St. George’s College (Week #75) – Day #343

Date for Entry: (Tuesday 25 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:12 – WD:52, (Td:3)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning was a very hard trouble to wake up from the couch. Didn't want to get anything sweet that Daddy was offering me constantly. There was a long wait for the maxi again. I had a new driver driving the maxi this morning. Thankfully it was sunny and no rain to wet me down. Still wasn't feeling so good but by the time that I went to block A, I had been better.

    I had breakfast and then went to see “Jess” and she messaged me at 9:15 this morning to remind me of putting in the marks. She first wanted to know how I got pages on the Excel file. She was accustomed to seeing the continuous viewing of cells in the normal view. We got some marks for the form twos and then recess went on.

    I forgot to go and check Mrs. Allen Brown for the uniform discussion. “Jess” went to her choir. Not sure if she told me anything. I went to look for Mrs. Allen Brown during lunch time but she wasn't there. At the end of lunch, I packed up and went back to the staff room. “Jess” was taking too long to come back. I felt like leaving early from school. I went through some of the information on the intellectual property office's website. It was great to read about it.

    Right after Dr. Jogi was taking ice cream so I ended up taking some with him. Mrs. Allen Brown found me in the same area and showed me the sheet of paper with changes for the school uniform. She also said that she sent me PDFs of the school's student manual for me to see it. I shared a joke with Mrs. Santana that I could have made over the entire book like if it was a UWI textbook being given to me.

    Mrs. Ramsingh had a good discussion about the appreciation for dialect. I discovered that “Maria” wasn't there when Susan told me. She said that they were going to close off the Block C staff room and once that happened no one could enter because of the rat issue. This was because of rats running around the staff room and they had to treat it with it.

    Mrs. Santana and I had a good laugh when I got in her car. Later that afternoon she had to make a full spin around back to the school compound. Daddy and I went to Isa when I got to Curepe. He was super busy and I asked for the price of the catalogue card and subject cards to be worked on for next week Friday.

    There was another to add to the list for coats which was the reward card. I did this late in the night after coming up with the dress code policy for Mrs. Allen Brown. I hope that there are no changes required from her. I will have to call Clarence about this Sunday school if we are going to get to chat with the children as a group and introduce ourselves as librarians.

    I hope things work out with the library. I'm not sure exactly if anything else is required to do editing in the documents made by myself. But sometimes I may just doubt and think that it could probably work. I'll see what time brings along. I just pray that there won't be any more strike downs in church as there already have been many.

 

LINK(S):

• St. George’s Dress Policy.
• Images of Dressing Policy.

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(8:15 am – 3:28 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #74) – Day #339

Date for Entry: (Tuesday 18 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:11 – WD:48, (Td:6)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning, the rain took dominance of the sky. I dressed in casual clothing to get help. I hope for it to be an easy day today. I was also hoping to get “Jess” with the mark entries into the mark book completed. She didn't come all morning. I got to watch all the grassy grounds turn into wet ponds. The football pool became a pool long before recess.

    This morning, as soon as I signed the book and went to the staff room in Block C, Shiva asked me to watch his students doing an exam. He waited for me to get up the stairs until I got to the right door. There was one entering doing an exam that looked like a worksheet. I had to open up the umbrella again to get up the staircase. Praise God it didn't. Praise God that the rain eased up for me to walk back down the stairs.

    I had a good conversation with Mr Ramdat before going over to Dr Allison and getting December 2024 forms sorted into their folders before meeting Miss Gittens. I didn't feel good waiting in the staff room. I was only hoping to go home to do library work. But it all went away.

    Miss Gittens and I chatted outside Mr Bain's classroom with Miss Mary and Miss Jones about the exams and the short space of time. I got my journal entry for yesterday done quickly. It still felt like forever to finish. The lunchtime came by very quickly also. I was surprised that the 5th and 6th periods went by quickly too.

    Some time had passed before I got to write out the borrowing cards that I had for the library. I hoped to have the library open to open tomorrow on the Labor Day holiday. Seems as if Ria and Alex won't do that work anytime soon. Miss Antoinette was by the table in the art room marking work done by the form 4 students. I got all of the work done in the cards and got the borrowing cards inserted into the card pockets that night. I felt so tired and sick.

    I only got to block K for the last 10 minutes of school. Miss Soodeen wanted to find out why I got to the staff room late. I told her that the rain kept me stranded on the other side of the school since morning.

 

LINK(S):

• Images of Envelope & Exam Timetable.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(8:20 am – 3:24 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #73) – Day #337

Date for Entry: (Friday 14 June 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 25 July 2024)

[T2, W:10 – WD:46, (Td:4)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning I did not have a sober awakening. I ended up on the couch fighting to wake up. I had a pain in my eyes with some headaches. I felt bad walking through the streets. Two Georgians were with me in their maxi. The office was empty again as usual. I got to the staff room soon after while our eye was in session. So luckily I wasn't late for class at all.

    There were two men and a lady with a big box of doubles in the staff room. I wasn't feeling good still. They gave me a double and then before they packed up, Ms Soodeen told us that we could then go back for seconds. I took another one with medium pepper. The first one was mixed with almost everything. The taste was nice and not that upsetting but the bara was very oily. I remember that Ms Panchu was telling me she got up very early that morning to fry all the bars by herself. I told her it was really good.

    When I got to class in the music room, twelve students were having their practical exams on the PAN instruments. This took up the full four periods till the end of recess. Ms. Mary and I didn't chat for much longer. When I told her I was sick and off I fell, she said that she could see it in my face. Back in the staff room, I got my set of catalogue cards rewritten onto new ones cut this week. It was nice for the cataloguer's name to go on their back. The last set was signed in capital letters and looked much better.

    Before compiling all of this I got to share with “Choo Choo” and Mrs. Ramsing the library cards, borrowing cards, and all the other stuff that I had created for the APC library. The staff was already gathered in the library. Some of them who already served the circular bowl. Sadly I didn't remember to take a picture of what happened and their food. I brought my tray but they didn't need it again. I had to wash it back out.

    There was no water in the pipe by the front of building A so I went to the administration kitchen. To my shocking surprise, everyone was there and I got my tray washed in front of them. Dion didn’t hear me with the cake in his hand. If I could have lifted him gently to get to the sink I may have just had to do so the way he couldn't hear me. Mr. Harry's mouth was heard to the fullest in the center of the room and I left the block game. Lunchtime ended soon.

    2M who went to the room. Children who didn't get the assessment still were marked first. They were then given notes on the Trinidad and Tobago genre for their genre topics. The rest of the class was taken to give them the listening. Thankfully the period of teaching was over quickly.

    After school, the Spanish papers were being stapled for form one. The rain was very heavy. Mr Bain came in before he left and gave an interesting comment. Donna gave me a joke that if she was younger I would marry her. I gave back a joke and said I didn't know someone was saying something to me. Everyone laughed out. She said that I was bad and I thanked her for it as a compliment. I suppose the weather and the time spent with the teachers was most appreciated by me.

    Getting up to Happiness Grocery on the upper part of Curepe I walked to meet Daddy. He came across the road as soon as I got in front of the terminal building again. We went upstairs to his room. He said that he had been there since 3 PM. There was a long wait for Isa to come out. He told me when making the receipts that I could have him work out a quote for more at a cheaper price.

    Hopefully, we will work on something nice for the library. As soon as I was done eating the time was 6:30 PM. I got the guillotine outside and worked on cutting until minutes after 1 AM. I hope that I will get some main catalogues uploaded to the Google Sheets tonight or tomorrow. Packages for the Sunday school children were made and placed into a plastic bag for Sunday. I asked Mr Barrett to open the church for us at 2 PM. He was shown what I did for the Sunday school over a private WhatsApp message.

 

LINK(S):

• Teachers' Individual Lates and Absences Files.

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(8:10 am – 4:32 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #68) – Day #311

Date for Entry: (Thursday 09 May 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Monday 22 July 2024)

[T2, W:05 – WD:23, (Td:5)*].

Dear Diary,

    This morning I woke up late, still tired and had no rest from the exam session. I was able to get to school in the first period. I had some time to eat my pie and then get to running. Used the washroom first and then went in.

    There was no sign of “Jess” until she replied to my message. The children were sent down to the music room. There was a problem with leaving the classroom again and behaviour. The children were taken into three groups and split up under various pans to try playing C major and F major. “Shem” did a wonderful try on his first attempt at the sixth bass. I recall “Mr. Williams” tried the tenor bass and we had some difficulty trying to find the pitch D and A on them.

    The marker labels had faded on the instruments. Some of them were given the names of the instruments that they tried. The music room was so hot. Thankfully, the period went quickly. Ms. Gloria closed up the room and I spoke with Ms. Mary. She came to school on her day off. She had a nice dress on. Ms. Gittens came to join us too. We went back to the art room and I continued labelling up the envelopes for the CXC students. I had started working on these since the second period.

    “Moonie” came to take some of the landscape envelopes I gave him. I called him back to label one so he’d know what to put on theirs. I gave him the blue marker and he went down to the exam room where Ms. Gittens was. I learned of a Form 4 student helping Ms. Down there. It felt like there was a need to move everything down on the front side of the school towards lunchtime.

    I had to rush down to the art room to get all of the rest of the envelopes. Another need to go back to the art room for my tray. I put all the stationery that I needed in the tray to use and decided to go to the admin for a roll of clear masking tape. It came out very handy. I met “Jess” and she was wondering why I didn't speak for long but told her that the Wi-Fi hadn't sent me a message. I was surprised that lunchtime came by. Instead of asking a student, I watched the sun and got confirmation.

    There was one point where we ended up in the admin office and all around the desk area there were endless boxes papered up in brown paper as packages. They had to be moved around to get through to the cupboards. We had some last-minute labels to stick on in the envelopes. Two male students helped us pack the packages into the principal's car. Not sure if the gentleman driving was her husband.

    We had to wait for one student to bring a textile design. Miss gave me her bag to take to the art room. She said that Mark would be there in the back. I thought it was Matthew coming. The way we were both rushing, we were out of our minds saying something while thinking a different thing. We spoke in front waiting but forgot to bring out Calvin's large submission. I had to rush down the lines on the envelopes and then slip the project in. This project and the envelope had to go into the car separately. I folded the envelope for it to fit.

    Long moments later, while Miss and I were chatting in front of the administrative office's door, she told me that it was Myiesha coming in “Tia's” car to send us the art submission. When she came, the principal came out of the car to the side of the bench. I went swiftly into the admin office and set down the tray on the bench. The crash of the tray was heard throughout the corridor. Miss Gittens was walking back to the art room and she asked loudly to her down the corridor if the exam room had any more of the envelopes. The principal said the office had but didn’t know about the kinds we had. I told her loudly walking over from them to the exam room that we had some more.

    I sent the envelope down on the bench and the principal saw what I was talking about. She said, “Daryl, Miss Giddens owe and a whole lot, boy. I listened because Miss was writing up the form to stick on and I was busy filling out Maisha's information on the envelope with my marker. Everyone in the corridor passing by saw what was going on. I got the project in and then went with the Principal to the car and had it put in.

    We still had to wait. “Kimmy” went with Miss Gittens to the office to give her the sample sheet. The principal took it and they went off. Miss Gittens went with a drummer named Brother Mark. I sat with Myiesha at the end and felt so exhausted. As we watched them all drive off the compound I said a prayer and we both sat there until 2:45 in the evening. We spoke about a lot of different things. I left her when her friend came to go to block A.

    Only Miss Dana and “Mr Marlon” were there. The other staff teachers had left already. “Mr Marlon” and I sat in there in the cool air conditioning and we chatted until 4.30 PM. I was wondering if “Maria” had gone without me. They were still there with Dana trying to find Spanish comments for Susan's clinical supervision. I gave her some ideas in case the real cookies and a real glass of water to drink were not workable. I told her that she could print a picture of a cookie and a picture of a glass of water so they could hold it up instead of breaking a real glass.

    I went home and had some sad realization that I left my flash drive in my pencil case which was in the administration office on my desk. So this meant no typing of minutes could have been done tonight. I also could not do journal work because the diary was also in the class bag in the administration office. I spent the rest of the night in front of the TV watching Summer House and then the night was over after playing car racing on the tablet. I'm not sure what will happen tomorrow in two plans to COTT.

 

LINK(S):

• Image of Envelope Challenge (2024).

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(8:15 am – 5:49 pm)

Day #312 – (7:49 am – 4:16 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #66) – Day #298

Date for Entry: (Monday 22 April 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Saturday 20 July 2024)

[T2, W:03 – WD:10, (Td:4)*].

Dear Diary,

    On the bus route, “Mr. Edwards” came out of a bus and we travelled to Valsayn in the same maxi. Roti's met us and he stayed back chatting with Daddy. The office was dark and empty as usual, and two parents patiently waited.

    As I was finishing up my spicy chicken pie, “Choo Choo” shared a lovely chocolate cupcake with me. I didn't even remember to take a picture of it. She did ask me at some point if I to bring another for me tomorrow. I said yes. Then I told her thank you.

    I met “Jess” in 2L. She had the seats and chairs rearranged to make a seating chart. The class was divided into groups by the columns to sing the college song, and do an act, and were marked out of 25. Participation 5 points, lyrics 10 points, and pitch 10 points. We walked to Miss Gitten's after. I remained to help her review booklets and pieces 1-3 from students. She asked me to do an independent markup.

    At recess time, I got the new syllabus appendix with the rubrics printed. We had to figure out the tables for creativity, design, and IE. I still have to find out what IE means. Piece 3 had different tables. I went to see Dr. Allison, but she asked for half an hour. I got lost away helping Miss Kittens. We finished with the documents that had to be printed and the amount. It would be better to have Miss review and have them print.

    I went back to see Dr. Allison. She was out in the office and she asked if I was here for the lates and absences, but we rescheduled for tomorrow. After school, Miss and I continued to work. We left the compound at 5.14 p.m. I had eight envelopes, stapled, trotted, ruled, and labels would be done tomorrow. We had to travel out and meet Daddy.

    That night, I had a lot of work to do. I had something else to do and finish first before the labels for the Visual Arts students. The last work was to t-shirt payments form for the MTC unity work. Miss found it better to type in the names since it would be plenty to write in. 

    We also discovered that people with 3x sizes needed another column, so I had the form revised and then added WhatsApp over to Miss. I enjoyed more cheese balls and got a call from another about a job at President College out the road by me. Hopefully, I get the time to call and find out about the job.

LINK(S):

• Image of Visual Arts SBA Labels.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(7:50 am – 5:14 pm)

St. George’s College (Week #55) – Day #248

 Date for Entry: (Monday 22 January 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Friday 26 January 2024)

[T2, W:04 – WD:14, (Td:2)*].

Dear Diary,

    I was sick at home today. I got a call from Ms. Mustapha for help to make two forms for the marchers. One form was for the marchers and another was for payments. I decided to make a form that fused all the information to make one document.

    I had to call Mrs Santana first to ask for a list of the students from Mitchell House. Before I sat down to get started, I got a call from Mrs. Gittens. She said that the baby came at 12:39 am. I'm very proud of the form; it seemed to be workable.

    It took me the entire evening to fix the two lists before making the form for Ms. Mustapha. I had the new list emailed back to Mrs Santana so that she could add it to her archives before creating the payment form.

Link(s):

• List of Mitchell House Students (2024) - Remade.**
• List of Mitchell House Students (2024) – Year Group.**
• Marchers and Payments Form (No. 1). **
• Marchers and Payments Form (No. 2). **

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(8:03 am – 4:52 pm)

Project Runway 20 - EPISODE 14: "The Finale"

 Date for Entry: (Thursday 31 August 2023)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Monday 18 December 2023)

** The Finale **

THE EPISODE

    The finale was indeed a long and tiring event to watch. There was a feeling as if all of the work was given to us to do. This particular chapter of the book was extremely tiring, including the finale sketch and the important works section.

    The Top 3 designers were given 3 and a half hours to go shopping in any store around the city that they wanted with a budget of ten thousand dollars. The difference from the other season was that the designers were asked to create eight looks instead of ten and the duration of the working time was eight days instead of three full months.

    The designers were given one of the eliminated contestants from this season as an assistant. Bishme worked with Prajje, Laurance worked with Kara Saun, and Brittany worked with Fabio. It was nice of Prajje to comfort Bishme in the final moments of the final presentation. Bishme was announced the winner of the season. I liked the lovely tribute made to her sister in the end.

    The judging was done by Nina Garcia, Elain Welteroth, and Zac Posen in place of Brandon Maxwell, and the guest judge was Billy Porter in a beautiful blue outfit. Many of the comments came from the judges and also from earlier on the show by a gentleman named Marc Karimzadeh. I decided to keep the section for the designers’ recorded comments during their runway presentation.

MY DESIGN

    This design did not seem easy to create. I understood the feeling of pride that the designers got when they had a reflection on the season’s work as I laid all of the work that I did for the season on my couch. I was very proud of some of the work that I did. I could see that I tried in some of the sketches that did not look as if they would make it to the High category.

    The first vision I saw for this design was a pink fabric in the form of a dress. When I looked at the lady’s head, she had a hat on but it was a toy boat. I found that the boat would have been suitable since there was an avant-garde challenge using toys. The tenor pan handbag was recycled from my second avant-garde challenge from episode thirteen, “The Sky’s the Limit”.

    I took the earrings from the client Challenge episode nine, “Below Decked Out”. The short skirt to the front was wrapped with a similar pattern from episode six, “The 90s”.  

    I was not sure who the person in vision was but trying to measure her appearance on paper was not easy. However, I began to see how it related to Miss (Bernadette) Paul without even realising it. I learned on Saturday that her nickname is ‘Pinky’ and the dress is Pink and she is thinking of going on cruises and there is the ship on the model’s head. So, I thought it fit that the dedication would do to Miss Paul.

 

Link(s):

• Images from the Episode.**

Daryl Zion M. Ali

Project Runway 20 - EPISODE 13: "The Sky's the Limit"

Date for Entry: (Thursday 31 August 2023)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Sunday 17 December 2023)

** The Age of Towers **

THE EPISODE

    The penultimate episode came and finished in a blink of an eye. One more challenge to go before and the winner will be announced. The episode was shown on the night of our Independence Day (Trinidad and Tobago). I had to do a second recording of the episode to get everything covered for my chapter.

    Tonight’s episode came with a trip to Summit: One Vanderbilt. The designers were sent to a floor with many windows through the ceiling and floor. I loved the silver balloons around the room. A surprise challenge was to make another avant-garde look based on architecture. There was a lot of fright for me with Rami and things didn’t look so bright for him coming down toward the end.

    Sadly, there had to be an elimination and he had to go. There was a very long first model fitting section. Some of us had a good laugh watching Christian try on Brittany’s jacket. The challenge also reminded me of Coral and this same challenge. I found that she should have been given that win in her season as a winner was announced tonight.

 

MY DESIGN

    The drawing for this challenge was not planned. At first, the finished sketch was not something I was proud of. I envisioned the model from season 19 who wore Zaden’s last outfit in a blue top with orange and blue straps woven together at the upper chest level. There would have been rec pockets with a very light and sheer pink mesh as the flaps to cover the pockets.

    The stomach area could not have been done properly but it was supposed to be fabric with circular stitched ‘beads’ that shone in the light, as the glass reflection of windows in the building towers. The skirt too would match the upper chest area.

    I took the idea for the bag as a tenor pan that was supposed to mimic the silver balls in the silver ballroom. The same would be for the top but mimic the sun and the moon that moves over these building towers.

    I chose to have arm writings and they would be cut in un even rectangles just like one of the previous Miss Universe crowns to mimic the shapes of the towers. I spent some time thinking of Mr Kolb to get some ideas for this and hope that he enjoys it if he gets to see it.

 

Link(s):

Images from the Episode.**

Daryl Zion M. Ali