There are not a whole lot of perks in my line of work but occasionally I get to hang out with attractive and intelligent young ladies. Before this can happen, of course, I need to be tidied up a bit myself. I am routinely fumigated, showered and put into a suit. Once a year they even parade me around in an academic gown ask me to pretend that lofty thoughts floating are around in my head.
As if!
The most recent occasion for such posturing was the Speech Day which is the last day of our school year when we see off our “graduating” students. This year I taught Biology to a class of only two students, Sarah Casey and Merel Huisman and I have to say they have been a great pleasure to teach. Merel is off to the “Big Apple” to study maths at New York University and Sarah plans to study Psychology at Sussex University. I should tell you that Merel, when she´s not busy playing saxophone and learning Chinese, has an excellent blog which is all about maths. Naturally I´m too thick to understand any of it but if you want to take a look it just google Mathblogger101 She even has a blog about photography: www.thecamerahotspot
While on the subject of talented young ladies we received news this year that Théa Zabell who graduated last year and is currently studying Natural Sciences at Cambridge had the highest A level result for our exam board in Europe for Chemistry and joint highest in Europe for Biology. I can´t take any credit for her Chemistry but I have to point out that her success in Biology is entirely down to me! Before I started teaching her she could hardly even spell her name!
Théa is a very useful squash player as I can tell you from personal experience but she is really concentrating her efforts on rowing and my money is on her rowing for Cambridge next year. The Oxford and Cambridge women´s and men´s race will be both be televised on the same day so we must remember to check!
One student leaving this year is Anmol Sadhwani. She is a very bright and friendly girl but I never had the chance to teach her myself as she did not study Biology at A level. We had a chat at the graduation dinner and she pointed out that she is fond of art and passed over her phone to show me a photo of wonderful landscape she had painted. She tells me that she is working on a portrait of her Mum and I would love to see that when it is finished. I hope she continues with her art because she is clearly very talented. Like Merel, she is going to study maths next year but not quite so far away – at Imperial College in London.
It is entirely to be expected that a charismatic chap like me should be surrounded by beautiful young women. Merel is on the left of the picture and Sarah is on the right. Unfortunately all these girls wear really high heels so I end up looking like a dwarf!
On the left is Clarinde and on the right is Théa. These girls left last year and received 9 A levels between them, all of them A*
Clarinde gave me this lovely fish picture that she drew herself. In addition to being an artist Clarinde is an experienced horse rider, a Chinese speaker and a nimble and talented rock climber!
This is Anmol
Anmol´s fantastic landscape – it reminds me of the work of the impressionist George Seurat
fishydreams 