The fox and the nightingale. (2)

If you don't want to get kicked or bitten by the horses, just have your children pose in front of them instead!


Austen Time Travels present: places of (very little) interest:


Ah, parking in Central London is a nightmare, isn't it? You just don't know where to park your carriage!

Not in the pictures:
The nightingale that woke us up every morning in our Bed&Breakfast in West Hampstead, the fox that accompanied me to the bus stop at 4am, the robber-knights and highwaymen that bled us white (or tried to: 23 pounds admission to Madame Tussaud's?? 20 (!) pounds for a movie at Leicester Square?! - I think not.), the 2798 times we heard or saw the word "Valentine's Day" over Valentine's Weekend.

Upshot: London in February is not the perfect place to cure your head cold but one of the best places I can think of to spend a small fortune in ridiculously little time. Amazing what you can achieve when you put your mind to it!

The fox and the nightingale. (1)

Guess where I've been!!


Well, who wouldn't want five Chinese pigs on their birthday cake?

Note for future reference: In a real Chinese restaurant never, ever order the crispy duck and fried pork with rice. Always, always look around you and order what the others are having. Because on leaving you'll notice that the fatty, inedible "meat" you'd been served had been hanging in the restaurant window all along.

Two guards march off through a slightly over-enthusiastic tourist throng with blank, dead serious expressions. One murmurs to the other: "Make it quick!" Exeunt.

And who can blame them?

Wrong all these years.

See, I've had this weird sore throat for weeks and weeks now and couldn't really give in to it because of the exams (not least of all the singing exam) and for the last few days it really hurt whenever I talked for any length of time. I guess "talking" is putting it mildly as far as what I do at school all morning is concerned. It had got lots worse since last night and this morning I had to start giving my classes written assignments because I couldn't muster the will to knowingly hurt myself by talking loudly. So this afternoon I spent three and a half not-so-happy hours in the waitingroom of my ear, nose and throat guy - otorhinolaryngologist, now there's a great new word for playing hangman! Anyways, he said the larynx wasn't inflamed as yet, but that I had a fundamentally wrong way of speaking that was ruining my voice and - helped by that lingering cold - causing the pain. Apparently I speak too far back in the throat (?), which gives the voice a pressed quality. Also I seem to breathe "unphysiologically". Oh, really? He referred me to a speech therapist. So there you go. Who knows, it might be useful. Heaven knows I have enough colleagues who struggle with chronic voice problems.
Only thing is, this long-term therapy may be all well and good but it doesn't solve the situation at hand with the pain and the having to teach six classes tomorrow.
In an ideal world, I could explain the problem to my pupils and they'd nod wisely and get down to doing their assignments quietly and diligently. (short pause for hysterical laughter)
In the real world, I won't even get to the point of explaining because it seems impossible to establish something resembling order and silence in order to explain anything without even a minimum of voice-raising.
Also, there's the added bonus of that new intern who asked me if he could tag along tomorrow. Yes, you can! And you can do all the talking for me, come to think of it. What's that? You've never stood in front of a class? Well, about time then... Over to you. Enjoy!

...
But I don't care 'cause sometimes, I said sometimes I hear my voice...

Ausgetrudelt.

Mann, mann, mann, ich hab vorhin die Einträge des letzten halben Jahres nochmal überflogen, und da fällt ja schon auf, dass ich in den ersten Monaten noch durchaus mehr zu sagen gehabt habe. Gut, das hängt sicher zum Teil mit der ersten Blog-Begeisterung zusammen, aber davon abgesehen hatte ich im Sommer auch glaub'ich einfach mehr Platz im Kopf, um noch Sachen um mich herum wahrzunehmen und zu beobachten.
Die letzten Monate hingegen hab ich eigentlich nur noch vor mich hingenörgelt und darauf gewartet, dass bessere Zeiten anfangen. Kann's das denn sein? Durststrecke, heiße Phase, Ernst des Lebens hin oder her, aber das muss doch irgendwie auch noch anders gehen. Ich bin echt nicht gemacht für solche Extreme - drei Monate nur Stress und Panik und dann auf einmal wieder viel zu viel Zeit und viel zu wenig Struktur, um jene sinnvoll zu nutzen.
Aber das lässt sich wohl vorerst nicht ändern. Stattdessen ist es wohl an der Zeit für 'ne Handvoll guter Vorsätze, um die freie Zeit doch diesmal in produktive Zeit zu verwandeln.
Hm... Vorsätze...

"Alles dreht sich um mich", sagte der Kreisel.

Well, done.

Done.

Finished.
Sore throat.
Headache.
Dead tired.
But passed.

Time to breathe out.

Well done, me?

Right, as of today: three exams down, two to go (both of them tomorrow, great...) and I'm ready to strangle some people. Some teachers, that is. Just now, one especially. Which is kind of paradox, being a teacher myself. Or maybe it isn't.
See, today was the written exam in music theory - you know, the stuff that's really going to save the day when I'll be teaching my ghetto kids, like how to avoid quint and octave parallels when composing a choral for four voices, that kind of thing. The class is held by this young Russian woman, and the style and speed with which she teaches is somewhat Russian too, if you get my drift. She assigns more homework than all my other courses put together and still I was by no means sure that I'd pass this bloody exam today. (Having failed the mock exam quite spectacularly.) In fact, I had already half made arrangements to repeat the course with another teacher next term, so I was over the moon to see that it went alright after all. I could do all the tasks and even had enough time for the extra tricky bit since I finished another task earlier than the others.
This afternoon before heading home I went in to see the teacher, because she always corrects the tests straight away.
And you see, I did really well. I mean, they don't give grades in these exams (you either pass or, well, not), but it would certainly have been a B+, because there were only three minor mistakes in the whole test.
But instead of saying "Ah, there you go, I knew you could do it. Just these three little hiccups over here, but apart from that: fine!", she actually gave me this sermon on how she thought I could do better, how she'd always thought I wasn't giving 100%, how these stupid, little mistakes annoy her and again how she really thought I could do more...
So I told her that if she knew what I did all week long, she wouldn't say such things. That I was in fact doing more, teaching etc. And she went: "Oh, really? How many hours do you teach? 14, is it? Well, I did 22 while I was studying." She wasn't even meaning to be extra-bitchy. I guess it comes to her naturally.
Well, she well and truly pissed me off. How dare she?!?! But what pisses me off even more is that I let this ignorant cow ruin my evening and my sense of achievement. [They did a similar thing last week in my oral exam. After a quick comment that content-wise I had done okay, they went on and on about how in future exams I might want to be a bit more formal - well, they'd offered chocolates to begin with! -, which kinds of phrases not to use - they actually quoted me! ...That, too, had been a fair bit deflating, but at least they'd had a point there (and a slightly sore one at that).]

I guess I should see the bright side of being on the receiving end of teachers' talk for a change. So here's a big mental note to myself, actually several, written in bold, black letters on oversized, neon pink post-its:
a) Don't run people down who are already down.
b) Don't insinuate laziness where people might actually have done their best.
c) Nagging never motivated anyone.
d) Whatever happened to "Well done!"?

As to criticism directed at me, I hereby return to my old maxim (in fact, I never veered away): If you want to criticise me, write in on a piece of paper and throw it in the bin.