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.