High up, but getting that sinking feeling...

Categories: Rural, Glaciation, Geography General

Well, that's it-holiday over, I'm afraid. I wanted to share a wee story about one of the things I did while on holiday with a couple of my classes tomorrow. My friend is a very keen hillwalker, and had invited me to try a couple of hills previously. I had other commitents, but was keen to give it a go at some point, remembering back to scaling the mighty Goat Fell in Arran with my dad when I was nine...how hard could this be? The answer was, at times, seemingly impossible. He took me to a Munroe (hill above 3000ft) called Beinn Narnainn, near Arrochar. The path had no walk in-you started at the roadside and just went straight up a vertical. the worst thing about the climb was the number of false summits. I kept seeing what I thought was the top, only to reach the ridge and see more of the mountain in front of me. Moreover, I had 'come prepared' as had been suggested. I seemed to think that jeans would be a good idea for climbing a mountain. This seemed an even worse idea when the rain started. Mick was firing on ahead, and disappearing out of sight-he's a very considerate guy-while I seemed to be walking backwards through tar. I thought about stopping and turning back about 4 times, but ploughed on. When I got to the summit, the weather became very chill and a strong wind came across us, with near vertical rain. Would I do it again? Absolutely! I have to say that I thought of myself as relatively fit until I did this, possibly the most physically demanding thing that I have ever done despite playing sports for many years, but the sense of achievement when I got to the summit was immense. So why am I rambling on about this on a teacher's blog? Well, I moblogged the episode and am using some of the photos tomorrow as a refresher through this:-

This will hopefully allow us to move on from glaciation with Higher, which I felt we trod water a little with before the break.
I will mostly be finding out where exactly my classes are and doing a little revision on June's topics-so for s4, we will do a little rural revision on the Green Revolution. I haven't forgotten about the vokis, and still intend to use these, but audacity seemed to have vanished from the machines in the base and I'll need to relocate it or get it reinstalled. I also want to emphasise how important this year will be, and really intend to step up past paper practise as homework to prepare you for the exam.
With Advanced Higher, I really want to introduce you to the flexible learning pack-you go on your field weekend in September, and need to be able to use most of the techniques in section one by then. I also have some very useful links for stats - Geography Pages as ever has a host of useful resources, and there are some resources on LTS which I'll be using-I'm going to ask a couple of you to stick these onto the wiki for your reference as your page.
Finally, I may have a first year class, and can follow up some of the work we did during the two day visit in June. I am losing my s2 and s3 classes this year. I can't emaphasise enough how much I enjoyed teaching these classes- I am sure you'll have a great time with Miss McGill, and hope to see some of you again further up the school. If you keep up the levels of work and attitude that you have shown so far, I am certain that your time in Geography will be a great success. Good luck.