St. George’s College (Week #75) – Day #346

Date for Entry: (Friday 28 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:12 – WD:55, (Td:6)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning the driver in the back was “Sagaboy Andy”. I greeted him and then he got into the maxi. The rain came down as soon as I began to walk on the pavement. Luckily I had my new umbrella put in my hand before exiting the maxi. “Miss Gloria” was waiting by the guard booth. She said that she was waiting for someone to give her a walk across to the building. She had forgotten her umbrella home. I got most of the wet and she was covered.

    As soon as I entered the building to sign, all of the other trainees had already gotten their forms signed since yesterday. It was nice of them to not tell me that. I saw Kiel messaging me bringing in the form and no one said anything in the OJT chat.

    Deon to pass by several times asking for their forms. I ended up standing by the book writing up my journal entry for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. They were all completed. Before doing that I sent a message to Mrs Sawh and told her that I was waiting for the timesheet to be signed as she was coming back to the office.

    Thankfully at 11:39 AM, about 30 minutes after messaging her, she got back to the staff room and she said when she got back she would sign the form. I had to let her know that they wanted the form by noon to carry up to the office. She giggled and said that it was a good thing she came back to the office. I let her use my pen to sign and got the form stamped outside.

    It was nice of her to thank me for the work that I had done. I'm not sure she got a chance to see the files for the individual teachers’ leave and absence forms. I got the form to Deon and he looked it through. Surprisingly by the time I got up the block K, he came and asked about the time for leaving today which I usually leave blank. I explained to him that there was not any problem that had arisen from this. So he understood he left and I went back to leave my bags in the art room.

    I met Janice and Miss Gittens in the old 1M classroom. They were setting up their food area for the guests. I went to get my tray when they asked but the staff room in block K was locked and no one was there to open it. It was now minutes to one that I had ended up having breakfast in the art room before returning.

    By the time I returned to the old 1M classroom, everything was gone and the event was long finished. I sat with Miss and had a good chat. She gave me some good comments. The rest of the teaching staff was in the library along with the guests. I was not sure who the guest speaker was.

    It took Miss and me a long while to finish tallying up all the exam marks in there in the art room and getting those marks into the mark sheet. “Maria” was finished and came in the nic of time as we were both leaving the compound. We ended up leaving the school when everyone else had driven off. No one else was on the compound except for the security guards. I hope that over the weekend the library will be ready and that it will be in good standing as letters for the children are going to be handed out on Sunday.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(9:51 am – : pm)

St. George’s College (Week #75) – Day #345

Date for Entry: (Thursday 27 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:12 – WD:54, (Td:5)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning was not easy to come to school. Pain in my eyes burned me and my head was hurting. It was a small challenge to find “Jess”. I ended up looking for her first and then Elissa said she was in the geography room. I had no idea where the geography room was located. It was my first time being in there.

    The choir was gathered for their dress rehearsal there. “Jess” gave me the chair by the piano to play some chords and also some of the fills in the song for the lower voices. She had a hold back for some of those who needed the extra work by the time she gave a recess to the other students. The majority of the choir were females and two male voices were there. I then got to leave afterwards.

    Miss Gittens mentioned a meeting to proceed in the library at 11 am in the corridor. Some of the teachers gave their attention during the meeting while grading their papers. There was a team of people, three persons from a unit called ESBID. I still could not remember what it stood for.

    They wanted to start an ESBID group of people in the school. This team would be teachers and probably deans that worked on issues for children's learning and behavior in individual cases. When children are not improving in learning or behavioural issues, I mentioned that teachers would make up this team along with deans.

    Teachers would now have to make small log entries on both formal and informal consultations with each other. Once the external team is contacted, they will be asked for the written log entries to review the types of implementations taken over the student for their development in the learning environment. They did not mention how they would find a way to fix the problem. It was nice to see Mrs. Sawh as the acting Principal.

    During the meeting and marking, Dr. Allison met me and I cleared some room on the table for her to sit next to me. She checked out her list with the log book for teacher attendance and then wrote in her checks in the form that I made for the school. She stayed with me after the meeting through lunch into the 7th period. We had agreed to meet on Monday because she wasn't coming to the graduation tomorrow. I was not sure that would work out.

    She mentioned this while begging teachers to sign for pending reforms that she had to finish May 2024 because it was under her act. She said that found it best that she finish May 2024 and hand it over to the next person taking over the position. She also mentioned that she would try to hunt down the rest of the teachers to fill up their forms in time for Monday. I had about 6 scripts for 1M music papers to correct again.

    I finished these papers afterwards into the beginning of the 8th period and felt so tired. My eyes felt like they were burning on fire. I didn't see “Jess” again for the remainder of the day. It looked like she left so I ended up putting the papers below her desk in the music room. I'm not sure when she will even get time to go through these papers and see about the misprinting within them.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(9:29 am – 4:43 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #75) – Day #344

Date for Entry: (Wednesday 26 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:12 – WD53:, (Td:4)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning was an early one to wake up. As soon as I hit the shower, that was a slowdown. I got a ride to Valsayn in the “Sagaboy Andy” maxi. He recognized me when I greeted him.

    Thankfully, crossing the road was not an instant like yesterday. The office was busy for once this week, and I saw Mrs. Sawh finally sitting in the Vice Principal's office. I didn't disturb her. I was about to go in and explain the Excel document to her, but Mrs. Dean was there too, and it looked like an important discussion.

    I got breakfast done quickly. Then I went off to the art room. Miss Gittens met me outside. She was going somewhere to come back. “Jess” was on the bench, chatting. She was talking to me while signing the OJT logbook earlier. She mentioned her need to get gas and return to school at 10 o'clock to start with the tallying of marks. I didn't see her until after school that evening. Maybe her choir practice went on as planned.

    I ended up so tired and hungry after school. No breakfast and no lunch at all. I ended up having to throw away the pie because it wasn't good. I didn't eat until 6 PM when Daddy and I got to the house’s gallery. I didn't even feel like eating anything again at all.

    The evening went by in a rush. Praise God, today was the end of the school's final exam period. I had 2L to supervise this evening. Ms. Giddens didn't want them. Ms. Roberts was in school late and didn't want to go and do her supervision. We ended up having to ask Ms. Harris to fill in for her. I was not sure how well that went.

    Only four hours were remaining in the nighttime to get work done. It was hard to try and make that happen. I ended up falling asleep on the couch, unfortunately. The tiredness and the struggle to get up made it difficult for me to be able to get up and walk to bed. I may just have had to wake up on the couch in the morning.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(8:45 am – 5:20 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #75) – Day #343

Date for Entry: (Tuesday 25 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:12 – WD:52, (Td:3)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning was a very hard trouble to wake up from the couch. Didn't want to get anything sweet that Daddy was offering me constantly. There was a long wait for the maxi again. I had a new driver driving the maxi this morning. Thankfully it was sunny and no rain to wet me down. Still wasn't feeling so good but by the time that I went to block A, I had been better.

    I had breakfast and then went to see “Jess” and she messaged me at 9:15 this morning to remind me of putting in the marks. She first wanted to know how I got pages on the Excel file. She was accustomed to seeing the continuous viewing of cells in the normal view. We got some marks for the form twos and then recess went on.

    I forgot to go and check Mrs. Allen Brown for the uniform discussion. “Jess” went to her choir. Not sure if she told me anything. I went to look for Mrs. Allen Brown during lunch time but she wasn't there. At the end of lunch, I packed up and went back to the staff room. “Jess” was taking too long to come back. I felt like leaving early from school. I went through some of the information on the intellectual property office's website. It was great to read about it.

    Right after Dr. Jogi was taking ice cream so I ended up taking some with him. Mrs. Allen Brown found me in the same area and showed me the sheet of paper with changes for the school uniform. She also said that she sent me PDFs of the school's student manual for me to see it. I shared a joke with Mrs. Santana that I could have made over the entire book like if it was a UWI textbook being given to me.

    Mrs. Ramsingh had a good discussion about the appreciation for dialect. I discovered that “Maria” wasn't there when Susan told me. She said that they were going to close off the Block C staff room and once that happened no one could enter because of the rat issue. This was because of rats running around the staff room and they had to treat it with it.

    Mrs. Santana and I had a good laugh when I got in her car. Later that afternoon she had to make a full spin around back to the school compound. Daddy and I went to Isa when I got to Curepe. He was super busy and I asked for the price of the catalogue card and subject cards to be worked on for next week Friday.

    There was another to add to the list for coats which was the reward card. I did this late in the night after coming up with the dress code policy for Mrs. Allen Brown. I hope that there are no changes required from her. I will have to call Clarence about this Sunday school if we are going to get to chat with the children as a group and introduce ourselves as librarians.

    I hope things work out with the library. I'm not sure exactly if anything else is required to do editing in the documents made by myself. But sometimes I may just doubt and think that it could probably work. I'll see what time brings along. I just pray that there won't be any more strike downs in church as there already have been many.

 

LINK(S):

• St. George’s Dress Policy.
• Images of Dressing Policy.

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(8:15 am – 3:28 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #75) – Day #342

Date for Entry: (Monday 24 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:12 – WD:51, (Td:3)*].

Dear Diary,

    Got up late this morning. I ended up sleeping on my couch. There was a short wait for the maxi to fill and then “Miss Anderson” sat next to me. There were four Georgians in the maxi this morning. As I got into the office, only Aficia was there. There was no principal and no Vice-Principal present on some days. I was surprised to see that Dr. Allison was not there. I remember that she had stepped down from the acting.

    Instead of going to Block C, I went to see if “Jess” was there. She was on the couch going through her phone. We planned to meet at 11 o'clock to write maths again. I met Miss Gittens and Miss Mary outside down the corridor. We had a good chat about the library in my church before going to work. They gave me some good advice.

    I gave Miss a bag of red mangoes that I had as a snack during recess. Miss Jones and I had a good chat too in the Theatre Arts room. There was a suspicious white bone that was fresh and flies were around it in the grassy area outside of her classroom. She said that the safety officer didn't find it concerning to him.

    I went back to Block C's staff room, but “Jess” was not there. I hope she will know how to enter the marks herself. I met her outside of Mr. Bain's class waiting. She's got her test papers to do the tally. We worked on some from 12 and then had to rush over to her choir rehearsal. Mrs. Jaikaran made a joke after seeing me comb my hair and laughing. She was busy laughing as she stood by the door for a long while and forgot that she was going outside. She did not go outside again.

    Soon, Miss came back and she got the test papers sorted. Miss Jones was a bit late. I got the 1F class divided into theatre on the right and visual arts on the left. This was 1F's exam in the afternoon. The theatre arts students didn't know how GAIT was defined and there were problems with three performance techniques based on mind, body, and voice. The students were dismissed at 2 PM from the examination room. Riley wasn't feeling so good.

    I waited for the art students to finish their exams. I took early submissions at 2:15 PM and gradually the students left. Brad seemed very confused here and there. I met Miss Jones in 1L to return her theatre arts papers. All of one of them had already left.

    As I was about to rest the art papers from Miss Gittin's inbox, she called me out from by the bench. Miss Jones was there too and we had a good conversation. I gave Miss Gittens the papers and went to Block C. She gave me the papers to mark the Egyptian pictures part of the exam. I marked that section for all the Form 1 papers in less than six minutes.

    Soon, Auntie Vanjie called me to confirm that she was outside. We were going to Trincity for lunch but ended up going to churches instead. There were a lot of workers inside. There were plenty of young people in the back. We got Auntie Ruth to finally come for a short line there since they don't come out. We ended up playing five rounds of Rumi while the rain came down strong in several showers. I ended up winning three of the five rounds.

    Because I did not have my gate key with me, I had to walk in. Daddy called me and said that the rain was going to be very heavy tomorrow. He said that he would have to wait if the pouring was too heavy and then come up.

    I do not feel like going to school at all tomorrow but I need to be there to assist Mrs. Allen Brown with the school uniform policy that she had requested me to create. She said that usually, this is the section in the student's manual that parents and students forget. I hope that “Jess” can get work completed tomorrow. She has a lot to do and has not been working as she should.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(7:46 am – 3:29 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #74) – Day #341

Date for Entry: (Friday 21 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:11 – WD:51, (Td:2)*].

Dear Diary,

    I got to school in a rush. The rain was falling lightly and cleared up fast. Still, no sign of the principal, even though she was supposed to return to school. I sat with Ms. Gittens sorting out the test papers for the day. There was confusion about the theatre arts and the technical drawing exams carded for the evening. I got the journal entries done for Tuesday.

    Right after, there was about two hours before the first exam supervision for the term began. I took the time to write up the borrowing cards for the catalogue cards and subject cards which were brought to work in school. I had about five more to do during lunchtime after the exam. “Jess” didn't have her laptop and I ended up forgetting mine in the gallery when I got home. Thought I had left it in Daddy's car.

    The exam began four minutes after eleven. The students came in late. Mr. Perusa took very long to come back from the toilet. Six other boys wanted to go to the washroom too. Some of the students had a lot of questions for the examination. Thankfully it was short. “Jay” had a good joke about paying me as a bribe for answers in the Form 2 music exam.

    Sometime during lunch after writing up the borrowing cards, I went to the office to adjust the times in the logbook. They were transferred into the timesheet after school. I spent the rest of the evening with Dr. Blanding in sitting numbers for late-term absences in my Excel file. Somehow while waiting to leave, I got very tired. It all went away after eating.

    I tried Fai’s Chinese that evening but the salt was too much. I got all the borrowing cards' ID numbers written in and the titles listed were alphabetically sorted. I was not sure if the others would show up tomorrow, but I will go on and finish things with or without them. I feel happy and confident that tomorrow's completion is coming soon for the library's work. All praises to Jesus for the wisdom, guidance, and assistance in getting this done.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(8:45 am – 3:29 pm)

Day #340 – (8:38 am – 5:10 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #74) – Day #339

Date for Entry: (Tuesday 18 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:11 – WD:48, (Td:6)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning, the rain took dominance of the sky. I dressed in casual clothing to get help. I hope for it to be an easy day today. I was also hoping to get “Jess” with the mark entries into the mark book completed. She didn't come all morning. I got to watch all the grassy grounds turn into wet ponds. The football pool became a pool long before recess.

    This morning, as soon as I signed the book and went to the staff room in Block C, Shiva asked me to watch his students doing an exam. He waited for me to get up the stairs until I got to the right door. There was one entering doing an exam that looked like a worksheet. I had to open up the umbrella again to get up the staircase. Praise God it didn't. Praise God that the rain eased up for me to walk back down the stairs.

    I had a good conversation with Mr Ramdat before going over to Dr Allison and getting December 2024 forms sorted into their folders before meeting Miss Gittens. I didn't feel good waiting in the staff room. I was only hoping to go home to do library work. But it all went away.

    Miss Gittens and I chatted outside Mr Bain's classroom with Miss Mary and Miss Jones about the exams and the short space of time. I got my journal entry for yesterday done quickly. It still felt like forever to finish. The lunchtime came by very quickly also. I was surprised that the 5th and 6th periods went by quickly too.

    Some time had passed before I got to write out the borrowing cards that I had for the library. I hoped to have the library open to open tomorrow on the Labor Day holiday. Seems as if Ria and Alex won't do that work anytime soon. Miss Antoinette was by the table in the art room marking work done by the form 4 students. I got all of the work done in the cards and got the borrowing cards inserted into the card pockets that night. I felt so tired and sick.

    I only got to block K for the last 10 minutes of school. Miss Soodeen wanted to find out why I got to the staff room late. I told her that the rain kept me stranded on the other side of the school since morning.

 

LINK(S):

• Images of Envelope & Exam Timetable.

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(8:20 am – 3:24 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #74) – Day #338

Date for Entry: (Monday 17 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:11 – WD:47, (Td:5)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning I got up at 3 am for an emergency. It was harder to fall asleep and wake up in the morning. It took forever to wake up. As I got onto Lockhart Street I saw “Sagaboy Andy.” He was the driver for this morning.

    Dr. Allison was by the guard booth as I got in. She seemed tired when I greeted her. At that moment, we both planned to meet up at 7 period later that evening. I got my pie done in the staff room. The teachers were starting a new topic on crime. There was an informal note on how many clean daily meetings are lined up.

    I saw a message from Jess that she had asked for me to come help stapling the exam papers. We got all the Form 1 papers stapled in the Block C staff room. We then went off to 1M. Ms Leiba was with 1L doing orals in the corridor. She had a review of Term 2 with her as a music teacher and then gave out the topics for the exam. Research 2 was short.

    “Choo Choo,” told me that she was bringing cupcakes for us to have tomorrow and asked if I wanted one. It explained the reason why something smelled nice and sugary in the staff room earlier. Ms Soodeen told me that there was an ice cream for us to share at lunchtime. I will wait for lunch with everyone.

    By the time I got to 2L, more than half of the class was gone. Only a few of us were left back and coming down to the music room. I waited for them. Ms Pope kept back “Jess” again from coming to class in the corridor. The children were asked about their experiences. I was surprised about Kayla and her interest in Pan, which was good, but she didn't show interest in her bookwork to ask me for help somehow. We learned that Kai was interested in Steel Pan too.

    Once class was over, “Jess” asked me about the rest of the Form 2 test papers to staple. I told her that I would do them now because I had to go see Dr. Blandin about the leave and absences. She didn't get to do any work on the May forms for 2024, so she asked if I wanted to work on December forms till 2023. I got them cut and punched. The time wasn't enough to put the forms into their teacher's folders.

    I got a ride out with Ms. Santana that afternoon. Ms. Gittens had left school already. I had another nice chat with Miss on our ride out to Curepe. She mentioned how difficult the days had become and I agreed. Daddy was about to go back to the car when I waved at him in Curepe. We went to visit Isa to see if he would work on the quotes. I couldn't remember all the types of cards that I made. I also wanted him to create a special catalogue and subject card for us to have something appealing to the eye of the patrons and not just a plain white piece of crystal board.

    That evening, Daddy had Pool Billiards playing on the television. He left it there since he knew I liked it. I ended up watching the full episode until the end. This was the women's shootout final between England and France. There was a tie of six wins for each team. I decided to call the black and white ball the panda ball.

    It took me five hours to create that particular catalogue card. Microsoft Word took only one decimal point when I did the custom setting for the page size. I had to go and Google inches to centimetres for three by five inches. I did not get to do any borrowing card write-ups again. Tomorrow I will be fine with making it work. The night ended with a pack of Bigfoot and a history show. I didn't play any race car games again. The cricket show was done by the time I found the right channel.

 

LINK(S):

• Image of Class Ensembles Table. (Permission not Granted.)

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(8:22 am – 3:40 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #73) – Day #337

Date for Entry: (Friday 14 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:10 – WD:46, (Td:4)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning I did not have a sober awakening. I ended up on the couch fighting to wake up. I had a pain in my eyes with some headaches. I felt bad walking through the streets. Two Georgians were with me in their maxi. The office was empty again as usual. I got to the staff room soon after while our eye was in session. So luckily I wasn't late for class at all.

    There were two men and a lady with a big box of doubles in the staff room. I wasn't feeling good still. They gave me a double and then before they packed up, Ms Soodeen told us that we could then go back for seconds. I took another one with medium pepper. The first one was mixed with almost everything. The taste was nice and not that upsetting but the bara was very oily. I remember that Ms Panchu was telling me she got up very early that morning to fry all the bars by herself. I told her it was really good.

    When I got to class in the music room, twelve students were having their practical exams on the PAN instruments. This took up the full four periods till the end of recess. Ms. Mary and I didn't chat for much longer. When I told her I was sick and off I fell, she said that she could see it in my face. Back in the staff room, I got my set of catalogue cards rewritten onto new ones cut this week. It was nice for the cataloguer's name to go on their back. The last set was signed in capital letters and looked much better.

    Before compiling all of this I got to share with “Choo Choo” and Mrs. Ramsing the library cards, borrowing cards, and all the other stuff that I had created for the APC library. The staff was already gathered in the library. Some of them who already served the circular bowl. Sadly I didn't remember to take a picture of what happened and their food. I brought my tray but they didn't need it again. I had to wash it back out.

    There was no water in the pipe by the front of building A so I went to the administration kitchen. To my shocking surprise, everyone was there and I got my tray washed in front of them. Dion didn’t hear me with the cake in his hand. If I could have lifted him gently to get to the sink I may have just had to do so the way he couldn't hear me. Mr. Harry's mouth was heard to the fullest in the center of the room and I left the block game. Lunchtime ended soon.

    2M who went to the room. Children who didn't get the assessment still were marked first. They were then given notes on the Trinidad and Tobago genre for their genre topics. The rest of the class was taken to give them the listening. Thankfully the period of teaching was over quickly.

    After school, the Spanish papers were being stapled for form one. The rain was very heavy. Mr Bain came in before he left and gave an interesting comment. Donna gave me a joke that if she was younger I would marry her. I gave back a joke and said I didn't know someone was saying something to me. Everyone laughed out. She said that I was bad and I thanked her for it as a compliment. I suppose the weather and the time spent with the teachers was most appreciated by me.

    Getting up to Happiness Grocery on the upper part of Curepe I walked to meet Daddy. He came across the road as soon as I got in front of the terminal building again. We went upstairs to his room. He said that he had been there since 3 PM. There was a long wait for Isa to come out. He told me when making the receipts that I could have him work out a quote for more at a cheaper price.

    Hopefully, we will work on something nice for the library. As soon as I was done eating the time was 6:30 PM. I got the guillotine outside and worked on cutting until minutes after 1 AM. I hope that I will get some main catalogues uploaded to the Google Sheets tonight or tomorrow. Packages for the Sunday school children were made and placed into a plastic bag for Sunday. I asked Mr Barrett to open the church for us at 2 PM. He was shown what I did for the Sunday school over a private WhatsApp message.

 

LINK(S):

• Teachers' Individual Lates and Absences Files.

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(8:10 am – 4:32 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #73) – Day #336

Date for Entry: (Thursday 13 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:10 – WD:45, (Td:3)*].

Dear Diary,

    As soon as I got onto Lockhart Street this morning, a Georgian girl was heading into the maxi in front. Only one by the door was needed. I went in the maxi behind. As soon as I greeted the driver and sat down, it was “Arthur”. It was the first time in the year that I had ridden with him.

    Dr. Allison met me in the paved walkway heading into the school area to Building A. She said she was still very busy and that she hoped to get more of the latest and absences done for May of 2024. I got to sign in and went to put my bags in the staff room. Somehow they were not having any morning assembly today.

    When I finished breakfast, I went to 1M. Susan was still in the classroom. She allowed me in at her exit. Then the children lined up and we went down to the music room. “Jess” followed us from behind on her phone. They were given the notes on rest and that was still on the board from yesterday. I spent the full four periods trying to finish all of my entries for yesterday.

    I went to get half of the 1F students outside of their classroom. The second half had a food and nutrition exam that was happening in the homeroom. It seemed as if they were dismissed by Mrs. Allen Brown the way they were talking so much. This class had a dynamic session and listening exercises to do.

    I left the music room at recess time to chat with Miss Mary for a while before heading over to Block C to count the incomplete test papers with missing sheets of paper. “Jess” gave me a question when she said that the test paper was not saying anything about music. I told her and pointed to her on the test paper saying that it had my name on it. She laughed and went on her way to Miss Poop. The two of them made plenty of noise in the staff room.

    I got the calculations done while chatting with Mrs Greenaway and stood under the tree. The breeze was nice there. I saw students walking about. It then occurred to me that I don't walk or go anywhere far. I went to see the back where the sports were going on. A cricket game between 2F and 1L was in session. I remained there with the children from the fifth period until the end of lunchtime. I was very proud of Ameer for leading this class team.

    By the time I walked out of Block C, “Jess” was at the start of the corridor with the children. She sent me to the office for a copy of the Form 1 and 2 exam papers. I met Miss Gittens there too when I asked for the permission slip for copies and test papers to Miss Mohammed. Miss Gittens said that “Jess” had the two of us running around for the same thing.

    The rest of the class time went by so quickly. I was shocked. There were now students who missed the assessments and were tested first and she did the listening. Only two of the tracks were played and then it was home time. The class was kept back for making noise to clean the room. The air conditioning in the staff room felt good. It felt like forever trying to finish up this journal entry all day. And I won yesterday too. I decided to sit in Block A and do the entry before reaching Block C. Miss Gittens got the missing sheets for the exam paper and began to insert them herself.

    Tonight I had class with “Ash” Gans from 7 PM to 9.28 PM. We did exercises 1 to 3 on pages 10 to 11 in the Orange Grade 2 Eric Taylor book. There was a lot of explaining for the exercise too, with recognizing the major scale with a given key signature. The majority of his answers were correct, thankfully. It was good to see that he was also able to work them out after the explanations.

    I saw the issue with exercise 3, but once the example was discussed, he was able to figure out all the remaining exercises. We had a drawing session with a tenor pan that is 45 years old and smart. I sent the image over WhatsApp for him to copy in his book.

    I started to feel sick afterwards trying to make a date page for the children in the Sunday school. It was not easy at all with the hours it required. The document took me a long time to finish in three hours. I had to go to bed immediately because I had pain and my head began to hurt me as well. I hope that the print can be made tomorrow for church.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(7:03 am – 3:51 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #73) – Day #335

Date for Entry: (Wednesday 12 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:10 – WD:44, (Td:2)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning was tough to wake up. I got to school a few minutes after Kiel again. The driver for today was “Ralphie.” A lot of students were in the office for some reason. They probably were in trouble for something. I didn't have time to eat breakfast as soon as I got to the staff room again. Mr Charles had asked if it was day two. I confirmed and made the mistake and looking at day three instead.

    I saw Mrs. Persad was in 1M when I got to the corridor. Mr. Martin and I were exiting the building together. He said that it was too early in the morning for us to be matching in clothing. We laughed. I was surprised that 2M was in the music room already. The address arrived. The assessment took very long to finish too.

    At some point, Matthew had left the room. He had to meet his mother out in front of the school. Thankfully I got “Mr. Gayle” to text him because he was gone for too long. Not many of them showed that they were practising their skills. 1L students were sent down. Only one group from 2M was kept back. The others will have to do their assessments another time. Thankfully the Form 2 note was still on the board for the children to copy.

    As soon as I got the 1L students in the classroom, the school song was going on. They got to see me play the tuk-tuk. I had the Jamaica half of the Form 2 note to get on the board and the rest too for the children to copy. They were not as loud as before. During that session, Ms. Pope came in to talk with “Jess.” Not sure what it was about but it took up too much time that could have gone into the assessments. The other Mr Khan ended up knocking the pan too hard at the end of class.

    After recess, we had 2F. It took a long with the final two groups to do their assessment. We saw Abigail Spring who came to do a steel pan class towards the end of the double period. She had Musescore open up on a laptop with a steel pan arrangement for “DNA.” I didn't stay for that particular practice but it was interesting to see how the score looked. “Jess” and I were very exhausted after that class. When I told her that I was leaving she said that she too was going to leave for half a day.

    Thankfully a taxi driver waited for me out the road. At first, he was swinging in the road as if he was going back down to Chaguanas's side. He said that he was heading up to Curepe's side but was just turning. Daddy came crossing the road as soon as I walked in front of the terminal building. We tried the BBQ Joe today. I liked their biblical scripture hanging from the wall.

As soon as I finished eating I saw that the library’s Whatsapp chat had a lot of messages. Clarence called me back when he missed my call. He said that they wanted to try and get the Sunday school children to get library cards. To try and get the library a sight of what it's like to start. He informed me that the librarians had to be the ones to do the printing and work in there and that he was just a help if there was anything little we needed.

    I told him that I would have to print and pay. Then we will give out the receipt to the committee. Jesus grant me the wisdom to do these things. I accept the light to see. I accept the short little scale as more trading for my professional development.

    From 3 PM to 7:30 PM, I worked on the report for the Christian Education Committee. Thankfully Andrew gave me a phone call over WhatsApp and went through some of his suggestions. I recall the feature of text-to-speech in Microsoft Word. I was glad that it worked. There were a few more changes to be made to the draft. That way someone read the script and I changed whatever needed editing on the spot.

    That same night Mr. Jaikaran called me and said that “Ash” had a project to finish so he couldn't cancel the session. We will see if tomorrow evening would work out. I took the rest of the night cutting all the eight sheets of white Bristol board with the guillotine. I was surprised at the amount of cards that were created. I spent part of the night watching the World Continental Tour.

    After this television show, they moved to the billiard pool. Some of the men were making stupid choices when shooting the whiteboard. This is one I would love to try if I ever got the chance. I could also remember this morning while reaching Lockhart Street and sitting in the maxi, I saw “Hirilal” and “Sagaboy Andy” cursing in a conversation. At least it was nice to see them today.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(8:25 am – 4:23 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #73) – Day #334

Date for Entry: (Tuesday 11 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:10 – WD:43, (Td:1)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning the rain drizzled. The maxi driver was “Miss Faith.” No other person was needed. I sat by the door side and she took off immediately. I had a very big challenge trying to fit on that small seat at the door. Two other ladies took up the rest of the space. They were playing “Good Day” on the radio.

    Thankfully the rain cleared up for me to walk in. Kiel was earlier than me and I got signed in in the row below him. Dr. Allison asked if I was coming today but forgot that next week we would meet. I went to Block K to have breakfast.

    In the third period, I left to go to 1F. “Jess” was coming late and I got “Mr. Hunt” Mr. Hosein” to bring the class down for me. They took forever to walk down. As class began I had to go and get my whiteboard eraser from the art room to erase the stuff Miss Roberts left over a week ago. I left a note for the rest written on the whiteboard for the children to copy. To the end, I assisted the Muslim boys with some music theory outside in the breeze while “Jess” did the pan practical. She kept the rest of the students in during recess to finish all of the markings.

    I went to the office with my tray of things to get the Form 1 and 2 visual arts examination scripts printed. There was a long wait. I felt bad for making Mrs. Solomon wait so long for just her two sheets to photocopy. I ended up stapling all the Form 1 papers while I waited for the printer to send more out. Then I took the rest to the art room to staple.

    Miss had 1M going on in the session. She counted the Form 1 papers and I got stapled the rest of the Form 2 set. I knew they would not have been enough. Somehow the printing started to print Form 1 papers again and I had to get Miss Mohamed to cancel the papers. There was no sign of Janice today. I had to sit and watch the room because we had nowhere else to store the exam scripts. A lot of more waiting continued during the lunchtime period.

    Miss had left for a long time to get cover sheets. By the time she came back and told me about Dr. Blandy not wanting my logo name on the test paper, it was very upsetting. Hopefully, it will be solved soon. I went home and could not get up from the couch until 9 PM that night to work on the raster. There was a new timetable that Dr. Blandin had given me for Miss.

    I also saw Susan in Tunapuna Pennywise while I was accompanying Daddy. I only got the online meeting and last Saturday's meeting typewritten into the APC library report. I could not have gotten anything done much after that so I had to stop and rest for the remainder of the night. I hope that within time the remainder of this report will be acceptable and good enough in the Mighty Name of Jesus.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(8:20 am – 3:39 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #73) – Day #333

Date for Entry: (Monday 10 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:10 – WD:42, (Td:6)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning the rain was a little deep back. I got fined in and went to Block C since the rain held up for me to walk into school. “Gigi” was sitting with “Jan” and Donna. A student came asking for Kim and I didn't know where her desk was. “Gigi” got up and then went to put the paper on her desk. Donna said I was lucky and got away. She laughed. We didn't see Jess there.

    As soon as I messaged she said that she was stuck in her car because of the rain. I went to check Miss Gittins. She was outside of Mr. Baines' class and got four images to complete the Form 2 visual arts exam. She had sent the links but I told her to reply to the message links and then type out the instructions so that it would be easy for me to copy the instructions and paste them into the exam.

    10 o'clock came by quickly and I went to meet “Jess” in the music room. She was trying to figure out how to go about getting the marks. I told her that my laptop didn't have any internet from the school again. She sat by Mr Baines' classroom from the school again. I went to Block K to get my bag and brown table. Throughout four periods of working, including recess, her laptop was giving her trouble. I ended up doing all the work for that period. She wanted to stop for lunch and got trapped by the rain again after lunch.

    I waited with Miss Gittins in the art room until lunchtime for “Jess.” Only sometime after I met her on the corridor and she said she would continue another time. She remained with Miss Pope’s class. I went to help Mr Bains with the mark book document that I had made for him. He had graded two assignments for his form 3 and got to see how to do the entry.

    The rain prevented me from getting back to Block K at the end of school so I ended up leaving my table and brown bag in the art room. We got to see outside how violent the rain blew around. It was also this evening that the supervision roster for the examination of forms 1 to 3 was being drafted.

    I got another copy of the borrowing card from Isa. This was the fourth edition of the third version. The Form 2 paper was done and sent to Miss Gittins. No changes were needed. I got finished early by 10.30 pm. I will have to cut the bristle board that Daddy and I got from Leslie this morning and write out Rhea and Alex's catalogue cards and subject cards to do the entries for those books.

 

LINK(S):

• Draft of Exam Timetable. [Picture lost*]

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(8:43 am – 4:21 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #72) – Day #332

Date for Entry: (Friday 07 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:09 – WD:41, (Td:5)*].

Dear Diary,

    I got to the office this morning only with Dr. Allison there. I saw Ms Anissa Mohamed too. We had a special occasion where she spoke with me after school in the staff room yesterday evening about the behaviour of students in 1F. Dr. Allison was asking when I would come to visit her. I told her after recess would be better.

    I took the morning to settle in worked on my journal entry for Wednesday and got started on Tuesday's entry for yesterday. “Jess” had asked me, “So what are you writing today” as I got into 1M. I explained how the journal worked and the reason to her.

    While we were waiting, the whole classroom of 1M was opened out. The desks were all against the walls and the chairs were lined up by the whiteboard side. The children did their presentations in the wide open space in the middle of the classroom. The children did recordings as well. Mrs. Libert joined us again to see the presentations.

    Recess was short because we had ended late and “Jess” and I were going through the genres lessons for 2L. Thankfully, she was able to stay for the full lesson. She presented and then asked me to dictate the notes in the slides for the children. They were so slow, that they had no idea how hard our teachers in Hillview would go. Miss Gittens was not there again, so I went to Dr. Allison. She didn't get much done with May 2024, so she asked if I wanted to work in November of 2023.

    I took the file and got started sorting the forms to have them sorted by individual teachers of the different departments first, then stapled, punched and sorted into their individual teachers' files. Sometime during the 8th period, Mrs. Solomon came to see Dr. Allison. She called me out from behind and we exchanged a friendly hand wave. I was sitting in the office and she was sitting in the waiting area.

    I was going out to throw the garbage from the cut forms in my tree. As soon as I was done, I shared with Mrs. Solomon the feedback from the meeting last night. We were both disappointed that the idea of the library software was struck down. She said it was very ancient and reminded me that we were in the age of technology as she usually did. I went back into the Vice Principal's office to finish the rest of the departments and then put the forms into the teachers' envelopes.

    I went to pack up and met Mrs. Santana in her car waiting for me outside. We took a ride out of Curepe. I'm still looking forward to the library meeting tomorrow. We will be starting earlier than usual at 2:30 p.m. I will be going earlier than that to get more upper-hand control over getting more work done before Alex comes. I was not sure if Alex had remembered to message Clarence to open the library for us. I feel we will be able to get close to all of the books that were purchased and catalogued tomorrow.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(7:46 am – 3:20 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #72) – Day #331

Date for Entry: (Thursday 06 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:09 – WD:40, (Td:4)*].

Dear Diary,

    I had a very difficult time trying to wake up this morning. Daddy had to fit the window a third time. There was only Dr. Allison in the office. She was going to her office with Mr. Charles. The class was already being taken down to the music room.

    “Jess” was chatting with Mr Martin outside of the 2L and took me to meet her down there. They had a review of the G major and F major scales before getting into the college song. She broke the 2 groups into 2 even smaller groups. The class now had 4 ensembles. There were 4 bands in each of the 2 form 2 classes, 2L and 2F. I hope “Jess” will be able to mark all of them.

    The period went by too long. In the end, Jess was telling to me that she had to leave when we had 2L tomorrow. She also mentioned that I had to come to recess to help the children for helping them with their practical work. I wasn't sure why she couldn't wait for lunchtime. I went to have breakfast. Surprisingly the ham and cheese did not get over cold in my bag.

    I met Dr. Allison in the office. She had another loud shout between her and Mrs. Santana. The word “masa” came out. I was then invited in by Dr. Allison. The two of us worked from the fifth period until 12:32 PM. Miss Gittens was not there today and I went back to the staff room. We were informed that the principal was sick for 2 weeks. I ended up writing a journal entry for yesterday and I got outside at 2 AM late.

    “Jess” met me there and we got the children down to the music room. We had to wait in silence for the class to settle down. It was a minute and a half in total we had to stand there for the class to give us our full attention. This class was split up into 4 ensembles again. We started with G major and F major scales and solos.

    Then the background for the fans was worked on. More difficulty was displayed. I had to stay with “Ash” to help him figure out the pattern. Seems as though he was not practising at lunchtime. Then Seth had to come and help him while Ms. worked with the double seconds and I worked with the guitars. The period felt like there was longer work to do. We had to wait because they were taking up class time at the start.

    After school, I went back to Block K. Dr. Allison who gave me the envelopes to enter the leave forms for October 2023. On this night the APC librarians had their first online meeting. It was a training session for the main catalogue and then the membership roster. Many strikes were done to me by Dr. Hannah again. Some were painful but I will see how best I can accommodate the suggestions made.

    She did not understand some of the things I had and was rejecting instead of giving more ideas. I took note of her comments and will look forward to having as many fixtures as possible. There was a rejection of cheap software to replace catalogue cards and subject cards. Boring cards and library cards as well will now have to be used instead of software. The “cost of the book” column in the main catalogue was asked to be removed. I will have to continue working with what was created.

    I had an online chat with Mrs Jaikaran right after about scheduling a Zoom meeting on Zoom. It was easy as she explained how to set up the meeting but I found that doing the Google Meets would be better. It was about 25 minutes to 10 PM so I decided to finish for the night. I had to fight and get up from the couch to make it to the bed again.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(7:56 am – 3:48 pm)