“Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy”
I don’t know which one of the two events looming on the horizon is the more intimidating: the arrival of my new keyboard or my interview on Monday.
The keyboard is going to have weighted keys (I think) so that it will feel more like a piano. It comes with a new piano stool, three pedals and a pair of headphones. The intimidatory part of its arrival is that I will no longer have any excuse not to make an effort to improve my level of piano playing which has never risen above a very slow faulty version of Fur Elise. In my tearful visit to The Lost Books of Castelldefels (in my storage facility) I found a book I purchased some time ago in a fit of single minded determination to improve.
This wonderful book takes you from how to recognize a piano and open the lid to playing the Moonlight Sonata in eight lessons! Admittedly, from my cursory examination I have noticed the number of times the author has stressed practice. Not something I have been given to in the past. But the future, the future will be different. I have always found that abuse of the sustain pedal gives your stuttering efforts at piano playing a lingering sheen of professionalism that can sometimes compensate for lack of ability!
The interview is also intimidating as it will centre on my unproven ability to teach pupils under the age of eleven. My working knowledge of key stage 2 is somewhat limited, so the internet is going to come into its own during the next few days when I attempt to emulate Helen in becoming a world expert in the minutiae of curriculum-speak by Monday.
It will be the first time that I have gone for an interview on Christmas Eve! And that for a job which starts in January!
Toni has said that his mother and sister want a painting to put up in their living room. Toni’s attempts to render a waterfall have gone through a number of transformations and have just about reached the point of total rejection. My sweeping assertion that I could produce something in acrylic to fit the space was greeted with muted incredulity so today I took matters into my own hands.
Having bought some ready made canvases I then found that there were no handy and cheap sets of acrylics anywhere. Having made the decision to produce something by the time Toni was collected I became ever more frenzied in my attempts to find something with which to make an image.
As is often the case in these situations the paints were found in a shopping centre near the flat.
My creativity took a hard knock when Clarrie phoned me up to announce that she was speaking to me on her new iphone. This near to Christmas this strikes me as personal vindictiveness of an unseasonable quality! I have been resisting the whole concept of an iphone as a possible gadget acquisition for reasons of cost and, um, well, cost really. Obviously I do have a mobile phone and numerous ipods which have music and photos and some names and addresses, so the addition of an iphone would, obviously, be unnecessary. But Clarrie has one!
How right Our Oscar was when he wrote that he could resist everything except temptation.
And who am I to resist the import of his words!
Upon the growing Boy”
I don’t know which one of the two events looming on the horizon is the more intimidating: the arrival of my new keyboard or my interview on Monday.
The keyboard is going to have weighted keys (I think) so that it will feel more like a piano. It comes with a new piano stool, three pedals and a pair of headphones. The intimidatory part of its arrival is that I will no longer have any excuse not to make an effort to improve my level of piano playing which has never risen above a very slow faulty version of Fur Elise. In my tearful visit to The Lost Books of Castelldefels (in my storage facility) I found a book I purchased some time ago in a fit of single minded determination to improve.
This wonderful book takes you from how to recognize a piano and open the lid to playing the Moonlight Sonata in eight lessons! Admittedly, from my cursory examination I have noticed the number of times the author has stressed practice. Not something I have been given to in the past. But the future, the future will be different. I have always found that abuse of the sustain pedal gives your stuttering efforts at piano playing a lingering sheen of professionalism that can sometimes compensate for lack of ability!
The interview is also intimidating as it will centre on my unproven ability to teach pupils under the age of eleven. My working knowledge of key stage 2 is somewhat limited, so the internet is going to come into its own during the next few days when I attempt to emulate Helen in becoming a world expert in the minutiae of curriculum-speak by Monday.
It will be the first time that I have gone for an interview on Christmas Eve! And that for a job which starts in January!
Toni has said that his mother and sister want a painting to put up in their living room. Toni’s attempts to render a waterfall have gone through a number of transformations and have just about reached the point of total rejection. My sweeping assertion that I could produce something in acrylic to fit the space was greeted with muted incredulity so today I took matters into my own hands.
Having bought some ready made canvases I then found that there were no handy and cheap sets of acrylics anywhere. Having made the decision to produce something by the time Toni was collected I became ever more frenzied in my attempts to find something with which to make an image.
As is often the case in these situations the paints were found in a shopping centre near the flat.
My creativity took a hard knock when Clarrie phoned me up to announce that she was speaking to me on her new iphone. This near to Christmas this strikes me as personal vindictiveness of an unseasonable quality! I have been resisting the whole concept of an iphone as a possible gadget acquisition for reasons of cost and, um, well, cost really. Obviously I do have a mobile phone and numerous ipods which have music and photos and some names and addresses, so the addition of an iphone would, obviously, be unnecessary. But Clarrie has one!
How right Our Oscar was when he wrote that he could resist everything except temptation.
And who am I to resist the import of his words!
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