There at last!

It is always encouraging when the highest forecast temperature in my native city is what I experience first thing in the morning as I get into the car to go to work.  The sun has now fully risen and it looks as though it is going to be a glorious day – well, for latish March anyway!

Today is the last day for the sending in of the final essay for the OU; the final day for the Book 3 posts and the first day of real revising for the exam.  And, much, much more importantly, it is the penultimate day of term!

Without a real half-term holiday, and with Easter being where it is this year, the term has dragged on and on.  To say that my colleagues are ready for the holiday is the sort of understatement only matched by averring that Cyprus might have to face one or two tiny questions about its financial future.  January of this year, when, apparently, this term started, seems like a time more akin to the Late Pleistocene than a few “short” months ago. 

The only thing that has kept us going recently is the staunch belief that “next term will be shorter.”  Though I have to admit that the statement relies on wilful self-delusion to be true.  It is strange that, no sooner do I write about the concept of “the saving lie” in Hard Times that I find myself eagerly clutching the idea to my bosom as if my very sanity depended on it!  The summer term is like that though.  We always believe that it will be easier and then write off the stressful inconvenience of truth by pleading special circumstances in the collective intellectual gallop to the end of June.  If we had to go to the end of July there would be collective hari kiri in staffrooms throughout Catalonia!

At the end of school yesterday I scuttled out of the place as if there was a meeting waiting to start.  As indeed there was.  It was only when I was half way home that a telephone call reminded me that I should have picked Suzanne up.  Airily assuring her that I would be there in a mythical “ten minutes” I desperately searched my memory banks for the slip roads which would get me off the motorway and back to school.

A fairly frantic few minutes later, and travelling along roads less frequented, I managed to get back going the other way and arrived more or less as I had assured Suzanne I would – a little more rattled than if I had done what I said I was going to do in the first place, but there!

Toni accompanied us to La Fusta where tapas and red wine were consumed in excess and delight.

The particular accent of the evening was established when I cleaned my glasses and one of arms broke.  The arm is thin and exceedingly expensive and I have to go to Sitges to get them repaired.  O joy!  Just the way to start the almost holidays.

I have now resorted to contact lenses and I am waiting to see if anyone notices.  They usually don’t.  I am not 100% sure that I have got the right lenses in the right eyes nor am I convinced that they are the right way round.  But I can see something so that is a positive advantage and I do have a steam-driven pair of glasses to use in absolute emergency.  However awful and old (and heavy!) they are, they will get me back home if I am behind the steering wheel!  And on the last day of term that is passingly important!

We have had pieces of paper with various duties written out on them which will be an indication of what They hope will be the organization of the last morning.  I am only here for the morning and then I depart in faith, fear and a fast car for a truly well deserved holiday.

There was the usual organized chaos in the morning, though the Fun Run (sic.) went off without a hitch and only a few cuts and grazes.  The al fresco breakfast for the kids after their run was good and I even sampled some of the fruit, nuts and chocolate-coated biscuits that were lavished on our young charges.

The real activity of the morning was a series of sporting events which were organized by the students from some local sporting college.  They included such things as macrobailar or large dancing which to my untutored eyes looked like a fairly basic aerobic routine to some sort of Brazilian mixture of dance and martial arts which had a name sounding like a cocktail.  There was of course the usual football to end up the morning during which I had a goal dedicated to me by one of the players – a joke, perhaps, but I did find it oddly touching!

I maintained my reputation for staunch non-participation by ostentatiously taking a chair with me wherever I was posted and sitting on it with a terrible finality.

It has been a beautiful day and I took every opportunity to position my chair firmly in the sun which of course meant that I was nowhere near my Spanish colleagues who fled to the shadows as soon as the sun showed itself. 

My head has retained the heat of the day and I am absolutely delighted to report that I have had recourse to Lidl’s best “after sun” lotion, which means that summer cannot be far away!  Hopefully there will be opportunity enough during the holiday for me to escape to the Third Floor to use another of Lidl’s preparations as well!

A quick visit to Sitges to take my glasses in to be repaired and an opportunity to take some taramosalata home from a Greek restaurant that Toni spotted.  I ascertained that they did take-aways and I was soon in possession of something that I have missed in this country.  At the price that I paid, I am likely to go on missing it after my indulgence this evening.  It was good, but not that good that I am prepared to pay a premium on what I would pay in Tesco!

Over the weekend the fact that I am on holiday will sink in and then the Pauls will arrive and the delight will be complete – right up until the realization that I actually do have to go back to school hits!

But that is far, far in the future at the moment. 

Enjoy the moment!

Getting there

Damp, overcast and depressed – and that is only my mood.  And the weather?  This is supposed to be the first day of spring?  It is only listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 and laughing at the weather forecast in Britain that I keep my sanity!

However, the simple reality of today is that it is the ante-penultimate day of term and I have just ascertained that the last day will be taken up with a “Fun” run and other sporting activities – which would seem to indicate to me that my academic expertise will not be needed and it therefore follows that . . . I wonder just how unobtrusive I really can be!

The day has started with an English class being given over to the kids to work in groups to perfect their presentations and use their statistical results to produce pretty graphs.  Whatever.  It does mean that I am, yet again, sitting at the front of a class doing something else.

What I should be doing, of course, is revision for my forthcoming examination, and I do have electronic copies of the books from which to plan my final note taking – but it is too early and I am far too lazy to get down to such serious work when there is a subdued air of festivity about.

I met one of my jollier colleagues at the school gate this morning and she was bemoaning the fact that she has yet another meeting to look forward to tomorrow after school.  At present the School on the Hill is trying its best to emulate the slogan of The Windmill – “We Never Close!”  Perhaps not the best of comparisons: a strip club and an educational institution, but you only need to ponder for a few seconds before the parallels become telling!

As a piece of sheer self-indulgence I have bought a ten-disc set of Nielsen’s Orchestral Works.  The number of versions of the symphonies that I now possess is rapidly approaching obsession, but listening to bits and pieces of the music which is now safely lodged on a corner of the hard disc in the iMac I was taken over yet again by what I heard.  I am not sure that the sound quality is quite as crisp as some of the other interpretations in my collection but it is another example of a way of understanding the music which I welcome.  It is also about time that I left the tried and tested path of the symphonies and started to learn some other music by this composer.  He may now have overtaken Sibelius in the number of discs of his music that I have.  I must do something about that!  My original favourite must reign supreme!

With Sibelius it is easier to own discs which trace the tradition of his music being played from first generation enthusiasts in Britain like Sargent, Barbirolli and Beecham up to the young conductors of the present day.  You have a greater choice with Sibelius because he has always been relatively more popular than Nielsen, so the discography is more extensive.

The day tailed off into little more than baby-sitting and in desperation I turned to a Swedish detective novel that has been lurking in my Kindle for some time and it allowed me to pass the time while the kids allegedly got on with their project work.

Two working days to go!

To the future!

The die has been cast!  And I sit here with potential impunity waiting for the reaction to my conduct last night.  I would like to say that I am waiting with a certain degree of trepidation.  But that would be a lie.  I really and truly couldn’t care less.  But I am interested to gauge the reaction.  From a purely sociological point of view of course.

Today is one of my “short” days and so I will have the afternoon to consider my next moves!

I am going to have to curb my propensity to splash money at any reasonable CD offer that flits before my fascinated eyes – and Amazon make sure that plenty of offers so do.  I am now fully CeeDeed to see me well into the summer holidays and some of the discs are going to be hard listening which it going to take a certain degree of concentration and determination to listen with anything like informed appreciation.

So far the EMI Eminence disc of Britten has been a revelation.  “Les Illuminacions” and other Britten choral works has been an utter delight.  Not having the dreadful Peter Pears singing is of course an advantage – though one can always hear his warble in the background of one’s memory whenever a piece of Britten is played!  The Ceremony of Carols too was amazing and I cannot imagine that there were many other drivers singing along to that excellent piece as I made my way on the north circular to The School on the Hill!

From what I can see from my purchases over the last couple of months, I am going to be a bit of an expert on the Baroque by the time I have exhausted the new discs with multiple copies of some works, especially by Bach.  Perhaps this is the time when I finally get to like the Brandenburg Concertos – though I doubt it.

The information booklet on the latest batch continues to surprise.  It actually talks about the music in something other than platitudes and uses fairly technical language.  Revelation - and it just shows that Sony has the right attitude and all the others could learn something from them.

Absolutely nothing has been said about my non-attendance at the meeting (which went on for two hours twenty minutes) and I shall therefore take that to mean that I can continue to act with impunity.  Hooray!  And the weather is fine and the wind is less and the sun is shining – who can ask for more!

The group work that the kids are completing at the moment is supposed to be evaluated by the presiding teacher who is supposed to give marks for a variety of attitudes and achievements in a great number of columns.  As you may have been able to tell by the tone in this paragraph I, of course, have done nothing of the sort.  My first repulse by the system was also my last and I have kept well away from the system ever since.  If this is a problem, then tough!

Lunch in our old stomping ground near the flat: mussels, whitebait, mixed paella with snails and chicken, Tarta Santiago, coffee - €12.20.  And people ask why I am living in Catalonia!

Full day tomorrow and the realization that there are only three days to the holiday.  That is a good realization.  Apart from there being three days.

Flux!

It comes to something when I can’t be bothered to walk down a couple of flights of stairs to get a computer on which there is typing which I have completed today and prefer to retype so that I don’t have to move more than my fingers.  This is not good, and does not bode well for my future physical condition!

However I have much on which to ponder (and I seem to be over using the “on which” construction today) on an eventful day in which (see, I can vary my style if I choose) the two most significant events were arrival and non-arrival!

The arrival was a boxed set (yet another) of 60 CDs produced by Sony under the Vivarte label.  The book which accompanies the set is one of the best produced and most exhaustively informative I have ever come across; it makes me feel toweringly ignorant just holding the damn thing!  My favourite disc so far, I am indeed downloading it to the ever empty hard disc of my computer, is entitled “Utopia Triumphanes” – The Triumphs of the Renaissance: this opens with Spem in Alium the forty-part motet and ends with Ecce Beatam Lucem another forty-part non-liturgical motet, taking in a mere six-part motet “Laudate Dominum” by Machincourt.  The first is by Tallis and the second by that name-to-conjure-with, Striggio.  I am sure that I am displaying woeful ignorance in my lack of ability to whistle Striggio tunes, but there it is – I am, after all, only a poor student trudging my weary way along the road of knowledge.  And who the hell is Machincourt – apart of course from the well-known composer of a famous six-part motet!

The non-arrival [can your mind actually remember as far back as the beginning of the last paragraph to make that opening valid?] is arguably the more interesting.

As I have been highlighting for the past few days, today was the day of The Meeting.

The day started on a low note as I had done nothing to put the results of the examinations on the new-fangled computer platform whose complexity makes the other two platforms that we have used look like writing figures on a piece of paper.  O halcyon days when that was all we had to do!

The present platform needs a password to get in which is generated anew each time you try and access the program.  This password is sent to your email account and you have to paste it into the  . . . well, you get the idea.  Simple?  No.

So the morning was one of increasing hysteria as I constantly failed to get into the system.  Now it must be admitted that if I had been just a little more pro-active I might have achieved more – but I would have enjoyed my weekend less!

So with colleagues on each hand and elbow I was guided through the mysteries of data input in about eight minutes.  My hapless colleagues have spent some four hours being “instructed” on the various delights of the system and if the essentials can be conveyed in such a short time it does make one wonder about the usefulness of the instruction and the eating into the spare time of colleagues.  But that was them, this was me and eight minutes seemed to be pushing the limit of my interest.

Hysteria eventually gave way to normal chaos and the work that I had to do was done.  I also typed out some comments to go with the results and I sat back and saw that it was good.  I photocopied the sheets, but them in a nice folder and planned the next step of my campaign.

Which was simply to leave before the meeting started.

Tomorrow my absence will be put down to, “Well, that was Stephen and we all know that he doesn’t like these meetings and he did take the place of that teacher who left us in the lurch so what can we say?” or “Who the hell does he think he is!”  I am easy with either as long as I don’t have to go to the meetings.  I can take opprobrium, but not two hours of mind-rotting tedium.  Or indeed four hours counting tomorrow.  Or six counting Thursday.  You wouldn’t believe it unless you see it!

So, anyway, I didn’t go.  And I am looking forward to the morrow to see the reaction of my colleagues.  I did say, “See you tomorrow!” to one as he disappeared down stairs to go to the last lesson of the day, and he didn’t bat an eyelid.  We will see.

The school is going through a cataclysm in which the classes of regimented learners have been cut loose and are indulging in an orgy of project-based learning.  The kids always respond well to this way of learning and it is hard not to see the obvious questions that should then be asked about the way that the school teaches normally – but let it pass, let it pass!

There are four more teaching days to the end of term and we are all counting.

I have just listened to Spem in Alium, and delicious it was too, it is quite late and so I couldn’t play it as loudly as I would have liked but it was loud enough, and the recording is clear enough for the layers of music to enfold the listener.  It sometimes seems almost indecent that I can have music like this at the click of a button and that I can choose from something like 600 albums of music in my library.  So far!  And those albums are not taking up 10% of the storage space available on my computer!  I still find that breathtakingly amazing.  Not surprising for someone whose first computer had a memory of 28K!

Before the end of the week The Revision must start.  And I am sure that everyone who has been too tired to post thoughts on the subject related threads on the Internet, will flock back to voice their fears about what The Examination will hold in store!

Although I am quite jocose about the even on the 22^nd April, I am sure that even my equipoise will be somewhat shaky by the actual date, when I am waiting outside a room in the British Council clutching my brace of blue disposable fountain pens and a highlighter!  Though I also have to admit that a masochistic part of me is actually looking forward to the experience!

Meanwhile an early bed to prepare myself for what incriminations and imprecations tomorrow might fling in my direction.  Who knows, sacked by Easter is a very real possibility.