Hiding under my desk

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I experienced my first earthquake drill today. With the frequency of earthquakes and in the light of recent events, it is something taken very seriously, and it took up a whole hour in the morning. All the teachers and students put on their cleaning bandanas (not sure why, maybe because we were going out into the sun), then it kicked off with a scary alarm and announcement from the vice principal to get under our desks. Five minutes of being hunched under my desk trying to work out if everyone else had stood up felt very surreal. Then teachers and kids all file out into the large sports ground outside and go through quite a rigorous checking/counting drill. It was a warm day and so not fun being stood around outside. I actually felt quite emotional imagining what this must have been like for real back in March for the school kids in the area affected by the terrible disaster.

One of the things I really like at school is the random stuff that crops up unexpectedly (well everyone else knows about it but I'm usually the last to cotton on!). Yesterday in the afternoon I knew there was something special happening as I had a free period and on the schedule it looked like something to do with gym for the kids.....it turned out to be much more bizzare. At 3.15 everyone headed for the gym and all the kids got into their respective grade groups. Then six very long skipping ropes were produced, and each group of thirty-odd kids proceeded to try and skip together at the same time using the mega-rope, with a big timer counting down from 10 minutes. One of the classes managed about 16 jumps I think, and the principal told me the record stands at 100 jumps (although I wasn't clear if that was this school of another). It looked enormous fun and a good team building exercise.

I've nearly finished my second week of being at school. I have to admit it isn't all a bed of roses. some of the kids are delightful, but there are a few classes (mainly second years) that are noisy and badly behaved. I guess it is only to be expected at secondary school with all the hormones floating around.

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