RIP

The first week of school. Good, God! What a week. I can feel the pressure on my neck which has been bothering me the whole week. We were all excited for the week to begin. I had all my lesson plans ready. Attended the Fire Marshall Training and completed the course and now I am a Fire Marshall for my school (yay!) The day arrived and just before the classes were about to start we get a horrible news that one of our students, a very lovely and well-loved boy, died the previous night in a freak accident. It was so surreal. I can still feel my surprise at the staff meeting. Looking at the crying faces of some of the teachers, I am wondering what is this. Are they serious? The boy who had read the article I had posted in the Classroom portal and responded just a couple of days before school that he enjoyed the article and looking forward to knowing more about it. The student who did very well in my subject and whom I thought can be a very good candidate for GCSE in Computing. I tell you, that day was a terrible day. We had to mobilize for some child psychiatrist and psychologists so that they can help the kids and the teachers deal with their loss. His friends were devastated. It wasn’t easy at all. A week has gone by and still, people are struggling. At least the students and friends are slowly accepting the fact that they won’t be seeing him anymore.

We can only imagine what their parents are going through. Some kids have written some poems, eulogies, etc to be given to his parents. We are waiting until they are ready to receive it. Will they ever be ready? Death is something I always find it hard to handle. This one hit a little too close to home. I haven’t been to the school for too long, but there are teachers who have been teaching him for years and I can’t even imagine what they feel like. All I can think of now is: I am glad to have known him even if it was only for a very short time and may his dear soul rest in peace!

A busy week before the busy weeks

Finally, I got around to start writing about my Padua trip which we undertook just before Christmas. I have two more posts on go, but at least I have made a start. You can head over to Memoirs of my travels to have a look at the posts.

During this week, I have been busy doing my online course on Teaching Computing from Future Learn and completing it, earning a certificate and gaining more confidence in my teaching methods. It was a tough nut to crack. It has been ages since I sat down and completed a course. I register online and forget about it after a week because it is difficult to fit in with the schedule. Apart from that I also finished my lesson planning for the next week for all the classes. It wasn’t easy but I got there in the end. That is why I could get my travel blog going today ( I am skipping my GCSE lesson preparation as I don’t have any classes next week)

My school starts Monday and I am sure it is going to be full hands-on. I do hope that this sinus and cold which has flared up again after a short respite will reduce over the weekend (have found out a herbal medicine which promises to fix it quickly, let us see) It is not a good news with the flu season at its peak now. I do hope that it gets better soon.

After a very long time, I have sat down for close to 3 hours and typed non-stop (also found some time in between to binge watch a few episodes of Mrs Browns Boys). I need a break. People who are enduring the snow and extreme cold weather, remember hot chocolate is the best remedy (like the one we had in Italy); dark chocolate (70%) with very less milk and corn flour mixed in it. You have to eat it with the spoon but keeps your body warm for a long time. Try it 🙂

Until my next post, ciao!

Missing photographs

In the early days of my blogging in WP, I had used high res photographs which took up all of my free space. I ended up buying 10GB for 20$ a year to keep them up. I don’t think that to be a wise option anymore. So I stopped the renewal this year and have deleted those (as much as I could) photographs from my media library in order to allow me to upload low-res photographs. That means there would be some very old posts that would have missing photographs in them. I might have to do some cleanup of those posts, but I don’t have the time and energy at this moment to do it. I might do some over the long Christmas break if I am inclined to do so.

I am also trying to take a backup of this website. I have been here since 2013 and there are so many posts to download. I started the download yesterday and I am sure it will take me another whole day and a half to get that done. Changes are imminent, but when is the question. Until then, I am going to take one day at a time and do what I can do.

What would you say?

Anyone knows the answer to this? Wanna give it a try and see if you are able to find the answer? 😉

 

Thank you!


Got this notification today. 4 years already? Wonder how the time just flies by. And just in time for Thanksgiving weekend 😉

I take this opportunity to thank each and everyone who have been with me on this wonderful journey, who have inspired me,  who have taught me, who have supported and encouraged me and who have visited my site and left a mark in the way of comments/likes/visits. Like any journey, I have made friends here, missed people when they left the blogosphere, shared quips and jokes and what not 🙂 I am glad to be here at this moment and hope to be here for some more time.

Thank you! You are all a Star! Happy Blogging!