Episode 27. In which we hark back to primary school.

When I was in about 9, my teacher set the class a task, it took most of the morning and I found it incredibly pointless. She had decided that we were using a certain word far too much, and told us to write an essay about how we spent a normal day, without using this one word, or any version of it.

The word was get.

Now, think about it for a minute.  You’re nine, and you have to write an essay without the word get in it.  Describing your day.  It sounds alright, no big thing.

“I woke up.“

Great so far.

“I got out of bed.”

Shit.  How do you say that in posh?

“I arose.“

That sounds stupid, but whatever, I can’t think of anything else.

“I got dressed.“

Shit.

“I dressed myself.“

That makes it sound like dressing myself a massive achievement, like at the age of nine I should be proud of getting my shirt on the right way round or something, but it’ll do.

“I went downstairs and got prepared my breakfast.  I got ready collected my things and walked to school. When I got there arrived, I found my friends and played hopscotch until the bell went.  We went to class and I hung up my coat then got collected my pencilcase from my tray.  I got retrieved my homework from my bag and then we did maths.  At playtime I ate my Milky Way and played Red Rover.  Then we did music.  At lunchtime I sat beside Clare and got was given a second helping of pudding.  In the afternoon we did English and then I learned a poem and then we went home.  When I got arrived home I did my homework and watched Grange Hill, then had dinner.  I played with the dog and then we watched Brookside and I went to bed.”

What I want to know is where is the harm in a nine-year-old using the word get?  It felt weird, having to use big words that I’m quite proud of knowing at the time but that I wasn’t entirely 100% certain I was using right, just because that old battleaxe got a bee in her bonnet that her primary six class weren’t eloquent enough.

In conclusion, hey, teacher, leave those kids alone.

Diabetic moment of the day

I’ve had a couple of shaky moments this week, mid-afternoon, so today I took a little less post-lunch insulin.  Instead of 6 units of Novorapid, I took 4.  Sure enough, come 3pm, I get the shakes.  Clearly my pancreas is just fucking with my head.