Saturday 21 July 2012

Saturday 21st July - Oh frabjous day, calloo callay

Yeah, OK. Just another Saturday.

No it isn't! It is the first day of the Summer Holidays!

I love my work. I am passionate about it. BUT; passion costs, and costs a lot. I can only teach the way I do, with energy, commitment and focus, knowing that every weekend I get a few hours of "down time", every 6 or 7 weeks I get a few days of "down time", and once a year I get several weeks of NO TEACHING.

A few piano pupils will phone up to see if they can have a lesson. Indeed, three are coming on Monday morning (such enthusiasm!).

A lot of hours will pass in planning lessons for next term, brushing up on ukulele chords (which I will be teaching to around 70 children), arranging music for the fairly random combination of recorder players, sorting out suitable songs and chants to fit in with topics and activities.

More hours will be spent in hard graft, learning the grade 7 and 8 syllabus pieces and scales so that I understand how to teach them to a couple of advanced pupils.

Many more hours will be spent in practising and playing the piano FOR MYSELF. There is almost no time for keeping my own skills sharp during the term, and I can feel my hands and fingers becoming clumsy and slow as the weeks pass. I "get by" on experience, sight-reading skills, quick wits and the remnants of technical ability.

And then there are the "to do" lists;

the "have-to-do" list :(

annual "extreme gardening" sessions to reclaim the garden from the goosegrass, brambles, rambling rose and to clear the knee-high weeds from the paved area.

annual "extreme housework" sessions to reclaim the house from dust, spiders, piles of stuff waiting to be sorted, excavating nooks and crannies and the darkest corners. 

the "want-to-do" list :)

meet up with friends

the pursuit of poetry and literature; books to read, poems to absorb, journals to fill

creative projects, exhibitions,

the "fixed points" list :]

holiday dates

appointments

Oh no! I will have to create a schedule or it will never get done! So much to do, so little time to do it in....
I wanted to find an illustration for "Frabjous Day". The original drawing is very dark,
in every sense of the word.


from wikipedia













I had forgotten the context;

the slaying of the fearsome Jabberwok.

I've always used the phrase at times of joyful delight and excitement.














Googling away, I found several images and reworkings; this was unexpected, but fun and original.

Christopher Myers’s take on the greatest nonsense verse in the English-speaking world — a basketball face-off

Read about it here; http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/books/review/Lewis-t.html

I shall keep an eye out for the book.
 

1 comment:

  1. Ah yes, 'Alice.' I'd forgotten just how dark the original Tenniel illustrations are. Hope you have a great and relaxing holiday.

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