squawk squawk! Flap flap!..

..it's re-enrolment day. Well, for our ESOL students anyway, and in fact it's not such a bad idea: we sort out if they want to (or should) return, start filling in the forms, then book a time for them to return in september to complete the whole sorry affair. But, for the love of God, some people don't half make a meal of it - meaning the teachers. half of them are running round like it's the most stressful thing they've ever had to do in their lives. I've bagged the easy job of booking students onto the system.
Anyway, I'm increasingly kicking my heels at present, work-wise. I've more or less finished everything I need to do for the coming year, apart from up-and-coming stuff that I have to wait to come to me. The training for the 3 peaks comes along in fits and starts, but mostly straightforward. I've increased my cycling output to at least 10 miles a day, coupled with walking with a pack. Apart from yesterday, when there was the Academic English award ceremony and lunch, and I got slowly sozzled over the course of the afternoon and evening.

Mneeurrgghh. Monday and raining. So far, a somewhat tedious day of filing, sorting and planning and sorting out other people's IT problems blah blah blah. I'm already missing teaching - even my dull as ditchwater Academic English IFP group.
Annnyway, what to write? On friday, I went out with a group of students from the evening class. Nothing too special - we met at the Back of Beyond and chewed the fat over this, that and the other. Afterwards, I ended up at The Purple Turtle, where I haven't been for a couple of months. Thoroughly drunk, I propped up a corner and watched the joyous mayhem unfurl. The music crackled back and forth, ranging from sublime to ridiculous and back again - The Jam's 'Town Called Malice', followed by some Kylie, then chasing on its heels Liam Gallagher, and the rest of the bar, yelling 'Is it My i-MAG-i-NA-Tiion...' A sense of carefree, playful summer was in the air; It was a moment, one of many I have had there, where only the moment exists, only the ever-moving feast of pleasure that is now, an atmosphere that I have never really encountered anywhere else. It's quite probably the best bar in the world - if you love loud music, loud people, squalid floors and really bad bar fug.

Nearly payday.

Just counting out the change, now; Thanks to various circumstances, I've had to overspend a bit over the last few months, and I am now just living on the money I have in my pocket. Thank God it's an early payday, that's all.
I'm feeling somewhat overtired. For some reason, I managed to sink my way through nearly a bottle of wine and three bottle of Efes, falling asleep on the sofa at two this morning. Stupid! I had also done twelve miles of cycling and a five-mile yomp with a full backpack and gear, mainly to get more accustomed to it for the hike, but also to put a bit of weight on a slightly sore and dodgy ligament in my left foot. It held up well, but it was a walk mainly through countryside rather than a hard, rocky trail.

Just an average, no-classTuesday. It's just pleasant to get some work done, for once. Love teaching though I do, it means that for much of the year I'm stuck with all the quotidian, and have to chance to further myself or the programme that I run. Hopefully, I'll have the opportunity to do that this summer.
I reflected last night on the fact that I don't seem to be getting much learning done - that is, sitting down and studying something for the simple pleasure of learning something new. Oh yes, I pick stuff up day to day - it's my nature to notice and remember - but actually sitting down with book, notepad, pen and computer - no, it all gets lost in the tide of the everyday else. When was the last time I heard a new joke? when was the last time I looked at a subject for the first time? when was the last time I did something for the first time?
This last question is one that I've tried to face more squarely over the last few months. We all become accustomed to routines and habits - some good, some bad - for example, my habit of using dashes in entries, or drinking the whole bottle of wine when a glass would suffice. And as we plod these ruts again and again, we tend to cut ourselves off more from what is possible, and push them towards the improbable and finally, when custom or age weary us, the impossible. After which time, of course, we whine 'Oh, if only I'd done that', or 'If I hadn't done that, my life would have worked out so much different'. I want to explore new things, and take new directions, and not be consumed by what has been and not been in my life, nor by the easy choice of wandering down the same track.
Anyway, here's a picture of me, singing 'The Irish Rover' at the Ceilidh.

the Joy of Paperwork.

..and the joy of no classes for three months. Well, the final exams were on saturday, and my lessons are all done until September 11th; just a few months of clearing my desk, getting stuff ready, and lazing on holiday to come. I've had a pretty good weekend, all told, although I'm still chugging too many beers than are good for me. And now there are only 19 days to go until I do the Three Peaks.
Friday, after the listening exams, was spent clearing up my desk and putting in the recycling bin important paperwork that should have been done months ago. Well, they were apparently important at the time; many things lose significance if left long enough. In the evening, to RISC for the end of term Ceilidh. lots of students there, and v. enjoyable, though I had a couple of organic ciders too many.
Saturday, and I went into work early to set up the Orals. All straightforward, despite a thumping head. I got the first nervous students through, and it was good to see smiling faces afterwards. Spent afternoon either in the garden or watching that vicious match between Italy and the US, chugging beer.
I was up early again on sunday, and went for a short yomp over what pass for hills in my neck of the woods. After that, a morning of cleaning up and getting stuff ready for a father's day barbie, to which mum, dad and sis came. And again, too much booze. Hey Ho.

pics.

Some students sweating it out in an exam; My intermediate English class on their last day before their exam; and a frog I found nestling quite happily under my tomato plants last night.

exams. and booze (later).

Well, that's the first part of the week out of the way; Spending the whole day, two days in a row, with a bunch of people emitting fear sweat is not my idea of heaven. At least it got me out of the office. Overall, I'd say this year's groups of FCE and CAE candidates have had it fairly easy, especially compared to last year's debacle. They went away looking quite relieved. Now it's time for a beer, methinks. Although this may be construed as getting in the way of my fitness regime for the three peaks challenge, I can only feel it's justified.
Anyway, there's the footy on.

Booze and exams.

It's far too hot to worry about exams, yet that's exactly what I have been doing. I had to deliver a set of oral tests on saturday, which threatened to go arse over tit when the examiner turned up at the wrong location, but eventually sorted itself out. Thence to the pub for a qucik couiple of beers with the students, by way of saying farewell, then home and football and beer. lots of beer. However, I didn't get especially pissed, as I sweated most of it out. Ended up setting up the tent in the garden and sleeping in it, alongside my son, whose bright idea it was. Of course, this meant I woke up to the screeching of hundeds of birds as the night slowly faded away. Yesterday was largley spent in sweltering away and drinking more beer.

I wish I was a punk rocker...

....with green gob in my hair.
It's fairly obvious Sandi Thom hasn't a clue about what punk was; a visceral, energetic, angry experience, not initially politically motivated whatsoever. She seems to have this notion that they were fierce, yet compassionate, revolutionaries - or at least that's the gist of her bloody song. Now it would be amusing to take her back to Brixton, 1976, dressed in her notion of a punk rocker, accompanied by flowers in her hair.....
Sandi: Hey guys, look at me! I am a punk rocker! With flowers in my hair!
Everyone else: Kill the fucking hippy!
upon which they would render her flowers unto the floor, gob in her hair, and pogo on her head to friggin' in the rigging.

futile shoplifter.

Coming back from work at 9 p.m. on my bike, I slowed down and waited to cross the road to my local Tesco Express.
' 'Scuse me', said a voice behind me.
I turned round. There was a man, perhaps in his late forties or early fifties, with thinning dirty brown hair, a red face and a walking stick. He was wearing a thick green raincoat and dirty trousers. In one hand he had the remains of a sandwich, and its contents were spread around his mouth in a hungry red smear.
'Got any change mate?' He asked, swaying gently on the spot.
'Sorry mate', I replied, and crossed the road.
I locked my bike up outside the store, then went to the cashpoint. The guy started to walk towards me, stopped, blinked, swayed, then staggered into the shop. I went in shortly afterwards and got myself a bottle of wine. As I was in the queue waiting to pay, I saw him wandering around the same aisle several times, as if searching for a particular item. I paid, then went back to my bike and loaded up. suddenly, the bloke was at my side again.
'What about a fag then?' he asked, hopelessly.
'Sorry, no'
'Oh.'
He wandered away, then suddenly bent to pick something up from the floor. As he bent, a large bottle of Smirnoff Ice erupted from his jacket, ending up with a resounding smash on the floor. The man stared at it, then up at the sky, then back at his lost bit of pilfering.
And then he went back into the store as if nothing had happened, in order to steal another.
Now that is someone who really needed a drink.

plat du jour.

And on today's work menu, we have:
Marking IFP exams
Marking writing samples from an advanced class and an intermediate group
bollocking a student for non-attendance
checking portfolios of work
preparing an evening class
preparing five different sets of exams over the next week
organising room changes
photocopying reports and class materials
advise team on final week preparations
get advice from my boss on someone's contract discrepancy
teach from seven till nine.
forward plan for the new academic year.....
...and that's just a single day. and I earn about �100 per day for what I do.
Bollocks, isn't it?

Fags (The English Type), beer and mountains.

I was going to avoid the desire to smoke and have a beer this evening, yet after a long, tedious, hay-fever filled slog of a day, I thought, Bugger It, and you now find me at the keyboard, cold tinny to hand. It's ridiculous, as I gave in to want once again. I did, as you may know from previous posts, give up smoking for over a year, but slipped back into it through a deliberate act, fomented out of anger. this all goes to prove that anger, and decisions made in anger, suck. Logically, my mind tells me, I don't need tabs and booze, that they are objects of desire, just as much as, say, the need to soup up a really crap car with alloys and ultra violet lights under the wheel base is to a certain type of knuckledragger. when I gave up last time, it was only the first 24 hours that were tricky, and after that, there was the odd five-minute craving episode, of which I reminded myself, and buggered off to do something else until it faded, and, most importantly, without replacing it with another habit. I suspect that if I'd used those patches or the gum, I'd be up to a fifty packet a day job by now. The trouble is that I don't quite want to give up again enough - I just need to nudge myself a bit harder.
This is where the Three Peaks training comes in. Knowing that I have another month before it happens will, I hope, be an achievable target. Also, considering how I felt about pushing myself onwards on the second day of the training session, but still going on to do it anyway, gives me a kind of template for achieving it. Or something like that. I felt, on day two, after a cold and sleepless night, that I couldn't do it, and began formulating excuses in my head that I could plausibly say to the others in the group: I've got blisters, my ligaments are agony, I've got the squits, blah blah blah. It wouldn't have fooled anyone, except myself for a bit. Then I realised what I was doing, and how that negative, I-can't-do-this voice has been so often a dominant sound in my own head, and I told it to Fuck Off, then went and climbed the bloody mountain. At the end, despite being soaked and cold, I felt excellent.
I'm not sure of the whole point of this, but one thing is clear to me - I don't need to stick to the same familiar things, of fags and booze and slumping in the sofa. It's a matter of seeing what is solely desire, what is need, and what the difference is between them. any effort, whatever it is, is often worth it.

Having said that, my beer's just run out.