Forgetting

I remebered about you this morning. This blog, I mean. And then I realized, that meant I had forgotten it. Completely. For a while it had been that thing you know you should do but don´t have the time/inclination/ideas to get on with it. But it wasn´t even that anymore.

I mean, I know I am busy and that is the main reason for the forgetting. The other reason is that I didn´t need a link with outer space any more. I suppose I started writing it because I wanted something to do, then all of a sudden I had too much to do. But, then the other reason I started writing it was to explain my existence here. To contextualize it in terms of home, because my intended reader is someone who speaks English and would ´get´the cultural references.

I was writing it to the English me.

You read it, and you understood it. Maybe you even liked it and I am sure that at times you found it dull and deadly boring. But none of that matters. It was a dialogue thrown in to the ether. Not a conversation with a friend. If I had wanted one, I could have picked up the telephone or written an email. it wasn´t supposed to be that intimate. It was, I now see the facade I wanted to project. The things I left out what I didn´t want to admit to myself. The lofe I wanted to be having.

So, maybe now I no longer need it. Maybe now I have accepted what I have and maybe now I know I don´t want it.

I owe you a post

I sent this recipe to a friend, because I was also in debt to him; I have been promising to send him recipes for various things, but I have not had time. Finally I did get round to sending him what follows and I decided that I would post it here for you too, dear reader.

Calling it a recipe is rather an exaggeration. The most simple thing. It is my sandwich of the moment and reflects how much time I have to prepare food.

It needs a good wholemeal or grainy bread. I like grains and nuts, you take your pick. Grated carrot and grated cheese. For the cheese we are in the strongly flavoured chedder area. Something sharp to contrast with the sweetness of the carrot. I have an imported Gouda as good English chedder is not available here. If I were in London, it is the kind of thing I would make a trip to Neal´s Yard for. In fact that is one of the places I must go to when I am there.

Cold, or toasted to melt the cheese.

If you have it, and I am sure you do, a blob of Coleman´s mustard, made from the powder, on the side of the plate to dip the point (of course, you cut it in to triangles, didn´t you?) and each succesive bitten edge into.

Glass of cold wheat beer.

A marvel.

Busy

busy

• adjective (busier, busiest) 1 having a great deal to do. 2 currently occupied with an activity. 3 excessively detailed or decorated.

Acording to the Oxford dictionary I am definition one or two. Had I a moment to breathe, I may stop to adorn myself with earrings so that my outward appearance reflected my inner rushed-off-my-feet self and I encompassed all three definitons.

I have realised in the past three weeks that things like getting your hair cut and washing up are activities for those who are very time rich. Blogging must be for those who seriously have nothing to do, or are procrastinating and putting off the critical summary they should be writing. I fit very neatly in to the latter.

But onward and upward I go. A full-time job and a masters is heavy going. Hard on the eyes (a lot to read) hard on the bum cheeks (a lot of sitting down) and hard on the social life (I no longer have one). I am rather proud to say I have managed to keep up my three to four hours of spinning per week. The hour of loud, monotonous rhythmic music, sweating and achey legs help to clear the mind. While I have moments of such sheer business, I feel dizzy, I am energized by the rigour and exertion of it all and I am going for the burn.

Back to School

Monday was the first day of Autumn term, so we are in full swing again. Names to be learned, essays to be written, room numbers to remember, activities to plan. I always like to have some flexibility in my courses. A well designed activity should work with any group, but sometimes it just doesn´t. Particularly teaching young people. The task I gave to all of my groups today worked with 102 students but there was one who just didn´t want to make it work. It´s a difficult age, the teen-age.

Being a student, in some form or other, brings great benefits to your own teaching practice. It is easy to forget what a good lesson is like if all you do is teach and never experience the other facet; being taught. I think the most important thing is that you should have someting to do in every class. Sounds silly, doesn´t it? But I have been to numerous courses given by the institution I work for, where I have felt that I am wasting my time and that is the worst thing. Far worse than getting something wrong. I am not sure all teachers think that. Many seem to believe that standing at the front of the classroom reeling off hundreds of boring facts is the best approach. Not me.

And I begin my masters on Monday. Such a long wait, or so it feels, from when I was accepted. I can´t wait to finally get stuck in. I was worried that I was going to be super tired because of giving classes. The pace seemed frenetic in my first and second term but something seems to have clicked and I am no longer running to try and catch up with the pace at work. I suppose I have settled in.

108 J

We bought the house. After all the frenzied activity before the signing, the moments afterwards were like a big sigh of relief. It was done.

On saturday we popped in to measure up for windows and doors. The house is a shell and we have about 7 months to get it looking how we want it. With all its straight edges and plaster walls it resembles and art gallery, but not for long.

Luckily someone had put up a cross in the kitchen, a blessing, a safeguard against bad spirits, a prayer that every thing would work out well. And I think it has.

Our street is a cul-de-sac with one yellow house that has been there a long time and the four newly built houses. Some of the new neigbours, who were moving in that day invited us in for a beer. Among other practicalities the subject of addresses came up. What number were we, I wondered. Following the logic of the street as it it now, wth five houses in it, I had thought we could be number one or number five or, if there were plans for more houses perhaps 10 or 15. Clearly what I had failed to take in to account was that the yellow house, the house that had been there alone in this street with no other houses is number 108. Who knows how a lone house ended up being number 108. Maybe that is the owners lucky number. I quickly worked out that we might be 118 or something like that. Alas no, because according to some logic that I am not privvy to, all the houses in that street are number 108. They will be distinguished through adding letters. And so we arrive at our number; 108 J.



I had decided even before we were made aware of this bonkers system that we should give our house a name. It only remains now to decide what that will be. Because I am that way inclined I had thought about a literary name, though something like Manderley would be far to presumptions for our casita. Maybe to use something traditionally British and as an ode to Mexican logic, we could call it The Shambles.

However curious the number may be, it is pleasing after 12 years of renting and sharing to have a little patch of earth to call my own.