You're standing on my neck.

Writing yesterday's post immediately made me feel better, however today I woke up feeling like I had just been hit by a truck. I think I have a cold, even though I do not have the usual unbearable soreness of the throat. My bones are stiff and my back is aching. Moreover, a small red patch has appeared in the identical place in both eyes. Weird stuff. The strangest thing however is that I have lost my appetite, which is an unusual thing for me. Probably it is my body silently rebelling against this unacceptable, horrendous, unspeakable heat. Oh dear me, I well and truly hate it! I do not even have the energy to drag myself to the seaside. What particularly irks me is the way the weather forecast describes this weather as nice and sunny (sabih u xemxi, to be precise)! Anyone who thinks this weather is nice should be forced into therapy, or rehab, or some such thing. In the morning I went out to run some errands and the sky was grey! Yes, grey! This heat has sucked the life and colour out of everything, even the sky!!! I do not know the reason for this but it must be the humidity, or the brightness of the sun, or the harmful UV rays (Geography aficionados please feel free to elaborate).

Due to my body's weird behaviour I spent most of the day doing nothing particularly useful- I chatted on msn, listened to music, chatted a bit more, slept, watched re-runs on TV, watched the Hills (very dumb but very beloved by yours truly). I hadn't had such freedom to laze about for about four weeks, so my conclusion is that I earned it. The only useful thing I did was look up around thirty Berlin hostels on the internet. Since the best hostels are all full, methinks we should simply take the Flyaway package with Air Malta. We could not book before since we all had to wait to know when we'd be free, so it is not really our fault, and the difference is not so big anyways. Hope all goes well :-D.

The whole point of this blog was not to have yet another longish blog (but I just cannot stop talking, ever!) but apparently, despite being short of energy, I still cannot help bothering my readers. I still haven't started reading/writing something decent after stopping work- too many little errands to run, too much heat and too many distractions. I have to trudge back to university sometime this week. I have a feeling that I'll just submit the request form without talking to anyone. Then, the 'faculty board', whoever might be on it, will consider it in September.

Anyhow, the original scope of this post was to give you these two links. Recently, I was reminded of this show my sister and I used to love and watch around five years ago (back in my Dark Ages, ref earlier post.) This series was produced by MTV and it was brilliant, according to me. 'Daria' was funny, smart, witty, quirky and endearing. Despite, or rather because of its hilarious caricatures, it managed to be relevant and an intelligent commentary on suburban life nowadays. In a nutshell, I loved it, and it is with great nostalgia that I post these two links. They're of a random episode that I found on Youtube. Please watch, and enjoy!: This is Part One (which should be watched first) and Part Two (which should be watched second). I actually watched them the other way round (but only cos I couldn't find Part One). The title of this blog is actually a reference to the theme song. It beats me how this can be the same station that produces rubbish like Jackass and Viva la Bam. I should be off now, since this blog has turned out even longer than the usual longish-ness.

Till next time,
take care,
Lizzy
xxxxx

In limbo

I've just cried a bit, one of those comforting bouts of weeping that come from the heart. I had yet another argument with my mother because she still thinks I'm doing something stupid and I should become a teacher. To make matters worse, I went to university for nothing because Dr. Callus was doing the third year viva voce exams and he has not even answered my email. Which is doubly odd, since he'd answered me back when he was on holiday. Lecturers: strange people. The bad thing about all this is that I very easily get discouraged and right now all I want is just to be safely registered in the B.A. course, with no more question marks looming about my poor weary head. My mum just does no help. All she has contributed to the situation is doubt and even more useless worrying, and then she wonders why we're not getting on so well at the moment. She says she's really proud of me and my results, but if she really were, she'd trust me more and stop looking at my decision as some kind of anti-climax. This afternoon she told me that I might be on the way to becoming 'sfrattata' (?!?!?). I was speechless and refused to even continue the conversation. Some statements really cannot be dignified with an answer (to shamelessly copy Bridget Jones), so I stormed upstairs and took comfort in loads and loads of Keane. I know that anyone reading this blog must be thinking I have the most boring musical tastes ever, simply because I've been listening to an overdose of the same band for roughly five months now. HOWEVER, I do listen to other stuff (I just do not document it on this blog) and what's wrong with finding great great comfort in something and sticking to it? I'm listening to some of their earlier stuff at the moment, singles and B-sides they released before getting a good record deal. It might not be very polished but it still has that special genuine sweetness and the lovely melodies that have made them successful. This song is of particular interest. It is one of the few songs written by the band's singer (Tom Chaplin) and it makes me wonder why he stopped writing for the band. It would be very interesting if both Tim (the gorgeous pianist) and Tom wrote, I think.

Anyways, there I was talking about serious things like university and I get sidetracked talking about Keane. That kind of says something about my wish for escapism and the extent of how fed up I am of being in limbo (hence the title). One last thing before I continue. Just in case you haven't noticed yet, I love Keane, soo much! Anyways, I was talking about how my mother called me 'sfrattata'. The reason for this was because I stayed out in the sun after going to uni and Desiree and I went near the sea under the MCC to rest our tired feet in the water. What's more, we even commited the heinous crime of staying out till two on a Sunday night, even though we had been waiting for the stinking van since midnight. I hate transport services!!! What on Earth is happening to the fun-loving, understanding mum I had? She who used to drag me to go shopping and to go to the beautician and plead with me to go out and make friends back in the Dark Ages of my early teens (ref. earlier posts)? I know I am not the perfect daughter. I know I sometimes keep everything to myself and I really do not help in the housework. I also have the bad habit of mumbling and muttering angrily to her for no particularly valid reason, especially when I can't find the eyeliner I'd misplaced myself the night before. Yet, I've always done my level best to act respectably and to practise the values she has lovingly inculcated in us ever since we were kids, and for this she sometimes forgets to give me credit. I wish things were okay since mum is quite a darling at the end of the day. Despite everything, all she wants is that we're well. Yet, her ideas of wellbeing can sometimes be stubbornly limited and exclusive. Steering clear of B.A courses is one such idea.

This entry has been very emotional and soppy but I really needed to let all this out, so please bear with me. I hope things will start looking brighter and I will be able to wax lyrical about the joys of foreign-student-free life soon!

P.S. My lovely brother (I really can't help loving him to bits) told me this lovely line from 'The Pursuit of Happyness'- "Don't let anyone tell you that you cannot make it, even if it is yourself." Why can't everyone be that kind and understanding?

Till next time,

Take care,
Lizzy
xxxxx

Drivelling

I do not know whether this word exists but I'm taking a gamble, without unleashing my nerdy side and checking on the merriam-webster web dictionary. I think it means rambling on stupidly and not making much sense. Tonight I was a bit tense and I drivelled a lot. I started talking on and on about ects and credits and study units and sikstifajfpersent and oners and all this stuff in front of my mum, to whom all this is simply greek. This made my mum feel even more confused and even more SILENTLY convinced that I'm messing up my life by doing a B.A. in English. The thing about my mother's silent convictions is that they are impossible to ignore. She expresses them in her morose tone of voice, her sighs of resignation and the sense of inevitable doom that oozes out of her every pore. Oh God why does she have to be so stubborn? She keeps telling me to rethink it and rethink it when I've been thinking it over and over again for almost six months now. And for once in my life I am decided about something, so much so that I do not even feel the need of relying on others' opinion. I know this is what I want. I just know. The only thing that upsets me is that my mother is the kind of person who worries herself till she's well and truly miserable about even the smallest things. And I do not want her to be upset. I know that for her jobs and settling down is one big big deal. Yet maybe seeing me happy will put a smile on her face, and maybe one day I will make her proud :-D. Pity that I do not yet have a clue whether I'll be accepted into second year of the Honours course. And slowly slowly the prospect is seeming even more unrealistic than ever.

On a more joyous and chirpy note, I finish work tomorrow and MENO MALE i say too! Dear me, these past two days have been a confirmation of the complete mess that language schools in Malta are. The lack of resources is a joke- One CD player to be shared by some 40 classes, not to mention the scarcity of a thing as basic as whiteboard markers!!! Moreover I realised why I hate teaching so much. Teaching just disturbs you from your purpose. It is just a distraction. It jolts you awake from your mental meanderings, the freedom of your inner life, and it throws you in an alien environment where you have to cope with strangers and engage in that evil thing called practicality. I know I am painting it in a very evil way but that is how it is for me. I am sure it is very fulfilling for those wonderful people who do it so well- those who were born teachers like my mum or my uncle- but for me it is just bleak and something to get over and done with as soon as possible. Even when I can see that the students are wonderful people with great potential, it is still a chore for me. Maybe you might say that I am making a mountain out of a molehill, but it is something that I have noticed and endlessly thought about. It's one of the things I share with my sister. We repel the career our family has made a living from. Something like half my relatives are teachers. What warms me up is my father's understanding. He taught for something like forty years without ANY promotions whatsoever so I think he silently encourages my determination to break away.

Ok now I am making it sound like some Ridley Scott epic of escape and revolution, which it definitely is not. (It's just a change of course for God's sake!) But this is the way I am- I romanticize every single thing. Must be the symptom of a sheltered life. And before anyone who reads this blog is reduced to a suicidal wreck wondering when or if this rambling will end, I will bid you farewell..

Take care,
Lizzy
xxxx

(warning!) very tired blogger

A short blog just to say how much I am looking forward to finishing work on Friday. A reminder for whenever, IF ever I'm nuts enough to regret giving up on teaching. Dear me I have never been this sure about not wanting to teach. I feel it in my stomach everytime I'm walking to class. Being left alone seems like a heavenly privilege at moments like those. Even though i had some nice students. And I realized I might want to relearn Spanish. My mind seems to have shunned that language. Anyways, had a rather plinky plonky day today and spent it feeling like I'd just been hit by a truck. Which excuses my brief fragmented blog, I guess. I am still waiting for Dr. Callus' answer about the course. He should be back from the UK by now so hopefully he' ll bestow a ray of hope on me soon. Anyhows, I gotta be off to do some serious navigating in the Land of Nod before I wake up tomorrow to finish lesson planning. I had no more energy to squeeze out of me tonight. Found this song which kind of suits my mood- it's one of Keane's (oh God why am I so boring?) earliest singles or B-sides or something like that. Cuteness cuteness! Am really off now,

Hugs and Cookies
Lizzy
xxxxx

Bittersweet

Bad day and good day, sort of. It started well, turned sour and became nice again. I woke up feeling rejuvenated after a lovely first part of the weekend. Last week was truly exhausting. I never slept for more than five hours a night and taught all day long. Therefore the weekend, spent sleeping, eating and shopping, was quite blissful. Tomorrow is the start of my final week at work and I must admit that I cannot wait till I'm free!!! It's not that I do not want to work, it's just that I dread TEFLing. There is so much I plan to do. I have to read some good books and finally get down to writing. I had started something half decent after the exams but work meant I had to stop, so now I will continue, hopefully that is. Besides, I need to tidy up my room which has been on the verge of tumbling into the abyss (a Tim Rice Oxley quote!!!) of complete chaos for the last three months or so. Moreover, I have to plan THE trip to Berlin!!! Yes, Marilyn, Deborah and I have decided to just pack our bags and leave, soli soletti, to the land that gave us the source of so much stress and laborious studying- the German language! Hopefully we'll have booked by next week and I will start drawing up some kind of schedule for our visits. Maybe we'll have time to visit some of the places around Berlin too- such as the Mark Brandenburg (you Teutonic nerds should know what that is).

Ok, where was I?? Oh yes, the day turned sour. I had an argument with a dear friend of mine who is sort of drifting away. Maybe I reacted too strongly but, for goodness' sake, I had just been listening to my mother begging me to explain why I gave up on teaching and on a secure job YET AGAIN, and I was not in the mood to be diplomatic. The argument and other assorted stupid things ruined my day, until Desiree came here and we went to M'Scala. We stuffed our faces with chicken wrap and crisps at the pitch and then grabbed a cappucino ( which I did not like) and caught the bus to Zabbar. From there Desiree accompanied me to my house in Fgura, we chatted a while in the drive-in and then I accompanied Des back to Zabbar. You see, we weren't exactly in the mood to get back home.

Bah, so far a very functional and factual blog. Yet, it is too late for me to be my usual profound self ;p. Am kind of scared of the work-less summer that lies ahead and maybe I am trying to make life seem full of things to do. I did apply for summerwork with the university in summer, so maybe I will have a job, even if for a couple of weeks and with what is sure to be a meagre pay. In any case, why be so scared of having some time all to myself? I have to write, and I will somehow manage. I used to have a spark somewhere back in my days as a pimply grease machine, so why should I have lost it now? Furthermore I'm still in limbo as regards the course. Will I have to repeat first year? Will I find it in myself to prove to mum that I made the right choice? Something tells me I will. I am being so positive that I sound like a PSD teacher repeating her mantra on automatic.

Oh dear, this post gives me the feeling of a fabricated sort of sensofhjumer (I'll explain in some other post). Don't know why, but my dreamy, Keane-loving side seems to be buried under a mound of ordinariness (there i go again, repeating myself). But DO NOT DESPAIR, I am still a big fan of the three little nerds from Sussex and still think they are the cutest thing since, well, since the cutest thing that came before them. Honestly though, I am addicted to their music. They give me the sense of the incurable romanticism of people who, like me, must have led pretty sheltered, ordinary lives. Well, I will elaborate some other time. Till then, I wish you all sweet summer days.

Take care,
Lizzy
xxxxx

Decisions, decisions

I am writing this blog with swollen red eyes and a splitting headache. I've just had an argument with my mum which was tantamount to World War Three. I told her I'm leaving EF, cos I simply cannot bear the students anymore, and she flipped out. She kept murmuring on about how I do not want to work and how I'm not like 'it-tfal tan-nies' and how I worry her everyday and this naturally led me to flip out too and start shouting louder and louder until I burst out crying and stormed to my room. I know I could have made a sacrifice and kept on working at least a single shift yet I hated every second of it and dreaded it day in day out. Do not get me wrong, it is not like my mum is the type that gets all hot and bothered about money and work. What she gets all hot and bothered about is the fact that she thinks that lazing about all summer long will turn me into some sort of cabbage and will reduce my mental and social faculties. I really would like to work but teaching is just not the thing for me, and she should understand that I am entitled to avoid spending every night dreading the following morning. I do sometimes feel like a loser and a quitter but at least I will have done three weeks of full days of teaching(9-4.30) so the guilt is considerably reduced.

I am worried now. I went to university to ask about changing the course and I have to wait till September for an answer. While I am positive that they will let me switch to a B.A. course, I am quite scared that they will not let me do an Honours in English, which means that I either have to repeat first year or else stay in B.ed (noooo)... For a while yesterday I felt really sure that everything was gonna be ok but now it all still seems too good to be true. Mum is expectedly disappointed because she once again views giving up on teaching as an act of low self-esteem and a high degree of laziness, but for once in my life, I am well and truly convinced about something. I do NOT want to teach. Period. The funny and yet tragic thing is- I knew this all along. I know myself well enough to know that teaching is not my kind of job. However, I repressed it so as to be on the safe side. That's the funny way I am wired up. Anything goes as long as it's safe. I am an anarchist's walking nightmare. Anyways now I just have to wait and see.

Last Monday Desiree came over and we had a lovely night in- laughing and talking and giggling and watching a really nice film. It's called Stranger than Fiction and it is about a man who, one fine day, starts hearing a voice narrating his own life as it happens. Which is oddly resonant, since I often find myself narrating my own life as I float absent-mindedly from one place to another. I hope this does not mean I need to get a life. I wish I could blog better but I am truly exhausted after staying up watching The Count of Monte Cristo with my sister till two last night (Gorgeous men have to be appreciated), teaching all day long today, crying and shouting a lot as well as lesson-planning (the joy). These are tiring days but I think that finally I have grown up enough to know what I want and to try and get it. I will go and rest now and keep my fingers crossed for next Sepember's decision...

Till next time, take care
Lizzy
xxxx

A time to blog

Work at EF started last Monday and the first couple of days were rather nightmarish. I had not taught for almost a year and I sure could feel the strain. Now I can appreciate the bliss of sitting down quietly waiting for a lesson to be delivered rather than having to deliver it yourself. Hearing my own voice boom back eerily from the bare-walled classroom and having a dozen and a half hormonal teenagers staring blankly at me expecting me to produce little doses of fun is not exactly the perfect way to spend summer. I must admit I am not the liveliest of teachers. Nothing ever seems to work for me. Grammar exercises, conversation, activities, games, you name it- all that I try out in class seems to draw nothing more than groans from the little brats. Ok I admit, there are some really nice co-operative students but some classes are just, well, quite hopeless. Later on in the week things got slightly better. I got used to being in class and made some new friends in the staffroom. I realised I did not have to mind my students' disapproval. The thing is, when you're determined that your students should do an activity, they WILL do it. A classic example was last Friday morning, when, miraculously enough, I managed to get twelve Italian/Spanish students spend 45 minutes trying to figure out how to write a rather challenging picture story. And, wait for this, they did it SILENTLY! YES! Okay, so probably it was their hangover that quieted their groaning so much but, in any case, it was bliss for the teacher sitting leisurely at the desk! I was tempted to start producing my evil grin...

However, I will still switch to a single shift as soon as the current groups leave because teaching from 9 till 4.30 is basically ruining my summer, there's no other way around it. It is a good experience and it does do wonders for my self-esteem and assertiveness but I am not exactly aiming to become SuperPersonality by the end of the summer so I guess I'll take it easy. Moreover, I will try to find a more relaxed job by next summer. (Please God please God pleeeease!)

The morale of this whole story is that I do not think that teaching is the right job for me. Period. This realisation is not based solely on this experience, mind you. No matter how hard I try, I just do not like to deal with so many people at a time. I've always valued being left to think in peace and quiet on my own and teaching is the complete opposite. Since I am stupid enough not to have admitted this earlier and to have kept on trudging on in the Education course, such a relevation puts me in deep shit. I am supposed to go to the Faculty Officer/ the Registry/ the Head of Department as soon as possible to see what I have to do to switch to B.A.. I have a sneaking suspicion I will have to repeat the year but we will see. I hope everything works out okay and my mum does not freak out too much. I also hope and pray I make the right decision. And I also hope I will not be unemployed for eternity. We will see.(the favourite phrase of any master of passiveness). I have to realise that I am grown up now and that the only way I can be successful is to be happy doing whatever I do, even if it is more difficult to find a secure job. And my parents understand. They always do in the end.

I wish I could blog in a more polished way but I am a bit too busy at the moment (groooann!) and, being a rather slow blogger, I do not have so much time for it now
:(. Watching Live Earth online at the moment but I think I will miss/ might have missed Keane. Groan!

Till next time,
Take care
xxxxxxxxx