Wait and see!

Going from purely literary sources, I feel that school at present is experiencing a sort of “Phoney War” there is a sense of anticipation, though of what we are not entirely sure.  We are waiting for things to clarify themselves though what things and what sort of clarity we are looking for we are not certain of.

I think that things will become more concrete after the meeting next week about our salaries.  This should of course provoke an outcry because 3% of your salary being ripped away is something to be slightly upset about.  But I have my doubts about what my colleague will think of doing.  Which is to say that I don’t really doubt at all and what they will do is precisely nothing.

In much the same way that I feel impotent to help my sacked colleague I think there will be a mass groan of realization and then stolid acceptance!  Such is life.  Or, if the management act as I think that they might, then there could even be an expression of thanks about our not having to pay as much as other schools.  I wait to see what happens, - but not in pleasurable anticipation!

I should now be doing work for my class of Making Sense of Modern Art – but I am not in the mood – but I do have just over an hour to get into the necessary mood somehow and produce something intellectually stimulating and provocative for my lesson.

Well, the mood did change and 150 years of artistic development in four pictures from a still life by some obscure German in 1850 to a pseudo-abstract from the year 2000 by some Spanish sounding guy were duly printed out and a sheet of instructions fabricated to go with them.  I always work best under stress, but I’m not sure about the cost to my blood pressure readings!

Although they are a highly selected chosen quartet of paintings to represent the century and a half I do like the idea behind them (however false a picture of artistic development they might give) and it is really designed to give a sense of progression and allow kids to make connections and contrasts over an historical period.  We didn’t of course get as much done as I would have liked, but we are well set for the next lesson.  I hope.  And that should reduce the tension of my normal teaching by at least one notch!

I am now stuck in school for three hours before the start of the Literary Prize Evening.  It is not worth my while going home as I have to start off at such an early hour to get through rush hour traffic that I gain more by staying in school than trying to get home and then return.  But it does make for a day in this place which will turn out to be some thirteen hours long.  Too long by any sane teacher’s standards!

I am now sitting in the staffroom with Mozart’s 41^st Symphony for company debating whether to go to the kitchen and see if the cooks have put out scraps for we “peons” who are left to while away the hours before we swell the numbers for the audience for the festivities.  We have been told that we can go to the kitchen and have something before the cocktail party begins which is the start of the official VIP reception for the evening.  And it’s started raining after a glorious afternoon which I had the merest touch as I left one classroom to go to another.  ‘Twas always thus!

I have now been interrupted on a number of occasions and each time I have got involved in conversations way beyond my linguistic ability (in Spanish I hasten to add!) to play the part that I should.  I have to say that all my colleagues are equally patient as I mangle their language to try and make myself understood!  From teachers to kitchen staff and cleaners they all smile at me with that patient resignation that I have come to recognize so well as they disentangle my shattered Spanish syntax and make some sense of what I might have been trying to say!

The Literary Prize evening was not as painful as expected with an unexpected bonus in that the guest speaking was a world famous author, Paulo Coelho whose most famous book is probably The Alchemist which has, to date been published in over 70 languages!  This multi-million-book seller was something of a coup for our school and, as I left the Russian mother of one of our pupils was holding out a copy of The Alchemist in Russian for the man to sign.  His speech was short and to the point.

The end of the evening was a truncated concert with out kids singing a couple of songs.

My attempt to escape was delayed by a couple of parents who wanted to meet me and say thank you!  A rare enough occurrence to be a pleasure!

As Toni and I had agreed to go out for a meal of some sort after the presentations we went to an old haunt of ours near the flat we used to live in.  We had tapas but up-market ones and, although the meal was expensive I think that it was worth it – and anyway I deserved it after the long day I had had!

And tomorrow is Friday.  After all.