Almost another week down!
As there is usually a static traffic jam in the narrow streets that surround the school, drivers have a long opportunity to decide whether or not to let a parked car into the traffic. Some are so paranoid about keeping people out that they risk death rather than let a sliver of light show between their car and the next in line.
I have so far adopted the mores of the Spanish approach to driving that I now confidently drive into spaces which (to British eyes) are not in fact there – and yet no crashes!
At least tomorrow I will leave early to traverse empty roads and get a head start on all the Barcelona locals leaving the city for the weekend. I intend going precisely nowhere and doing nothing but read.
Today I have re-read “Flowers for Algernon” as we are always looking for new readers for the pupils. Books that I have read previously I have only considered for kids who have been native English speakers; thinking of English learners is a whole different ball game as far as suitability is concerned. I like “Flowers for Algernon”; the story is good and it has something to say; the central character is strong; the style is interesting and it is thought provoking. I don’t think that the American setting will prove difficult, but the language and concepts are challenging. Probably worth trying with an older class. Possibly.
My Language Arts (don’t ask I don’t know either) class have been given their choices from the reading books available for them. The selection has been devised by a colleague and over the past months I have read the majority of the books in the selection and enjoyed the vast majority.
This evening I have read “The Arizona Kid” by Ron Koertge. This is a coming of age novel about a boy from a small town in the east finding live and love on a racetrack in the Wild West. Billy, the short young hero of this summer romance, arrives in Tucson, Arizona to stay with his meticulous Indian arts selling gay uncle and work at a racetrack with a view to becoming a vet when he finally gets a full time job.
His burgeoning sexual frustration is eventually satisfied (quite tastefully) and the story eventually uses various narrative clichés to come to an ambiguously realistic ending. The generously spaced pages are easy to read, but it was one of the novels that I like least. The gay element seemed a little gratuitous and the raising of AIDS added little to the story. The concerns merely seemed to be ticking boxes of issues rather than producing an integrated story. Well, a pupil will be reading it tomorrow as a colleague needs the volume for a pupils who she left out of the original calculations.
Now for bed and an early rise.
FRIDAY 17TH SEPTEMBER
Rain wasn´t in the contract!
As far as I can tell there was something like a temporal slip this morning.
The alarm was set for its usual indecently early time when darkness covers the earth and the sun is not out to cheer the reluctant teacher along his chosen path of pain.
I made my usual stately progress in the dark with my mind set to automatic as I collected clothes after my shower and made my way downstairs to put the kettle on and set out my muesli.
Today, of course was slightly different as, switching on Radio 4 I listened in fascinated horror to the progress of the Bishop of Rome as he made his way around Britain.
I feel total revulsion at the respect given to this odious, homophobic, misogynist little man, the representative of a discredited and decadent religion. For once in my life I felt sorry for the queen having to be polite to this repulsive social wrecker. Though, thinking about it, they are both German after all!
The queen however has considerable experience in dealing with the less savoury heads of state; she did, after all, hob-nob with Nicolae Ceauşescu which gives her at least some guide lines about how to cope with people from whom one would not buy a second hand doctrine, let alone something which may prove to be useful. I wonder how many of the gaudy jewels that the Roman Church has could be legitimately described as blood diamonds. No wonder the so-called Bishop of Rome wears red shoes.
And he is going to meet the world’s most badgered Welshman, the Reverend Doctor Rowan Williams. I wonder what feelings will surge through the Bishop of Rome’s mind as he walks through Westminster Abbey and considers that the ancient pile was once one of his churches!
It is very difficult not to feel contempt for the monotheistic religions as their representatives make themselves more and more ridiculous as their outmoded and self serving doctrines spread fear and ignorance over the world. Seeing the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Rome together wearing their absurd costumes and pontificating about the moral state of the world in Britain given the less than moral state of their all too vulnerable churches would be laughable if it wasn’t so truly sad.
And it’s raining.
The heavens truly opened this morning and the sound of my shower was almost drowned by lashing rain cleaning the pigeon shit of my car.
Driving to work was a nightmare and of course there was a broken down car plonked in the middle lane just to make sure things didn’t get boring.
I had to defy the law and from my (stationary) car use my mobile phone to let them know in work that the early start was going to be a tad later for me.
I must say that the shortened first lesson (thank you Frank for sitting in for ten minutes) seemed to be about the ideal time for all lessons. If only!
The rain has been stubbornly present throughout the day and its tempo has now been officially rated at “lashing” with melodramatic peals of thunder accompanied by OTT lightning adding the necessary son-et-lumière components to make the whole sorry day memorable.
The bracing temperature of the outdoor pool has finally prompted me to action and I have joined our local municipal sports centre so that I can use a heated indoor pool in the complex. For an outlay of something like €140 you get a year’s admission to the pool, gym and sauna.
It is my intention (weak flesh permitting) to call in for a swim immediately after school. This means going back to my old ways of having a “swim bag” in the boot of the car. I am now the proud possessor of a stout piece of plastic emblazoned with my photo which gives me access to all areas.
All I have to do now is use it!
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