I've written three quarters of a page of one of the last essay plans I will ever write. I've bought a folder and notebooks and a canvas bag to hold them which will all contain the last notes I will ever write while sitting listening to a person qualified to educate me as I sit in the last classes I will ever attend. This is 17 years of education, compulsory and higher, beginning to end. I have to say it is a very very odd feeling.
I can see it coming. I can see the feeling. All those years of classrooms and uniform shops and pencil cases and sitting and studying and exams and marks and pages of reading and attention just stopping. Jesus it's going to be amazing. To finally be able to say: yes, I am educated. I have an education. I have gone through your system, Mr Government, and finished it to a healthy level. Look at me. All happy to be in that statistic of graduates. In that little vineyard of freshly ripened grapes with capes ready to be squished into a delicious maturing wine all nutritious and lovely. I finished your growing, all that classroom time you wanted of me, all those exams you made me do, all those long essays no one ever reads you made me write, all those excruciatingly quiet oral classes. I will have done it. And I cannot fucking wait.
Seriously, that feeling will be my favourite. The completion. When I was in primary school I never finished anything. Nothing ever. Books, little exercises. I was terrible. I enjoyed dawdling on a subject, stretching it out so I wouldn't have to do something else after. Or worse, finish the thing and find there was nothing else to do after. It wasn't important to me whether I completed it or not, what was important was whether I'd done it well. I was all for quality and less for quantity. But then of course that's not allowed and you have to produce screeds and screeds of finished things, even if the quality is less than it could be if you took a little longer.
I'm still working on my time-keeping though. When it comes to these types of tasks I will find a way to leave it until the last minute and sort of, well, "test" myself. How long can I leave it before what I produce is utterly unacceptable? Which is the worst, most stupid thing to do, but before it was the only way to actually make what I was doing exciting. Otherwise writing about Nazi poetry is boring as a feast of cream foods with no Dairylea triangles. I've chosen my courses this year though: ones I like, ones I'm truly interested in. Lots of medieval fodder. I am not wholly sure why the medieval period attracts me so much. Perhaps it offers a world that isn't full of things that flash and function at the speed of light and iPhone apps. It offers an escape. And that's part of what literature should do, right? Put the modern, unsatisfied world away and smell old musty pages and read of feudal systems and knights-errant and actually going outside.
The exception to the medieval theme is the course I'll do on Brecht. But he's kind of interesting in his own wee way. The way he manoeuvres politics and revolution into his plays while still making them charming and entertaining is quite intriguing; something worth studying. Plus I did unexpectedly well on the exam of his in second year and I'm pushing for a high end degree. There's only so far being clever can take me, the rest will be strategic subject choices and scrounging essays off previous students of the course. And brie. Brie is very important.
So that's my plan. These are my last courses, my last days guaranteed in education, my last year in a student flat with a student card that is valid. I was, I can't really say why, embarrassed about being a student before. I think it was due to having the title but not actually feeling like I studied at all and did what students do. But this is the year. This is my student year. It's my last year with the title, but it's the first where I'll genuinely feel I've earned it.
I don't need luck. I don't need a miracle. I don't want to be asked how I am. I don't want to discuss it. I'm just going to do it. Go outside. Do the thing. Prance about with my Sancho and Rosinante and stab unwittingly at windmills in honour of Dulcinea del Toboso until I finally die slightly less disillusioned. But hopefully I'll die with a first in my degree and get out of this damn education system with a big fat smile on my face.
Saturday 17 September 2011
Friday 19 August 2011
buying a hairbrush
I am feeling peculiar. It's an odd blend of lacklustre and contentment. I don't want to go back to Uni. I don't want to have to be told to read a thousand books. I don't want to go to the shops and buy food. I don't want to take the rubbish down to the skip. I don't want to clean the bathroom. I don't want to pay my rent. I don't want to get out of my pyjamas. I don't really want to do very much except occasionally pop to the Costcutter for a sandwich, a Capri Sun, a big bag of Twiglets and some Maltesers, lay in bed and read Bridget Jones's Diary. But I'm not bored. I'm not unhappy with this feeling. I actually sort of like it; the doing nothing feeling. I have always liked it actually. I enjoy it when my life is active and full, like last month, but I equally am content with how I live at the moment. I did, for little known reasons, a couple of times become irrationally nervous doing every day tasks and being around people. Like the other day, on one of my Costcutter ventures, I went in and the whole time I was extremely anxious. It was this weird anxiety where I felt eye-piercingly judged. As if the boy working in the shop was watching me choose my three packets of crisps (one salt n vinegar, one Doritos and one cheese and onion - variety is the spice of life), and thinking I was a right fat pig. I would not normally think nor care about this, but that day I did, and it was a horrible feeling. I hated being out in the open. It was like being an awkward 13 year old again, where your very existence is someone's problem. I did not like that. So I speedily paid and left the shop.
My second "I hate the UK" moment was when I was in Boots. The big one on Princes St. All I wanted was a hairbrush, as my freshly cut fringe (beautifully timed for the Fringe festival) goes a bit flat at the bottom if you don't brush it right, and I've just moved in to my new flat and I stupidly left mine back in the Borders. So, there I am, in Boots, with my bank card, ready to pluck out the lucky brush, and I'm confronted with a fucking wall of hairbrushes. Big ones, small ones, medium sized ones; big black ones with big spaces between bristles, little spaces between bristles, thin bristles, thick bristles, plastic bristles, non-plastic bristles, ones with bristles all the way round, little pink ones with bright green bristles, big orange ones with purple bristles, ones by shampoo companies, ones for styling, ones for curly hair, ones for bushy hair, ones for children, ones for your handbag, ones for hardcore de-tangling, ones with little mirrors, palm-sized ones; I mean a WALL of hairbrushes. It was absurd. And it was stressful. Sign me up for www.whitewhine.com right now, because I just wanted to run away from that intimidating display of beauty items, screaming and tearing my hair out just to avoid the unbearably tedious decision. And of course they were also all stupidly expensive. There were very few under a fiver, which is appalling. It is a piece of plastic with smaller plastic sticky-uppy bits coming out of it. That cannot surely be that expensive to produce. In the end I settle for one called some unnecessarily extraordinary name like "Babyliss Hair Styler 5000" or whatever the fuck it was. It's fine. My fringe is happy.
I better go. I would stay, but I've run out of Capri Sun and have too much self-confidence.
Until next time.
My second "I hate the UK" moment was when I was in Boots. The big one on Princes St. All I wanted was a hairbrush, as my freshly cut fringe (beautifully timed for the Fringe festival) goes a bit flat at the bottom if you don't brush it right, and I've just moved in to my new flat and I stupidly left mine back in the Borders. So, there I am, in Boots, with my bank card, ready to pluck out the lucky brush, and I'm confronted with a fucking wall of hairbrushes. Big ones, small ones, medium sized ones; big black ones with big spaces between bristles, little spaces between bristles, thin bristles, thick bristles, plastic bristles, non-plastic bristles, ones with bristles all the way round, little pink ones with bright green bristles, big orange ones with purple bristles, ones by shampoo companies, ones for styling, ones for curly hair, ones for bushy hair, ones for children, ones for your handbag, ones for hardcore de-tangling, ones with little mirrors, palm-sized ones; I mean a WALL of hairbrushes. It was absurd. And it was stressful. Sign me up for www.whitewhine.com right now, because I just wanted to run away from that intimidating display of beauty items, screaming and tearing my hair out just to avoid the unbearably tedious decision. And of course they were also all stupidly expensive. There were very few under a fiver, which is appalling. It is a piece of plastic with smaller plastic sticky-uppy bits coming out of it. That cannot surely be that expensive to produce. In the end I settle for one called some unnecessarily extraordinary name like "Babyliss Hair Styler 5000" or whatever the fuck it was. It's fine. My fringe is happy.
I better go. I would stay, but I've run out of Capri Sun and have too much self-confidence.
Until next time.
Saturday 23 July 2011
Queen of Courgettes
This month I have been residing in a small basque town called Zarautz. It lies a half hour train journey from San Sebastian. I have been living with a family, the Etxabe Uria family, who have taken me under their euskeran wing. There is nationalism here, but not particularly within my family. They are happy enough to speak in Spanish despite it being the language that was forced upon them during the dictatorship, squeezing out their native Basque. The father of the other monitor's family is less apathetic.
I am currently sitting in a bar on the Musika Plaza, the same square where the flat is. It is called Txikipolit. From my few words of Basque, I believe this means something like "A little bit wonderful". I have just finished a Zurito, which is a small measure of beer which takes its name from a bullfighter who was once in the area. Zurito loved beer, but could never drink a whole glass before fighting, so he asked for a smaller amount. Henceforth, you can order the same quantity with his name. I learned this from the father of my family, Aitor.
It is been an incredible month. The coordinator at the school, Mireia, is incredibly hard working and always prepared; the other monitor, Kirsty, is lovely too. She studies medicine at Birmingham university. We all get along well and on Sunday (tomorrow) we are going to Mireia's home town, Azpeitia, to meet her friends and enjoy the festival there.
Kirsty and I are currently trying to arrange what to do next week. We finish everything on Tuesday and afterwards she wants to travel around Spain. Having been living out of a suitcase for 9 months more or less, I want to go home. We will likely go to Bilbao and Barcelona together, but that is where the adventure will end for me. I am ready to settle for a while. 9 months is a long time to be away.
So here you have my final post from my time living in Europe. I have been a student of a German university, I have been an English language assistant in a Galician high school and I have been an Enjoy English monitor in the Basque Country. These are most certainly things I am proud to have been and will type into my CV with memories. There is no such thing as a perfect memory, but there are certainly perfect experiences, and my year abroad has been a perfect experience. I will tell you why...
An experience ought to be something you complete, that you can equally love or hate at the time, but when you look back on it, you know it was useful to you. It's a given that living in the country helped my language develop, but what you perhaps expect less is the character change. As a linguist, you are designed to copy how someone who knows the language speaks; as it turns out, you copy the mentality a bit too. Some mentalities are more enjoyable than others. I mean, it's not that the people of Freiburg have the wrong type of mentality, it is simply that they have one my body/mind agrees with less. "Vices" are expensive, paperwork is life and if it doesn't have an official stamp on it, it doesn't exist. This doesn't fly with me so well. So Spain was a relief... 'Let's not work, let's eat for an hour. Ah, that was nice. I'm a bit tired now. Let's have a nap! Ok, we'll go back to work now. What's that? Your back garden is a vineyard? How wonderful. Do you know this person? No, ah well, go on, give them two kisses!'
And today, I went to the allotment owned by my family. They grow their own potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, lettuce, spring onions, courgettes etc. It's so relaxing. The patch is by the mountains, all calm and lush. It wasn't cold, but it wasn't too warm, and with the guidance of Marta, the mother, I plucked my own two courgettes. I was about to describe it as empowering, but that's the wrong word. It's quite the wrong word. What I need is a word that will decidedly say there was a stronger sense of symbiosis with nature, rather than a powering over it. I was thankful, appreciative, impressed at what nature can do. It's so simple. That seems to be the key. Keeping things simple.
Sure, it is probably mostly a good thing for scientists to understand certain things about what makes up the world, and it is interesting for psychologists to study certain humannesses now and again, but really most of the time life is a simple thing. The best we can do is keep it going, and be happy as we do it. Let yourself eat chocolate, let yourself feel happy, let yourself be calm. I mean, why would you ever want to feel stressed or upset? why would you put yourself in that situation? Do the things that help you to feel content. Be around people that you like. It's much easier that way!!
Now go and pluck some courgettes and eat some chocolate, for your sake!
I am currently sitting in a bar on the Musika Plaza, the same square where the flat is. It is called Txikipolit. From my few words of Basque, I believe this means something like "A little bit wonderful". I have just finished a Zurito, which is a small measure of beer which takes its name from a bullfighter who was once in the area. Zurito loved beer, but could never drink a whole glass before fighting, so he asked for a smaller amount. Henceforth, you can order the same quantity with his name. I learned this from the father of my family, Aitor.
It is been an incredible month. The coordinator at the school, Mireia, is incredibly hard working and always prepared; the other monitor, Kirsty, is lovely too. She studies medicine at Birmingham university. We all get along well and on Sunday (tomorrow) we are going to Mireia's home town, Azpeitia, to meet her friends and enjoy the festival there.
Kirsty and I are currently trying to arrange what to do next week. We finish everything on Tuesday and afterwards she wants to travel around Spain. Having been living out of a suitcase for 9 months more or less, I want to go home. We will likely go to Bilbao and Barcelona together, but that is where the adventure will end for me. I am ready to settle for a while. 9 months is a long time to be away.
So here you have my final post from my time living in Europe. I have been a student of a German university, I have been an English language assistant in a Galician high school and I have been an Enjoy English monitor in the Basque Country. These are most certainly things I am proud to have been and will type into my CV with memories. There is no such thing as a perfect memory, but there are certainly perfect experiences, and my year abroad has been a perfect experience. I will tell you why...
An experience ought to be something you complete, that you can equally love or hate at the time, but when you look back on it, you know it was useful to you. It's a given that living in the country helped my language develop, but what you perhaps expect less is the character change. As a linguist, you are designed to copy how someone who knows the language speaks; as it turns out, you copy the mentality a bit too. Some mentalities are more enjoyable than others. I mean, it's not that the people of Freiburg have the wrong type of mentality, it is simply that they have one my body/mind agrees with less. "Vices" are expensive, paperwork is life and if it doesn't have an official stamp on it, it doesn't exist. This doesn't fly with me so well. So Spain was a relief... 'Let's not work, let's eat for an hour. Ah, that was nice. I'm a bit tired now. Let's have a nap! Ok, we'll go back to work now. What's that? Your back garden is a vineyard? How wonderful. Do you know this person? No, ah well, go on, give them two kisses!'
And today, I went to the allotment owned by my family. They grow their own potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, lettuce, spring onions, courgettes etc. It's so relaxing. The patch is by the mountains, all calm and lush. It wasn't cold, but it wasn't too warm, and with the guidance of Marta, the mother, I plucked my own two courgettes. I was about to describe it as empowering, but that's the wrong word. It's quite the wrong word. What I need is a word that will decidedly say there was a stronger sense of symbiosis with nature, rather than a powering over it. I was thankful, appreciative, impressed at what nature can do. It's so simple. That seems to be the key. Keeping things simple.
Sure, it is probably mostly a good thing for scientists to understand certain things about what makes up the world, and it is interesting for psychologists to study certain humannesses now and again, but really most of the time life is a simple thing. The best we can do is keep it going, and be happy as we do it. Let yourself eat chocolate, let yourself feel happy, let yourself be calm. I mean, why would you ever want to feel stressed or upset? why would you put yourself in that situation? Do the things that help you to feel content. Be around people that you like. It's much easier that way!!
Now go and pluck some courgettes and eat some chocolate, for your sake!
Tuesday 7 June 2011
still a weirdo (ba-bling ba-bling)
With KT Tunstall whistling a little tune in my ear, I am in the mood to blog. Her words are so simple it makes me feel like writing is easy. Perhaps in a way or two it is. Perhaps there's too many people trying too hard.
Now I know I took for granted that things would always go the way I wanted,
I was going to be a treetop, a sea, a boat, a rock of ages.
I am feeling guitar-sickness. I miss my lovely new black guitar. I am ready to be writing new songs and imagining I'm better than I am. This summer I have plans though. I am going to take vocal and guitar lessons and get much better. Then one day I'll figure out my voice. It probably won't be as good as I imagine it to be. I'm no Lady GaGa. Ribbit.
But then again earlier I was listening to Forever the Sickest Kids, which is this odd brand of indie rock which has been emerging for a while, most likely started by the likes of Fallout Boy and Panic! at the Disco. My sister likes it, but I find it every so slightly vapid. It's some kind of thumping guitar trying to pretend the drum beat is irregular while a ghd'd-haired-dude sings in a loud tempo about all the everyday phrases that make him feel victimised in romance. "You made your bed (so sleep in it)" by Youmeatsix is case in point.
Aside from this, there are all these club tunes reeling out their wee yarns of dance floor romps. Essentially the song is a bass line, a token black guy, an air-brushed anorexic and a slightly rapey theme. The big players being Pitbull, Jennifer "le derriere" Lopez, Usher, Taio Cruz etc eternitycetera. The songs are fine. They work in certain environments and are going to be what defines these years we are in (whatever we are calling them now), in the same way that Madonna defined the 80s and Oasis owned the 90s. It's no big deal, it's just a phase our music is going through because our children are getting more and more stupid and are satisfied by less and less challenging things. Adele may be the exception, but it's only because we cling to her in her ability to be respected in this era of binge-drinking (old news though; the boys several hundred years ago were doing it way better) and casual sex (also old news) and bralets (what the hell, Topshop?).
Spain is fun though. The infuriating repeats of Rihanna's Love the Way You Lie (too much like an approval of domestic abuse) and thingmy's one that goes, oh, you know, daaance the night away lalalalalala on the flooor, tonight we gon' blablabla on the floooor. It's semi-entertaining in the way it is trying to indoctrinate us (like gormless children) on the social codes of a dance club (basically to be more sexually available to all those guys out there struggling to pull anyone, because obviously he is going to love us long time for it).
I know that pro-creation is humanity's purpose, (which seems cyclical and pointless, but it's true. The only meaning of life, is to make more of the wretched stuff) but I can't say I'm convinced encouraging people to get low, low, low, low and make love in this club is exactly the most romantic/productive way to achieve this. All club music does is make people think they are sexy/force them to dance sexy (although in many cases this fails horrifically) and give them alcohol through methods such as brushing their teeth with a bottle of Jack and then there is all this rampantly aggressive grinding and kissing. Foul.
But that's not the point, is it? The point is that music is now made for the market, not the market for the music. The fabulously delicious irony of Jessie J's Price Tag is that it talks about how we don't need your money and how we need to take it back in time, when music made us all unite, when essentially her entire market is to the people who go to clubs and dance to music of similar catchy-ness. She's not exactly wearing a polo-neck in her video, despite her talk of disliking video hoes. Music does make people unite: in illegal downloading, on YouTube, in skanky club toilets. That's unity, people! Well done, JJ.
Now, I won't deny it, I have done this in the past: 18-19 was the time, but now it's become boring. Sure, I'll dance to your weird "we want to talk about sex all the time, but can't because it's mainstream music" music, but like hell am I going to let some greased up, reeking dude come anywhere near me while I'm trying to dance. Thus, I bought myself a ring. A simple, slightly sparkly silvery looking thing to adorn the fourth finger on my left hand. Since then, I have felt empowered, free of these grimy gawkers. Seriously, it's amazing.
And look at that, I just wrote quite a hefty rant about something (I now feel better) and it was easy. It was easy. So maybe that's the key? Write about something that well...you know the rest.
Pay my lip service, keep it eloquent,
Optimistic but never quite elegant,
Still a weirdo, still a weirdo,
After all these years
Now I know I took for granted that things would always go the way I wanted,
I was going to be a treetop, a sea, a boat, a rock of ages.
I am feeling guitar-sickness. I miss my lovely new black guitar. I am ready to be writing new songs and imagining I'm better than I am. This summer I have plans though. I am going to take vocal and guitar lessons and get much better. Then one day I'll figure out my voice. It probably won't be as good as I imagine it to be. I'm no Lady GaGa. Ribbit.
But then again earlier I was listening to Forever the Sickest Kids, which is this odd brand of indie rock which has been emerging for a while, most likely started by the likes of Fallout Boy and Panic! at the Disco. My sister likes it, but I find it every so slightly vapid. It's some kind of thumping guitar trying to pretend the drum beat is irregular while a ghd'd-haired-dude sings in a loud tempo about all the everyday phrases that make him feel victimised in romance. "You made your bed (so sleep in it)" by Youmeatsix is case in point.
Aside from this, there are all these club tunes reeling out their wee yarns of dance floor romps. Essentially the song is a bass line, a token black guy, an air-brushed anorexic and a slightly rapey theme. The big players being Pitbull, Jennifer "le derriere" Lopez, Usher, Taio Cruz etc eternitycetera. The songs are fine. They work in certain environments and are going to be what defines these years we are in (whatever we are calling them now), in the same way that Madonna defined the 80s and Oasis owned the 90s. It's no big deal, it's just a phase our music is going through because our children are getting more and more stupid and are satisfied by less and less challenging things. Adele may be the exception, but it's only because we cling to her in her ability to be respected in this era of binge-drinking (old news though; the boys several hundred years ago were doing it way better) and casual sex (also old news) and bralets (what the hell, Topshop?).
Spain is fun though. The infuriating repeats of Rihanna's Love the Way You Lie (too much like an approval of domestic abuse) and thingmy's one that goes, oh, you know, daaance the night away lalalalalala on the flooor, tonight we gon' blablabla on the floooor. It's semi-entertaining in the way it is trying to indoctrinate us (like gormless children) on the social codes of a dance club (basically to be more sexually available to all those guys out there struggling to pull anyone, because obviously he is going to love us long time for it).
I know that pro-creation is humanity's purpose, (which seems cyclical and pointless, but it's true. The only meaning of life, is to make more of the wretched stuff) but I can't say I'm convinced encouraging people to get low, low, low, low and make love in this club is exactly the most romantic/productive way to achieve this. All club music does is make people think they are sexy/force them to dance sexy (although in many cases this fails horrifically) and give them alcohol through methods such as brushing their teeth with a bottle of Jack and then there is all this rampantly aggressive grinding and kissing. Foul.
But that's not the point, is it? The point is that music is now made for the market, not the market for the music. The fabulously delicious irony of Jessie J's Price Tag is that it talks about how we don't need your money and how we need to take it back in time, when music made us all unite, when essentially her entire market is to the people who go to clubs and dance to music of similar catchy-ness. She's not exactly wearing a polo-neck in her video, despite her talk of disliking video hoes. Music does make people unite: in illegal downloading, on YouTube, in skanky club toilets. That's unity, people! Well done, JJ.
Now, I won't deny it, I have done this in the past: 18-19 was the time, but now it's become boring. Sure, I'll dance to your weird "we want to talk about sex all the time, but can't because it's mainstream music" music, but like hell am I going to let some greased up, reeking dude come anywhere near me while I'm trying to dance. Thus, I bought myself a ring. A simple, slightly sparkly silvery looking thing to adorn the fourth finger on my left hand. Since then, I have felt empowered, free of these grimy gawkers. Seriously, it's amazing.
And look at that, I just wrote quite a hefty rant about something (I now feel better) and it was easy. It was easy. So maybe that's the key? Write about something that well...you know the rest.
Pay my lip service, keep it eloquent,
Optimistic but never quite elegant,
Still a weirdo, still a weirdo,
After all these years
Sunday 29 May 2011
a gap and a hello
I missed last month's blog and I am very almost missing the boat on this one, but a few points of interest ought to be documented for my own records:
I am also starting to worry about my final year at Edinburgh. I am constantly told it is the best and worst. I need a place of my own. Somehow. I am also trying to drag out some advice and constantly being told to "think about things more". I am 95% sure I want to do a medieval topic, but it's not the easiest thing in the world finding one that really appeals at heart. Spending time with Catherine has been eye-opening. She's so excellent at telling me what to expect, in some kind of way. The more time I spend here the more I realise how much I can learn from other people and how much I should learn from others. It's quite wonderful. Spain has been so good for me. I wish there was a way I could return for a good period of time. Nevertheless I will continue to endeavour in most aspects of my life. An unexpected financial windfall has been much appreciated and will definitely aid my final year woes. I am fundamentally terrified. Perhaps I need therapy. Or reassurance. Or both.
I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.
- I have a job for a month in the Basque Country as an English language monitor
- I am going to Barcelona for a few days and will meet Lindsey there for wine and hot days
- I have finally lit the candles I bought
- I have now been to the Termas and must admit they were lovely
- I almost committed self-food-poisoning by almost not cooking my chicken properly
- I have become slightly addicted to Men Behaving Badly on YouTube
- I have made a list of life goals in my Moleskin
- I have been subjected to quite awkward socio/romantic ordeals
- I have been living with unwashed clothes for over a week and am even disgusted at myself.
I am also starting to worry about my final year at Edinburgh. I am constantly told it is the best and worst. I need a place of my own. Somehow. I am also trying to drag out some advice and constantly being told to "think about things more". I am 95% sure I want to do a medieval topic, but it's not the easiest thing in the world finding one that really appeals at heart. Spending time with Catherine has been eye-opening. She's so excellent at telling me what to expect, in some kind of way. The more time I spend here the more I realise how much I can learn from other people and how much I should learn from others. It's quite wonderful. Spain has been so good for me. I wish there was a way I could return for a good period of time. Nevertheless I will continue to endeavour in most aspects of my life. An unexpected financial windfall has been much appreciated and will definitely aid my final year woes. I am fundamentally terrified. Perhaps I need therapy. Or reassurance. Or both.
I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.
Tuesday 22 March 2011
capitulo 2
Such chalky chalky hands; sticky and sweaty and pale, tired from vertical scribbles and gestures, the touch of the keyboard is steely, unusual. Horizontal is foreign now: I always stand up, I lift my chin, I raise the corners of my mouth, I jump and exclaim, I roll my eyes. No need for horizontal.
I like all the eyes on me. I understand the focus oscillates depending on interest or tiredness etcetera, but every now and again, I know something is going through. They remembered stripes, checks, polka dots, I know they did. We talked in tongue twisters and Spanish (not such different awkwardnesses for my mind) and Tiago, oh, Tiago, the brightest little star in the class: charming, clever, smiling Tiago. I hope he goes far.
I'm learning too. They are teaching me to be spontaneous, to learn from their imaginations and listen to what they can do, what they know already. I entered class today to find a Scottish flag drawn on the blackboard with a burning English one next to it. Slightly harsh, but amusing and clearly thoughtful..in a way... It is nice to know they know when I am arriving and they want to impress me. I'm not sure what reaction they thought would get, but I hope they liked it. We talk about other flags, they draw other ones for me and help each other. Interactive is best. Interactive is most definitely best. Everyone likes to be teacher for a while!
Anyway, I must go investigate some ridiculous German play or three.
More next month.
Hasta luego!
I like all the eyes on me. I understand the focus oscillates depending on interest or tiredness etcetera, but every now and again, I know something is going through. They remembered stripes, checks, polka dots, I know they did. We talked in tongue twisters and Spanish (not such different awkwardnesses for my mind) and Tiago, oh, Tiago, the brightest little star in the class: charming, clever, smiling Tiago. I hope he goes far.
I'm learning too. They are teaching me to be spontaneous, to learn from their imaginations and listen to what they can do, what they know already. I entered class today to find a Scottish flag drawn on the blackboard with a burning English one next to it. Slightly harsh, but amusing and clearly thoughtful..in a way... It is nice to know they know when I am arriving and they want to impress me. I'm not sure what reaction they thought would get, but I hope they liked it. We talk about other flags, they draw other ones for me and help each other. Interactive is best. Interactive is most definitely best. Everyone likes to be teacher for a while!
Anyway, I must go investigate some ridiculous German play or three.
More next month.
Hasta luego!
Thursday 24 February 2011
chapter 1
I made a few notes in a note pad on my journey to Orense (or Ourense, depending on your castellano/gallego preferences) and I am undecided as to what I ought to put in and what not to put in. Fuck it. None of it is going in. This is all new. Hello new blog! Hola blog(a) nuevo/a!
So..first impressions..there is a lovely river, several bridges of varying ages, shapes and sizes and extremely cheap food and drink. The school is delightful, if a bit serious (I shall be bringing a bit of silliness) and I have been lucky enough to know Julieanne Gershmann, who has been working at the school for several months and has basically been my guide/life saver these past few days. Currently I am staying in a hotel (adding to that awkward feeling of limbo) and looking for a flat. It is not ideal. I do not feel particularly comfortable. It's like, if you are a fish, a happy merry swimming sparkly fish, just doin' your thang in some great big lovely comfortable familiar ocean and WHAM! you are in a bowl. A bowl with little plastic castles and treasure chests which you do not understand. I am a fish. A gawping, confused fish getting lost in a bowl.
What a wonderful start to my February blog. Fish analogies.
I guess it's relevant to Galicia, which prides itself on its sea food.
I'm trying not to think about it too much. I think about the language too much too, and then everything fucks up because you become scared. Language is fluid, confident and manipulative and as soon as you take that fearlessness out, you fluster and things get worse. I mean, children don't think about it do they? "Oh no, I dropped my juice!. .. now... is that the correct use of that tense? Should I have used a different verb?" This is not normal 6 year old chatter. They're just pissed they dropped their Sunny Delight.
These blogs of mine do seem to be filled with odd analogies and linguistic difficulties. I guess that's how I'm gonna roll for now! Self obsessed splurgey blurgey blurghhhh.
Hasta irgendwann, chavales!
So..first impressions..there is a lovely river, several bridges of varying ages, shapes and sizes and extremely cheap food and drink. The school is delightful, if a bit serious (I shall be bringing a bit of silliness) and I have been lucky enough to know Julieanne Gershmann, who has been working at the school for several months and has basically been my guide/life saver these past few days. Currently I am staying in a hotel (adding to that awkward feeling of limbo) and looking for a flat. It is not ideal. I do not feel particularly comfortable. It's like, if you are a fish, a happy merry swimming sparkly fish, just doin' your thang in some great big lovely comfortable familiar ocean and WHAM! you are in a bowl. A bowl with little plastic castles and treasure chests which you do not understand. I am a fish. A gawping, confused fish getting lost in a bowl.
What a wonderful start to my February blog. Fish analogies.
I guess it's relevant to Galicia, which prides itself on its sea food.
I'm trying not to think about it too much. I think about the language too much too, and then everything fucks up because you become scared. Language is fluid, confident and manipulative and as soon as you take that fearlessness out, you fluster and things get worse. I mean, children don't think about it do they? "Oh no, I dropped my juice!. .. now... is that the correct use of that tense? Should I have used a different verb?" This is not normal 6 year old chatter. They're just pissed they dropped their Sunny Delight.
These blogs of mine do seem to be filled with odd analogies and linguistic difficulties. I guess that's how I'm gonna roll for now! Self obsessed splurgey blurgey blurghhhh.
Hasta irgendwann, chavales!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)