One of those first-I've-heard-of-it moments

Class now? Since when?

I normally see Pre-AL α 8th period on a Monday. I’m sitting in the office lamenting the brevity between periods when one of the students arrives and informs me that we have class. In spite of checking the revised timetable later on, I find that there’d been no such change indicated on my copy.

It appears that some of this year’s Pre-AL students are as overwrought about test results as their contemporaries were two years ago. I can see that the speaking exams are going to be a trial for some of them.

It was all happiness in the office. Mr T was sick again (making me seem the model of healthy vitality) and complaining about the absence of café culture, and the perceived unfriendliness of the locals. Mr B and the Cyberman were devising parodies of songs to mock the shortcomings of the city. Mrs S was pissed off at Mr S for being a dick when she needed him to be helpful.

In other words, it’s the shit which happens at about this time of year when the dickery you find in the Empire has worn so thin that it has a negative thickness value. This seems to happen every year. Last year it was her Ladyship flying off the handle with the Pervert.

Honestly, speaking from experience, I can confirm that this isn’t such a bad place to be, but for anyone who’s turned up thinking that this would be a working holiday surrounded by the glories of the culture or some shadow of normality, they’ll be disappointed to find themselves in another dull provincial city.

Nonetheless, I wonder how many of my esteemed colleagues will return for another year or whether it’ll be the core of us who have been together since I first came here.