Of Blogs and Temps and "The One"

I loved my Magic Paper template so but it gave me endless problems and the last straw was when it just crashed the other day. And that's the second time that the site which hosted it closed down without so much as a by your leave. But then that's how the cookie crumbles in these dizzily paced times.

I once came across a beautiful temp with an antique paper scroll look and that's what I hope to hound down sometime. If anyone's come across it, let me know. It's tough work wading through mountains of temps, some so silly and teenagerish they give me goosebumps the size of teen acne. But in my case I know for sure there's one temp out there on the world wide web that's just sitting there waiting for me and so, go on I must. Not that this isn't a bad looking temp. I like the slightly yellowed olde look. Suits me just fine methinks.

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Seasons of My Life: a Perspective

A friend sent me this picture sometime ago. I hadn't really given it much thought then but as I was cleaning out my inbox last night I was suddenly struck by the poignance of the set of images. What saddened me especially was the deepening darkness as the seasons wear on.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about aging. I noticed little creases around a friend's eyes the other day and when I checked at home a few days later, found those telltale signs on myself too. Besides the crows' feet, I've also noticed over the last few years that I'm not as fit and agile as I once was. It no longer takes just a good night's sleep to get aching bones and muscles to mend completely. It now takes at least a couple of days to limp back to normal. The old bag doesn't exactly sag and droop like the proverbial sack of whatnot yet but the old butt definitely isn't as easy to move around as it used to be.

But that's the physical side of it. I never was any Helen of Troy so it doesn't hit me so bad that I might want to do a Monroe and call it quits just because of a few lines. And aging is so clearly a blessing for me in terms of so many things.

I used to be the world's shyest, most taciturn child. A couple of tactless people even actually asked my mother if I could talk. I was naturally shy and quiet, addled with all kinds of insecurities and complexes, among which was having two very pretty sisters. Then at age 11, I was suddenly transplanted to a different environment following my father's death, having to attend the local school since Mum couldn't afford to continue sending me and my sisters to boarding school in Darjeeling. Coping with all the environmental changes and teenage angst was t-o-u-g-h but somehow I survived. Still very shy, very unsure, very uncertain of anything.

I got into teaching which isn't exactly a profession for introverts but somewhere along the line, self confidence built up. Gradually there were a few things that I was sure of, where I had faith in my abilities, and knew I had something in me of good worth. I've come now to realise, partly through good advice I read repeatedly in books and mags that most people are very shy too, and if they're younger or I feel they could in some way feel intimidated by me (yes, amazing as it is, there are now some people actually intimidated by little olde me :0)) I try to put them at ease by gabbing a lot of nonsense and covering up those horribly awkward silences. I'm still not by any means even in the world's top 10000 best ice breakers but hey, I've come a long way, baby.

Propped up by a very precious faith in God, I'm now comfortable with myself and who and what I am, my limitations and drawbacks, my strengths and plus points. And that ease of being in my own skin doesn't even begin to compare with a few lines and acheovers. You win some, you lose some and I know for certain that I've won more than I've lost.

And at the end of it all, when under a dark pit I lie with only a little cross to mark my fleeting presence on earth, I think I shall be quite satisfied that I'd had a good life.

~~~

Wish you were here

there's distance between us

and you're on my mind
as i lay here in the darkness
i can't find no peace inside

i wish you were here, holding me tight
if i had you near, it would make it alright
i wish you were here
'cause i feel like a child tonight

there's rain on my window
and i can count the drops
but i can't help feeling lonely
there's no way, no way that i could stop

each moment is a memory
time is so unkind
every hour filled with an emptiness
i can't hide

oh, there's distance between us
can't get you out of my mind
as i lay here in the darkness
i can find no peace inside

i wish you were here, holding me tight
if i had you near, it would make it alright
i wish you were here
'cause I feel like a child tonight


lyrics by Christine McVie and Colin Allen

~~~

Love Song to a Stranger

how long since i've spent a whole night in a twin bed with a stranger
his warm arms all around me?
how long since I've gazed into dark eyes that melted my soul down
to a place where it longs to be?
all of your history has little to do with your face
you're mainly a mystery with violins filling in space

you stood in the nude by the mirror and picked out a rose
from the bouquet in our hotel
and lay down beside me again and i watched the rose
on the pillow where it fell
i sank and i slept in a twilight with only one care
to know that when day broke and i woke that you'd still be there

the hours for once they passed slowly, unendingly by
like a sweet breeze on a field
your gentleness came down upon me and I guess i thanked you
when you caused me to yield
we spoke not a sentence and took not a footstep beyond
our two days together which seemingly soon would be gone

don't tell me of love everlasting and other sad dreams
i don't want to hear
just tell me of passionate strangers who rescue each other
from a lifetime of cares
because if love means forever, expecting nothing returned
then I hope i'll be given another whole lifetime to learn

because you gave to me oh so many things it makes me wonder
how they could belong to me
and i gave you only my dark eyes that melted your soul down
to a place where it longs to be.

Words and music by Joan Baez

I've loved this song for years, loved the stark accoustic arrangements and the poetry of its lyrics. I read in a bio of Baez that she didn't write it for Dylan but some much younger relative stranger that she picked up on the road. I like that.

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Let's speaka da Ingrish!

A compilation of howlers that a colleague culled from exam papers a few years ago and contributed to the annual magazine like so...

Laughing at the expense of others - the students in particular, is it cruel? Maybe. Should a teacher do that? Probably not, but sometimes it is just so hard not to do so. Let us give you a taste of what we've had to endure (with a straight face) through the years.

Make sentences with:

null and void -
a) The complete silence in Hiroshima was null and void.
b) To null and void we go to the market.
c) Null and void is such a wicked man.

next to no time -
a) Monday is a happy time, next monday is no time.
b) I cannot attend the class in time, the teacher give me in next to no time.

the apple of her eye
Isaac Newton was the discoverer the apple of her eye from the apple lay it down.

high and dry
I can't cook, cooking is high and dry for human.

in two minds
a) Rama was condemned in two minds of Sangi and Rami.
b) He was in two minds person.

gift of the gab
a) With gift of the gab I consult the doctor.
b) The precious exams was the gift of the gab.

a wet blanket
a) Get your wet blanket face off me.
b) Johny was like a wet blanket, he was 102 kg.

in a nutshell
a) Samuel usually eats things which is inside a nutshell.
b) The beggars make their beggars bowl in a nutshell.

vague misgivings
a) Don't misgiving your vague.
b) He present his girlfriend a watch but it was a vague misgiving.

And who was Leonardo da Vinci?
a) Leonardo was a poet, an engineer, he also wrote a poem and a sonnet.
b) Leonardo Vinci was the early socialist artist of the history of Europe.
c) He wrote the famous picture 'Last Super'.
d) He was paint a very important for the people of Italian, like a Lisa.
e) The citizens of French which was pride of him.


These are in a category by themselves... guess their meaning!

Man live for rice.
They wear their necklace kamis which is called rebirth.
Endangered species are the species on land.
A "doormant account" is an account open by a person who is a sleeping person.
Finish goods cannot sells is like an empty jar.
Green stone used in jewellery = quarry!
Our politicians jumped into the jampacked.
Terror have no any chance for loot and plunder.
In that town security is also tightly available.
Student life is very good and enjoyable like no tension and no mention.


So what do you think? Hilarious? Unbelievable? Frustrating? Our sentiments exactly!

~~~

Hangin' around
Nothing to do but frown
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.
What I've got they used to call the blues
Nothin' is really wrong
Feelin' like I don't belong
Walkin' around
Some kind of lonely clown
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.
Funny but it seems I always wind up here with you
Nice to know somebody loves me
Funny but it seems that it's the only thing to do
Run and find the one who loves me.
What I feel has come and gone before
No need to talk it out
We know what it's all about
Hangin' around
Nothing to do but frown
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.


- Lyrics by Digby Diehl, sung by The Carpenters

~~~

Rain and wind, rain and wind, day and night.
The day gray, sterile, dark. Lightless,
shadowless. Only the rainy haze, the cloudy half-light and
the whine of trams, the grumble of traffic.

Suppressed weeping in the sky, sighing in the winds.
A long, long day, how far away the night?
Weary hours, languid moments; the shackles of time jangle
endless, tireless.

Night; bleakness in the room, darkness without,
the rain and the wind, the rain and the wind.
Empty, empty is my heart, barren, barren is the night,
but for the angry moaning of a sleepless city.

Bleakness in my heart, howling in the city, darkness in the sky.
Shadows, winds, voices, murmurs, angry whispers, deep sighs
in the city, in the empty room, in the rain-laden darkness,
in the jangling of time's shackles,
all night, all day.

The day is bleak, silent like a bog. The night too is dumb;
nothing remains. Nothing, nothing.
The rain's murky veil, the wind and the city's wailing
mask creation. Nothing remains. I am alone. Alone.

- Buddhadeva Bose
(Translated by Nandini Gupta)

~~~

It's been raining again. This last week we've had just one perfect sunny day and I'm just about ready to climb the walls! Anyway I was scouring the Net for good, strong, really into it rain poetry, the kind that knows rain can wreak havoc on a person's sense of wellbeing and not the sugary Oh-how-I love-the-rain kind of insipidity. And voila, I came across this amazing poem. I must admit I've left out some parts at the end so if anyone wants to read it in its entirety, it's at parabaas.com in the translations section.

I love 20th century lit. It's fascinating stuff even if it's pretty nigh impossible to teach, all those allusions and symbolisms and what have you. I'm currently doing Sons and Lovers with the freshers, and trying to lead kids just fresh out of school into the intricacies of modern lit is like trying to teach a day old baby all about arthritis and old age pains and pangs.
Anyway to get into Sons and Lovers, it's imperative to know all about poor old Oedipus who in all probability wouldn't have lent his name, had he been asked, to the Freudian theory. I usually ask the kids to dig into the Oedipus myth first and then the theory and then we get into the book.
Which all leads me to this pert little poem with an unexpected feminist twist that I found online

Myth

Long afterward, Oedipus, old and blinded, walked the
roads. He smelled a familiar smell. It was
the Sphinx. Oedipus said, "I want to ask one question.
Why didn't I recognize my mother?" "You gave the
wrong answer," said the Sphinx. "But that was what
made everything possible," said Oedipus. "No," she said.
When I asked, What walks on four legs in the morning,
two at noon, and three in the evening, you answered,
Man. You didn't say anything about woman."
"When you say Man," said Oedipus, "you include women
too. Everyone knows that." She said, "That's what
you think."

- Muriel Rukeyserink

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