More questions than answers.

The first in a series of musings about the Internet - the great leveller of class, creed and ethnicity or just another tool to be exploited?

Sometimes I truly wonder what the hell I'm doing.

At the moment there are friends of mine who are facing or have recently faced death and here I am - blogging. So the question remains, to blog or not to blog?

Blogging as a medium is a fantastic leveller - it's the Internet 2.0 - greater connectivity, increased input, the mass media produced by the masses, justice and equality for all *ahem*. But quite frankly, is it all it's cracked up to be? I rarely blog, it's true. Mostly because who the hell wants to listen to my drivel? Then again, there are several blogs I follow, made by all kinds of people - my friends, writers, celebrities - and I enjoy them immensely. Perhaps it's a twisted sense of living vicariously... I caught myself talking with my partner about Neil Gaiman's blog. I was updating him (my partner) about the 'Coraline' premiere, refering to the man as 'Neil' - as though I knew him personally, that we were 'like that' - you have to imagine crossed fingers here... I know it's hard but do try! There is this strange sense of intimacy that blogs generate, as readers we begin to feel as though we really 'know' the person, forgetting one simple truth - we only see what we are shown.

There are those who believe that if we pay close enough attention, 'read betweeen the lines' we will discover nuances about our blog-amours. Back to my mate, Neil. He was recently listed as the top 13th Celebrity Blog; a distinction based purely on the number of 'followers'. Not surprisingly, Stephen Fry came at number one with nigh on 99,000 followers. This is a man who had to post on his Facebook page that he couldn't accept any more 'Friends' not because he was being snobbish but simply because he couldn't keep up. Yes, truly we are in a great age, the age of The Internet 2.0 - a stalker's best friend.

Whilst some may consider such a viewpoint as paranoid, I tend to find it isn't the malicious intent of others so worrying but the total naivety on the part of the masses to protect themselves agains such insalubrious 'designs'. A perfect point in case are those who post pictures of themselves, off their trolleys out on a night on the tiles on their Facebook and wonder why they've been passed over for promotion. Or the young secondary teacher, whose My Space page has inappropriate (in a school context) language and content, who finds themselves the victim of harassment by students. Whilst, harassment is completely inappropriate in any context, my point here is that these people left themselves wide open for ridicule at best, and serious harm to themselves at worst.

A worst case scenario was played out recently when a husband, estranged from his wife, murdered her after she changed her status from 'married' to 'single' on Facebook. I've seen vicious bullying, particularly among girls - some as young as 8 and 9, over not being listed in their 'Top Ten Friends'. The situation would be absurd if it weren't so incredibly tragic. The technology designed to make the world more close-knit, like any technology, can and has been abused.

But surely, none of these are related to blogging? Isn't blogging simply and innocuous form of written diarrhoea? A cute diary of what we're doing and what we think on any given day. Some blogs are just that - others are places for people to share their talents, whether that's poetry, knitting or baking - I found a brilliant blog the other day on using Image editing software, in plain English not tekky gobbledygook. Blogs can also be a catharsis or the golden opportunity to showcase your work skills. However, the dark side of blogs can include the rants, the verbal bashings of a variety of people and institutions that were once reserved for specialist newsletters, magazines and Letters to the Daily Mail. In the worst cases, some blogs are simply excuses to incite hate and rage.

So what do we do when we come across this sort of content? Is it allowable? Do we have the right to object, especially if we believe in freedom of speech?

As with all things, we end with more questions than answers.

Stay tuned for the second part of this series.

Seadevils

Post Script

Hilarious, as it does happen... I got an apology email today from Payroll - they had forgotten to update the database and I will be getting paid tomorrow - yay! I am going to celebrate in that time honoured fashion... I'm going to the hairdressers.

The Curse of Supply

Being a supply teacher can be a tricky job. You're sometimes fighting on all fronts, schools who expects above and beyond your remit, agencies who play favourites and punish you if you don't take the gig in the school where someone was shot last week or that's two hours away by public transport and then there's the kids.

Most of the time the kids are great - hard work - but great. Occasionally you get one that is an aspiring 'gangsta' or whose big brother 'will beat you up for telling me what to do'. These are generally few and far between and as I became more experienced, I learned to always keep prizes in my kit - not to bribe them with - but to inspire some team spirit and competitiveness between them, so that they encouraged each other to do well. I also have a whole assortment of games and brainteasers in my kit so that if I turn up and there's no work left - which does happen fairly regularly (I always at the very least emailed in a brief lesson plan when I worked full time but that doesn't seem to be the standard in the UK), I've always got something for the to do.

Once, I turned up at a school, asked innocently whether anything had been left as sometimes plans go astray especially if the LSA had been in organising bits and pieces. I was castigated in a fashion which would have made the Spanish Inquistion proud in front of the entire staff about being unprofessional etc by not bringing my own work - which I had - and unceremoniously hauled off by the Deputy Head who printed off 6 maths sheets per child for me (which I later had to mark - only 30 children in the class so it was a breeze, natch). Suffice to say, I have not returned to that particular school.

The biggest frustration of the job though, is not the schools or the kids, but the agencies. One agency I'm with charges the school £250 per day that I'm there. That's £1250 per week. I know they've got people to pay and offices to maintain etc but when I see less than £450 of that money I get a little annoyed, especially when they don't allow me to fax my timesheet in.

Anyone who has ever worked for any kind of agency will probably know this scenario. You've got to get your timesheet into head office by Monday morning. It's two weeks before Christmas, so you make sure it's in the post box before Friday collection time, with a First Class stamp. Thinking you've done the right thing and all is well with the world you go to pay for your groceries on Tuesday. The piggy, supicious eyes of your fellow shoppers narrow, lips grow thin as they scent out your shame - you've not got enought money... you haven't been paid.

Of course it's your fault, you should have sent it express post - you can always claim postage in your expenses you know - because it's Christmas time and all, you have to take these extra precautions, because the mail is shamefully slow at this time of year.

Quite.

The bright side of all of this is, I do have a job, one that I enjoy most of the time.

I also know I will get paid... eventually.

In the beginning...

there was blog... it's about time really to try the blog again I've become terribly lax about writing these days - work and all - but I am rather inspired by my fellow Wrinklies on Outpost Wrinkly to get writing again without excuses!

So here's to you Frank and Lucy... ta!