We've currently got builders in at school - quite what they're doing, I don't know, apart from interrupting my lessons to check light switches every now and again, so I have five minutes of strobe lighting to contend with, along with all the usual hassles. Whatever they are doing, I believe it to be in the style of a ten-gallon hat wearing, pistol-packing fully blown cowboy, or at least that's how I felt about them today.
You see, I had a free period where I wasn't actually taken for cover. Two and a half weeks into the school year and I can no longer see my desk for bits of homework, circulars, and textbooks awaiting sellotape surgery when or if the secretary allows me access to the stationery cupboard. So I decamped to the Staff Work Room, soon to be renamed the Dumping Ground for Dusty Folders and Exposed Wires, and sat at one of the antiquated PCs in order to type up my revised timetable. Like a shifty sheepdog, I kept eyeing the pile of books I'd brought along to mark, and tried to ignore them so that I could change text colours for all my different classes, add homework rotas, and so forth. Yes, it was a slight case of procrastination, but I knew my multi-coloured timetable would be of benefit to me for the rest of the year.
Until the powercut. Having some kind of premonition, I had actually thought, two minutes
before it happened, that I should save the file. But then I thought that I was so close to
finishing that I might as well save it when it was complete. So I'm the fool, for not
anticipating the powercut, with my prior knowledge of the cowboy builders loose in the
building.
As for how the rest of the school coped - the canteen ruining dinner (ha!), videos grinding to a halt, photocopiers needing reprogramming, science experiments fizzling out, ICT teachers having nothing left to occupy their classes, D&T tools no longer a mortal danger, children stumbling about in dark corridors - it all seemed insignificant when I fondly remembered the work of art I had on screen for such a short moment of time. And yes, I did swear very loudly.
added 21/9/03
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