A better day today.
Still no sleep - haven't had a proper night's sleep since last Tuesday, and last night had no sleep at all. This hasn't been anything directly connected with this cancer thang, but to other stuff going on. A crisis, to which I reacted badly.
OK, so I went to the allotment and saw - not what I had feared I'd see, which was a disaster area - but quite a lot needs doing.
Some of it looked kind of fun.
There were also some rewards: treats. Picked sprouts, and pulled some gorgeous fat carrots. Then came home with booty after chatting to the old chap with the blue blue eyes (I can't remember his name).
I like the allotment when it's just a big larder, essentially, the weeds are not growing much, and all we have to do is walk up and get stuff. I'm more a forager than a grower.
But we stocked the larder: hard work last spring and summer got us this.
Then... something else I'd been dreading, easing back into the novel. And I quite enjoyed it.
I tend to beat myself up a bit with writing as duty, especially at the moment when it's my job. BUT oh Lord when it's pleasurable it's really really pleasure. Lots of ideas, suddenly. Too many, of course, to pursue, but the last 4 days I've had none except dark ones unrelated to writing or researching.
It's said that Iris Murdoch and another writer whose name escapes me once got into a conversation about how much they enjoyed writing. Murdoch said 'Oh yes - but you must never tell anyone.'
Perhaps I should think of it as my guilty secret hedonistic pleasure, rather than my guilty undischarged responsibility...
Showing posts with label job satisfaction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label job satisfaction. Show all posts
Monday, 13 January 2014
Thursday, 17 November 2011
Things autumnal
Ah November, season of damps cramps colds and most of the birthdays in my family. It was B's yesterday, and - apart from having to go to work to pay for it all - we had a pretty nice day and some great pizza and wine at Pizza Express - still our favourite place to eat in spite of my not winning their invent-a-pizza competition (I came second. To be fair, the winning one was delicious, but I could have done with the prize money).
It hasn't been very cold but it has been quite damp: not raining, but foggy and condensation-y all over. And most days have been dark, too, overcast and foggy all day, with a few stunningly beautiful exceptions.
We put our clocks back two weeks ago, making the mornings lighter - although that did not last for long - and the evenings set in an hour earlier. As I type, at ten past three in the afternoon, it is too dull indoors not to have the lights on and it feels the dark is closing in. On some days now, we go out in the morning twilight and come home in darkness. It feels very Northern (though I suppose it could equally feel Southern, only in 6 months time). It also feels as though we should be spending much more time asleep than we actually do. The instinct to hibernate has always been strong in me (I may be closer to our burrowing ancestors than most people you'll meet), but I notice that the cats are sleeping much more (even) than usual.
The other things this time of year brings include colds and coughs. It's our second autumn back in England and only the first cold for both of us, so we've done pretty well, but it was a goodie. I blame the students.
Seriously, I do. In every class there is at least one student, and often three or four out of 16, with a massive cold but no hanky or tissues, and no idea that a rhythmic snuffling every 5 seconds gets tiresome after the first few hours. I'm considering inventing swine flu/bird flu/elephant flu/cat flu rumours to encourage everyone to wear those hygienic masks popular in Japan. I've read that the masks are not actually that useful but I don't care - it gives something to catch the.. ahem.. effluvia.
Richard II was said to be a pretty useless king of England. Shakespeare portrays him as vacillating, self-pitying and feeble in the play of the same name. Richard's cousin Bolingbroke certainly thought so, and decided he would make a much better king himself. He got the crown and sent Richard off to Pontefract, where he may have been stabbed or may have been starved, but in any case rapidly became unfit for consideration due to being dead.
But Richard is supposed to have brought the handkerchief into use in England and for that alone he deserves a statue... possibly one placed in every language school in the country, where students can observe, mark and follow his example.
If they won't, I wonder whether Pontefract castle still has dungeons? Just a thought.
It hasn't been very cold but it has been quite damp: not raining, but foggy and condensation-y all over. And most days have been dark, too, overcast and foggy all day, with a few stunningly beautiful exceptions.
We put our clocks back two weeks ago, making the mornings lighter - although that did not last for long - and the evenings set in an hour earlier. As I type, at ten past three in the afternoon, it is too dull indoors not to have the lights on and it feels the dark is closing in. On some days now, we go out in the morning twilight and come home in darkness. It feels very Northern (though I suppose it could equally feel Southern, only in 6 months time). It also feels as though we should be spending much more time asleep than we actually do. The instinct to hibernate has always been strong in me (I may be closer to our burrowing ancestors than most people you'll meet), but I notice that the cats are sleeping much more (even) than usual.
The other things this time of year brings include colds and coughs. It's our second autumn back in England and only the first cold for both of us, so we've done pretty well, but it was a goodie. I blame the students.
Seriously, I do. In every class there is at least one student, and often three or four out of 16, with a massive cold but no hanky or tissues, and no idea that a rhythmic snuffling every 5 seconds gets tiresome after the first few hours. I'm considering inventing swine flu/bird flu/elephant flu/cat flu rumours to encourage everyone to wear those hygienic masks popular in Japan. I've read that the masks are not actually that useful but I don't care - it gives something to catch the.. ahem.. effluvia.
Richard II was said to be a pretty useless king of England. Shakespeare portrays him as vacillating, self-pitying and feeble in the play of the same name. Richard's cousin Bolingbroke certainly thought so, and decided he would make a much better king himself. He got the crown and sent Richard off to Pontefract, where he may have been stabbed or may have been starved, but in any case rapidly became unfit for consideration due to being dead.
But Richard is supposed to have brought the handkerchief into use in England and for that alone he deserves a statue... possibly one placed in every language school in the country, where students can observe, mark and follow his example.
If they won't, I wonder whether Pontefract castle still has dungeons? Just a thought.
Sunday, 6 June 2010
Instructional Skills Workshop
All of a sudden it's the last week of the semester (apart from the other week for which I won't get paid, but that's another story). This week I'm helping facilitate an Instructional Skills Workshop, with one co-facilitator and three colleagues participating. It's a programme originally developed in Canada which provides a short, focused and quite intense workshop in practical teaching skills.
For people who've done a lot of teaching it's a refresher, a backto-basics, and a chance to play around with techniques and ideas. For people who are new to teaching it's a safe space to try out some instructional tools which will work almost anywhere. For me as a facilitator it's all that and more, plus a chance to get to know some of my colleagues better.
One of the principles of the ISW is that we enter a kind of ISW bubble - we work together, lunch together, and are supposed to be released from all other duties for the duration. Back in the old days, I'm told (paradise is always what we have recently lost... just before my time, usually) the college would fund us or find sponsorship for us to go off to a hotel for 4 days, so we wouldn't even be physically on the college campus. Nowadays, the facilitators are also providing lunch for themselves and the participants every day.
And principles don't necessarily work well with practice.
Which is why I'm still at my desk at 9.30 pm to complete the grade entry for the last of my courses.
Say not the struggle naught availeth...
For people who've done a lot of teaching it's a refresher, a backto-basics, and a chance to play around with techniques and ideas. For people who are new to teaching it's a safe space to try out some instructional tools which will work almost anywhere. For me as a facilitator it's all that and more, plus a chance to get to know some of my colleagues better.
One of the principles of the ISW is that we enter a kind of ISW bubble - we work together, lunch together, and are supposed to be released from all other duties for the duration. Back in the old days, I'm told (paradise is always what we have recently lost... just before my time, usually) the college would fund us or find sponsorship for us to go off to a hotel for 4 days, so we wouldn't even be physically on the college campus. Nowadays, the facilitators are also providing lunch for themselves and the participants every day.
And principles don't necessarily work well with practice.
Which is why I'm still at my desk at 9.30 pm to complete the grade entry for the last of my courses.
Say not the struggle naught availeth...
Monday, 10 May 2010
A Job Well Done
I follow a wonderfully-named blog called "lathophobic aphasia" http://giaklamata.blogspot.com/
by a chap with a lot of EFL under his belt and an excellent take on the joys and sorrows of the English teacher's life. He's been talking recently about "learner English" aka comic learner errors, a subject beloved of all EFLers.
As it happens I've been marking and reviewing writing exams. Here are a few of the delights I've stumbled upon (the topic was whether old people should be cared for by their families or in special homes).
I think tace car for the old People it well be like wine you take care for your sealdrenor your babey.
Thay need more care for food ho thiy eat and take abath and sleap also and if thay sike not soud yo bo you well thake him far the housebetal.
In my opening the beast please to be old people fine is home with family.
Another thing meny some of the people desn’t like niers, you wan’t help you one in you family.
I conclusion I hop every one to do what the beast for old people in my opeining everyone do this with any pearse.
Alson, the children meby bess in oyr live our withe them family so the will not tok care with bernts.
Meade the havi some desses and the should get madecen but the forget takeit then they will be very secia and ne one the new.
And I listen all people put the old man in the sameplaces.
Some people now put your mother and father of you old people on the special hospital and no need old people on your house.
In conctusion…
The interesting thing to note is that it's usually pretty clear what they are trying to say - in fact, if you read it aloud and allow for L1 interference (my students are Gulf Arabic speakers) and pronunciation confusions (p/b for instance), indifference to vowels in spelling, plus inadequate spacing between words, you can understand almost everything here - though I drew a blank on part of the second sentence - soud is presumable should, but yo bo I do' 'no'.
So the students are, in spite of appearences, getting somewhere. The problems are
a) knowing where to start in helping them
b) overcoming the horrors that the "surface errors" inspire in any teacher and most native speakers.
Anyway, reading these scripts made me feel fairly secia, but I try not to get mad(ecen). Definitely not soud yo bo, bro!
In conctusion, (but certainly not in my opening) I’m going home.
It’s the beast place for me.
I’ll check there are no old people on my house, especially not the mother and father of you old people, who must be ancient.
I’m planning to do something tonight that will be like wine.
A LOT like wine.
by a chap with a lot of EFL under his belt and an excellent take on the joys and sorrows of the English teacher's life. He's been talking recently about "learner English" aka comic learner errors, a subject beloved of all EFLers.
As it happens I've been marking and reviewing writing exams. Here are a few of the delights I've stumbled upon (the topic was whether old people should be cared for by their families or in special homes).
I think tace car for the old People it well be like wine you take care for your sealdrenor your babey.
Thay need more care for food ho thiy eat and take abath and sleap also and if thay sike not soud yo bo you well thake him far the housebetal.
In my opening the beast please to be old people fine is home with family.
Another thing meny some of the people desn’t like niers, you wan’t help you one in you family.
I conclusion I hop every one to do what the beast for old people in my opeining everyone do this with any pearse.
Alson, the children meby bess in oyr live our withe them family so the will not tok care with bernts.
Meade the havi some desses and the should get madecen but the forget takeit then they will be very secia and ne one the new.
And I listen all people put the old man in the sameplaces.
Some people now put your mother and father of you old people on the special hospital and no need old people on your house.
In conctusion…
The interesting thing to note is that it's usually pretty clear what they are trying to say - in fact, if you read it aloud and allow for L1 interference (my students are Gulf Arabic speakers) and pronunciation confusions (p/b for instance), indifference to vowels in spelling, plus inadequate spacing between words, you can understand almost everything here - though I drew a blank on part of the second sentence - soud is presumable should, but yo bo I do' 'no'.
So the students are, in spite of appearences, getting somewhere. The problems are
a) knowing where to start in helping them
b) overcoming the horrors that the "surface errors" inspire in any teacher and most native speakers.
Anyway, reading these scripts made me feel fairly secia, but I try not to get mad(ecen). Definitely not soud yo bo, bro!
In conctusion, (but certainly not in my opening) I’m going home.
It’s the beast place for me.
I’ll check there are no old people on my house, especially not the mother and father of you old people, who must be ancient.
I’m planning to do something tonight that will be like wine.
A LOT like wine.
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