St. George’s College (Week #79) – Day #364

Date for Entry: (Friday 20 September 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Friday 10 October 2024)

[T1, W:03 – WD:14, (Td:6)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning was a super tough awakening. Daddy had to hit the window for a third time. I got ready from the shower and had to help him clean out the paintbrushes from earlier this week. “Punisher” called me last night to say that he was coming back to do a touch-up with the pain. So we packed up and left part of the gallery open for when he came.

    There was a mix of rap and chutney on the bus coming down. With too many bags in my hand, it was very difficult to record some samples of the song with my phone’s voice recorder. Some of the songs were good for steelpan. For the very least, they would have been fun to transcribe.

    The road was empty. Just before I crossed the road, I saw Jesse's mummy. I went to chat with her briefly. She liked how I grew my hair and said I almost looked like a Jew. We had a good laugh about that.

    I got to see some of the changes that “Celia” made in my attendance form. I ended up looking at it while she was holding it in his hand by his desk. As soon as he asked me why I was looking at it (in concern) I told him that was the form I had redesigned for the school record of student attendance. It was at that moment that he had learnt this logo that I put upon documents crafted, designed and manufactured by me. He also forgot how hard his hand was to continuously hurt me. I did not like any of it at all. There were nine counts of painful hits from him.

    I went back to my desk in pain. Sitting at my table, I had my morning breakfast with one pie. It was also Day Six today so "Miss Celia” and I had some free time in the morning. She had asked me to show her the Excel file and system for doing their teachers’ late and absence recording. The laptop needed charging. Sadly, she declined my request to share a viewing and the explanation with the other heads at the MMT this morning after recess. It did not bother me if I would have to do it again for some other person acting as the Vice Principal.

    Later that morning, Donald's voice was heard calling Miss Soodeen ‘Mini.’ At this time it was the end of the 30-minute homeroom. While looking around in the staff room, it did not look like there would be many teachers in attendance today.

    Yesterday before lunchtime, Jess said that she would be absent today. She wanted me to do some questions with 2F and correct their homework. I was still unsure what to do with the children. I saw Miss Gittens briefly as she went to her phone five class. I also want to give Mr Pierre a surprise, which was the homework he had given to 2L. He smiled and took it. Immediately Miss Celia came and called him out of the staffroom on an emergency.

    I went to the library and sorted the dictionary section. That was the last of the work that Miss Alexander needed help with. Once I was finished, I had left the library but forgot to take a picture of the work that I sorted. Recess time finished and I had to go and prepare for class with 2F.

    The classroom was humid. I ended up doing over the scales for F, G, D, C, and Bb Major. In my version of teaching this lesson, semitones were defined for the children for the first time. I also drew them a short chat on the side of the board: Semitone plus a semitone equals a Tone in three circles. I think the children seemed to understand this concept as soon as I drew it. This was confirmed to me when using the piano diagram that I drew for them.

    Because there was no order in terms of teaching these topics, the children were confused. I too was also confused in terms of where to lead them. If I had known this, I would have taught them from accidentals to scales, to key signatures, and then to intervals. They wish to hurry and do practicals was not a good move by Jess.

    Confusion also occurred for the children because they needed to know where square brackets had to be placed for the major scale. The children were not ready to complete their homework. I hope that the work I have put in was enough to help explain the homework for their next class with Jess. This reminded me of Roberts and her failure to review the questions and their structure before assigning them to the children last academic year.

    While the children were writing I went to the hall but the door to the stage was locked. That meant that I could not use a tenor pan to demonstrate the easier method of introducing the circle of fifths and fourths. Towards the end of the session, I had a nice discussion with “Pablo” about the accidentals on the whiteboard and he understood the work. He took a few tries of the homework and the rest was homework at the end of class.

    Some of the children didn’t know about numbering pitches ascending and descending, hence the issue with labelling semitones in the scale occurred. Brad and Ravin got help too along with Isabella. She said that she had fought a lot last night to try and make an attempt at the homework but now she understood after our few conversations on the work reviewed.

    The class was very engaged when I used Ravin, Talise and Abinna names versus their surnames as the analogy to help explain the harmonic equivalent names for the black keys of the keyboard. Ravin laughed in surprise and questioned how I knew his surname. The class ended and “Mr Hunte” shared his score for “Trinin to de Bone”. Unfortunately, it was an alto saxophone version that was created for accompaniment. I told him that I would try to score it out over the weened for him.

    After lunch, “Miss Celia” and Mrs Santana had both cancelled on me during the seventh period. “Maria” brought Gabby today also so I didn’t want to bother her for names to generate her digital markbook. School became very depressing that evening to the point I wanted to get up and leave. Another bus came seconds after I crossed onto the bus route. I had Fai’s tonight alongside some games before getting to work on the computer.

    I got the first minute to “This is my Flag” transcribed. Special thanks to “Vara” for going through her Form 2 notes to find me the names of the three cultural songs they had to. After 2 hours on the couch, I ended up falling asleep there. I could not have gotten up to make it to the bed until 8:40 the very next morning. There is “Trini to de Bone” which will take me the entire week to work on. I will have to work on notating both songs within this coming week.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(8:02 am – 3:25 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #79) – Day #363

Date for Entry: (Thursday 19 September 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Friday 10 October 2024)

[T1, W:03 – WD:13, (Td:5)*].

**Picture of Excel file

Dear Diary,

    Got ready and left early this morning. A nice lady was driving the maxi. Mr Marlon was on the bus in front of me. The road of Sixth Avenue was empty so crossing the roads was not so scary. As I entered the compound, Mel was chatting with the guard. She asked joking at me, “Wuh yuh bring meh fuh breakfast?”

    We laughed and I went inside. She and I had breakfast with Mrs Greenaway. I shared some of my pringles with them. When they shared what they had, I said, “I had some Pringles, my pie, and I AM a little nuts.” They laughed.

    Somehow roll cam very soon. Miss Celia said that the basketball gate was still blocked by the debris of yesterday’s flooding. She mentioned teachers singing the wrong time in the attendance book and supervisors of the school being present observing it alongside the behaviour of some of the staff. Shiva spoke with me about his lack of red shirts. We were told about the red wearing to last until Friday.

    Throughout the day Donna was loud about having no double periods free in the evening for her to take bank time. We heard from Mr Pierre that George’s never had a band time policy. It was only at Valsayn that a bank time book for teachers was first introduced. She went on and on until Mr Pierre and Mr Charles came in.

    At the same time, "Nia" came in frightened that a big rat had run over her foot outside the kitchen door. A comment came where the teacher is supposed to have the knowledge and teach on the spot; not teaching from the textbook. I agree with this one.

    Thankfully it was time for period 3. Jess got caught in a conversation with Donna again while I was standing outside for a long. We had 1F for this first time because of the new timetable. Seees as Miss Roberts did rhythm instead of Treble Clef this time around. Very ‘interesting’ as she wanted me to do pitches and staff first.

    The introductions were done first and then we got into reciting the words of the George’s college song. She did the numbers challenge with the children using three different beats of different genres, while I went to meet Mr Marcelle out in the ‘lobby’ area and take him down to the music room. We were going to have a panorama meeting, which went a little into the fifth period.

    Finally, after three weeks, I had accomplished Exodus Chapter 4. I felt as if I was being held back from doing my readings. GG was asked to do a prayer at lunchtime when the teacher assembled in the staffroom. She was ashamed at first and then everyone left the compound for the second day of protest.

    I did not leave today. Only nine teachers remained in the staffroom. I saw Miss James briefly in her green t-shirt. “Mr Hunte” was asking to open the music room and supervise them but Jess was doing lunch. I didn’t go either. The day began to progress into class time with 1L that evening. It was depressing that many of them were not interested in music but that was expected by me. I was looking to see if there were students interested in sports and sciences.

    I left school after 3. Went home to work on the Excel file for “Miss Celia.” I ended up from 4 to 9:35 in the night working on it. Finally, an annual summary was inserted into the same Excel file. The formula for addition in single cells of multiple workbooks was discovered for the annual summary.

    The hour of completion and checking over did not grant me the time to test-check the annual summary page and the formula inserted. However, I am hopeful that it will work and make life easier for whichever acting Vice Principal or Appointed Vice Principal. I did not last long afterwards. I went to bed before 10:30 to bed.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(7:42 am – 3:06 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #79) – Day #362

Date for Entry: (Wednesday 18 September 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Friday 10 October 2024)

[T1, W:03 – WD:12, (Td:4)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning I got up late to the toilet twice. The pepper from the Churches yesterday did a wonderful job well done. Seeing that I had some time on my hands, I got to shave before 6 and got ready. I was not sure if the red shirt I had would even fit me to work today. It would have been a causal day in school for that matter. When I met Mel, we went to the office to see if we could sign. Her teacher’s log was available. Seems as if they did not find the OJT logbook as yet.

    She was afraid to go back in the art room but thankfully the rain did not go the room. We spoke about Panorama on returning to the staffroom. She also found out that I had the Panorama experience there three times already. I had a lot to write about before getting to this morning's entry. Had to get to class too. The phone alarm went off at 8:40 for me to walk and find Jess. She and Carthy were still taking roll.

    We had a while to begin class with 2L. I was asked to write a brief note on Major scales. When I asked if it was good she said that it was plenty. As she continued to explain, I was sent to turn on the air condition units in the pan room by that time. They did not go past 16 on the remote and not much cool was coming. Probably they took a while to set up.

    I was met by ‘Jason’ and ‘EB’ after washing my hands and joking with them when I asked if they had skipped class. “Jason” said that ‘EB’ wanted to sing a song for me. He was ashamed and forgot the song. They mentioned it was called “Not Lethal.” It was not one that I knew. Hopefully, it will be easy to find on YouTube. The short piece of the same song “EB” played for me over a cell phone sounded like rap.

    I spent some time playing the “Black Rain” that I had transcribed and played for ‘Kelvin’ and his friends last term over my laptop. Because I did not have the right pair of pansticks with me made the song harder to sound on the tenor pan. I could see that ‘Jason’ was very excited to see how the rap for “Black Rain” was scored especially when Kman would have sung a curse word in it. They both left at the start of the third period for this class.

    Soon after, Jess had some 2L boys being in a larger bookshelf in the music classroom. Was it stolen from the library? Or was it the property of Valsayn that came down like the brown tables? I stayed there getting yesterday’s entry completed while Jess sat with Kayden and reviewed the SBA.

    There was also a Lower 6 orientation going on at the same time. Toward recess, we heard Ministry speaking news about the school and more concerning things. I remember while writing earlier, Donna came and said, “WHAT! We matchin’ today, sir.” She began to speak in the recess period in the staffroom and it felt as if there was a meeting.

    We heard ‘Miss Celia’ and ‘Mr Marlon’ reminding the teachers that the time was 11:05 and to get to class. Jess and I walked down to the music room and met the Form 4s waiting outside of the paved corridor. They ended up doing practicals for the session. Two pieces from the chat were done.

    The first piece was “Amazing Grace” transcribed by Dr Remy and “Ode to Joy” from an old NCSE 2018 booklet. We both took turns once the children did each piece and were done at the got. Getting back to the staffroom, Mel was hurrying us to get out of the compound since everyone was leaving. Children looked out from inside of the hall and news reporters from CNC3 were out by the road.

    I took a ride with Mr Raymond and we went to Miguel Moses with ‘Mel’ and ‘GG.’ It was nice in there. I was surprised to see the gigantic shelves with different varieties of colours and sizes. As soon as we were about to leave, a gentleman who just come in had mistaken ‘GG’ and me for workers in the store. The three of us had a good laugh coming out of the store. We bumped into Mrs Santana and Mrs Libert who were now entering. We went to Extra Foods on the highway. “GG” tried Darren’s doubles for the first time and she saw one of the workers was a Georgian too.

    It was close to 1 PM and we had to rush back for roll call. I asked sir to stop too early and had a super long walk to get onto Sixth Avenue. Not sure if on Seventh Avenue the bus route had an access point like in front of the NIB building. By the time I got on the bus, I was soaking wet. Daddy had his lung test that day and the results kept him back.

    On our way home, we saw the dark clouds approaching. The Venz-boy Nic Punisher was painting our gallery burglar-proofing from the outside. He had to pause for a long time because of the rain. His coworkers came in the evening and helped him out. They began speaking about others it was nice. They ended up leaving some things out for the night. I will have to fix it this weekend. At 6:00 Mr Greene’s wife was chatting nice with them. The gate was done last.

    Towards 6:45 I took my my brush and started painting with them. It looked like they had forgotten to do the bottom of the railings. It helped to speed things up and they were leaving minutes after half seven in the night. I got the whole gallery mopped down and threw the water over the railings by the drain side. It was already ten minutes to nine so I didn’t get any transcriptions for “Jireh” done again.

    That night I tried the Kik app again. It was so lonely and now saying that I have to pay for chats. Didn’t remember that being so the last time I visited it. While Punisher was painting, I tried out Telegram and it was just like WhatsApp. It was nice of Steven to chat for some time and he helped explain some of those apps and how they work but he was able to confirm that not many of them are so nice. I got rid of both apps that night. I guess you can assume how the reviews were, lol.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(7:35 am – 3:01 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #79) – Day #361

Date for Entry: (Tuesday 17 September 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Friday 10 October 2024)

[T1, W:03 – WD:11, (Td:3)*].

Dear Diary,

    As soon as Daddy hit the window I got out of bed. It took me a while to prepare but we left the house at 7:05. On the stop at WASA, a Georgian girl came in the bus. It was Sadie sitting next to me. I got my umbrella out and took shade the whole walk down. The roads were very clear. The Form 4 Joshua passed me with no manners at all.

    I had two pies this morning and had the leftover water from yesterday. The air conditioning had cooled it down for me by the time I had gotten to school. Was greeted by “Choo choo” and Shiva on my way up to my desk. I had breakfast out of the way first as always and went to work on the journal entries. Shiva was consulting with me about the heat and mentioned that he would have liked to retire up in Valsayn instead of down in George’s.

    Soon Miss Dayna came and mentioned getting the “Another Day in Paradise” arrangement and seemed to like it. She did confirm receiving the “Amazed” arrangement which was completed in the summer. I believe I had asked Miss Soodeen to send that one. There was no sign of Jess anywhere around today. We had Lower 6 that time after homeroom. Not sure if she will come by for the Upper 6 class.

    I went up to the library instead and helped out the NALIS ladies with sorting the referenced and reserved books. It did not take much time to do at all. About seven ladies were sorting the reserved books and shelving them while a nice lady and I worked on the reference sections. There were boxes of things to throw out and things not belonging to the library were sent there too. Somehow a lot of noise started from the other ladies in the back when Miss Alexander asked for help.

    I left the library at half ten to go back to the staffroom. I thought I had a class but it was not so. Instead, I took the time to create space on my phone. I made some progress on it. Later before lunch, I saw Jess come in the staffroom. I was hoping that they would fix the timetable better and sooner. While I sat doing my Bible reading for Exodus Chapter 4, I gave a loud hiccup. It reminded me of earlier this morning when the room was empty, Dr Jogie turned around looking concerned at me.

    We had a meeting with Mr Curtis Marcelle who would be the arranger for the St George’s experience of Panorama 2025. At 12:30 a TTUTA meeting began:

• Issues of the school: No ventilation, Science Labs under lockdown, no fans in classrooms, no PA System, no Bell, no Wifi, no Phone, etc.
• Ministry deadline missed. Everyone is to wear red tomorrow and exit the compound at lunchtime 12:10. Return to the compound at 1:10. (50 minutes of no teachers on the compound)
• Rejection of the Cultural Transformation method mandated by the Ministry of Education. No consultation was done with teachers.
• Stabbing incident: A form 1 Student was stabbed by glass on the school compound received 6 stitches and was diabetic. The school remains accountable during school hours. Health and safety hazards remain on the compound.

 

    End of Meeting. As soon as the betting began thunder sounded. There was a big shower that came down. I only had one red shirt. I will have to see if there are any red T-shirts at home. Mr Pierre said there will be a short timetable meeting at some point during lunch. For this meeting, the teachers were kept back in the staffroom and were not sent to take rool as yet.

    At 1:14 the timetable meeting began. There was a voting on the new timetable for tomorrow: Tomorrow being either a Day 1 or a Day 4 which was next from today. Plenty of the teachers were undecided. The poll was done a third time and declared by majority that tomorrow would be Day 4 according to the new timetable. Jess and I will have classes in the morning. A lot of us were panicking before the meeting for the bright lighting.

    As were dismissed to class roll, teachers began to mention two corridors, one on both sides of the school being flooded out with rainwater. I got a call from Daddy to let me know that Aunty Vangy would be coming to pick me up. The corridor to the Form 2 area was filled with water. I felt the touch of it around my shoes. Thank God I had the blue on today. I ended up leaving Jess in the classroom and went back to the staffroom. I still remember Mr Pierre climbing on the chairs and bench to cross the large pool. We didn’t get to see Mr Charles today.

    I got my things out of Aunty’s car and then went up the road. There was a lot of traffic on the highway and roads were disappearing, including the entire carpark of the Courts Megastore. She offered me to go to Flow but I had no ID card on me. Instead, we went to get Aunty Ruth and Salina for them to collect something. They met us in the grocery and then we went to Churches afterwards. My belly felt stuffed.

    I got home by 5:30 to bathe and get to work. Sadly time went and I didn’t even get more than two minutes in “Jireh” completed. I had a lot of frustration with the app called Discord. Last night the codes they sent me did not work somehow. I spent a whole day making space to download it on the phone. The login too didn’t accept my numbers. I ended up removing it from the phone.

    The next app was Snapchat and thankfully it saved my information by Google but it was lonelier than Whisper. The next to try would be Telegram and see what that was like but tomorrow. It took me two hours waiting on the internet and trying to get in. I’m glad I didn’t try these things before, lol.

 

LINK(S):

Flooding Video.**

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(7:42 am – 3:30 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #79) – Day #360

Date for Entry: (Monday 16 September 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Friday 10 October 2024)

[T1, W:03 – WD:10, (Td:2)*].

**pic of fudge

Dear Diary,

    This morning I had a challenge to fall asleep and then wake up. The getting up part of the morning and getting ready was fast. Only in the car, did I realise I did not have my cellphone with me. I knew that something was feeling different. I had to put the Terramycin on my eyelids. They were swollen by the time I got up.

    The roads were surprisingly empty. Even walking down Sixth Avenue, the way to George’s was empty. I saw many Form 1 and 2 children coming in as I was always on the pavement. I had taught all of them in the previous academic year. 

    Still, not many teachers were there on my way to the staffroom. I went to get breakfast out of the way first. Jess walked in quickly. Instead of waiting and not knowing the time, I went to sit on a bench outside of her 2F form class. The children were having their breakfast during homeroom time until 8:40. We got the 2F to come down and help put the pan stands up but a lot of the double pan stands were not found and a lot of them were also mismatched.

    By the start of the second period, they had to return to class. Miss Carthy was not there when I got back to the staffroom. I went outside with the Form 4s and took over the ‘pule keeping’ for Jess as she picked them up with their scales. The heat was a lot. The students seriously needed a lot more study with their scales. I recalled playing the D Major scale for two octaves on Naimea’s tenor pan. I thought it made her play out the rest of the scales without error and fast. We laughed about that.

    Jess told me that we had no class until after lunch. I gave her the list of issues in the music room since I didn’t have my phone to take a picture of it. I went to use the washroom and then “Choo Choo” reminded everyone about the fudge sale.

    I went to the library. Miss Alexander was standing by a shelf putting up the books and a lady was sitting by her side and handing the books to her. She said that she began with the 910s and the 920s. I was allowed to sort the 930s and the 940s by the time. I also got to sort the 940s by the time. 950s and 960s were sorted on a shelf by the time and then handed over to Miss.

    I learned at some point that the lady was Miss Alexander’s mother. Several times or mostly throughout recess and lunchtime, “Vanna’s” big mouth was heard. I did not like her heavy use of obscene language at all and her uncontrolled hyperactive behaviour. I got back to the staffroom finally at 1:07 and that flew away like 10 seconds.

    During our class with the Form 2s, Jess asked me to go and check out the air conditioning unit in the music room with two remotes. One was from the music room and the other was from Miss Gittens. Only one remote turned on the two in the pan room. I was not sure if the units were cooling or just turning on slowly. The one Miss Gittens gave us was not turning on the other two in the classroom. She got back her remote before returning to the 2L classroom.

    She was correcting the last two questions from their exam paper. Seems as if no one was studying at all. I wondered how many of them still had the Mr. Ali Textbook that he went and painfully made for them. I sat on the same bench this morning. There was a light breeze there. Once this was done we were taken to the music room for the students to help clean and pack around. She tried the remote but the units did not turn on.

    As soon as Mr Raymond was ready to go that evening, we all got in the car. Daddy called back on Miss’ phone and he couldn’t hear properly. Maybe the rain was causing a poor signal. I told him that I was getting a ride home. We went to USC that evening for a ride. The place was beautiful and the cloudy sky made us all in the car fall asleep when ‘GG’ left to come back.

    I had been fighting this sleep since the middle of the 7^th period. By the time we passed the Gate office by Gordon Street, the rain came down. I got soaked running across the road with the umbrella in my hands. It had to remain close to get in the pedestrian gate. While getting to my gate, Aunty Vangy was outside parked up. She had brought some cake from the party they had for Aunty Ruth's birthday yesterday. It was nice to see her again.

    I had planned to do my journal archival work that evening. Sadly, I didn’t have the right materials to do it. I was led back to Musescore right away. Instead of working on “Take a Bow”, I worked on transcribing “Jireh”. The full YouTube video was 9 minutes and 40 seconds in duration. I will do two minutes an evening to get it completed. The rhythmic patterns seemed to be quite tricky and difficult to interpret.

    Not many lead sheets were available online. There was a piano and vocal arrangement of the song that provided a preview of two pages and then to purchase. I still liked what I used. Only the first minute and 21 seconds were scored. Hopefully tomorrow I can return home early and then continue working on the rest.

    Whisper was empty as usual. I had Stingray Spa music on and the experience was better. Praise God I fell asleep on time. I appreciated the nice chat with ‘Jan’ sitting outside of 2L on the beach. We spoke about the difference between being back at Barataria and being up at Valsayn. I did mention the Form 6s being a part of our timetable no. I love teaching the older students but the business part of their music ‘SBA’ was messed up in a way. I shared how excited I was for the Form 4s part since that would finally mark the beginning of my OJT training.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(7:49 am – 3:25 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #78) – Day #359

Date for Entry: (Thursday 12 September 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Sunday 15 September 2024)

[T1, W:02 – WD:09, (Td:1)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning felt worse than yesterday morning. Christmas songs were being played on the bus and I sang along. I got on that particular bus as soon as it crossed the road to me. Daddy thought I would have walked across the other side with him. I jumped on the bus one time and had the umbrella in hand before exiting to walk down 6^th Avenue.

    I had breakfast as soon as I got in and saw Jess enter the staff room. She saw me eating and said that she would be in warning. When I got there, the students were copying the lyrics to the George's College song. I went to get a copy of the score from my folder. The students walked through the words rhythmically first and then started singing the song with each sentence.

    The children did very well on their first attempt in my opinion. It was made better than the previous year's groups. I hope they didn't see this in my journal entry, LOL. One boy with glasses was given that copy for the rest of the class to take a picture of it. A very small boy mentioned that she saw my video of the George anthem on my YouTube channel. I am grateful for his subscription.

    Once this class time was over departmental meeting was conducted during the third period and at the end of the first half of the fourth period. They were planning a series of competitions and the ideas of the Schools’ Panorama. This I knew was trouble and didn't want to get involved in it. The meeting finished abruptly as well. As soon as it was done Miss Roberts came in. She said that she was leaving on Tuesday. I will have to start work for church tomorrow while working on cleaning the gallery in the evening.

    No sign of a new timetable in sight. Maybe it will be discussed next week. “Jess” and I had 3F for a double session after recess. Still a big surprise as to what she will be teaching. She corrected the exam papers for the end of form 2. Miss Jones did her theory session on the wall side of the classroom. Thankfully the wild students of that class were gone from music class. It was nice to know that there is a photography club. I learned from “Mr. Williams” earlier that there was a Latin club with Miss Chote. I'm not sure if it is her language club. If it is I will have to learn the Latin language.

    During lunchtime, Miss Alexander said that she was going to continue sorting books on Monday because she was tired. The art room was still in a mess but they are getting there. I saw a boy with a big stab wound in his left arm. The blood got very scary to look at.

    Right after lunch, Jess had asked me to go and help her with the inventory of things to fix in the music room. I saw Robert's teaching 2M on the way back to the staff room. I think she was teaching a dotted notes lesson. I had enough waiting for that afternoon. Hunger took over me and tiredness as well. I packed up and went up the road before the rain came down. Seemed to be a very cloudy afternoon.

    Getting into the car Aunty Vangie was calling me to see if I needed a drop home. I told her that I was already in Curepe. I had a Muslim barbecue that night and it was so good. By 5 pm I was at a computer working on little something by Sting. But I ended up falling asleep on the couch at 5.15 until 6 am the very next morning. (Did not make it to bed until Friday night. Tomorrow is no school. The compound will be sprayed for mosquitoes.)

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(9:30 am – 3:11 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #78) – Day #358

Date for Entry: (Wednesday 11 September 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Sunday 15 September 2024)

[T1, W:02 – WD:08, (Td:6)*].

Dear Diary,

    For both Daddy and I, we had a late sleep, late waking, and late get up. He had to knock on my window a second time. My four eyelids were swollen again. Thought I would have gotten to the staff room way late. Not many teachers were there still. A lot of people were watching me with my umbrella in my hand walking down 6th Avenue. I was greeted by “Mr. Haynes” again as we walked down to a school.

    I got my entry for yesterday completed first before eating. Miss Gittens told me her hair was tied back up when I mentioned how it matched mine. She went with Miss Greenaway to take roll. There was confusion about religious instruction for today, but Mr. Pierre said that it would begin on Friday. A few of the instructors had to leave after coming out of school.

    Shiva was trying to make conversation with me. He saw me writing in the logbook and wondered what was inside of it. It was a while since Miss Roberts came back to school. The School Supervisor 3, Dr. Lubian-Batiste, was here in our staff room. It was good to see her again. It reminded me of Mr. Persad and the teacher's leave form.

    There was a long wait for 3rd period to come. I was remembering the 1-8 challenges that “Jess” was doing with the children. We had a class with 2F after. It was very nice to see “Ravin” again as he greeted me and “Pablo” too. 2L and 2M had no teachers with them. We went through the test paper for questions 1-2 before “Jess” went on to the numbers challenge to break. There were 7 minutes before recess.

    Donna said that she found I was not talking as much again. Somehow the holiday nightmare was written on my facial expression. Jess and Roberts were speaking about the school song and the Panama dance competition. They were talking about sitting in with the form 6 students when they come to school when she would be absent from the country. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I hope that God bless “Jess “with ideas as to how to carry on class with them. Mrs Libert was given a picture of the notice for the spraying tomorrow.

    During the recess, Mr. Charles announced that the Clerk of Works responsible for air conditioning was there. I couldn't sit there to listen to “Jess” and the others with their big noise. I went up to the library instead and sorted out all the WI and NF books that were within the 900s. There were a lot of books in the 970s. Two large tables were used up to do the sorting and 1 circular table. At some point too a form 6 couple was helping me. They abandoned me at some point and one girl came to help at the end.

    At 1.03 pm I finally sat back down in the office behind my desk. I heard the sound of a different woman's voice as I was writing in my journal. I knew she was not a ministry worker with the SS3. As she spoke again it was Miss Paul that I recognized. I helped her carry her cabinet belongings to her car while Riley and “Mr. Danclare” were assisted. The two of us spoke a while before she left the compound. It was strange how I thought of her in the car this morning with Daddy carrying me to Curepe and she came to school today.

    Everyone in the staffroom was told that Friday would be no school for the mosquitoes spraying. Class for the Form 4 students began in the hall. The students were given an exercise to write an introduction about themselves for their SBA and were given another exercise to start planning questions for their interview with either the composer or the other assignment.

    After that, notes were given for elements of music and genres were cut off at the end of class. (See logbook for the note-taking.) The students had to type up their introduction and then were asked to work on more questions for their performance analysis or analysis of a live concert. No one at all was planning to do the eight advertisements.

    I went back upstairs to the library to get a picture of the 900s that I had sorted today. Thankfully Miss Alexander was still there and she allowed me to take a picture. As Miss was about to leave she said to come with her for a ride in Mr. Raymond's car. On the highway, a heavy shower of rain came down on us. It caused us to get stuck in traffic behind UWI. They were heading in my direction.

    Daddy had to come up afterwards because I had forgotten my keys in the house. I took an hour to myself on the couch and got up at 5 p.m. until 8 in the night to work on “Right By My Side” and thank God it was completed. Even better news was that the other arrangement “Another Day in Paradise” strumming pattern for the verse was done over. And the chorus was taken. This song too finished within 45 minutes by a nice copy and paste. I was so glad to get both songs accomplished. Plenty of nights of work were put in and over 5 days were taken to work on them.

    The “Another Day in Paradise” arrangement was not so hot for me, it would be workable for the instructor and the performer. I got levels of games completed before bed. Whisper is making me start to feel like the previous times when I wanted to delete it and move away. I might just end up leaving it again for a fifth time. Not sure what the app Discord is like.

    I saw Jasmine message me a reminder to check out the worksheet-making website. I told her last night, the previous night, but it was the zeal to get both steel pan arrangements done tonight was the feeling. Hopefully tomorrow night I will take up the opportunity to check out the worksheet website. She had also asked me to work on two of the other folk songs for steelpan that the Form 2 students had reviewed last academic year. I hope that maybe at the weekend I will be able to get one of them completed or started on for the most.

 

LINK(S):

• St. George's Memo - Spraying for Mosquitoes.

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(7:46 am – 3:30 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #78) – Day #357

Date for Entry: (Tuesday 10 September 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Sunday 15 September 2024)

[T1, W:02 – WD:07, (Td:5)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning was not easy to wake up. I left the house at 7.10 am. The staff room was empty. Not many teachers were there at all. I got my pie eaten right next to Miss Gitten's. I got all of my entries for yesterday completed and forgot that I had a class with 1M. I got there while introductions were going on. I got to introduce myself shortly after.

    Towards the end of the session, 10 minutes was taken for the 1-8 challenge again. This time a soca beat from a song by Kes was used. We had 3F right after. It was my first time having a single period. I went to call Miss Jones in her theatre arts room. It was in a mess and she didn't have help to get it cleaned up. “Jay” and I walked from 3F and walked back to class after speaking with Miss.

    Once Miss Jones got to 3F, she and “Jess” did the splitting of class. The single period was finished and it ran into Dr. Allison's English A class. I could tell it was English A because she had the “English For All” textbooks in her hand. How I wished they made a better textbook. It was nice to see Mr. Dass arrive at school finally.

    The staff room was nice to be with the teachers again. Miss Gitten's had someone helping her clear out the room. I learned that his name was Mr. Joe and near the end of school he was trying to see if he could fix the air condition unit. Sadly, it looked like they would need a new one but he will try to source the parts.

    From the fifth period to 1.30 pm, I went to the library instead since Miss Jones didn't know what she was going to do with her variety of bags in the room. Her storeroom also had to be cleaned out. Miss Alexander asked if I was willing to work on the teacher's resources section. Two shelves of books were sorted out and set into alphabetical order. They were first sorted by their Dewey Decimal Number.

    These were all of the fiction and romance books that Miss did not want the children to deal with. I was able to get a picture of the shelf and the sorted books that I had done for the day. Miss had a laugh at me taking a picture. I was invited to come back tomorrow for more sorting by Miss Alexander.

    At 1.50 pm my arrived back into the staff room. Miss Gitten wasn't feeling so good. I got her a good bag from the garbage to put her ceramic trash in. I took my ambulance and walked up to the bus route. There were a lot of dark clouds coming around and I didn't want to get wet. A student from perhaps earlier in Form 1 met me with a parent on the way up.

    For me, at Mount Hope, the rain finally came. I kept my umbrella with me in my hand. Eight Georgian students were there on the bus leaving Georges. I was the last one to leave the bus at Curepe. Praise to God that the introductions for “Right By My Side” and “Another Day in Paradise” were both completed.

    “Right By My Side” will have their chorus to work on with a different strumming pattern. The song “Another Day in Paradise” was given a strum to be reviewed before I attempted the first verse. I stayed up enjoying the television show “Miraculous” on the Disney channel. I saw the first two episodes of 4 for the night and went to bed. The evening ended very quickly.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(7:58 am – 3:58 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #78) – Day #356

Date for Entry: (Monday 09 September 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Sunday 15 September 2024)

[T1, W:02 – WD:06, (Td:4)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning, the bus driver had songs played by Brooke Lidgertwood, then two from Tasha Cobbs, and finally two from another lady. The guy in yellow stopped early. The beard cut was nice. The road to George's was empty, and a few teachers were still there. “Gigi,” Mr. Raymond, and “Mel” were there. I had my pie after signing the arrival time in the daily logbook.

    This will be my fourth logbook for journal entries in activities in school. Thankfully, it began with a new week. On a brighter note, this week has twelve weeks after. Mr. Raymond got my stapler to staple his rulebook together. Miss Dana did not like having to staple her book. I agree that it should have been done for them instead of teachers having to do it.

    The teacher's attendance register was missing for the morning. Miss Carty was hood-asking for the 2F rulebook folder. Soon the attendance book was found. Jess said that she was going to check to see if the Form 6 students had come to school. When she returned, I figured that they weren't there. “Patty” came asking for help with her rulebook. It seems as if the white page was oversized and it was also printed badly. If I had the technology, I would have done the entire whole document over.

    I went over to help Miss Gittens with cleaning the art room. Miss Roberts laughed at me when I said I was tired. My phone alarm went off at 9.36 for me to pack up and get ready for class. “Mr. Marlon” assisted me with the directions to get to the 4L classroom with the Form 4 students.

    Today's session was reviewing paper 3 of the Music Syllabus for CSEC. We got an idea of the students' preference in the written work and it was good to know that they were in an intermediate level of performance. Determining the appropriate grade level would be next. Each of the 4 students was given homework to practice F Major, C Major, G Major and D Major skills along with their arpeggios.

    I happened to enjoy being seated in the Georgian classroom. I think I would have enjoyed it. Made me wonder what it would have been like for Amir Andrews, Amir and the others here at George's. “Jess” and I had 2L right after recess. All the teachers seemed to have forgotten. Jess went through the Form 1 end-of-term exam for questions 1 and 2. Questions 3 and 4 will have to be done in the next class. She ended with a content TikTok challenge. Miss Kittens joined me outside to see the last of it before lunchtime.

    The office was still in a mess. I saw some MTS workers in the office helping out. Mr Charles and Shiva were sharing with me the story of how the guard boat was built by “9 hardback” men and took “an entire year from January to December to complete.” They mentioned it was a full year to build that small building. I had a big laugh with them.

    Some men were there to check the labs. I hoped the repairs required would be fixed soon enough for the classes to continue. I believe some of them were there about the electrical works for the whole building that housed the music room. There were also more murmurs about issues with the timetable and teachers allotted classes that clashed with their Form 4 and 5 groupings.

    After that time everyone was watching the rain and bright lightning outside. Mr. Charles made a joke about Lisa leaving with Shiva and we laughed. She accidentally responded that the office had no toilet paper and everyone laughed again. The story of Barataria and no toilet paper was shared again with the judge's toilet paper room. Aunty Vandrie came to pick me up some minutes after school.

    Surprisingly the rain had stopped and the sun came out hot. We went to the home store which is right down the road on 6th Avenue. I loved the paintings, curtains, mats, mirrors and a lot of other stuff. The prices were a lot though. They had a huge floral section which I may have never been able to pick one if I had to.

    We then went to ABC for paint and spent two and a half hours there with a girl who looked just like Miss Roberts. Another attendant was helping out Diego and he resembled Gin from the Love Island game but seemed a bit different instead. He didn't talk much but he also dressed like Gin. We walked through the lights aisle and got our way up to the back by the paint section.

    I got home that evening at 5.30 after there and went quickly to have dinner and get started on music. The introduction for “Ride by my Side” and “Another Day in Paradise” were worked on. I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to work on two skid pan arrangements at the same time. However, the mentally tiring aspect of both songs and their requirement of concentration seemed to be doing me well with this decision.

    All of the repeats made me feel like I was in a panyard trying to get the right rhythm and the right sound in my living room. The sound produced by Musescore 4 was amazing. The difficulty getting the strumming patterns was far on the other side of amazing. Hopefully, it will be solved and accomplished soon.

    Whisper Tonight was lonely and everyone else didn't respond. Love Island Finals and Reunion were our last two episodes. Sienna and Luna both had hate towards the main character. Liam changed into a new person. I was glad for him. Emel, Oakley, Bea and Logan had split up their relationships.

    Sophie reacted to everything and had no idea that her relationship with Jack was long before they were dumped from the island. She admitted to everyone that she had something for Jin. Hari and Max didn't come again. They commented that some toxic persons in the villa weren’t worth the time being there. There's one more episode to go. Not sure what will happen or what drama will take place at all.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(7:42 am – 2:55 pm)