What is a blog for if you can't RANT

 ...and then offer A Guiding Philosophy

Well, let's look at the week in retrospect. Actually, no, let's rather just offer a few bulletted items. A full blown rant will be too exhausting.

Rants:

Introduction to this rant
I now have a tiny glimpse of the human misery of those poor skeletal children in Ethiopea or the Sudan, where they are too weak to wipe flies off their faces.

Basis (actual ranting)
- I've reached that point where I don't lose my train of thought while reading or offering an explanation, while one or two children in the class pluck divets of golden armhairs from my arms (and experimentally apply them to their own arms).

- Today I was just unpacking my lunch box on the staffroom table when some children burst into the room, ripped off the lid and gobbled it up. It was a two day old sandwich so when I saw their grubby paws on it, I let the little vultures have it. I was surprised though that the vultures were two of my (allegedly) most angelic and hard working students. Ironic.

- The director, not to be outdone, grandly approached me where I was sitting and plonked my file on top of my Oakley Frogskins. These are basically vintage Oakleys, and I don't know about you, but I'm not sure if it makes sense in any country to put something like a heavy duty file on top of plutonite lenses. But maybe that's just me. Maybe in some countries it's okay to throw your socks onto someone's chocolate cake.

- This is part 2 of the above rant, which technically is also a rant in and of itself. You see, before he left the room, I pointed out that the glasses were 'fragile', and that you shouldn't really put books or anything on glasses. You can scratch the lesnes. He said, "OK", then plunged a hand between my legs, and fiddled with telephone cable wires scarcely an inch away from...well...me.
Based on this mysterious behaviour, I now employ a kind've of psychological monkey puzzle to amuse myself through the day, or away from a possible tantrum.

- Monkey puzzles based on arrivals and departures: I now take grim satisfaction when I leave the school. I say, "Bye" and then I wait for the multiple choice to unravel:
a) nod
b) shrug
c) grunt

Final in-summary-type rant (with appendixed conclusion)

- Monkey Puzzle based on interruptions without explanations. Here I try to decipher sudden and inexplicable class interruptions. Class activity is available for all to see on CCTV, but the cameras are pointed at the students, so if I stick to the baseline...er, chalkboard area, I'm out of peripheral vision. It's possible that it needs to be clarified whether I am lifting weights or reading Homer's Ilyiad when I should be moving my mouth while students melt icecream goo onto their notebooks, and fingerpaint with it.

The last one I remember went like this:
Your director suddenly comes into the class, armed with a remote control. Does he:
a) think the classroom is too hot
b) want to check up on you, and the remote is just for show
c) impossible to say.

Conclusion

Answer in this exercise, and all that follow, C.

And now for...

A Guiding Philosophy (which is really Echardt Tolle's The Power of Now, abridged version)

Acute unhappiness can be a great awakener.

Most of the so-called bad things that happen in people's lives are due to unconsciousness. They are self-created, or rather ego-created.

>This reminds me, I left my umbrella on the bus today.<

I sometimes refer to those things as 'drama'.

Ego is the unobserved mind that runs your life when you are not present as the witnessing consciousness, the watcher.
The ego perceives itself as a separate fragment in a hostile environment.

When two or more egos come together, drama of one kind or another ensues. But even if you live totally alone, you still create your own drama.

When you feel sorry for yourself, that's drama.

Layman's Anecdote

A friend of my father is a nice guy called Tico, recently said to me, "I pity the perfectionists. I wouldn't wish that fate on my worst enemy. A perfectionist doesn't know how to be happy, because he lets every little thing worry him.

Simple antidote to perfectionism: sprinkle a sense of humor, open the mind a little, let go a lot, and add plenty of fresh air.