Forward!

My colleagues are beginning to talk about the length of time to the Easter Holidays – on day two of the present term!  There are ten long weeks to go with no half term to soften the blow of relentless teaching of a timetable load which is much above what I would have in the UK at a salary much below.

Pathetic isn’t it!  Teaching in a private school in one of the most interesting cities in the world with panoramic views of said city and living by the side of the Mediterranean.  Methinks I do protest too much – but there again we do adjust our moans very quickly to new situations and ten weeks of slog is nothing to look forward to.

Suzanne, on the other hand is constantly enthusiastic and continues to plan, innovative and suggest, dragging me along behind her.  She is living proof of the necessity of having people on the staff with limited experience but of recent training and who are prepared to put into action ideas that (for them) haven’t failed in the past!  And be delighted at the results.

It is such a pleasure to hear kids talking about art and putting forward ideas about the subject that it acts as a very specific tonic when I am jaded by some of my other more prosaic (and that is a very carefully chosen word) teaching in areas where I am not so much at home.

My Machine continues to please with my taking great satisfaction in the clear envy evinced by staff and students alike.  This delight reached a high point with one student plaintively asking, “Can I just touch it!”  It certainly is easy to see why icons and relics have had such power in the past.

I know that the word “iconic” is over-used these days but there are certain things that effortlessly achieve that status.

 

In 1990 the British Post Office issued an exceptional set of stamps that commemorated British iconic design.  It is hard to argue with any of the choices and the stamps themselves are elegant and effective.

Over the last couple of years the object which I would nominate is the iPod Nano: simple, beautiful, of its time and something which effortlessly (ignoring the advertising blitz for the moment) inveigled its way into the hearts and minds of the core of Apple enthusiasts who then Saul/Paul-like went about the world seeking to convert the podless into the ways of truth, musicality and penury.

When I was very much younger, I remember going in to a small specialist audio shop on The Hayes in Cardiff.  I went there to pay homage and silently to adore the equipment that they sold there.  Buying anything was beyond the dreams of avarice because they stocked the impossibly expensive but infinitely desirable stuff made by Bang & Olufsen: the ampersand said it all, class and severely beautiful design from the north.

 

Once I went in to wonder and found that they had a sale.  Even in the sale their stuff was exorbitantly expensive but among the large and intimidating systems there was one small radio.  Impossibly, it seemed to be within the price range that I couldn’t afford but couldn’t afford not to pay.  The radio had all the design that set you apart and looked very much like the distillation of the more discretely flamboyant constructions for which Bang & Olufsen were famous.

The only problem was that it was solely FM when in our area there were few FM stations – or possibly not, who can remember the machinations of our radio providers.  But I do remember that, to all intents and purposes it didn’t really work.

Needless to say I bought it and, while using another, cheaper and altogether more vulgar radio gazed at the B&M and hoped for more affluent days when I might actually be able to afford something that worked.

 

I’m not sure that those days have arrived but the slim MacBook Air that I have makes up for those B&M-less time.  This surely is something that is iconic.  And it’s mine!

The school has kindly installed Office for Mac on the thing and I am now trying to learn a new system that seems to do much more than the last version of Office that I had to contend with.  I would like to go on a course that explains how to make full use of Office. 

I am of an age where most people assume that the use of this suite of programs is almost second nature to me, but all I do when I use it is scratch the surface of what the programs can do and I am sure that some of my strategies for getting things done which are complex and involved can actually be done with a few key strokes if only I knew which ones to press.  Perhaps a visit to Amazon and Windows for Dummies is called for!

I have done a little rearranging of the paintings and I think that I might drill a few more holes to put up some of the unjustly neglected works that I have.  Anything other than school work – even if it means hoovering!

Tomorrow the meeting with the Union and an attempt to raise my level of belief that something real can be achieved in the present climate of job fearing subservience.