St. George’s College (Week #92) – Day #422

Date for Entry: (Monday 06 January 2025)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Friday 02 May 2025)

[T2, W:01 – WD:1, (Td:1)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning was an easy one thanks to the three alarms that I had set. Praise God. The ride down in the car was easy and quick with an empty road. Yesterday, on Epiphany Sunday, was the church's 157th Anniversary service too. Aunty Anmarie was asking why I looked so serious in some of the pictures. It was only pulling out of the housing compound that I had a joke about it, which I got then.

    In Curepe, the bus route was just like during the holidays. Dead with no vehicles at all. The second bus that came was driven by "Hero". The bus route was empty. I had a nice walk down Sixth Avenue. Thankfully, the sun was not that hot. Mr Ustash was coming up the road from the other side, and "Gabby" was walking fast in front of me. The school did not seem as noisy as expected. The assembly was called a bit later, too, and teachers were asked to go to the hall. It was good to see Mr Charles again. I did not know who the Acting Vice Principal was going to be.

    As soon as I got to my desk, the brown chair was taken from my table. There was a box with a red ribbon wrapped around it. She said, "Happy Honika". It was a nice brown envelope. Some time afterwards, Mrs Santana came around the staffroom. We spoke about the music that I had sent her during the holidays. 

    That video was Mr Sharma's arrangement of "Noel" that the Sunday School band played for Christmas Day. We also spoke about yesterday for the church Anniversary service. I went on to send her the same messages that I had sent Aunty last night. She did mention asking me to do some organisation with the files for Mrs Marcus-Ryan. I will be waiting to see exactly what it is they might need for that assistance.

I ended up walking to Mr Richard after the assembly. It was good to see "Patty" and Mrs Ramsingh whom I shared a hug. It felt good to clap and sing to George's anthem again. Apologies to the Hillviewers reading that, lolz. The students were sent to their homeroom to meet with their Form Teachers. I was not sure how long that would have run for. Soon Jeanice came, and she sent a wave while speaking to Miss Ameera.

    At the beginning of the third period, Jess came to let me know that the music room was was not in preparation for the children. We went to 3f in their homeroom. She spoke with the children. They were put into groups of four to pick a topic and were asked to write a calypso. This will be put towards the San Juan/Barataria Carnival Committee Competition.

    Sometimes late into the last twenty minutes of class time, Miss Jones brought her husband into the classroom and said that he would be their new Theatre Arts teacher. I was happily surprised. I thought I was going to go early to the cafe, but recess time came very quickly. I saw "Miss Charles" waiting. The cook had served me the pies today. I had the pies by my desk. Surprisingly, it looked like my newspapers went missing too. More things went missing during the holidays, too.

    At 11:11, Mr Charles called the teachers to gather for the staff meeting. He did mention that his birthday was on Friday (3rd January) last week and that no one came to the MMT meeting that he had asked for. A lot of things came up during the meeting that I was suspecting. A copy of the new calendar of events for the academic year was handed out before the meeting began. (See the logbook for descriptive details.):

1. Schemes of Work
2. Clinical Supervision
3. Languages Day
4. Furniture restoration
5. Merit Awards
6. Parents' Day
7. Lab Materials
8. Calypso/Carnival Activities
9. End of Term Exams
10. 3rd Assessment **
11. Easter Programme (Tues. 8th April 2025)
12. Health & Safety issues
13. Prefect List
14. TUTTA issues, meeting tomorrow
15. Shiva's missing fan. 

 

    The meeting ended at 12:42 pm. Mr Charles allowed teachers to have lunch until 1:30 pm. I went to hear the students do the final run of the Panorama Tune before they were dismissed. She didn't know that lunch was extended, but the students were dismissed. The staffroom was feeling very different as I walked in. A lot of different behaviour all of a sudden. It did not matter to me if I was hated.

    Mel came by to let me know that she was holding a departmental meeting right at this time, to let Jess know. The meeting continued to the end of school at 2:38 PM. We were reintroduced to Mr Peters as the new Theatre Arts teacher. It was nice of Miss Jones to join us. There were discussions on the Carnival Exhibition to be installed in the hall, Schools Panorama Preliminaries dates and dates for the San Juan/Barataria Calypso Competition. Mel went on a ride to some place.

    I went home after school and did four paintings before getting to work. It took a while, as I almost fell asleep on the couch that evening. The "Lift the Gates Eternal" steelpan arrangement was completed tonight and shared with Shaun. The time was not enough to work on my new project again. It looks like I will have to work on it during lunchtime at school and finish the other half at home before getting to music in the evening.

    Had a good chat with Vangy on the phone and shared with her some of the things that happened today, including the interesting phone call that I got during the staff meeting. She said I should call Matthew and tell him about it, but it was too late to call after 10.

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(7:49 am – 3:52 pm)