CERN

We have a very tired department this morning as we arrived back from CERN at midnight last night.

It was worth the tiredness though. On Wednesday we arrived in Switzerland, booked into our hotel and then headed to Geneva for a tour of the United Nations building. We'd not done that before and it was a bit of a last minute thought but I think we'll probably do it again as it was a really interesting tour and the students all said they enjoyed it.

After a night on the town in Geneva we were up bright and early for our day at CERN. First we had a talk about the history of CERN and what they do there, then we were driven to the far side of the ring to visit the CMS cavern. This was a first for us and very impressive! If only we'd been there 2 days earlier - they had the detector open then for maintenance, but now it's closed again as they are getting ready to fire everything back up early next year. After CMS we had a visit to the magnet testing facility then time to relax in the CERN canteen before we headed back to the airport for the flight home.

All in all it was a pretty successful trip. we had the occasional misplaced passport and some slow moving students, but no one got lost or injured and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Next up - Rome again. Or maybe not as the school are still deciding whether we are allowed two physics trips in one term. I won't be heartbroken if I don't have to book another set of flights!

A rod for my own back

When I took on the TA thing (which is going pretty well and is mostly good fun), my department agreed that in order for me to manage my increased work load I should drop a lot of the admin stuff I do for them. This term I have had very few photocopying or data entry requests which is great!


The annual trip to CERN is upon us again and of course my HoD has dealt with all the paperwork and admin himself. Wait, no sorry - I got confused for a second there. What I meant to say was that I have done all the paperwork and admin yet again. This morning I did the final job, which was getting the bus timetables for the various journeys we'll be making in Switzerland. Maybe I should have insisted that HoD deal with it himself for once. On the other hand I know that if I don't do it then it won't get done or at least not properly, and then once we are there HoD will utter his usual plaintive cry of 'Labtech666, Help!' and I'll end up sorting it out anyway.


I grumbled about this exact same issue a year ago and of course nothing has changed. By being generally pretty efficient and helpful (unless you catch me on a bad day) I have made it very easy for the teachers to get lazy.


Still I get a free trip to Geneva out of it, so it's not all bad!

Trips

The annual trip to CERN went off this morning. I'm not able to go this year, but as usual I have been heavily involved in the planning and organisation.

As I was dealing with last minute paperwork yesterday I got to wondering whether I am too much of a pushover. Surely the teachers should be doing this stuff themselves? I know that my HoD panics and flaps and is not the most organised person in the world, so I do all this stuff for him because at least that way I know it will be done properly.

For the CERN trip I have:

* Organised getting the passport details from all the students (making photocopies, recording info in a spreadsheet)
* Booked the flights
* Liased with the school transport manager to book the coach to the airport
* Printed out the boarding passes
* Arranged the groups for the guided tour
* Organised which students are sharing which rooms at the hotel (HoD booked the hotel)
* Downloaded and printed out maps of the hotel, highlighting where the nearest bus stops are
* Printed out timetables for all the buses that the group will need to take between Geneva airport, CERN and the hotel
* Organised all the above paperwork in a file for HoD to take with him

Genuine question to any fellow technicians reading this - Am I an idiot? Should I have said no a long time ago to doing all of this?

Once they get back from CERN we start all over again, as it's only 7 weeks until the trip to Rome and the Vatican Observatory. Arrgh!

Happy new (school) year!

So, we're a week and a half into the new school year and already it feels as though we've never been away!

As always there have been lots of changes to the timetable, and which student is in which set, but I think it's just about sorted now. The only problem we're having in physics is the teachers who haven't checked their timetable to see which room they are supposed to be teaching in.

We have more classes, and teachers, than ever in science this year and still only the same 9 labs which isn't enough when up to 14 lessons can be happening all at once, so we have what is rapidly becoming the usual scenario of science lessons being sent to the far flung corners of the school. Sadly though teachers don't always check their timetable and assume that they will be in their usual lab. Several times already I have had to remind them that practical lessons are not a viable option when they are in a maths or business studies room.

Maybe by half term we'll all know where we are, but somehow I doubt it. :)

Preparations for this year's CERN trip are coming along nicely. We are going a bit earlier than usual this time and amazingly the process of booking flights was remarkably painless. HoD was a lot firmer about setting deadlines for the students to get their permission and passport info in and it really seemed to pay off. 35 students and 4 staff this time - our largest CERN trip ever. It's unfortunate that the school chaplain is coming again. I'd hoped last year was a one off, but with any luck the trip will be enough fun that he won't put too much of a damper on things.

Trips

The CERN trip went very well, all things considered. Travelling abroad with 30 teenagers is rather stressful, and feels a bit like herding cats at times, but to their credit they managed to be at all the meeting points at the right times and we didn't lose anyone.

Next on the agenda - Rome. The trip to the Vatican Observatory heads off in under 3 weeks so we have to finalise the paperwork for that.

It never ends!

CERN here we come

Tomorrow we head off to Switzerland for our 4th annual visit to CERN. I'm looking forward to it, but as always I am at the stage now where I am terrified that something will go wrong and it will be my fault.

We started booking flights etc pretty much as soon as term started, in September, but it's really difficult to pin down some of these kids and their parents. One lad's family seemed to feel that his passport was in some way classified information and were incredibly reluctant to give us the details we needed to confirm his flight. Another lad has decided that, even though his parents filled in all the paperwork, he doesn't actually want to go on the trip.

My eternal nightmare for every physics trip is that we will turn up to the airport and find that not everyone has a plane ticket, or that I've booked it for the wrong day. At least I'm not responsible for booking hotel rooms. HoD dealt with that, so if we don't have enough beds it's not my fault!

The prep room travel agency..

... is open for business.

Can it really be that time again already? Yup, I'm afraid so. Today we book the flights for this year's CERN trip. We've got the largest group yet - 32 of us altogether including the college chaplain which should be 'interesting'.

We're meant to be heading back to the Vatican Observatory in early december as well, so I expect I'll be booking more flights in the very near future.