The mock examinations are barely finished (some still unmarked) and we are well into our next series of examinations. These are ones that we write ourselves and are therefore prone to small, yet significant mistakes.
The kids are hyper sensitive to anything included that they have not ‘studied.’ They may not know how to use the words that are legitimately on the exam paper but, by God, they recognize with no difficulty whatsoever anything extra to that which they know that they should have studied. I put the word ‘studied’ in inverted commas because their attitude to study is that they are prepared to set aside the night before the examination for that purpose: that night and no other!
Even the Sisyphean prospect of unending marking is not entirely suicide-inducing because the sun is shining in a flawless blue sky and you can kid yourself along that all is for the best in this best possible of all worlds – thank you Candide!
I am now in a position of sympathise with the difficulties of the Secretary General of UNO when he tries to set up a meeting with the disparate nations that comprise our very wonderful world community. The Catalan Wine Tasting is rapidly becoming an unwieldy organizational nightmare with it proving to be virtually impossible to get everyone together at the same time. Compromise is in the air!
This weekend is going to see me start on the mammoth task of at least attempting to do something visible in the shelving of my books. The third floor becomes more depressing each time I wend my sinuous way through the obstacle course which comprises boxes and other impedimenta which will have to be swept away or put in place.
Both alternatives seem equally bleak to me with the first necessitating a ruthlessness that I do not possess when it comes to printed material, while the second needs a degree of spatial organization which requires a placidity of mental outlook which a working teacher does not really gain until he is deep into the summer holiday.
And then, of course, there is the Tempting Snare. Whenever I deal with my books and pretend to have a rough professional approach I am constantly frustrated in my mechanistic approach to the ordering of them by their very existence.
I can remember when I got my books; which shop I bought them from; why I was in the mood to make such a purchase and when I did (or did not) read them. And that last bit does make sense: I can recall with bright clarity several occasions on which I made a definite decision not to read my copy of Don Quixote. I can sometimes remember how much I paid for them and what level of satisfaction I got from their acquisition.
A very small proportion were given or acquired in ways other than purchase. Some, it has to be said are lurking in my collection because of Indolent Theft. These are books which have washed up on the shores of my bookcases as the literary flotsam from various schools in the form of text books (!) and set texts and have settled comfortably into the dark niches of forgotten shelves crammed with those books whose purchase seemed like a good idea at the time and whose throwing away is of course unthinkable.
Some of the books are Old Friends and from their mere handling tendrils of reading desire seem to penetrate the hand and make it grasp the volume a little more firmly, while some nervous reaction prompts the other hand to reach over and begin to turn the pages. At this point addicts are lost and it is only aching legs that indicate to the dedicated reader that ‘book tidying’ stopped some time previously to be replaced by the much more satisfying ‘book reading’ which is why they are there in the first place.
I confidently expect to be delayed, hijacked, misled, delighted, mystified, involved and angered by what the books contain and what they are. Their physicality is both their strength and their almost impossible disadvantage: turning pages in reality can never be matched by their electronic substitute.
On my (new) e-book reader I brush my thumb along the bottom right hand foot of the ‘page’ to get to the next. This can never compete with the sheer delight of the touch of the middle finger or index finger on the fore edge of the book and the selection of the page by the inward hook of the digit, the gentle cupping of the hand to support the leaf and the leftward smooth of the page which is all part and parcel of ‘real’ turning over! Reading should be a sensual as well as an intellectual activity!
Which all explains why I do not expect to get much done!
The books win again!
The kids are hyper sensitive to anything included that they have not ‘studied.’ They may not know how to use the words that are legitimately on the exam paper but, by God, they recognize with no difficulty whatsoever anything extra to that which they know that they should have studied. I put the word ‘studied’ in inverted commas because their attitude to study is that they are prepared to set aside the night before the examination for that purpose: that night and no other!
Even the Sisyphean prospect of unending marking is not entirely suicide-inducing because the sun is shining in a flawless blue sky and you can kid yourself along that all is for the best in this best possible of all worlds – thank you Candide!
I am now in a position of sympathise with the difficulties of the Secretary General of UNO when he tries to set up a meeting with the disparate nations that comprise our very wonderful world community. The Catalan Wine Tasting is rapidly becoming an unwieldy organizational nightmare with it proving to be virtually impossible to get everyone together at the same time. Compromise is in the air!
This weekend is going to see me start on the mammoth task of at least attempting to do something visible in the shelving of my books. The third floor becomes more depressing each time I wend my sinuous way through the obstacle course which comprises boxes and other impedimenta which will have to be swept away or put in place.
Both alternatives seem equally bleak to me with the first necessitating a ruthlessness that I do not possess when it comes to printed material, while the second needs a degree of spatial organization which requires a placidity of mental outlook which a working teacher does not really gain until he is deep into the summer holiday.
And then, of course, there is the Tempting Snare. Whenever I deal with my books and pretend to have a rough professional approach I am constantly frustrated in my mechanistic approach to the ordering of them by their very existence.
I can remember when I got my books; which shop I bought them from; why I was in the mood to make such a purchase and when I did (or did not) read them. And that last bit does make sense: I can recall with bright clarity several occasions on which I made a definite decision not to read my copy of Don Quixote. I can sometimes remember how much I paid for them and what level of satisfaction I got from their acquisition.
A very small proportion were given or acquired in ways other than purchase. Some, it has to be said are lurking in my collection because of Indolent Theft. These are books which have washed up on the shores of my bookcases as the literary flotsam from various schools in the form of text books (!) and set texts and have settled comfortably into the dark niches of forgotten shelves crammed with those books whose purchase seemed like a good idea at the time and whose throwing away is of course unthinkable.
Some of the books are Old Friends and from their mere handling tendrils of reading desire seem to penetrate the hand and make it grasp the volume a little more firmly, while some nervous reaction prompts the other hand to reach over and begin to turn the pages. At this point addicts are lost and it is only aching legs that indicate to the dedicated reader that ‘book tidying’ stopped some time previously to be replaced by the much more satisfying ‘book reading’ which is why they are there in the first place.
I confidently expect to be delayed, hijacked, misled, delighted, mystified, involved and angered by what the books contain and what they are. Their physicality is both their strength and their almost impossible disadvantage: turning pages in reality can never be matched by their electronic substitute.
On my (new) e-book reader I brush my thumb along the bottom right hand foot of the ‘page’ to get to the next. This can never compete with the sheer delight of the touch of the middle finger or index finger on the fore edge of the book and the selection of the page by the inward hook of the digit, the gentle cupping of the hand to support the leaf and the leftward smooth of the page which is all part and parcel of ‘real’ turning over! Reading should be a sensual as well as an intellectual activity!
Which all explains why I do not expect to get much done!
The books win again!
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