Dreaming of Freedom

Keyvan has posted up about his library look up code. It’s exciting that we might all be able to find libraries with ease and have the library records incorporated in our usual internet book searches.

I’m back in Norwich after finishing the CELTA course. I’m taking the opportunity to spruce up the house a bit. I’ve already painted the spare room and am now repainting my gate. The garden isn’t looking its best what with all my travelling and not giving it the love it needs. Luckily it’s fairly low maintenance and once I cut the grass it looked better. The strawberries are over now and it’s a shame I didn’t plant anymore edible plants apart from the herbs because it lovely to pick stuff from your own garden.

I do have this essay on dyslexia to finish so I’d better get back to it and the weather outside is quite nice so I should get out and about in this brief respite from the rain.

No Comments »

I’ve just taught my last lesson on the CELTA course and it went quite well so I’m feeling quite pleased with myself and ready to go out and get a English teaching job. The school at Camden is winding down and preparing to be gutted and turned into something new. It’s kind of sad to think we’ll be the last lot of trainees that go through the place. I’m going to miss everyone on the course. It’s going to be weird to not mosey on down to the Northern line on a Tuesday and Thursday just in time to catch the rush hour, get coffee from the little shop across the road and chat about stuff as we wait for 6.30 to come round and the teaching to begin.

Keyvan is busy with his library code. He has now developed a script for Norfolk libraries so watch this space for a download soon. If you want a script written for your area then email me with request and I’ll pester him! He won’t do it but it’s worth a try!

The floods continue. The Red Cross are helping out and giving massages. But most importantly people are starting to think that climate change can affect Britain. Hopefully this encourages us to cut back on our giant carbon footprints before it’s too late.

No Comments »

I’ve just been watching George Galloway in Parliament attempt to defend himself against the report from the Standards and Privileges Committee which claimed that: “he did not register his interest in the Mariam Appeal, or the individual donations it received above the registration threshold; he did not declare his interest in the Mariam Appeal on all occasions when he should have done so; he used his Parliamentary office and staff in support of the Mariam Appeal to an excessive extent; he breached the advocacy rule in the terms in which it was in force at the time.”

They have found him that because he had thus “damaged the reputation of the House” that he should “apologise to the House, and be suspended from its service for a period of eighteen actual sitting days”. I don’t know and I guess only George does whether this is true or not. I don’t know whether he knew that his charity was benefiting form the food for oil programme. Again I guess only he knows. The Committee seem convinced he did. The whole food for oil and economic sanctions were a sick game anyway. Debasing and degrading a country is wrong whatever Tony Blair’s and George Bush’s god thinks.

Galloway was making a sterling attempt at a defence. He is a powerful orator and he successfully besmirched some of the members of the committee before Michael Martin ‘named’ and threw him out. If we had had a press worthy of our interest they would have started filming him immediately and broadcasting Galloway outside but as it was we had to wait ages to get some snippets of his speech. I don’t think I’ve seen Galloway speak before – but boy is he entertaining. He has a good voting record and the guts to stand up and speak passionately - he has impressed me.

Comments Off

Well we didn’t drown in London due to the rain. In fact it got much sunnier later on that day.

I’m busy planning my last ever lesson for the CELTA course which I will deliver on Tuesday amid a flood of tears because it’s all ending and I’ll have to go back to real life. Everyone should do a CELTA course – it was brilliant! Only problem is the job situation. It’s supposed to be quite hard to get regular work in England but I’m keeping my fingers crossed and the job searches going. Only problem is where to apply! May take the big step towards London but then again may just stay in quiet Norwich if I can.

Apart from job hunting I’m also writing an essay on dyslexia at the moment which is very interesting and looking forward to Hedda coming to visit. And I have been watching Keyvan write a useful bit of code that goes and searches his local library for books when he searches for them on Amazon. I’m hoping he’ll write me one for Norwich!

No Comments »

It’s so wet outside. There is a good inch of water in the backyard. The torrential rain is bouncing off the pavements, thunder and lighting light up the scene. I’m just listening to the news and apparently 2 months rain is falling in a single day. We were going to cycle to Kensington but it looks too crazy outside. Perhaps if we had more green spaces the water would be soaked up. Are you flooded where you are?

No Comments »

Day Seven of No Sugar! I’m doing fine although I do have to keep reminding myself not to eat sugar. It’s hard to remember, especially when you are hungry, to eat something sensible and not just munch on a chocolate. However I don’t really miss it much. I do feel a tiny bit thinner but not much. The real change is in my mood which is more stable. With less mood swings I feel happier and less lethargic and I am less likely to feel grumpy. My mind feels less agitated as well.

Yes I Hear you say sugar is bad for you! We know. Well maybe we know but why do we eat so much of it. The sugar trade is bad for people, it’s bad for our health and it’s really only good for profit makers ranging from plantation owners to big bad sugar corporations
Sugar was founded on slavery and not much has changed. The terrible conditions that many workers on sugar plantations endure is documented but not stopped. The British Medical Journal over thirteen years ago raised concerns of child workers. Concerns about obesity have also been raised but consumption increases. Concerns about the negative impact of sugar on health have been mooted by health professions and surface again and again from all quarters.
Sugar is a global concern for people concerned about inequality, poverty, slavery and health but yet I walk into any shop selling food and there it is – in everything.

So firstly I’m going to see how long I can go without the stuff, whether I feel better or whether I crave it and then I’m going to get hold of Nancy Appleton’s book Lick the Sugar Habit and read it. Watch this space for a book review.

No Comments »

So much has been happening lately. I was so pleased to hear that Alan Johnston had been freed that I cried. I became suspicious of Facebook and their data collection. I finally finished an assignment for my OU course. I gave up sugar and feel a million times better and I rediscovered Cake – the band not the food!

The oddest thing is the sugar. Once you’ve given it up you realize that it is everywhere and in everything. I feel like I’ve landed on a planet where the main food source is sugar.

I have to teach some adverbs tomorrow to my class so I had better go and get my head round the things. The best definition I have found so far is by Martin Parrott that they are the ‘dustbin’ word class – for all the words that wouldn’t fit in anywhere else.

I feel a poem coming on!

We?
We are…
the dustbin class that you sweep all your remains into.
We are the ones who don’t want to be categorized or pigeonholed.
We want to be free but are forced into a class structure,
into a place in your neat tidy world.
They call us the adverbs and we just say we exist.

No Comments »