As is the norm of a Sunday night (which is when I’m writing this, though, in order to allow time for the proofreading that I almost certainly won’t do, it will not appear in the blogosphere until Monday morning) I am somewhat apprehensive about the working week ahead of me. There is nothing especially onerous about the week to come, beyond the whole ‘having to go to work’ thing, which has always been something of an aggravation to me.
In two weeks, I will be at the beginning of a glorious 6-week period of ‘not having to go to work’, which I am very much looking forward to. It’s the main reason I became a teacher in the first place.
I wish I was joking. It’s such a cliché to suggest that people become teachers because of the holidays and in my experience it generally isn’t true. Most of the colleagues I’ve encountered over the years have been people who see teaching as a vocation. They genuinely love what they do. I wish I was one of those people, but alas it was vacation not vocation that lured me into the profession.
Not that I’m bad at my job. Despite my relative indifference to the field in which I operate, I appear to be quite good at what I do, but if I could have the same holidays doing something else then I would definitely consider it.
Having 6 weeks off work every year might seem like a lot. And that’s because it is a lot. It’s brilliant.
But I still have to wait two weeks for that to kick in, so currently, like every other chump out there, my only reprieve from work is through weekends. One of which I’ve just had.
Weekends are ok. I’d rather have a weekend than not have a weekend, but they really are far too short.
I currently find myself at the denouement of this particular weekend wondering exactly where it went and what I managed to achieve.
And the answer appears to be ‘not much.’
I did eat a lot of ‘Cheeky Monkey’ ice-cream though.
No, that’s not a typo. I didn’t mean to write ‘Chunky Monkey’. Much as I enjoy Ben & Jerry’s, I was not eating their famous ‘primate-themed’ ice-cream. I was eating an ice-cream from a well-known discount supermarket, which was very clearly an homage to a renowned Ben & Jerry’s flavour. But weirdly, ‘Cheeky Monkey’ ice-cream is not a rip-off off ‘Chunky Monkey’. Instead it appears to be a tribute to the masterpiece of dessert-engineering that is ‘Phish Food’. Which is a little confusing.
The ice-cream in question was delicious and given that it was less than half the price of ‘Phish Food’ it was a very credible facsimile. But if you’re going to go to the trouble of producing an imitation of a celebrated ice-cream, it seems strange to give it a name that is very similar to a different well-known ice-cream.
And I had I been in the mood for ‘Chunky Monkey’ I might have been a tad disappointed.
Fortunately, like the responsible consumer I am, I read the label and knew exactly what kind of frozen treat I was purchasing.
So, no harm was done.
Except to my waistline.
And to be fair, that ship sailed a long time ago.
James Proclaims! 