As you know (unless you don't), I am the President of Shrewsbury Sixth Form College. This is quite a hectic job; late nights, furious meetings and chillin' in my empty office.You can see me and Sana, our female president, chairing a meeting whilst I eat pom bears and pose for photographs. [Above]
Having an office is pretty cool. It's fairly big, smells like paint, and it makes me feel like a big shot. Local cool-cat Wendy, our new yoof [sic] support person is in the office next door. She shouts at me when I lock it, and shouts at me when I forget to lock it. Her office is much more impressive, and is well stocked with tea, ginger snaps, condoms and chlamydia tests, all of which come in handy on a Thursday lunch time. She also has a fairly large plant and some comfy chairs. So we just sit in her office really, cos I don't have any comfy chairs and I can't even dream about acquiring a nice plant.
A few nights ago, we had an open evening for prospective students and their parents, and I was told to man a 'College Council' stall for everybody to come and look at. There would be free food. However, when I arrived, I was dismayed to see that because I was technically 'very late', I had missed out on the buffet. I managed to hide some cold pasta in a prospectus, and headed to my stand. Half the board behind my empty table had pictures of college council officers and some wildly interesting pie charts. It's worth noting that through a fair voting system, I managed to blag it so that almost every single officer is a either a close friend, female and hot, or in the case of Josh, both.
It's fair to say that my friends aren't the type of people who turn up for open evenings, and it wouldn't be unfair to say that none of the lazy bastards showed. It also wouldn't be unfair to say that I forgot to tell them we were having an open evening, a crucial job in the end, yet one I skipped over when chatting to the Deputy Head. The manning of the stool would therefore be a solo mission as Sana was having a 'family meal'. The other side of the board (that I have neglected to mention until now) displayed lots of candle pictures and interesting posters to do with Amnesty International, and also lots of photos of the college summer expedition to Zambia.
When I am faced with candles, Elephants and keen-looking parents, I can do only one thing. In my defence, I was bored and lonely. I started off telling parents that we found an elephant (gesture vaguely to picture) on the college car park, and had to inform the authorities. By the end of the night, I was telling vivid storied about the Elephant Vs Hippo fights we have in the hall on the first Friday of every month. Gesturing to the amnesty pictures, I would defend my stories by saying we weren't being 'cruel' (as one naive, dimmer parent suggested), because we use candles instead of electric light which scares the animals.
The best bit for me was when a well spoken woman asked me about the amnesty leaflet with
'DICTATORS
FASCISTS
MURDERERS'
emblazoned across it. I casually responded that these were the words that most frequently appeared in a survey of students asked to describe the staff.
I will leave you with some final words of wisdom in the form of a poem.
While I joked and jested
with bald or breasted,
And I sighed or wept,
or spied and leapt
'pon many a gullible visitor;
I remembered then,
as a young a man walking,
asking questions of students,
laughing and talking,
That the world will pounce,
on those who permit it:
Stay strong, my lad,
when the truth is omitted.
Ps. Here's me with a fit bird again. Nice.
