Sunday, December 16, 2012

A long term

An update is long over due so here I am at long last. It has been a long and busy term with work both here and overseas in a wide range of schools.

Early in the term, I completed  an English departmental review for a secondary school in London alongside my usual line of work, before heading out to the Gulf to complete some work for Cambridge Education in a whole host of schools, ranging from kindergartens up to secondary schools. This was for about two months, during which time I managed to go to Dubai where, amongst other things, I went up Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. Having been up the CN Tower in Canada, it was good to be able to compare experiences. I also visited the Dubai Mall, where I saw the longest single piece of acrylic (as featured in the Guiness Book of Records) which, if you've not been and seen, houses an enormous underwater zoo full of sea life which you can literally see as you shop in the mall.

Alongside all of this, I've carried out some work for Hodder on their WH Smith brand English books which have been given an overhaul and are currently being relaunched. Most are due to be published the other side of the new year, so look out for them!

Overall, it's been a good term with its fair dose of expected and unexpected challenges along the way. I don't wish to sound like an aging sage but it's always fascinating to work with different people, young and old, not least because you gain useful insights into human behaviour and indeed psychology. I don't think I'd go quite as far as to say ( as some might and indeed have) that the more people I meet, the more I like my dog - for a start I don't have a dog, but it's certainly the case that the more people I meet the more it reaffirms for me what's important.  

This Christmas break, I'll indulge in a bit of welcome creativity, and hope that I don't take quite as long as I have this time to post an update again.