Strolling out of the school grounds to snatch a quick 'Similar' Cigarette (the smokeless version of something pretending to be one, a popular choice of Ryaniar bucket-and-spade travellers) - in other words, a teacher requiring an excuse to get off the grounds, have a fake smoke (due to half-inclination quitting urges which will most likely turn to dust once i get to madrid) and a need to escape for 5 minutes from one class swinging off the ceilings and having chalk wars to another class of seemingly automatons with no voice capabilities installed, the small of fermenting pig excrement is enough to turn one's stomach. It hits you hard in those moments.
The gymnasium i'm at this week is typically Austrian; crisp white buildings with a bizarre range of bright, block colours in the windows obviously designed by an architect on magic mushrooms. This one is science specific- in other words, the students have the enthusiasm for languages of an empty packet of crisps and a half-eaten chocolate bar between them on a good day. Getting blood from a rock is an understatement.
Vocklabruck itself is a back-end-of-nowhere town where i and a collegue appeared to be a fascinating sideshow; in the same way if you walk around Baku people dash to have a gawk at these odd people speaking another tongue.
There's a rather scary caretaker whom i nicknamed 'Filch' due to his ability to leap out of dark corners, scream and vanish again, potentially to find a cane. His beady eyes are cushioned by rolls of fat and excess amounts of wiry hair, who had a habit of barging into classes, bellowing at the students and running away again. All he was missing was the cat.
Just a brief note on my encounter with a Wasp of a till-slave-lady in Vocklabruck, Austria at the Penny Market (the equivelent of Morrison's with an addition of rather interesting cannabis-laced iced teas on sale). After a seemingly innocent purchase of orange juice and cereal bars to eat in the dead of night at my mosquito-ridden hotel, I requested a bag to carry said purchases within on the trudge home.
I recieved a look of intense disgust, with a thick, ring-laden pudgy sausage finger stabbing first in my face, then with a gutteral spitting curse in German it revolved to some dusty bags concealed within the gloom under the till.
The sheer snarl I recieved made me wonder as if by not understanding her instructions I had unwittingly contaminated the shop by my mere presence and inability to speak a language which is by no means widely used around the world.
"You are all, as a whole, a class.
Individually, you are a unit.
The ones of whom i remember the name are the disruptive idiots... believe me, a unit is the best you want to be."
listening to : mundy - galway girl
Ok.. so some work, brief teaching contracts sorted out. from the end of the month:
one week in austria
one week in italy
one week in poland
then one week back in austria
by the time all that's done it takes me nearly into october, so hopefully i can find a contract abroad to start then.
screw this country.
:)
Just finished my post at summer school in Bristol - 6 weeks at a 400 strong school crammed with italians, spanish and the occasional french and czech.
I say i won't go back .. every year .. and then i do. Have to say it's a hard job but you always meet some fantastic people there, and bristol was nice to work in for a change of scenery.
the current scenario is job hunting whilst hiding under a crevice in London. kent or abroad, lucky dip depending on what i'm offered first.
Listening to: I no speak Americano -
love it.
Low Morale is a set of flash animations about a man, who having jumped into the hell-like maw of the workplace deals with the scenarios we are all familiar with.. and think about! My favourite is 'Fire me.'
I've just started a new art project after a relevation outside waterloo station, frappacino and cigarette in hand.
Wandering over to central london this morning, A2 sketchpad on an easal (why can i never spell that correctly), i asked people on the street to write down their current thought on the pad.
Some of the responses included:
-666
-I hate my father
-Nothing is so shit than realizing in the middle of an argument with your boss that you're wrong.
-I told the loan shark where she was :)
-Rabbits scare me
-I want to fly a plane... kind of hard when i have a prosthetic arm!
and my personal favourite: "I'm currently on ket as it makes my shit job FUN"
Pictures on the way. I'll be doing the same in Bristol, Brighton, Canterbury, Oxford and Stratford over the summer.
