The assignment was to write a conversation in which Speaker A is appealing to Speaker B to change something and explaining why the change needs to be made.

What I got was more random than that.

At the end of the year students tend to give up. They figure that, no matter what they do, they’ve already passed, or they figure that, no matter what they do, they’ve already failed.

Either way, they focus their energy into other courses and the course I teach is of much less importance. As a result, end of year exams can be quite the debacle.

First you have students who ignored the rule to save all their worksheets (the end of year final is comprehensive) and therefore can’t study; and Second, you have the students who figure that if even if they fail my class they can still move on.

This comes to me as exam essays that don’t match the assignment. I’ve got conversations about new inventions, conversations about new gadgets, conversations about school and conversations about nothing.

These students get a low score, but they do make me more sympathetic to the students who actually follow the assignment.

Somewhere between enjoying Goldfinger and mocking You Only Live Twice, which proves all you need to have to pass as Japanese is fake eyelids, badly trimmed hair and stooped shoulders and if you have all that no one notices you are too tall or speak Japanese with a Scottish accent, I managed to get some work done.

(Note: the most unbelievable thing in You Only Live Twice is the notion that someone could build a giant underground fortress on a tiny populated Japanese island without everyone on the island knowing about it. Well that and the tiny spacesuit fitting the tall Bond, James Bond.)

(Note Two: I currently possess two of the three requirement to pass as Japanese.)

But I digress, which pretty much explains today.

Part of the problem of keeping movies and other noise on in the background as you mark is that you’re always walking a balance between “just interesting enough” and “much too interesting”. For example, I realized I hadn’t seen Thunderball and ended paying too much attention to that film, at least until they wasted time with endless underwater shaky-cam fights that I fast-forwarded through.

As for Goldfinger, well, Honor Blackman and, well, yeah, that’s pretty much it. That’s the distraction. (Do you expect me to mark? No, Mr. Lively, I expect you to DROOL.)

I have a similar problem (distraction, not drooling) if I have music on in the background or have reached the point where I need headphones to drown out any family distraction. The music has to be entertaining but can’t be too catchy or too nostalgic. Random radio channels on iTunes usually work best but they can’t be too shrieky or too bland.

Eventually, all the background noise goes away and I just push through. Eventually.

I spent a good portion of the day marking exams, which is another way of saying I’m currently in the middle of a James Bond marathon. My goal is to watch the entire series from Doctor No to Daniel Craig.

I’ve already watched Doctor No and From Russia With Love and will watch Goldfinger and Thunderball tomorrow. On occasion, I have marked some exams and will, on occasion, mark some tomorrow, too.

Part of the problem is that I’m not only still teaching other classes but i’ve also got a long time to mark the exams. Because of this, the work expands, or slows, to fill the time.

However, after this long, stretched out time, I’ll have four day to finish the next batch of exams.

I’ll probably rewatch the Alien movies then.

One of the things that drives you insane is doing the same thing over and over and getting the same results. At least that’s true when listening tests are involved.

Today was the high school second year exams at the school where I work and, as always, since that day, I approached it with a certain amount of trepidation. That was made worse when the guy who’d worried me before showed up.

As happened before, he pointed me toward the console as if it were my job to run it and, as before, I said “No way in hell.” However, because he was early, I expected he would perform a level check.

He didn’t and when the listening started it was obviously too low. He adjusted the volume a bit, but the levels were still too low. Finally, the last listening was low enough that he was forced to take extreme measures. At that point, one of my colleagues and the head of the English Department came rushing in with reports of complaints in a couple rooms.

I explained how there’d been no level check and was asked why none of the other teachers had, as they were supposed to, been in the hall making sure the listening was loud enough. I said that in 17 years at the school no one had told me we were supposed to do that.

I also pointed out that the technician had not done a volume check and while my colleague showed me how to intervene to adjust the volume, the department head told me that teachers weren’t actually supposed to touch the system, that was for the technicians.

They told me to stay put whilst they rushed around putting out fires. In the end we replayed the first two parts of the listening test and everything seemed okay.

And I’m sure it will be, until it’s time for the next listening test.