A very long day

I am exhausted.

I left the house at 8am and gatecrashed B1 grammar (just as well, as I learnt a new usage for the conditional tense) and attended first 30 minutes of conversation. I had planned to catch the 11.30 coach, so thought an hour would be plenty of time... I got to the coach station at 11.15 (after a much longer walk from the end of the line for my bus 11) and found a long queue to buy tickets and the machines were out of order. 11.30 came and went, so I resigned myself to catching the 12.00 one which gets into Marbella at 1.25 (interview at 1.30 - I planned to call the school if it looked as though I was going to be late). When I finally made it to the counter (at 11.45), they told me I was in the wrong queue. Luckily, the queue for the Marbella tickets was really short... if I had known which queue to join, I would have caught the 11.30 coach!

Got my ticket (only 5 euro) and got on the coach. It wound through all the tourist places (like Torremolinos) and finally arrived at 1.20. I grabbed a taxi and we made it to the school with 3 minutes to spare! The taxi cost me 14 euro for a 5 minute ride, but I didn't have time to argue and just paid up.

I met with the Deputy Head (Mrs Stevenson), who is lovely. She showed me around the school and we chatted in English (which felt really odd!). The primary kids (from Early Years, aged 3 to Year 6, aged 10) were all in Hallowe'en fancy dress and I got to watch them having a scare each other competition. The site is lovely, very clean and modern. The kids seemed well-behaved and the staff were all very welcoming. Mrs S informed me that they had had a mound of applications for the post and were going to go throught them over half term (next week) but wanted to interview me whilst I was in the area. She said that my application had stood out and that it was very strong.

After a tour, I had a kind of interview with Mrs S, the Head of Languages and the French teacher who is going on maternity leave (Anne). She teaches all the classes (Years 7 to 13) and has a large proportion of Key Stage 4 and 5. It looks like a lovely timetable! I was feeling quite confident at this stage and started to relax.

Then I was taken to her classroom by Anne. Suddenly things went downhill. First of all, we spoke French. 5 weeks ago, that would have been just fine. Today, I kept messing up. I was tongue tied and kept coming out with not only Spanish words, but weird grammatical mistakes that seemed to be a mixture of French, Spanish and English. Bear in mind that Anne is French, so there was no hiding these mistakes... Then she started quizzing me about my knowledge of French history, politics and current affairs. My mind seemed to empty itself and I started to feel panicky. I didn't want to blag it, so I was just honest and said I didn't know much about these. I felt like such an idiot and I just wanted to run away. She even left me alone with the A level set text for five minutes and then quizzed me about it, the use of informal register etc.

Then I met again with Mrs S. She was brimming with positivity and said she really liked me and asked that I let her know if I get invited to any interviews in the next couple of weeks before accepting them. She said that they need to go through the other applications, but I should expect to hear from them in the next 2 weeks and she seemed to be implying that I stood a really good chance of getting it. I admitted that I hadn't felt too confident about the other part of the day. I can't help but think that I won't be appointed once Anne feeds back. Maybe I'm wrong, but I really didn't feel that it went well. It is most unlike me to feel lacking in confidence in interviews and especially about my French. It was not a nice feeling.

Then I came home. I was told that it would be easier to get a bus to Fuengirola and then to Malaga, so I did that. I got to the bus stop outside the school at 4pm. The Fuengirola bus arrived at 4.40 (and only cost 2 euro). It arrived in Fuengirola at 5.15ish. I saw that I would have to wait for an hour, so I grabbed some tortilla and coffee (hadn't eaten all day) and then did the crossword whilst trying to ignore random creepy, smelly men who kept trying to talk to me!

The bus arrived on time (only 1.80 euro) and we got to Malaga at 7pm. I then had to get the number 11 back here and finally got home at 7.50. Nearly 4 hours door-to-door. Ugh.

All in all, I am glad I went and I would be very happy if I did get offered the job, but I do not feel that it is likely. I forgot to ask about the salary, but I think it would be quite good as it is a fee-paying school. They were really impressed that I, myself, went to a fee-paying school and they couldn't understand why I would want to work in state schools! The class sizes are amazing! The year 7 class is considered large... it has 18 students: precisely half the number I had in my Year 9 class last year. The Year 8 class has 15 and Year 9 has 16. Years 10 and 11 have about 10 each and the sixth form is a fairly normal 3 or 4 per year. Apparently the kids do not misbehave in class and you need to plan to teach the entire 45 minutes of the lesson, as you do not need to waste any time getting them quiet etc. It would be really interesting and different and nice for 4 months, but I think I might find it really boring after a bit...!

During my journey home, I suddenly felt really homesick and almost burst into tears on the bus. I don't know why, but I just desperately want to see my family and Pip right now. I think it suddenly hit me that I am a long way from home and I am also very tired. I wanted to talk over the interview with my parents instead of it just going around in my head. I feel a bit better now I have blogged about it - some kind of catharsis in a way!

It's a 3 day weekend now. I have no idea what to do, but might buy some presents tomorrow and then post a box of stuff home, as I fear I am going to be way over my allowance for the flight otherwise. Aside from that, I just want to unwind. I have just started a Spanish novel (I have read all the English ones from the school's exchange shelf) and it seems to be quite easy. If the weather is OK, I might be able to spend some time on the beach, as I have not been all week.