Monday, September 29, 2003
Hmm. I don't seem to be writing in here as often as I could. So far today, I've successfully managed to avoid doing anything that could be construed as real work. Just sat around, pretending to create lessons for the week ahead. Evening classes start again tomorrow (groan)....another year of cajoling tired professionals to write essays. what fun.
Sunday, September 14, 2003
Dear God in Heaven,
Thank Christ I've managed to attract the attention of all the God botherers by my cunning use of the first sentence, and advertising it on google et al. I'm working on an article I'm going to post here, titled 'the fifth crusade', through which we're living right now folks! If you are easily offended by a portrayal of George W as a red-assed baboon, please continue to read this blog. you need to be converted. If you wish to remain a redneck, non-redneck lynching, hogeating, wifebeating,childmolesting sack of wank, please go, fuck off and die.
Apparently, Georgie boy's coming to London Town. hee hee hee hee. Boy, do we have a surprise for the fucker. I ahte to spoil it, but I suggest he reads up on the treatment the average briton has been doling out to David Blaine over the past week or so.......just imagine what's in store for the chimp-in-chief.......
Thank Christ I've managed to attract the attention of all the God botherers by my cunning use of the first sentence, and advertising it on google et al. I'm working on an article I'm going to post here, titled 'the fifth crusade', through which we're living right now folks! If you are easily offended by a portrayal of George W as a red-assed baboon, please continue to read this blog. you need to be converted. If you wish to remain a redneck, non-redneck lynching, hogeating, wifebeating,childmolesting sack of wank, please go, fuck off and die.
Apparently, Georgie boy's coming to London Town. hee hee hee hee. Boy, do we have a surprise for the fucker. I ahte to spoil it, but I suggest he reads up on the treatment the average briton has been doling out to David Blaine over the past week or so.......just imagine what's in store for the chimp-in-chief.......
Thursday, September 11, 2003
september 11th.....two years ago, it was a warm day in Reading. I'd just started at the college on a fulltime basis, and I cycled up to my local for a pint before going home. That's when I heard about it.
here's a question....how many people have died since then through military action? when will george w. be sated?
here's a question....how many people have died since then through military action? when will george w. be sated?
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Monday, September 01, 2003
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
urgggg....far too long since i've blogged....blame it on les vacances..anyway....
On having a holiday in Reading
Is it possible to have a holiday while at home? This is my last week before I return to the beginning of another academic year, placing students, teaching, marking, filling in forms and all the usual dross facing a lecturer. Also, due to having chosen a worthy job, I�m broke and cannot get away. Still, today I have dropped my son off at the Summer Holiday Club ( a British Phenomenon that is always duller an experience than it sounds), and I have myself to myself. So, what shall I do on my holiday at home?
Firstly, let me take the concept of place. I am not particularly a beach lover. After a few minutes of toasting, I become edgy and bored. My holiday reading palls, the screeching of children playing irks, I get covered in sand and I slowly feel paranoia rising in me at the idea of leaving any valuables (no matter how actually worthless they are) behind while I take a dip. Eventually, I want to head off somewhere, usually the nearest bar, where I will sit for the remainder of my holiday. I am sure I am not alone. No, part of the attraction of going somewhere is in the going itself, the idea of travelling to some new and hopefully exotic location. However, after arriving at the new, exotic location, one cannot help noticing that it rapidly becomes just the same, except with crappier TV and higher prices. A cheaper, happier holiday can be accomplished by changing not our location, but our concept of where we are now. To an inhabitant of Bali, he or she is just in same old, boring old Bali: to this person, Reading is a town of unimagined wonder: The Oracle shopping centre! The joy that is the pedestrianised Broad Street! The bars! The night clubs! The Purple Turtle! Reading Museum, with its unique copy of the Bayeaux Tapestry! The promenade along the Thames! Now, our Balinese tourist, presuming he or she is a shopping-mad alcoholic with an appreciation of local history, will find enough to amuse him/herself for a week in Reading. Why, then, cannot I imagine myself as that person? Instead of seeing the ordinary everyday around me, why can�t I look with a fresh eye? Our ideas of �here� and �there� are, after all, only concepts relating to familiarity and strangeness. �Reading� is as much a concept as a place, and, like God, it has many names: Slough, for example. Or Basingstoke. Or even, God forbid, Swindon. In other words, the place of the familiar. I lived in Istanbul for many years during the nineties, and visitors from England would comment on how strange and exotic everything was, whereas I had plodded the same streets, eaten the same food, been tossed from side to side in the back of the same taxis for so long that I found it hard to see their point of view. So, by changing my point of view, I should be able to view Reading as a wonderful choice of holiday location. Here, however, there is a problem: I must view Reading not as a literal, real place, but as an imagined construct, or as some kind of fable. After all, when we book our holidays, we are buying a kind of dream, are we not? I need to see my home town as a travel brochure might present it. Dreams, though, have a tough time against reality. Just as the thought of my luxury holiday villa does not square up to the brute reality of cockroaches in the kitchen and workmen next door while the German family across the road are colonising the beach, so this �fantasy� Reading doesn�t square up to what I know about the IDR, or Whitley, or the evils of the school run. In order to successfully holiday here requires a triumph of imagination over reality.
Next, let me look at routine. A holiday is not merely an escape from place, it is a release from the daily round of chores and work. Well, I am not at work, so that�s one part accomplished. Now I look at my location. I stare with a desperate eye at the noisome condition of my bedroom. I look into my son�s room and grind my teeth at the mountain of crap within. I stagger downstairs to gain some fresh air and am greeted by a mound of ironing and the washing up. And, being the relatively fastidious person I am, I start clearing up. In other words, I replace one pattern of work with another. This is, of course, the phenomenon well-known to writers as displacement activity � rather than get on with the task in hand, do another in order to produce the illusion of progress. So, instead of getting on with my holiday and savouring the delights of King�s Meadow, I drag myself back into routine and thereby back into reality: My dream Reading fades and leaves not a wrack behind, and all I am left with is the burbling of Two-Ten FM. And a pile of laundry. One of my students once asked me, �Why do you English drink so much?�, to which I gave the rather glib answer, �Well, if you lived on a cold, wet, muddy, fogbound, brown and grey little island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, you�d want a drink too�. It was, in a way, the expected answer, as well as being an excellent example of the second conditional, but it was not exactly right. Of all the peoples of Europe, the English are probably the most straitjacketed by rules, laws and routines, more so than even the Germans. We work the longest hours for the poorest pay, relatively speaking, and we obey even the flimsiest commandment. We quail at the face of authority, then give it the finger when its back is turned. Our commitment to EU rulings, for example, is amazing: we moan about Brussels bureaucracy, yet meekly accept that our cheese must be packaged in bombproof plastic and kept in chilled cabinets of precise dimensions and temperature, while our French neighbours cheerfully store their Brie in full sunlight until it develops legs and tries to run away. No, we English drink so much on holiday because we can. We have no moral arbiter hanging over our shoulder, nagging us to behave in such and such a manner. We can drink our backsides off and our guts inside out. And this is, apparently, fun.
It is not the prospect of entering a bar and staying there for two weeks that is really enjoyable however as much as it is the sense of release and the feeling of empowerment that brings. The majority of us feel trapped by our routines: any release is bound to be immensely liberating. So, in order to enjoy my holiday, I must imagine myself not only as being in some strange, exotic land, but also as being the master of my own time and able to do exactly as I please.
Thirdly, let me touch on accommodation and food. Who, after a fortnight of binge drinking, shouting at locals and being burnt lobster red, has not headed home and not reached his or her own bed without a deep sigh of satisfaction? Rapidly followed, it must be said, by a sense of impending doom at the prospect of returning to work and routine. If I were to make my fantasy holiday in Reading as realistic as fantasy allows, I should decamp and move into the Renaissance Hotel in the town centre, or the Holiday Inn, which at least has a view over water (the River Thames, in this case). But why, when I can heave that happy sigh every night? Why should I put up with the lurking fear of hotel maids riffling through my bags, when I can do that perfectly well myself, or at a stretch arrange for my wife to do it? Why bags even? The fact is, one�s home makes a potentially ideal place to have a holiday in, except for the two facts mentioned above: Its familiarity as a location, and the sense of routine all homes have. Therefore, not only must I imagine myself as being in a strange new town and master of my own time, I must also now view my own home as the stuff of fantasy, laundry and all.
When the English go on holiday, they have two possible reactions to local food: either they will try everything going, or they will eat only sausage, egg and chips for the entire duration of their stay. The former reaction is most likely to be found in those who will enjoy their holiday more. In both cases, food poisoning is more cheerfully put up with than it would be �at home�, as watching someone go green is felt to enhance the holiday experience. There is another reaction to eating abroad, and that is to eat where the locals do. It is felt that this is somewhat more worthy. There is also the subfeeling that the locals would not possibly want to poison themselves. If I were to do this in Reading, I would largely end up dining in MacDonald�s, and I have too much respect for my body to do such a terrible thing to it. I must assume that I have come on a luxury self-catering holiday instead. I must thereby convince myself that the ingredients I have chosen from Tesco�s are instead the finest, freshest local produce available, from which I shall make sumptuous feasts. I understand the vegetable oil is extra virgin, and the microwave chips are handcut.
So, in summation, in order to have a holiday in Reading (or Slough, or Basingstoke, or, God Forbid, Swindon), I must first imagine this place as an area of unrivalled exotica: That I can go and do what I want, when I want: That I am staying in one of the finest holiday villas available, and dining on the choicest handpicked foods. In other words, I am on someone else�s holiday, and that I have imagined myself as someone other than I am. With all these criteria considered, two questions arise:
Being someone other than who I am, can I really say that I am enjoying my sojourn in Reading?
And:
Being someone other than who I am, a someone who finds my home town fascinating, the different pace of life invigorating, the accommodation and service wonderful, and the food delicious: Can I stay like this please?
That way, each day becomes a holiday. Our destination is irrelevant, as what we most often need is a holiday from ourselves.
August 2003
On having a holiday in Reading
Is it possible to have a holiday while at home? This is my last week before I return to the beginning of another academic year, placing students, teaching, marking, filling in forms and all the usual dross facing a lecturer. Also, due to having chosen a worthy job, I�m broke and cannot get away. Still, today I have dropped my son off at the Summer Holiday Club ( a British Phenomenon that is always duller an experience than it sounds), and I have myself to myself. So, what shall I do on my holiday at home?
Firstly, let me take the concept of place. I am not particularly a beach lover. After a few minutes of toasting, I become edgy and bored. My holiday reading palls, the screeching of children playing irks, I get covered in sand and I slowly feel paranoia rising in me at the idea of leaving any valuables (no matter how actually worthless they are) behind while I take a dip. Eventually, I want to head off somewhere, usually the nearest bar, where I will sit for the remainder of my holiday. I am sure I am not alone. No, part of the attraction of going somewhere is in the going itself, the idea of travelling to some new and hopefully exotic location. However, after arriving at the new, exotic location, one cannot help noticing that it rapidly becomes just the same, except with crappier TV and higher prices. A cheaper, happier holiday can be accomplished by changing not our location, but our concept of where we are now. To an inhabitant of Bali, he or she is just in same old, boring old Bali: to this person, Reading is a town of unimagined wonder: The Oracle shopping centre! The joy that is the pedestrianised Broad Street! The bars! The night clubs! The Purple Turtle! Reading Museum, with its unique copy of the Bayeaux Tapestry! The promenade along the Thames! Now, our Balinese tourist, presuming he or she is a shopping-mad alcoholic with an appreciation of local history, will find enough to amuse him/herself for a week in Reading. Why, then, cannot I imagine myself as that person? Instead of seeing the ordinary everyday around me, why can�t I look with a fresh eye? Our ideas of �here� and �there� are, after all, only concepts relating to familiarity and strangeness. �Reading� is as much a concept as a place, and, like God, it has many names: Slough, for example. Or Basingstoke. Or even, God forbid, Swindon. In other words, the place of the familiar. I lived in Istanbul for many years during the nineties, and visitors from England would comment on how strange and exotic everything was, whereas I had plodded the same streets, eaten the same food, been tossed from side to side in the back of the same taxis for so long that I found it hard to see their point of view. So, by changing my point of view, I should be able to view Reading as a wonderful choice of holiday location. Here, however, there is a problem: I must view Reading not as a literal, real place, but as an imagined construct, or as some kind of fable. After all, when we book our holidays, we are buying a kind of dream, are we not? I need to see my home town as a travel brochure might present it. Dreams, though, have a tough time against reality. Just as the thought of my luxury holiday villa does not square up to the brute reality of cockroaches in the kitchen and workmen next door while the German family across the road are colonising the beach, so this �fantasy� Reading doesn�t square up to what I know about the IDR, or Whitley, or the evils of the school run. In order to successfully holiday here requires a triumph of imagination over reality.
Next, let me look at routine. A holiday is not merely an escape from place, it is a release from the daily round of chores and work. Well, I am not at work, so that�s one part accomplished. Now I look at my location. I stare with a desperate eye at the noisome condition of my bedroom. I look into my son�s room and grind my teeth at the mountain of crap within. I stagger downstairs to gain some fresh air and am greeted by a mound of ironing and the washing up. And, being the relatively fastidious person I am, I start clearing up. In other words, I replace one pattern of work with another. This is, of course, the phenomenon well-known to writers as displacement activity � rather than get on with the task in hand, do another in order to produce the illusion of progress. So, instead of getting on with my holiday and savouring the delights of King�s Meadow, I drag myself back into routine and thereby back into reality: My dream Reading fades and leaves not a wrack behind, and all I am left with is the burbling of Two-Ten FM. And a pile of laundry. One of my students once asked me, �Why do you English drink so much?�, to which I gave the rather glib answer, �Well, if you lived on a cold, wet, muddy, fogbound, brown and grey little island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, you�d want a drink too�. It was, in a way, the expected answer, as well as being an excellent example of the second conditional, but it was not exactly right. Of all the peoples of Europe, the English are probably the most straitjacketed by rules, laws and routines, more so than even the Germans. We work the longest hours for the poorest pay, relatively speaking, and we obey even the flimsiest commandment. We quail at the face of authority, then give it the finger when its back is turned. Our commitment to EU rulings, for example, is amazing: we moan about Brussels bureaucracy, yet meekly accept that our cheese must be packaged in bombproof plastic and kept in chilled cabinets of precise dimensions and temperature, while our French neighbours cheerfully store their Brie in full sunlight until it develops legs and tries to run away. No, we English drink so much on holiday because we can. We have no moral arbiter hanging over our shoulder, nagging us to behave in such and such a manner. We can drink our backsides off and our guts inside out. And this is, apparently, fun.
It is not the prospect of entering a bar and staying there for two weeks that is really enjoyable however as much as it is the sense of release and the feeling of empowerment that brings. The majority of us feel trapped by our routines: any release is bound to be immensely liberating. So, in order to enjoy my holiday, I must imagine myself not only as being in some strange, exotic land, but also as being the master of my own time and able to do exactly as I please.
Thirdly, let me touch on accommodation and food. Who, after a fortnight of binge drinking, shouting at locals and being burnt lobster red, has not headed home and not reached his or her own bed without a deep sigh of satisfaction? Rapidly followed, it must be said, by a sense of impending doom at the prospect of returning to work and routine. If I were to make my fantasy holiday in Reading as realistic as fantasy allows, I should decamp and move into the Renaissance Hotel in the town centre, or the Holiday Inn, which at least has a view over water (the River Thames, in this case). But why, when I can heave that happy sigh every night? Why should I put up with the lurking fear of hotel maids riffling through my bags, when I can do that perfectly well myself, or at a stretch arrange for my wife to do it? Why bags even? The fact is, one�s home makes a potentially ideal place to have a holiday in, except for the two facts mentioned above: Its familiarity as a location, and the sense of routine all homes have. Therefore, not only must I imagine myself as being in a strange new town and master of my own time, I must also now view my own home as the stuff of fantasy, laundry and all.
When the English go on holiday, they have two possible reactions to local food: either they will try everything going, or they will eat only sausage, egg and chips for the entire duration of their stay. The former reaction is most likely to be found in those who will enjoy their holiday more. In both cases, food poisoning is more cheerfully put up with than it would be �at home�, as watching someone go green is felt to enhance the holiday experience. There is another reaction to eating abroad, and that is to eat where the locals do. It is felt that this is somewhat more worthy. There is also the subfeeling that the locals would not possibly want to poison themselves. If I were to do this in Reading, I would largely end up dining in MacDonald�s, and I have too much respect for my body to do such a terrible thing to it. I must assume that I have come on a luxury self-catering holiday instead. I must thereby convince myself that the ingredients I have chosen from Tesco�s are instead the finest, freshest local produce available, from which I shall make sumptuous feasts. I understand the vegetable oil is extra virgin, and the microwave chips are handcut.
So, in summation, in order to have a holiday in Reading (or Slough, or Basingstoke, or, God Forbid, Swindon), I must first imagine this place as an area of unrivalled exotica: That I can go and do what I want, when I want: That I am staying in one of the finest holiday villas available, and dining on the choicest handpicked foods. In other words, I am on someone else�s holiday, and that I have imagined myself as someone other than I am. With all these criteria considered, two questions arise:
Being someone other than who I am, can I really say that I am enjoying my sojourn in Reading?
And:
Being someone other than who I am, a someone who finds my home town fascinating, the different pace of life invigorating, the accommodation and service wonderful, and the food delicious: Can I stay like this please?
That way, each day becomes a holiday. Our destination is irrelevant, as what we most often need is a holiday from ourselves.
August 2003
Monday, August 04, 2003
Oh my, back at work.............and it's 35 degrees outside......
I've spent the last week not doing much apart from drinking vast amounts of booze. This is a bad thing, as my liver specialist might say, if I had such a thing. A liver specialist that is, not a liver. In fact, I suspect that unhappy organ buggered off long ago. I once calculated how much I'd drunk since the age of eighteen. I reckon I've drunk the equivalent of a bottle of wine every day since 1986. If you stacked all the bottles end on end, they'd reach a height roughly equivalent to that of Ben Nevis.....I'm aiming for Mont Blanc......
I've spent the last week not doing much apart from drinking vast amounts of booze. This is a bad thing, as my liver specialist might say, if I had such a thing. A liver specialist that is, not a liver. In fact, I suspect that unhappy organ buggered off long ago. I once calculated how much I'd drunk since the age of eighteen. I reckon I've drunk the equivalent of a bottle of wine every day since 1986. If you stacked all the bottles end on end, they'd reach a height roughly equivalent to that of Ben Nevis.....I'm aiming for Mont Blanc......
Sunday, July 27, 2003
Tuesday, July 22, 2003
My last day at college for a week and a half. Oh yes.
Had some good news about one of my classes yesterday. A group of studes I'd entered into the PET exam all passed, five of them with merits! Now, PET isn't the hardest English exam in the world, but it gave me a warm glow to get a whole group through. Now I just need to wait and see how my CAE and IFP groups go........can I get a 100% pass rate this year? Let's see.
I'm not feeling terribly active today - actually, there's not a huge amount for me to do before I hand over the summer school activities to another teacher. That's nice. Looks like I'll just have to lounge around here till the evening, then go home and get drunk or something. Or look round for a new job. I was at a ball on saturday evening: My wife's company bash. I was sat next to a woman who does corporate training - like teaching, but miles easier. I found out how much she's on - five hundred quid a day. Five bloody hundred sodding quid! A bloody day! that means she earns what I do in two months! Cow.
Had some good news about one of my classes yesterday. A group of studes I'd entered into the PET exam all passed, five of them with merits! Now, PET isn't the hardest English exam in the world, but it gave me a warm glow to get a whole group through. Now I just need to wait and see how my CAE and IFP groups go........can I get a 100% pass rate this year? Let's see.
I'm not feeling terribly active today - actually, there's not a huge amount for me to do before I hand over the summer school activities to another teacher. That's nice. Looks like I'll just have to lounge around here till the evening, then go home and get drunk or something. Or look round for a new job. I was at a ball on saturday evening: My wife's company bash. I was sat next to a woman who does corporate training - like teaching, but miles easier. I found out how much she's on - five hundred quid a day. Five bloody hundred sodding quid! A bloody day! that means she earns what I do in two months! Cow.
Friday, July 18, 2003
Friday! Hurrah!
I am sooooooooooooooo bloody sick of marking academic English stuff. Still, the course is reaching its end. I'm pleased with my students though - honestly, if it hadn't been for them, I'd have been off to another job before now. They've all got decent offers from good universities, even great ones. One girl has an offer to do law at SOAS, which is fantastic.
Talking of jobs, I put on my application for Curriculum Manager yesterday. I don't think I'll get it: There's one other candidate who, it seems to me, is a shoe-in for the post. Oh well, no harm in trying. I must say, however, that I'm totally frustrated with struggling to make ends meet and catch up with what I was earning (in real terms) four years ago in Istanbul. Bluh. Hell, what can a teacher do? My profession earns no respect in other spheres. I'm not asking to have a million dollar a year job, just something that'll allow me to live comfortably and pay off all my damn debts. And lounge on a hammock, drinking.
Oh well, back to marking.......enjoy your weekend!
I am sooooooooooooooo bloody sick of marking academic English stuff. Still, the course is reaching its end. I'm pleased with my students though - honestly, if it hadn't been for them, I'd have been off to another job before now. They've all got decent offers from good universities, even great ones. One girl has an offer to do law at SOAS, which is fantastic.
Talking of jobs, I put on my application for Curriculum Manager yesterday. I don't think I'll get it: There's one other candidate who, it seems to me, is a shoe-in for the post. Oh well, no harm in trying. I must say, however, that I'm totally frustrated with struggling to make ends meet and catch up with what I was earning (in real terms) four years ago in Istanbul. Bluh. Hell, what can a teacher do? My profession earns no respect in other spheres. I'm not asking to have a million dollar a year job, just something that'll allow me to live comfortably and pay off all my damn debts. And lounge on a hammock, drinking.
Oh well, back to marking.......enjoy your weekend!
Wednesday, July 09, 2003
I'm feeling bloody knackered. Setting up and running the efl summer programme in the space of less than a week has been a complete sod. I've been running round all day, booking trips and trying to find people willing to accompany the studes. Bluh. That, and my Academic English class - presentations today: the sodding laptop and computer went up the spout, so I spent a merry half hour finding a room with functional equipment. Then the presentations were so boring that I actually started to fall asleep. Thank god it's nearly the end of the day.
Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Ahh! The blogging screen's changed yet again! An improvement, however....
A v. quick blog - it's high time I gave another recipe to you all. Hre's one you can try on the barbecue with a glass of raki (or ouzo, if you must go downmarket :) )
Sis Kofte
for this, you will need:
250gr mince
half large onion
1 thick slice bread (preferably dry)
small bunch of flat leaf parsley (or coriander for a spicier effect)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chilli flakes
3/4 tsp coriander powder
a dab of cinnamon
salt pepper
grate the onion. Using a blender, whizz up the bread(remove crusts!) and parsley. place all in a bowl. Add mince. Add herbs. Knead everything together for at least five minutes. If possible, leave overnight to let all the flavours blend. Now take your mixture, and take a moderate handful. take a large, flat-bladed kebab skewer. These hold the meat far better than a thin skewer. push the mixture to the midlle of the blade, then work it outwards towards each end. repeat with another skewer until you've finished the mix. Cook under a medium high (160-170 degree) grill, or on a barbie. Total cooking time: about 5-8 minutes. Taste: delicious. serve with a really fresh green salad, pitta bread and bulgur wheat. savour with raki. best eaten outdoors on a warm night. Afiyet olsun.
A v. quick blog - it's high time I gave another recipe to you all. Hre's one you can try on the barbecue with a glass of raki (or ouzo, if you must go downmarket :) )
Sis Kofte
for this, you will need:
250gr mince
half large onion
1 thick slice bread (preferably dry)
small bunch of flat leaf parsley (or coriander for a spicier effect)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chilli flakes
3/4 tsp coriander powder
a dab of cinnamon
salt pepper
grate the onion. Using a blender, whizz up the bread(remove crusts!) and parsley. place all in a bowl. Add mince. Add herbs. Knead everything together for at least five minutes. If possible, leave overnight to let all the flavours blend. Now take your mixture, and take a moderate handful. take a large, flat-bladed kebab skewer. These hold the meat far better than a thin skewer. push the mixture to the midlle of the blade, then work it outwards towards each end. repeat with another skewer until you've finished the mix. Cook under a medium high (160-170 degree) grill, or on a barbie. Total cooking time: about 5-8 minutes. Taste: delicious. serve with a really fresh green salad, pitta bread and bulgur wheat. savour with raki. best eaten outdoors on a warm night. Afiyet olsun.
The fun and games continue. I found out on Monday that I was programme leader for the summer school. Seeing as we had our first students appear for it that very day, I was, to say the least, somewhat taken aback. Mike, the temporary Curriculum Manager, had muttered something about summer school back in March, then had promptly forgotten about it. So, now I have to organise testing, classes, schedules and teachers within a week, plus organise a roster of social activities and find the money to do so. Oh joy. It's such fun being dumped in the shit at the last minute, isn't it? Grrrr......
Yesterday was a ghastly one. I had to attend a meeting regarding observation of classes ahead of November's OFSTED (Office for Standards in Education) visit. Dull, dull,dull, dull. The trainer was a softly spoken Ulsterman with the magnificently camp name of Bradley Lightborn. It lasted all day. You know how long meetings drain you of your very life essence. I then chaired a meeting of my son's after school club in the evening, which provided comparatively light entertainment.
Yesterday was a ghastly one. I had to attend a meeting regarding observation of classes ahead of November's OFSTED (Office for Standards in Education) visit. Dull, dull,dull, dull. The trainer was a softly spoken Ulsterman with the magnificently camp name of Bradley Lightborn. It lasted all day. You know how long meetings drain you of your very life essence. I then chaired a meeting of my son's after school club in the evening, which provided comparatively light entertainment.
Monday, June 30, 2003
The wife buggered off to Eastbourne on Saturday. I�d woken up early, coaxed her gently from sleep, or rather tried to. Eventually got her up by inserting sticks of dynamite under the bed. I suggested going down to the coast for the day.
�Oh no�, she said, �It�ll be cold there�.
Fair enough.
An hour later, her friend Hava called.
�Some Turkish girls are getting together and making Turkish food in Eastbourne. Let�s go!�
And so off she went. I dropped her off at the train station, then got Angus� stuff ready to leave him at his Gran�s. Left him there, then I was left in blissful peace for a Saturday night. I decided to go up to the old watering hole, the White Horse. I saw Julian (old chum) up there. After a few beers, and not much going on, we decided to go back to his gaff to carry on drinking. He lives in a brand new flat overlooking the broad sweep of the Thames Valley and Sonning Eye. It is utterly spotless, apart from having underwear draped over the radiators. This I found surprising: I�d expected the homely chaos of a bachelor, certainly where Jules was concerned.
�Nope, mate�, he said, �I like it just like this. Immaculate�.
It wasn�t the only change I noticed in my old mucker. He�s changed thoroughly.
Opinions? Well,
�Thatcher was right. Fuck Tony. The whole country�s going down the pan, mate. Asylum seekers and Guardian readers? Hah!�, and so on and so forth.
Not so much opinions as leader articles for the Sun or the Daily Mail.
I found it saddening, in many ways. Of course, we haven�t really been in the same social group for ages, but I never really reckoned on someone who was a radical in his teens and early twenties doing such a volte-face. Still, he is an old friend, someone I�ve known for nearly thirty years, and we decided not to talk politics and just get drunk instead, which was fine. I eventually staggered home at about three
�Oh no�, she said, �It�ll be cold there�.
Fair enough.
An hour later, her friend Hava called.
�Some Turkish girls are getting together and making Turkish food in Eastbourne. Let�s go!�
And so off she went. I dropped her off at the train station, then got Angus� stuff ready to leave him at his Gran�s. Left him there, then I was left in blissful peace for a Saturday night. I decided to go up to the old watering hole, the White Horse. I saw Julian (old chum) up there. After a few beers, and not much going on, we decided to go back to his gaff to carry on drinking. He lives in a brand new flat overlooking the broad sweep of the Thames Valley and Sonning Eye. It is utterly spotless, apart from having underwear draped over the radiators. This I found surprising: I�d expected the homely chaos of a bachelor, certainly where Jules was concerned.
�Nope, mate�, he said, �I like it just like this. Immaculate�.
It wasn�t the only change I noticed in my old mucker. He�s changed thoroughly.
Opinions? Well,
�Thatcher was right. Fuck Tony. The whole country�s going down the pan, mate. Asylum seekers and Guardian readers? Hah!�, and so on and so forth.
Not so much opinions as leader articles for the Sun or the Daily Mail.
I found it saddening, in many ways. Of course, we haven�t really been in the same social group for ages, but I never really reckoned on someone who was a radical in his teens and early twenties doing such a volte-face. Still, he is an old friend, someone I�ve known for nearly thirty years, and we decided not to talk politics and just get drunk instead, which was fine. I eventually staggered home at about three
Thursday, June 26, 2003
Well well well, a new design for blogger......hmmmmmmm..... I'm not sure I like it yet. I was going to post a piece on some of my favourite writers, but I'll do that later, when I have more time. At present, I have a class due in an hour and a half.....pre-intermediate Chinese.....a scintillating afternoon of crap English awaits.....I also have a hangover. I sauntered up to my old drinking hole, the White Horse in Emmer Green last night. saw an old chum, Julian, and his brother Steve, plus a few other people. Got sucked into a conversation re languages, learning, etymology and other such balls. Then I went home via Grove Road, Surley Row and Shipnell's farm, staggering along a bridleway under a warm, rustling night, fell through the front door and had a couple more beers. Didn't get to bed until 2.30.
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Another thing: I feel as if I am stagnant. I haven't read, learned, or done anything new in so long. I reflected sadly on this yesterday, when I was trawling the net for Turkish languages. I found a site that linked to sites in Tatar, Uygur, Tajik, Azeri, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and others. I read through the sites, encountering little difficulty in understanding them, and thinking that I hadn't done anything like this in ages. Why have I stagnated?
Another dull day at college....
Actually, it�s not too bad. Come the summer, come fewer encounters with students. It gives one time to catch up on paperwork, mark essays a month overdue, file bits of paper, complete reports, plan for the next month�s worth of lessons, and sit around on my arse, worrying about money. When I came in this morning, I had a smoke and watched the junior hodcarriers learn their trade. It galled me to think that these little bastards, come leaving college, will probably be earning at least as much as me. For humping bricks around building sites. Here I am, 35, university degree, ten years an EFL lecturer, two of those running a language school with 2000 students, and now stuck on �19,500 a year, failing to juggle a mortgage, credit cards, schooling for my son, debts and loans. Where the fuck did I go wrong? OK, in the grand scheme of things, I�m not doing badly, but compared to what I could be doing, I�m really fucked over. I should have dashed my brains against a wall early on, and lived a contented life hodding bricks, reading the Sun, and ignored the Glamour of Future Great Things.
Well, beating myself up over it isn�t going to alter my situation. The question is, what do I do? I need help: I need someone to help haul me out of this tiresome mire and back into the light. The truth is, I�m afraid. I have responsibilities that I feel I can�t control, and that is the worst thing. I can�t control the necessary circumstances in my life. That wouldn�t have been bad ten years ago, as a single guy, but now, with son, wife, house, car and life, I really don�t know what to do. The juggernaut of debts, requirements, demands and wants is thumping closer through the mad crowd, rolling ever nearer to crush me. And yes, I know I�m not alone, yet I feel that way. I look for an escape route, but the mad crowd, which consists of all the things I need to do, doesn�t let me out, it merely presses harder and harder, suffocating me. The juggernaut looms: soon it will roll over me, squeezing me out of existence.
Actually, it�s not too bad. Come the summer, come fewer encounters with students. It gives one time to catch up on paperwork, mark essays a month overdue, file bits of paper, complete reports, plan for the next month�s worth of lessons, and sit around on my arse, worrying about money. When I came in this morning, I had a smoke and watched the junior hodcarriers learn their trade. It galled me to think that these little bastards, come leaving college, will probably be earning at least as much as me. For humping bricks around building sites. Here I am, 35, university degree, ten years an EFL lecturer, two of those running a language school with 2000 students, and now stuck on �19,500 a year, failing to juggle a mortgage, credit cards, schooling for my son, debts and loans. Where the fuck did I go wrong? OK, in the grand scheme of things, I�m not doing badly, but compared to what I could be doing, I�m really fucked over. I should have dashed my brains against a wall early on, and lived a contented life hodding bricks, reading the Sun, and ignored the Glamour of Future Great Things.
Well, beating myself up over it isn�t going to alter my situation. The question is, what do I do? I need help: I need someone to help haul me out of this tiresome mire and back into the light. The truth is, I�m afraid. I have responsibilities that I feel I can�t control, and that is the worst thing. I can�t control the necessary circumstances in my life. That wouldn�t have been bad ten years ago, as a single guy, but now, with son, wife, house, car and life, I really don�t know what to do. The juggernaut of debts, requirements, demands and wants is thumping closer through the mad crowd, rolling ever nearer to crush me. And yes, I know I�m not alone, yet I feel that way. I look for an escape route, but the mad crowd, which consists of all the things I need to do, doesn�t let me out, it merely presses harder and harder, suffocating me. The juggernaut looms: soon it will roll over me, squeezing me out of existence.
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