Mondays!

Our barbecue on Sunday seems to have had some unfortunate after effects with a spate of tummy-trouble.  I remain staunchly un-tummy-troubled - though, were I to be severely truthful I might say that things have not been entirely uneventful since being adversely affected by a rogue member family!

But enough of that.

We are getting contradictory rumours of how much and when our political masters are going to cut our wages.  The reality of harder times ahead are admitted by all, but the mechanics of how we are going to be penalized for not being self satisfied, amoral, money grubbing bankers has not yet been revealed to we mere mortals.

On a more practical level I have been told that I have to fit in with the system in schools to ensure that I get a pay rise for long service.  After a certain number of years (5 or 6) teachers are entitled to a wage increase – only if the individual teacher has amassed the correct number of points.  These points can be gained for things like attending courses; being a form teacher and other things of that sort.

I have been told that one sure way to get the correct number of points is to take a language course – in English.  I have been told that the way that the system works I can take an examination for “Intermediate English” and get the points in spite of the fact that I am an English teacher and therefore presumably at a somewhat higher level than the examination.  I could do courses in something else, but that would mean that I would actually have to go to classes, whereas this way all I have to do is the examination.  It is not educationally sound, but it ticks the boxes and is acceptable.  It’s a scam, but a scam which seems to be generally accepted.  Application is next month.  I shall consider my options.

People are tired in my school and many of them must be dreading the forthcoming “holidays” when many of them will be off with the kids on trips and my poor old colleagues will only have an extended weekend to recover before the long haul to Easter.

Bless books!

Let’s face it; however much I try and kid myself, the early mornings as I stagger from my bed and throw water at my body are still dark.  I am going to school during the night.  The only positive aspect of the day is that in this country the days are usually bright and sunny.

This winter has been out of the usual in the number of sunny, rain-free days that we have had.  Cold it may be – but dry it certainly is.

The goods delivery companies are crap in this area.  And I think that that word is too mild to describe their actual attitude of cavalier disregard for the primary aspect of their bloody existence – that of delivering the packages.

Thanks to the tracking system in Amazon I can at least tell when a package has been handed over to the local delivery service. This is just as well because our local delivery service does not regard the final part of the journey of any parcel as being their responsibility.

I now no longer (obviously) lose my temper when I have to go to the delivery office to get my package.  And there is always something delightful in getting a book which tempers my fury.

The most important part, at least potentially, in the items to be sent to me this time around was the dog zapper.

I have now used this machine on a number of occasions and I am pleased to report that there is a definite diminution in the irritating barking from the moronic mutts next door.

I have adopted the strategy of creeping downstairs when the hounds are howling, opening the door as silently as possible, creeping up on the dog and then after a brief “Ssssh!” zapping the dog.  There is an appreciable negative reaction when, after zapping the caterwauling crippled cur he dragged himself to another part of the garden.  I have absolutely no sympathy for this Heath-Robinson canine catastrophe, as his bark is the most irritating that our terminally insensitive neighbour keeps in her personal menagerie.  I followed him and, as he failed to quieten I zapped him again.  Silence!  Delight!  It works!

Unfortunately it only works over short distances so my overly optimistic of pointing it through walls and windows and getting a response have not been realized.  Still the fact that there is a clearly silent reaction makes the machine worth the money I paid for it.  So far.  I only hope that familiarity does not breed barked contempt.

I have now read “Red Strom Rising” by Tom Clancy and I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed it.  This novel was first published in 1986 and it is astonishing how far the political situation of the world has changed!

The premise of the novel is that an extremist Islam strike on a crucial oil installation in the Soviet Union so weakens the fuel supply of the country that the Politburo instigates an attack on NATO as a means to securing the Middle Eastern oil fields.

How much has changed!  The USSR doesn’t exist.  Where is Communism nowadays?  The corrupt Politburo has been replaced by even more corrupt oligarchs and their cronies.  Germany is not divided.  The puppet states of the Soviet Union are, well, different.  The world of 1986 is clearly not that of 2012.

But as a futuristic historical novel it really works quite well.  I have no idea if any of the technical information is even remotely correct but it sounds convincing and it gives a verisimilitude to the writing which is safely exciting.

The course of the “war” is described in compelling detail and the emphasis placed on the submarine aspect always gives a claustrophobic excitement to death.

The personalities of combatants play their part in the development of the plot and there is even some subdued love interest.

Clancy is a safe pair of hands and he is a more than competent storyteller.  I found some parts of the 800-page narrative to be compulsively page-turning.  But what we have lost (thank god!) is the sense that the events in the novel could be all-too-true.  The battle is fought with conventional weapons which in spite of the technology used makes the novel even more old-fashioned and something not a million miles from one of the spate of World War II novels.

When nuclear weapons are finally considered, they form an exciting part of the end-game of the novel itself.

I liked reading this novel, but it is firmly in the class of something which I will never read again!  I also feel that I have also experienced the Clancy formula and the next volume might be strangely familiar!  As I haven’t read any other book by him this is patently unfair, but that doesn’t stop my believing it!

This weekend has been largely defined by food and reading.  The reading has included not only my trashily enjoyable novel but also by new art books which are a continuing delight and something I will certainly look at again and again.

The food has been home and away.  Our regular visit to the restaurant of the retired folk provided me with one of the best meals that I have had there.  Sea food stuffed eggs covered in cheese as a starter and one of my favourites, arroz a la cubana, another starter but chosen as my main course: simple and delicious.

Sunday saw the arrival of The Family and a barbecue with another of my favourites, calçots.  You may get filthy eating these leek-like barbecued onions but laced with the traditional sauce it is all worth it!

I have done nothing of the school work that I might have done but, given my timetable I do feel that if something cannot be done in school time then it simply cannot be done.

Next week sees the start of yet another batch of examinations but the week after that will be a week when most of the school will not be there, as they will all be off on trips.  As I “do not do trips” I will be one of a small number of secondary teachers still in school.

There are the usual threats that we will be “helping” in another part of the school but, as I have pointed out of any who will listen, my official designation as signed, sealed and delivered by the Department of Education in Madrid, says that I am qualified to teach secondary.  There is nothing there about helping colleagues in the foetal section of the school in my contract.

It is pointless getting upset about these arrangements because there are still a couple of weeks to go and there is time for a few more plans before the date when they are supposed to take effect!  This I know from hard past experience in this country.  Long term planning here means 24 hours before!

So two more weeks to a pause of sorts; a difference in the routine and one day off on the Friday of that week.  What I should do is look at flights and see if I can take in the Hockney show in the Royal Academy.  In fact I will do that now.

Well, I won’t be going to London during the long weekend!  The prices were a little depressing.

Back to the drawing board.

Where is the summer?

For the first time this year my car informed that there was “A danger of frost” because the temperature was down to 4°C.  This was a reading which gradually increased as I travelled further uphill – which seems just a little counter intuitive but it is what happened.  It is now a bright and sunny day, though still cold.

As with Britain, it is easy to get to like cold, bright days, as there is a sort of invigorating clarity about them which is good for the soul!

It is now ten in the morning and I have already taught two periods!  Time for a cup of tea using the last British tea bag that I have in this staff room.  Luckily I have supplies hidden elsewhere so that my addiction can be fed.  Replenishing supplies is also easy as the majority of the larger supermarkets not only stock their own etiolated versions of tea bags but also the true British types as well.  The only thing (and it is a big ask) that I have to do is remember to call in on my way back home.

This might be difficult today as I am expecting books and a dog disturber.  Both create in my their own particular excitement, I only hope that Toni is able to convince the recalcitrant delivery persons to accept him as me so that they part with their precious cargo.  In spite of the last consignment being delivered absolutely according to instructions with the suggested date being the actual one, I am still somewhat prejudiced against the whole breed.  I arrived home yesterday to find that the Spanish postal service had “failed” to deliver a registered letter at a time when Toni was in and waiting.  Too often in the past the delivery people post a “failed delivery” notice into the post box because they cannot be bothered to wait for the recipient who might possibly not be there so they don’t bother to ring and merely place the notice in the post box.

This is a “bad thing” for many reasons not least among them the horrible fact that one then has to visit the Post Office to get the item.  Waiting at our local office would test the patience of a saint and I am no saint.  However if we go into town this evening I might still have sufficient residual enthusiasm and patience to try as I attempt to slope away early on a Thursday and therefore miss the static line of bad tempered, parent frustration-fuelled traffic which makes leaving school such a joy.

During odd moments, when I should probably be doing something else, I ponder on the strategies I am going to use to frustrate the knavish curs next door from voicing their opinions through increasingly irritating barks.  I want these low-life mangy mongrels to associate me and my voice with discomfort and unease and stop their noise.

Reading through the reviews of the machine that I have purchased I am bemused by the range of stars given which rates the machine as “excellent and effective” to “don’t waste your money”.  I am relying on the fact that the more dismissive reviews are a result of people expecting the machine to work in very much the same way as a light sabre!  I think that the trick is persistence and association: my face and voice associated in the dogs’ minds with some sort of unpleasant sonic sensation.  At least, this is what I am clinging to and I will hope for the best.

I am just about to do two more lessons and that will take us up to lunch; one more after lunch and then freedom – more time to enjoy the books which I am now assuming have already arrived at home and are waiting to be unpacked.  The unpacking is a large part of the excitement of reading for me nowadays as most of my books come through the post.

My copies of The Guardian come directly to my iPad and I am not sure how I like reading a newspaper in this format.  In one way it is easy because I do nothing and there is the paper waiting for me each day.  I have the old copies saved in the machine and there is the added advantage that Internet links are provided with many of the stories so that you can study the topics in more depth.  Even within stories there are often links on which you can click to give added depth to your reading.  It is convenient and I find that I now tend to read the paper through from one end to the other, flicking through those articles which are incomprehensible or unpalatable!  I have taken out a subscription on a month-by-month basis that will show me whether or not I am getting value for money.  Which is another way of asking if I have read the thing during the month.

I am going to have to get into the right frame of mind to use the iPad for what it was intended – and bringing me The Guardian was, I am sure, what Steve Jobs had in mind when he caused it to be developed.

I have now discovered that the books that I had ordered have not arrived.  However, on checking on the web site I have also found that there was a “delivery attempted” yesterday.  No slip was left and I am sure that Toni was actually there.  This is the second time that MRW (the carrier) has signally failed to deliver items that were in stock.  It means that I now have to go into the centre of town and try and find a parking space in cramped and overfull streets.  It is irritating, to put it mildly as the packages are hefty art books which weigh a ton!  Perhaps that was also the feeling of the delivery men who couldn’t be bothered to heft them and would rather wait for an exasperated customer to come in and take them off their hands.

I hesitate to complain because I fear that this appalling service will get even worse if they know that I am one of those difficult customers who likes a delivery service actually to deliver to the address on the package!  It is far too easy for a delivery man to throw something over the wall (which they have done in the case of a camera) and however well a big book is packaged there is bound to be damage when a book lands on a corner.  I would rather go get than have to go through all of the hassle of sending something back.

Alternatively I could develop my complaining to the level that I get known as a “difficult bastard” and they deliver properly just to avoid the repercussions of a middle class man knowing he is right!

Self-indulgence!

Today I made a conscious decision to stay in bed for fifteen extra minutes.  The amount of sheet guilty pleasure that one gets from staying in bed when one should have got up is out of all proportion to the relatively short period of time spent lazing.

It may just be self-delusion but I think that the mornings are getting lighter.  Giving that it is still January, I think that I probably am deluding myself, but it makes getting up in the almost totally dark better than getting up in the absolutely totally dark!

More examination papers arrived magically this morning and had to be marked and the results entered.  At present all the rest of my colleagues now have their share of the marking and are busily scribbling away draining their pens.  I try and look concerned and as if I too have a heavy load to complete – just in case I am roped in to help!

I have done some work for the “anti-hero” project that we are supposed to be devising for the kids to complete later this year.  I must admit that I got the greater pleasure in designing the front cover for the work than for the run-of-the-mill tasks inside.  That is somewhat unfair as the basic task (decided after a ten minute meeting) is interesting.

Well, the draft of the work is done and is available for discussion and alteration.  The important thing is that we do actually have something to discuss – it really makes all the difference in a meeting called specifically for that reason!

 

Frustratingly I have been unable to find any teaching materials on a Will Smith film (“Hancock” 2008) as this apparently fits in with our theme.  I have seen the trailer and have been unable to watch the suspiciously home-made copy of the film which I have been given.  In some ways I am quite pleased at that as I shy away from anything other than kosher copies of films.  But it does mean that I am attempting to write a teaching and learning guide to a film that I haven’t actually seen!

As I type Real Madrid are starting the second half of the Copa del Rey match against Barça one goal up.  Toni is wearing his Barça shirt and listlessly fingering his Barça scarf and muttering imprecations against the Referee.  He is watching the match on a computer generated stream which is constantly stopping and, even when it is going well produces a rather more impressionistic view of the field than most football fans like to see.

The frustration that Toni must be feeling is extreme as Barça were taking a corner and the whole screen froze and the next time we saw a moving picture it was of a Barça celebration from a Puyol headed goal.  So we are now 1-1 with Barça having got an away goal of course, which could be significant in the second game when Barça will be at home.

And I can’t believe that I am actually taking an active interest in the outcome of football game!

On a more cultural level, my next Opera is at the end of the month and I am feeling guilty that I have done nothing to learn more about the work though there doesn’t seem to be a recording of it, apart from a vastly expensive film version of Blu-ray DVD which I am not inclined to buy.  So I am likely go to the performance of Il burbero di buon core (The Good-hearted Curmudgeon) by Vincent Martín i Soler unprepared and untutored having heard not a single note of the piece.  Apparently there is some evidence that the composer challenged Mozart for popularity and Mozart himself wrote an aria which is included in performances of the opera.  At least there should be some tunes in it given the period in which it was written!

One disturbing point is that this will a first performance of Il burbero di buon core by the Liceu.  So either this is an unjustly neglected masterpiece that has been ignored since the eighteenth century or the Liceu has dug around in the dusty basket of obscurity in the vague hope that people will think the expense of a full opera production has not been wasted.  I retain an open mind.  And eager expectation.

On a rather lower level of cultural activity I have been given “Red Storm Rising” by Tom Clancy through the generosity of a very sharp lad in my 2ESO.  He is reading books which should be beyond his level of English but he seems to enjoy them and this is the second book which he has wanted me to read.  I have to admit that an 800 page novel is not something which I need deflecting me from the work I should be doing – but I was unable to resist and it is lurking on the table in front of me, a red temptation.

And now Barça have won 1-2 away and so are well placed for the second game next week.

And now an early night because staying in bed tomorrow is not an option as I have an early start.

Only Tuesday!

After two days of rain (almost) the sun has reasserted its primacy and come back to the benighted lands of Catalonia and restored my faith in my present location.

These moments to finger my keyboard have been snatched at the fag end of the lunch hour before my double class with the equivalent of Year 9 for Media Studies.

The only way in which this unreasonable amount of continuous time at the end of the day can be justified is by my splitting the class into two with the second part held in the computer room where the hapless pupils can do some research.

Today I launch into Maslow’s Needs which will be illustrated by the kids using the Internet to find an advert example to fit each.  I imagine that I am going to be running around like a thing possessed attending to the linguistic needs of my pupils as they attempt to match words and illustration!

Which is what happened – but it’s better than teaching in a classroom for two solid periods in the afternoon!

Calling in to a supermarket on the way home I signally failed to find a small carafe but I have bought a rather tasteful small, glass jug which will serve the same purpose.  I hope.

Today has been tiring and unsettling as the bloody alarm did not go off and I stole an extra fifteen minutes in bed – for which I paid by cutting my chin while shaving in a hasty way trying to make up lost time.

So today bed betimes in the hope that tomorrow will not be so exhausting.

A weak week!

Yet again, as is so often the case in this place, I am stuck in front of a class watching the little heads of the pupils bent over yet another examination paper.  The only good thing about this is that I have completed my marking so I will have to keep out of the way of my colleagues who, from today are going to be involved in all the other papers.  I only hope that they do not expect any disinterested help from me because I will give them exactly the same amount of aid that I have been given on my lonely vigil ploughing through hundreds of scripts – none!

Admittedly my marking has not been much of an intellectual endeavour as I have been checking optical mark sheets so small pencil filled brackets are swimming cross my line of sight and I am sure that they will haunt nightmares for some time.  But my work is done.

Well, not quite.  I have all the results and they now have to be entered on mark sheets so that the overall mark for the mock examinations can be calculated.  That, in itself is not difficult, what is more taxing is trying to fill in the last few marks for which the examination papers will, inexplicably have gone missing.  Or it might be that some of the pupils had the poor form to be absent on the day the examination was set.  This means that over the next week or so I will be suddenly given odd examination papers for which I will have to find the mark scheme.

But I am too old a hand at this to let such concerns phase me.  Safe inside a specific folder are all three of the marking stencils (of my own design) which will ensure that any extraneous papers can be dealt with in a swift and satisfactory manner.

I am desperately trying to get everything tidied up and done before the original folders of my marked work are swamped in a deluge of folders for the other papers.  Getting the entire school through a mock examination at three different levels is a logistical exercise of frightening proportions and there will be administrative and examinational mishaps that will induce the fearful anarchy that sometimes seems to power this place!

My normal class marking can now be dealt with and I should be able to gasp a partial sigh of relief before the next internal examinations start – next week!  You couldn’t make it up!

At least we are over half way through the month and getting nearer to the “Trip Week” in early February.  I do not “do” trips so I will remaining firmly in Catalonia while my colleagues roam far and wide visiting places as far apart as The Isle of Wight and Cantabria.  Good luck to them.  At least in our school teachers who accompany trips are paid extra.  Not enough, but extra.

There are teachers other than myself who are left in school and we will be expected to come to school and do “work”.  As far as I can remember we are allowed to leave at lunchtime and we can all look forward to a “puente” as we have the Friday of that week as an Occasional Day so have a three-day weekend.  Thank god for small mercies!

After this small break, with only one day as a real holiday, we only have one other day off until the Easter holidays.  That is going to be a hard slog.

Day by day.