(Note to self: Must kill housemates for watching the Sound of Music the other week)

I made it. In spite of the incompetence and shambolic organisation (They invited me for an interview on the 21st of April last year - trouble was that they sent the leter in June) of my training provider I managed to complete my year as a student teacher.

The last day was highly emotional with pupils signing petitions to try to get me to say, writing poems about yours truly, shaking my hand and refusing to let go for a whole minute and lots and lots of "we'll miss you"s. Even the form that I'd been with seemed sad to say goodbye and I didn't even know them that well.

The problem now is that I've got a great big hole in my life left by 150 wonderful little (some not so little - bigger than me in fact) people who I will in all probability never see ever again: the girl who flirted with me at every opportunity, the girl sat next to her who acted as her conscience, the boy who couldn't stop himself singing, talking or getting out of his seat, the girl who couldn't do algebra because she was blonde, the year nines who wanted to know the answer to questions ranging from 'who was the first prime minister?' to 'can you cry under water?', the boy who had to misfortune of being born a generation or two too late to be in Monty Python, the year tens who couldn't do 2 x 4 without using a timetable square, the lovely year eights who always said 'hello', the year sevens who actually laughed at my terrible attempts at putting humour into the classroom, the year nine girls who used the mirrors I'd handed out for looking at symmetry to check their make-up, the boy who couldn't get his words out quick enough when answering questions in class, the poor girl who called me 'dad', the dangerously good looking sixth-former, the pupils who were prepared to do 'optional' work, the boys who valued my opinions about then world cup, the year nines with their breath-mints trying to cover up a smokey smell, the year sevens who worshipped the ground I walked on and so, so many more.