Temptation?

Out of the ether: a message of goodwill and touching base again after a longish delay, eyebrow raising about the speed at which time passes, and incredulous disbelief at the whooshing sound that was the summer past.  And there, a few lines in, the shyly proffered apple.

I suppose that for a retired teacher (as I am trying to be) there is nothing that strikes at the firm foundations of your stony rejection of your previous employment like the offer of work for a couple of weeks in a school which is hop, a step and a partial jump from where I am living.  I am asked to teach, therefore I am - a teacher!

In spite of all my protestations about finally turning from educator to educatee, I did feel a tiny tug of interest – but the lingering depredations of terminal (in the sense that it is at last going) bronchitis are a useful reminder of reality, and I was able to type a firm, but friendly rejection of employment to the school.

Pity, because there is nothing quite like showing your face in a crowded staff room to universal approbation because, if you are there and taking an absent colleague’s place, then they are not going to lose a free period with any luck!  I do not kid myself that I was valued for my wit and insight; it was my physical presence in front of a class rather than theirs that kept them sweet!

However, that is in the past.  The present and the immediate future concerns the Examination – which has now progressed from a vague date in the first third of the month of October, to a word which fully merits its capital letter and something which is frighteningly prescient.  I am now in Phase II of Revision which is reducing what I have to know to a series of key words, phrases and dates – all of which need to contain resonances which will flower into clear, lucid prose on Thursday afternoon!

But the sun is shining and I know, deep in my bones, that I should be taking the last of the late summer, early autumn sun before the gloom of winter sets in.  I compromised and set outside clutching a sheaf of papers on which the cryptic runes for Thursday were written.

I am not one of those people who plan their revision so that for the last five or six days you simply do nothing but allow the information to settle.  I revise until the last moment.  Unlike a friend in college who stopped working a week before her exams.  She was someone with a photographic memory and could tell you exactly what we were doing on this exact date last year and the year before that and the year before that and . . . Something my mind (I have only a fuzzy idea of what I was doing yesterday) cannot even begin to imagine.  And yes, we did test her, and she was right!  She was able to imagine textbooks in her mind and read down to the information that she needed!  One exclamation mark seems woefully inadequate, but stylistically I cannot bring myself to commit the solecism of more than one!

So I am happily typing my list of words and phrases and, with time ticking away, I find that I am actually ahead of my planned revision timetable.  Though, I also have to admit that there is a fair bit of learning in the revision too!  Though what can we be fairly expected to write when we have only 500 words per question?

But with the Phase II revision, by lunchtime I should be a whole volume ahead of myself.  At this rate Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning will be a simple matter of reading over what I have typed and working out what my laconic comments might mean.

Way to go!

In spite of everything . . .

Wellness is a fickle taunter!

I thought that I was trundling along the path of coughless delight, where phlegm flowers would no longer bloom when, as so many times before, I made the basic mistake of waking up.  First conscious breath and my tracheae made a bit for freedom.  An orchestrated double concerto for vocal chords and lung!  By the time I had finished I felt that any attempt to leave my bed would be foolhardiness at best and attempted self-destruction at worst.

But the alarm then went off, and like any well trained Russian laboratory animal I dutifully and instinctively rose to take my first puff of medicine.  Justifiably exhausted by two droplet infused inhalations I fell back to my pillow only to be raised, Lazarus-like an hour later for the next puff.  It may not seem like much of a life, but the endlessly irritating gobbets of so-called tune that comprise the iPhone alarm, structure my day for me!  I may be retired from school, but I still exist to the sound of bells!

Phase I of my revision is now done.  Phase II is making the final detailed notes of the essential information which has to be scattered among the generalizations that I intend to make the basis for my responses to the questions.

So, revision, start of a new course, start of another one in nine days, illness and, as a special feature – slimming!  Or at least trying to change my diet a little.  I have to admit that bronchitis is a useful ally in slimming as it does somewhat reduce the appetite – though I would like to think that sheer will-power could achieve this were I fully well.

Apart from a stubborn inclination to produce my own rousing dawn chorus of coughing, I am determined to think that I am getting better.  We will soon see how far rude health and sparse ingestion co-exist!

I have now placed a pad and pen at my bedside and was therefore able to capture in written words “the ruffled sound of a distant cough” – I am sure that will come in useful sometime or other!

The writing of a daily haiku is now becoming something like brushing your teeth: a chore but something which makes you feel better.  It has been a long time since I wrote poetry (or anything approaching it) on a regular basis.  I used to find that self-indulgent misery was the requisite spur for me, but with the demands of the course looming large on a methodically on-going basis, moping has to give way to a form of professionalism.  Writing is work and has to be done, with or without the clichéd starter of elegant depression!

Lunch with Irene has been put off for a further week, although she assures me that the raw material for the meal is safely frozen and will survive another week’s wait.  I have made an executive decision that, obviously, this meal will not be subject to the calorific restraints under which I am living at the moment.  This occasion will be regarded officially as a “Feeding Fiesta” and Will Not Count.  My cunning plan is to hope that my diet (now a week long, dear god is it only a week) will encourage suppression of appetite so that I will, instinctively, choose smaller amounts and thus continue along The Way to redemption.  Not a great plan, but it is all I have at the moment.

The lashing rain of yesterday evening, accompanied by OTT thunder and stage lightening which have given way this morning to a beautiful day of clear blue skies and streaming sunshine.  If only the canine population of the area would develop terminal laryngitis then we humans might be able to relax in placid, warm tranquillity.

As it is the weekend, the other bane of our lives, children, are openly on display.  One of the true delights of retirement is walking around town during the weekday without having ears assaulted by shards of childish scream.  The ranks of the Grey Brigade take over the streets and a secret smile plays about the lips as we retake what is rightfully ours.  I must, however, try and restrain my impulse to call the police every time I see a child during the forbidden times – though they all should be in school and stay in school for lunch and after school activities!

It is now almost the afternoon, at least in Spain and I have the opportunity to get going on Phase II of my revision before its official start tomorrow. 

Choices, always choices. 

And how did I ever find time to do an actual job?

Work to do!

Improvement!  

A palpable improvement!  

Perhaps there is hope that this ridiculously elongated period of a-healthicality has now, or at least is in the process of being consigned to deadened memory.

The revision continues to go well.  It could hardly fail when what I am reading is interesting.  The only points which now are still causing me some concern are those related to the academic authorities which I understand that we actually have to cite by accurate name! 

The problem is, with very few exceptions, the historians and social commentators to who we have been introduced have names which do not have harmonious mixtures of consonants and vowels – or at least not in easily memorable sequences.  I do hope that my examiners take effort as an adequate compensation for a singular lack of specifics!

Today I have been “studying” elements in the course ranging from self-replicating Buddhist relics to Indonesian monoliths by way of Romani processions in the Camargue.  It is, as you can imagine, a course almost purpose made for me!

Tomorrow the course forum for Creative Writing opens and later this month the course on “Brands” run by FutureLearn starts – and there are courses run by Apple for me to get to know my various gadgets a little better.  Never let it be said that I have retired from education.  Only the direction of learning is different!

Tomorrow the final stint to finish off the third volume of my course and the “rough” revision is done.  Next week will see the more detailed Learning revision.  And I can’t wait for the examination to be over and done with!

Other courses call!

Down we go!

Feeling worse, but revised better.  

Go figure!

I am now putting total faith in the couple of “puffers” that I have to do the job and get rid of the irritating illness which has now been in the vicinity for far, far longer than I am used to.  A day feeling unwell I can cope with; a second week seems like malicious victimization and I want none of it!

Toni keeps asking if I feel better and I am giving in to the relentless expectation of improvement and am almost convincing myself that I do feel, perhaps, maybe a bit better.  The mornings and evenings are not good time, but there is a middle period in which I can enter into the self-deception with something like enthusiasm.

I am now on the third and last volume of information that has to be at my fingertips for the examination.  Our tutor has, at last managed to sort our the terminal problems with the IT in her house and is now back in contact with us and is supplying the sort of information about the exam which creates panic and despair in students!  No, it is all good stuff, though if you read between the lines of the good, solid suggestions there are little hits which suggest that you should have done much more than you actually have!  It is the demand for specifics rather than the General Picture which strikes a chill into my heart!  However, if all goes well and the “puffers” do their stuff then I will be able to deliver on what they are going ask.  Probably.

The tutor for the next course has been in touch and we are obviously going to hit the ground running, as soon as the tutor forum is open for business.  And the sooner the better to my mind – though the revision and illness does make it more than a little problematical!

Though the one clear thought which always comes to mind to see me through occasions like this is the simple fact that I am doing all this “because I want to” – and that makes all the difference!