Last night I was talking to someone at a party and inevitably the subject of "what do you do?" came up. I told them that I was training to teach maths. I braced myself for the usual "Urrrgghh. I think I'm going to be sick. My god, what were you thinking?!" But instead they said: "I liked maths at school." Even after I'd pointed out that maths was the one with all the numbers they persisted with this claim. I could have hugged them, except for the fact that they looked about sixteen or seventeen and that's exactly the sort of thing that makes some teachers _bad_ people.

Even so I can now start the count of people who weren't completely and utterly psychologically scarred by mathematics. It current stands at:

1 (one)

Less than two weeks after finishing for Christmas I find myself preparing to go back to school. After three years at university where holidays last for as long as a Channel 4 "100 greatest...." show this is completely unacceptable. Tut, who said teachers have it easy?