I feel less numb to the world around me and that’s both a good and a bad thing. My eyes ate fully open again, but that means that everything around me has once more become illuminated and that’s not really a great thing. More and more I feel like I need to get away from here. Permanently? Temporarily? Yes. Either. Both. I don’t flourish here. I need to be stimulated and my immediate surroundings are somewhat lacking.  Perhaps, if the final university in London to which I have applied for my PGCE, turns me down then it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. I could apply elsewhere in the country. Despite the extra expense of moving elsewhere, a change of scenery might be the best thing for me. It could be money well spent. Well, that’s if I manage to get in anywhere.

The other problem I have with my mental state is trying to work out exactly what “normal” is. If I’m sad or angry is that because I’m not taking the tablets or does what I’m feeling fall within the parameters of what a normal person should feel? What should I be doing and feeling right now? How does the average person of my age behave? What do they think? What do they do? What do they want?

I guess that a lot of people have trouble with the whole process of aging, but I feel better now that I’m older. Not physically, obviously; it’s going to take a fair bit of exercise to get to that point, but mentally. I feel more confident, competent and a heck of a lot wiser. I feel like I’ve got a pretty good handle on how the world works now. Naturally, I feel like I can be a better writer too. Though I think that I’ve had the raw ability to write for many years, I’ve lacked the requite inspiration. In short, I can write, but I haven’t known about what I should write. I’m getting there, I think. I want to start something soon. Hopefully it’ll all come to me sooner rather than later.

As the years have gone by I’ve thought a little more about the process of aging. I’ve heard it said that, as you grow older and you become more satisfied with life, you begin to lose your edge. For me, the reverse is true. I’ve become more passionate, angrier, sadder, happier and more elated by everything around me. This could just be a result of my withdrawal, but I suspect that’s not the case. I suspect that satisfaction will elude me for a while longer and, if that’s the case, I should try to make the best of it.

I saw a TV show (some unimaginative cop show) on ITV the other night. Whereas before I would have just thought “well, if that can get on ITV, then surely I can write something that they’d accept”, now that wouldn’t be quite enough for me (yes, running before I can walk). Now, I’d only be happy if I’d written something that got shown on the BBC or Channel 4 (although their output is starting to go a bit downmarket of late, so that opinion may change). In that sense, it’s fair to say that I’m becoming more ambitious. I’m no longer mired in mediocrity and I can’t so readily accept that which doesn’t come up to scratch (at least as far as I’m concerned). The problem is, I know that this kind of thinking, and a previous inability to make good on my promise, was what led me down the path of depression before, so I do have to be extra careful not to go down that route again. That said, before I didn’t have all the tools that I now have at my disposal. My increased confidence I mentioned before, but I also think that I have a level of aggression that had been previously suppressed.

Some personality traits, when taken in isolation, could be seen as overwhelmingly negative. However, when combined with other, more positive, aspects, they can actually be beneficial. After all, what’s the point of being the best in the world at something if you’re the only one who knows it? If you don’t have that aggressive streak that allows to promote yourself then you might as well be a talentless wonder and let’s face it, there are enough of those about in the world. The planet is rife with people who have no ability to do anything but promote themselves. I figure if you can do that AND you actually have a talent for something, then there’s really no stopping you. So, Confidence + Aggression + ability = Success. Well, that’s the theory anyway, and even then I know that it’s not that simple. There are more things that come from within to consider and that’s before one takes all of the external, less controllable, factors into account.

Of course, though it seems like it’s a good idea to embrace some of my baser, more violent (though not physically so) qualities. That’s not to say that you should abandon attributes like compassion and empathy. Caring about the world and wanting it to be better (and not understanding why it isn’t) is kind of important. It’s probably one of the things that motivates me the most, but I can’t really let it bring me down as much as it used to or I’ll get nowhere. However, those things are a part of who I am and I shouldn’t discard them. Again, there needs to be balance. I wouldn’t want to be the sort of person who isn’t reviled by injustice, who’s unaffected by suffering and unmoved by love, humour and happiness. I am not selfish and whilst I might realise that I have to look after, and out for, myself, I can’t do it to the exclusion of all else. Some people can do that. I’ve known people whom I’ve subsequently realised behave as if no one in the world really matters, but I wouldn’t associate with them freely anymore. These are the sort of people who should in an ideal and just world, not prosper. Unfortunately, in the real world, they can, and frequently do. I suppose that more righteous people simply have to be better than they are so as to come out on top. “Is the dark side stronger?”, Luke asked Yoda. “No, no, no, quicker, easier, more seductive” replied the diminutive Jedi Master. (Incidentally, am I the only one to notice that Yoda only talks in his recognisably misaligned way in “Empire” when he first meets Luke. He only mixes up his word order when he’s playing the fool. Once his true identity is revealed, he starts speaking normally. It’s as though George Lucas forgot all that for every one of Yoda’s subsequent appearances and just had him revert to talking like a mad person). I hope that explains my situation. I hope that I’m on the long path and, when I get there, my patience will be rewarded. Am I a righteous person? I don’t know. Not yet, I think, but maybe someday when I can finally lift myself out of the mire. At the moment I at least hope that I could call myself a decent human being who has some regard for the people around him. I don’t, for example, openly cough in stranger’s faces, unlike the person who did just that to me when I was standing in the fruit section of a supermarket yesterday. So, to everyone who bought bananas at the Hatch End branch of Morrison’s (I’m really not going there again, it’s crap), I’m sorry to tell you this, but they’re probably laced with some inconsiderate sod’s germs. Yeah, I at least have some courtesy and regard for my fellow human beings. Just bear in mind that, when I have a cold and I’m in your proximity, I’ll choose not to cough all over you. I’m just considerate like that.

I feel like I’m rambling a bit, so I’ll stop there. Besides, it’s really, really late and I should really get some sleep instead of staying up to write a post and a half’s worth of material. Then again, it has made me feel a bit better, so maybe I’ll get to sleep a little sooner than I did the other night.

At night time, when I should be tired, my body and mind awaken as if I’ve just been shot with a concentrated dose of adrenaline. Thoughts race through my head and chase away the prospect of sleep. The hours tick by; 2 o’clock, 3 o’clock, 4’o’clock 5. Then, all of a sudden, it’s 9 o’clock in the morning and I’m completely awake.

Yeah, there’s some bad things to go through before I’m completely free from the tyranny of Citalopram. More lightning bolts surge through my head, a little bit of anxiety kicks in. Bitterness, resentment, sadness, worry and confusion all pass through me before I manage to fall asleep.

I hope it comes to an end soon. I hope this is just the final stage of withdrawal; the last challenge I have to face, the last hardships I have to endure, before I finally find freedom. I hope that this is all temporary and not of sign of things to come; a new status quo. It probably isn’t, but I can’t help worry; that’s part of it you see. The old anxieties about life, love, jobs, money and everything I fear that the future may bring, run at the forefront of my mind. I dreamt last night that I’d got a job at a school. I was handed papers about what I should be doing, but I couldn’t make sense of it all. It reminded me of when I first started university and managed to miss classes just because I didn’t know they were on and that I had to attend. My thoughts were elsewhere and I lack the faculties for addressing such simple matters as timetabling. In this dream, I had a room, but it was in a state of disarray. Stacks of somebody else’s things lined the walls. There was even an old kitchen appliance (a washing machine? Dishwasher? Oven? It wasn’t clear) in a corner. Added to that, my room kept literally moving. At one point of was hitched up to a truck and towed to another location entirely. Literally, I would wake up and have no idea where I was.

Back in the real world I find that my body and my mind are equally unsettled. I face instability on all fronts. The “For Sale” sign sits once more in front of my house, the previous buyers having long since used up any goodwill and trust that we might have had in them. Will, it sell? To whom? For how much? WHEN? All of this is unknown. All of the year stretches out ahead of me and one conditional dominates it all. “If…” If X happens then I can do Y. If I get work at a school then I can afford to fill my year with fun. If the house sells then I’ll have to leave the room I’ve finally made my own and try to live elsewhere. If it doesn’t sell on time then the house that will succeed it might end up being sold to someone else (not necessarily a bad thing; I’m not sure it’s altogether suitable anyway). I can be pro-active, I can make decisions and take action but much lies beyond my control.

In spite of it all, I still work towards a better future. I apply for jobs, I conjure up ideas of what I could write. I might start something tomorrow if the mood takes me. If my body and mind aren’t too weary to contemplate doing anything. If the daily pain in my head takes a holiday. If, if, if, if… So many ifs.

I hope that this is all a sign that I’m almost out. I think it should be, but I worry. I would, after all, wouldn’t I. That’s how I got here in the first place.

2011 was a strange year. So much seemed to happen. Tyrants fell. Osama Bin Laden, Gadaffi, Kim Jong Il, Steve Jobs. All gone. The streets of London were filled with rioters. There were strikes; some justified and some completely unjustifiable. But I’m not really here to talk about that. This blog usually has more of a personal bent, and that’s the way this entry’s going to go.

January and February were pretty uneventful. It wasn’t until March that things started happening. Right at the end of the month I got my first teaching job. It wasn’t the greatest place to work and I was forced to teach for the first time with pretty much no support, but at least it got me started.

I kept teaching until just before I went away in May. The events of the four weeks that followed probably had the greatest impact on my year. Hell, they had a pretty big impact on me and my life as a whole. Going to the US changed me, in some ways for the better and in others… well, let’s just say that I don’t think I’ve felt the full impact quite yet.

Some would say that going on holiday, especially such a long holiday, with an ex was always going to be a bad idea. After what had happened towards the end of 2010, what with being dropped by her mere days after booking the initial flight for December, I would have been right not to trust her again. That’s why I booked everything, from the first place to stay to the car rental, at the last possible moment. I just didn’t have faith in her. I didn’t trust her enough. I started to again, but as things turned out, I should have just gone with my instincts. It’s not a mistake I’d make again.

The thing is, I wanted to trust her. Not just because I wanted to believe that, deep down, she was a good person. No, I wanted to trust her because, if I did, I’d finally get to do the thing that I’d wanted to do for so many years; take a road trip around the US. It’s hard to say which of my desires blinded me to the truth of the situation the most, but either way I was made to suffer for my supposition (one that I’ve since rescinded) that everyone is, deep down, basically good.

I approached the whole holiday in the wrong way. My attempts to appease someone else had been foolish, especially since pleasing myself would probably been a more admirable trait anyway. The concept of putting other people’s needs before your own simply isn’t workable in all situations. Some people just aren’t built in a way that allows them to be given that kind of regard. It was foolish to think that being nice was the answer. It was stupid to try to be accommodating with someone who had no time for attributes like selflessness and decency. I see now that some people just want to be dominated and dictated to. Some people have more respect for the kind of person who doesn’t give a damn about the way that they feel. That’s not how I am. I care about how people feel and I never want to be dominated. I’ve realised how much having a feeling of being in control makes me happy. Ironically, I hadn’t realised that appeasing others would lead to my relinquishing so much power which, in turn made me unhappy.

I learnt that a one size fits all approach to how to treat people appropriately just doesn’t work. It’s a lesson I should have learnt earlier, that’s for sure, but I guess that my experience of dealing with people with different personality types; people from different cultures with substantially different upbringings to my own. She’d actually given me some pretty specific advice about dealing with someone I worked for (a person for whom I had no respect owing, conversely enough, due to his un-courteous manner and actions that were defined by a lack of reason and coloured by unbecoming, and unwarranted, emotional outbursts) that ended up getting me exactly what I’d wanted. This goes back to when I was working in Eastbourne. I’d made a reasonable request to have one of my duties swapped with someone else. He, however, determined, I’m sure, to bloody mindedly exert his paltry authority, had refused. At her suggestion, I changed tack. Instead of asking, I told. I was rude, essentially. It worked. A show of strength got me what I wanted. Frankly I still consider it to be a primitive and uncultured way of doing things, but it’s hard to argue with results. Of course, I never saw it as anything more than a one-shot solution, but thinking that way was clearly a mistake. It’s only now that I’d consider putting that lesson into practice on a regular basis. It’s only now that I’ve learnt that people can be simple creatures who respond more to a voice raised in anger than a kind word.  It’s horrible though, but politeness and reason just don’t work with some people. Rudeness and callow disregard for such trivial matters as feeling are obviously the way to go with their ilk. Anything else is seen as a sign of weakness and they’re never going to concede to someone whom they feel is weak. I’d been reluctant to engage in any form of confrontation too, and that clearly wasn’t the way to pull her strings. She just saw more weakness. That’s something else I’ve changed.

The trip also taught me more about myself and my own capabilities. I would have been reluctant to do the trip on my own before, but after being abandoned in the last week I became aware of my capabilities. I’d spent so much time worrying about making sure others were happy that it had drained my resources. As well as coming across as being weak, I’d filled myself with doubt. Every harsh work had gradually lowered my opinion of myself. My confidence had taken such a knock that, by the time we’d reached the Grand Canyon, I could barely even drive anymore. Of course, having an additional person along for the ride (her then boyfriend, even if she’d led me to believe that theirs was a far more casual relationship, contrary, I should add, to what he subsequently told me) had made me feel even worse. I quivered with fear at the prospect of saying the wrong thing; knowing for every moment of every day that my position in the little expedition was now tenuous at best.

I was reluctant to suggest anything. I was reluctant to impose my will any situation. My voice now had less weight, being one of three instead of one of two. My position was weaker since the two would almost always side with one another. When I was finally told, quite casually, and somewhat incidentally (by the way…) just as we were to depart, that they’d rented a car the previous night and would be leaving me to my own devices, I was devastated and distraught. How would I cope with this journey on my own? The answer didn’t come immediately. At first I was inconsolable. I set off towards LA, stopping only for a bite to eat where I used the restaurant’s (OK, McDonald’s) free wifi to find and book a hotel at my eventual destination. When I got there, I was a little lost, but, determined not to be defeated, I set about booking up and planning my following day. It wasn’t until later that the reality of my situation struck me. I hadn’t been abandoned at all. I’d actually been freed. From there in, I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to do it. I’d already made use of my freedom by planning, on my own, an itinerary (well, not an itinerary, that’s too inflexible a word. A list would be a more appropriate way of expressing it). I didn’t need to worry about what anyone else wanted to do, I just had to worry about myself. I finally realised that if I’d been like that from the very start, I would have been happier. I learnt that I could be happy and have fun on my own. That realisation ran contrary to what she’s said to me previously. I wonder if, in part at least, I set out to have a good time just to prove how wring she was about me. Then again, that idea of being dared into doing something just to prove someone wrong had always been a part of my personality. My Dad had called it my “Marty McFly Syndrome”, after the character from Back to the Future who couldn’t stand being called a chicken. It’s only years after his death that I realise quite how much insight he had into my personality, though I would have to debate whether he was right to get me to stop my instinctive reactions altogether when all that was required was for them to be tempered. The point was that now that I was alone, my opinion was 100% of what mattered. Ironically, the thing that I feared the most, being cast out, had actually proved to be my salvation. I now know that, even when I’m in a group, I need to let my voice be heard. As my confidence has grown, so has my willingness to challenge everything and everyone that I see as being wrong. I’m less inclined to bite my tongue to avoid confrontation in pursuit of an easier life, especially since my experience with her had taught me that by being pliant, I was actually making things more difficult for myself. Ultimately I’d learnt a valuable lesson. Don’t concentrate so hard on making everybody happy that you ignore your own happiness and, in the process, fail to make anybody else happy anyway. And let’s face it, I probably gain more solace from being right than doing the right thing anyway.

A few weeks after the holiday, by the time I went to teach at a summer school in Gloucestershire, I’d already started to put what I’d learnt into practice. I became less reliant on others for my enjoyment. I frequently went off and did my own thing. I also became less willing to stand for things that I believed to be wrong. I don’t think that it was the best experience I could have had, but I didn’t leave feeling miserable or put upon. I’d done things on my own terms and that in itself was enough to allow me to leave with no regrets and a smile on my face.

It’s not all entirely positive, of course, and one of the changes that occupies something of a grey area is my ability to trust. Inevitably, after being let down to such a degree, I’m not so willing to put my faith into someone and everything they say. I’ve even found myself doubting the factual accuracy of the things that friends and family say. That’s not because I don’t believe them, no. It’s more because I don’t necessarily believe them to be correct. This, I think, might prove to be a good thing since already I’ve managed to avoid trouble by checking facts for myself. I wonder whether not trusting people so easily will lead more frequently towards happiness or misery. It’s too early to tell, but even as I write this I realise that what I’ve learnt isn’t to not trust people, but instead it’s to not trust people so easily and so readily.

But what about my former travelling companion whose actions and behaviour have taught me so much? Do I look back on her fondly? No, of course not. I’d have to be a fool to think like that. Do I bear her malice? Again no, because what’s the point. I can look back and say that my encounters with her re-shaped me. They’ve lifted me up closer to my potential. In the short term they shattered me, but in the long term they’ve renewed my confidence and she’s unwittingly handed me the tools that I’ve needed to climb ever higher. After the trip ended I haven’t really talked about her. A few messages flew back and forth, but I was initially too angry and now, too unwilling to be manipulated and taken for a ride, for there to be any kind of reconciliation. It is, perhaps, yet another irony, that, now that I’ve changed my approach and outlook to life so much, I think she might hold me in higher regard, but that is, to me, irrelevant. After all, now that my outlook has changed, I’m unlikely to let a person such as her as close to me ever again. I hope that she changes, I really do, but even if she does, I doubt that I’ll hear about it. We don’t, after all, have any real friends in common since, from what I can gather, she’s alienated pretty much all of the people that know both of us whilst I’ve managed to remain friends. There’s a lesson there too. Whilst I’ve been able to learn much from her, I think that I’ve been able to achieve a balance that she doesn’t have. I can stand up for myself and, to a degree, manipulate people and situations to get what I want. I however, know when and where to stop, and that’s the difference. She, for example, didn’t even tell her boyfriend that we used to go out. Had he known, he told me that he would never have come in the first place. Now, it’s possible that had more to do with her capacity for self delusion and revisionist approach to history (she subsequently told me that she never regarded me as her boyfriend and, though she denied it, removed any such references to me in that regard from the current version of her blog). Regardless, there are people and events that need to be left in the past. We can learn from our experiences, both good and bad, but the bad ones have to be left behind so as they don’t have the chance to haunt us and poison the future. I won’t mention her again.

As the year drew to a close I realised that I no longer needed my anti-depressants. I started to wean myself off of them and, I’m proud to say that I’m now no longer dependent on them. Sure, I still get miserable from time to time, but it’s entirely normal and even healthy. I began to realise that my mind had been dulled by the pills. The world now has its sharp edges back and though they cut both ways I can’t help but think that I’m happier now that can feel their effects. 2011 let me cast of much of that which bound me. I’ll admit that 2012 has had a slow start, though it’s only two weeks old, but at least now I know how to approach things. Now I can be confident of my capabilities and I can be truly excited by the prospect of what’s to come. It may be true that those how fail to learn the lessons of past are doomed to repeat their mistakes, but it’s equally true that the past is not a fit place to live. On that note I say goodbye to 2011. It was, without a doubt, been my best year in ages. Finally I’d like to wish absolutely everybody who’s reading this a happy 2012.

You can find it right here.

Well, I’ve had got a couple of negative comments. The first I addressed pretty much right away, but I’ve taken a little more time to respond to the second. Anyway, it’s worth taking a look at what’s been written and my responses, the last of which is actually printed below. The last commenter had taken me to task for suggesting that train drivers are stupid. He also suggested that the tube worker’s unions were justified in seeking more pay (though he did say that by doing it in such an aggressive way, they were losing the support of the public).

“The simple fact is, no union should have that much power. Unions are, effectively, the machines of socialism. The point of them is to ensure that their workers are paid fairly. I have no truck with that concept, but that’s not what’s happening with the various train unions. We can all see that they’re not looking for fair pay, they do, after all, already receive that ten times over. What they’re looking for is more pay. They’re greedy and they want the biggest slice of the pie that they can possibly get. Who gives a damn if Londoners are forced to pay ever increasing fares to pay their vastly inflated wages? Who cares if the London Underground is the most expensive in the world? Who cares if money that’s going on exorbitant wages could be used to improve a service that’s in severe decline and falling well below the excellent standards of rail lines in other major cities?

Frankly, if you’re being paid £45K a year for working 35 hours a week with 43 days of annual leave for pushing a button every couple of minutes, then you’re overpaid and it’s only right that your salary be cut and I don’t mean by simply not having a rise above RPI. Slash £20k from a tube driver’s salary and I’d still say that they’re overpaid. After all, £25k is about what a newly qualified teacher would get for working in the outer London area, and out of those wages they’d still have to pay for their travel expenses. Unlike you guys they don’t get a free travel card. Not only that, Teachers have to work a damn site harder for their money and they have to be far more qualified than a train driver. I mention teachers, but the same goes for nurses, the police, fire fighters and countless other professions of varying difficulty and risk.

OK, it’s possibly unfair to imply that tube workers are all stupid, but they certainly don’t need to have brains to do their job either. Driving a train is a comparatively easy job, yet I’ve still observed drivers make an alarming number cock ups. Drivers make incorrect announcements about train destinations, they close doors on passengers as their trying to board the train (having given all of a few seconds to allow people to get on), doors aren’t opened quickly enough; the list can go on and on. Quite frequently, when drivers do have to make announcements to, inevitably, inform passengers about delays and changes in the service, they speak so unclearly that their utterances are completely unintelligible. Is it too much to ask for a train driver, who is expected to make the odd announcement, to have a clear and easy to understand speaking voice? Apparently so. How many people have been stranded in the wrong place after services have been changed and they’ve been unable to tell, just because the driver can’t speak in a coherent manner? And let’s face it, I’ve got problems understanding what train drivers are saying, what chance do foreign visitors, whose ears are less attuned to the guttural sounds made by many drivers, have to comprehend them?

Perhaps the only hardship tube workers might have to endure is working the occasional public holiday. Of course, they want to be rid of that responsibility too, or at least be paid stupid money for doing it. So ASLEF wants their drivers to have TRIPLE PAY and a day off in lieu for working on Boxing Day. You’ve got to be kidding me. Most reasonable people would be happy with one or the other. Most people would feel privileged to get double pay or happy with just a day off in lieu, but not the tube drivers. No, as ever, they want, more and more and more and then, once they get it they’d like to come back for another helping.

Public sector workers are having undeserved cuts made to their pay and benefits whist tube workers moan that their increases aren’t big enough. I’ve heard people argue that everyone else should demand that their unions be as militant as those of tube workers. Great idea. Why don’t we all be as greedy as them? Why don’t we all take as much. The answer is simple, of course. If we all tried to extort (an perpetual strokes and threats to strike are tanamount to extortion) as much money as the tube workers then the country would be bankrupt and we’d all be out of work. But that’s the kind of thing that the socialists of convenience who drive trains, with copies of The Sun wedged onto their dashboards, wouldn’t think about. It’s no wonder that nobody sane would have the slightest bit of sympathy for them. The jobs they do are comparatively easy. A while ago, when the subject of train automation was brought up, I discovered that on the Victoria Line, the drivers don’t even drive the trains. All they do is open the doors. One could certainly make a fairly good case for getting rid of the “driver” altogether. I’m all for automation the whole damn tube network. Obviously, seeing an end to the cash cow that the tube has become for their members, the unions aren’t happy. On the subject of cutting drivers out of the equation, an RMT rep had this to say “Driverless trains are a lethal and unworkable option for London Underground and any move in that direction will meet the fiercest union resistance.” It’s an interesting point of view isn’t it? Certainly nobody would want safety to be compromised (and, let’s face it, the safety angle is how the PR departments of train drivers unions usually try to counter any suggestion of jobs cuts), so surely we can’t do away with drivers. Well, it would be a convincing argument were it not for the fat that it’s completely untrue. The Copenhagen Metro runs trains without drivers and they do that 24 hours a day (unlike London), 7 days a week. No doubt the unions would say that their system, as well as not working, is unsafe and inefficient. On the contrary, in April 2008, the Copenhagen Metro won the award at MetroRail 2008 for the world’s best metro where they were praised in particular for network’s high regularity, safety and passenger satisfaction. If only London Transport could make such a claim. Maybe, one day, once all the detritus is cleared from the rails (and by that I don’t mean leaves on the line) we’ll have a tube network of which we could be equally proud. When that day comes (and it can’t come too soon), perhaps then Londoners will finally get the tube service they deserve and not one’s that’s been compromised by the greedy sods who work on it.”

Am I right or am I wrong? (I’m right of course). Let me know what you think.

Anyway, the respite I’ve had today has allowed me to get on with things. I’ve caught up on some correspondence and applied for a few jobs. I’ve written long comments about articles I’d read n the internet, all, full of insightful points and valid criticism of course. It’s not much, but it’s more than I’ve been able to do before. I’ve been reading a lot too; comics mostly. I forgot how much joy I got from reading comics. I haven’t read any really seriously for about 18 years and now tha the floodgates are open I just can’t get enough. I’m glad I picked up my HP Touchpad tablet in the recent firesale. I’d always figured that a tablet would be great for reading eComics and I’m glad that I’ve been proved right. Yeah, I know that it’s not the same as reading a “real” comic, but it’s a damn site more convenient. Cheaper too if you know the right places to look. Batman and all the associated comics have been my focus of late. When I was little I predominantly read Marvel comics, so aside from the films and, of course, the 60’s TV show, I didn’t have much experience of the Dark Knight. It kind of makes sense that I’d like Batman though. I’d always been in to Philip Marlow and Sherlock Holmes and you can see the influence they’ve had on the adventures of the world’s greatest detective. Because, let’s face it, Batman’s a detective. You don’t get to see much of that on the silver screen, but it’s certainly a big part of the comics.

I’d been put off of reading comics due to the convoluted and overlapping storylines that required you to pick up dozens of titles just to have a clear idea of what’s going on. That is the case with Batman, but I’ve found that, if you just stick with the adventures of Gotham City’s heroes, you can keep a pretty clear idea of what’s going on. Sure, there are more wide ranging crossovers too, but you don’t need to read them all.

The slightly less out-there tone of most of the adventures of Gotham’s heroes appeals to me too. Sure, the comics aren’t as rooted in realism(-ish) as the latest Batman films, but they do seem to have a grittiness that appeals way more to me than titles like Superman. The style of a lot of them seems to be in tune with a lot of what Raymond Chandler wrote back in the 30’s and 40’s. Take away the cape and cowl and Batman’s not too far off being Philip Marlow or Sam Spade. There’s probably other reasons why I like Batman, but I haven’t thought about it quite deeply enough to commit them to writing.

Anyway, once I’ve made it through Batman (so to speak), I’ll probably have a go at some of the more self contained titles like Preacher and Hellblazer. I’d started reading Preacher a few years ago, but life got in the way and I never finished. Having the Touchpad’s clearly going to give me a second chance at it.

So, I have some ideas for some writing that I’d like to do. I think I mentioned it before, but it’s really nice to be able to think about that kind of thing again now that the creative side of my brain has come out from the clouds that had obscured it for the last few years. Seriously, it’s not until I started tapering off my anti-depressant intake that I realised quite how much they’d effected me. The world just seemed a little more dull, like a desaturated image in a  TV screen. It’s nice to be back in full technicolour again. You never know, once I finish completely, maybe I’ll even find that I’m seeing everything in 3D. All that said, without a doubt, I needed them before. God knows where I’d be now if I hadn’t started taking them, but they’ve served their purpose. The events of this year and the extent to which I’ve coped with the difficult times are surely testament to that. Actually, being thrust in to difficult situations and dealing with them without breaking down probably boosted my confidence to the point where I realised that I could go it alone. In some ways I guess I should be greatful for the adversity and to those who caused it because it’s allowed me the chance to conquer my fears.

This is wandering into the territory of the kind of things I’d prefer to leave until my end of year review post and, since there’s a few weeks left yet, I’m not prepared to write that just now. After all, who knows what else is going to happen before 2011 ends. Maybe the changes, the trials and the excitement of the year haven’t come to an end yet.

So after around a year’s worth of furniture buying, not to mention actually moving to the 2^nd largest bedroom in the house, my bedroom is now almost perfect. I need just one and a half more bookcases (from Ikea) to complement the rest of my Ikea sourced, brand new furniture and it’ll be done. Well, it would be, anyway, were it not for the fact that I’m supposed to be moving house. I don’t want to leave my old house, and, in actual fact, the way things are going, I might not have to.

It is, for some reason, taking an absolute age to get the buyers to pony up the cash for the house. We keep getting told that we’ll get a moving date “next week”. Next week comes, goes and then there’s more bullshit excuses about why the so-called “cash buyers” haven’t managed to get the cash together.

You see, the house was sold in July, back when I was still in Gloucestershire. The expectation had been that we’d be moving to the new place, a bungalow just around the corner, by September/October. Of course that hasn’t happened. The new house is all ready to move in to (though the décor leaves something to be desired) so the delay comes from the buyers of the existing house. Given that they were supposed to be “cash buyers” the whole enterprise should have taken no more than a couple of months to completion but, like I said, delay after delay followed story after contradicting story. Franly it looks like our potential buyers are nothing more than big fat liars (nice bit of rhyme there for you. No extra charge).

Frankly I don’t want to sell the house to these people. I can’t stand people who lie and cheat their way through life. It pains me to think that the only home I’ve ever known would henceforth be occupied by untrustworthy, backstabbing  arseholes who’s word clearly means absolutely nothing.

Sorry, that was kind of ranty. The estate agents given them a couple of days to get sorted out, but if nothing’s signed by the end of Thursday, the house goes back on the market. Of course, given that we thought we’d be moving, everything’s been packed up into boxes, so all the unused rooms (of which there are a few, which is one of the reasons for downsizing after all) a choc full of stuff. Basically, the house is a cluttered mess, so, something will have to be done about all that if there are to be new viewings.

Actually, the concept of moving is kind of weird. I’d always thought that I’d be moving away from home into a place of my own. Things just haven’t worked out like that. The last few years have been way better for me, but it feels like I’m just making up for all the time I spent in limbo after university. Right now I feel like I’m where I should have been when I was 25. Still, maybe there was no shortcut; maybe I really did have to go through all the crap I went through just to get to where I am now. Maybe things would have been different if all the bad stuff that’s happened in the last 15 years hadn’t happened? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Who really knows? It doesn’t really matter anyway. This is where I am now and nothing short of a trip back in the TARDIS (which I do, honestly, realise is fictional) could change anything that’s happened, so there’s no point in thinking about it. More than that, in fact, mooning over the past is one of the major reasons why I got stuck in it for so long and neglected my present and my future. So, I can regret things in the past, but I can’t wish that could go back and change them. The past can inform my future. It can stop me from making the same mistakes. Anyway, that’s for another post.

Hey whatever happens with moving, at least it’ll keep me busy. I was being kept busy with teaching. Up until a few weeks ago I hadn’t been out of work since three weeks after returning from Gloucestershire.

Teaching’s been pretty cool, even though my last class was a bit of a nightmare. Of the three classes that made up the last group of students, mine were the lowest level. Some of them were in that class just because they weren’t that great at speaking English. That’s fair enough, of course especially since they were willing to listen. The rest just kept on talking and talking and talking. I was spending more time telling them to shut up than I was teaching them. The other day I gave them an exercise to do. They had to listen to a recording and answer 8 questions. Most of them got no answers correct. In fact, the combined efforts of the class yielded only a grand total of 2 correct answers. I kind of felt like I was wasting my time with most of the people in the class. Of course there are some students who care and it’s because of them (and the money, of course) that I still bothered.

They were actually really nice by the time it came to the last lesson though. They all wanted to practice with me for their afternoon’s speaking exam. By that point I think that pretty much all of them wanted to do well and in actual fact, they did. Every one of them passed their exam. I guess maybe I am cut out for this teaching lark after all. I actually felt really good about them all passing. I got a sense of achievement and I felt proud of all of them. I had my class for just three weeks, and I guess that’s one of the major problems with TEFL. You just don’t have the chance to really get the kids to develop. Sure, maybe what I did will have a lasting impact anyway, but I’d like to do more. I’d like to make more of an impression and help them to develop further. For that reason, I once more applied for a PGCE. This time I think that I’ve got a better shot, despite my reference which whilst being mostly good does mention the word “inexperience” and “fairly good at administration”. Nice to be damned with faint praise. Still, I’d rather be a crappy administrator and a great teacher than have it be the other way around.  I was getting a bit stressed about getting my reference. I’d emailed the Director of Studies at the last school at which I worked in Chiswick, but she took ages to get back to me to let me know that she’d write me a reference. Finally, just two days before the deadline, she did it and I was finally able to get my application in. We’ll see what happens.

I mentioned that not needing such a big house was one of the reasons for downsizing. Well, there’s another reason and it has to do with my sister. She got married this past April and, come March of next year, she’s going to have a baby girl. My mum wanted to give her some money towards buying a new place, so the house went on the market. I’ll be getting some too, but it’s not like I’m going to need it any time in the next 18 months. Hopefully, I’ll get in to my PGCE course, get a job teaching and buy some place by the end of my first term. Well, that’s the plan for now.

So I’m going to be an uncle. That’s some pretty big news I guess. My little sister really isn’t so little anymore. Actually, I think that for the first time in our lives, she actually has a bigger waist-line than me.

On a topic that’s kind of related to that, I’ve virtually stopped talking my tablets. They made it easier to cope with day to day life, but the willingness to write or get on with anything creative or that wasn’t absolutely essential just went away. Now that I’m down to a couple of tablets a week it seems to be coming back. Anyway, the drugs helped me through some tough times, but I’ pretty sure that I’m well enough to make it on my own. They had some pretty bad side effects too; weight gain, hair loss and a bunch of other stuff. I think the weight’s coming off too; not quickly, but quick enough for me to notice. Now all I need is for my hair to grow back and everything will be as right as rain. Maybe that last one’s a forlorn hope. Then again, maybe not. After all, one of the potential side effects of my medication is hair loss, but I think I was heading down that road anyway, so chances are it’s not related. So, the plan is to be off them completely by New Year (or thereabouts). I feel like they’ve given me breathing room and the chance to figure out how to cope with things on my own. I’m definitely ready, after putting things on hold for so long, to get on with life.

Sure, I’m a little worried about committing to a career as a teacher, but it’s got to be better than eking out a living doing crappy jobs I hate. Plus, a steady job has a bunch of advantages. Getting a regular job gets me money, security and all the assurances a bank would need to loan me the money to buy a house. I need to do it to get some semblance of a normal life. Maybe after I’ve managed that I can look towards becoming extraordinary. Yeah, maybe. We’ll see. Whatever it is though, it’s a start and it’s about time that I finally got around to beginning things. The best thing of all is that I’m actually doing it all for myself. I’m not looking to please anybody but me and maybe that’s how it should have always been.

Anyway, that first trip took place back in 1999. A different year, decade century and millennium and it certainly feels like it. With every year that passes I feel myself drifting away from the person who I was back then. For the most part, that’s a good thing. Sure, I’d still like to have the thin waist and the thick hair, but the years have given me so much more in return. Wisdom through experience, I suppose, is the greatest gift. I’ve done things, both good and bad, beneficial and detrimental, but when you tally up the plusses and minuses the sum is who I am right now.

I’ve met good people and I’ve met bad people. Friendships have grown stronger or withered away all together. New people have entered my life. Some have stayed around long enough to become permanent fixtures in my life whilst others simply faded away once they’d served their purpose. Now that last remark sounds a touch cold, but it isn’t really meant to be. Some people are meant to stay in your life forever and some simply come and go. That isn’t to say that these people are inconsequential. Though your association with someone might be brief, their touch may last an eternity.

Sometimes you can only realise how far you’ve come when speak to somebody who’s trod less of the path. It sounds a little arrogant, I know, but sometimes the best way gauging how far you’ve come, the best way of keeping score, is to look back and see what, and who, lies behind you. It’s fair to say that I’m not the same arrogant little sod who left university all those years ago; I’m a completely different arrogant sod now.

I wonder if my writing’s actually improved over the years. Right now it seems so much harder than it once was. What does that mean though? Am I finding it difficult because my ability is fading or am I simply exploring more difficult territory? Whatever, I seem to be more satisfied with it these days. Years ago, my lecturer once told me that I had an innate knack for the written word. There was, however, a caveat. She noted that I hadn’t really worked out what wanted to say, what I wanted to write about. I can’t say that I know yet, but I can feel the day coming ever closer. I can feel the land shifting beneath me and grinding into place into its ultimate configuration.

“Confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as… Parklife”

I can’t claim to have the faintest idea what that lyric’s about (I suspect that there’s no real meaning to it. It exists simply to sound clever), but I can say that my confidence has soared of late. I am tip-toeing around the edges of the pool of my new found self-assuredness. Every so often I’ll dip a toe in. No doubt, some time soon, I’ll immerse myself in the waters. Possibly I’ll become insufferably big headed or perhaps I’ll simply transform myself into the person I should always have been.

In my estimation, confidence has a tendency to run hand in hand with selfishness. Too often have I let niceness and politeness dictate my actions with the result usually being to my disadvantage. I shan’t say that I’ll eliminate these attributes altogether, but I shan’t let them guide me so perpetually. Again, the years have taught me that there is no disgrace in looking after oneself. After all, doing so would have saved me so much heartache over the years; recent history has a number of examples of that. Recent history’s also taught me that I can be perfectly satisfied with my own company. When I finally get my own place I’ll be quite happy if I’m the only one living there. The fact that I’m soon going to be leaving the only home I’ve ever really known is going to help to catapult me out on my own. I don’t need a roommate, I don’t need the constant presence of people to keep me happy. I guess I only thought that I did because of fear and a lack of confidence. Facing your fear and gaining confidence as a result’s obviously going to help that. Like I said, experience is the key. Learning to embrace the unknown and the things that scare you really does help. It’s not new advice, it’s not profound and revelatory, but it is at least true.

Sure, I’m being forced into some of these unknown situations, but I’m coping with them as they come up, and that makes me better than I ever used to be.

I now get the sense that I won’t have an entirely conventional life. I had assumed that the least I could expect from life was a family, a home, love, children and a woman with whom I could share it all. Now, by no means am I too old for all that, but I’ve started to accept that I could be happy if events take a different course. This last year has been the best I’ve had in ages and I didn’t really even have a sniff of companionship. I took no steps towards the life that I’d previously thought would unlock all of the world’s joy but I’ve been happy anyway. As Bill Hicks said “Life’s a ride.” and I guess that it’s only now that I’m really starting to enjoy it.

Anyway, as I said right at the beginning, I’m back on the broads. Let’s just hope that nobody falls in this time.

Well, teaching’s a real mixed bag. I’ll start by saying that what’s become abundantly clear over the last few weeks is that I love teaching. It’s creative, it’s interesting and, most importantly, it’s different every day. Sure, it can be a bit stressful and quite hard work at times, but it’s fulfilling and there’s no chance that I’ll get bored of it in the foreseeable future.

On the negative side, both of the schools for which I have so far taught have been badly managed and severely disorganised. Let’s start with the first school. It turns out that they hadn’t actually paid me for any of the work I’d done in April. They finally got round to sorting things out a few days ago, but only after I got in touch with them about it two weeks before.

I haven’t actually had any issues with pay from the new school, but I was quite shocked to discover that, at least during the first few weeks, they were even more disorganised than the other school. Lots of simple, common sense things weren’t done. Information wasn’t imparted and when it was there were contradictory accounts. For example, we’d discussed the fact that there was going to be a daily teachers meeting. 8.30am had been mentioned as a possible time, but, after some discussion, it was decided to have it at 1.15pm. I heard nothing more about the meetings until I discovered that they’d been holding them at 8.30am anyway. “Why didn’t someone tell me?” I asked my fellow teachers “We didn’t think you’d care?” Admittedly that was true, but it would have been nice to know. There was the problem. If you didn’t happen to be around when a decision was made then you were stuffed. There was no organised way of ensuring that the information was disseminated to all staff members. I would have been in favour of being emailed about important issues, but apparently the Academic director thought that would be too impersonal, hence a series of early morning meetings where the AD failed to tell us everything he was supposed to, probably because he was still in an alcoholic stupor from the night before. Subsequently we all had to turn up at 8.30am for a meeting that had very little content. It was so rare that I’d hear anything worthwhile whilst anything that might have been useful to know simply wasn’t passed on. Just to give to an example of some of the important omissions, I wasn’t told about the fact that I’d have to move halls for the last week until the day before the move, and even then I had to ask someone about it after hearing a rumour.

Actually, the AD was pretty useless all round. I started to notice quite how hopeless he was about a week in. Like two other teachers, I was taking an intermediate level class. Everything was going really well. All of the kids got along with each other, I had a good rapport with everyone. The kids were actually enjoying learning stuff. Basically things couldn’t be better. However, one day, one of the two other intermediate level teachers told me that her class wasn’t working out so well. She wondered if I’d like to swap over a few students. Given that everything was fine in my class and I didn’t want to risk disrupting the class dynamic, I said that I didn’t want to swap anyone over. I spoke to the other intermediate teacher and she said that her class was great too.

However, the next thing we knew we were called in to discuss things with the AD. It seems like the teacher who couldn’t deal with her class had complained to the AD. We therefore had to discuss what could be done. I made the point that I would be loathe to swap anyone over because things were going so well. The other teacher said the same about her class. Of course it didn’t matter what we discussed at the meeting because, behind our backs, the AD and the other teacher had colluded to change everything around. They’d even picked out students that they wanted to swap over. It was made pretty clear to me that the moves were going to happen whether we liked it or not. I made mention of that. I pointed out that it was stupid to potentially screw up two peoples classes in an effort to fix the problems of one teacher. This fell on deaf ears. We’d both be losing four students each (about 1/3 of our classes) and they would then go to the other teachers class. I made a particular point of mentioning that one of the students they’d earmarked for removal would take it really badly and that she’d feel as if she was being downgraded. For another I feared that the confidence she’d gained over the week she’d been in my class would all be lost if she had to adapt to a new environment. I’d also complained that I would then have eight students from Italy in my class. I have nothing against Italians, of course, but having taught only Italians in the past I full well knew the problems associated with teaching students who all shared the same, non-English, language. Quite naturally, they would tend to default to their own language. None the less, my concerns were ignored. It seemed as though the AD was only interested in placating the teacher who’d complained. I was severely worried that her classes weren’t going to be sufficiently challenging. We’d worked on an exercise together early on. Whilst we were both going to be using the same material, she’d decided that for her class, who were theoretically on the same level as mine, she’d dumb it down considerably. I felt that she didn’t have an adequate grasp of the sort of things she should be teaching a class of that level.

Fortunately, everything seemed to go ok as far as my newly constituted class went. Everyone got along well, though, as I’d predicted, having some many Italian speaking students in the class did mean that I frequently had to make requests for them to confer in English.

For the removed members of my class, however, things weren’t so good. One of them complained to her group leader, in tears about being moved. She said that she’d preferred my class and she was unhappy with the un-challenging nature of her new class. I tend to do more speaking and writing exercises in class rather than simply going through grammar. My thinking is that they get enough of that during their English lessons back home so what they really need here is a chance to practice and hone the skills they already have. Anyway, the next day, she was moved back to my class. Two of the others complained to me every day, asking if they could come back. As I’d predicted, they were finding the other teacher’s class to be too easy and pretty dull. I continued to lobby for them, but to no avail. They did, at least, after about a week’s worth of complaining (I’d suggested that they harass the AD every day to get them moved. I actually also suggested that it might help if they could shed a tear or two whilst they were doing it) get moved to yet another class where they seemed a fair bit happier.

Funnily enough, after all that, the teacher who’d caused all the mess in the first place, wasn’t given a class for her final week (she was a four-weeker). Instead she was told to help in the office with admin. I shan’t comment too much on that; I think it speaks for itself really.

I should add that both myself and the other teacher who had moves forced upon her, were both relatively inexperienced. Ideally, new teachers should be given a fair bit of support. We never got any really. Instead we had the rug pulled out from under us.  Sure, I was able to cope with the changes, but the other teacher said that she found her new class quite difficult to handle. Not only that, the teacher who’d been the catalyst for all the moves didn’t seem to be doing any better. All in all, it’s fair to say that the AD’s decision was a poor one.

Anyway, there’s one more organisational fuck up that I really should mention. Some students were supposed to be doing intensive English lessons in the afternoon instead of activities. Intensive English classes would focus on project work, usually in groups. However, for the whole of the first week, nobody bothered to check that some of them were actually attending. The AD’s brilliant solution was to get those students to do double intensives for the next week. So, a bunch of students who skipped the previous week’s 2-4pm sessions would now have to do 2-4 and then 4-6pm. I was given the task of taking a class from 4-6pm, something I relished because I’d much rather teach than do activities. I duly took time out to prepare the lesson. It was going to be fun, exciting, challenging. During my lesson the students would work in groups to create a photostory. This, I felt would keep them interested. It was all going to be Pretty bloody awesome. I headed towards the classroom. Before I got there I was greeted by the teacher who’d taken the class for the 2-4pm lesson. She told me that most of the students had mucked about and then told her that they wouldn’t be bothering to come for my lesson. 4pm came around. No one entered the classroom for another 10 minutes. Then, two students sat down. We talked for a while (there was no point in starting with just two students) until we were interrupted by four more students. They hadn’t actually come for the lesson though; they’d just turned up to tell me that they wouldn’t be attending because their group leader had told them that they didn’t have to. Clearly I couldn’t do a lesson meant for groups with only two students, so I dismissed them, hopeful that the next day’s turn out would be better. I told them to go off to join activities.

After packing up, I headed back to the course office. One of my students was there, asking the course director what he should do (idiot, I’d already told him). The idiotic course director then had a go at me. Supposedly I should have continued the lesson, despite the lack of students. He told me that they had paid for the lesson and that the school was unwilling to give a refund. I would have argued that listening to me talk unprepared bollocks for two hours was hardly good value for money. I msade the point that the lesson I’d planned would have had to have continued over a few days so there was no point in getting it started with only two class members, but there was no talking to this fool.  I was now, apparently being blamed for his and the AD’s fuck up. He instructed me to teach whoever turned up the next day, regardless of how few students there were.

I mentioned all this to the senior member of staff who’d been due to stay for only two weeks and she seemed to think that I hadn’t actually done he wrong thing. Feeling somewhat vindicated, I modified my plans for the next day, accounting for the possibility of a low turnout. One person came to class the next day. I worked with him a bit. He came up with a story that he could tell that required, for the most part, his presence alone. I took the photos myself. The next day we could use Powerpoint to turn it into a presentation. At least that was the idea. The next day, nobody turned up to class. The whole thing had been a joke; a complete waste of time. Let’s face it, everything would have been fine if the powers that be hadn’t screwed up so badly, but then what else could they do; they’re screw ups. Tragically I never got a proper chance to do an intensive class again, a fact that pissed me off no end.

So, as you can see, the academic and organisational sides were a bit poor. I mean, it wasn’t all bad; I still loved teaching the lessons, but pretty much every decision the senior staff made was severely flawed, poorly thought out and badly implemented. Like I said, things got better in the end, but only because of the senior staff member who’d been forced to stay on longer to make up for the other’s inadequacies.

I had a final week working in London before I headed of to the tiny Cotswoldian town of Stonehouse, near Stroud in Gloucestershire. As has become the norm, I taught Italian students, though this time my classroom was in the Aeronautics building of Imperial College London. It was a somewhat odd setting; a touch uninspiring and that was before I got to my windowless box of a classroom. Still, the new room gave me the opportunity to use a projector in my lessons for the first time and that would be an experience I would build upon in the weeks that followed.

I’d actually been quite looking forward to spending some time at a university. I had visions of a campus filled with nubile young lovelies who would all be enthralled by my charm and worldly tales of adventure and excitement. I imagined entertaining an adoring mass of beautiful women in the cafeteria; each of them longing for me to choose them to share my latest bedroom exploits. Okay, perhaps I didn’t envision any of that. I’m not that delusional. Still, I was hoping for a little bit of eye candy and Imperial College managed only to disappoint. Unfortunately, unlike my own Alma Marta, Imperial was almost entirely devoted to the sciences. Pretty young things simply do not run hand in hand with astrophysics and maths. On the contrary, those sorts of things are predominantly studied by nerdy young men with even worse dress sense than me. My eyes, therefore, were left somewhat disappointed.

So, I finished up at Imperial College on the 9^th July and then, the next day, I headed off to Stonehouse for five weeks of summer school. My first impressions were extremely promising. I had my own room, the food was pretty good and everyone seemed really nice. All that, however, gradually began to change as time went on. It wasn’t all bad, but it simply wasn’t as good as it could have been.

One of my major complaints about the last place I worked was the food. Well, on first inspection, the food seemed great. There was a choice of three dishes and everything they prepared was fresh and quite tasty. However, as time went by the quality declined rapidly. One thing I’d noticed right from the start was the continual presence of potatoes in one form or another in the menu. Well, more and more ingredients began to crop up on a daily basis. Meals were simply reheated recombinations of things we’d been served up for much of the preceding week. Vegetarian meals began to gradually disappear from the menu altogether. Portions were also tightly controlled. It was very rare that any meal kept me full for long which led tome supplementing my consumption with sweets, crisps and fast food. Not really a great situation for my waistline. During the final week, I went to breakfast where I was told that I could only have a single sausage. Of course I could augment it with the food that accompanied the main part of the meal. I declined. Unbelievably, somebody in the kitchen staff had decided that the ideal companion food for breakfast was roast potatos.

My room was, at least , my room. Unlike last year, I didn’t have to share my dwelling with a random stranger. It was cleaned on a daily basis though I wasn’t, for my own reasons, all that keen on that. I had no desire to have cleaners rifle through my personal possessions. Of particular concern was the occasion when they left my room unlocked with all my gadgets open to all and sundry. My first room was small with a fairly uncomfortable cabin bed that was a few inches too short for me. The nearest bathroom was also two floors down and a fair walk across, which was a tad inconvenient. I had to share the only toilet on my floor with about fifteen other people. It wasn’t great, but things improved in the final week. I moved to another hall where I had a bigger, en-suite room. Much better.

The people were predominantly great (even if most of my favourites left at the end of week four), but I did have a few issues. A few of them concerned their suitability to work at a school. Sure some of the people, activity leaders mostly, were young, just out of University or still attending, so they can be forgiven their excesses to a certain degree, but what I couldn’t forgive was the general attitude of some staff. They seemed to approach everything in a miserable way as if the job was simply an inconvenience that got in the way of their fun. I have to be honest, I did feel that some of the activities were lacking in variety and quite tedious, but then again I was mostly there to teach and I considered most of the time spent outside of a classroom to be a pointless.

My first four weeks were also somewhat hampered by the unwanted attentions of a female member of staff. Honestly, it’s quite rare for me to find a woman of an appropriate age to whom I have no attraction whatsoever, but this girl was such a person. Whilst, generally speaking, I think that I’m very much in an umming and ahing stage when it comes to romance, carnal thoughts do, from time to time, come to mind. Again, this girl stirred no such desires in me. She wasn’t attractive physically (rather overweight) and I found her personality to be quite annoying. She was alos a bit dim too, which as many will know, is a big turn off for me. Anyway, I had to put up with her for the first twenty eight days. Towards the end of that time I found myself spending more time in my room, unwilling to mar any social activities with her presence. Actually this girl is, I would say, the main reason why I endured my stay rather than totally enjoyed it.

All of this of course meant that I didn’t mix with people as much as I would have liked. Virtually every night, the local pub, the Woolpack, was filled with staff from the college, but I only attended very seldomly. Partly it was because I wanted to remain professional and give the best lessons that I possibly could, partially it was to save money, but mostly it was to avoid that horrid girl. Perhaps that ended up meaning that I wasn’t the most popular teacher on campus. Then again, I did, at least, seem to be very popular with the students, so I must have been doing something right. There were actually times when they called for me to come and see them outside of class (my favourite occasion being when one shouted out “Lee, Lee. Come quickly. We’re watching Zombieland”), so I guess that I was appreciated.

Unfortunately organisation at the school was pretty poor. The course director had no authority whatsoever and the academic director appeared to be a borderline alcoholic. The whole endeavour was only saved by the staff member who had been due to go after two weeks. It’s testament to the fact that the so called bosses were doing such a poor job that she stayed on for the whole five weeks.

One other thing that didn’t quite take my fancy, however, was the rather draconian set of rules. At times it felt like I was a warden at a prison. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling but I managed to get around that simply by being a little laxer than others with the rules. Yes, this got me into trouble at times, but I felt a whole lot better for it. Children were forced to do activities every day, no matter how lame they were. At one point I found myself on the verge of having to expel a bunch of kids from a house who were just playing chess and hanging out in one of the houses. At that point I just walked away. It just shows you that we weren’t fulfilling the entertainment needs of all the kids with activities that consisted predominantly of sports. I had a similar complaint at my last school, but here matters were far worse. Whilst I understand the need for rules I just felt that the childrens movements were far too restricted. I’d gotten used to a certain way of doing things at my last school. It was far more relaxed, but somehow it never felt disorgainsed. This school didn’t, on those grounds, meet my expectations.

I should really talk about how I felt about the teaching. Well, although  I’ve been pretty much rushed off my feet for the last six weeks and that hasn’t left much time for anything but work (and, of course, socialising, by which I mean trips down the pub. You can’t begrudge a hard working teacher a pint after all), but I didn’t mind too much. I really enjoyed it, even when things were tough. Actually, I’d say that my enjoyment of the work (along with the time it’s taken from my free time) is one of the reasons why I haven’t been of late. Believe it or not, teaching’s provided me with a creative outlet both during the planning stage and the performance… I mean, teaching stage. Basically, as a result, I haven’t felt such a deep need to write anything. I admit, I did start a few blog posts over the last few weeks, but I never got anywhere near completing them.

Anyway, I think that what I can read in to this is the fact that I’m going to be pretty happy teaching. It’ll pay the bills and then, during the holidays I can write. And travel. And do all the exciting things that I want. Basically, I seem to have confirmed what I’ve hitherto only suspected; I’m going to be pretty happy if I can get full time work as a teacher and then spend the holidays travelling and writing. So, a PGCE is definitely back on the table, presuming that I can get in to one next year. In the mean time I still have a little more work to do with the other school and maybe I’ll pick up some more as I go along. Ultimately my goal has to be to leave home and get my own place. I enjoy my own company and I love setting my own agenda; my recent trip taught me that. I never thought I’d be happy to go away on my own, but it all ended up making sense. I’d spent so many holidays compromising and bending over backwards trying to please everyone else. Now I know that I’m free to just please myself. It’s not selfish to look after yourself, it’s just sensible.

Having said all that, I think that one of the big reasons why I want to teach is to help kids and to have a positive effect on them. I’m definitely not going to be the sort of teacher who simply sees it as being a job. It means far more to me than any of the pathetic things I’ve done in the past to earn money. I actually want to make a difference to people’s lives. That’s why I was particularly disappointed by what my supervisor told me as I drove him back to London on the last day (it was a bit of a cheek asking me for a ride, but there you go, that pretty much sums him up). I had a particularly troubled (or troublesome, depending on how you look at it) for less than a week. I mentioned that I felt that I could have meade a difference to her if only she’d been my student for a bit longer. He told me that you aren’t her social worker, just her teacher. The thing is, I don’t agree.  I think that part of being a teacher is to ensure and look out for the wellbeing of your pupils. Not only that, if you’re truly a caring person how could you stand idly by and watch another person in pain. If you were desperately clinging to the teaching only line, you could even argue that a happy student is easier to teach so ensuring their wellbeing is good for their education. Anyway, this guy had been a teacher for about 25 years and I have no desire to be as jaded as him by the end of my career. Besides, I don’t really see myself as being a teacher for that long. The second it becomes a chore I’ll find something else, though hopefully I’ll have already embarked upon another more ambitious career.

Anyway, to summarise, it was a pretty good and quite worthwhile experience, but I think I’m going to have to try to edit out all the bad bits so that I’d be willing to do it again. I read somewhere that women do much the same thing when it comes to childbirth. That actually leads me rather neatly to my next revelation. I’m going to be an uncle. My sister, who only got married in April, is going to have a baby.

Before all that though, I have to say goodbye to my childhood home. Whilst I was away, my Mum sold the house. She’s agreed to buy another house not too far away in a quieter road. It’s smaller, a bungalow actually, so my bedroom’s going to shrink quite a bit. It’s a shame because I’ve only just got myself settled in here. I’m really happy with my room and all its new furniture; I was starting to get myself settled here finally. Then again, perhaps that’s the reason why it’s not such a bad thing. Perhaps the only way of moving forward is to stop standing still. Then again, now that I write it down, that just sounds like bollocks. Oh well, we’ll see.

Anyway, as I said, the new house is a bungalow. It’s smaller, but it has a massive living room, a huge conservatory and a very large garden. There’s even a summer house in the garden. It’s actually pretty cool, so I guess that things aren’t all that bad.

That’s a brief summary of my last month and a half. No doubt I’ll be back to fill in any details over the coming weeks.

It’s one of those situations where not noticing the passage of time has actually been quite beneficial. If I’d really felt the last two months as they went past then I might have felt a touch nervous about teaching again after such a long time. As it is, I’m fine, though it does feel like it’s a bit of an inconvenience. For this week only I’ll be working for the same school for whom I worked prior to the road trip. Now don’t get me wrong; I’m happy to have the work, it’s just that the school’s so disorganised that I really feel like I don’t have the faintest idea what’s going to happen. I’ve already had to go in twice last week, once to visit Imperial College where I’ll be teaching and then off to the school itself to get more information. The problem is, the school really does never know what it’s doing. At the first meeting last Monday, I was told that I’d be teaching older kids of an upper intermediate level using a specific text-book for four days. At the next meeting on Thursday, I got told I was going to use a different book and, instead of teaching for 4 days, I’d be teaching for 5 days. Not only that, but the book the Director of Studies hadn’t even looked at the book that I’d be using. It didn’t actually cover the areas set out in her syllabus. Great, I thought, well, at least I didn’t waste time preparing anything. Then, the next day, I got a text (yes, a text) explaining that the kids I’d be teaching would all be under 15, not older as I’d been told before. That probably means that they’ll be less advanced too, making the book I have even less relevant. God knows what I’ll end up teaching them. All fun and games really.

I could have done without teaching until Saturday because the day after that I’ll be off to start summer school in Gloucestershire. Now that really is scary. I can cope with the school I’m working for now; I know they’re incompetent, but at least they’re harmless. In fact, their inadequacies really aren’t too bad a thing because it means that I’m more or less given free rein. I can make things up as I go along, so really I’m pretty much in control of everything that happens. Well, within reason, of course. I like having control. I like making it up as I go alone; it suits me. With the new school, I suspect that everything will be more rigidly controlled and more highly regulated. It might be good. Then again it could drive me mad; it really remains to be seen.

Then there’s the accommodation issue. I don’t know for sure that I’m not sharing a room. I suspect that I won’t be as it’s quite unusual for teachers to do so at summer schools (or so I’m told). I’ve said it before, but I like my space and privacy far too much to share a room again. If it happened, I could cope, but I’d really rather that it didn’t. Whether I have my own room or not, I definitely won’t have all the creature comforts of home. I’ve said it before, but I’ve finally got comfortable here at home and in my new room especially, so it’ll be a bit of a bind to go somewhere else. You could argue that I didn’t have all the comforts of home when I was on my road trip, but the excitement of travel more than made up for it and the novelty of the new is, in this case, going to wear off pretty soon, especially since I’ll be in the same place for five weeks.  Besides, I always had wifi access and I’m not sure that I’m going to have hat in Gloucestershire. Maybe I’ll be too busy for it to matter, but it would be nice if I did have it, if only to keep up with all my favourite TV shows, not to mention the Formula 1. Oh, and on the subject of TV, I’m not taking mine with me this time. All I’ll have for entertainment are my laptops (one will stay in my room for watching films etc and the other will be used for work and in class), my kindle and my iPod. No video games (though that’ll be no hardship since I haven’t picked up a joypad in months) and no satellite TV (or any TV for that matter). Comparatively speaking I’ll be travelling light. I’m not really all that worried though. It’s bound to be for the best.

I expect that this will be the last time I work as a resident at a summer school. My priority is to find a permanent job, probably somewhere around London anyway. I also worry a little about the intensity of being residential. It can be quite arduous and in many ways you never truly rest. There always seems to be something to do. Excluding the teaching aspect, I have a pretty good idea of what to expect and I really do expect to be absolutely exhausted by the time my five weeks are over. So, I really wouldn’t want to do it again. I really don’t want to end up be residential at a school year after year until I’m in my 50s. That’s no kind of life. Actually it would be a nightmare and preclude far too many of the things I’d actually want to do with my life.

My main issue, however, is that wherever I am, be it at home or away, I won’t be able to sleep. I really do have such trouble going to sleep. It’s such a simple thing, but that doesn’t make ot an easy task to accomplish. The difficulty comes about because of one of my two greatest weaknesses; anxiety. I worry that I can’t sleep, the anxiety builds, my body grows restless, unable to keep still. The adrenaline starts to pump more ferociously; my mind hurtles along at full speed. I don’t sleep until the process winds down and I become too tired, too worn out, to stay awake. The irony is that it’s the very worry of not being able to sleep that keeps me awake.

Despite all that, I’m glad I’m going. It’ll be nice to try something a bit different, meet some new people and, most of all, get a lot of teaching experience which should, in turn, help me to get more work once I’m back home half way through August.

Well, I guess this is where it all changes. This is the continuation of what started last year. Instead of wandering aimlessly I have a direction and a path to follow. This is what I want. It’s just that with all these new things happening, new places to go and new people to meet, it’s quite scary too. Just thinking about it is enough to keep you awake at night.