Tag Archives: student

Stress

[fr]

Un petit aperçu du stress de l'enseignant. Et qu'on ne vienne pas me dire qu'on se la coule douce, qu'on est trop payés, et qu'on ne mérite pas nos vacances.

[en]

I’ve been thinking a lot about stress this week. I’m pretty stressed these days. I didn’t feel the stress much before the autumn holidays. I just felt very tired. Now I’m much less tired, and much more stressed.

Even though my sources of stress are multiple (private and professional, emotional and simply the sheer amount of work to do) it translates into a permanent background of “thinking of my pupils.” I just can’t get them out of my head. I go to sleep thinking of them, I wake up in the morning dreaming of them, I worry about them during the day, and even when I try to relax, they just won’t leave me alone. I’m usually pretty good at “blanking out” and thinking of “nothing”, but it just doesn’t work anymore nowadays.

It doesn’t help that I don’t have much time to do non-school things. Most of the time I have out of school is spent correcting and marking tests, preparing tests and classes, or discussing various school issues (relational or directly educational) with various people (some of whom must really be sick of hearing about all this stuff by now). Oh, and sleeping. Did I meantion dreaming about school? To put it shortly, I’m finding it hard to unwind.

However, even though I’m having a hard (sometimes rough) time, I’m confident that I’m doing what is necessary to improve the situation, and that I’m handling it as best I can. I am surrounded by competent and helpful people, and that helps a lot. It won’t last forever, and things are under control.

Just don’t tell me that teachers do nothing but sit on their arse all day waiting for their undeservedly long holidays, and go on “strike” because they think they’re not being paid enough. It pisses me off ever so slightly.

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Posted in Stuff that doesn't fit | Tagged class, deserve, dream, Education, holiday, mark, pay, Personal, Pieces of Me, pupil, rough, school, stress, strike, student, teacher, teaching, test, Venting | 21 Comments

EPFL Offers Blogs to All Its Students

[via Hannes, Roberto]

The EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) has set up a blogging platform for all students and staff.

The platform is home-cooked, Java-based, and still in early stages. Trackback and external comments have not been implemented at this stage because of potential spam problems. Their archiving system is in my opinion a little basic, but the blogs all have RSS feeds, so I think there is definitely hope for the future.

I blogged about this in French yesterday, but I think it’s significant news enough for me to mention it again in English. (Plus, I’m thinking very hard about the implication of being a multilingual blog with monolingual readers…)

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Posted in My corner of the world | Tagged blog, Blogosphere Interest, epfl, lausanne, platform, poly, Research, student, switzerland, Weblog Technology | 8 Comments

So, How Was the Trip? Tell Me About it!

I must admit I’m sick of hearing this question. And as university has just started, I’m again meeting a whole bunch of people I haven’t seen in over a year and who are impatient for news.

The trip was overall a very positive experience. I would encourage anybody who has an occasion to have a similar life-experience to simply go for it.

I grew up a lot (but of course, one always grows up during a year) and feel that I belong to adult-land now.

The first three months were really hard, looking back. My solitary arrival, sickness the second day, a landlady I didn’t get on with and who gently kicked me out, illness and money problems in Delhi – all that was no fun.

The worst at that time was solitude. I was suffering from culture shock, slightly depressed, didn’t know whom to trust, and I had the feeling that try as they might, the people I confided in couldn’t truly relate to what I was going through. That was normal, of course – just as we have trouble imagining what it is for an Indian to land in our culture.

I wrote a lot during that time: my logbook, and “culture shock” notes – which I can’t really find courage to go through and sort out, as they send me back to deeply into those “hard times”.

Meeting Nicola in Delhi and the subsequent weeks in Rishikesh did me a lot of good. I had people to talk to, and got a chance to see how much I had already adapted to this strange culture. Going back to Pune was not too hard, as Mithun‘s family had kindly accepted to put up with me until I found a flat.

The third and last “part” of my journey is the longest – after having met Aleika and settling down in her big and protected home.

When I am asked what I did “over there”, I often answer (amongst others) “babysitting”. People often laugh a little.

It was much more than that, of course. Not everybody gets the chance of living with a baby before having their own. And I must say Somak and Aleika really let me take an important place in Akirno‘s life – I’m very grateful to them about that. It really contributed to making my Indian adventure such a great life experience.

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Posted in India | Tagged abroad, exchange programme, india, student, trip | 1 Comment