  I asked when I could pick it up.  She said 12:30.  I looked at the clock, which said 12:15.  I thanked her, but another, uncontrolled part of my brain took me out of the building and to a posh restaurant for a prix fixe lunch where I read 'The Quiet American', felt glamorous, and perved on the good-looking barmen.  I ponced back at 1:30pm, thinking the embassy would be open for me to pick up my visa and wander on home but, as I already knew (I had looked it up this morning), the embassy only opens between 9:30am-12:30pm.

Hmm.  Will have to pick it up on Thursday. With any luck, they won't make too many photocopies of my passport and sell them to various illegal immigrants in the meantime...

Ooh.  'Henry V' is on the BBC.  I remember these 'key scenes'.  Adrian Lester is in it!

Blog-legiance

Hello to all and sundry. You may remember me from such blogs as 'Emmadoessouthamerica' and 'Misssocialchangeagent', both interesting literary reflections of a personal journey peppered sometimes with 'Distractionpoetry'. Glancing through these, it may not be a surprise to you that since the innocent, wrinkle-free days of emmadoessouthamerica, I have become more embittered and cynical, and have had to employ numerous what I like to call Hysteria Techniques, or - if you will - Insanity Embracers - in order to get by. Some of these have included Thursday Red Wine Night, the Map Out Your Students' Not-So-Glamourous Futures During Silent Assessments game, Write Poems About Anger Term, Dance For Students To Cheer Them Up Starters and Receive Massage From Maternal Colleague During Breaktime breaktimes. Ah, the hidden and secret oddities of teachers.

 To sum up the last two years with a celebrated (but not to be endorsed) education charity, here are some choice highs and lows:

 - having a hole cut in my cardigan before an important observation lesson (it was left on a chair: I was not attacked with by a teenager weilding scissors);
- crying in front of a teenager when they cheated because their self esteem was so poor;
- being verbally abused and threatened by a scary parent whilst on duty;
- being rugby tackled by two Amazonian twins when they both got As in their English Literature;
- having the most intelligent young man I have ever met use something I taught him in an essay;
- having the popular tune 'Mama Do the Hump' renamed 'Sheppard do the Hump' by my year 11s;
- having my prodigee tell the head that she wants to go to Kings College and do English and French like Miss Sheppard (who doesn't?)
- planning the new KS4 set text: 'An Inspector Calls Back and Leaves a Message' in year 11 revision lessons;
- leading the first ever eight International Medical Corps Ambassadors in their charity fundraising;
- the day I curled up in a ball and cried in the English office because of year 9;
- all the other days where year 9 made me want to punch the ceiling with joy.

 For any further detail, you'll have to get me drunk and bring Bridget along. We have hilarious tales that would shock and horror many in the teaching profession, but that we will always remember fondly. Oh! Early entry! What jokers!

 But this blog is not named 'Emmaremembersherfirstyearsofteachingwithnostalgia', its conception and birth is due to my recent flight confirmation from my new, international school in Vietnam, where I will be working for the next two years. Consider the next few posts, if you will, a preface to the actual two year novel that is to follow.

 Pledge of blog-legiance:

 I do solemnly swear to blog every two weeks, or whenever something interesting happens.
I do solemnly swear to forget that people read this and be inappropriately candid about the inner workings of my brain.
I do solemnly swear to galavant in the holidays to glean hilarious stories of near death.
I do solemnly swear to pursue Li Hi activities at all and every stage.
I do solemnly swear to name drop any person(s) who commit to following and commenting on my witterings.

 So far, I have spent a desperately panicked month trying to get the certificates acknowledging my qualifications (of which there are many) certified by someone certified in the art of Soliciting. This is a clever use of words to slander lawyers. After many warnings by stern, finger-wagging emails, I was aware that to leave it too late would mean being refused entry into Vietnam, a country that ONLY accepts highly qualified and certified non-criminals. Turns out that, after getting them squiggled by a slightly strange, but glamourous Solicitor who lived near Watford Junction, the jolly old Foreign Office took all of three working days to Fedex my certificates back to me, fully certified. What a lot of fuss over nothing! That, or I'm so radiantly qualified and non-criminal that my documents shone through the pile of others, burning them to cinders of ash, grateful to have deceased in the presence of my degree, PGCE, NQT and criminal records form, that mine were quicker to process.

 I have dutifully read through the entire staff handbook, and have duly noted that on one or two Fridays over the course of the year, I will be on official Friday Cake Duty. Like lunch or break duty, but with cakes. Now if this isn't the most wonderful school in the known universe, I don't know what is. So official. So formal: 'Each member of staff is expected to provide the staffroom with Friday cakes, as per the rota, which is drawn up at the start of term. Administration staff can provide details of suitable retailers of confectionary and baked items.'

 I hope that one day, I live in an England where the job description of admin staff is to provide details of bakeries and other joy-bringing, sweet-making establishments.