“If we are afraid to reveal our lack of knowledge we will not be able to learn. In
order to make progress we must admit where we are now. Such an admission of
ignorance is not easy. As Thoreau says, “How can we remember our ignorance
which our growth requires, when we are using our knowledge all the time?””
A sea of faces
A swarm of blue
A nervous, sweaty Claire
Looking at you
Some were eager
Others less so
Memories can’t be stolen
From one who cares to keep them
They sleep as I sleep and wake with me
Forever clamouring for time to be remembered.
21 classes.
Mine.
Boys called Wendy
Pink mobile phones
B-boy caps on heads
Lesson-time groans
I’ll remember you, Yi Zhong, with your buildings falling into the ground,
With your green slimy water in the lily pond
And faint smell of manure in the afternoon;
With your toxic night-time fumes and invisible distant hills,
And the mould growing in the swimming pool.
And the willow trees that never grow.
How no one can hide in your linear grounds
Where eyes are everywhere
Watching
Spying
For someone who gives nothing and keeps everything
And a camera in every classroom.
Filling your students with cries of ‘China China’
And the boys who raise your flag while the girls stand by
You have confused me
Inspired me
Enraged me
Engaged me
And I come out the other end so much wiser and yet feeling not so
A factory among factories. churning. conditioning. processing
In four years will you still be standing?
Will the cracks in the stolen land swallow you up?
Will the kids be ok?
Will it be their generation who changes things,
Or will it have to be their children?
Once a cage left, now to another cage advanced.
But isn’t that the experience of All?
From cage to cage leaving shadows behind us,
Yes, we are all in cages.
They just look different.
I was tidying my hard drive today and I found a nest of old writing. I found my old China file. And I found this. It’s not really a poem as such – more like a running consciousness of all my thoughts at that particular moment. It’s striking how many of them still stand true.
Gallery 1 of my Shanghai/Suzhou trip to see Toni. Gallery 2 coming soon, and a writey bloggy thingy ^^
Pre-Menstrual Rabbit
Ok ok, so lady rabbits don’t get human lady stuff, but by gum, they get as good as. I do feel sorry for poor old Velvet when Petti’s in a huff puff for a good fluster and a shag. She gets all thumpy and honky around him and he huddles up into a little ‘oh god fuck off’ ball while she’s going nuts attacking the sofa throw. Petti needs her, err, equipment looking at. Poor old Velvet literally can’t rise to the task anymore, which does not exactly go down well with Petti, the virulently libidoed young sexpot that she is. *sigh*.
Gouache on watercolour paper, with 2B and 6B pencils. The face, for those of you who know your fashion bloggers, is Tavi Genson. I found a photo of her in a massively pom-pomed jumper and her face was just so serene and perfect that I had to draw it. So I drew it, and it grew from there. Overall I’m pretty pleased with the outcome, but perhaps more with the individual details of the painting than the sum of its parts. After I took these photos I actually painted the right hand side of the sky a little darker, to balance the depth behind the moon/clock/whatever it is.
I think it’s about a dream, but it’s hard to be sure when it was painted during the course of a weekend in which I watched eight Dr. Who DVDs, ate two whole cheesecakes, drank six pots of tea, didn’t change my knickers and got myself all depressed and faffy.
PS: This interview with Tavi Genson was done in January. Quite frankly I find her inspirational, despite her mere fifteen years. She is wise beyond them in a way that some adults never achieve; she is the antidote to popular opinion that teenagers these days are airheads with no interests or impetus to get things done; and she is proof that sticking with something can usher in the material form of many a fanciful day-dream.
I wish to express my joy at eating a whoolllee cheesecake to myself…
BOOMSHAKALAKA!
Yes, I feel like this expression-savvy, footless, ex-office chair at the moment. Lost a bit of my Hufflepuff haven’t I? Ravenclawing my way through the pit of post-exam poo at a Slytherin pace aren’t I? Should be Gryffindoring it along shouldn’t I?
Yes, Harry Potter reference… don’t ask. Really, don’t. I’ve got no idea where that came from.
*MASSIVE SIGH* Well, I’m kind of happy that I’ve managed to get my picture uploads sorted out – I did have a bit of a blind withdrawl panic the other day when the bugger wouldn’t work for me, mostly because I’d spent so much time farting around school and at home snapping pretty vistas when I should have been marking. It’s that time of year – Post-Doldrums.
I am also halfway happy in that I have finally washed my hands of having to teach my A2 class any more English lessons. I’ve switched to personal tutoring. Can’t say this necessary step hasn’t upset me a little – did I actually manage to teach them anything? I sat in class yesterday to tell them this and even then they were constantly on their phones (‘put it away please’ / out again / ‘put it away please’ / out again/ … you get the gist); F and E were nattering away while I was speaking, despite my staring; S has her headphones in; W was staring at the ceiling. Half of them weren’t there anyway. All of their teachers have gone through a crisis of confidence this year because this class have made us feel like we’re not worth our salt, when we know we are because all our other classes are doing great. I hope one day that they appreciate us, even if only as a passing thought; and I hope they don’t bugger off to uni and back-chat/ignore their professors like that. Learning is 50% the teacher doing 100% of their job, and 50% the student doing 100% of their job. We don’t spoon with knowledge kids, or we get a fork in our buttocks.
(Now that I’ve written that I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t actually know what I mean… hmm…)
On a more positive note, I’m off to Shanghai for the weekend to see Toni. After working my arse off every day and evening study, helping my students get ready for their oral exams tomorrow, I bloody well deserve a break!
Peace out dudes and dudettes ^^
I love how shoes can really tell you something about a person. I’m also jealous that I can’t wear Converse without crippling myself. *sigh* these fashionable teenagers eh?
I’m still alive, just so you know. Only reason I’m not posting so much is that I still can’t get any pictures up. Boring, right?
UPDATE: Scratch that!! As of Wednesday evening, pictures are FINALLY working! Woohoo ^^
What’s the point of getting the internet at home if your website suddenly won’t upload photos from your computer? Is it a Mac-Wordpress tiff? *sigh* SO… for all photo posts, it’s back to the PC. I can’t pretend that this isn’t extremely annoying, but I shall have to make-do. My computer is due for replacing at some point this year, poor old banger, so my pain shan’t be too prolonged.
So that’s idiocy number one.
The second strike of idiocy today has been my No.1 idiot/nasty-piece-of-work student, who wrote ‘f* your mother’ in Chinese on her exam paper. Smooth move Season. I’m not completely un-versed in Mandarin profanities. Seriously, I don’t know what goes on in this girl’s head or how she expects to get on in life. I have tried so hard all year to try not to let her preceeding reputation and none-too-rosy first impression affect how I see her, but she just plopped a big fat concluding cherry on top of a seriously gone-off cake. I hereby request permission from my readers to give up on her, as, after 7 months of trying to convince myself she’s actually nice really, I would rather jump out the window than continue to milk liquid nitrogen from the cow. What an angry teenager. I.e. what a plonker Rodney!
