On Time

I've always found the way that people seem to find it difficult to arrive on time for concerts & shows & the like to be a bit puzzling, and more than a little irritating. But I don't think I've ever seen quite as many folk as I did this evening unable to arrive on time for a concert beginning at 7.30 pm. And I seriously wonder if arriving at 8.13 (about 7 minutes before the interval) might be some kind of record.

Paying Further Attention

Meant to listen yesterday to the noise of the natural world on my way into work - and forgot. Was distracted by thinking of stuff I needed to do. Kept my ears open this morning though, just to see if the glorious racket I became aware of on Wednesday morning had been an odd exception. Realised it hadn't as the soundscape at 6.45 am today was just as richly layered. Felt like recording it but felt that would be somehow silly.

A free streaming service on the doorstep, eh?

All Very Interesting

I'm in that odd state of mind in which everything I read is really interesting. It's a good place to be, but it means that it takes a while to actually finish anything since that anything demands slow reading and painstaking attentiveness.

Case in point: I'm only about a third of the way through the Christmas Double Issue of the Literary Review from 2023, despite it having resided on the shelf for mags since late January. And every article so far has exercised its fascination. Here's the sequence of topics, if you're interested in what I find interesting: the rulers of the 'princely states' of India in the 20th century ⇒ history of Renaissance paintings ⇒ Oliver Cromwell, his writing ⇒ the doctrine of papal infallibility, and how it got started ⇒ how 'ordinary' Germans functioned as bystanders in the Holocaust ⇒ the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya ⇒ the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz ⇒ J.G. Ballard's non-fiction ⇒ elegiac poetry written in English ⇒ a practical joke played by the writer Virginia Woolf & some of her cronies ⇒ the fraudster and forger (of books) Thomas James Wise ⇒ the development of the female body in evolutionary terms ⇒ how twins are regarded across various cultures, and periods of history.

I suppose I sound quite learned in referencing the above. But the opposite is the case. It's all stuff I'd like to know a lot more about but can only get a taste of.

Paying Attention

Captivated by the clouds as I walked across to work this morning. Not sure why. They seemed etched with unusual precision against the blue beyond. For a few moments I was outside myself. And simultaneously I realised how very noisy the silence was, or, rather, wasn't. Discordant birdsong and insectile chirring.

I suppose it's like this every morning, and, locked into the prison of the self, I just don't notice. Nice to be set free, if only on probation.

The Human Touch

I was just accessing a website I need to use related to work I do for examinations when I got the message: Verifying You Are Human. There was a short pause, just a few seconds, and then I got in to do the needful. But what I want to know is this: How exactly was I being verified? And, How do they know they got it right?

I feel like something out of Blade Runner, and I'm not sure whether that's a good or bad thing. But it is a Thing.

(Must say, I'm very happy indeed I didn't need to do one of those weird 'catcha' things I always manage to fail at.)

Far From Overboard

Don't go overboard, cautioned The Missus as I set off for the gym in the late afternoon. Fat chance of that, I thought. Far from going heavily overboard my problem was likely to be summoning enough energy to get on board at all. And so it proved. For the first 10 minutes on the elliptical trainer I was, as usual, seriously considering whether I'd be able to keep going for a quarter an hour, never mind the hour I had in mind.

And, as usual, I found I could dig deep enough to find the energy to accomplish the full 60 minutes, but it was never going to be with anything like the enthusiasm required for a leap overboard. That's the advantage of a fairly regular attendance at the gym - it all becomes a bit routine and that helps in getting to know exactly how much you can accomplish on any single occasion.

The pay-off occurs when it's all been done, in the quiet satisfaction of knowing that something valuable has been accomplished, some kind of care has been taken, and some kind of acknowledgement has been made of being embodied, no matter how weak & fragile that body is.

Something Bright

I would never have read Ng Ziqin's Every School a Good School had I not been given it as a birthday present, but I'm happy to say I'm glad I did as I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've always had a soft spot for lit for kids and I suppose as a self-described YA novel that's what Ms Ng's tale of her two likable protagonists who swop schools as a sort of sociological experiment is.

It's a bit heavy on the exposition and might have usefully lost eighty pages or so in editing, but the novel is engagingly bright, breezy and basically good-hearted. It's possessed of a naive charm that's really quite touching but does manage to say some perspicacious things about the education system here and, from my perspective as a teacher, is quite revealing in terms of giving insights into what some, possibly most, kids think about schools here.

Actually I was a little bit surprised as to how many stereotypes the writer seems to buy into whilst intelligently questioning the whole notion of stereotyping, but I suppose that just goes to show the success of schools here in getting folks to accept their mythologies. On the other hand, I suppose the fact that kids have no choice but to live out the myths, since that's what they're stuck with, is something I need to more readily recognise.

Anyway, if a young writer as talented as Ng Ziqin is a product of the system I suppose that gives me some room to be a little bit cheerful about being a part of it myself.

Lights Out

Wednesday marked the end of Syawal, the twenty-ninth day, and so our fairy lights are now sadly redundant. Resisting the temptation to switch them on again. Yes, they're pretty but there's a time & place. However, they will remain where they are for a reprise come Hari Raya Haji.

At one time I wouldn't have cared about such things. But I'm wiser now.

Not Exactly Inspirational

This poster in the library at work. It took me by surprise yesterday. I don't normally look overly closely at posters and the like intended for the kids. But for some reason I gave this one more than a passing glance, and wished I hadn't. It left me mildly traumatised.

It was about inspirational leadership and featured photos of famous folks the designer considered of that ilk. Three of them I wouldn't have quarreled with: Lee Kwan Yew, Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama. I mean, I wouldn't consider all three my cup of tea, but I can understand others thinking of them as the bee's knees. (President Mandala is the one I'm entirely comfortable with, in case you're wondering.)

But then there were the two Brits. One was the late queen. Not exactly my idea of someone to look up to given the massively dysfunctional apology for a family she presided over when she was with us. But, okay, I could live with her staring out at yours truly. Unfortunately the other one was Margaret Thatcher, and that was going way too far. Good job Mum isn't around to hear me tell this tale. At least I've spared you any ranting, not something the old lady could ever do when the ex-PM got a mention, especially an admiring one. (I consider myself a fairly broad minded chap, but I still can't wrap my head around the idea that anyone at anytime actually thought highly of her.)

Piling Up

Popped into the library at work today in a spare moment just to pawm around - and ended up taking three books out to read (by August.) I'm now adding these to the small pile I accumulated for my birthday when The Missus decided it was time to break my book-buying fast by gifting me no fewer than three tomes from local publishers Epigram. Oh, and a kind colleague bought me Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others which he reckons makes him 'think'. Since the author seems to be regarded as 'a science fiction genius' (according to the blurb) I'm hoping it does the same for me. I can't remember the last time I had something like an original thought, though I suppose being prompted to think the thoughts originated by a genius in his genre doesn't exactly count as originality.

So that's seven books so far, and I have to add to that the chunky Collected Poems of Robert Lowell which I'm still going on with. Plus I made a list of books on my shelves that are in deep need of an immediate re-read, or complete read-through with me having dipped in extensively but never quite gone cover to cover. The four on that list means the pile is twelve tomes high. Quite enough for now. Possibly for the rest of the year.

And the funny thing is that I get just as excited over the idea of reading all the books in the months ahead as I would have done with an equivalent list of books from the library when I was a little lad.

Time For Bed

There are few feelings more absolutely right than getting to the end of an endlessly busy day and knowing that it's officially over and out. Good night and sleep tight! (I know I will.)

[Weary Postscript: Woke around 1.30 am with a savagely cramped left leg. Note to self - avoid asinine predictions in future.]

On The Plus Side

Just went out to check that some rooms used for classes this evening were in reasonable shape and chanced upon two students hammering out Bach's double violin concerto on a dingy corridor. (I mean the solo violin lines, not the thing in its entirety.) A glorious noise. Made me feel a whole lot better about education and its purposes.

And the fact that the rooms I checked were in good nick helped me sustain the feeling. Sometimes schools do get things right.

Lost

Just finished reading Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence. To be honest the second part of Silver on the Tree didn't work for me. I suppose it might be classified as 'high fantasy', and I mean the very highest of all. A reader in love with the 'matter of England' would have a great time, but I left all that behind long ago. I found much to admire in the poetry of it all, but I needed to make myself keep going to the final page, which is never a good sign. It can be good to lose ourselves in fictions, I know, but not when we start to feel lost.

And, for the now, that's as much fantasy as I can take. I'm leaving symbolism behind me and stooping to reality for at least a year or so. 

On Being Still

Ten years ago to the day I was thinking about the importance of stillness. And it's still a concern a decade later. I know I've got better at it, but I'm also keenly aware that it takes very little to disturb whatever equilibrium I achieve.

At best I can freeze a moment now and then to protect it from time's turbulence. I suppose I'm doing that now in a very, very small way that, if I'm extraordinarily lucky, I'll recall ten years from now.

On Being Connected

A strange day yesterday, one of contrasts. I came unstuck at work for most of the day due to 'connectivity issues' with my laptop. How did I become so reliant on the thing? Why is it necessary to send out so many messages just to keep up with the ebb and flow? What has any of this got to do with actual teaching? Frustrating, much. 

And then it was off to watch the musical Hamilton as performed at the theatre at Marina Bay Sands, in completely the wrong frame of mind. Having got myself there doing my man of the people thing on the bus, with Saravanan for company, I wasn't exactly looking forward to three hours of musical theatre up to 11.00 pm and severely doubted that I'd be able to get into the show.

Gentle Reader, I was wrong. The three hours were up there with the very best I've ever spent in a theatre anywhere. Relentlessly astonishing stuff. Glorious. Just ridiculously brilliant.

On Being Embodied

There aren't many things of a positive nature to say about suffering from a cranky back. Mine feels okay now, in case you were wondering, but last weekend was generally rendered pretty bleak on account of unpleasant stuff happening to the muscles in my back. At least, I think that was the problem, but I'm no doctor so I really don't know (and I suspect most doctors are equally ignorant.)

But looking back over some thirty years of patches of discomfort I can see one positive, apart from how good it feels when all is 'normal'. Being reminded of the fact that we are, for the most part, bodies rather than minds serves to ground one in a sort of ultimate reality which would otherwise be so easy to forget. Of course, it's easy to think of ways in which transcending the dictates of biology is a good idea - just so long as we don't fool ourselves into thinking we can somehow rise above our status as rather clumsy animals.