Date for Entry: (Thursday 07 December 2023)
Actual Date of Online Entry: (December 2023)
[T1, W:14 – D:65, (Td:3)*].
** Gifts
Dear Diary,
Too much rain
kept me back this morning. I got to school with heavy bags. “Hanuman-Kumar” was
the driver today. As soon as I got signed in, I went to wrap up my gifts
immediately. I did not know when the gift exchange in the office would be. I
got a bottle of wine for Donna wrapped up. I also labelled the 3 gift bags for “Maria”,
Susan and Nicole.
I was going to
write up the mark sheet for the Form 1s and 2s in the staffroom but Miss
Mohammed came to let me know that the breakfast was about to start. I gave Miss
Patel her copy of the exam papers that I had as gifts for some of the teachers.
The breakfast
was supposed to be 9:30 AM but they decided to have a general assembly first so
that kept back. Everyone was gathering in the kitchen and Jeanice was hurrying
everyone else to get to the kitchen because she wanted her gift. We had to wait
for Crystal and Miss Mohammed who went to look for a knife. I was very excited
when they said that there was ham.
‘Doctor’ had us
sing some “Jingle Bells” and “Silent Night” with strange words we did not know.
The gift exchange was done quickly one at a time and then we got into the
breakfast because no one got the chance to eat anything. Miss Chote got me and
I gave Kiel the gift. Not sure if he had liked it. I loved the ham and the cheese
paste. Miss Ali had to leave early. I had a while enjoying the ham. Miss
Solomon said that she was the one who made it.
It took a while
for us to finish. I had some sorrel it was a bit too bitter sweat but it was
alright. Miss Chote came late and she told me she didn’t know if the shirt was
the right size. When I checked the label, it was Large. I told her that I wore
XL. She asked me to try it on first because she wanted to leave early. I went
into the lab to try it on. They had the old 1F room as the lab. I gave Donna
the bottle of wine. She was in the back of the staffroom by the table with
Shiva.
I went back to my
desk to see how much I could fill in the information for the Form 1s and 2s. Susan
had already gotten her gift from me and I left “Maria” gift on her desk.
Although I would have loved to give her it in person. Sometime in between there,
Mrs Jaikaran called me to give me something. Back at her desk, it was a beautiful
bottle of non-alcoholic pear wine. “Tia” was around and she came to call in the
conversation. Can’t remember which question it was that left up to “Of Course,
she loves me” as one of my responses.
It was getting
very late to lunchtime. I thought that Nicole was with the children in her Form
class. I got a call from Joshua by the door that she had sent to call me for
lunch in 2L. One table was for the boys and another set of tables was for the
girls by the windows. Gabby came with “Maria” to school too. They had already
taken out food for me but I let her and Maria share the rest. I was still full
of the office brunch.
I waited a while
with them to serve the ice cream after the children and went to eat some on the
way to 2F. I saw Afisha was with them when I got there. I walked around the classroom
eating in silence and then spoke with “Miss Malik”. She only asked about how
she did for the exam. They said that they were afraid of their mark. In about
two minutes their report sheets were about to be distributed by Javid. Two of
the girls were upset. I didn’t know when Miss Harris was there until he spoke
to her from the teacher’s desk. She left in the rush and I left to go and visit
2M with Mrs Jaikaran. When I asked about the big space, she said that they had
cleared a big space of the room for playing musical chairs.
I was too late
to see the Form 1s. I went to see 1F most of them were gone. 1L was in the
packing up mode. I didn’t both to stay. I saw that 1M was completely gone
except for “Mr Williams” and Susan. They got the classroom cleaned up. She gave
me an extra box of food and a sweets box. The children ended up waiting for a
lot of drinks and food. I waited to help her and Mr Bain carry things back to
Block C.
I went back to
the office and decided to fill out my timesheet early to not worry about having
to do it tomorrow. Miss Gittens asked for help by the door when she came to
sign out. I went to help them carry the Christmas tree from their Form class. I
took it to the car and they forgot to open the car locked for me to put it in
the trunk. I had a long wait. This time they parked exactly outside of the ‘music
room’.
I met “Vara” in
the corridor on my way to the washroom. She said that she left a gift for me on
the desk. I met back with her in the spec room with her brother and Miss Patel helping
“Kimmy” clean up. I helped them pack her car and then went off to the staffroom
again with my heavy bags.
Everyone was
around the Christmas tree in the staffroom on the couches. I got my brown bag
that I had forgotten right there overnight from the marking. I was supposed to
carry it home since the office would have been locked by the time of leaving in
the evening. “Maria” was making a crochet bookmarker for me. She told me to
pick two colours of threads and two beads to stitch them together. I loved it
very much.
While sitting,
Waverly said that “Miss Best” mother was querying the comment I made in the
report about no projects submitted. I texted her back to send to the mother
something short. Mrs Brown thanked me for the exam papers that I sent to her.
As I continued
to write my long and extensive journal entry by hand, there was an outburst by
Miss Harris against Javid. All of us were in shock and felt messed up about it.
It took the conversation for the rest of the evening and it made everyone leave
all of a sudden. We had a lot to pack up in the car. “Maria” had to help me get
in to put stuff on top of me too before she could start to drive. Everyone else
was squished in the back.
Since a lot of
the things belonged to Miss Gittens, they drove her home first. I got to see
where she lived finally. Then I met Dad and Andrew in Curepe. I had Form 2
slips filled out for the year group that night and dinner from a compilation of
all the foods that were given to me. I had an early bath and went to work on
the mark book for Miss Gittens and stopped after inserting the Form 3s.
I needed the
names of the students in Form 4 and 5. Hopefully, there would be an easy way
for it to work by PDF to copy and Paste if I can ask Isekel to email me the
list of names in the morning. As I sat on the couch, I felt so tired that
night. I went to bed early at 11:00 PM. Didn’t feel good at all. Had to wake up
early in the morning around 2 AM.
Daryl
Zion M. Ali
(8:32
am – 5:28 pm)
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