Put in a good shift at the gym in the late afternoon. And have eaten reasonably moderately today. So not too bad.
But didn't get all the reading done I would have liked, even though I had a reasonable amount of free time. Sadly I remain much better at just wasting time than I would really like. So not exactly good.
But, on the balance, okay. (Those of my teachers whose reports read Could do better really knew what they were talking about, I'm afraid.)
I ate more than I really intended to at a lunch for my department in the very early afternoon. We were treated to a buffet at the Jen Hotel - which I've never heard of before - and since the grub was delicious and there wasn't much else to do I really tucked in. And then in the evening Fifi, who's sort of looking after me in the absence of The Missus, delivered to the kitchen counter a very decent kebab, with fries. Somehow I found room for this, but I'm now feeling the effects.
And what are they? Well I'm too full, too heavy, and too tired to care too deeply.
It occurs to me that I very rarely indulge to this extent and I'm grateful for a routine that manages to keep food in proportion. After all there's so much of it and it's so easily obtainable for the likes of me that it's not difficult to imagine living far, far too well. Tomorrow is set to be a lean day with an extra intense visit to the gym to try and set things right.
It's the time of year when most schools in this part of the world get on with the planning of what they would like to happen in the year ahead. Time was when schools and the individuals within them would essentially plan to repeat what they'd done well and cut out the stuff that just didn't work. Nowadays the emphasis seems to be on planning to do new stuff to prepare for an unknowable future which involves re-writing or re-positioning whatever was being done on the grounds that somehow this is no longer relevant. Even though chances are that people will end up wisely repeating what works.
It's a curious exercise. Exasperating if taken seriously; mildly amusing if dealt with sensibly. Actually I suspect that quite a bit of what I was doing in 1979 was better than the stuff I get up to these days. But no one wants to hear that.
At some point last year it seems I had the good sense not to put my name down for marking for the November IB session. I'd managed to forget this and have been half-expecting an email to tell me to brace myself for a load of scripts. But since no such email arrived and the actual English examination papers start on Tuesday next, it occurred to me I might not have anything to be concerned about, a fact which I just confirmed by checking in the IB website covering such matters. It's not that I was dreading the marking, but the realisation I won't be tackling the marking on top of everything else I need to get done before we set off to the UK at the end of this month is very welcome indeed.
If I could celebrate I would, but without The Missus to celebrate with that would be pointless. So I'll just quietly enjoy the moment.
Realised as I was on my way to the gym just now that I wasn't looking forward to the experience. Usually the difficulty of a session only really becomes apparent to me once I've started, but I suppose I'm more ready these days to accept the grim reality of what it means to stretch myself physically ahead of the event. I'm wondering if at some point this kind of realisation is going to deter me from going at all, but that certainly isn't the case so far. The mild suffering seems rather to validate the experience.
One thing that I never feel these days is the mild high people claim that is supposed to result from the release of all the endorphins. Once I've got back and showered I just feel relieved and very tired. But that's quite pleasant in its way.
Now moving into the final sections of E.P. Thompson's magnum opus. His discussion of the development of a Radical Culture amongst the nascent working class serves as a reminder of how important the establishment of a cultural climate is and how vital the articulate consciousness of the self-taught was in English history. And how quietly heroic.
The extended quotations in these pages often make for gripping and illuminating reading. And it's possible to hear something genuinely fresh and individual and real in spite, or possibly because of all the errors: I dinna pretend to be a profit, but I naw this, and lots o ma marrows na's te, that were not tret as we owt to be, and a great filosopher says, to get noledge is to naw wer ignerent.
Enjoyed a jolly good time at the Victoria Concert Hall this evening. The SSO put up a baroque night. Every piece was immediately accessible in terms of rhythmic spring and tunefulness, which was a good job in my case as I was only familiar with one of the concerti played - that being the third Brandenburg, which I know very well indeed. In this case familiarity did not breed contempt. Quite the opposite - I loved every moment.
And the price paid for this surpassingly excellent experience? A mere fourteen dollars. I got hold of the last of the cheap seats, and at the rate for senior citizens. Of course, it doesn't speak well of my character that paying so little actually added to my enjoyment, but I'm just keeping it real.
I'm so used to thinking of Patrick Magee's performance in Krapp's Last Tape that watching John Hurt in the role earlier today felt strange, as if not quite right somehow. And the pacing of the piece captured in the Beckett on Film collection seemed very slow indeed. But I think I now prefer the Hurt version.
Magee was brilliant, but his Krapp was a wonderful grotesque, a kind of monster. Hurt is brilliant in a quieter way - the switch in his voice from the old man to the younger versions is remarkable - and he terrifies in his ordinariness.
It's snowing in Norway. It isn't in Singapore. In fact, it's typically hot here. I have a photo from Noi to prove this. (The snowing bit, not the heat.) But for some reason I can't download the thing from my phone to my laptop to show it to the world. Not that the world cares over much, I suppose.
Postscript:
I'll need to read Volume 1 of David Hawkes's translation of Cao Xueqin's classic The Story of the Stone (a.k.a. A Dream of Red Mansions) ahead of being involved in the teaching of the text in 2025. This is a wee bit intimidating and very exciting. The intimidation comes from the fact I know hardly anything of the cultural context of the novel and the excitement from the same rather embarrassing piece of information, with the add-on that I'll need to find out something and quickly so. With this in mind I gabbed the Penguin Classics edition from the shelves of our department cupboard, handily situated right behind my desk in the staffroom, and this will accompany me to the UK in December.
As will a copy of Yusnari Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain, which appeared on my desk a month or so ago with the gnomic message: It's about aging and dreams. I think you might like it. Oddly enough, I reckon I will.
So that takes care of that major aspect of my holiday planning. I doubt I'll try and take any CDs, except perhaps the Dylan Christmas album which has become a happy fixture of my December. (I'm thinking of making John & Jeanette listen, but that's something I might just relent on. There are limits as to what one might reasonably inflict on one's hosts, and the Bobster in Holiday mode is, sadly, not for everyone.)
