Fire Alarms

We all know that fire alarm practices should be unscheduled, because you can't book a real fire in a specific time slot - but if the alarm goes off much more at university I will go mad. Yesterday it went off several times - eventually ending up with the fire brigade sending two tenders and the fire officer closing the campus, as it would take several hours to check and secure the buildings. Fires were ignited in 2 lecture theatres, a notice board and one of the men's loos. Are the students so daft that they risk burning the whole place down just because they are in a boring lecture, or fancy a fag break? The disruption to my preparation for todays 2 teaching sessions was immense and I had to go in early this morning to catch up. It was strange walking into an office with all the office machines already on at 8am - and then trying not to despair at the mound of cups in the bowl waiting to be washed up before I could have a drink! [Well, I cheated, I went out to La Dolche Vita and bought a latte as I didn't have the time to waste washing up, and the clerical assistant seemed more than happy to do the washing up as her first task of the morning when she arrived at 9!]. So, there I was supervising my students undergoing activities involved in an assessment centre - we were in the middle of a murder mystery exercise- when the damm fire alarm goes off again. Ushered my students out, reminded them of the instructions where to meet, had to go back for the class register [had only gone down one flight of stairs when I remembered I was supposed to take it with me!], found them outside in all the melee of students, and in the end sent them home when the fire engine turned up - luckily it was only another 30 mins standing in the sun before we were let back in - as they discovered it was the contractors stripping wallpaper, which had caught alight this time. So, another disrupted day - but it did give us women a second chance to look at the hunky firemen - and today was a different crew - at this rate, we will be able to pass judgement on all the fire crews at the station!!

But I don't really want any more this week thank you - I have too much work on - trying to continue teaching my course while also getting ALL the material together to start a new intake on Monday - on the other campus. Next week should be fun - I am technically teaching 2 courses at the same time on 2 separate sites. Luckily my current course will be in their final week - and most of the material is being delivered by external speakers, but I will be there for the final session to assess their toolkits and give out the certificates...