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.
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