I'm just coming to the end of the most horrible batch of essay writing in history: five in three weeks (I know I claimed it was three in three weeks earlier, but I got it wrong; it was a horriblehorriblehorrible discovery) - three on teaching, which were so dull they made me weep with boredom; one absolutely fascinating topic in psycholinguistics; and one that was so difficult I wanted to cry - a contrastive grammar of the noun phrase in Italian and English. Since I neither speak nor read Italian, I hadn't a clue what I was doing; a situation made worse by the fact that somehow the awful woman who assigned this subject to me was under the impression that I speak Italian fluently. I'm ashamed to admit that, having complained loud and long for a several weeks about this last essay, and grumbled and sworn throughout the writing, I've ended up so hooked on morphology that I'm looking for something similar as a dissertation topic.
I aim to complete the last essay (a dull one on teaching methods) tonight. I'm spending four days away over Christmas. The dogs go into kennels tomorrow, which means I can sleep as long and as late as I like on Saturday morning. A huge relief: I'm deeply tired, and need a few days of nothing at all.
There is little news. I've crashed the car twice in the last ten days (combination of tiredness, filthy weather and poor roads); nothing terribly serious although since I had to ask the farmer to tow/lift the car on each occasion, I suffered deep embarrassment on the first occasion and terminal mortification the second. More mortification when I had to confess to the garage what I'd done, less than 24 hours after I'd collected my car after the previous accident. I had lunch with old friends yesterday: the first time I'd seen this pair for about 4 months, and I was greeted like a prodigal offspring. Yesterday too I managed the impossible: to get through my entire Christmas-shopping list in a morning. I bought cards in the afternoon, wrote them last night and hared down to the village to post them this morning. Inland ones might arrive within living memory of Christmas Day. The rest might reach their destination within living memory of Twelfth Night. Big rush to get it all done as I needed to deliver some presents this afternoon and will deliver some more tomorrow afternoon when I’m due to spend a couple of hours at my last address, to eat mice pies and listen to people’s stories.
I’ve just made the marinade for a piece of beef for Christmas Eve. The beef is now completely immersed in an ocean of wine spiked with vinegar, onions and spices. Tomorrow I’ll make the pudding – a Russian recipe, which has the distinct advantage of improving enormously if made well in advance. I know tomorrow isn’t well in advance of Christmas Eve, but …
I'd better get back to mind-numbing pedagogy. I am writing about how to stimulate a classroom full of people whose language I can’t speak, into speaking English. I have to describe appropriate gestures and facial expressions (and so I don’t upset anyone, also a whole lot of gestures and facial expressions which would be acceptable here but which are deemed rude in other cultures (I am now fluent in rude signs in Chinese, Arabic, Polish and Greek)). I have to write about games; how to use coloured bricks, pictures, maps, globes and (for reasons I can’t quite remember) plastic fruit; and how to draw on the blackboard. Hard to believe I spent the summer writing about Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments.
22 December 2005
17 December 2005
I have good news
I have good news. I have a washing machine again!! I collected it yesterday and spent about 3 hours trying to follow installation instructions which were either written by someone who had never carried out the procedure, or written by an intractable optimist with a vivid imagination. The instructions read: gently slide out the polythene bag. So I tried gently sliding for about 20 minutes and then twigged: 'Gently slide' meant 'get down on your hands and knees; stretch as far into the bowels of the machine as you can; grab hold of the bag with two hands; and tug, riddle, jerk up, jerk down, yank sideways until the bag gently slides out.' Then I had to slide out three plastic pins. This was easier, once I realised that 'three plastic pins' meant 'three brass rods' and 'gently slide' meant 'root round in the garage by torchlight until you have located a spanner that fits the nuts holding "the three plastic pins" in place'.
I wonder what a top-of-the-range washing machine does. I wonder how anyone manages to make a top-of-the-range washing machine do what it does. Perhaps people who have top-of-the-range washing machines have to go on 3-year courses to learn how to make a top-of-the-range washing machine do what it does (perhaps they have to pass exams before they are allowed to purchase a top-of-the-range washing machine (perhaps they have to pass exams and get a licence before they are allowed to purchase a top-of-the-range washing machine)). And I wonder all this because I have to make an extraordinary number decisions concerning temperature and spin speed and thoroughness of wash, and size of wash, and whether I'm feeling wealthy enough to afford an extravagant full wash as opposed to a more parsimonious economy wash just to coax my bottom-of-the-range washing machine into switching on the small green light that notifies me that it has received my application and will give me its decision in due course. And should it decide to honour my application ... well, I shan't need to buy a new set of Christmas lights this year. This, despite having worked out only the correct form for a polite request for a no-frills wash and spin. I am tempted to use the 'Specials' programme out of mere curiosity as I suspect it'll include such options as 'break into song' (song of your choosing - should you have the stamina to go through the process of decision-making again). I have a feeling that the winking blinking lights are Morse, but can't be absolutely sure as the machine's from Germany and I can't read German quickly enough.
Anyway, the machine is Morsely muttering away to itself as I write, and since it completed a cycle last night with no spillage at all, I may, I think, regard myself as having left the domain of the unwashed.
I wonder what a top-of-the-range washing machine does. I wonder how anyone manages to make a top-of-the-range washing machine do what it does. Perhaps people who have top-of-the-range washing machines have to go on 3-year courses to learn how to make a top-of-the-range washing machine do what it does (perhaps they have to pass exams before they are allowed to purchase a top-of-the-range washing machine (perhaps they have to pass exams and get a licence before they are allowed to purchase a top-of-the-range washing machine)). And I wonder all this because I have to make an extraordinary number decisions concerning temperature and spin speed and thoroughness of wash, and size of wash, and whether I'm feeling wealthy enough to afford an extravagant full wash as opposed to a more parsimonious economy wash just to coax my bottom-of-the-range washing machine into switching on the small green light that notifies me that it has received my application and will give me its decision in due course. And should it decide to honour my application ... well, I shan't need to buy a new set of Christmas lights this year. This, despite having worked out only the correct form for a polite request for a no-frills wash and spin. I am tempted to use the 'Specials' programme out of mere curiosity as I suspect it'll include such options as 'break into song' (song of your choosing - should you have the stamina to go through the process of decision-making again). I have a feeling that the winking blinking lights are Morse, but can't be absolutely sure as the machine's from Germany and I can't read German quickly enough.
Anyway, the machine is Morsely muttering away to itself as I write, and since it completed a cycle last night with no spillage at all, I may, I think, regard myself as having left the domain of the unwashed.
1 December 2005
Classes finished
Classes finished yesterday.
I now have to write three essays in three weeks, but since I haven't got to hare about first thing, walking dogs and making myself respectable before leaving in time to arrive at college by 9, it feels as if I'm on holiday. Classes don't resume until 9 February so it also feels as though I have all the time in the world.
I'll get complaint out of the way first. I'm exhausted - completely and utterly exhausted. Exhausted to the point of dropping off during classes.(And I've never done that before.) We all are. The pressure is incessant and, for me at least, the kind of pressure we're under is, in part, unfamiliar. Writing deadlines are pretty horrible but I know how to deal with these. The pressure of having to attend classes, I can also cope with.The pressure of having to attend three hour classes at which you learn nothing - the pressure of necessarily having to expose yourself to intense boredom is very odd. On days when I have one of these dreadful classes, I rush about getting ready to leave, trying to ignore the fact that mentallyI'm buzzing away, constructing all manner of wildly implausible reasons for not attending. I claim this kind of pressure is unfamiliar, but I ought to describe it as unusual - now - as it was once highly familiar - it's just like when I was at secondary school. But it's more interesting than that.The class which is most excruciating is the grammar class. I love thinking about the way languages work and I was looking forward to revising the basics. The woman who teaches it, leaches all interest from the subject,and has taught it so badly that those who haven't taken the subject before still haven't got a clue about what descriptive grammar is. I am trying not to think about the fact that this wretched woman teaches 3 of the 5 coursesI take next term...
Life has been maverick in the extreme for about a month. Last Thursday, for example, Himself had to see a GP having been terribly unwell for a night on Tuesday, then violently sick on Wednesday morning; well during the day, terribly unwell all Wednesday night before being violently sick again early Thursday morning. It transpired the poor chap had a virus, which promised to last four or five days - and did. On Thursday afternoon, I was trying to finish an essay due in by 4 pm (schoolishness which is par for the course)when my computer picked up a virus. (Fortunately, unlike Himself’s this virus could be eradicated quickly.) Then the washing machine flooded the kitchen. It was a new washing machine, a replacement for the new washing machine that flooded the kitchen the previous week and which I'd bought to replace an old washing machine because it flooded the kitchen. Then it started to snow. This kind of clustering of disasters has been par for the course for awhile! (I am proud to announce that I still managed to submit the essay on time - just.)
Another example. Cars here have to pass a safety test - an MOT - taken annually, to remain legal. There are heavy penalties for driving without an MOT - not least because this also annuls the insurance we have to have to drive, and driving without insurance can get you banned from driving for a very long time. My car's MOT was due to run out while we were on holiday in the Canaries at the beginnng of this month, and our flight time meant we could only get the airport on time if we travelled by car, so I booked the MOT slightly early; arranged to leave the car with the garage for a day from 8 one morning, while I was at 'school'. The night before the MOT was booked I had to rush out late to buy dogfood. It's very dark here at night and I have to back some way down the track to the cottage then round a tight hairpin bend, seeing my way by the glimmer from the reversing lights. I missed the bend, and ended up stuck firmly on a bank, with the car balancing on something high enough to ensure that at any one time only three wheels (but any three wheels) could touch the ground. The car sat there all night; dogs starved; and at 7 am I had to ask the farm manager to tow the car off the bank using a tractor. I was a little late in arrival at the garage (and for class), and the mechanic had to use a crowbar to remove mud and grass from the car chassis. AND the car failed (which meant a major palaver the day before we flew to the Canaries involving transporting dogs to kennels and cars to garages and me by a series of buses to a car hire place to ensure we could get to the airport at 5 am the nextmorning...)
The new cottage is proving demanding in interesting ways. The water supply still isn't entirely reliable. Last time I lost water for a day, and then couldn't use it for three as it was filthy - as I discovered when I tried to bath a muddy dog, only to find the water was dirtier than she was. It was bitterly cold for about a week - minus degrees when it was clear; snowing heavily when not clear, and blowing a gale continually. I have learnt that during wintry weather, the house is beautifully warm when the fire is lit, but will become unbearably cold as soon as the fire goes out. I have yet to work out a routine which limits damage on those occasions when I'm out all day. I end up turning circles on my return, as I try to decide which of the several tasks demanding immediate attention will best equip me to cope with the iciness: walk dogs in the dark? Light the fire? Make tea? ...
Another reason why the fact that classes have finished is such a relief: I no longerhave to march round with dogs in the dark at 7 am; nor do I have to do so at 5 pm. I can postpone the walking dogs until it's light (currently about 9 am); and before it gets dark (at about 4.00).
Good bits: some of the coursework has been fascinating. I've just finished an essay in psycholinguistics on teaching reading to second-language learners. Research into reading processes has proved so absorbing that I'm considering using it as a dissertation topic. Yesterday, I floated this idea past a friend also on the course, over a departmental lunch (in honour of St Andrews Day (haggis, neeps and tatties, which caused no little anxiety among the non-natives)). We had an (excruciating) hour-long class after lunch, taken by the woman who teaches grammar. Said woman inched through the points we have to make in the dissertation proposals we have to write during the vacation. We are, the woman said, to produce an quantitative analysis; we are to make full use of such facilities as tape- and video-recorders. My eyes met my friend's and we spent the next ten minutes trying to control violent giggles, as we both envisaged the kind of tape- and video-recordings that would accompany a dissertation on reading -a silent film with captions perhaps (and a quantitative analysis of sighs?).
Teaching methodology has proved absorbing. The kinds of techniques we have to use in second-language teaching are interesting as is the rationale behind them. I have a slight problem in that I dislike being classes involving group- and pairwork, handouts and ceaseless movement from one table to another, and so have found it hard to come up with suitable 'class activities' for lesson plans. My advisor assures me that I'll find this easier once I've started teaching - which I do next term. I sincerely hope she's right!
T'ai chi has become a lifeline again. Although I didn't ever consider giving up classes with the new teacher, I spent a few weeks battling with myself as the man's style is very different from the one I learnt before - very much more minimalist and on the face of it, much less beautiful. However, perseverance has paid off; and I'm now totally committed to the new form. And to the teacher, who I now see, was struggling with the fact that, initially, he had more than 20 people the class - too many. Numbers have dwindled, gradually at first, then abruptly once evenings started to be verydark and very cold and now there are half a dozen regulars.
Himself has proved amazingly tolerant; and unbelievably encouraging and supportive. I am still unable to believe my luck, but am getting better at it! I'll be at his house for Christmas. We plan four days of quiet self-indulgence: lots of good food; lots of good books. Aside from deciding where I'll be, and what I shan't be doing, I have given Christmas no thought whatsoever. I trust that I'll be able to 'catch up' after I've finished my last essay - sometime round 20 December.
I'll end on a gripe. I've been so pushed for time, and latterly so exhausted, that I've been unable to read anything not course related, and unable to write anything not course related. I worry that I have lost the capacity for creativity. Even my conversation is dull and predictable. I'd hoped to be able to rejoin a writing workshop for the couple of months between semesters, but realise I mustn't. Essay deadlines mean I haven't the time before Christmas, and I'm tired enough now to realise that if I commit myself to anything extra-curricular during January, I'll be similarly exhausted at the start the next semester. It's unbelievably frustrating. Not-writing has been such an issue that at one stage I considered changing my course registration to part-time. I was talked out of it. Both Himself and my course advisor said the same thing: it's better to consider myself as taking a sabbatical from writing for a year, and get the course over and done with, than to juggle both for two years. They're both right, and I can see they are, but the frustration remains.
I now have to write three essays in three weeks, but since I haven't got to hare about first thing, walking dogs and making myself respectable before leaving in time to arrive at college by 9, it feels as if I'm on holiday. Classes don't resume until 9 February so it also feels as though I have all the time in the world.
I'll get complaint out of the way first. I'm exhausted - completely and utterly exhausted. Exhausted to the point of dropping off during classes.(And I've never done that before.) We all are. The pressure is incessant and, for me at least, the kind of pressure we're under is, in part, unfamiliar. Writing deadlines are pretty horrible but I know how to deal with these. The pressure of having to attend classes, I can also cope with.The pressure of having to attend three hour classes at which you learn nothing - the pressure of necessarily having to expose yourself to intense boredom is very odd. On days when I have one of these dreadful classes, I rush about getting ready to leave, trying to ignore the fact that mentallyI'm buzzing away, constructing all manner of wildly implausible reasons for not attending. I claim this kind of pressure is unfamiliar, but I ought to describe it as unusual - now - as it was once highly familiar - it's just like when I was at secondary school. But it's more interesting than that.The class which is most excruciating is the grammar class. I love thinking about the way languages work and I was looking forward to revising the basics. The woman who teaches it, leaches all interest from the subject,and has taught it so badly that those who haven't taken the subject before still haven't got a clue about what descriptive grammar is. I am trying not to think about the fact that this wretched woman teaches 3 of the 5 coursesI take next term...
Life has been maverick in the extreme for about a month. Last Thursday, for example, Himself had to see a GP having been terribly unwell for a night on Tuesday, then violently sick on Wednesday morning; well during the day, terribly unwell all Wednesday night before being violently sick again early Thursday morning. It transpired the poor chap had a virus, which promised to last four or five days - and did. On Thursday afternoon, I was trying to finish an essay due in by 4 pm (schoolishness which is par for the course)when my computer picked up a virus. (Fortunately, unlike Himself’s this virus could be eradicated quickly.) Then the washing machine flooded the kitchen. It was a new washing machine, a replacement for the new washing machine that flooded the kitchen the previous week and which I'd bought to replace an old washing machine because it flooded the kitchen. Then it started to snow. This kind of clustering of disasters has been par for the course for awhile! (I am proud to announce that I still managed to submit the essay on time - just.)
Another example. Cars here have to pass a safety test - an MOT - taken annually, to remain legal. There are heavy penalties for driving without an MOT - not least because this also annuls the insurance we have to have to drive, and driving without insurance can get you banned from driving for a very long time. My car's MOT was due to run out while we were on holiday in the Canaries at the beginnng of this month, and our flight time meant we could only get the airport on time if we travelled by car, so I booked the MOT slightly early; arranged to leave the car with the garage for a day from 8 one morning, while I was at 'school'. The night before the MOT was booked I had to rush out late to buy dogfood. It's very dark here at night and I have to back some way down the track to the cottage then round a tight hairpin bend, seeing my way by the glimmer from the reversing lights. I missed the bend, and ended up stuck firmly on a bank, with the car balancing on something high enough to ensure that at any one time only three wheels (but any three wheels) could touch the ground. The car sat there all night; dogs starved; and at 7 am I had to ask the farm manager to tow the car off the bank using a tractor. I was a little late in arrival at the garage (and for class), and the mechanic had to use a crowbar to remove mud and grass from the car chassis. AND the car failed (which meant a major palaver the day before we flew to the Canaries involving transporting dogs to kennels and cars to garages and me by a series of buses to a car hire place to ensure we could get to the airport at 5 am the nextmorning...)
The new cottage is proving demanding in interesting ways. The water supply still isn't entirely reliable. Last time I lost water for a day, and then couldn't use it for three as it was filthy - as I discovered when I tried to bath a muddy dog, only to find the water was dirtier than she was. It was bitterly cold for about a week - minus degrees when it was clear; snowing heavily when not clear, and blowing a gale continually. I have learnt that during wintry weather, the house is beautifully warm when the fire is lit, but will become unbearably cold as soon as the fire goes out. I have yet to work out a routine which limits damage on those occasions when I'm out all day. I end up turning circles on my return, as I try to decide which of the several tasks demanding immediate attention will best equip me to cope with the iciness: walk dogs in the dark? Light the fire? Make tea? ...
Another reason why the fact that classes have finished is such a relief: I no longerhave to march round with dogs in the dark at 7 am; nor do I have to do so at 5 pm. I can postpone the walking dogs until it's light (currently about 9 am); and before it gets dark (at about 4.00).
Good bits: some of the coursework has been fascinating. I've just finished an essay in psycholinguistics on teaching reading to second-language learners. Research into reading processes has proved so absorbing that I'm considering using it as a dissertation topic. Yesterday, I floated this idea past a friend also on the course, over a departmental lunch (in honour of St Andrews Day (haggis, neeps and tatties, which caused no little anxiety among the non-natives)). We had an (excruciating) hour-long class after lunch, taken by the woman who teaches grammar. Said woman inched through the points we have to make in the dissertation proposals we have to write during the vacation. We are, the woman said, to produce an quantitative analysis; we are to make full use of such facilities as tape- and video-recorders. My eyes met my friend's and we spent the next ten minutes trying to control violent giggles, as we both envisaged the kind of tape- and video-recordings that would accompany a dissertation on reading -a silent film with captions perhaps (and a quantitative analysis of sighs?).
Teaching methodology has proved absorbing. The kinds of techniques we have to use in second-language teaching are interesting as is the rationale behind them. I have a slight problem in that I dislike being classes involving group- and pairwork, handouts and ceaseless movement from one table to another, and so have found it hard to come up with suitable 'class activities' for lesson plans. My advisor assures me that I'll find this easier once I've started teaching - which I do next term. I sincerely hope she's right!
T'ai chi has become a lifeline again. Although I didn't ever consider giving up classes with the new teacher, I spent a few weeks battling with myself as the man's style is very different from the one I learnt before - very much more minimalist and on the face of it, much less beautiful. However, perseverance has paid off; and I'm now totally committed to the new form. And to the teacher, who I now see, was struggling with the fact that, initially, he had more than 20 people the class - too many. Numbers have dwindled, gradually at first, then abruptly once evenings started to be verydark and very cold and now there are half a dozen regulars.
Himself has proved amazingly tolerant; and unbelievably encouraging and supportive. I am still unable to believe my luck, but am getting better at it! I'll be at his house for Christmas. We plan four days of quiet self-indulgence: lots of good food; lots of good books. Aside from deciding where I'll be, and what I shan't be doing, I have given Christmas no thought whatsoever. I trust that I'll be able to 'catch up' after I've finished my last essay - sometime round 20 December.
I'll end on a gripe. I've been so pushed for time, and latterly so exhausted, that I've been unable to read anything not course related, and unable to write anything not course related. I worry that I have lost the capacity for creativity. Even my conversation is dull and predictable. I'd hoped to be able to rejoin a writing workshop for the couple of months between semesters, but realise I mustn't. Essay deadlines mean I haven't the time before Christmas, and I'm tired enough now to realise that if I commit myself to anything extra-curricular during January, I'll be similarly exhausted at the start the next semester. It's unbelievably frustrating. Not-writing has been such an issue that at one stage I considered changing my course registration to part-time. I was talked out of it. Both Himself and my course advisor said the same thing: it's better to consider myself as taking a sabbatical from writing for a year, and get the course over and done with, than to juggle both for two years. They're both right, and I can see they are, but the frustration remains.
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