Date for Entry: (Thursday 01 May 2025)
Actual Date of Online Entry: (June 2026)
[T3, W:01 – WD:03,
(Td:3)*].
Dear Diary,
I was awoken at
5AM on the staffroom floor. Miss and I left the compound with the other bags to
travel out. It was interesting to see how early persons would go exercising in
the morning. We met back up on the road on the way to school, and "Choo
Choo" met us too, walking in. Jessie's mother stopped by for a long talk, and
the sun was baking. Without eating anything last night, I knew I had to wait a
long while for the Channa pies. The gas was already starting to get me upset.
Thankfully, the brownie that Mel bought for me was on my desk, so I ate it.
Rhea came by my
desk to ask me to help make copies of pages in her markbook like the last time.
Seeing that today was the first day of exams for the Art students, I went to
get copies of the student list for Miss and the invigilators when they come. Didn't
see Rhea, so I went on without her. Other teachers had asked me for help as
soon as I got in there.
Miss Rivas came
to check up and see how things went with the marks submission. My response to
her was, "Well.... We got whatever we could have gotten completed."
She was shocked and asked me to clarify. His eyes opened wide and we laughed
about that. Only when I got back, Rhea found me, so we went back to the office
one time, and I did her copies. Miss Rivas also had copies of two sheets to do.
She said, "Mr Ali. They should ban you from voting." That was the
next joke when everyone saw my finger.
Once Rhea's
copies were done, I was gone from there. I took my tray and laptop bag over to
the art room and sat by the teacher's desk. Miss was getting her documents
ready for work today. A lot of the students were in the room already preparing
for their Painting and Mixed Media practical exam. It was going to be a full
day of two session and, each of them to last three hours.
Just before the
exam began, I had a good conversation with Mr Sammy about goals in life and the
importance of Music and the Arts. He left some moments before the exam was to
start. A man and a lady came into the room. They were the invigilators. Three
students were in orals for either French or Spanish. Once the prayer was over, Miss
allowed me to do the roll count for the Painting and Mixed Media work. This was
going to be a full day's work with both sessions of three hours each until 4 PM.
During the
morning's session, Miss and I contibued to work on forms for CSEC. There was a
page that had to total both students' marks from 120 to 240. Then the rankings
would have to be done. I told Miss I could not do the rankings. Praise God for
the Excel markbook that I made for gathering the data. We got the lists of assignment
forms completed and others. She did not find her marksheets for lower school,
so we could not work on that.
Lunchtime came
by really quick. She told me that it was all right to make the Bristol board
envelopes during the exam. I could have done it during the morning but didn't
want the stomping to make too much noise in the room. We had some more work to
do in the afternoon session before I got to making the envelopes. The whole day, my
laptop was turned on and being used. I left it to sleep up on a sliver shelf
next to me and cleared an area on the desk.
The student
working with Miss all through the morning had gone, so I used the desk portion
where he was to leave my tray. I got up and began to draw the lines for the
envelopes first. The stapling was done after. I had forgotten to reinforce
them. The man and lady were watching me going back and forth with some of the
envelopes to get the heading. They looked on with excitement to see me write the
information on the top in cursive. I think they liked that part. The rest of
the blue writing was done back at the table by Miss.
When the exam
was over by the time the blue writing was done, and there were enough envelopes
for all the pieces that evening. Miss told the students to take pictures of
their work because it was not going to be returned and that sometimes it ends
up in someone else's house. I had the option on the envelopes written as
Painting and Mixed Media whenever a new one was going to be used. Miss had
forgotten to give the students the slip of paper to stick on the back of their
canvas.
After school, I
had to go back and write the candidate's number onto the envelope. They were
all placed on the desk to the back where the sculptures were set until their
next exam. Some of the other pieces from today had to remain out on another
table to dry overnight. The rest of the evening was sitting and liming in the
art room until minutes after 4 PM. Miss and I were so very tired after that
long run since yesterday at 9AM to now (4:50). Neither of us couldn't walk or want
to get up.
For some reason, the students and Miss were talking, and the topic turned to relationships, and
I had some questions to answer too. I left them and took my time walking up
very slow up the road today. It was even surprising to have to see the sun
setting from the highway while trying to get a bus on the bus route. Could not
do anything for the rest of the night. I was mostly on the couch and then fell
asleep there.
Daryl
Zion M. Ali
(“7:34
am” – 5:58 pm)
