Last night I was
thinking about existentialism.
That sounds like a
bad rewriting of the opening sentence of “Rebecca” – and I would not do that to
a novel which I think stands head and shoulders above anything else that Daphne
du Maurier wrote, up to and including the short stories.
I suspect that
consideration of such a nihilistic philosophy might have had something to do
with the awful day that I had, but I suspect in some typically twisted way it
had something to do with the content of my teaching. Knowing me it may well have been some casual
throwaway remark that I made in the first form which triggered this response retrospectively
and, after all, if you can’t explain existentialism to an eleven year old you
don’t understand it yourself. Anyway it
fits in with selected readings from Jean Paul Sartre and sketches from The
Theatre of the Absurd that I am doing with them at the moment.
I have now got
through the bulk of the teaching day with only the disaffected Y9 class at the
tail end of the day to go. O Joy! They are going to be given back their papers
and 70% of the class are going to discover that they have failed! That should keep things going for a while!
Fantasy and
unreality are gaining ground as we totter our way towards the return of the papers. All hell is going to be loose when people who
still have shreds of self-belief find that they are condemned into the outer
darkness by having their results recorded and sent to their parents.
My continuing
abstinence from lunch is occasioning comment, but I do feel much better for not
going up to the canteen and staying in the blissful silence of an empty
staffroom for twenty or so minutes. It
is my equivalent of leaving the premises during the lunch hour and is necessary
for the continuance of a quiet soul.
On Friday I am off
on a school trip to another school in Barcelona for our “mock” student UN
conference as a dry run for the “real” thing in Lisbon next month. I am to be the official photographer and my
efforts will surely grace the pages of our very professional and colourfully
glossy school magazine. What with this
domestic event and the international one later the English and Humanities
Departments should make a more than respectable spread in the next issue!
Four teachers are
likely to be otherwise engaged than in their classes on Friday: two real
teachers and two members of management.
This creates chaos in a school staffed as meanly as ours and frantic
efforts are being made to compensate for teachers not being there. If there is any illness on Friday the
situation will degenerate into absolute pandemonium! My sensible advice is always to close the
school on such occasions, but management have a stubborn reluctance to do the
obvious thing!
Laura’s Name Day
went well and she gave an enthusiastic reception to our composite gift of
various forms of stationery as an aid to her new English Course. I also helped her with her English homework
after the rest of the family had left.
English verb tenses reduce grown foreigners to whimpering children and
whimpering children to incoherent amoebas.
Toni was watching
Barça play and voicing his amazement at some of Messi’s spectacular attempts on
goal. My own glory moment was tasting
Laura’s tuna empanada which was by far the best that I have ever tasted and has
rendered all the supermarket versions less than pale imitations. Laura’s highly accomplished effort with
moist, juicy filling and light, delicious pastry was a true delight; I think
that it could have restored my appetite in a bite during the savourless days of
the swollen leg!
One more day of
antibiotics and my course is done and alcohol can start flowing, though I
rather think that I will have to hold off until my blood test on the 28th
– with a totally understandable lase for the evening of the 24th of
October and United Nations Day!
My United Nations
Day will comprise a five period day, together with a lunch duty and finished
off by a mind-numbingly boring two hour meeting. This will, Officially, be the worst birthday
in my life so far. I intend to “play” my
Natal Day for all it’s worth in the fond hope that I might be let off early as
I intend to let it be known that The Family will be waiting for me to return so
that the celebrations can take place!
Fond hope indeed!
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