Full Stop

Well, the excitement when our copy of Nearly King Jimbo arrived! I felt a little ridiculous, feeling so thrilled about it really, but it has turned out sooooooooo well! I mean, it looks like a proper book for heaven's sake.

'The only thing,' I said to Andy as we sat staring at our artistic baby, 'is that I don't think I can bear to read it in case I find any errors.'
'Yes,' said Andy, who had already picked unnecessary holes in his wonderful illustrations. 'I know what you mean.'

For we had edited and edited and gone over the final script with a fine tooth biro and it seemed that every time we looked at it, we found something not quite right. But finally we convinced ourselves the copy was as perfect as it was going to be and Andy pushed the 'Send' button and away it went.

I am doing quite a bit of reading at the moment. In fact I have just finished 'The Red Queen' by Philippa Gregory which was very good. And as I read it, because I still had my editor's brain to the fore, I found three very obvious typos. So today, when I read a bit of Nearly King Jimbo, I wasn't too upset on finding an errant full stop. Just a little bit, but not too much. Well, if a multi-million selling author like Gregory employs a proof reader who lets obvious mistakes slip through, I think that me, the amateur, can be forgiven the escape of a little full stop. Maybe. Still a bit irksome though. Stop thinking about it....okay....I've stopped...

So, this week has gone really quickly. A bit of part-time tutoring has brought in some cash, and a visit to the theatre yesterday brought in some cultural stimulation. We went to see 'The Rivals' by R.B. Sheridan. It was very funny, and because it was a matinee and the theatre wasn't full we got free upgrades to better seats, too. And whilst we were dawdling around waiting for the performance to start, we booked tickets to go and see 'The Phaaaaaaaaaaaaaaantom of the Operaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!' just before Christmas.

I went to find the Assistant Head at lunch time for her to sign my time sheet for this week.
'Ah!' she said. 'Just the person,' which, a few months ago would have been a phrase which brought a sense of impeding doom to my shoulders, but since I am enjoying what I am doing and know I can put a full stop to it at any time I like without having to do ridiculous things like work out notice, it doesn't bother me at all now.

'How would you like to do some internal exam marking at the beginning of December?' she continued.
'Tell me more,' I said, because marking is, like tutoring, a very lucrative sideline for teachers. Especially if you have a bottom set class with lazy boys in it who don't do writing because they can't be arsed and they manage about three paragraphs before their wrists come over all limp so they down pens and spend the majority of the exam time slumped in their seats staring at the ceiling and sighing a lot.

So she explained. Two sets of exam papers from bottom set Year 11 and one set of papers from bottom set Year 10. And I agreed. I thought, there's next year's holiday paid for.

And then she looked at me more closely.
'You're very flexible, organised and determined, aren't you? I don't suppose you'd consider applying for the Head of English post would you?' she said. 'Only they could do with someone like you.'

'Absolutely not,' I said. 'Full stop!'