more fun and games.

To the Crescent Road site this morning, for an Audience with Lee Nicholls, the director of the college: The theme? 'Our OFSTED report, why we're crap and what we're going to do about it', or something like that, anyway. Despite the inspection highlighting that Leadership and Management were poor, it seemed that it would be down to us poor groundlings to take the flak and implement the Post Inspection Action Plan. Moreover, there was nothing in Lee's shiny Powerpoint presentation to indicate what, if any, changes were to be made to the management. One thing caused a rumble of discontent and disbelief; Our Leader wants us to have OFSTED standard observations of lessons on a weekly basis! Bloody ridiculous and unworkable; OTL observers would be doing nothing but observe and feed back instead of teaching themselves. One person, a bitter and twisted lecturer who's been with the college since about 1847, piped up, or rather, ranted at Lee for 5 minutes; I don't think it was because of the plan in particular, it was just an opportunity for a shout.

themes...

...just something I'm stringing together at the mo. Marcus, over here, mentioned trying to do a themed week a while back which went awry. This got me to think of creating an EFL theme directory. Basically, a list of themes with possible associated grammar and vocab areas etc. Let's see how it goes.

A test! Thank God for that!

Giving an exam in a few minutes - good! An opportunity to read a newspaper uninterrupted for an hour and a half. The only bugger is having to mark the sodding things afterwards.

the apparent sameness of everything....

....why do all the female presenters on BBC Breakfast have identical hair and clothes? It's all very Stepford Wives - ish.

for want of a better word....arse!

The title has absolutely nothing to do with the content. I feel discontented, restless, edgy and depressed. Not suicidally so, but an undercurrent of ennui, angst and other foreign words is rumbling through me. Making lists of plans is all very well, but it's nothing without acheiving something. The workload is inexorably increasing at work: The amount of bloody bureaucracy in this place is ridiculous - the end result of poor management. Despite the beancounters, I'm strangely enjoying my classes at the moment.

lunchtime.

just wolfing down something before the afternoon onslaught. The arrival of more bills this morning; More depression. How the hell am I going to pay for them?

how many social workers does it take to change a lightbulb?

...four, apparently. An recent advert depicted a social worker changing an elderly man's lightbulb, thus preventing him havinmg a panic attack due to being left in the dark. Cue Hackney council's Health and Safety executive (I believe it was Hackney; It may have been another London Borough). They stated that, in order to change said lightbulb, you would need one person to change it, another to hold the stepladder steady (a stepladder is requisite to avoid back injuries), one more to turn the light switch on and off as required, and one more to comfort the elderly person being looked after by the original social worker, just in case he/she felt distressed or alarmed by the lighbulb changing event!
a caring, sharing society is a fine and good thing, but this is just bollocks.

feel free....

...to comment!.......or rather you will be able to if I can get this bloody haloscan thingy to work!

The college student website's got more inspirational crap on it. 'Do these people inspire you?' Yeah, right. Princess Diana has really inspired me to wrap myself round a concrete bollard at 80 m.p.h.........Honestly, it's crap. All along the corridors they have these 'inspirational' posters, exhorting the students to greater and better things; stuff like, 'success comes in cans, not cannots', or ' the only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary'. Why don't they just go the whole hog and put up stuff like 'strength through joy' and 'ein volk, ein reich, ein college'? And yes, I know my German's crap, thank you very much.

I have far too much work to do.

recipe time!

It�s ages since I posted a recipe on here, so here you go. Be warned, however: It takes quite a while to do (partly because it�s better to produce in bulk) and the result disappear rapidly!

Yaprak dolmasi � stuffed vine leaves
For the stuffing (which you can use for stuff like peppers as well)
250 gr. Rice
one large onion (you can use 2 or 3 medium ones)
pine nuts � about 25 gr.
Small raisins � about 25 gr.
One tomato
Salt and pepper
A fistful of dill
2 tsp. Dried mint
olive oil

You also need about 60 youngish vine leaves. These must be have their stalks cut off and be parboiled for five minutes. Prepacked leaves just need to be boiled.

First, take your rice and blanch it by covering in hot water. Allow to cool, then drain, wash and drain again.

Very finely dice the onion. Heat up the olive oil � go on, be generous with it! Start cooking the onions in the oil. After a few minutes, add the pine nuts. Keep stirring � you don�t want your nuts to burn ;). Keep this up for at least ten minutes (some people do it for twenty). Next, add the rice and again stir this round and toast the rice for about ten minutes. Add salt and pepper. Now add your tomato: This should have been peeled and finely diced. Top up with just enough hot water to cover the mix. Drop to a low heat, cover and let cook for 15 minutes. After that, stir in the dill, mint and raisins, using a wooden spoon. Cover again, turn the heat off, and let the whole lot cook in its own steam for at least half an hour.

Now the fun bit. Take your vine leaves. If you don�t have a non-stick saucepan, make sure you cover the base of the pan with some spare leaves. Add a dollop (about half a tablespoonful) to the vine leaf at its base. Now fold the sides inwards to make a neat package, and wrap the leaf round the mixture tightly: Imagine you�re making a cigar. Pack them tightly in the pan � you can have more than one layer, by the way. Do this to all the leaves until your back hurts and you�re bored to death with the whole damn thing. Add lemon juice, or slices of lemon, and water (about half a pint should be enough). Put a small plate over the whole lot to keep the vine leaves in position and to stop them unravelling. Cover the pan, then bring it to a simmer. Drop the heat and cook for 45 mins � 1 hour or until all the water is absorbed.

Can be eaten hot or cold and absolutely bloody delicious. Hide from all but close friends and family, and even with them give grudgingly. Drink lots of raki. Enjoy.
Afiyet Olsun!

Back to the grind.

Ah, back to the quotidian. My phone is still cut off, and God knows how I'm going to pay for it to be reconnected again. being cut off, of course, meant that I haven't been able to blog for the last fortnight. Oh well, it gave me a chance to catch up on some reading, in this case Dante. Plus I scanned through a load of my old writing onto my computer. Jeez, I wrote some serious crap when I was at uni...
I spent the entire fortnight looking after Angus. Fortunately, the weather was good enough for him to play outside with one of the other munchkins in our neighbourhood. I also erected a shed in the garden. You never know, if the house gets repossessed, it might end up being our only shelter.

happy hols!

At last...the end of the week and the term. I'm going to have a two week holiday now, lurking in my house and building a shed and trying to sort out our dismal finances....since the phone's been cut off, I probably won't have a chance to update this blog, so happy holidays to one and all!

Almost the end of term.

I have been stuffing myself all day with various delicacies and titbits, courtesy of the ESOL department's end of term party. Wherever you find food and booze, especially booze, and especially when it's free, you will find ragged groups of EFL teachers, picking up scraps and sucking at bottles....
I have been working at nights of late, sitting at the bureau my dad brought over, and scrawling stuff in a notebook - -an attempt to kick-start the creative writing process once more. It is tempting to revisit old materials, but I am trying to resist that: I want to look forward, see where I can go. Once I've done something cogent and interesting, I'll paste it here. Till then, the usual drivel.

Far too nice.

the weather, that is. It's a beautiful day outside, and I'm stuck doing academic English for the whole of it. I'm also still feeling wiped out. I don't know, it's as if I have no energy whatsoever to do anything. I feel like sleeping, but at the same time, I don't. Oh, I'm just blabbing. Bollocks to it all.

Shit! It's only Tuesday!

...and I'm already knackered. Have spent the entire day with the nice but dim class, visiting Oxford. At least we had nice weather for it, and it went fairly well. Did all the usual tourist stuff, and threw in what I could remember about the city's history etc. Traipsed for bloody miles,though: My feet are stiff as buggery now. And I have another 2 hours of teaching ahead of me, before cycling home, getting myself some dinner, then collapsing into an exhausted heap on the floor.

My dreams of smoking are becoming more vivid. Last night, I could even smell the smoke, and I thought to myself,'Shit, there goes that resolution'. In waking life, however, I'm still nobly resisting. In fact, the only time I ever get a faint craving now is after I've drunk a couple of pints or a couple of glasses of wine, but it's a feeble affair. So why am I dreaming of cigarettes? As far as I can work out, it's some kind of anxiety dream, which (let's face it) is hardly surprising, considering my situation. And I'm generally aware of the folly of my situation.

Two depressing quotations.

'There is no such thing as society' - Margaret Thatcher, 1981

'We are all middle-class now' - Tony Blair, 1998

survived.

We had Angus' birthday party on saturday. He invited 15 or 16 of his closest friends. What joy - a house full of 5-6 year olds. Well, Angus enjoyed it anyway. And it was only 2 hours. here's a question, though: Why are young children so flatulent?

Blacker and blacker...

My home phone got cut off yesterday. i've got no money to pay for the fucking bill, which stands at well over �200, thanks to my darling wife, who has not paid for a fucking thing for the last six months, expecting me to pull money out of thin air to cover everything, and I've got other bills to pay that I can't, plus the fucking expense of hosting a party for a gang of caterwauling 6 year olds, I haven't got a decent pair of trousers to wear, my shoe leather is wearing thin, the screaming bout of eczema has still not succumbed to treatment, I feel ill and exhausted, every motherfucker is whining at me to do something for them, the levels of bureaucracy involved in my job have now attained idiotic levels, and now what?

My students, these people I sweat for, who I help to get their personal statemenmts just right, or to understand precisely how the grammar or structure work, complain about me.

I have seemed 'angry', and 'upset'. I 'am not helping them enough'.

You mean I'm not my usual, bubbly self? I push myself as hard as I can in class to be entertaining, to make the subject lively and thought-provoking and useful.

This is the first time I have been criticised for my teaching since early on in my teaching career.

What a bunch of fucking ingrates. Total fucking cunts. Whiny bunch of pock-marked, sag-shouldered, dreary-minded, dull-witted, knuckle-dragging fuckwits.

Fuck them all. Fuck all the bastards screaming for money, fuck all the demands for a piece of me, fuck every fucking one.

only a few more hours.

Then i can go home. i have done absolutely fuck all this afternoon. I can't be arsed to mark these bloddy exams, or the essays I got from my advanced class on Tuesday. Instead, I've helped one of my fellow teachers, opera singer, teacher, and all-round party person Gill Tunley, design an invite for a night out next thursday. She wanted to embellish it with a boring picture of an italian restaurant or a slice of pizza or something, but I suggested this. Then this one, and also this. In the end we did all three versions.

A day when...

....people are walking round with faces like slapped arses. I don't know, everyone seems to be in terminal miserable mood today, myself included. I do, however, feel bloody horrible: a combination of mild illness, a series of late nights and a bottle of wine last night, plus the background despair regarding my finances. I sloped into town this morning to get stuff for Angus' birthday party, taking place on saturday. He keeps inviting more and more children - God knows where we're going to put them. I think I'll get them doing the conga, snaking through one door and out the other in a perpetual circle. As they pass the food, I'll just hurl some at them and hope they swallow. Apparently, one of the children has a nut and lactose allergy, so I suppose I'll have to be careful and try not to kill him.

Musical?

My father has given me his classical guitar, having obviously decided that he's never going to master it. He's only had it for about twenty five years. Really, it's an ancient thing. He also gave me some 'How to..' Guide books for the thing, replete with songs like 'The streets of London' and Carpenters classics. Why he thinks I am going to pick it up, I don't know. It's not as if I've suddenly evinced a desire to be musical: The last instrument I blew in anger was a recorder at school, doing 'London's Burning' and 'Good King Wenceslas'. Badly. Nevertheless, I think I'll give it a go, simply for the challenge of doing it. And you never know, it might come in useful if I get kicked out of my house and have to start busking for a living.

tuesday afternoon

I have just been forced to go and buy myself a large coffee. My afternoon group are so ploddy that I almost fell asleep on them. I suspect they wouldn't have noticed if I had. Incidentally, this is only the eighth coffee I've had in over two years.

Now that's depressing....

....I have just found out, thanks to the education supplement of the Guardian, that Vicki Entwistle, who plays Janice Battersby in Coronation Street, is actually six months younger than me.

addendum.

One thing else to say regarding the whole giving up smoking thing. I have found that all my bad habits - smoking, drinking, throwing money at fruit machines, being a cynical bastard etc. - are all tangled up with each other, because of the way that certain behaviours reinforce each other. I go to the pub. I have a drink. I always smoke when I drink. I parch my thrat because of the smoke. I drink more. I smoke more. I get drunk....and so on, until I'm lying penniless in the gutter the next day, having caught some unspeakable disease and eaten a kebab from a converted ambulance along the way. Breaking the cycle is tricky, but once one bit has gone, other trends seem to follow.

On how not to smoke.

Marcus,
I was going to write a comment in your guestbook regarding the whole smoking thing, and giving up, or rather, not being a smoker anymore. There's some problem with it, so I'll write an open letter here instead. Maybe it'll help someone else too.

I must start by saying that I could, at any moment, choose to pick up a fag and take a long, good drag on the damn thing. However, I can equally choose to take a drag of nothing but clean air. How, you may ask, am I going about being a non-smoker, despite dreams where I'm puffing away? Well, I'm not entirely sure myself, but here are my scattered ideas on the topic.

Firstly, do not deal in negatives or abstracts. When we talk of 'giving up', of 'not doing something', we are immediately casting our actions into a negative light, into the sense of abstention. This negativeness, this absence, by its very nature, is impossible to define, and therefore hard to keep to. Instead, it should be regarded as something we choose to do, which is save money, breathe clean air, be fatter, or whatever; It should never be something we do not do. Likewise, abstract notions of being healthier, living longer, and regaining a sense of smell do not really stand up to the rushing sense of relief when you take a that first puff of nicotine. Being abstract, they lack the reality of the rush. You have to learn that the rush itself is also an illusion, albeit one with an immediate presence.

When you start to see it as this, you realise that the desire for a fag is an illusion. This in itself brings about interesting notions of what reality is anyway. After 24 hours, there is no more nicotine in your system - all that is left is a mental craving. Since the mind is nothing more than an evanescent dance of electrical impulses flowing along particular neural networks, it therefore follows that the craving is also an evanescent thing.

My first real craving came after 48 hours, then after 72, then a week, then a month. I'm still waiting for the next one. On each occasion I had a craving, however, I realised the impulse would pass after five minutes or so. I go and do something else until the impulse has gone.

Chewing gum, patches, plastic cigarettes etc are USELESS. They are, like the behaviour of craving a fag, illusions. All they do is reinforce behaviour - in this case, a bad habit. You are not merely attempting to leave smoking behind: You are also trying to divest yourself of a pattern of behaviour. Remember, also, that some bastard is making money out of you buying these products. Not only that, by buying them you are effectively saying to yourself 'I have no choice in this matter. I must rely on others to beat it.', thereby ensuring that, at some point, you will fail, and you fall into a cycle of smoking, giving up, smoking, giving up.

There is no such state as 'giving up'.

Likewise, always, always, always remember that we have the gift of choice. We are who we are, what we are and where we are because of our choices. You and I chose, at some stage, to smoke; Now, we choose to be people who have no need for the weed.

This is just stuff that's occurred to me, and I'm sure there are others who have written more eloquently on the subject, and I could ceratinly say a lot more. hope it's of use to you, anyway.

I just love Mondays!

Not. Especially when I have to cover some lead swinging git's class. Nice bunch of students, but very pissed off at having different teachers cover their lessons.

The Weather Project

Yesterday (Friday) was wet, windy and miserable. Just the right weather, then, to grab a train from Reading to London, then a tube from Paddington to King�s Cross, then another train to Cambridge, to attend a seminar on the Cambridge Advanced Exam in English. The rain chased me all the way from home, and only petered out as the train pulled into the station. It�s the first time I�ve ever been there. As we travelled, I wondered if the view out of the window would have been recognisable to the characters in E M Forster�s The Longest Journey. I managed to find my way without difficulty to the seminar, which proved to be fairly useful. It was also interesting enough for me to avoid falling asleep during it. The best bit was the video of a pair of clowns doing the speaking exam, one Swedish, one Swiss. They�d obviously been hoiked out of class and told to pretend to be doing the exam. The examiner (called the interlocutor � which, incidentally, I found out how to pronounce correctly � the stress falls on the �loc�) succeeded in looking like not just a miserable bastard but also mad as a hatful of stoats. Best bit was the dialogue between these two guys when doing task 3, which is basically talking about a set of pictures and ranking them in some way. It was like Sam Beckett on a really shit day. The examiner had asked them to look at pictures of various rescues, and what skills would be required for each, then which would be the most newsworthy. The dialogue went a bit like this:
Swiss: Well, this one, it shows, er, a helicopter.
Swede: Yes. We have these in my country.
Swiss: Me too, it�s pretty normal.
Swede: yes, it�s normal. There are lots of rescues.
Swiss: Yes.
Swede: And you need some skills for it..
Swiss:..skills, yes�..Then there is this�.ahhh�.
Swede: Ummmm�yes. What do you think?
Swiss: There�s a bird being cleaned
Swede: I think maybe it can be dirty.
Swiss: Yes, they�re cleaning it.
Swede: Yes, for this too you need many skills.
Swiss: Oh yes.
Et Cetera, Et Cetera. What amazed me was that after several minutes of frankly piss-poor communication, these two apparently passed! Gave me hope for my group, anyway.
On the way back, I discovered a shop selling Turkish goodies and bought some sucuk for Nur. I would have bought more stuff, but I didn�t have much money on me. Once on the train, I began plotting my way home, then realised that, as I had bought a cheap train ticket, I wouldn�t be able to cross London and get on a train home until after the rush hour. This meant that I�d have to kick my heels there for 45 minutes or so. I wondered what I could do with myself, then had a fantastic idea. I�d go and see The Weather Project at the Tate Modern. I�d been promising myself that I�d go and see this installation for the last six months, and now was a prime opportunity. Besides, it was my last chance: It�s being dismantled tomorrow. So, after I got to King�s Cross, I bought a single to Blackfriars, and plunged into the underground scrum of the rush hour. What always fascinates me about a typical tube train compartment is how it is a distillation of what London is: Its crabbiness, its diversity, its cosmopolitanism, its febrile, restless spirit, all rest within.
I got out at Blackfriars, then made my way to the embankment. By now, it was dark, and I saw in front of me the Millennium Bridge with all its lights shimmering. Indeed, all London was lit up in its finery. After all, it was a Friday night and time to play. Even the weather seemed suddenly milder. I reached the bridge, and saw St Pauls. A whole troop of people were crossing, either going towards the cathedral of God on the one side or the cathedral of Art on the other, but they were strangely silent, spirits crossing the river in some holy act or other. I reached the Tate, went in, and duly had my gob smacked by the Weather Project. It truly is a magnificent, and magnificently simple, installation. That a few lights, a bit of fake smoke, a screen and some mirrors can be so impressive is quite something. The fake sun (or rather, half-sun: The mirrors make it appear to be whole) hangs at one end of the turbine hall. There are mirrors on the roof, creating even greater depth. There is a bit of smoke and the air appears to shimmer. That�s it. But! The effect is incredible. The nearest this approaches to is when I first went into Aya Sofya in 1994. The latter will always beat any experience I have with things made by humans, but this experience was damn good. I stayed there about half and hour or so. There was quite a party atmosphere within. People were lying on the floor, staring up at their own reflections. Some were trying to spell out words with their bodies. Some people were basking in the glows of the fake sun, even though it was pretty cold. Couples hugged each other. A few people were asleep. One group were even having a champagne picnic. I stared up at the ceiling too, and saw myself, standing, small, a huge shadow cast behind me.
Afterwards, I walked back along the South Bank towards Waterloo. The weather was mild, and I enjoyed the parade of boats and buildings as I passed. I really, really need to bring Nur to London on a night like that. By the time I finally managed to get home, I was knackered.

I am in a vile, black mood.

Decisions, decisions....

I was doing a class with my nice but dim group yesterday. I was teaching the third conditional and grammar relating to hypothesising about the past, stuff like �If Kennedy hadn�t gone to Dallas, perhaps he wouldn�t have been assassinated�, as if my Chinese, Japanese and Korean students knew or cared who Kennedy was. One exercise was relating to what would or wouldn�t happen now if we had or had not done something in the past, e.g. I wouldn�t know Haruko now if I hadn�t come to the UK, et cetera. While they got on with the exercise, I reflected on the decisions I have made in life, and which ones have led me to be right here, right now. Not instinctive, make or break stuff, but hard thought out ones. Now, I could count on my decision to accept a full-time post at the college; going further back, there�s the conclusion that I had to return to the UK, or even further, becoming a teacher in the first place. I followed the skein of decisions backwards, a pale line into the past, and whichever angle I came from, I arrived in the same place.

I was just over eleven years old.

It was spring term at my primary school: In fact, it was almost certainly at this time of year, when warm sun struggles with blustery wind and sudden rain. We�re talking a quarter of a century ago, which is really rather scary. My parents, my teacher (Mr. Jenkins, who wore a green corduroy jacket, had greased back hair and a booming voice, and smelt strange) and I were gathered to make a decision on my future. I had the opportunity to go to Reading Grammar school, in the middle of town, or go to Highdown, the local comprehensive about 200 metres up the road from me. I had done well in my exams � in fact, I had one of the best exam records in the county. All I had to do was sit a simple test and go for a basic interview. My elders clearly all wanted me to go, but my parents said, �It�s your decision�. As ever, they trusted me with a degree of responsibility over myself.

I thought it over.

Before I tell you my decision, can you guess? And do you think my parents should have pressured me to go to Reading, which regularly appears in the top five of lists of best schools in the country? Perhaps they should have coerced me more, saying �This decision is ours. You�re going there.� Sure, I�d probably have resented them for making me do something, but on reflection I�d be grateful, no?

I made up my mind.

I plumped for Highdown, the local comprehensive.

My reasons?

First, it was local; I wouldn�t have to do any travelling. Secondly, I was familiar with the area and the people � most of my peers, the kids I�d grown up with, would be going there. I would know hardly anyone at Reading. Familiarity with a situation, no matter how bad, is a powerful incentive, rather than take a leap into the unknown.

The main reason, however, the one that I gave to my family, was this: Reading Grammar did sports on Saturday mornings. I hated sports, and I certainly hated the idea of travelling halfway across the town on a Saturday morning just to miserably knock a muddy football around.

Now, I think, what if? What if I�d gone, where would that have led me? Don�t get me wrong, dear reader: I don�t usually indulge in speculating about the past, or past regrets: the moment has gone for good, and there�s no use whining about it. But I�m pretty sure my life would have been spectacularly different had I gone there.

Then again, I wouldn�t have what I have now, namely my beautiful wife and my fantastic son. Or thousands of pounds worth of debt.

We are who, what, and where we are largely due to the choices and decisions that we make, not anyone else. I�m still an EFL teacher because I like the job and I�m familiar with it, despite my horrible financial circumstances. I know I have to make a transition, but to what? In effect, I am manipulating my own situation, and I have noone else to blame other than myself.

Freedom of choice is a great thing, but there are times when it might be better if others make the choices for you.

I like to think that, somewhere in an alternate universe, there is another me, speculating what would have happened had he chosen to go to Highdown.

I bet the bastard is loaded.

Top o the morning to ye an begorrah to be sure...and other such bollocks.

Happy St Patricks day. I have always found it somewhat ironic that a day devoted to one of the dourest, po-faced, sanctimonious, overly-pious and undoubtedly sober saints of christianity has been warped into one enormous excuse for a piss-up. Cue plastic paddies rolling in bars from Camden to LA. Cue huge profits for brewers. Cue stupid parades in New York where 'Irishmen' who are about as Irish as my cat wear green and wave at each other, then get drunk and caterwaul fake songs about the Old Country. What a load of fucking bollocks.
I am, as you may surmise, not in a very good mood today.

Mwaa-ha-ha-haaaa!

I am 81% Evil Genius

I am pure evil. I lie awake at night devising schemes of world domination, and I will not rest until all living souls bend to my will.

Take the Evil Genius Test at fuali.com

Right. that's the questionnaire out of the way....
By the way, returning to the roots of this blog, here's what I had for dinner last night, all of which, apart from the raki, I made myself.
Pilaf scented with cardomom and pepper
Sis Kofte , spiced up with chillis, pepper, cumin, turmeric and paprika
Coban Salatasi
Fresh coleslaw
home-baked pide bread
3 glasses raki
yum.

Tuesdays. Not as bad as wednesdays.

...but still crap enough. I got into work at 8.15: I'll still be here at 9.00 tonight.
Here's a list of what I have to do today;
1) Compile a questionnaire for the evening class students, in order to produce an analysis of attitides to current classes and intentions for the future.
2) Devise a curriculum for evening sessions for the coming academic year - it needs to be more generic than exam-centred, but LSE funding is such that exams are crucial. However, most evening students, in my experience, aren't reallt arsed about gaining qualifications.
3) Alter the current course information that we hand out to prospective punters regarding the evening courses.
4) Do further research on gaining more qualifications, and see what my boss has to say about it.
5) Chase up HR to see if I have Faculty approval to go to a seminar on the Cambridge Advanced Exam on friday, and if they'll stump up for the price of a train ticket.
6) Do a bit of translation work for a student.
7) Mark work from several different classes, including written work from advanced students - always a real bugger to do.
8)Write up lesson plans for today's and tomorrow's classes, then produce materials, perhaps write up a powerpoint presentation, scout down appropriate books, and make sure I've got enough stuff to entertain the buggers.
9) Read up on some research regarding the IELTS exam.
10) Arrange a retake schedule for those students on my Academic english class who have failed any assignments.
11) The reason I do this job: teach my classes.
I'm sure there's other stuff to do as well, but that's all relatively trivial. Then there is the enormous onus of all my personal business to conduct.
Woo-hoo. Don't I live a full and glamorous life? And I only earn �22,000.

Infamy!Infamy! They've all got it infamy!

Happy Ides of March to you all.
Well, I didn;t go out and get drunk as a pig after all. I went out briefly, then came home and got drunk as a pig, stayed up all night and played backgammon on the net. Unsurprisingly, I felt fucking horrible on saturday. Nur got back safely that night, then slept for much of the night and the following day. I succeeded in doing bugger all.
This is not good. I really, really need to sort out my finances and what I'm going to do in the near and far future. Now that one chapter of this year has, so to speak, ended, perhaps I can concentrate on what I really need to do now. I hope so, anyway. the trouble is, I really need Nur to help me: I need to feel her support, just in everyday sort of stuff, to help me through.

have...

....a very nice weekend, one and all.

Nur comes back tomorrow. Good.
Angus is staying with his grandmother tonight. Excellent.
I am going out to get drunk as a pig tonight. Yay!

re: last post

Oops. missed France. Oh well.

nationalities i have taught

This looks better than a list.


create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide

Stupid joke.

A Chinese guy is on holiday in the UK. He's having a nice time, seeing all the sights and doing all the usual touristy stuff. One day, he notices he's a bit short on the old pounds and goes to the Bureau de Change. He's delighted when he sees the exchange rate: only nine yuan to the pound! He goes in, changes loads of money, comes out with a happy grin on his face and a bulging wallet. Off he goes to spend it all on tourist desirables, like plastic policemens hats, Olde Tea Shoppe toffees and so on.
A few days later, he realises he's low on funds again, so once more he heads off to the bureau de Change. This time however, the exchange rate isn't so good: He needs twenty-five yuan to get his mitts on a pound. Understandably annoyed, he demands to see the manager.
'What this?', he shouts. 'Few day ago, rate was nine yuan, one paun! Now this day, it twenty-fai yuan, one paun! What goin on here, eh?'
The manager shrugs his shoulders, and says, simply, 'Fluctuations, sir.'
Enraged, the Chinese tourist shouts, 'And Fluck you Engrish too!'




See? I told you it was stupid.

Thursday.

Nuff said, really. I went to the doctor regarding the eczema blotching up my body, and she gave me a prescription for various creams and salves to sort it out.
My Academic English Foundation class have just done their fourth assignment, namely doing presentations of graphs. Dear God in Heaven, it is hard to think of anything more life-destroyingly dull than having to sit in a darkened room while students trundle out pie charts of car ownership in the People's Republic of China, and drone on about 'great, very very big fructuations'. fifteen times.
And now for the evening class.

I'm still feeling strange, like I'm in some hinterland of the mind. This morning, as I woke, I felt a few moments of absolute despair when I summed up my current situation: Two recent bereavements, a sense of loneliness with Nur not being there, my ennui with my job, the sense that I might end up spending the next twenty years staring out of the same windows onto the same scene as I teach the same lesson to identikit students, and most of all, worst of all, our financial situation, which I haven't been able to do a thing with because of the past seven weeks of trauma. A spasm of suicidal desire went over me; How easy it would be to just reach for a bottle of pills and slip into a warm bath with a razor! But no, that's just another form of running away, of evading a situation rather than grapple with it and overcome it. It passed, but I just feel desolate at the moment.

Happy...

...no smoking day!

The funeral: Friday, March the Fifth.

The funeral went as well as can be expected. The weather stayed fair. I drove my mum and Nur there, the vast fields of graves in Henley road cemetery. It was a busy day: funerals were being stacked in a holding pattern, and groups of mourners shuffled in one end of the chapel, out the other, and gawped at the floral tributes belonging to each of their dead. My relatives arrived carload by carload; Darren and Dean, Julie & Archie, Belinda & Julie, Jim, James, Mick, Lisa and Gary, Sophie, Vicki, Samantha; My dad�s cousins and other distant relations, the Gallantry diaspora; Plus various friends of my grandfather and our family. The hearse waited in line, then pulled up in front of the chapel, followed by a limousine carrying dad, Nan, and Aunts Penny, Sue and Julie. A respectful silence, punctuated by discreet sniffling, then we respectfully trooped into the chapel, a small place with a Victorian feel. The wall which contained the entrance to the furnace was wood panelled, the furnace door itself inscribed with the motto �Resurgam� (I will rise again?). The priest, or whatever he was, led us briskly and dryly through a half-hour service, punctuated by some of Grandad�s favourite songs, some prayers for the dead, and a hymn. It was all rather arid, until my dad, Penny and Sophie got up to say their bits, and left plenty shedding a tear. It was only when the priest said �and now we commit Harry�s body�, and a cheap blue curtain swished across to hide the coffin�s absolutely final journey, that I felt a surge of emotion. The final track played: Morecambe & Wise�s �Bring Me Sunshine�. Apparently, my aunts had considered �Always Look on The Bright Side Of Life� at first, but then thought about the next funeral party to come in after ours, and decided against it. We duly shuffled out, quick dry handshake with the priest, then a look at the flowers. Smiles broke out with the sunshine, which now began to dominate the sky. I caught up with a few relatives I hadn�t seen in a while, introduced (or re-introduced) them to Nur, said a few polite things. Then we all drove off to Twyford, to the Coach and Horses Inn. It had been a favourite watering hole of Grandad, who was often driven there to get pissed, then poured into a taxi several hours later. It�s definitely an �Olde-Worlde� kind of place, all blackened beams at head-breaking height, horse brasses and dodgy tiled floors. The last time I�d been there was about 1991, when dad had bought round after round of Carlsberg Special Brew, a drink I have hated since I chucked my guts up on it when I was fifteen. We got in, then Nur remembered to turn her mobile phone back on. Almost immediately, a message flashed up.
�I hate this,�she said to mum. �I�m always afraid it�ll be a bad message about my mum.�
�Well, look at it, anyway, we�re here if it�s bad,� said my mum.
She opened the inbox.
Here�s the message, translated into English:
Big Sister, we�ve given our mum to the earth. We lost her at five o�clock this morning. May Allah give us forbearance.
Fuck.
Dead and buried the same day as my granddad.
Nur collapsed, weeping and trembling in the corner. Of course, we knew the end was near; That�s why Nur had been in Turkey in the first place. It was just the strange, sad aptness of the day. Mum got her into the toilet, while several people offered to get her drinks. After the initial shock, however, she rallied, especially when she saw the reaction of my family. Within half an hour, we had arranged a flight back to Istanbul for her and pressed the money for it into her hand, then bought her enough Southern Comfort to keep her safely anaesthetized till she got back to Turkey. I, who was supposed to get pissed with them all, now given the duty of driver for the day, then sat back and watched my family get magnificently drunk, largely on very, very generous measures of gin and tonic. They laughed, they shouted, they wept, they embraced and said how much they loved each other, they sang badly, and again and again, they told Nur the same thing: We are with you no matter what. You are family, and we will do whatever you need. We stand together no matter what. We know you are brave, leaving your family so far away to come here with Paul, and that is a quality we admire almost above all others.
Detached by my sobriety as I was, I have never truly felt the sense of unity within my own clan with quite so much force as I did that day.
Towards four o�clock, we tumbled out of the pub, and headed for Sue and Jim�s place, where the drinking and eating carried on at a frantic pace. I eventually had to virtually carry mum and Nur to the car, which stank of gin. Mum was, amazingly, actually slurring her words, something I don�t think I�ve ever experienced before. I dropped her off, then got Nur to bed, she complaining of having a bad stomach. I�m not surprised; she�d drunk the best part of half a bottle of whisky. I collected Angus from a friend�s house, and, as we walked under a mild and starry sky along the bridlepath, I tried to explain to him that his grandmother had died and that his mum had to go back to Turkey again.
�Awww� was his only response.�You mean that You are going to look after me again?�
I got him some dinner, then he said he felt sleepy, and he went upstairs and fell asleep next to Nur, taking up the racer�s position, head up, legs flung like someone sprinting, one arm to the face, another behind, that seems so typical of him.
I went to the pub, and had a drink or five for Grandad.

grandfather at rest.

He was in a wicker coffin. Laid lightly over the top was a fine gauzy material, with a shimmering cross handstitched in gold. He was laid out in a white robe, a white girdle rope and a banded collar. His hands (white, grey) laid neatly, calmly over his stomach. His face: Lifelike, eyes closed, his brow slightly furrowed, as though he were thinking through a vexing question. The shape of his mouth was slightly strange. I think the undertakers had slightly overdone the packing, so that it now looked like he had a mouthful of food, or had been caught in mid-eructation. He looked dignified and determined, for all that. My first reaction was that he would open his eyes, put out a hand to me, speak to me in that wonderful warm Old Hampshire drawl and laugh, or, going into the realms of horror, grip my arm and deliver a terrible warning. But no, it was an empty house. I'm glad I've seen him one last time before we send him off tomorrow, but at the moment I'm all mixed up in my feelings: sorrow he's gone, happiness for his life and gentle death, genuine curiosity (part of the reason I wanted to see him in the chapel of rest), a strange fear. I don't know.

two things.

First, I got my new shed this morning. Now I just have to put it together.

Second, I went to see my grandfather at the chapel of rest. We're burying him tomorrow. I've seen plenty of bodies in my time, but not one of my my own family laid out before. Still trying to work out how I feel about it right now.

feel shit. i really, really don't want to teach today.

Back from the dead.

I just found a piece of writing by an old friend and flatmate of mine on Dave's ESL cafe. I emailed him straight away; He mailed back - which was an amazing occurence, as both he and I are lazy bastards when it comes to staying in contact, hence our not talking to each other for the past few years. There's something a little strange about rediscovering an old friend or contact after a long time, something of finding the dead come back to life. So what if we meet? It will be strange: A familiar face altered by time, circumstance and the abuse of alcohol. Our life experiences will be markedly different: will we actually have anything to say to each other?

Nationalities I have taught.

I was filling in a form earlier on, outlining my teaching experience, and the number of nationalities I've had in my class surprised me somewhat - and I'm not sure that I've even included all of them!
I have taught people from China, Japan, Korea, Russia, Taiwan, Poland, Czech Republic, Turkey, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, Iran, Iraq, Greece, Italy, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Libya, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Thailand and the Phillipines.
Blimey.

Still not smoking.

Most of the cravings have gone away. It's only occasionally now, when I've had a beer, that I feel the odd urge. One bizarre side-effect, however, is that I've developed an eczema-like rash over one arm, my chest, and part of my back. I have eczema anyway (I was going to say, 'suffer', but that's bullshit - it's no great hardship. It'd be like saying Geri halliwel suffers from being ginger), but this is weird. Is my immune system playing silly buggers? it's only happened since I gave up, indeed only in the past 21/2 weeks. The only thing I can relate it to is not smoking, or possibly the weather, which has been cold and dry as a bone for about the same time.

Happy...

...St. David's Day, Wales, and happy birthday to my mum and to Nur's mum. Sadly, it looks like it will be the latter's last. Nur phoned her family up last night, and they said that she isn't even moving or eating any more and is permanently on oxygen. I suspect that she may not last even tonight. Ours is a despondent house at the moment: My grandfather, Nur's mum and her father, my dad's wife, our circumstances...it's as though there is some vile, evil, black mind pitted against us at the moment. I don't know where or to whom I can turn. For the sake of everyone around me, I must be strong, yet where is the strength for me? I went a bit mental on friday night, shouting my head off and kicking things - I don't know why: just needed to vent, I suppose.
I saw my grandmother and a few of my aunts on saturday afternoon. They were organising the funeral, and I found them well, considering. Angus had a beautiful thought.
'Dad, I know how we can talk with great grandad'
'How?'
'Well, we can blow up balloons and write messages on them and tie them on, then we let them go whoosh! in the air, then they go up, and great grandad, because he's up in the air, he can catch the messages and read them!'
'well, how does he answer?'
'He can't answer, he's dead, silly! But perhaps he can come in dreams'
The idea of letting go balloons with messages on seems like a charming thing to do - you let the message fly; then perhaps someone, anyone, might answer it.
Yesterday we had dinner with mum. Karen came round too, and like millions of people, we were stumped as to what to write on a little oblong of white card -the condolence card to go on a wreath. We didn't want anything glib, like 'sorely missed', or 'Now in Heaven' etc. I suggested 'Grandad, you were like a popular, fine red wine - frequently drunk', which made us both laugh like drains, but was a bit inappropriate. In the end, we settled for glib.

More on my grandfather

I'm trying to fix in mind my first memory of him. I can't. It seems, to me, that he always was. I recall my sister and me staying overnight in their house, which always seemed to be freezing cold because it didn't have central heating. My granddad used to wear a wig then, which he kept on a faintly disturbing polyester bust when not using it. I remember laughing as he managed to pursuade my 3-year-old sis that it needed feeding, and she proffering a biscuit to it. Mostly, I remember sunday dinners in his house, lazy luches of roast beef and potatoes, with spotted dick (made by my nan) for dessert, followed by lazy lounging in front of the TV, while nan made huge platters of sandwiches for Tea, and Grandad would let me look through huis book collection for something interesting to read. At Christmas, the family would rent out a big, dusty ex-church that smelt of ancient, dry wood, and grandad would get dressed up as Father Christmas and hand out bulky, garish presents. Other memories will come, I'm sure: I need time to think them over.

Harold Gallantry 1922 - 2004.

My grandfather died at 2.00 this morning. It was expected: He hadn't been well for some time. I was going to visit him in hospital this afternoon. I hadn't been able to before, because I've had this stupid damn cold and my parents warned me off going in, in case I passed it on. Seems stupid now. There's a photo of him in the sidebar.

happy birthday to me...

Yay! I'm 36! Happy birthday for all you other pisceans out there...
My evening class of students insisted on taking me out last night. I've pasted a couple of pics below. The darlings bought me a bottle of Tekirdag Raki, the best you can get!

Things to give up for lent.

Here's a list of things to possibly give up for 40 days.
1) Chocolate - boring!
2) Alcohol - is this possible?
3) Walking
4) Sarcasm
5) The ghost
6) Hope
7) Biting nails
8) Impure thoughts
9) Pure thoughts
10) Being awake
11) Wearing black
12) Smiting mightily
13) Wailing and gnashing teeth
14) Listening to 2-10 fm, the sound for Berkshire and North Hampshire!!!

Oh Joy. Now for an afternoon of intermediate English....lovely people, but a bit on the dim side. I think I'd have a greater degree of success with them if I took a basket of puppies in with me. And tea and cake.

still hanging in there

I very nearly had a fag last night. I even had a pack in my pocket, but I managed - just - to prevent myself. I focused on the idea of the illusion - smoking is a kind of lie, the sense of satisfaction after a puff is a kind of lie, the craving is just another lie - and thought of the currently rather abstract advantages instead - lower heart rate, prolonged life, cleaner hair and skin etc etc. It kind of worked.

I am sorely tempted...

..to have a cigarette, now that Nur's back, trailing a carton of fags in her wake. It wasn't so hard while she was away, as there was no smoking paraphanalia in the house, and I couldn't easily slip out for a pack as I was looking after Angus. Now, though, it's much more difficult. I keep telling myself that smoking and craving a smoke are mere illusions, the bodily equivalent of someone seeing a mirage in a desert. Still hard to prevent myself crawling towards wadi-al-ciggy, though.

a rough draft

just a quick piece of poetry - more just an image really, needs tidying up. It was just seeing my son asleep about an hour ago.

He has finally found sleep.
I peer round the door, see
His form quiet,
And, as ever, his duvet
Kicked to the end of the bed.
In sleep, his legs are crooked, one arm
Is flung behind him, the other
Raised to his face,
A frozen sprinter
In a dream of a race.
I walk towards him,
And gently cover his form,
Gently plant the laurels of a kiss
On his brow.
Race on, son, race on:
Past the sun, past the stars,
Outstrip the North Wind,
Skirt some distant galaxy
Then let the sun tug you homewards
That you may tell me the story of your race
As dawn broadens the world.
16-2-04

I miss you.

You are how many miles away from me now, Nur? 1,500? 2,000? Well, you�ll be back on Wednesday. I miss you though. I can always look towards the place that you are, and let my mind seek a way towards you. So, I look east-south-east, about 118 degrees on the compass. I send my eye through my bedside bookcase, between the Alexander Text edition of Shakespeare (a 1986 edition) and the Lysistrata of Aristophanes. My eye goes though the wall, past the pine tree and over the owl sanctuary next door. I travel down our valley, where the slightest noise is echoed back and forth by the trees, where foxes yowl at night. I gather these images, these sounds, the warm scent of the earth lazily uncoiling from its winter bed, to bring to you. I dash down the road now, my speed increasing. I leap over Balmore and see the bare lights of my home town, then leave them behind, mere embers. Now I am flying, flying, flying, crossing Berkshire, then Surrey, then into Sussex. Now I leap into the Channel at Hastings and wade over to France. I bound over the Alps, skirt Switzerland and Italy. Next, I glide across the Adriatic, then float silently above Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia, looking down into a darkness broken only by a few lights here and there. Bulgaria comes, and I hear only a few voices from below, the sound of a car on a late night road, a horse calling in a field. But now I can see but destination: Trakya, ancient Thrace, and then Istanbul. I glide over Edirne, then follow the contours of the Marmara, watching fishing boats tilt, rise, tilt, fall, tilt again and again as the gentle waves carry them. Nearing my goal, I see that the land is cold beneath me: You have had much ice and snow this week. There are more and more ships below me, all coming to congregate where Aya Sofya, the greatest building on Earth, guards the passageway to the Bosphoros. Then, there She is, The City, blaring light skywards, its wondrous towers, its secret roads, its joy and its sorrow, its wildness and augustness. Now I turn, I dive and land in some dark road and search for you from door to door, alleyway by alleyway, until finally I find you in an apartment. You are worn out, you are sleeping: And in your sleep, I plant a kiss on your lips, I lay a rose in your heart, and I whisper all that I have seen as I journeyed toward you. Then I quietly, tenderly close the door, look towards the sky, and find myself back here, writing this. Yet still, my heart stays next to yours.
I�ll see you on Wednesday evening, darling.

Of course!

What Famous Leader Are You?

Wherever you go, whatever you do, it's nice to know that some things remain the same...

...Just read my mate Marcus' account of a day at his school in Korea....plus ca change etc...as a riposte, here's a link back to a typical day in Istanbul...the numbers in the text refer to the tracks on a compilation CD.

Bloody sodding cars, grumble, grumble...

Having had sole use of the car for the last fortnight makes me glad that I generally cycle to work. Firstly, it keeps me fit and my stomach within the circulference of my jeans; Second, it's faster for me to cycle - it takes me a maximum of fifteen minutes, whereas a car journey can be up to an hour; Finally, I never have a problem with parking with a bike. Several months ago, the college began issuing parking permits, solemnly warning that those without permits would be clamped. As is normal with this place, there are millions of cars without permits clogging the sodding car parks up, and noone has done a thing about it. Grumble, grumble, growl, growl......

I talked with Nur on the phone last night. She sounded distant and hollow, probably because she was on tranquilizers. Her mum is in a bad way. I suspect that the end isn't far off now. Nur is due to come back on sunday, but I suspect she may stay out there longer. Angus and I are doing ok, anyway.

A snatched piece of a conversation.

In a lift: 'Why walk, when you can use the lift?', wheezed the incredibly fat woman as she squeezed through the elevator doors and waddled slowly down the corridor, great folds of fat concealing her elbows. A living answer to her own question, I think.

stupid joke.

Have you seen David Blunkett's new girlfriend?

Neither has he.


note: David Blunkett, for those not in the know of British politics, is the Home Secretary, responsible for homeland affairs. a former socialist, he is now regarded as being just to the right of Genghis Khan. He is also blind.

God, I really don't want to teach this afternoon, or this evening for that matter. Still, plough on I must.

For my readership in the far East: Have you noticed how tiny Chinese, Japanese and Korean hand gestures are? When they wave a hand in greeting, the hand waves, but not too much, from the wrist, while the arm remains at an almost parallel line with the body: When they clap, the elbows remain firmly in place at the sides, while the hands do precise little flapping motions. Graceful or just self-control?

Hungover.

....and on white wine too. I was up way too late, listening to old CDs and reading through ancient diary entries again. I got really annoyed with my 25-year old self; One entry contained references to reading a book, but I hadn't mentioned exactly which book it was. What a daft oversight. Judging from the time and place (February 1994, Izmir), I suspect the book was either Grave's I, Claudius or a dreadful read by some pretentious EFL teacher in Saudi, the name of which was Sucking Sherbert Lemons.

Too late, too tired.

I feel knackered. This is the first chance I've had to sit down since 6.30 this morning, the first opportunity to be by myself and try to listen only to my own voice, to see what it may say.

There is still so, so much to be said.

I feel time withering behind me, a spark of fire on a fine yarrow stalk, which twists and blackens as the hungry orange rushes its length, leaving nothing but a fine grey ash to be scattered by the wind; I feel myself as a never-seen cavern in the chalk country that is my home, filled with calcified water from the winter rains, longing for light to burst in that the water in me may rush out, that I may stare gasping into day, finally empty; I feel like the sullen impatience of the red kite, lashed to its roost by a dull day of hard wind and cold gobbets of naily rain, desiring nothing more than to raise its russet wings like a banner against the sky, and sail the wind, an omen to scryers; I see a trail of lost opportunities behind me like goods flung from the back of a boat in stormy seas, the occupant not noticing his loss until he arrives at his destination and his cargo, he finds, is gone.

There is still so, so much to be said.

Always beware of the English Course you choose....

An advertisement for a course....
SNAKE HEAD ENGRISH
Unit 5, Block 12, Shaolin Road, Fujian Province, PRC
�HEY YOU! YEAH, YOU NEW GENEERATION! COME ON, DREAM IN ENGLISH ON ENGLAND!�

Coarse detail for that week:
Monday: PAY DAY: You pay $20,000, we get you to ENGLAND!!!! Then you pay more. Or, we torture you granny. You arrive in UK in back of led roll�rel loll�big truck and go straight to wonder home: converted freight container!! You share with only 42 other!!! 1th lesson: Vocabulary: Theme: �Cutting vegetables in farm�

Tuesday: Glammer! 1st conditional: �If you no work 24 hour day, seven day week, shining Samsung miclowave, we will tear you pet budgie head off!

Wednedsday: Social Engrish: Getting a National Insurance number. We give you one, then you sign contract promising you work for next ten year. Or we burn you house to ground.

Thuday: Visit to factory!! Depart 4.30 a.m. Bring own lunch. We take you in special no-window white van. You stay in factory, learn great ever day English, as, �Oi you! Pick that up!�, �I think �1 is fair wages for a twelve-hour day�, �No, it doesn�t hurt, I can carry on working, look, I�ve put it back in the socket�. Stay in factory until 12.00 o�clock p.m. midnight!! You work! Or we get Ming Dynasty on you parents!

Fliday: OUTING and CULTURE STUDIES: go swimming and cockle picking in loverly MORECAMBE BAY!!! Note: you must pick 300 bags cockles or we shoot you family!!!!!

SNAKEHEAD ENGRISH ! YEAH! YOU HAVE GREAT FUNNY TIME AND ENTERTAINING! BECAUSE, WE GREAT ENJOYMENT MAKE! OR YOU DIE!!!
OK, so perhaps it's in poor taste, considering what happened to those poor guys on Morecambe Bay, but it's nothing compared to the parasitic arrogant pondlife that engineered the tragedy.

Ah, the weekend...

Four days on the trot, seventeen smokeless days this year. Savings: �40.80

It has been brought to my attention that entries in this blog make me sound like an utterly miserable git. Well, I do have some justification for that, of course, but I will strive to let the sunny side of my disposition shine through. Rather than the cynical, sneering and satirical bastard that all my friends know and love.

Thursday. Hmmm.

Third day in a row without a cigarette, a total of sixteen smokeless days in 2004 so far. savings so far: �38.40

Am only having slight cravings, and when they do appear, I go off and do something until they bugger off. I'm having a pretty tedious, albeit productive, time of it at the moment. I mean productive in the sense of getting some decent lesson planning going and being (or trying to be) proactive in sorting out my financial situation. Just organising the paperwork has been useful. Now, if I could get my backside round to doing some real creative work, I'd be happy.

I haven't been getting to bed till 1.30/2.00 the last few days, a result of which is my feeling and looking pretty crap. Despite my tiredness, I find it difficult to get to sleep. I've spent far too long instead netsurfing. Chat rooms are strange *places*: I can't see the point, really, unless they're on a fairly specialised topic. Most of the conversations are inane to the point of catatonia. One chatroom I visited purported to be for university/college lecturers: For some strange reason, I became involved in a conversation with a woman whose boyfriend had apparently become wedged solid inside his pet dog whilst buggering it. Well, it brightened up an otherwise dull evening, I suppose.

Right, time to give up. Now.

I'm going to take the opportunity of Nur's absence to give up smoking. It's high time I did: I've smoked since I was sixteen, nearly twenty years ago. Jesus! where did that time go??? This means I will have to take up another activity to displace any craving. It can't be eating - I don't want to get a like a fat git! Any suggestions out there?

The fact of the matter is that, in order to rid myself of one bad habit, I must also rid myself of others. Detrimental routines seem to compound each other with me, linking into my sense of self-esteem (or lack of it). For example: I go to the pub at the end of the day because I'm feeling down about something. I have a pint. I smoke because I've always smoked when I drink. I drink more because I'm smoking, and my throat gets dry. I smoke more, then I lurch over to the fruit machine and drunkenly lob some money in it, which I promptly lose. This makes me feel lower, so I drink more beer, run out of money, go to the cashpoint, drink, smoke and gamble more, then suddenly wake up in the morning, feeling miserable because I don't have money. This pondering distracts me from getting on with my job, which makes me feel low, which in turn leads to the pub......

I can't just give up smoking: I have to reeducate myself in drinking. Since university, I have been quite a heavy drinker. Never an alcoholic, fortunately, but that's only because there's some tiny bit of me with a sense of self-preservation. But I will drink until I feel fairly pissed, which is not good.

The vampiric village hall pantomime.

Dear God in Heaven,
Thank you that I'm still alive after the bloody farrago I've just had to sit through. This afternoon I went along with son, my mother, my aunt, my cousin and his daughter to a pantomime laughingly fashioned out of 'Treasure Island', in which another of my aunts was participating and had cadged some tickets for us. I went along despite feeling tired and ill because my son wanted to - mainly, I suspect, because he knows he can chew through tons of sweets and drink fizzy sugary crap during such entertainments. Well, the one last year wasn't too bad: all the usual 'Oh no it isn't!', 'Look behind you!' and garish dames crap, but moderately well done, by AmDram standards. This year though: Oh dear. fair enough, it was clear the villagers had done their hardest, but they were fighting a losing battle against a script that was too long, too confusing and had too many characters. All the kids in the audience got bored and started yelling or crying or running around, while the adults sat in stoic silence. Jesus, it was bloody awful. I could feel the life force being sucked out of me, the dreadful waste of hours from a life getting shorter as it is. The only bright point of the entire production was a fairly attractive young woman who was wearing very tight black leggings, a result of which was to give us a view of a spectacular camel's hoof. That and the sweets they threw out at the end.

two weeks of solitude and entertaining a five-year-old.

Well, Nur's gone to Istanbul. At this moment in time, she should just have passed into Turkish airspace, and be skimming either the Marmara or The Black Sea, depending on which way the wind's blowing. Two weeks....fourteen days of fun looking after Angus. It could, however, be longer; It depends on the situation while she's there. Also got the half term looming. Joy.

I've just finished marking my academic English class's assignments. Not an uplifting experience, I must say. A few have completed the task as required, properly researched, annotated and bibliographed, but others - well, it shows that they can copy beautifully. Guess who'll be getting 0% for it?

alternative career for EFL lecturers?

This is what happens when you don't check your contract......EFLer kidnap concerns

...

Can't think of anything to write really, so I'm just going to riff with what's going on in my head at the mo. I missed a bloody blizzard by minutes: I was just leaving college when it all kicked off. after an hour of waiting, I decided to walk home. Halfway down the road, it stopped. Ha bloody ha ha.

Nur's going off to Istanbul tomorrow morning - I'll drive her to the station to get her bus. She is most definitely not a happy bunny at present. She talked with her mum last night, who apparently sounded much brighter and chirpier than before. Still, she's going to have a sad time of it, no matter the outcome.

I now need to do a ton of marking for the Academic English course - what joy, scrutinising essays for evidence of plagiarism. Then, of course, I'll hand the things back and the guilty students will say, 'I didn't no copy! No! My work!', until I show them the relevant pages from a Google search. Then they'll grin and smirk. Twats.

On another learning front, it looks like I might be giving Turkish lesssons, which will be interesting.

Right, enough of nothing being said, time to do some real work.

and you think your job's bad?

....check these out!

still no snow.

they promised snow! Where is it? What have you done with it?

money

According to the BBC's Breakfast programme this morning, the average graduate will earn �21,100 p.a. in their first job.
What do I earn?
�21,830.
Since graduating in 1989, I have had a total pay increase (taking into account stuff like inflation) of about 3%.
Shit.
No wonder I'm buggered financially.
They say teaching is a rewarding career......

It's cold outside, but inside I'm all warm and fluffy. Not.

Another miserable week commences. I'm just wondering how hard it's going to snow. This time last year, we had about an inch of the stuff and it took me 3 hours to get to school! Pathetic. At least I'll be on my bike. Wife is still unhappy, obviously, and scared about what lies ahead for her. I wish I could go, but lack of money seems to forbid that. Bugger.
On the money front, everything's still crap, but at least it's crap that is having a bit of light shone upon it, revealing itself in all its loathsome tudy splendour. I've found a couple of websites that seem to offer decent advice: now to put it to work.

an extract...

...from the joy of raki.

Izmir, June/July 1994
Whole days would pass in that smoky living room, the three of us drinking beer or the local white wine mixed with orange squash to make it more palatable. We sat and smoked and watched MTV on the knackered TV, listened to Nirvana, Blur, Green Day, Madness, anything. We�d sit in the smoke, wearing the lightest clothes we could. Even speaking seemed too burdensome, too sweatmaking at times. Beer bottles slowly accumulated in the hallway, until we had to jump over them to get to the bathroom. The kitchen had died long before, and was stacked with the corpses of long-expired dinners. The fridge had become an experimental ecosystem. Guy, Andrew and I were slugging at our beers,when I saw a cockroach knocking at the living room door. Not just a cockroach, but the biggest bastard I had ever seen. Its black carapace glistened evilly, its antenna twitched and searched.
Jesus, look at the size of that bastard! Andrew yelled. We all got on our feet. The bastard scuttled away from us.
Quick, trap it!
We chased it, and it ran behind a beer bottle. We were all armed : Me with a newspaper, Andrew with a shoe, Guy with a can of aerosol and a lighter. We gathered round the bottle where it was hiding. Right, I said. After three, Ill lift the bottle, then we take turns to smack the fucker into oblivion. OK?
Quick nods from the other two.
Alright then, get ready.......one.......two......three........go! No!
I lifted the bottle, and there it was in all its loathsome glory. It then did the unexpected: It charged us.
AAAAGGHH!
We all dived for the cover of the living room.
A few minutes passed.
Has it gone yet?
I think so.

Friday. Cold. Miserable. No money. Bollocks.

I feel like crap. After lessons last night, I rather stupidly went out and got drunk. It didn't make me feel any better about my predicament, unsurprisingly. I just sat in the Cooper's Arms, supping beer and failing dismally to complete an Auracaria crossword. Somebody else in there must have been depressed too: The juke box was playing Tracy Chapman, REM and other sad stuff. After arriving home about 11.30, I found Wife and Child curled up asleep in the latter's bed. I cracked open a bottle of Korean rice wine that one of my students had given me. Not bad. Nur woke up, and we talked and smoked in the kitchen. Her elder sister, the cow, has still not told their father about their mum's condition: She wants Nur to tell him when she arrives in Istanbul. She isn't even looking after him, preferring to focus all her attention on her mother, even while the poor man screams in pain and desperation. They have been married for soemthing like 50 years, since they were children (a common village practice in Turkey until relatively recently).
God, life just seems to be throwing me curve balls at the moment. I NEED TO BE STRONG FOR MY FAMILY'S SAKE. But where can i get that strength? I'm on my knees as it is. Someone help me find a way through all this, please!

Bum, arse,bugger and tits.

...just venting my feelings. I've had a shit day, and I've still got to teach...God, I could do with a nice cold beer...

from bad to worse....

Just when I thought things couldn't get any harder, they just have. I got a phone call from my wife's sister yesterday afternoon. She sounded upset, but wouldn't say anything apart from 'Get her to call me. Our mother's really ill'. I tried calling my wife, but she had her mobile switched off, so I got out of work as quickly as possible and pedalled home. When I arrived, I gave her the message, she called, and just crumpled. Her mum's been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and it looks like her father's in a bad way too. It looks like she may have only weeks to live. My wife booked her flight back to Turkey last night: She goes on the 30th and will stay two weeks. I spent half the night comforting her, or trying to. What the hell could I say to her? I felt numb. Now, on top of the financial problems, we have this, which is way more important.
My own side of the family, too, has problems: My grandfather is in hospital, and my dad's wife has breast cancer. It is really being brought home to me, hard, how much my family will need to rely on me over the next few years. And I need help myself. Oh God, please give me strength!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all Chinese people! I expect most of my students won't be appearing today......Hopefully, this year will be a good one for me, as it's a monkey year (a green wooden one, apparently) and I'm a monkey. It can't be any worse than what I've been through, anyway. Had yet another letter from the bank telling me they were unable to pay another bill....

Time for bed....

....I am wet and knackered, having cycled home in the rain. I've just been thinking that I haven't included any raki joy in here recently, but I soon shall. For the time being, however, here's a quick recipe:
Lamb's Brain salad.
Take 1 cute, fluffy, ickle little lamb. Slit its throat in the approved halal method. Saw though the top of the skull and remove the brain, making sure to carefully cut the nerve cord. Boil the brain until tender, then let cool. Arrange some cos lettuce leaves on a plate. Place brain in the middle. Serve with a slice of lemon. Squeeze lemon on the brain and wait for it to emit a high-pitched shriek. That's the bit I like.
Afiyet olsun!
n.b.:No ickle lambs were harmed in the making of this entry.

still grey, still dull.

It has now been raining since 8.30 this morning....bleah. I've just found out that John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, is to appear on 'I'm a celebrity, get me out of here!', alongside such luminaries as Diane Mohdahl (alleged sports drug cheat), Neil 'Razor' Ruddock (football bod), 'veteran' alleged DJ Mike Read (the man who banned Frankie Goes To Hollywood) and the Professor for gender dysmorphia studies and Really Big Jugs, Jordan (who, in an interview with the Sun, has promised 'to get it all off'). This could be a very interesting prog to watch indeed......then again, they could evict Rotten early on and it goes rapidly downhill from there.

I missed most of the 'Newsnight' interview with The Beloved Tony Bliar last night regarding tuition fees. I myself am deeply against student loans et al, as I'm certain I would never have been able to go to uni had they been in place when I went. However, one comment from a young female member of the audience got my goat. It was about public taxation to pay for HE, and It went a bit like this:
'Well, a dustman should be glad to pay for me to go to university to become a doctor, because he'll be glad when I save his life. He and others like him should be paying for university students.'
Quite apart from this young lady's vacuous thinking, the assumption of superiority really annoyed me. The obvious answer to her should be, 'Well, are you glad to pay for the dustman to come and clean out your crap? Would you do it yourself? How do you know that the dustman isn't actually well-educated but has chosen his/her own way through life? And do you actually give a toss?'
It's all very Ayn Rand really, isn't it? The assumption that the world will grind to a halt if there was no benign intelligentsia. No, the world would grind to a halt pretty fucking quickly if there weren't immigrants to keep your corner shops open all hours, to clean your floors and wipe your toilets, no unskilled labour to clean your bins, sweep your streets, sew your clothes, make your fancy trainers, tan your leather, make your fabrics, pick your crops and slaughter your meat.
Right, end of rant, I've got to go back to class.

why the hell do I feel so inert today?

Dull, dull.

The town of Reading on a wet January day is not a very enticing prospect, particularly when I have to face an intermediate class in an hour. It's no wonder we have so many pubs here.....

Yet another Tuesday.

I'm trying to get my addled brain in order, alongside my buggered financial situation. In terms of money, I really have reached my nadir. I finally told my parents about it, not that they can really help, except with practical advice. I hadn't wanted to say anything, but I didn't really have anywhere else to turn. We totted up mine and my wife's total debts: They came to a staggering thirty three thousand pounds. It was horrifying. How the hell did that happen? All I'm doing is paying some other bastard. Note that this money hasn't gone on fancy living - far from it, it has been to try and live decently. And that debt has been racked up over the past four years since we moved back to this bloody country. I mean, what the hell is going on? I'm not looking to be a millionaire: I'm not looking to swill champagne every other day; I'm just trying to live. It seems like a strange punishment being meted out to me for having the presumption to go and live abroad. At least now I can see where our money is going. Now what shall I do? A consolidating loan is out of the question, I think. I can look for additional work, but that is likely to be something like working in a bar, and that is not going to haul us out of the morass by itself. I can look for another job, but what?

today's philosophical question (s)

.....why are right-wing American commentators (Rush Limbaugh et al) so dumb? Why are they so full of hate for anyone who doesn't agree 100% with their rantings? Why are they so scared?

Still mnnurg. But with added evening.

Oh well, just another 2 hours 45 minutes before I can stagger out of here. The afternoon lesson was dullish. They are a very nice intermediate English group, but not the brightest buttons in the sewing drawer. Also, they are ridiculously passive when it comes to doing anything in front of the class. They work well when placed into pairs or small groups, but ask them a question in front of the group and they clam up. The fear of answering wrongly. This up and coming evening class, however, are a joy, as they usually are - inquisitive, bright, and willing. Then I shall go home, have whatever's in the fridge, and sleep. God my life's exciting.

Mnnurg.

A productive morning so far, workwise. I've created four presentations and a new score calculation spreadsheet, plus garner materials for the next couple of days' lessons. Now, if I could get time to do another job and pay off my bills, I'd be happy. As it was, I spent about four hours last night, trying to untangle the financial mess that is my life...

Monday musing

I was reading through an old diary entry yesterday. It was from ten years ago, when blogging wasn�t even a randy gleam in its maker�s eye. At the time, I was nearing the end of my third month in Izmir, Turkey: I�d just got two new flatmates, John and James: And I was still somewhat bewildered and lost, wondering what the hell I was doing in the place. As entries go, it was pretty mundane. I was rejoicing over the fact that I had found a place that sold porridge oats. �At last I can have a real breakfast,� I wrote. Until that point, all I�d been having was the chewy standard white bread sold all over the country. The idea of having a full Turkish breakfast � white cheese, eggs, olives, tomatoes, cucumber, tea and honey � hadn�t even entered my head. One sad attempt to make toast over a gas ring had been abandoned after the bread caught fire. I was, at that time, still trying to do everything the English Way, rather than stepping over into the pace and customs of Turkey, as I was able to later. So, there I was yesterday, my 35-year-old self reading about my 25-year-old self, and being sucked down a pathway of memory.
Someone has said that a diarist lives three times: Once when he lives it, twice when he writes it down, and third when the diary is read later. It was strange, reading this other me. Here was this person with largely the same opinions, beliefs and habits as myself, yet subtly different. For a start, this guy had more hair than me, and was thinner and (probably) better-looking. Then, I was still reaching out, groping towards whatever the future held for me. How would the 25-year-old Paul react if he had known, ten years hence, he would be back in his home town with a wife and son and still teaching English? As I read, I could see myself again, leaning over the page, dusty light coming through my bedroom window as I wrote on a desk made from a wardrobe door, and the tingling jingle of the AyGaz van echoed through the street outside. And now, here I am, remembering yesterday, an image of me sitting on my bedroom floor, reading a ten-year-old diary entry and imagining a younger self, a procession of imagination like Russian dolls nestling within each other. After all, what is the past but a construction of memory?

The weekend cometh...

....which would normally be an occasion of great rejoicing. Instead, I am left to ponder where I'm going to get the money for groceries from. Jeez, I am so buggered financially, I don't know where to start. Has anyone out there got a spare �15,000? Failing that, some advice?

I dream...

Morpheus


?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
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George W. Bush is a Chimpanzee: The joy of syllogism

I was in a chatroom last night. It advertised itself as a room for college and university lecturers, and, wanting to participate in a bit of intellectual cut and thrust, I entered it. As ever, however, it turned out to be something of a disappointment. One woman was complaining of another user sending unwanted private messages: Some guy was looking for �a smart hottie to do some C2C!!!�: Two others were discussing what they�d had for dinner. In the midst of this maelstrom of intellectual debate, one user was deriding anyone and everyone who opposed George Bush�s policies. Here�s a sample of what he said:

Ifix: Bush�s steel tariff policy was wrong.
RLSM: Hey, you liberals all say that.
Ifix: I�m not a liberal. I just think that the policy doesn�t work.
RLSM: The man can do no wrong.
..
CandidEye: The invasion of Iraq could have been handled better..
RLSM: Tell me � do you support Saddam?
CandidEye: Of course not, but the war was launched on a false premise.
RLSM; So you liberals say.
CandidEye: Why don�t you try and debate properly?
RLSM: Why do I want to talk to commies for?

And more in this vein. What interested me was the way RLSM made his leaps of logic. Firstly, he used the word �Liberal� as an insult. There�s nothing new there: Since 9/11, the word has been used in this vein to deride anyone even mildly critical of the president�s policies. He then moved on to say that liberals were first, communists, then Stalinists, then homosexuals and finally, the French � obviously a most deadly insult. Joining in the childish fun, I equated Bush with Hitler, then left the room while he exploded in rage.

Now, while I would certainly describe myself as generally liberal in my politics, I definitely cannot say that I am a communist, a Stalinist, a homosexual or even French. What interested me most about what RLSM was saying was how he arrived at his premises: the wonderful world of the false syllogism.

A syllogism is, of course, a flexible philosophical tool for arriving at a conclusion from a set of premises. Usually we include a general, universal primary premise with a secondary premise that may be universal or specific, and from them we reach a conclusion. For example:

Men can grow beards.
Plato is a man. (Syllogisms frequently use dead philosophers.)
Therefore, Plato can grow a beard.

As we can see, when the premises are reasonably universal or reasonably specific, we can arrive at a reasonable conclusion. However, syllogisms can be easily wielded to produce false conclusions, especially in the hands of those for whom logical thought is an alien concept. Here are a couple of examples:

Men have beards.
Plato doesn�t have a beard.
Therefore, Plato is a woman.

Liberals don�t like right-wing policies.
The communists don�t like right-wing policies.
Therefore, all liberals are communists.

Can you see the problem? Yet the entire thrust of right-wing American popular political debate is based upon the use of false syllogisms. Your average shock-jock lazily reaches for a premise, tacks another to it and voila! Instant opinion. Or they might take the conclusion, use that as a premise, and move on to even whackier conclusions. In truth, this has absolutely nothing to do with reasoned debate: It is merely the ugly logic of the mob, the erratic desire to reach a conclusion no matter what, and truth be damned.

Anyway, two can play at this game�.the next time someone lazily accuses you of being a commie, or a Stalinist, or a homosexual (or hetero, to be perfectly fair), or, God Forbid, French, you can come back at them with some of the following, employing the same warped way of thinking that your accuser uses. And yes, it is puerile and silly, but what the hell�.

Chimps have close-set eyes and purse their lips when confused.
George W Bush has close-set eyes and purses his lips when confused.
Therefore, George W. Bush is a chimp.

Which leads to�.
Chimps throw their own faeces at potential enemies.
George Bush is a chimp.
Therefore, George Bush throws faeces at potential enemies.

Or�
Chimps can learn to imitate aspects of human behaviour.
George Bush is a chimp.
Therefore, George Bush can learn to imitate aspects of human behaviour.

Feel free to make up more insulting versions of your own.

It is bloody wet here!

I am so glad I didn't try to cycle in this am...it's horrible! I'm going to make a few changes to this blog which should make it more readable, with any luck.

Art? I know what I like...

There are some very strange artists out there....look at this!

Tuesday. Wet. No money.

I am not having a very pleasant day, work-wise. A load of computer cabling has just fallen off the wall, I got soaked cycling in, I had to disappoint a group of students who were waiting for a new teacher anmd drag a load of new recruits round on the town tour. I also have to get my lessons ready for this afternoon and tomorrow. Oh joy. That, and the stress of worrying about where to get money from. I really am desperate for money to pay for bills: I just don't know where to turn. If there are any kindhearted souls out there with advice or cash, please, please, please contact me.

The first blog of the year

Been to busy, too tired, and too sad to blog. I decided to not worry about money until after the end of the festive season: I didn't want to make others unhappy with my unhappiness. Now I do have to worry, and how! I have precisely two pounds twenty pence in my pocket, and that's it. All the money I have. I can't even get groceries for my family this week, let alone pay for the mortgage, insurance, credit cards, loans, etc. etc. I really don't know what else to do. I can, of course, get more work, but I've worked out that I'd need to work at least another 30 hours a week to dig myself out of this. I really don't know what to do. It's not even as if I was living an extravagant lifestyle: On the contrary, I'm rather frugal in most aspects. How did it all go wrong? How? There's been an evil shadow over me ever since the earthquake in Turkey in August 1999. Every decision, including returning to the UK, has turned out badly, and now I'm about to lose my house and probably my family. What can I do? If anyone is reading this, please help. Please. I'm prepared to do anything now (as long as it's legal) to dig myself out of this situation.