Counting down

Today has been enlivened by the chaos which is endemic to this school.  The occasion for the chaos (as if occasion were needed) concerns the photographs which need to be taken of the student and working population of the institution.

The “timetable” for things to happen well deserves the inverted commas as it has been, in the words of Captain Barbarossa about the Pirates Code, “more like guidelines” with classes appearing at odd times and the poor old photographer (who I suspect is not poor and was certainly not old) was left devoid of students and looking at his lists with only the occasional desultory photograph of a passing member of staff to keep himself amused.

My photograph has also been taken “for the intranet” presumably so any parent can identify and target any member of staff that their progeny might finger!

I have now ended up with a first year class as the teacher has been called away to stay with her wayward form as they go to have their likenesses taken.

The one advantage of burgeoning technology in this place is that the class is provided with a computer for each class member and so, by sitting firmly at the head of the class and not being foolish enough to look at what they are doing or supposed to be doing, I have the leisure to type and they are presumably profitably employed – and I certainly d not intend to find out if the opposite is the truth. 

I am also, in a very real sense of the word not teaching which is always a positive aspect in any true teacher’s life.  True I have a class in front of me, but I am not being asked to do more than contain the anarchy which is always a possibility when the young of our species is gathered into one fairly cramped space.

I am now eating lunch again, but restricting myself to a diet of salads in school.  I might (as the only adult I know) be tempted to partake of arroz a la cubana which I do like.  This is a very simple dish of white rice, topped with tomato sauce which is itself topped with a fried egg.  Delicious!  Though my colleagues regard it as infantile and spurn it as ‘twere a rabid dog.  The only positive aspect in favour of our school when compared with the palatial establishment (they had an indoor swimming pool you know that I visited last Friday was that their version of arroz a la cubana lacked the fried egg, making the dish vapid and as ashes in my mouth!

Yesterday in my haste to get out of a school in which I had taught six periods I forgot a scheduled meeting with a small group to discuss the Credit of Synthesis or Personal Research that takes place to general rejoicing at some point in the term.

Usually this event has been an occasion on which teachers do little more than sit out the front and watch students get plugged into their computers and do what they will.  This laid back and admittedly generally unguided from of time wasting has now been seized by those who would Improve The Standard of Teaching so that there is more planning (meetings after school) and ownership (teaching) in the new version.

In the last meeting I caused hysteria by suggesting that we teach the works of Chaucer, which was increased to wild panic when I recited the opening of The Canterbury Tales in what I take to be Middle English!

My absence allowed the cowards to change the theme from the Middle Ages to Heroes.  Alas!  I feel that my suggestion of therefore studying the fascinating story of Palamon and Arcite might not have gone down well either.

As I missed the meeting (thank god) I will now have to make up for it by producing a photocopied course of work which will Show That I Care.

Being an English teacher my first thoughts obviously go not to the stated theme but its antithesis: the anti-hero.  I remember one of sixth form students saying that she would always remember me as the man whose two heroes were Iago and Satan.  Perhaps we could do extracts of Paradise Lost.  Perhaps not.

I certainly think that there is some mileage in the Classical concept of the hero and the attributes of the hero based on the writings of Aristotle about the tragic hero.  Heh!  Heh!  That should give my colleagues something to think about.  Especially when teaching all that to the first form!

I will have to do some research and produce something soon if my tattered reputation for inventiveness is not to be lost!

Tomorrow the opera and Scenes from Goethe’s Faust.  I have been listening fairly intensively to the work and now sort-of know my way around it.  I do not think that this is a staged version so it is just as well that I have made the effort to learn the music, as there won’t be very much to look at on the stage, though I will take my high-class opera glasses with me.  One must appear to be professional at all times.

Let the culture commence!

6 Classes!

A glass of red wine; a can of John Smith Special and a glass and a half of Cava and I feel as if I have had a real session!  How times have changed!

Although there were only eight people in the little get together for United Nations Day, the fact that two of them were small children made the event feel like a full blown overcrowded party.  Their inability to stay still for more than a nano second; their conversation always at the level of shout; their complete disregard for the niceties of tidiness and cleanliness – all contributed to leaving Toni and myself prostrate with exhaustion at the end of the evening.  I can only conjecture (with horror) what it must be like to wake up day after day knowing that they are in the house and prepared for another full day’s excitement!

I have just been told that the meeting yesterday went on until 7.45, making the full meeting two and three-quarters hours long.  Another fifteen minutes and that would be the whole period of the passion of Christ on the Cross and, while I am not comparing the suffering with what He went through, it is not far short!  Thank god I had the selfish, self-centred sense of self-preservation to get out of that mind-rotting meeting when I was still reasonably compos mentis!

Today I have what would be impossible in Britain: six classes!  How right Mista Kurtz (he dead!) was in his view of the world!  I am not alone in this intolerable (yet tolerated) imposition.  There are enough teachers to form quite a sizeable club of unfortunates who have the same teaching load today.  I am more than half inclined to produce badges for us – just as I should have done during a past election when the slogan I wanted to emblazon on the pins was “Kill a Conservative for Christ”.  Alas, another missed opportunity!

As soon as the bell goes the teaching becomes a relentless succession of classes and it is only lunchtime that affords any respite at all.  Never mind, such a day of horror has its own small reward in actually reaching the end and still being reasonably sane!  Especially with the double hour with Year 9 at the end of the day!

All things come to an end, and so did the day.  And escape was at last possible.

The evening was spent pleasantly enough by reading a book which I was given electronically by a member of 2ESO who had chosen the book as the subject of his talk to the rest of the class.

                           

“Old Man’s War” by John Salzi is a sci.fi novel “in the tradition of Robert Heinlein” and it is an interesting idea competently worked out.  The central conceit is that when old people reach the age of 75 they can volunteer for the colonial space corps where they will be rejuvenated and given the bodies of twenty year olds.  It is a good forgettable read, but a compulsive page-turner.

Thursday the opera and Friday a blood test: such a varied life!

The Day

UNITED NATIONS DAY

Well, if something can be salvaged from this worst of birthdays it must be that I managed to slope off an hour early from the mind-numbingly tedious meeting that I had to go to at the end of a day in which I had taught five periods and done a dinner duty.  While the rain poured down.

To be fair my mood lightened considerably as soon as I left the meeting.  Given the tropical storm that was raging when I left the building, I was soaked by the time I made it to my car which I had carefully moved from one end of the campus to the other so that I was prepared for a quick getaway.

My cunning Smarties Plan worked to a certain extent.  I pleaded with the chair of the meeting to be let off early mumbling in my gibberish Spanish that people were waiting at home and I had work to do before the fiesta started.  Drifting from Spanish to English I am not sure either of us fully understood the other but what I took from the conversation was that I could leave after the two years in which I was largely concerned had been “done”.  Having got this assurance (I think) I then put the Smarties Plan into operation.

I walked along the front of the square of tables set out for the hapless teachers and gave each one of them a mini packet of Smarties informing them that this was a “soborno” or bribe – I left the reason why I was bribing people open; if they don’t know my blatant loathing of this pointless exercises by now they never will.

By the time I had distributed half a dozen boxes I had a round of applause and the delight on peoples’ faces was reward enough for the vast expenditure in Lidl for two bags of mini boxes.

It was very pleasing to see people popping Smarties like pills throughout the course of the meeting.  I said not a word as usual and packed up and left when I thought that the time was right.

A fairly quick call into the supermarket and home to a full house of Toni’s family sorting things out.  I was ordered to have a shower and get dressed and, in honour of Wales’ outstanding performance in the World Cup I donned my red jersey and settled down to enjoy a pica pica meal to celebrate my birthday.

Eventually Carlos joined us and we were able to open the exorbitantly expensive and faux medieval bottle of Cava – which was delicious; I even managed to remember to save the metal cap on the cork for Tina’s sister-in-law, who collects such things.

I have bought myself a birthday present which can be quite easily guessed at and The Family gave me a photograph of a present which they were not able to get to me in time!  The compensation shirt I was bought was quite acceptable while I wait for the main event!

A good end to a totally crap day – only enlivened by chocolate.

United Nations Day Eve

There are many reasons to dread a birthday but I positively welcome the hustle and bustle of the preparation.  I relish the arrival of people and the possibilities of conversation.  The washing up can be done by a dishwasher and the tile floors are spick and span with the passing of a hoover.  Presents are always a problem for me, not because of any reluctance on my part to accept with open arms anything that anyone is prepared to give, but rather because I know that people find it difficult to choose something that they think I might like.

Buying a book is a hostage to fortune; my skin is positively skittish when it comes to reacting with all but a selected few fragrances; the gadgets I want are way beyond the normal price limit even the nearest and dearest to me can afford; art is unthinkable when I have made it clear that what I really want is a small, unobtrusive Van Eyck; flowers are always acceptable but no one ever thinks them appropriate; I have my own tea supplier and I abhor household good disguised as gifts.

There is always booze.  Alcohol has been something of a forbidden fruit to me for the course of the antibiotics, but I am going to get off the wagon with a rather spectacular bottle of Cava which has a metallic base and a rather flamboyant metal badge on the neck. 

It was much more expensive than the price that I pay for truly a decent bottle of Cava, but it still cost less than an ordinary bottle of named Champagne.  I will have to discover if the quality of this fizzy liquid goes any deeper than the de lux bottle!  Perhaps I should keep the bottle and fill it up with cheaper stuff and see if people still comment on its subtlety!

I am not convinced that I am going to enjoy it after spending more than eleven hours in school or perhaps, and this is much more likely, it won’t even touch the sides!  Unfortunately I can’t get pissed as the next day, Tuesday, I teach six periods rather than the five and a lunchtime duty and a two and a half hour meeting of the previous day.  But I might have mentioned that before in passing.  Possibly.

This is shaping up to be the worst United Nations Day that I will have ever celebrated in my life.  But am I miserable?

Yes.

But won’t be when I get home.

Eventually.

The Closed Window - alas!

It is with deep sorrow that I announce the arrival of autumn.  It came into our lives with a characteristic coolness yesterday and its presence has been confirmed by a lack of direct sunlight and lower temperatures today.  To those who continue to wear short sleeved shirts, we salute your refusal to accept the evidence of the thermometer and hope the warmth of your hearts compensate for its lack in the general climate.

There are still touches of blue in an otherwise cloud-covered sky and I cling to my memories of dull days brightening into pleasantness in this country.

The Post Pulveriser’s dogs are barking their morning joy to the world.  Presumably this is because their owner has taken the crippled dog for a walk in its wheeled chariot with the back paws bound in red insulating tape to avoid friction with the ground as their trail uselessly behind the pathetic animal.  As The Woman obviously relates more to her four legged captives than to her human neighbours the sense of loss that her other mutts feel when she takes one of them out to defecate on the surrounding pavements shows in their bewailing her absence with the usual moronic chorus of barks.

I am encouraged to hope that as the Town Hall has been pretty active in taking steps to do something about the parking post destruction they will be equally active in trying to silence her obstreperous pets.  She, and her menagerie are cordially loathed by all her neighbours and I only hope that the others have made complaints as well as us.  Certainly her other neighbour expressed his hatred in an extraordinary exhibition of a combination of Spanish, mime and dog impressions in one conversation with me as we discussed the latest knocking down of the post.

The sun has emerged.  It may be brief, but it has happened!  God bless Catalonia.  I am tempted to fly to the Third Floor and make the most of the seconds that we have been gifted.  Too late the sun went before I could make it.  The weather has now settled down into one of its default modes: “brightly dull” – which is better than dully dull which is too often the default setting for the old country!

There is just so long that you can live in chaos.  It is made easier by the fact that the true chaos is hidden behind the doors of the bookcases, but I kid myself along that it is creative chaos and therefore OK.  The Third Floor however is a different kettle of fish or confusion of objects.

Now there are compelling reasons why the place is so untidy.  Two un-collapsible sun bed cushions and four chairs with their accompanying cushions so create clutter to put it mildly.  This clutter is not helped however by the bits and pieces which have no real home of their own.

The most irritating items which wind their way everywhere are the electrical leads which I am too frightened to throw away.  They are again reaching the sort of critical mass where I have expect them to fuse themselves together into some creature from a gadget-lover’s nightmare.

There are so many leads and so much extra stuff that there is no logical place to start clearing up and I have little desire to make a start “anywhere” as being better than doing nothing.  Nothing sounds good to me.

Lunch was in our usual place where we were surrounded by the massed ranks of the retired.  We are beginning to believe that our motto for a happy and prosperous future should be “Follow the grey” – though thinking about it in my case it should be “Follow the shine” which has a rather nice messianic ring to it. 

It is certainly true that in Castelldefels that the retired have sussed out all the places which give the best value.  If the place you are going to patronize does not have the requisite proportion of “grey-and-shine” it is probably not worth going in.  Or, at the very least, be prepared to pay over the top for what you are going to get!

After lunch we called in to the branch of El Corte Ingles which is on my way to school and, remarkably, came out without spending a thing!

As Toni was tired – his leg does not seem to be improving at the rate that he would like and walking is a real strain – I was sent off to get the nibbles for United Nations Day from the supermarket.

The branch of Carrefour in El Prat (an unfortunate name but it fits the store) is one to test the patience of a good sight more saintly than an easy-going slacker like the laid back St Francis for example.

The background music in the store is not some Muzak Corporation of America version of The Four Seasons (a piece of music made justly famous by its inclusion as the music of choice of so many organizations where “call waiting” is the default setting for customer enquiries) but rather the cries and screams of small children.  Cries and screams which parents seem to assume have the same calming effect on those listening as the gentle lapping of the sea. 

They are misinformed. 

Shopping on a Saturday evening is a very stressful experience and distressed and distressing children do not lessen the strain.  Indeed their harpy (sic) little voices add a veneer of murderous intent to the way you manipulate the trolley.

It is astonishing how little people realize that a crowded store means that progress is more constricted.  They look at items on shelves with their trollies at right angles to said shelf and look surprised when I hiss a request to pass their impregnable fortifications!

The traffic in the main spine-like thoroughfare was a nightmare, sometimes so comically constricted that one suspects one is part of the supermarket re-make of “The Truman Show”!

In one bottleneck because of rampant inconsideration, there was only room for one trolley to pass.  Being the perfect British gentleman I politely kept to one side as three women swept through not one of them having the basic consideration even to note my existence, let alone express passing thanks.

People walked into my path as if the metallic trolley was made of marshmallow.  From time to time I was sorely tempted to demonstrate that metal is slightly harder.

I suppose that I shouldn’t have been shocked at the idiocy of the people in the queue in front of me.  Two North Africans were trying to buy goods using something other than money and credit which necessitated conferences and discussion; a man kept skipping off to find other goods leaving pushchair, child and shopping as a marker for his place; no one appeared to realize that payment was necessary at the end of the beeping procedure and there was the usual frantic search for purse or wallet; packing was painful to watch – and the children screamed on.

When it came to my turn I packed at the same rate that she checked and my card was ready and waiting when the total was spoken: it is not bloody rocket science.

It was night by the time I got out and needed something to raise my spirits – apart from spirits which I usually do not drink.  And drink is something which I can now do as my course of antibiotics is now officially over and alcohol may be consumed.

Tomorrow is a “fun” run and this necessitates the closing of all sorts of roads in our area while the lame, the halt and the mad “enjoy” themselves through the medium of pain.  Each to his own.

 

Barça have drawn against Sevilla with the end of the game descending into violent farce with Kanoute (an excellent player for Sevilla) behaving disgracefully and being sent off, soon to be followed by another player.  And Messi missed a last minute penalty.  The bloody ball went everywhere around the Sevilla goal but in it.  And I can’t believe that I am actually concerned about a mere game of football!  As a passing comment I said that Barça must have had 80% possession.  The statistics at the end of the game pointed out that I was wrong, it was actually 79%.  What is happening to me!

I obviously need more rest.

Obviously.

        

Towards the weekend!

A true disinclination to get up did not unfortunately stop me and I set out in darkness for the school.

Arrival should not have been so bad because I was off on a trip and even my first lesson was going to be taken by others.  But, there is always a but, the work that I had prepared yesterday was only half useful as the disk that was supposed to accompany all the photocopying I had done was nowhere to be found.  So, I copied another test and all seemed to be going well until the second set of photocopying I had done also lacked its disk.  Much flurrying about and off I went again to photocopy another set of tests.  This time I was informed of the missing disk with a couple of minute to go before the lesson started.

By the time I set off to join my colleague on the bus I had (although I didn’t know it at the time) lost my keys.

The mock-rehearsal student United Nations was held in a school in San Cugat.  The school itself was very impressive with a real library and an indoor swimming pool!  We held the lobbying in the school library and the General Assembly in the school theatre.  I continued to be impressed with the facilities.

Our kids were somewhat intimidated at first and had to be encouraged, or rather cajoled into taking a more active part.  It was a good day and gave the clearest indication yet as to what may be facing our kids when they go to the “real thing” in Lisbon next month.

Do not, for a moment, think that just because I went to a school a few miles away from us I am prepared to accompany the kids on a trip to a foreign country.  That is something I have not, do not and will not do.  The Lisbon excursion will have to do without me.  As indeed it is doing as the other person who is going has already been booked in on flight and hotel.  But I do not trust my school and have a sneaking suspicion that they have other plans.  But I will be firm.

We got back in good time and it was only then that my frantic search for me keys revealed their lack.  My friend the secretary, fellow survivor of The School That Sacked Me and lover of penguins was typically phlegmatic about my loss, worked out where they might be, phoned and – there they were!  A calm end to a fairly frantic day.

The evening was enlivened by the reappearance of the car crane which pulled in opposite our house and the driver and another resplendent in fluorescent jacket marched resolutely towards our house.  The intervention of Toni as translator revealed that they had come to repatriate the two parking posts which I had salvaged after the wrecking activities of person or persons unknown (ha!).

I produced the broken one (the third one to be destroyed) and the second one which I found hidden away in the bin in the street.  They thanked me profusely and tucked their spoils away underneath the crane and drove off.  I only hope that my neighbour saw me talking to the people who purloined her car a couple of days ago and starts to put her addition in order!

I think that an early night is in order.

I am coming to the end of my course of antibiotics and I should be ready to start drinking alcohol by United Nations Day!

What timing!

Cool days

Preparations continue to be made to combat the horror of Friday when five members of staff are going to be absent.  This is almost unworkable and has created total chaos.  The only way that such a loss of staff can be coped with is by collapsing classes right left and centre.  Or school is very much like Heathrow Airport in that we are so close to full capacity as far as teaching loads are concerned that minor changes or illness cause panic.  If anyone is away tomorrow the whole system will implode.  As it indeed fully deserves to, because this situation is entirely self inflicted with the incredible meanness of staffing creating a situation where every snuffle is a potential disaster.

As I constantly point out, our workload is the equivalent of working an extra day a week; therefore for every five teachers' workloads we are doing a colleague out of a full time job.  The maths is simple and the reality oppressive!

As there is a flu bug going around at the moment the day is looking more and more precarious.  I’ve had my jab and anyway I am one of the people who is not going to be there, so I can think, along with King Louis the umpteenth “après moi le deluge!” – if only!

I have been wrestling with the irritations of Power Point with the added itch of trying to get the thing to work on two different systems.  The programs are the same but any split between a Mac and a PC is heading for tears.  For some reason there is a difference in the way that you download a painting in the different versions of the program and I have had to resort to using the PC in Spanish to get the annotated Futurist painting done as an example for the class that I am teaching.

In theory I should now be able to tap the whiteboard and arrows should appear followed, with another tap, by a perceptive analysis that should amaze and delight the kids.  Fat chance!  But it will show them what I want.

The weather is now clearly cooler and we even had a spiteful downpour last night.  Today is bright but cloud is obscuring direct sunlight.  When we now get direct sunlight it is summery, even if it is not summer, but I do feel that the day when I have to wear long sleeved shirts is drawing ever nearer.  I find the ironing of short sleeve shirts almost possible; their long sleeved cousins are clearly impossible to get right.  I can see me wearing short sleeves well into January!

While in school I had a message via my phone which I did not at first believe.  It appeared that our splendid police force had turned up and arrested the illegally parked car of our noisy neighbour and hoisted it onto the pack of the crane lorry.

She obviously noticed at some point that someone was trying to steal her car and came down to the police and mendaciously but vociferously protested her innocence.  As she constantly parks on the pavement, knocks down parking pillars and has noisy, irritating dogs my only regret is that Toni did not have a camera to capture every detail so that I could relish them at my leisure!

He car eventually was whisked off with her in hot pursuit.  She returned with her car and I trust a substantial sum of money missing from her purse.  I calculate she will have to have her car impounded four or five times for the state to recoup the money they have spent on replacing the parking posts!

Having had such a pleasing response to our visit to the town hall we confidently expect a ninja team of dog poisoners to visit the inconsiderate cow and do the decent thing to her caterwauling curs!

Today, this evening is a significant day as I have given in to the moaning of another person and finally closed the living room windows because of the “coldness” which I do not necessarily feel in quite the same way.  I am prepared to admit that the weather has become somewhat cooler – my car thermometer tells me that – but it is still fine weather for the time of year.

United Nations Day will be celebrated on Monday next with the obscenity of my being in school.  The hated meeting at the end of a full day's work is scheduled to go on from 5 pm to 7.30 pm!  Two and a half hours of pure unadulterated torture which will start off in Spanish and almost immediately change to Catalan.

I am going to make it clear to all and sundry that it is a significant day for me in the fond hope that some shreds of common humanity will encourage me to escape early. 

This is a futile expectation because there is a sort of fatalistic, ghoulish pleasure that some of my colleagues find in these flagellestic and masochistic events and they do not like anyone to flee the delights.  And it is good preparation for the Saturday morning performance coming up in November!

However, to sweeten the occasion I have bought mini packets of Smarties to give to my colleagues in the meeting.  At the very least it will cause them to munch away rather than talk and hopefully it will increase the guilt they feel for keeping me from my “party”.  It will also make the whole situation look slightly absurd – which will amuse me.

The Family will be waiting for me at home and I am going to make it clear that any extension of the meeting will be directly insulting to my guests! 

Anything is worth a try!