V e r i t a s . S o p h i a . I u s t i t i a

Finally got this blog on pro so I can upload some pictures. My year twos' ceramic works from last term.

Just before entering the kiln... always a terrifying process

... and afterwards.

My personal favorites.

Been flu-ish the last couple of weeks. Every time I seem to be recovering I go right ahead and lose my voice by the end of the working day and I'm coughing phlegm in the morning again. Anyway, despite it all, I've managed to pull all loose ends together at work. Quite proud of myself in fact. Been meaning to get started on the cog, but I don't know, there never seems to be a right time to apply the first mark. Obviously, the more I put it off, the harder it's gonna be to actually get started, but let's not go in that direction right now. Bought Cunningham's Flesh and Blood but it's on the bench for a while now... every chapter is like a Greek tragedy, this crazy Sense of Foreboding in every little action... it's just too much right now. Benched. Meanwhile, I seem to have gone back to the masters. There's really nothing good happening right now it seems. Was chatting with a friend over coffee yesterday and he said, pointe blank, that there's been no great album since the Cardigan's Gran Tarismo. That's 1998, fellas. Is he right? We went to HMV, spent like an hour on the second floor and pre-Cardigans, you'd have to go all the way back to the 1970s for something that kills. Bob Dylan, I think, sounds better as he's aged, but christ, where is our generation's Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Smiths, The Doors, Led Zep, The Beatles, Elvis, the whole Motown bunch? I think the best album released this year is Silverchair's Young Modern. Rolling Stone gave Kanye West and M.I.A. 4 1/2 stars for their latest releases, but I've never been one for rap and hip-hop. I don't know. The last time I dug that genre was Eminem's Lose Yourself and The Streets' Original Pirate Material. Talk about going way back. I spent the morning listening to (and following the translation) to Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro (Salzberg 2006) and wondering why I act all best-friend-ish with somebody who's not only not the brightest bulb in the room by a mile but pretty near completely fused since 1999 and takes it out on me in wicked smiling double crosses, and wondering if I myself who have flatlined intellectually and am in a really sad state of delusion. I like the Abstract Expressionists again and I don't care why, and I don't care if Greenberg wants to give me answers, I am reading Kerouac's On the Road. That must count for something.

The first term of my teaching career is over. My first ten weeks on the job. Well, not entirely, since I did spend seven weeks in the same school for my practicum. But the teaching and administrative load has doubled or even tripled, and more often than not, I find myself dead beat at the end of the day, with nary enough energy to do anything but crawl under my duvet and sleep till dinner. I try to read, and I have, with some success. It's tough though, most of it's done walking to the bus stop in the morning or walking home in the evening, and never anything longer than 300 pages. Too much commitment.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. I need to exercise. This is a resolution I need to keep- that when my pay check comes in next week, I need to join a gym and get myself back into fighting condition. The last time I stepped into a gym was in 2005... I've never been one for the cardiovascular stuff- can't standing running or, God forbid, the stair-master, but I do enjoy the weights. I need to find the discipline, dig deep, and go back to regular exercise. My mum, surprisingly, is the extrinsic driving force. She doesn't want a fat son, not because its unattractive (that's me), but because she knows as well as I do that spending the next six years collapsing into a semi-coma after work every day's not gonna bode well for my health. It's time to stage a comeback.

It's time to play on my own terms. You're fine. I am envious of you, of your ability to juggle so many things, of your ability in your medium. But I have weapons of my own. I don't move in the same circles and I don't want to, though many times, it seems, looking at you, that is where and how success is made and defined. I want to play on my own terms. My God. When did I start playing defensive? I dictate the pace from now on. Concentrate. Focus.

The morning after.

It's passed noon. I have lessons to prepare and I am surfing the net aimlessly. I am weak.

End of my first teaching term. The girls embarked on an Urban Gnome Project, a cosmopolitan take on the traditional garden gnome, and for novices at claywork, I have to say I am mighty proud of 'em. Six gnomes were made and four survived the firing. Marilyn exploded... too much air in the hair, and all that was left of her was her Chanel earring (I kid you not). Incidentally, in her combustion, she also took off Pilot Gnome's face, so there you are... the two of them in their last intact moments.

And the Urban Gnomes at our school's art exhibition.