I've found my home

too much info

My mum's (and actually mine as well) favourite subject, when she was at school was history This she would tell us often. We (her caring, loving children) would tell her that it was her fave because it was so easy - she was so old that history hadn't happened! Of course this ageist-cruelty was (because god is like that) bound to catch me up. Last week I was teaching Scientific Notation to a class of ten year olds. I was asked, as I am often asked, by a kid why, they had to learn it (this is a fairly regular question in mathematics lessons) and (for once) I had an answer that satisfied (as opposed to "because I said so"): You want to learn how to use a calculator? You want to be able to deal with really, really big numbers? You want to learn how to be accurate to the tiniest degree? Then Scientific Notation is the way to go! And so I was stuck in a classroom with a bunch of ten year olds dealing with numbers that ranged from huge (quadrillions? zillons?) to tiny (24 places behind a decimal point) and I started to realise the futility and stupidity of it all. Yes, they do need to know how to write a number in Scientific Notation but they really don't understand what they are doing.  Does a ten year old really understand a number bigger than 100? Hell, I'm not really sure that I can deal with the concept of a number bigger than 100,000 - as a concept.

When I was ten I learned how to use a slide rule - it was something that I learned to do outside of school (I was a bit of a geek) - but a slide rule was only good for numbers up to three digits big and even then wasn't that accurate. Logarithmic tables were good for four digit figures but I didn't get my first calculator (and I was one of the first children in my class to get a calculator) until I was 13. It was called a "pocket calculator" but 'desktop' would have been a better description of its size. I didn't use a computer until I was 20 - that's use! The University I was at had five computers!!! I didn't own a computer until I was 22. Didn't have a phone in the house I lived in, after I left Uni, for a couple of years. I remember having to run up the street to a call box to inform the hospital that I was bringing in my wife (at the time) for the birth of our second child. Didn't get a mobile phone (brick) until I was 34, didn't have an email address until I was 38. The majority of 12 year olds I know have mobiles, email addresses, myspace pages and their own computer.

Five years after Einstein published the theory of relativity only four people (only four) in the whole world understood it. It was just so mind-bogglingly different that the world's greatest minds couldn't come to terms with it. Now, 50+ years later I can quite casually explain that the "faster you go, the fatter you get" as an explanation of the theory as relativity (the faster you go, the more places you are in time - hence the fatter you are) that a ten year old can grasp the idea.

There are days that I look at the children in my classroom and wonder. I wonder when did our brains change? When did we suddenly discover the ability to cram so much more information into our minds? My grandpa was not a stupid man but I know that he couldn't deal with the world as it is today - hell, the first time he saw a motor car it had a man walking in front of it with a red flag warning people not to jump out in front of it!

There are days when I look around my classroom with awe. I don't think that when I was ten I had enough about me to live in this world, to cope with the amount of information we throw at children today. And yet, tomorrow I will sit in a classroom and teach ten year olds about Greatest Common Factors and Lowest Common Multiples and I will do it all in English. To a class of Mexicans. And on Thursday I will test them on it.

Makes me think.

bullet point blogging

Wednesday 5th
> Maria's dad arrives.
> Go for meal in fish restaurant - have shrimp wrapped in bacon
> Walk on the beach have two photos taken

Thursday 6th
> Kids arrive to stay until Saturday
> Flat crowded and very hot
> Go to Maria's dad's photo exhibit
> Get involved in argument with photographer about what his photos represent

Friday 7th
> Maria's dad leaves
> He likes me

Saturday 8th
> Kids go back to their father's
> Don't get out of my pyjamas all day

Sunday 9th
> Stay in pyjamas all day
> Santos beat America 4-0

Monday 10th
> Work and I manage to avoid sitting in on any lessons
> Watch the beginning of Season one of Felicity
> Computer keeps switching itself off

Tuesday 11th
> Work, sit in on a lesson that starts really badly but after talking to the teacher for five minutes becomes a great success
> Am wearing a cowboy hat to put kids in cars at end of day
> Have no internet connection

Wednesday 12th
> Work, sit in on a lesson that is based around "Fruit Loops" (the cereal) - it is excellent
> The modem is a piece of shit and is replaced
> Computer a lot happier

Thursday 13th
> Work, sit in on a lesson that had so much potential but the teacher is struggling. She asks if I will teach lesson next week so that she can learn from me. Feel really good about myself.
> Maria makes meatloaf - her meatloaf really rocks!!

Friday 14th
> Start auditions for Lion King
> Go across the border and Maria buys me some Marmite
> Go out for a curry - Maria's first curry!!

Saturday 15th
> Go to San Clemente
> Eat oysters and a bucket of wings
> See "The Bourne Ultimatum"

Sunday 16th
> Two years ago Maria landed in England
> Spend three hours on computer writing emails and (finally) a blog post
> Open a beer at 12:50

things that make you go eh?

Cherry! I like cherry as a flavour. In fact I could go as far as I love cherry as a flavour. Is it because when my father was at his most extravagant, he would order (for my younger brother and I) from the bar (non-alcoholic because we were under the age of ten), which he would bring out to the car park (in those days you were allowed to take animals into bars but not children) and present us with a bag of crisps, a pineapple juice with a cherry in it? Is it because when I was ill and had to take foul tasting medicine my mother would offer me a cherry flavoured Tunes afterwards? Or is it simply because I like the taste of cherry and all this latent psycho-babble is just twonk?

Love cherry!

Beside my side of the bed there is a discarded pack of "throat-sucky-sweets" and a half-empty bottle of Nyquil, on Maria's side there is also a pack of "throat-sucky-sweets" and a half-empty bottle of Nyquil. These are the left overs from a week in January when we both came down with a cold. The reason that we didn't share our medication was because of the chosen flavours - she chose "original" I went with cherry (which makes me believe that there is something in the psycho-babble and I am looking for a return to my mother looking after me). Mexicans don't like cherry flavour (they don't like Dr. Pepper either and I have always thought that there is an underlying cherry flavour to that too - I like Dr. Pepper). It is a very rare moment when you find anything cherry flavoured in Mexico, it just doesn't sell.  I bought my cherry flavoured medicines across the border in the United States.

Halls, the cough drop manufacturers, have just launched  a new flavoured cough drop, here in Mexico. They already sell the usual flavours - not-quite-minty, licking-the-inside-of-a-detergent-bottle, pre-added-fluff-that-furs-up-your-tongue - but they don't sell a cherry flavoured one. This is Mexico, what would be the point in launching a cherry flavour? Nope, they have gone for "Chela Limón".

Now, before you reach for Babelfish to translate that, you can't! Obviously you can find a translation for Limón but, I'm assuming, that you didn't need to translate that (except, of course, it translates as lemon but actually means lime!). No, the word you won't find a translation for is Chela. So, sit back and gasp in amazement as Will (the non-Spanish speaking one) translates.

Chela: it is actually a shortening of the name Graciela which is the Spanish version of the name Grace (my mum's name). It can also be the nickname for people who are blond (and yes, I am spelling it without an e!). So, what we are looking for is a flavour, a taste, that is comparable to receiving grace and is also blond in colour.

Have you worked it out yet? Think back to all you know about Mexico. Tacos? Food of the gods wrapped in a blonde (with an e because tortilla is feminine) tortilla? Nope, that's not it. Think what happens when you go out and order a Corona - they whack a wedge of lime in the bottle neck!!! Now you have it. A tall, blonde (cerveza is feminine) drink that, if you have enough, leaves you talking to god on the big white telephone! Instead of telling "the wife" you are going out to the bar for a few beers, you try to put her off the scent by mentioning that you are going to "receive grace"! Chela is a Mexican slang term for beer!

Yep, the latest flavour cough drop is "Beer and Lime" flavour!!! Shurley Shome Mishtake????

[At this point I would like to apologise for the over use of parentheses/brackets in the above post. I seem to have got a bit carried away with asides, which I realise is totally unusual for me (or not)]

strange days indeed....

...most peculiar mama.

The worst thing about my present brain affliction (see previous post for an attempt at trying to explain what is going on in my head at the moment) is the random lyrics and parts of songs that keep leaping into my mind.

Two weeks ago we got a new water boiler/heater/thingy. For the previous week (or two) I had been showering in cold water. The good thing about living in Mexico is that there is actually no such thing as "cold water" in the summer. You know how in England you would run the tap for a couple of minutes and after having got through a certain amount of water from the pipes it would run a lot cooler - well, not so here in Mexico! It stays warm. So, my cold showers have not been too cold. However, I like a hot shower! According to Maria it isn't so much a hot shower as a "blast the skin off your body with super heated steam" shower - but, whatever, different horses for different courses, no pain no gain, no socks no shoes.

Anyhoo, new water heater/boiler/thingy meant that I was back to having hot showers. That first shower was wonderful. The h/b/t is much bigger than the last one, the water gets a lot hotter and I had missed my hot showers. So, in a totally un-ecological moment I stood in the shower for ages! (Heck, considering I haven't had a bath for nearly two years, I reckoned I deserved the water!) And I started to sing!

It occurred to me that it was weird that I should sing - I am not normally a shower-singer type person. I am not really a singer-out-loud person. I live my life with a soundtrack running through my head, [What? You mean everyone doesn't walk down the street, go shopping, sit on the toilet with a soundtrack running through their heads?? How does the rest of the world cope with reality???] but I tend not to sing out loud (except for random moments, sort of like mini-tourettes attacks). Suddenly, there I am in the shower, singing. Worse, I am singing "Singing in the rain".

Since then it has all gone pear shaped. Oh, I've managed to keep the shower singing to a minimum (when I say minimum I mean I-don't-fucking-do-it) but the soundtrack in my head has gone haywire. Suddenly, instead of "cool" songs I am suddenly sampling Barry Manilow, Phil Collins, Show tunes. Yesterday I signed off an email with a lyric from New Kids On The Block.

In amongst all this we have been watching "House". Now, under normal circumstances, continual viewing of a medical program is a recipe for disaster [and I'm fairly positive that 22 episodes of season one followed by 12 episodes of season two in a week counts as continual viewing]. Every minor ache and pain in my body makes me wonder if I have got lupus (no idea what lupus is but every new patient is immediately diagnosed with lupus and then the diagnosis is rejected because they have one other "extra" symptom...but I don't have the extra, so maybe I've got lupus?]. On the whole I have managed to not totally convince myself with each new killer disease that occurs every 44 minutes. Although in one or two cases it has been a bit close, close enough that I have felt the words trying to escape from my teeth: "Maria, get me to a hospital! Stat!" (No idea what "stat" means exactly but it sounds dead medical!) But last night we watched an episode where some bloke got "smacked-upside-his-head" and suffered from Aphasia. Suddenly I had a disease that I was close to being the poster child for. Except I didn't have the "extra" that he had.

We still have the rest of Season two followed by the whole of Season three to go. I am starting to panic that soon an episode is going to start with a man in the shower singing - singing an Elton John song. Then his wife is going to look at him, all weirdy-like. He is going to fail to comprehend the instructions on the shampoo bottle and when it says: lather/rinse/repeat he is going to drink it or something. Oh my god it is going to be me!!!! I will need to go to hospital!!!! I must stop singing crap songs now!!!!!

Hey, I didn't start the fire.
I didn't light it but I tried to fight it.
No, I didn't start the fire.
It was always burning since the world was turning.

today...

...I will be mainly

omphaloskepsis

[gotta lurve pinky and the brain - it's where I learn all my new words]

random thought 11

When I was eight I had a best friend called Paul.

It was great to go round to Paul's house. His mum would let us eat sweets between meals, we could wear our shoes inside the house, his parents would swear (and then say "pardon my french"), we could take food out of the pantry if we were hungry, he had fizzy pop to drink, his toys always seemed much cooler than mine.

All those things aside, I idolised Paul for one reason, one reason alone. He could sweat. Boy could he sweat. Even on a cold winter's day there would be sweat marks under his armpits. I knew, knew with all the certainty of an eight year old that Paul was more grown up than me. Hell, I was pretty sure he was more grown up than my dad. The boy could sweat for England. He was a one man boy sweat producing machine. When I grew up I knew that I wanted to sweat like Paul did. Forget driving, forget drinking, forget voting, forget marriage. Nope, there was no magic age I was looking forward to - not 16, 17 or 18. I was looking forward to the day when just the merest of movements, the slightest physical exertion would cause beads of sweat to spring forward from my forehead, rivers to run down from my armpits, deep lakes to form in my tummy button. I really, really wanted to sweat a lot.

I was wrong.

I'm off for a shower.

disco stu

Tonight I am going to a nightclub. The last time I went to a nightclub it was called a disco. The last time I went to a disco was 1996. I wore flares, platform shoes and a big-collared, flowery shirt. Halfway through the night Chic came on (well two guys, a girl and a tape recorder) and sang their greatest hit (note the singular version of the word hit) and a couple of other songs.

Tonight I am going to a nightclub. After discussing with my colleagues what they know about Balak it appears that the oldest person ever seen in Balak is 30. It appears that it is very loud and very noisy. It appears that some nights they do something called a foam party.

Tonight I am going to a nightclub. Maria has a colleague at work who is referred to as hot girl. This is because she is hot - according to Maria. Hot girl had a birthday on Wednesday and is having a party at a nightclub. Hot girl wants all the young, trendy people at the factory to come to her party - she has invited two people - not quite hot girl and Maria (who, let's face it, is so hot she's smoking). Hot girl has assumed that Maria (being a hot girl) will have a hot boyfriend. I have been invited by extension.

Tonight I am going to a nightclub. Maria has asked if I know what I am going to wear. Yep. I've got my slippers and cardigan ready. Now I just have to find a phrase book that has a translation for the phrase:

Could you turn that music down please, I'm trying to have a conversation!

Wish me luck.

graph it

Like any modern city there is a large amount of graffiti around Tijuana. There are the occasional walls covered in tags (I should point out that Maria's fave graf artist is just a tagger - she likes Sperm because of the way he sprays the e as a heart) but the majority of graffiti are wonderful pieces of art.

On the corner of the street (next to the wrapping paper shop) was a blank wall. Click on the pictures to make them bigger.

old saying

Every hour wounds. The last one kills.

I've found religion

Quote of the moment, comes from Barrel Fever by David Sedaris:

If you are looking for sympathy you'll find it in the dictionary. Somewhere between shit and syphilis.

Been an odd week - one of those roller coaster rides that takes you from an emotional high to a ball crushing low. You know, one minute it's finger lickin' good the next it's arse wiping bad.

It's at times like this that I like to turn to religion. Actually, that's a lie - but as I don't believe in an afterlife I have no worries about burning in hell for all eternity or coming back as a Sheffield W*dn*sd*y supporter (does life get any lower). No, at moments like this I have normally reached for the bottle. When I feel lost and confused, when I think that my work colleagues are taking advantage of me, when I feel incredibly lonely and need of company - I like to reach for that bottle and get outside as much of it as possible.

Except, this is a different world I find myself in these days. Instead of holding my hand out and finding it wrapped around the neck of a Bushmills, I find it entwined between the fingers of my lover. Instead of raising a glass to my lips, I find the gentle touch of her lips on mine. Instead of being filled with the warmth of a 20 year old whiskey, I find myself flooded with love. And so I decided to try to find solace in a new and different way - I got me religion!

As most of my emotional bollocks-trapped-in-a-slamming-kitchen-drawer feelings have been caused by a colleague who has gone Aztec (this is a technical term that could be explained in a whole three thousand word post or neatly summed up by saying: she is a one metre plank short of bridging the reality gap) I have decided to seek solace and comfort in an Aztec deity. Like all good plans this had a stunning flaw - there are, according to Wikipedia a mere 95 assorted gods and goddesses - this was going to be a task of great difficulty...or not.

You see, my god called out to me immediately. Normally, I'm not one to believe in divine guidance, but in this case god called, I heard and I found my deity of choice. I am now a follower of Ometotchtli.

Yes, Ometotchtli, the leader of the Centzon Totochtin. Ometotchtli the drunken rabbit god, leader of the Centzon Totochtin - a group of four hundred rabbits who met for frequent parties and were the gods of drunkenness.

Now, if you don't mind me saying, this sounds like a god I can worship. He also sounds like one that I could talk to on the big white telephone as well!