It was 2017, and I, a Wits-trained science and maths teacher, was four years into a job I had not fully under- stood. And nothing in my four-year bachelor of education degree at the university had prepared me to teach in one. Neither finding is something South African teacher training equips new educators to expect or manage. My recommendation is direct: teacher training programmes need to build in specific modules on teach- ing in full-service schools, rather than assuming that mainstream teaching strategies will simply transfer. It's a small-scale, personal piece of research, built from one teacher's journal entries and conversations rather than large datasets.