Marooned!

Today has been a day of continuous horror.

Deprivation, sudden, total deprivation is something which shakes even the stoutest heart.  When your fix is taken away what can be the response but anxiety and complete disorientation.

I left my computer at home.

It was with sick recognition that I opened my briefcase and the more I looked for the computer the more it wasn’t there.  I felt bereft.  I am used to typing a few paragraphs before I start teaching and not being able to do so was, ah, unsettling.

On the other hand it did force me to get on with the mountain of marking which has now piled up.  Today two other years sat their mock examinations today, adding to the already daunting pile which is waiting for me.

In spite of my teaching load today, my lack of computer and pure dedication added together encouraged me to get on with the completely unpalatable task and I managed to get two folders of marking completed.  Admittedly they were very small folders of work, but the files that they were placed in were substantial and so it looked as though I had made a real effort and achieved something very significant!

I am now left, I think, with six sets of papers to correct and then the task of matching marks to names on class sheets and then I am done.  Until the week after next when the next round of examinations start!  Insane!

What isn’t mad is the fact that this is being typed on a Friday evening at the start of a glorious weekend.  An easy adjective to apply when referring to time spent outside school!

I am gradually getting together the books that I will need to write my little reference book about “Making Sense of Modern Art From Fauvism to Pop Art” which is clearly going to be a vanity publishing scam as far as I am concerned – as long as the school pays for it all!  It is the only thing about the rest of this school year which really gives me any enthusiasm – it’s a pity that mere teaching of actual children so often gets in the way of lofty cultural aspirations.

I have looked around at the “books” that some of my colleagues have produced for their courses and I think that I can aim to write something reasonably substantial.  And of course what worth has an art book without full colour illustrations! 

Choosing pictures (and presumably breaking copyright right, left and centre) is going to be fun.  How far is a teacher allowed to reproduce something like a painting if it is solely for teaching purposes within an academic institution?  I think that I will allow that to remain a purely academic question and not seek too closely to find what will probably turn out to be a thoroughly unacceptable and restricting answer.

I’d love to produce something full of clever graphic solutions but I should stay this side of possibility and aim for something which is achievable within the restraints of how our school operates and within the limited expectations of the school – but I have nothing to lose by pushing those limits a little.

I am eating almost normally and look forward to a weekend when I can partake of our traditional Menu del dia without worrying about the gastric consequences.  It is a very sad thing to report that a week in school has been more efficient at restoring a satisfactory state of health that weeks under the ministrations of various doctors!

Suzanne is trying to get me to go to her pet herbalist and have a whole assessment so that I can start taking natural remedies and cut down on the nasty medically approved drugs that I take.  I am, understandably I think, rather reserved in my enthusiasm for this project as one always suspects quackery.  I have to say though that my experiences over the last few months or so have not increased my respect for conventional medicine much – perhaps it’s time to be tempted by wandering a little closer to the Dark Side of alternative health approaches.  Or not.  I am ambivalent.  And likely to remain so as I continue to take my prescribed medication.

As next week is likely to be dominated by fevered marking and equally febrile preparations for the next sets of examinations, I shall begin roughing out the form and possible style for my art book and begin collating ideas for inclusion.  What all this is, is a perfect excuse to luxuriate in sensual page turning, treating my art books as if they were sumptuous catalogues from which I can make my selection of desirable art works, pretending that I am ordering them for inclusion in my own personal imaginary gallery.

I am aiming to get a rough version of the book ready for the end of this term and have it printed by the end of the academic year.  We shall see.

I also have to get going on the production of work on the anti-hero.  My happy wandering in the ways of the Internet a few days ago was not terribly productive and, at the same time as the next round of examinations, we have another meeting to “finalize” the ideas which, as far as I can see so far, we have signally failed to come up with yet!

Something else to think about.  As indeed in the next opera in my season which is an obscure Catalan thing for which I have done no “homework” whatsoever.  Perhaps it will astonish with its sheer musicality and originality.  No not.

Early night tonight and lie in tomorrow.

Bliss!