The word 'pain' is very limited in the scope of its definition, describing an aspect of life that is avoided by most people. It is something we reluctantly endure when we must, and block out when we can with drugs. There is a lack of understanding because the majority of us dislike it, making it a core source of suffering. But pain is a sensation, like touch, taste, sight, smell and hearing. It is a message from ourselves to ourselves to communicate that something damaging is happening to us. It is a message, a loud and often aggressive one, that something is wrong. Therefore should we be blocking it out? If it is a message then maybe we should be listening and trying to understand the structure and meaning of the message, but we fight pain, are told to hide pain with drugs that we are sold in ever greater quantities and potencies. In doing this I believe we are stifling the communications systems of our bodies, and I believe, hampering our understanding of ourselves and slowing our recovery.
There is no limit to the different interpretations of pain, because everyone feels and interprets it differently, through different bodies and different minds, with different levels of tolerance and control over their reception, perception and reaction to this sense. Some people have undergone major surgery without anaesthetic. Many people induce pain upon themselves through various forms of self-mutilation as a form of ritual. Some people derive direct pleasure from pain. Some suffer pain but derive pleasure from their suffering. Some endure it to prove their worth to the tribe to which they belong. The categories are numerous, but the individual differences are endless. Pain is self-defined.
When we are children our automatic reaction to pain is to scream or cry. Perhaps this is an evolutionary defense mechanism to startle an attacker, or perhaps to alert a parent that their offspring is in danger. Maybe it is a vocal amplification of the sensory message we are experiencing. Whatever it is, we learn to tolerate it as we get older. A bang on the knee no longer yields sobbing floods of tears as we mature. A grazed elbow no longer puts us in as much distress as it used to. Once we grow up and realise that a grazed knee is not any kind of real danger to us, we brush it off and carry on with our day, laughing about it. What has changed here; the message, or our perception and reaction to the message? Think to yourself; does a childhood memory of the pain from a minor injury seem any different to the pain you feel from a similar injury today? I see no difference. It is only my experience that has changed.
So experience gives us memory and knowledge of pain, knowledge which allows us to react to it suitably. I have suffered from migraines for some time. Experience has taught me that I cannot continue what I am doing when I experience this pain. I must move away from bright light and loud noise and concentrate all of my attention upon my head until the migraine is relieved. The pain used to sometimes come on in waves, and the waves could result in my body tensing up, which I learned made the pain worse, so I learned to relax. By acknowledging the pain I found ways to receive it better. This did not make it any less unpleasant. More interesting perhaps, but I felt no desire to continue feeling such a sensation, so I resolved to find out what was the cause of my suffering. This led me to try stopping drinking tea, coffee and alcohol, of which I found coffee to be the cause. If I had simply blocked the pain out with drugs I would still be suffering, probably more so than I was, and causing myself further damage through continued consumption of painkillers and caffinated drinks. Anyways I think you get the point. This is an old post I am polishing off so I won't go on much further. I will end by recommending anyone in pain to acknowledge the message your body is sending you before drowning it out wih drugs. Your body is talking to you. LISTEN!
2011-12-07
2011-11-28
The Twenty Third Blog Of Trig - High Definition
One day long ago, I remember trying to remember something (!), and in the process of attempting to remember that thing, whatever it was, I noticed that my thought mechanism had changed. Thought had up until that point seemed something separate from language. Thought was a liquid, formless thing which I translated in approximation into the finite mechanical medium of language, but on this day I noticed that I was different, that my thought mechanism had been changing in a fundamental way since I began to learn the words for things. My thoughts had adopted language, slowly abandoning the clarity that existed before lingual definition, separating my psychological being into components which argued with each other in words rather than working together harmoniously. The fluidity of thought that I remembered seemed to have been highly objective, as I observed and interacted with the world with a limited knowledge of the definitions that link memories together. As I learned the words we have assigned to things, I linked together my memories involving each definition, creating a database associated with every single definition I held. As I grew more experienced and the memories associated with each definition expanded, the colonies of memories and experiences linked to each definition became the thing being defined, and my thought and experience grew increasingly more subjective, seeing the world as the memories I had for each definition. Subsequently my thought had become less and less objective as I got to 'know' the world, and my thinking became a construct of words more than free-flowing ideas.
The Indian philosopher/psychologist/preacher Jiddu Krishnamurti often asked how we can know that which is new, that which we do not already know, and his conclusion was that anything that was a product of thought could not be new, since it was a product of that which we already know. When we name things in language, we create a title within our minds, a definition, under which we place experiences and memories, which link to each other through associative connection and similarity of definition. When we are young and someone points out a dog, and tells us that is 'a dog', we will refer back to that the next time we see a dog, or something that resembles a dog, and call it such. We will place that new experience under the same category as the last that resembled it. A child sees the differences between one dog and another, but will classify them as the same thing through similarity and association and place them under the same title; every 'dog' is 'a dog', and is defined by the chain of memories placed under that title of definition. Does this influence perception? Undoubtedly. A person who is bitten on their first encounter with a dog will hold that memory under the dog definition for ever, seeing every dog as a potential bite.
Can we revert back to the clarity of thought we practiced before language categorized our minds, without losing that which we have learnt? It is a difficult idea to practice, since it involves 'thinking without thinking'. It is certainly something that must be studied through the kind of mental practice we have named 'meditation'. It cannot be attained through 'conventional thought', which is a complicated associative process working through an increasingly experienced lifetime of memories and definitions, involving more and more processing as our experience of this world builds. It must surely be achieved through a clear mind; clear of the languages we have learnt to define everything by, clear of the resulting thought processes we have accustomed ourselves to over the years. We must re-learn the underlying structure of our minds by unraveling the lingual definition structure we have built; easier said than done, and not particularly easy to say.
The irony of all this post is that I am using the definitions of language to describe the psychological limitations that the definitions of language impose upon us, and advocating their deconstruction in that very same medium. I am attempting to make a creation of language which advocates its' own destruction. Can it work? Who knows.
This is 'The Twenty Third Blog Of Trig', signing off.
The Indian philosopher/psychologist/preacher Jiddu Krishnamurti often asked how we can know that which is new, that which we do not already know, and his conclusion was that anything that was a product of thought could not be new, since it was a product of that which we already know. When we name things in language, we create a title within our minds, a definition, under which we place experiences and memories, which link to each other through associative connection and similarity of definition. When we are young and someone points out a dog, and tells us that is 'a dog', we will refer back to that the next time we see a dog, or something that resembles a dog, and call it such. We will place that new experience under the same category as the last that resembled it. A child sees the differences between one dog and another, but will classify them as the same thing through similarity and association and place them under the same title; every 'dog' is 'a dog', and is defined by the chain of memories placed under that title of definition. Does this influence perception? Undoubtedly. A person who is bitten on their first encounter with a dog will hold that memory under the dog definition for ever, seeing every dog as a potential bite.
Can we revert back to the clarity of thought we practiced before language categorized our minds, without losing that which we have learnt? It is a difficult idea to practice, since it involves 'thinking without thinking'. It is certainly something that must be studied through the kind of mental practice we have named 'meditation'. It cannot be attained through 'conventional thought', which is a complicated associative process working through an increasingly experienced lifetime of memories and definitions, involving more and more processing as our experience of this world builds. It must surely be achieved through a clear mind; clear of the languages we have learnt to define everything by, clear of the resulting thought processes we have accustomed ourselves to over the years. We must re-learn the underlying structure of our minds by unraveling the lingual definition structure we have built; easier said than done, and not particularly easy to say.
The irony of all this post is that I am using the definitions of language to describe the psychological limitations that the definitions of language impose upon us, and advocating their deconstruction in that very same medium. I am attempting to make a creation of language which advocates its' own destruction. Can it work? Who knows.
This is 'The Twenty Third Blog Of Trig', signing off.
2011-11-18
The Twenty Second Blog Of Trig - The Barcelona Diaries (Part 9 - CELTA Week Four)
CELTA week four, everyone looked tired, everyone felt tired, and there was a strange mood among us. We were now eager to finish the course, but at the same time sad that it was coming to an end. The final lessons began on Wednesday, running through to Friday, with two teachers from my teaching group giving an hour lesson each day. Our final assignments were handed in at the beginning of the week, with much relief.
We gave the last of our forty minute lessons on Monday and Tuesday, and our input sessions that week included a lesson on teaching business English, a lesson on teaching younger students; from a lady who seemed like she might burst out in tears from nervousness; advice on finding teaching work, how to structure your CV, how to behave in interviews, what to expect from different schools in different countries, and many other bits and pieces that I felt were very useful.
One of the students in the other teaching group, who we were close with, had not been doing well in the course, and had been told in no uncertain terms that it would pretty much be a miracle if he passed. Everyone in both groups went out of their way to try and help him out, spending time with him, going through his lesson plan and tutoring him themselves. It was wonderful to see, but I did not have too much hope from what he had said the tutor told him. Amazingly, brilliantly, he passed in the end, no doubt thanks to the caring, considerate attention given to him by the other students. It was a wonderful triumph, for him and all those who helped him, and everyone on the course, who all gave him support and encouragement and stopped him from giving up in light of the situation. I think I was more happy for him passing than I was for myself!
I gave my last forty minute lesson on the Tuesday, leaving me Wednesday and Thursday to prepare my final hour lesson. On that Tuesday, while dashing through the school preparing for my lesson, I buckled on my ankle going down a flight of stairs. My foot instantly went completely numb, the numbness subsiding after a while to leave a dull yet vibrant ache. Even now, four months later, I can still feel that injury.
On that Tuesday I gave a lesson on ‘schwa’, the phonetic letter that represents the sound, ‘uh’, as in ‘Uhmericuh’ (America), ‘Thuh’ (the), ‘Canuhduh’ (Canada), and so on. That day was also the day that we were visited by the Cambridge assessor, someone who comes in from Cambridge on one day of every single CELTA course that takes place around the world, and makes sure that the course is being conducted to standard. I was lucky enough (!) to be one of the two people chosen to have our CELTA files examined, and to have the CELTA assessor sit in on one of our lessons as a spectator. This did not really bother me; I had been teaching every other day for three weeks while under close surveillance by my tutor and my peers; but it just happened that this turned out to be one of my less successful lessons (so I thought). I decided to give them a crash course on understanding the London accent, and one of the parts to my lesson involved me reading sentences in my casual, natural speech, for them to dictate and then underline the ‘schwa’ and the stressed sounds. This turned out to be quite difficult for them, and one of the slightly older students, who was quite a funny, outspoken character, lambasted me mercilessly for my accent, saying that men from London spoke like dogs, with his tongue in his cheek of course. The main mistake I made was to apologise, which was pointed out by my peers later. I should not have apologised for the way I speak, especially considering they would certainly encounter much more difficult accents in London and elsewhere. I did eventually take this line in the class, and continued the lesson, but I felt bad about how the lesson had gone at the end. The other teachers were incredibly supportive though, telling me that I handled it brilliantly, and that it was great experience for the students to be exposed to natural speech, rather than what we refer to as ‘teacher talk’, and that they were at an appropriate stage in their studies of English to be able to deal with it. I thought I might get an ‘NS’; Not to Standard; for that lesson, but my tutor actually told me he thought it was my best so far. I didn’t agree, but you can have a very slanted view of yourself when you are teaching.
On the Wednesday the first two in my group gave their last lessons. They both did well. Derek, who had the most beautiful font-like handwriting and was very skilled in one of his many hobbies of calligraphy, wrote out beautiful lesson feedback notes for everyone and gave it to them at the end of their last lessons.
That night we went out for drinks at a lovely bar hidden away in the side-streets of Barcelona. It was my favourite place I had been to, with a lovely enclosed outdoor area hidden from the streets. I drank my favourite 'San Miguel Selecta', a slightly richer, slightly stronger version of the well-known beer. Katie, who was part of the morning CELTA course, but who we had become close friends with since meeting her at her flat where she was staying with Emily, told us about some of the guys on her course. Apparently a couple of the lads were complete assholes, being really nasty to the other students in feedback sessions, and making one young girl run out in tears after telling her that her lesson was awful. The other lads and I agreed that we were glad we weren't in that class, or we might have been thrown off the course for fighting.
One beer, two beer, three beer, four...we drank, chatted, laughed the evening away. At some point in the night one of the lads had his bag stolen from under his chair. Luckily there was not too much in it. I left as I realised I was getting a little bit drunk, said goodbye to everyone and headed into the streets towards Placa Catalunya where my Metro station was. On the way I stopped at a small 'casino', deciding to try my luck with the few Euros I had on me. I walked through, ignoring the old fruit machines that lined the entrance, and spotted a roulette wheel with electronic game seats around it. 'Yeah', I thought, 'bit of roulette!' I sat down and put three or four Euro coins in and looked at the buttons. They were all in Spanish and I couldn't understand a word. I spent a moment staring a little drunkenly at it when the manager came over and offered me a drink. I asked him how much and he said they were free, so I asked for a beer. He tried to demonstrate how to use the machine, which I didn't really understand, but I cracked on anyway. I managed to get a couple of bets down, and on the first spin one of my numbers came in! 'Yeah!' I shouted, as Euro coins started filling the coin basin. I took a couple out and put them back in, made my bets, and to my complete and utter horror my number spun in again! I had drank the can of beer pretty fast and so I asked the manager for another, which he brought to me a little begrudgingly. I must have won a couple more before I decided my luck couldn't go much further, so I took my basket of coins over to the counter to change it up. I shoved a bunch of notes into my wallet and took the last couple of Euro coins back to the roulette and put them in. And waddaya know, my number comes in. The manager does not look too happy at this point, so after another couple of wins I change up again and leave, heading towards Placa Catalunya again.
When I get to Placa Catalunya the Metro is closed. I am more than a little drunk, and insanely happy from my lucky winning streak on the roulette. I decide to sit down in the square, which is very busy, and watch the world go by. One of the street pedlars approaches and offers me 'cerveza', which I gladly take him up on, buying a couple. He also offers me something to smoke, and being a little drunk, I oblige him, or maybe I oblige myself, I'm not sure. He brings me something over and I roll one up. As I am rolling some German students sit down on the seat next to me. I say hello and we chat a while, and when I've rolled I have a smoke with them. After it is finished my head is spinning, so I say my goodbyes, leave them something to smoke and head off towards McDonalds to fill my beer filled stomach with something solid. McDonalds is very busy, a queue stretching right through the restaurant, so I am waiting a while, swaying a little, but it is worth it when I finally soak up some of the beer with a large meal, and I leave feeling a little better.
After staring at Spanish bus timetables blankly for a while, I decide to walk back home; a perfect zig-zagged journey through the criss-crossed streets of Barcelona, which had taken me about 40 minutes a week or so earlier. I should have taken a taxi, especially since I had just won a load of cash, but I was still pretty wasted, and after walking for a while I stop and look around me to realise that I have no idea where I am or where I have been going. ‘Shit’. I choose a direction and decide to stop at the first bus stop I find and jump on a bus. I find a bus stop and sit down, put my bag in front of me, and put my head back for a moment. When I raise my head again, I look down and my bag is gone, and the street around me is empty and silent. My bag is gone. Gone. The bag which had my laptop in. The bag which had my phone in. The bag which I had put my wallet in. The wallet in which I had put the last of my cash that I had withdrawn earlier, along with my winnings from the roulette. Imagine the moment.
I swear. I punch the air. 'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck's sake! Fuck!' Then the bombshell hits: my CELTA file was in my bag. The folder they had warned us to never take out of the school, the folder that contained all of my lesson plans, coursework, tutor feedback, all the evidence of my doing the course. The folder that I had carefully left in the school every single day for the last three weeks, I had forgotten to take out that day. And it was gone. The anger gives way to despair. 'Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my fucking god. I'm fucked. I can't pass the course.' I am distraught.
As I stand there, completely lost, no money, no phone, no coursework, no bank cards, a guy walks over and asks me what's up. He's a good looking guy, short, early twenties, a bit camp, with a Swedish accent. I tell him what happened and he doesn't show too much sympathy, telling me what an idiot I am for taking my eyes off my bag. I ask him which way it is to Les Corts, which is near where I am staying, and he says he is walking that way. We walk and chat on the way, but I am not really in the mood for chatting, feeling insanely depressed and coming down hard from all the beer. As we go our separate ways, he gets ten Euros out of his wallet and gives it to me. I thank him and ask for his email address so that I can pay him back. He gives it to me but says he doesn't want me to pay him back. Instead, he says I should do something decent for someone when I get the chance. I tell him that I would anyway, but that I would remember his kindness when it happened. I thank him again and say goodbye.
I get home and I feel like shit. I crawl into bed and sleep, badly, waking up with a stinking hangover, made worse as I realise the situation again. I speak to Alan and tell him what happened, and ask if he can come with me to the police station to make a police report, as he speaks Spanish fluently. He of course agrees and offers to lend me some money. We go to the police station and make the report, and then I call the school and tell them what has happened and that I will be late coming in that day. Then I call the insurance company to register a claim.
I get to school and go straight to speak to my tutors and tell them what has happened. They are very supportive, but I am very worried about my CELTA file being lost and what it might mean. My hopes are riding on the fact that the Cambridge assessor had visited on Tuesday, and that by some stroke of luck she had seen and evaluated my file before it was lost. I hesitantly told them that my CELTA file had been in my bag, and that it was all gone. Nigel's eyes widened, "the whole fucking file?!?!", more vocal than I had ever seen him. "The whole fucking file", I quietly replied. Andrea told me not to worry, and when I offered to reconstitute the file as best I could from the work that I had emailed to myself to print at the school, she told me that it was okay, that they would put a note in my file explaining what had happened.
I went upstairs to the bar terrace and sat down with the other teachers. They were all supportive and caring, asking me if I was okay and whether I needed to borrow money. I thanked them and told them I was okay, that I had registered an insurance claim and that my host Alan had lent me some money. Then we went to lessons, and I went straight home after to prepare for my final lesson the following day; the final day of the course.
And so here we are, CELTA final day, borrowed money, no notes, no laptop, no CELTA file, a little depressed, more than a little embarrassed and disappointed in myself for having been so careless, but I had a final lesson to teach. I was pretty comfortable about it considering my situation, knowing that having got this far through the course I would have to fuck up real bad in this last lesson to fail.
The last lesson was a very relaxed affair. I had fun, possibly the most fun I had had in any other. We laughed and joked, and I shrugged and smiled when I did something silly, like handing out my exercises in the wrong order and having to go round the class taking them back in again. The class got involved in the discussion at the end and I was happy with how everyone participated. At the end of the class there was a round of applause from English students and student English-teachers alike, as there had been at the end of everyone’s final lessons.
CELTA course – finished. Everyone smiles and congratulates each other. Everyone goes upstairs to the bar terrace and orders beer. There is a table of food laid out for us in an adjacent room. We ate and drank and talked and laughed, but the happiness I felt was still filled with apprehension. It was great to finish, and we were glad to have finished the intense work that had saturated the last four weeks, especially since we knew that everyone had passed, but it had been an amazing experience and we were sad that it was over. It was an emotional time.
A little later we went out to find a karaoke bar that Emily had recommended, stopping off at a lovely Spanish bar/restaurant for a couple of drinks and some food. We had a lovely time, but I was very short of money. When we got to the karaoke bar I was down to my last twenty Euros of expendable cash, and they wanted ten Euros entry. They gave us a ‘free’ drink with that entry, but we found out once we were in that each subsequent beer cost 7 Euros. Tight.
We sat and listened to locals singing their favourite Spanish songs, hearing the occasional English tune, and a couple of us managed to get up to do a number, which I remember being rather bad. I decided to put my name down, choosing ‘You Really Got Me’ by the Kinks. After waiting for more than two hours for my number to come up I found out that the bar separated the song requests into two piles, ‘Spanish’ and ‘not-Spanish’, those ‘not’ being relegated to the bottom of the pile. Eventually Derek went to the bar and spoke to the staff and I got called up shortly after, but being a bit drunk by this point I asked Derek to come up and sing with me for support. He did, and I don’t think we did too badly, although I was a bit annoyed at having waited so long, so I ‘sang’ a bit ferociously.
A little later we left and said our drunken goodbyes, and I headed through the streets with a couple of people towards home. CELTA finished.
This is ‘The Twenty Second Blog Of Trig’, signing off.
2011-11-16
The Twenty-First Blog Of Trig - The Barcelona Diaries (Part 8 - CELTA Week Three)
CELTA, week three. We had all been nervous about teaching the upper intermediate students, having heard stories from the other group about how they were difficult to manage, since as soon as you gave them a task they flew off into discussion, in English, immersing themselves in their own little world. The group was much older, with an average age probably lying in the mid-forties. I preferred this second group, as I could talk more naturally to them, although like the elementary students they had trouble understanding my London accent. In fact, both the elementary students and the upper intermediate students told me that my accent was the most difficult to understand, among a group of teachers from Wales, Ireland, Russia, Holland, America, and others. I told them all that if they had trouble with mine, they should try Scottish, or a proper London Cockney. Even I have trouble understanding some Scots.
Teaching the upper intermediate students was more difficult grammatically, as they were of course on a higher level of understanding than elementary. I got the distinct impression that some had a better grasp of many English grammatical concepts than I did, and I was asked the odd question that I could only answer with a shrug. You didn’t shrug of course, or tell the students that you didn’t know the answer. The best way to deal with grammatical questions you cannot answer is to say, “we’ll take a look at that next lesson”, and move on with the material you have prepared. You can then address the question in the next lesson if you feel inclined to, or simply hope that they forget it if you are lazy.
The lessons went well, but the atmosphere was increasingly tense among me and my peers. We were all tired from the first two weeks of studying and teaching. We were half-way through the course and we were now under our new tutor Nigel. Nigel was lovely, a quiet reserved man who chose his words carefully. We had heard that he could be a bit harsh in feedback, which I did not see at all. He was honest in his criticism, but his calm delivery made me feel at ease. His advice was always valid, and his shy, almost sheepish delivery made everyone feel comfortable.
We handed in our assignments and waited for feedback. That week I completed my first assignment without a resubmission, which I was very happy for. I helped one of the other student-teachers with her assignment briefly one evening, meeting her in the park and proof-reading it for her, but it started to get dark and I was tired, and I did not go through it properly. I could have made an awful lot of correction in all honesty, but it was due in the following morning and I did not want to cause her to stay up through the night re-writing it, by hand, on account of what I felt were trivial errors. Maybe I should have. She had to resubmit due to these grammatical errors, and was very upset. Not that it really mattered, she resubmitted and it was fine, but she was not happy with me after that, and our relationship was not the same.
We continued our lessons in the afternoons and taught in the evenings, still enjoying the course, but everyone was feeling the strain. Towards the end of the week I buckled on my ankle going down a flight of stairs in the school, while hurriedly preparing for a lesson. My foot went completely numb in an instant and I couldn’t walk on it. Four months later that ankle doesn’t feel like it will ever heal properly.
One day that week I left the school after giving a great lesson and ran into a massive procession of people protesting the ‘crisis’, the financial bail-out of the organisations who ‘lost’ all the money in the world. I marched through the city with the people, watching, writing, and smiling, taking pictures of the happy, peaceful protesters and the aggressive-looking armed riot police. I got some wonderful photographs, which I was very sad to lose when my camera was stolen in my bag the following week.
At the end of the week we began discussing our final lesson, an hour-long lesson which would take place in the final few days. Mine turned out to be the last lesson of the course, taking place 6.30-7.30 on the final Friday. I didn’t mind this, as it gave me plenty of time to prepare. My final lesson was to be based around a news article about a chimpanzee who has been taught to communicate in sign language and to use a special computer designed for her. I had picked this myself, loving chimpanzees and liking the idea of ending the lesson with a debate on the pros and cons of keeping animals in captivity. The article was very interesting as well, and I believed the students would enjoy reading and studying it.
There was a strange mix of emotions as we approached the end of that third week. We were all now eager to finish the course, drained of our energy through the intensity of the work, but we were also sad that it was coming to an end. We had formed close friendships with each other and developed what I hesitate to call a ‘group dynamic’, but that’s what it was. Working so closely together, helping each other, worrying about each other, watching everyone progress, we had become a team, and it was sad to envisage the break-up of that team when the course finished and everyone went their separate ways…CELTA – one week left.
This is ‘The Twenty Second Blog Of Trig’, signing off.
The Twentieth Blog Of Trig - The Barcelona Diaries (Part 7 - CELTA Week Two)
Week two of the CELTA course, we had our first assignment due in on the Tuesday. I thought I had done it okay, but was not too surprised when it was returned to me for a resubmission. If our assignment did not make the grade it was handed back to us and we had to resubmit it a few days later, after addressing the points our tutors had made. I was glad for this, as my knowledge of English grammar was not the best. In fact it was probably the worst among my peers, which I was not particularly proud of, especially since I was the only English lad. Of course, I KNEW English, having spoken, read and written it my entire life, and could tell you what is grammatically correct and what is not, but I did not know the grammar rules that had been constructed around it.
We were given our second assignment, which involved talking to our students and learning about their motives for learning English, the aspects of English they had difficulty with and why, their strengths, weaknesses, errors they made, and their attitude and behaviour in class. The student-teachers worked together to gather as much information as we could about our students and shared this information with each other for use in writing our assignments, which required us to analyse and assess this information in order to say how we would help students overcome the difficulties they have and eliminate the common errors.
The pressure was on that week, as we were expected to show improvement against our first week's teaching, which we all did of course. It was almost impossible not to, certainly for those of us who were teaching for the first time, which was the category I fell into. It was interesting and fulfilling to see the improvement in the students, which you could see even after one week of lessons. Some had not studied English since they were at school, so much of their improvement was probably a result of refreshed memories, but it was fulfilling nonetheless. Looking back I have never seen a person's personality revealed so cleanly as I did when I observed my students as I taught them. You have a front row seat to human psychological development. You feel their happiness as they speak their new language correctly, no matter how little they show it. You watch them slip up, correct themselves, and you feel their happiness as they improve day-by-day.
As the week drew to an end there was a little bit of apprehension, as we were unsure how much harder it would be teaching the upper intermediate students, and for the last two weeks we were to be working under a new teaching-tutor; Nigel. Nigel was a lovely guy, quite meek in his personality, but confident in his profession and a good teacher. Some of the people in the other group had told us that he was quite strict and unyielding in his tutoring and feedback, but I was not too worried. I could tell that he was a nice guy and I would have been surprised if he had been anything other than encouraging and supportive, which he was completely.
After our last lesson with the elementary students we had a bit of an emotional goodbye to them all. A few hugs were exchanged as they thanked us for teaching them and told us how well we had all done. A couple of people gave us all their contact details and promised to stay in touch. It was a wonderful experience, a strange experience, being students ourselves, being congratulated by our own students for how well we had done. It was a very unique experience, and looking back I feel a warm feeling inside as I reminisce. I made many wonderful friends that first two weeks.
This is 'The Twentieth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
We were given our second assignment, which involved talking to our students and learning about their motives for learning English, the aspects of English they had difficulty with and why, their strengths, weaknesses, errors they made, and their attitude and behaviour in class. The student-teachers worked together to gather as much information as we could about our students and shared this information with each other for use in writing our assignments, which required us to analyse and assess this information in order to say how we would help students overcome the difficulties they have and eliminate the common errors.
The pressure was on that week, as we were expected to show improvement against our first week's teaching, which we all did of course. It was almost impossible not to, certainly for those of us who were teaching for the first time, which was the category I fell into. It was interesting and fulfilling to see the improvement in the students, which you could see even after one week of lessons. Some had not studied English since they were at school, so much of their improvement was probably a result of refreshed memories, but it was fulfilling nonetheless. Looking back I have never seen a person's personality revealed so cleanly as I did when I observed my students as I taught them. You have a front row seat to human psychological development. You feel their happiness as they speak their new language correctly, no matter how little they show it. You watch them slip up, correct themselves, and you feel their happiness as they improve day-by-day.
As the week drew to an end there was a little bit of apprehension, as we were unsure how much harder it would be teaching the upper intermediate students, and for the last two weeks we were to be working under a new teaching-tutor; Nigel. Nigel was a lovely guy, quite meek in his personality, but confident in his profession and a good teacher. Some of the people in the other group had told us that he was quite strict and unyielding in his tutoring and feedback, but I was not too worried. I could tell that he was a nice guy and I would have been surprised if he had been anything other than encouraging and supportive, which he was completely.
After our last lesson with the elementary students we had a bit of an emotional goodbye to them all. A few hugs were exchanged as they thanked us for teaching them and told us how well we had all done. A couple of people gave us all their contact details and promised to stay in touch. It was a wonderful experience, a strange experience, being students ourselves, being congratulated by our own students for how well we had done. It was a very unique experience, and looking back I feel a warm feeling inside as I reminisce. I made many wonderful friends that first two weeks.
This is 'The Twentieth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
2011-11-11
The Nineteenth Blog Of Trig - The Barcelona Diaries (Part 6 - CELTA Week One)
The first two weeks of the CELTA course we were teaching elementary students. Most spoke Spanish as their first language. Some were Spanish, some proudly declared that they were not Spanish but Catalan. The others were mostly from South America; Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador; there was a French guy, and one Algerian, some looking as nervous as we were, others sitting down to the lesson and chilling like they were at home, with an air of confident nonchalance about them.
The first week went well (other than beginning my first lesson with my flies undone, brought to my attention by one of my pupils), and I taught my lessons with confidence arising partly from the initial lack of pressure. I watched my peers teach every day with fascination. Certain aspects of personality really show when teaching, such as patience (or impatience), confidence or lack of, sense of humour. Your grasp of the subject you are teaching also felt like it was under close scrutiny, that subject happening to be the language I have spoken my entire life; no pressure. Those who had taught young children were very animated in their teaching, which was brilliant for the elementary students. You have to use a lot of gestures with elementary students, and I remember our tutor Andrea conducting a few classes (with both the English students and the student English-teachers), hardly speaking at all, prompting us to verbally engage in the lesson with amazing grace. She was not jumping about playing charades either. It was the subtlety that made her such a good teacher. She would sit on a chair with us sitting in a wide semicircle around her, say half a sentence, make a slight gesture; a pinch of her ear or a point of her finger; and like some kind of Jedi mind trick we would be saying what she wanted us to say, filling in the details of a story she told without words.
'Try not to talk too much'. 'Grade your language'. 'Ask concept-checking questions'. 'Slowly and clearly'. The teaching points after lessons helped us to improve our teaching skills and identify our weak points. Our students left at around half past seven and then the student-teachers and our tutor sat and gave each other constructive criticism, which always began with a mutual congratulations on a good lesson. In turns we told the class how we thought we'd done and what we could have done better, and then the rest of the class were asked to give input. I was in a wonderful group who were not afraid to give constructive criticism, but who were wholly supportive, considerate, and not judgemental in any way.
The group of twelve was split into two teaching groups of six. We taught the elementary class for the first two weeks. The other group taught the upper intermediary. In my group of six was Garreth from Wales, Janneke from Holland, Emily from Ireland, Elmira from Russia, Derrick from the US, and of course me, from England.
Garreth, from Cardiff, looked like an English knight of old, as described in an earlier diary. When he taught, his voice took on that of a valiant knight from a fairy tale, even more so than usual. He laughed frequently, in friendly bellows like a big friendly giant, making jokes and having fun with the class, who beamed back at him with smiles that cannot be faked. We very quickly formed the kind of friendship that transcends distance and time, the kind of bond that I felt I had formed with all my fellow student-teachers by the end of the course.
Janneke was from Amsterdam, tall, blonde, with a stern but pretty face. She was a very good teacher, but she was occasionally a little bossy with the students to begin with, which we gently told her in one of the feedback sessions, and joked about later with the intermediate students. She spoke better English than I did, and embarrassed me; the only Englishman; with her amazing grasp of English grammar.
Emily was from Dublin, only 23 years old, the youngest among us, and had taught children for many years already. She was fun, very pretty, always up for a drink, and generally a laugh to be around. She had a job lined up back home as headteacher of a new school. I think she took the course just for the experience as much as anything else. She was very patient and encouraging in her teaching, her experience shining through with every lesson she taught.
Elmira was from Moscow, strikingly pretty, with dark hair and long legs. The first thing I noticed about her was her sense of empathy and compassion. When she sensed that someone was unhappy, she unwittingly took that negative emotion upon herself, turned it around, and comforted that person with the compassion of a mother with her child. When she was excited, her exuberance induced excitement in others. She worried a lot, on behalf of others at least as much as she did for herself. Like Janneke, she embarrassed me with her grasp of English grammar, and we spent some time working together, her sharing the grammar skills that she had worked hard to learn, me sharing the practical English 'skills' that come with simply 'being English'.
Derrick was from Ohio. African American, built like a gymnast, insanely talented and intelligent, with pearly white teeth that lit up his face when he spoke, and he was an absolute pleasure to be around. From our first meeting we began talking about science and mathematics, ascending into the philosophical and metaphysical, and I very quickly felt a close bond with him. He was enthusiastically encouraging to everyone in the feedback sessions, but was still possibly the most confident, perceptive peer when it came to providing constructive criticism. Everything he said was built on respect and consideration.
We began classes at 12pm each day, giving nice time for a lie-in, but we were in the school until eight, so I would often not get home until nine, have dinner, and be starting my lesson plans and assignments by ten. I was very frequently up until the early hours working, 6am was the record. Some students managed to go out drinking and partying quite a bit and still get all their work done. I don't know how they did it, and they did better than me in the end. I was working almost every waking moment and it was not easy, but I enjoyed every minute.
I had trouble with my back the first week or so, a combination of my injury in France a few weeks before and the amount of walking I did on the first couple of days in Barcelona. Every time I winced with pain in class I felt Elmira wince for me, worrying about me in her motherly way. She tried to convince me to go to the hospital and check it out once she found out that I had not been x-rayed back in England, but I knew that if I did find out that something was wrong, there was nothing that I could do about it out there and would have to wait until I got back to England anyway, so there was no point in risking a load of worry that I didn't need if it did turn out something was wrong. Every morning I got up and went to the roof terrace in the house I was staying and stretched for ten to fifteen minutes in the sunshine. This seemed to help, and was a lovely way to start the day.
From twelve until three each day we had input sessions, where the full group of twelve student-teachers would receive tutoring on teaching methods and skills. Then we would have lunch for an hour, before an hour of feedback sessions in our teaching groups of six until five o'clock. In the feedback sessions the three of us teaching would run through our lesson plans one last time with our tutor, and the other three would run through their lesson plans for the following day.
At five o'clock our students arrived for their English lesson, and three of us taught our forty minute lessons one after the other. The other three watched and made notes for feedback later. After the second forty minute block there was a break, and we all, English students and student English-teachers, went to the terrace and chatted, drank coffee and smoked before the last forty minute leg began. I quickly made friends with many of our students, and later ended up spending some time dating a lovely Ecuadorian woman I had taught for a while.
At the end of our first week we got together on the terrace for a few beers and everyone seemed happy. The pressure was not yet on and we knew next week would be different. Next week we would be expected to have taken on all of the feedback we had been given and applied it. As such we should not be making any of the mistakes we had made in the first week. Plus we had our first assignments due in...game on.
This is 'The Nineteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
The first week went well (other than beginning my first lesson with my flies undone, brought to my attention by one of my pupils), and I taught my lessons with confidence arising partly from the initial lack of pressure. I watched my peers teach every day with fascination. Certain aspects of personality really show when teaching, such as patience (or impatience), confidence or lack of, sense of humour. Your grasp of the subject you are teaching also felt like it was under close scrutiny, that subject happening to be the language I have spoken my entire life; no pressure. Those who had taught young children were very animated in their teaching, which was brilliant for the elementary students. You have to use a lot of gestures with elementary students, and I remember our tutor Andrea conducting a few classes (with both the English students and the student English-teachers), hardly speaking at all, prompting us to verbally engage in the lesson with amazing grace. She was not jumping about playing charades either. It was the subtlety that made her such a good teacher. She would sit on a chair with us sitting in a wide semicircle around her, say half a sentence, make a slight gesture; a pinch of her ear or a point of her finger; and like some kind of Jedi mind trick we would be saying what she wanted us to say, filling in the details of a story she told without words.
'Try not to talk too much'. 'Grade your language'. 'Ask concept-checking questions'. 'Slowly and clearly'. The teaching points after lessons helped us to improve our teaching skills and identify our weak points. Our students left at around half past seven and then the student-teachers and our tutor sat and gave each other constructive criticism, which always began with a mutual congratulations on a good lesson. In turns we told the class how we thought we'd done and what we could have done better, and then the rest of the class were asked to give input. I was in a wonderful group who were not afraid to give constructive criticism, but who were wholly supportive, considerate, and not judgemental in any way.
The group of twelve was split into two teaching groups of six. We taught the elementary class for the first two weeks. The other group taught the upper intermediary. In my group of six was Garreth from Wales, Janneke from Holland, Emily from Ireland, Elmira from Russia, Derrick from the US, and of course me, from England.
Garreth, from Cardiff, looked like an English knight of old, as described in an earlier diary. When he taught, his voice took on that of a valiant knight from a fairy tale, even more so than usual. He laughed frequently, in friendly bellows like a big friendly giant, making jokes and having fun with the class, who beamed back at him with smiles that cannot be faked. We very quickly formed the kind of friendship that transcends distance and time, the kind of bond that I felt I had formed with all my fellow student-teachers by the end of the course.
Janneke was from Amsterdam, tall, blonde, with a stern but pretty face. She was a very good teacher, but she was occasionally a little bossy with the students to begin with, which we gently told her in one of the feedback sessions, and joked about later with the intermediate students. She spoke better English than I did, and embarrassed me; the only Englishman; with her amazing grasp of English grammar.
Emily was from Dublin, only 23 years old, the youngest among us, and had taught children for many years already. She was fun, very pretty, always up for a drink, and generally a laugh to be around. She had a job lined up back home as headteacher of a new school. I think she took the course just for the experience as much as anything else. She was very patient and encouraging in her teaching, her experience shining through with every lesson she taught.
Elmira was from Moscow, strikingly pretty, with dark hair and long legs. The first thing I noticed about her was her sense of empathy and compassion. When she sensed that someone was unhappy, she unwittingly took that negative emotion upon herself, turned it around, and comforted that person with the compassion of a mother with her child. When she was excited, her exuberance induced excitement in others. She worried a lot, on behalf of others at least as much as she did for herself. Like Janneke, she embarrassed me with her grasp of English grammar, and we spent some time working together, her sharing the grammar skills that she had worked hard to learn, me sharing the practical English 'skills' that come with simply 'being English'.
Derrick was from Ohio. African American, built like a gymnast, insanely talented and intelligent, with pearly white teeth that lit up his face when he spoke, and he was an absolute pleasure to be around. From our first meeting we began talking about science and mathematics, ascending into the philosophical and metaphysical, and I very quickly felt a close bond with him. He was enthusiastically encouraging to everyone in the feedback sessions, but was still possibly the most confident, perceptive peer when it came to providing constructive criticism. Everything he said was built on respect and consideration.
We began classes at 12pm each day, giving nice time for a lie-in, but we were in the school until eight, so I would often not get home until nine, have dinner, and be starting my lesson plans and assignments by ten. I was very frequently up until the early hours working, 6am was the record. Some students managed to go out drinking and partying quite a bit and still get all their work done. I don't know how they did it, and they did better than me in the end. I was working almost every waking moment and it was not easy, but I enjoyed every minute.
I had trouble with my back the first week or so, a combination of my injury in France a few weeks before and the amount of walking I did on the first couple of days in Barcelona. Every time I winced with pain in class I felt Elmira wince for me, worrying about me in her motherly way. She tried to convince me to go to the hospital and check it out once she found out that I had not been x-rayed back in England, but I knew that if I did find out that something was wrong, there was nothing that I could do about it out there and would have to wait until I got back to England anyway, so there was no point in risking a load of worry that I didn't need if it did turn out something was wrong. Every morning I got up and went to the roof terrace in the house I was staying and stretched for ten to fifteen minutes in the sunshine. This seemed to help, and was a lovely way to start the day.
From twelve until three each day we had input sessions, where the full group of twelve student-teachers would receive tutoring on teaching methods and skills. Then we would have lunch for an hour, before an hour of feedback sessions in our teaching groups of six until five o'clock. In the feedback sessions the three of us teaching would run through our lesson plans one last time with our tutor, and the other three would run through their lesson plans for the following day.
At five o'clock our students arrived for their English lesson, and three of us taught our forty minute lessons one after the other. The other three watched and made notes for feedback later. After the second forty minute block there was a break, and we all, English students and student English-teachers, went to the terrace and chatted, drank coffee and smoked before the last forty minute leg began. I quickly made friends with many of our students, and later ended up spending some time dating a lovely Ecuadorian woman I had taught for a while.
At the end of our first week we got together on the terrace for a few beers and everyone seemed happy. The pressure was not yet on and we knew next week would be different. Next week we would be expected to have taken on all of the feedback we had been given and applied it. As such we should not be making any of the mistakes we had made in the first week. Plus we had our first assignments due in...game on.
This is 'The Nineteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
The Seventeenth Blog Of Trig - The Barcelona Diaries (Part 5 - 04/07/2011)
I started writing this on 2nd August, wrote some more on 8th August, and the date now is 11th of the 11th 2011...I really should get this finished. In the previous 'Barcelona diary' I covered Sunday 3rd July. I guess that puts me at Monday 4th July, my first day on the CELTA course.
I left myself plenty of time to get to the school, but after losing myself in what I expected to be a shortcut, I arrived just on time, hot and sweaty and a little annoyed with myself. In the reception I was greeted by Gloria, the lady in charge of administration. She had a lovely smile which even the most sombre of people could not help but reciprocate. She was warm and welcoming, and gave me a sticker to write my name on and put on my chest. She then advised me to go upstairs to the terrace bar where I would meet the other trainee teachers.
I arrived upstairs to find the bar very busy and the terrace even busier. I looked around and saw a few tables of students with similar stickers to mine, and picked one at random. There sat a pretty blonde girl and a guy with a heroic knight's face and suitably long blonde hair parted at the middle. They both greeted me, the guy introducing himself as Garreth. His voice was that of a valiant knight of old, adding to the image of bloody battles in my mind, built like a rugby player, and turned out to be, in fact, a rugby player. The girl introduced herself as Janneke (with the 'j' pronounced as a 'y'), and immediately asked me if I too had a Catalan girlfriend. I told her that I didn't, but that I assumed Garreth did. I was right.
We made small talk for a short while, during which I learnt that neither of them had done all of the recommended reading or finished the pre-course task, which I had also not managed to finish. I was relieved that we were all floating in the same life-boat. Then we were called to our classroom for our first input session.
The classroom was fairly small for the twelve students that had to squeeze in, with chairs spread out in a semi-circle around the whiteboard. We had two course tutors, the first being a lovely lady called Andrea. She looked about mid-to-late thirties, with pretty Mediterranean looks which I assumed to be of Greek origin. I was thrown off by her slight Irish accent, and it turned out she was brought up in Ireland, but was in fact born to Greek parents. She was warm and encouraging to us all, and first had us all play various 'get-to-know-you' games. I got to know my fellow students briefly in the first class, but I knew the real 'getting-to-know-you' would take place in a bar somewhere, which made me slightly uncomfortable since money was very tight for me.
In our first lesson Andrea stressed to us that we had to help each other out through the course, that is was going to be a lot of hard work and that our peers would be our best friends by the end. She was right, but I wasn't too sure about one or two people to start with. Those I was unsure of changed immeasurably through the course, and I count them all as good friends. First impressions can always be misleading.
As well as the games we played, we were taken through the structure of the course, told about our assignments, teaching schedules, and were hit with the bombshell that we would all teach a 20 minute lesson on our first day! We were to give a lesson incorporating the games we ourselves had played that day. I felt a little nervous, but afterwards my peers told me that I seemed very confident when my turn came. I think we all did, successfully concealing our nerves on that first day. Of course nothing extraordinary was expected of us, it being our first day and all.
The structure of the course over the next four weeks included teaching a lesson every other day. Three teachers would teach forty minutes one day, giving the English students a total two-hour lesson a day. Our last lesson on the course would be one hour. We received all kinds of handouts, a CELTA folder to keep our course material in, and also, the most important file for our CELTA course, the CELTA course file. This was to hold all of our lesson plans (submitted the morning before every lesson for assessment), assignments, tutor feedback, records of our attendance, every piece of evidence to show that we have taken the course. They emphasised to us that we should never, under any circumstances take the file home with us. If it were to be lost we might have to do the course over again. If you know me you will know the special relevance this applies to me, being the absolute calamity that I am. As they say, 'there's always one', and it's always me.
My 20 minute lesson incorporated a game where everyone wrote two things about themselves on two strips of paper (in English), put them in a pile and then picked two out at random. They then had to find the person who it belonged to. I remember the students standing around me in a semi-circle as I gave them instructions, feeling my heart beating in my chest, and cool bead-lets of sweat penetrating through my forehead. I stayed very calm, reminded myself that nothing could really go wrong, explained in the most basic of English what they had to do, and told them to 'mingle'. Of course, none of them knew what the hell the word 'mingle' meant, and there was a moment of nerves as they all stared silently around the room. Then one asked the room in broken English, "who has a sister called 'Maria'?" Someone claimed it. One down. Then silence. I broke the silence and said two words; 'walk', 'talk'; and after a moment of hesitation they broke their circle and began 'mingling'. I looked up and caught the eyes of my fellow student-teachers at the back of the room, who smiled and winked at me. Relief. I smiled.
I connected with a couple of people the first day, getting on particularly well with Garreth the Welsh rugby player. He was a very friendly, laid back and funny guy. It's always hard though, feeling nervous and with so many names to remember, but it was a good day. I was pretty tired and I went back home soon after my lessons finished, chatted to my host Alan briefly, waffled online a bit and then hit the sack, sleeping a little badly due to the heat.
CELTA day one, done.
This is 'The Seventeenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
I left myself plenty of time to get to the school, but after losing myself in what I expected to be a shortcut, I arrived just on time, hot and sweaty and a little annoyed with myself. In the reception I was greeted by Gloria, the lady in charge of administration. She had a lovely smile which even the most sombre of people could not help but reciprocate. She was warm and welcoming, and gave me a sticker to write my name on and put on my chest. She then advised me to go upstairs to the terrace bar where I would meet the other trainee teachers.
I arrived upstairs to find the bar very busy and the terrace even busier. I looked around and saw a few tables of students with similar stickers to mine, and picked one at random. There sat a pretty blonde girl and a guy with a heroic knight's face and suitably long blonde hair parted at the middle. They both greeted me, the guy introducing himself as Garreth. His voice was that of a valiant knight of old, adding to the image of bloody battles in my mind, built like a rugby player, and turned out to be, in fact, a rugby player. The girl introduced herself as Janneke (with the 'j' pronounced as a 'y'), and immediately asked me if I too had a Catalan girlfriend. I told her that I didn't, but that I assumed Garreth did. I was right.
We made small talk for a short while, during which I learnt that neither of them had done all of the recommended reading or finished the pre-course task, which I had also not managed to finish. I was relieved that we were all floating in the same life-boat. Then we were called to our classroom for our first input session.
The classroom was fairly small for the twelve students that had to squeeze in, with chairs spread out in a semi-circle around the whiteboard. We had two course tutors, the first being a lovely lady called Andrea. She looked about mid-to-late thirties, with pretty Mediterranean looks which I assumed to be of Greek origin. I was thrown off by her slight Irish accent, and it turned out she was brought up in Ireland, but was in fact born to Greek parents. She was warm and encouraging to us all, and first had us all play various 'get-to-know-you' games. I got to know my fellow students briefly in the first class, but I knew the real 'getting-to-know-you' would take place in a bar somewhere, which made me slightly uncomfortable since money was very tight for me.
In our first lesson Andrea stressed to us that we had to help each other out through the course, that is was going to be a lot of hard work and that our peers would be our best friends by the end. She was right, but I wasn't too sure about one or two people to start with. Those I was unsure of changed immeasurably through the course, and I count them all as good friends. First impressions can always be misleading.
As well as the games we played, we were taken through the structure of the course, told about our assignments, teaching schedules, and were hit with the bombshell that we would all teach a 20 minute lesson on our first day! We were to give a lesson incorporating the games we ourselves had played that day. I felt a little nervous, but afterwards my peers told me that I seemed very confident when my turn came. I think we all did, successfully concealing our nerves on that first day. Of course nothing extraordinary was expected of us, it being our first day and all.
The structure of the course over the next four weeks included teaching a lesson every other day. Three teachers would teach forty minutes one day, giving the English students a total two-hour lesson a day. Our last lesson on the course would be one hour. We received all kinds of handouts, a CELTA folder to keep our course material in, and also, the most important file for our CELTA course, the CELTA course file. This was to hold all of our lesson plans (submitted the morning before every lesson for assessment), assignments, tutor feedback, records of our attendance, every piece of evidence to show that we have taken the course. They emphasised to us that we should never, under any circumstances take the file home with us. If it were to be lost we might have to do the course over again. If you know me you will know the special relevance this applies to me, being the absolute calamity that I am. As they say, 'there's always one', and it's always me.
My 20 minute lesson incorporated a game where everyone wrote two things about themselves on two strips of paper (in English), put them in a pile and then picked two out at random. They then had to find the person who it belonged to. I remember the students standing around me in a semi-circle as I gave them instructions, feeling my heart beating in my chest, and cool bead-lets of sweat penetrating through my forehead. I stayed very calm, reminded myself that nothing could really go wrong, explained in the most basic of English what they had to do, and told them to 'mingle'. Of course, none of them knew what the hell the word 'mingle' meant, and there was a moment of nerves as they all stared silently around the room. Then one asked the room in broken English, "who has a sister called 'Maria'?" Someone claimed it. One down. Then silence. I broke the silence and said two words; 'walk', 'talk'; and after a moment of hesitation they broke their circle and began 'mingling'. I looked up and caught the eyes of my fellow student-teachers at the back of the room, who smiled and winked at me. Relief. I smiled.
I connected with a couple of people the first day, getting on particularly well with Garreth the Welsh rugby player. He was a very friendly, laid back and funny guy. It's always hard though, feeling nervous and with so many names to remember, but it was a good day. I was pretty tired and I went back home soon after my lessons finished, chatted to my host Alan briefly, waffled online a bit and then hit the sack, sleeping a little badly due to the heat.
CELTA day one, done.
This is 'The Seventeenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
2011-10-20
The Eighteenth Blog Of Trig - Reflections on Gaddafi
Today, the television that mounts the ceiling at work playing Sky News all day long stirred me more than usual and made me want to write something. Across the bottom of the screen, the permanent Sky headline, 'BREAKING NEWS', ever present, reporting stories which they showed yesterday, and the day before that, and last week, and last month. 'Michael Jackson's murder trial - BREAKING NEWS!' 'Dale Farm Eviction - BREAKING NEWS!' 'Siege of Sirte - BREAKING NEWS!' Anything that the controllers at Sky decide to repeat all day every day: 'BREAKING NEWS!' For once, maybe they actually had some.
Reports started coming through that Colonel Gaddafi had been captured and injured outside his home town of Sirte, by the men that the elusive entity known as 'NATO' has been arming, training and supporting, dubbed in the usual acronym fashion, the NTC, or 'National Transitional Council', but the men on the television don't look like any kind of council representatives to me. Sky showed extended live footage of soldiers gathered round the camera, pushing for the front spot, occasionally firing their (presumably US/UK taxpayer funded) weapons off into the air, showing peace signs, chanting and singing. In the background was the bruised and battered city of Sirte, with not a single Libyan woman or child in sight.
"VICTORY! VICTORY!" they shout, "VICTORY!" The non-NTC people of Libya are nowhere to be seen. They are irrelevant to Sky News.
"VICTORY!" Sky gratuitously shows the NTC firing anti-aircraft weapons and rockets (presumably US/UK taxpayer funded) off towards unseen targets. The non-NTC people of Libya are nowhere to be seen.
"VICTORY!" Sky shows the victorious NTC soldiers, mostly without uniform, firing their (presumably US/UK taxpayer funded) weapons into the air while they maintain their dance for the cameras.
"VICTORY!" The non-NTC people of Libya are nowhere to be seen. The victims of this war are nowhere to be seen. The hospitals are nowhere to be seen. The corpses are nowhere to be seen. The African prisoners, tortured by NATO propaganda, are nowhere to be seen.
"VICTORY!"
The news is updated to say that Gaddafi is actually dead. The celebrations increase, but they feel animated, not quite right. Sky shows a shaky video of a bloodied face, reminiscent of Gaddafi's, being pulled about in front of the camera, for all the world to see. A dead man, a bloodied corpse, loved by many, hated by many, a man with family, being thrown about on live television, in front of the entire world. I am reminded of 'Karma Police'..."this is what you'll get, when you mess with us."
The NTC soldiers fight for their place in the camera's eye, but the people of Libya are nowhere to be seen. Their homes are behind the soldiers, smashed, bullet-ridden, looted. The houses still stand, but their occupants are gone;the familes are gone. Where? Sky does not care. Its cameras do not deviate from the soldiers, who dance in the eye of Sky like marionettes. Marionettes with guns and live ammunition. Marionettes with rockets and missiles. "VICTORY!"
I did not feel the animated victory portrayed by Sky. I felt sad.
My early impressions of Gaddafi were formed by my memories of stories of the 'Lockerbie bombing' and the occasional related news story. An old girlfriend met him once many years ago after winning a beauty competition, and I remember thinking, 'why would you want to meet that guy?' When the western media began their tirade of propaganda against him I got caught up in it initially, but then I started to see leaks in the news stories, such as the Russians denying that he had bombed his people like BBC-Sky told us. They said they had seen no evidence on satellite footage, which they had been monitoring.
I decided to a bit of research on Libya and Gaddafi, and quickly found out about the hugely successful housing and educational programs that the BBC-Sky don't tell us. I found out about his desert irrigation and farming projects. I found out that Libya HAD-had the highest living standards in Africa thanks to him - no longer perhaps. I found out that Gaddafi had supported revolutionaries in their battle against oppressive US-led regimes across Africa. I also found out that he had been trying to convince the African and Arab nations to refuse US dollars for their oil and only accept gold. Wow...dangerous position to take.
VICTORY! GADDAFI IS DEAD! VICTORY! HIS BLOODIED FACE PLASTERED ACROSS THE NEWS; BREAKING NEWS! VICTORY! BLOOD AND DEATH FOR ALL TO SEE! VICTORY!
...where are the people of Libya? Where are the families? Where are the children? Where are the Gaddafi supporters? Are they all bad? Will we see all their bloodied faces on Sky News? Will we see them being beaten and tortured by the new, heavily armed owners of their country? Will the country with the highest living standards in Africa ever see free education and healthcare again? Or will the women be raped at gunpoint by the armed mercenaries our government armed and financed in this war, while we plunder the natural resources and keep the bullet-supply coming.
VICTORY! BLOOD AND DEATH AND VICTORY!
This is 'The Eighteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
Reports started coming through that Colonel Gaddafi had been captured and injured outside his home town of Sirte, by the men that the elusive entity known as 'NATO' has been arming, training and supporting, dubbed in the usual acronym fashion, the NTC, or 'National Transitional Council', but the men on the television don't look like any kind of council representatives to me. Sky showed extended live footage of soldiers gathered round the camera, pushing for the front spot, occasionally firing their (presumably US/UK taxpayer funded) weapons off into the air, showing peace signs, chanting and singing. In the background was the bruised and battered city of Sirte, with not a single Libyan woman or child in sight.
"VICTORY! VICTORY!" they shout, "VICTORY!" The non-NTC people of Libya are nowhere to be seen. They are irrelevant to Sky News.
"VICTORY!" Sky gratuitously shows the NTC firing anti-aircraft weapons and rockets (presumably US/UK taxpayer funded) off towards unseen targets. The non-NTC people of Libya are nowhere to be seen.
"VICTORY!" Sky shows the victorious NTC soldiers, mostly without uniform, firing their (presumably US/UK taxpayer funded) weapons into the air while they maintain their dance for the cameras.
"VICTORY!" The non-NTC people of Libya are nowhere to be seen. The victims of this war are nowhere to be seen. The hospitals are nowhere to be seen. The corpses are nowhere to be seen. The African prisoners, tortured by NATO propaganda, are nowhere to be seen.
"VICTORY!"
The news is updated to say that Gaddafi is actually dead. The celebrations increase, but they feel animated, not quite right. Sky shows a shaky video of a bloodied face, reminiscent of Gaddafi's, being pulled about in front of the camera, for all the world to see. A dead man, a bloodied corpse, loved by many, hated by many, a man with family, being thrown about on live television, in front of the entire world. I am reminded of 'Karma Police'..."this is what you'll get, when you mess with us."
The NTC soldiers fight for their place in the camera's eye, but the people of Libya are nowhere to be seen. Their homes are behind the soldiers, smashed, bullet-ridden, looted. The houses still stand, but their occupants are gone;the familes are gone. Where? Sky does not care. Its cameras do not deviate from the soldiers, who dance in the eye of Sky like marionettes. Marionettes with guns and live ammunition. Marionettes with rockets and missiles. "VICTORY!"
I did not feel the animated victory portrayed by Sky. I felt sad.
My early impressions of Gaddafi were formed by my memories of stories of the 'Lockerbie bombing' and the occasional related news story. An old girlfriend met him once many years ago after winning a beauty competition, and I remember thinking, 'why would you want to meet that guy?' When the western media began their tirade of propaganda against him I got caught up in it initially, but then I started to see leaks in the news stories, such as the Russians denying that he had bombed his people like BBC-Sky told us. They said they had seen no evidence on satellite footage, which they had been monitoring.
I decided to a bit of research on Libya and Gaddafi, and quickly found out about the hugely successful housing and educational programs that the BBC-Sky don't tell us. I found out about his desert irrigation and farming projects. I found out that Libya HAD-had the highest living standards in Africa thanks to him - no longer perhaps. I found out that Gaddafi had supported revolutionaries in their battle against oppressive US-led regimes across Africa. I also found out that he had been trying to convince the African and Arab nations to refuse US dollars for their oil and only accept gold. Wow...dangerous position to take.
VICTORY! GADDAFI IS DEAD! VICTORY! HIS BLOODIED FACE PLASTERED ACROSS THE NEWS; BREAKING NEWS! VICTORY! BLOOD AND DEATH FOR ALL TO SEE! VICTORY!
...where are the people of Libya? Where are the families? Where are the children? Where are the Gaddafi supporters? Are they all bad? Will we see all their bloodied faces on Sky News? Will we see them being beaten and tortured by the new, heavily armed owners of their country? Will the country with the highest living standards in Africa ever see free education and healthcare again? Or will the women be raped at gunpoint by the armed mercenaries our government armed and financed in this war, while we plunder the natural resources and keep the bullet-supply coming.
VICTORY! BLOOD AND DEATH AND VICTORY!
This is 'The Eighteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
2011-10-09
The Sixteenth Blog Of Trig - Dragons
I have a business idea I'm thinking of taking to the 'Dragon's Den'. I'm going to start up a business which looks after people's money. Me and my colleagues are going to pay ourselves the highest wages in the world, give ourselves enormous bonuses, and invest this money in shares of big companies whose bosses will also pay themselves the highest wages in the world.
When the money dries up I will borrow more from those who can afford to lend it to me and pretend that I am actually selling something called a 'bond', which is a pretty looking IOU note. I will sell lots of these IOU notes to cover my wages and bonuses and the 'losses' I make when the investments don't cover all the outgoings. I will buy and sell these 'bonds of debt' with other people in my business and charge extra for the privilege. I will pay people massive wages to hide these debts until they are like an elephant hiding in a single bed.
When my debt (your debt) gets to the point of bankruptcy I will speak to the 'government' and tell them that if they don't give me billions of pounds, RIGHT NOW, that the elderly won't be able to withdraw their pensions, businesses won't be able to pay their employees, and the entire country will collapse into chaos. Of course my money isn't held in my bank. It's in offshore tax-free havens safe from the disaster in my business, so my money (your money) is fine.
The government doesn't want to just print up money because they don't like inflation, which is the value of money going down, so they borrow it. Like me, they pretend that they are selling something, a 'bond'; an IOU note. They sell these bonds with minimum investment amounts, like £50,000, £100,000, £500,000, so I'm afraid this counts you out. But me and my wealthy friends can afford that with a month's wages. The government takes all this money that me and my friends lend them and then gives it back to me so I can continue paying myself enormous wages and bonuses, and give your grandparents the meagre pension they worked their entire life for.
Now the government owes a shitload of money, and they can only just about afford the interest on the debts they have, so they sell off your public services to private investors (me) to help them cover it all.
Now I own the services you rely on to live, I own the bank that holds all your money, I own the bonds that your government 'sold' me so that they could bail me out. I have multi-million pound mansions, private jets and yachts, pilots and captains, bodyguards and butlers, chauffeurs and champagne and cocaine, and absolutely no blame.
I now take a percentage profit from every single service you rely on, the services your parents and grandparents and ancestors worked and fought for, and for all this, you are indebted to me.
Your country is mine and your debt is to me and you will all continue to work for me until this debt is paid off, which will never happen.
So, what do you think of my business idea?
This is 'The Sixteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
2011-09-16
The Fifteenth Blog Of Trig - The France Fiasco
I think it's about time I wrote about my trip to France. The nerves have just about worn off enough for me to type about it and my back has nearly recovered. Let's get started.
May 2011, I had booked my CELTA course to start at the end of June, and I was trying to find some short-term work to get me through the month in Barcelona. One friend had promised work in the weeks to come, but it was not showing much promise. I had spoken to my mate Baz who had been out in France doing tarmac and paving for three months, and he encouraged me to go out and work with him. I asked him some questions about it, and he told me that I would get 50 Euros a day plus lunch and accommodation paid for. Sounded okay. Not brilliant, but I needed money, so I decided to check it out. Barry gave me the number of his boss and I dropped a text asking about it. I got a reply telling me to be in the high street at midday on the coming Sunday and we would drive down to Dover and get the Channel Tunnel. I packed my things up and got ready.
Sunday arrives, I am waiting in the high street and a Toyota pick-up spins a u-turn to pull up in front of me. A red-haired guy gets out and says hello to me in an unmistakeable Irish gypsy accent, introducing himself as James. He is short but fairly well built, with a tough weathered face. Age, probably about late-thirties. He seemed friendly, but Barry had neglected to mention that he was working for gypsies. This might have influenced my decision to go out there. No, it WOULD have influenced my decision to go out there. Still, here I was. I couldn't exactly turn around and say, "sorry mate, didn't realise you were gypsies. I don't work with gypsies." It might not have gone down too well.
I threw my bag in the back and jumped in the car where he introduced me to his son. Friendly lad. We chatted a bit and I asked how old he was, and he replied that he was eleven. "So you just started secondary school then?" I asked him. He replied that he didn't go to school. "Okay. Cool." I should have guessed that. I kind of admire that though.
We stopped off and picked up his younger brother Martin, who was probably mid thirties. He seemed friendly, and we chatted briefly before he showed me his fist, swollen to double size after he went to some guy's house the night before and beat the crap out of him. He told me it was because the guy had insulted his wife. I diplomatically told him it sounded like the guy deserved it. James suggested that he get his story straight in case the police come knocking.
So off we drove. They told me about Aaron, the other guy that was working with my friend Barry, telling me how he was getting on their nerves because he was always complaining about the job. I asked the fiery-haired boss how long the journey would take. He replied that it wouldn't take more than three hours or so, but that we would be stopping off so that the three of them could go for a round of golf. I said okay, not feeling like I was in the position to bargain. He suggested that I either join them or I could wait in the car. I waited in the car.
I waited for probably two hours while they played nine holes. I smoked a couple and listened to music, wondering casually what I might be getting myself in for. 'Fuck it', I thought, 'it'll be an experience whatever happens'. That it was.
They returned from their golf and we set off to pick up Martin's wife and his almost-newborn son, then headed for Dover. On the journey I chatted with James' son. He played the Game Boy I'd brought along for a while, then took my Blackberry to play more games. I munched a bag of sweets I had and offered him one. He had one, then said he had a stomach ache a bit later, thinking it was probably from the sweet. He was probably right. Sugar is a gut-rotter.
Early on in the journey I had noticed that none of them wore seat belts, not even the mother holding her young child. James sped down the motorway at a minimum of 80 miles an hour, driving with his knees from time-to-time when his hands were busy. Now, I'm not trying to tell anyone how to raise their children, but my parents were very strict about seat belts. The first thing I do when I get into a car is put mine on. This was fine until I noticed that no-one else in the car did. From then on I felt like I might be somehow insulting James' driving skills. I imagined him turning round to me, "watsamattur-Saam, yoo tink-umma bad droivur?" I still wore it.
Dover, we drove onto a channel tunnel train, zipped across in no time. As we parked in the train James' son jumped out of the car and went off to explore the train, disappearing through the door in front of us. I wondered what he would get up to. James turned to me. "So, whaddaya tink Saam?" "What do I think of what?" I asked. "Just whaddaya tink?" I was stumped for a moment. 'What do I think?' "Just looking forward to doing some work and seeing France and Belgium mate. I've never been." "Itsalraight Sam, not bad."
We chatted idly on the journey under the channel, came out in France and headed towards the Belgian border, not far from Dunkirk and a lovely old Norman town called Bergues. The land became amazingly flat as we came into Belgium, you could see for miles, across wet farmland dotted with the odd tree. I imagined the German tanks rolling across the plains towards Dunkirk to drive the British Expeditionary force across the channel to Blighty. I could smell the history in the air.
I didn't notice slipping across the border to Belgium. There was no border security, not even a line on the ground. We drove for a short distance over the border, through one or two ghost-towns where the windows of every house we saw were covered with security shutters. It seemed like a holiday resort after the zombie takeover, not a single person on the streets, hardly any sign of human life except for the buildings and the parked cars. It felt a little ominous.
We arrived at the chalet we were staying in, part of a small park of holiday chalets, again lifelessly quiet. I expected the zombies to jump out at any moment. They didn't though. The chalets were fairly cosy inside, although ours had a peculiar smell like something had died in the walls. Barry spent some time trying to get into the extractor fan hole a bit later, convinced there was a dead rat or bird in there. There was probably a corpse hidden somewhere.
When we got in I met Aaron, a friendly lad of about 29 from Dover. He was smoking so I rolled up one of my own and smoked it with him, and played a couple of racing games on the playstation and small TV they had. We were staying on beds which were in a raised open roof space up a ladder. The back of the chalet had a nice tidy garden which looked out across a few acres of completely flat wet farmland. A family of birds somewhere sang sweet songs. At the far end of the line of sight across the farmland was a railway that crossed the entire horizon. It was very quiet. Peaceful, but with a slightly ominous undertone.
Barry, my old friend from London, had popped out. We said hello when he got back, having not seen each other for several months. He had a bag of groceries from the supermarket so we had some food and went outside to enjoy the view and have a smoke. He spoke to Aaron and asked that they put their differences behind them - they had apparently had a falling-out earlier.
I asked James what time we were starting work tomorrow. In his 'Oyrish' gypsie accent he told me that they didn't have work yet, and that they were going out tomorrow to find some. "Ah. Okay." I had been under the impression that the work was already there.
Barry, Aaron and I spent the evening out in the garden drinking beer and smoking, watching shooting stars and satellites in the clear night sky, popping in occasionally to play on the Playstation. It was a pleasant evening, and we felt hopeful about getting work tomorrow. Barry told me they had been working solidly for 3 months. We headed off to bed once we were tired.
Monday. James and Martin head out to try and find work. The lads and I get up and decide to pop into the nearby town, which is a half hour walk away. We walk down quiet roads with nice spacious detached houses along them, cars parked in the driveways, but not a single sign of life. We head through a forest and across a quiet main road and stop to look at a war cemetery, before heading into what seemed to be a deserted seaside resort. It turned out to be, in fact, a deserted seaside resort. We have some food in a cafe that we are lucky enough to find open and sit on the beach with a couple of beers. We see a couple of people. At some point Barry gets a call from James, who tells him us three lads are moving out of the chalet and into a caravan in a park just over the border in France. We are not too happy.
That evening we pack up our stuff and drive to the caravan park. It seems friendly, but it is off a main road in the middle of nowhere, the nearest shop a good few miles away. In his favour James does leave us the work van to get around in, but tells us not to waste too much petrol. When we get to the caravan our hearts drop. It is tiny. With our bags in there it is hard to get in. James busies himself about trying to make it seem infinitely better than it is. It has electricity, but no water supply, no fridge and no cooking facilities. The caravan park did have toilets and showers costing 1Euro, but the caravan was awful. We glumly moved our stuff in and waited for James to go off before starting our bitching. "He's havin' a fuckin' laugh." "Where are we supposed to sleep?" "We can't even cook anything."
That evening we go out and get a few drinks. Wine is very cheap. We hope that Tuesday will bring work, but when Tuesday comes we are let down again. We make the most of the day, exploring Dunkirk, and driving to a lovely place called Bergues, an old town built around dominating Norman churches and an enormous moat system with more than 5km of medieval ramparts. The walls still display bullet holes and shell damage from the second world war, and there is a couple of areas where you can very clearly see human-shaped bullet damage where executions have taken place. We wander round the place drinking wine and soaking up the atmosphere.
Barry rang James and very politely complained about the accommodation. He pointed out that none of us had any money, there was no work and the caravan had no cooking facilities. James made out like he was hurt, pointing out that he had done us a favour by getting us this caravan, like we were all being terribly ungrateful. We didn't have much choice but to put up with it. James said he'd sub us all a little cash the following day.
Wednesday finds no work again. We meet James who lends us 10 Euro each and expresses his absolute distain that we don't like the caravan, emphasising complete and utter shock at our ungratefulness. The three of us stay fairly quiet. We say goodbye hearing promises of work soon and again spend the day in Dunkirk.
Barry had met some French people previously who sold him smoke and he wanted to try and find them again. We found them in the park milling among a few groups of friendly students and so we had some more cheap but wholly adequate wine and a smoke, threw around a frisbee for a while, and then moved onto the football, booting it about between us in high spirits.
A short tanned French guy of probably early fifties who was relaxing in the sun got up to play with us. We kicked the ball around a while before more French lads came over to play too. A couple were very good, doing impressive tricks when the ball came to them. They looked like a tough bunch, many seeming to be of Algerian origin, some black, some white, some somewhere inbetween. Everyone was friendly. When they left we said goodbye, kicking the ball around some more before we sat down for a smoke, joined by a couple of French girls. They spoke a little English and we talked with them a while. We left soon after them and drove back towards the caravan park, listening to music through my phone. I remember 'Sloop John B' coming on and skipping it. Those lyrics were too close to my feelings at that moment.
Thursday, we get up, fed up, and I'm talking about going home Friday whatever happens. I consider the prospect of hitch-hiking. We once again go into Dunkirk with a football and a frisbee and chill out. We meet the French people and buy some more smoke and a some more cheap wine. We eat the cheapest food we can get our hands on by the port and have a fairly nice day. When James calls to tell us there is still no work, he suggests to Barry that we find the nearest job centre and sign on. He's having a fucking laugh.
That evening we decide to go to Bergues and set up a bonfire in the forest with a few beers and a few smokes. We find a nice spot, a small, flat, clear patch at the foot of a wooded hill, with a ledge a few metres down from us falling about 15 foot, before a field of tall grass with a path cut through it. We drink a couple of French beers each, listen to music, chat and watch the fire burning. It was nice. Love a bonfire. As it started to get dark we begin to think about packing up, but we had a couple of beers left so we stayed a while longer, heating and bending bottles in the fire.
As the fire dimmed I got up to get wood. It was dark. I carefully walked round the fire and up the hill, grabbing some dead branches on the floor and headed back to put them on the fire. As I put them in the flames smoke blew into my eyes. I recoiled back, hands over my eyes, and fell, misjudging where the ledge was behind me. Suddenly I am weightless. I hear myself shout out in surprise a brief moment before I land hard on my back on the ground below. It is a long fall. I am in shock. I am in pain. I cannot breathe properly. I cannot move. I open my eyes and I see darkness. I take as much breath in as I can and call out, "lads, I need your help."
Aaron later told me that upon hearing my shout and then my call for help, Barry jumped up and nearly ran over the edge of the drop himself. Aaron had to grab him and stop him from falling straight over after me. That might have finished me off. They edged down the slope near to me, shining the torch on me as they approached. I quickly told them not to touch me, that I was hurting and needed them to give me a minute to compose myself. I was very short of breath, very shaken. I had to check if I had done any serious damage.
I was lying on my back, but arched up over an old log which I had fallen onto. This log had broken in two under my weight. In my mind I was very aware of the possibility that I might never walk again, and looking back I'm surprised how calm I remained. I was certainly in shock however, and what else can you do in that situation but stay calm and assess the damage. I wiggled my toes successfully, which gave me hope. After a minute or so I attempted moving my legs slightly, which I managed painfully. Barry and Aaron removed the log from under me as carefully as they could, and I lay flat on my back, which hurt even more. I quickly asked them to help me onto my front, which we managed carefully. As soon as I was onto my front and off of my damaged back I thought I might cry with the relief from the pain. I lay face down in twigs and dirt and asked them to give me a couple of minutes, that I thought I was going to be okay, but needed a bit of time to get my breath back and get over the shock. I lay there and breathed beautiful air from the forest floor, feeling incredibly relaxed and relieved. I had just escaped death or very serious injury, but I still did not really know if I had done permanent damage to my back.
Barry and Aaron nipped up the slope to put the fire out and grab our stuff, and I lay on the forest floor in the twigs and leaves and dirt. When I opened my eyes the world around me was pitch black, so I kept them closed. They came down ready with our stuff and gave me a minute or two more. Barry shone his torch up at the ledge from which I fell. "Holy shit Trig, you're a very lucky man." I tried to look up at the height and agreed. The ground around me was littered with spine-breaking loose cobblestones. If I had fallen a foot to the right or left my back would have been broken like a twig.
I was ready to try walking again, and both the lads gently helped me to my feet. I could just about walk, very slowly and painfully. Barry gave me a large branch to use as a walking stick, and we slowly made our way back to the van. By this point I was smiling and joking, definitely still in shock. I was hurting a lot, but I was alive and walking.
We got back to the caravan and I tried to get some sleep, but it was difficult. Before I drifted off I told the lads that I was going to head back to England the next day, regardless of what happened. I couldn't work now. They both agreed they were going to do the same.
Friday morning, I wake up early, hurting. I want a shower so I struggle to my feet and struggle even more to get to the shower block. When I get back I am covered with sweat and exhausted. The lads slowly wake up and I start discussing our departure with them. We talk initially about walking to Dunkirk, about 4-5 miles, then get the train to Calais. I tell them I could do it, but I would be very slow with a bergen on my back after my fall. Then we discuss the possibility of hitch-hiking, but three lads with all our luggage are going to have trouble finding a lift. Then someone suggests driving the van to Calais, about 30-35 miles, then calling James to apologise and tell him where it's parked. It's a bit dodgy, and Aaron isn't too comfortable with it. Barry and I suggest that he could drive us to Calais, and we'll give him petrol money to drive back, but he doesn't want to stay out in France in the shitty caravan by himself, so it is decided. We are going to drive to Calais in the van, park it somewhere safe and tell James where we parked it once we're away.
We had very little petrol in the van, maybe just enough to get to Dunkirk to fill it up, so we head off, hoping that we have enough to get there. The petrol light is on most of the way, and as we are coming into Dunkirk the engine dies. We find ourselves rolling dead down a road with parked cars either side, but no spaces. Then literally as the van stops its roll, a space appears on our near side, and with a foot or two to spare, we roll in.
We get out and hunt for a petrol station. We are all a little worried about meeting James and Martin, and go as fast as we can, but of course I cannot walk fast at all for my back. We cannot find a petrol station anywhere and head back to the van, where we find a little diesel in a can in the back. We put this in, and head to the nearest station and fill the van up. Finally, we are able to hit the motorway and get to Calais.
We head down the motorway towards Calais. We are happy to be leaving, having gotten more than tired of the cramped caravan that week. We joke briefly about what would happen if James and Martin turned up, but I dismiss this, as we would have to be the unluckiest guys in the world to run into them.
We see a sign that says 15 miles to Calais. We cheer. Then, after a brief silence, Aaron says three words that will always haunt me, "They're behind us".
"Fuck off Aaron, that's not funny mate."
"They're behind us."
The quiet, calm fear in his voice sent a shiver up my spine, and sure enough when I looked into the side mirror there they were. James was driving the Toyota pickup, leaning out of his window with absolute rage in his eyes, screaming at us to pull over. Martin his brother was out the other window, more rage, more aggressive, spit flying from his mouth as he swore and cursed us.
"We're fucked."
"We're dead."
"They're gonna kill us."
Their car swerved at us, threatening to drive us off the road. We continued, unsure what to do. They pulled in front of us and screamed for us to turn off at the next junction. We agreed that we couldn't do that. We didn't know where we were turning off and didn't know what they would do to us. We told Aaron to turn back onto the motorway at the last minute, that we had to get to Calais, to a police station or somewhere safe.
We began following them up a motorway slip road. As we headed off the motorway a large concrete separation approached us, splitting the road off from the motorway. It got closer and closer until I believed it was too late for us to turn off. I looked in the wing-mirror, and seeing a 40 ton lorry speeding up in the nearest lane I was sure that it was too late - we were turning off. My heart sank. Then suddenly Aaron twisted the wheel left and we flew back onto the motorway, just missing the concrete by inches. My heart jumped back up out of my chest as we sided into the lorry, which flew past and bounced us across the road without seeming to notice we were there at all. "Holy shit! DRIVE!"
Aaron sped down the motorway, but we all knew that their car, faster than the heavily laden van we were in, would catch up again very soon. We agreed that we had to just drive to Calais, another 10 minutes or so, find a police car and get out near them to be safe. It was not to be. James and Martin caught up with us again, twice as angry, twice as aggressive, and this time they forced us off the road. Both brothers jumped out of their car, screaming in absolute fury for us to get out of the van. I sat there and watched them, staying fairly calm considering, trying to stay focussed on what was happening than worrying about it. James told his brother to stay in the pick-up, for which I was glad. Aaron locked his car door. Barry, to my left, suddenly spotted a police car going the other way on the motorway, opened his door, said "run!", then ran across the motorway to hail the police car. I looked over and saw James screaming at Aaron to open the door. I got out and ran across the motorway as best I could, seeing Barry chasing the police car down, which had stopped a hundred metres away. Back at the van, Aaron was being screamed at by James. I couldn't leave him there, so I headed back across the road. Upon seeing me James screamed, "Fockarf y'asshole!" Then he told Aaron to get in the van, and he would drop him at the next turnoff. I hoped Aaron would not get in, but he did, and the van drove off.
I watched the van speed off with my bag, Barry's bag, and of course, our friend Aaron. I am left standing on a French motorway, luckily still holding my wallet, passport and phone in my pocket. My back is hurting. I have no cash on me, but I luckily have an overdraft I can hack into for the return journey, but first we have to try and find Aaron, and our bags if possible.
I head across the motorway to find Barry and the police, catch up and tell him they have taken Aaron. We are very worried for his safety, explaining to the police that we have to find him or he might get hurt. I tell the police that James had told Aaron he was going to drop him at the next turn-off, so we could try there, but I am not too hopeful. Sure enough we do not find them, and so we head down to Calais to see if they have dropped him there. As we drive the police are asking us questions and making notes, taking names, numbers, dates and details, but their English isn't brilliant so we find some barriers.
We arrive in Calais but see nothing. We are very worried about Aaron, but reassured that they had seen Barry chase down the police car. The police find an English border control guard who speaks French fluently, and he speaks to us and tells the police the full story. The police ask where we have been staying and we tell them, but inform them that James and Martin are staying just over the border in Belgium, and they tell us that they can't go there. They decide to drive us to the caravan to see if they have gone back.
As we drive down the motorway Barry and I try to ring Aaron, but we soon realise he has no credit and so he cannot receive inbound calls abroad. We are worried. The police pull off the motorway and rendezvous with three police vans, get out and start talking when Barry gets a call on his phone. I answer and it is James. He asks where we are and I tell him we are in a police car. I ask if we can come get our bags and talk to Aaron but he won't tell us where they are, swearing at me, calling me every name under the sun, saying that we will get six years in jail for stealing his van. I explain calmly that we did not steal his van, that we needed a way to get to Calais, and that we were going to park it up and tell him where it was. I explained that we had wanted to leave but since we had hardly any cash between us, it was our only option, and that we were worried that he might try to make us stay if we asked him. I reminded him that I had sent him a message that morning asking when he was going to head back to England, because I had injured myself, but got no response.
I went backwards and forwards with James, receiving non-stop insults. I did not react to them, reasoning with him and asking if we could come and get our bags. He refused, saying that he didn't have our bags, that a couple of dickheads had left two bags in his van, obviously didn't want them, and now they were his. He also said that they had found work that day and were at a job. I asked if we could speak to Aaron, but he refused, saying Aaron was on a job. One of the French policemen asked if he could speak with James, but he got nowhere. James promised he would bring Aaron and our bags back on Monday. We did not believe him, but he refused to tell us where he was, and the chalet was over the border in Belgium, so the police could not go there. We ended our call and the police asked Barry and I what we wanted to do. We looked at each other. There was nothing we could do. "Can you take us to Calais?"
We drove to Calais in thoughtful silence. When we arrived we thanked the police for all their help and headed to buy tickets. They ended up costing £70 each, but it was worth it to get home. We had a short wait and finally got onto a ferry, relieved, almost ecstatic to escape the scene of the drama we had experienced. We got on board and went straight to the bar. I remember looking at Barry with a big puffy 'phew' look on my face, and we had a laugh and a good old man-hug before tucking into a well-deserved pint of beer. We sat and watched France disappear and the white cliffs of Dover emerge on the horizon, glad to escape, but worrying and discussing Aaron's fate. We felt that the involvement of the police might have saved him from serious trouble, but we still weren't sure. We resolved to top up his phone as soon as we were in England again.
We got a train to London from Dover, and decided to hit Camden for a drink or two. We were tired, and I was in pain still, but glad to be alive on more than one count. We grabbed some smoke and had a little on the way home, meeting a couple of Barnet pals on the night bus, sharing some of our crazy story. Finally got home and slept like a baby in a comfortable bed, still nursing my injured back.
The next day I put some money on Aaron's phone, and sent him a message. He replied back that they had not hurt him, but had scared the shit out of him, threatened him some, and that we could kiss our bags and their contents goodbye. I told him to stay in touch and that if he needed anything he just had to ask. They brought him home a few days later, leaving him at the side of the motorway a good few miles from home.
I spoke to James a few times over the next few weeks to try and negotiate the return of our bags, but he insulted me and asked what charity store I preferred, Oxfam or Barnardos. I ended up offering him £100 if he returned it to me. He didn't respond. Barry lost a laptop among other things, and was going to go and make a police report, but it never happened in the end.
So, that was the France fiasco. The last I heard from them was that Barry got a call from Martin apologising that it got so out of hand. He thinks that they probably wanted him to go and work with them again, as he was a good worker and made a lot of money for them. I asked and Barry assured me that he was never going to go and work for them again. Good idea.
So that was France. Went to earn some money. Came back with back injuries and stories of gypsy car chases, a couple of hundred of pounds down from the return journey. All good fun though. Or as Barry describes it, "The horror.....the horror..... :)"
This is 'The Fifteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
May 2011, I had booked my CELTA course to start at the end of June, and I was trying to find some short-term work to get me through the month in Barcelona. One friend had promised work in the weeks to come, but it was not showing much promise. I had spoken to my mate Baz who had been out in France doing tarmac and paving for three months, and he encouraged me to go out and work with him. I asked him some questions about it, and he told me that I would get 50 Euros a day plus lunch and accommodation paid for. Sounded okay. Not brilliant, but I needed money, so I decided to check it out. Barry gave me the number of his boss and I dropped a text asking about it. I got a reply telling me to be in the high street at midday on the coming Sunday and we would drive down to Dover and get the Channel Tunnel. I packed my things up and got ready.
Sunday arrives, I am waiting in the high street and a Toyota pick-up spins a u-turn to pull up in front of me. A red-haired guy gets out and says hello to me in an unmistakeable Irish gypsy accent, introducing himself as James. He is short but fairly well built, with a tough weathered face. Age, probably about late-thirties. He seemed friendly, but Barry had neglected to mention that he was working for gypsies. This might have influenced my decision to go out there. No, it WOULD have influenced my decision to go out there. Still, here I was. I couldn't exactly turn around and say, "sorry mate, didn't realise you were gypsies. I don't work with gypsies." It might not have gone down too well.
I threw my bag in the back and jumped in the car where he introduced me to his son. Friendly lad. We chatted a bit and I asked how old he was, and he replied that he was eleven. "So you just started secondary school then?" I asked him. He replied that he didn't go to school. "Okay. Cool." I should have guessed that. I kind of admire that though.
We stopped off and picked up his younger brother Martin, who was probably mid thirties. He seemed friendly, and we chatted briefly before he showed me his fist, swollen to double size after he went to some guy's house the night before and beat the crap out of him. He told me it was because the guy had insulted his wife. I diplomatically told him it sounded like the guy deserved it. James suggested that he get his story straight in case the police come knocking.
So off we drove. They told me about Aaron, the other guy that was working with my friend Barry, telling me how he was getting on their nerves because he was always complaining about the job. I asked the fiery-haired boss how long the journey would take. He replied that it wouldn't take more than three hours or so, but that we would be stopping off so that the three of them could go for a round of golf. I said okay, not feeling like I was in the position to bargain. He suggested that I either join them or I could wait in the car. I waited in the car.
I waited for probably two hours while they played nine holes. I smoked a couple and listened to music, wondering casually what I might be getting myself in for. 'Fuck it', I thought, 'it'll be an experience whatever happens'. That it was.
They returned from their golf and we set off to pick up Martin's wife and his almost-newborn son, then headed for Dover. On the journey I chatted with James' son. He played the Game Boy I'd brought along for a while, then took my Blackberry to play more games. I munched a bag of sweets I had and offered him one. He had one, then said he had a stomach ache a bit later, thinking it was probably from the sweet. He was probably right. Sugar is a gut-rotter.
Early on in the journey I had noticed that none of them wore seat belts, not even the mother holding her young child. James sped down the motorway at a minimum of 80 miles an hour, driving with his knees from time-to-time when his hands were busy. Now, I'm not trying to tell anyone how to raise their children, but my parents were very strict about seat belts. The first thing I do when I get into a car is put mine on. This was fine until I noticed that no-one else in the car did. From then on I felt like I might be somehow insulting James' driving skills. I imagined him turning round to me, "watsamattur-Saam, yoo tink-umma bad droivur?" I still wore it.
Dover, we drove onto a channel tunnel train, zipped across in no time. As we parked in the train James' son jumped out of the car and went off to explore the train, disappearing through the door in front of us. I wondered what he would get up to. James turned to me. "So, whaddaya tink Saam?" "What do I think of what?" I asked. "Just whaddaya tink?" I was stumped for a moment. 'What do I think?' "Just looking forward to doing some work and seeing France and Belgium mate. I've never been." "Itsalraight Sam, not bad."
We chatted idly on the journey under the channel, came out in France and headed towards the Belgian border, not far from Dunkirk and a lovely old Norman town called Bergues. The land became amazingly flat as we came into Belgium, you could see for miles, across wet farmland dotted with the odd tree. I imagined the German tanks rolling across the plains towards Dunkirk to drive the British Expeditionary force across the channel to Blighty. I could smell the history in the air.
I didn't notice slipping across the border to Belgium. There was no border security, not even a line on the ground. We drove for a short distance over the border, through one or two ghost-towns where the windows of every house we saw were covered with security shutters. It seemed like a holiday resort after the zombie takeover, not a single person on the streets, hardly any sign of human life except for the buildings and the parked cars. It felt a little ominous.
We arrived at the chalet we were staying in, part of a small park of holiday chalets, again lifelessly quiet. I expected the zombies to jump out at any moment. They didn't though. The chalets were fairly cosy inside, although ours had a peculiar smell like something had died in the walls. Barry spent some time trying to get into the extractor fan hole a bit later, convinced there was a dead rat or bird in there. There was probably a corpse hidden somewhere.
When we got in I met Aaron, a friendly lad of about 29 from Dover. He was smoking so I rolled up one of my own and smoked it with him, and played a couple of racing games on the playstation and small TV they had. We were staying on beds which were in a raised open roof space up a ladder. The back of the chalet had a nice tidy garden which looked out across a few acres of completely flat wet farmland. A family of birds somewhere sang sweet songs. At the far end of the line of sight across the farmland was a railway that crossed the entire horizon. It was very quiet. Peaceful, but with a slightly ominous undertone.
Barry, my old friend from London, had popped out. We said hello when he got back, having not seen each other for several months. He had a bag of groceries from the supermarket so we had some food and went outside to enjoy the view and have a smoke. He spoke to Aaron and asked that they put their differences behind them - they had apparently had a falling-out earlier.
I asked James what time we were starting work tomorrow. In his 'Oyrish' gypsie accent he told me that they didn't have work yet, and that they were going out tomorrow to find some. "Ah. Okay." I had been under the impression that the work was already there.
Barry, Aaron and I spent the evening out in the garden drinking beer and smoking, watching shooting stars and satellites in the clear night sky, popping in occasionally to play on the Playstation. It was a pleasant evening, and we felt hopeful about getting work tomorrow. Barry told me they had been working solidly for 3 months. We headed off to bed once we were tired.
Monday. James and Martin head out to try and find work. The lads and I get up and decide to pop into the nearby town, which is a half hour walk away. We walk down quiet roads with nice spacious detached houses along them, cars parked in the driveways, but not a single sign of life. We head through a forest and across a quiet main road and stop to look at a war cemetery, before heading into what seemed to be a deserted seaside resort. It turned out to be, in fact, a deserted seaside resort. We have some food in a cafe that we are lucky enough to find open and sit on the beach with a couple of beers. We see a couple of people. At some point Barry gets a call from James, who tells him us three lads are moving out of the chalet and into a caravan in a park just over the border in France. We are not too happy.
That evening we pack up our stuff and drive to the caravan park. It seems friendly, but it is off a main road in the middle of nowhere, the nearest shop a good few miles away. In his favour James does leave us the work van to get around in, but tells us not to waste too much petrol. When we get to the caravan our hearts drop. It is tiny. With our bags in there it is hard to get in. James busies himself about trying to make it seem infinitely better than it is. It has electricity, but no water supply, no fridge and no cooking facilities. The caravan park did have toilets and showers costing 1Euro, but the caravan was awful. We glumly moved our stuff in and waited for James to go off before starting our bitching. "He's havin' a fuckin' laugh." "Where are we supposed to sleep?" "We can't even cook anything."
Barry rang James and very politely complained about the accommodation. He pointed out that none of us had any money, there was no work and the caravan had no cooking facilities. James made out like he was hurt, pointing out that he had done us a favour by getting us this caravan, like we were all being terribly ungrateful. We didn't have much choice but to put up with it. James said he'd sub us all a little cash the following day.
Wednesday finds no work again. We meet James who lends us 10 Euro each and expresses his absolute distain that we don't like the caravan, emphasising complete and utter shock at our ungratefulness. The three of us stay fairly quiet. We say goodbye hearing promises of work soon and again spend the day in Dunkirk.
Barry had met some French people previously who sold him smoke and he wanted to try and find them again. We found them in the park milling among a few groups of friendly students and so we had some more cheap but wholly adequate wine and a smoke, threw around a frisbee for a while, and then moved onto the football, booting it about between us in high spirits.
A short tanned French guy of probably early fifties who was relaxing in the sun got up to play with us. We kicked the ball around a while before more French lads came over to play too. A couple were very good, doing impressive tricks when the ball came to them. They looked like a tough bunch, many seeming to be of Algerian origin, some black, some white, some somewhere inbetween. Everyone was friendly. When they left we said goodbye, kicking the ball around some more before we sat down for a smoke, joined by a couple of French girls. They spoke a little English and we talked with them a while. We left soon after them and drove back towards the caravan park, listening to music through my phone. I remember 'Sloop John B' coming on and skipping it. Those lyrics were too close to my feelings at that moment.
Thursday, we get up, fed up, and I'm talking about going home Friday whatever happens. I consider the prospect of hitch-hiking. We once again go into Dunkirk with a football and a frisbee and chill out. We meet the French people and buy some more smoke and a some more cheap wine. We eat the cheapest food we can get our hands on by the port and have a fairly nice day. When James calls to tell us there is still no work, he suggests to Barry that we find the nearest job centre and sign on. He's having a fucking laugh.
That evening we decide to go to Bergues and set up a bonfire in the forest with a few beers and a few smokes. We find a nice spot, a small, flat, clear patch at the foot of a wooded hill, with a ledge a few metres down from us falling about 15 foot, before a field of tall grass with a path cut through it. We drink a couple of French beers each, listen to music, chat and watch the fire burning. It was nice. Love a bonfire. As it started to get dark we begin to think about packing up, but we had a couple of beers left so we stayed a while longer, heating and bending bottles in the fire.
As the fire dimmed I got up to get wood. It was dark. I carefully walked round the fire and up the hill, grabbing some dead branches on the floor and headed back to put them on the fire. As I put them in the flames smoke blew into my eyes. I recoiled back, hands over my eyes, and fell, misjudging where the ledge was behind me. Suddenly I am weightless. I hear myself shout out in surprise a brief moment before I land hard on my back on the ground below. It is a long fall. I am in shock. I am in pain. I cannot breathe properly. I cannot move. I open my eyes and I see darkness. I take as much breath in as I can and call out, "lads, I need your help."
Aaron later told me that upon hearing my shout and then my call for help, Barry jumped up and nearly ran over the edge of the drop himself. Aaron had to grab him and stop him from falling straight over after me. That might have finished me off. They edged down the slope near to me, shining the torch on me as they approached. I quickly told them not to touch me, that I was hurting and needed them to give me a minute to compose myself. I was very short of breath, very shaken. I had to check if I had done any serious damage.
I was lying on my back, but arched up over an old log which I had fallen onto. This log had broken in two under my weight. In my mind I was very aware of the possibility that I might never walk again, and looking back I'm surprised how calm I remained. I was certainly in shock however, and what else can you do in that situation but stay calm and assess the damage. I wiggled my toes successfully, which gave me hope. After a minute or so I attempted moving my legs slightly, which I managed painfully. Barry and Aaron removed the log from under me as carefully as they could, and I lay flat on my back, which hurt even more. I quickly asked them to help me onto my front, which we managed carefully. As soon as I was onto my front and off of my damaged back I thought I might cry with the relief from the pain. I lay face down in twigs and dirt and asked them to give me a couple of minutes, that I thought I was going to be okay, but needed a bit of time to get my breath back and get over the shock. I lay there and breathed beautiful air from the forest floor, feeling incredibly relaxed and relieved. I had just escaped death or very serious injury, but I still did not really know if I had done permanent damage to my back.
Barry and Aaron nipped up the slope to put the fire out and grab our stuff, and I lay on the forest floor in the twigs and leaves and dirt. When I opened my eyes the world around me was pitch black, so I kept them closed. They came down ready with our stuff and gave me a minute or two more. Barry shone his torch up at the ledge from which I fell. "Holy shit Trig, you're a very lucky man." I tried to look up at the height and agreed. The ground around me was littered with spine-breaking loose cobblestones. If I had fallen a foot to the right or left my back would have been broken like a twig.
I was ready to try walking again, and both the lads gently helped me to my feet. I could just about walk, very slowly and painfully. Barry gave me a large branch to use as a walking stick, and we slowly made our way back to the van. By this point I was smiling and joking, definitely still in shock. I was hurting a lot, but I was alive and walking.
We got back to the caravan and I tried to get some sleep, but it was difficult. Before I drifted off I told the lads that I was going to head back to England the next day, regardless of what happened. I couldn't work now. They both agreed they were going to do the same.
Friday morning, I wake up early, hurting. I want a shower so I struggle to my feet and struggle even more to get to the shower block. When I get back I am covered with sweat and exhausted. The lads slowly wake up and I start discussing our departure with them. We talk initially about walking to Dunkirk, about 4-5 miles, then get the train to Calais. I tell them I could do it, but I would be very slow with a bergen on my back after my fall. Then we discuss the possibility of hitch-hiking, but three lads with all our luggage are going to have trouble finding a lift. Then someone suggests driving the van to Calais, about 30-35 miles, then calling James to apologise and tell him where it's parked. It's a bit dodgy, and Aaron isn't too comfortable with it. Barry and I suggest that he could drive us to Calais, and we'll give him petrol money to drive back, but he doesn't want to stay out in France in the shitty caravan by himself, so it is decided. We are going to drive to Calais in the van, park it somewhere safe and tell James where we parked it once we're away.
We had very little petrol in the van, maybe just enough to get to Dunkirk to fill it up, so we head off, hoping that we have enough to get there. The petrol light is on most of the way, and as we are coming into Dunkirk the engine dies. We find ourselves rolling dead down a road with parked cars either side, but no spaces. Then literally as the van stops its roll, a space appears on our near side, and with a foot or two to spare, we roll in.
We get out and hunt for a petrol station. We are all a little worried about meeting James and Martin, and go as fast as we can, but of course I cannot walk fast at all for my back. We cannot find a petrol station anywhere and head back to the van, where we find a little diesel in a can in the back. We put this in, and head to the nearest station and fill the van up. Finally, we are able to hit the motorway and get to Calais.
We head down the motorway towards Calais. We are happy to be leaving, having gotten more than tired of the cramped caravan that week. We joke briefly about what would happen if James and Martin turned up, but I dismiss this, as we would have to be the unluckiest guys in the world to run into them.
We see a sign that says 15 miles to Calais. We cheer. Then, after a brief silence, Aaron says three words that will always haunt me, "They're behind us".
"Fuck off Aaron, that's not funny mate."
"They're behind us."
The quiet, calm fear in his voice sent a shiver up my spine, and sure enough when I looked into the side mirror there they were. James was driving the Toyota pickup, leaning out of his window with absolute rage in his eyes, screaming at us to pull over. Martin his brother was out the other window, more rage, more aggressive, spit flying from his mouth as he swore and cursed us.
"We're fucked."
"We're dead."
"They're gonna kill us."
Their car swerved at us, threatening to drive us off the road. We continued, unsure what to do. They pulled in front of us and screamed for us to turn off at the next junction. We agreed that we couldn't do that. We didn't know where we were turning off and didn't know what they would do to us. We told Aaron to turn back onto the motorway at the last minute, that we had to get to Calais, to a police station or somewhere safe.
We began following them up a motorway slip road. As we headed off the motorway a large concrete separation approached us, splitting the road off from the motorway. It got closer and closer until I believed it was too late for us to turn off. I looked in the wing-mirror, and seeing a 40 ton lorry speeding up in the nearest lane I was sure that it was too late - we were turning off. My heart sank. Then suddenly Aaron twisted the wheel left and we flew back onto the motorway, just missing the concrete by inches. My heart jumped back up out of my chest as we sided into the lorry, which flew past and bounced us across the road without seeming to notice we were there at all. "Holy shit! DRIVE!"
Aaron sped down the motorway, but we all knew that their car, faster than the heavily laden van we were in, would catch up again very soon. We agreed that we had to just drive to Calais, another 10 minutes or so, find a police car and get out near them to be safe. It was not to be. James and Martin caught up with us again, twice as angry, twice as aggressive, and this time they forced us off the road. Both brothers jumped out of their car, screaming in absolute fury for us to get out of the van. I sat there and watched them, staying fairly calm considering, trying to stay focussed on what was happening than worrying about it. James told his brother to stay in the pick-up, for which I was glad. Aaron locked his car door. Barry, to my left, suddenly spotted a police car going the other way on the motorway, opened his door, said "run!", then ran across the motorway to hail the police car. I looked over and saw James screaming at Aaron to open the door. I got out and ran across the motorway as best I could, seeing Barry chasing the police car down, which had stopped a hundred metres away. Back at the van, Aaron was being screamed at by James. I couldn't leave him there, so I headed back across the road. Upon seeing me James screamed, "Fockarf y'asshole!" Then he told Aaron to get in the van, and he would drop him at the next turnoff. I hoped Aaron would not get in, but he did, and the van drove off.
I watched the van speed off with my bag, Barry's bag, and of course, our friend Aaron. I am left standing on a French motorway, luckily still holding my wallet, passport and phone in my pocket. My back is hurting. I have no cash on me, but I luckily have an overdraft I can hack into for the return journey, but first we have to try and find Aaron, and our bags if possible.
I head across the motorway to find Barry and the police, catch up and tell him they have taken Aaron. We are very worried for his safety, explaining to the police that we have to find him or he might get hurt. I tell the police that James had told Aaron he was going to drop him at the next turn-off, so we could try there, but I am not too hopeful. Sure enough we do not find them, and so we head down to Calais to see if they have dropped him there. As we drive the police are asking us questions and making notes, taking names, numbers, dates and details, but their English isn't brilliant so we find some barriers.
We arrive in Calais but see nothing. We are very worried about Aaron, but reassured that they had seen Barry chase down the police car. The police find an English border control guard who speaks French fluently, and he speaks to us and tells the police the full story. The police ask where we have been staying and we tell them, but inform them that James and Martin are staying just over the border in Belgium, and they tell us that they can't go there. They decide to drive us to the caravan to see if they have gone back.
As we drive down the motorway Barry and I try to ring Aaron, but we soon realise he has no credit and so he cannot receive inbound calls abroad. We are worried. The police pull off the motorway and rendezvous with three police vans, get out and start talking when Barry gets a call on his phone. I answer and it is James. He asks where we are and I tell him we are in a police car. I ask if we can come get our bags and talk to Aaron but he won't tell us where they are, swearing at me, calling me every name under the sun, saying that we will get six years in jail for stealing his van. I explain calmly that we did not steal his van, that we needed a way to get to Calais, and that we were going to park it up and tell him where it was. I explained that we had wanted to leave but since we had hardly any cash between us, it was our only option, and that we were worried that he might try to make us stay if we asked him. I reminded him that I had sent him a message that morning asking when he was going to head back to England, because I had injured myself, but got no response.
I went backwards and forwards with James, receiving non-stop insults. I did not react to them, reasoning with him and asking if we could come and get our bags. He refused, saying that he didn't have our bags, that a couple of dickheads had left two bags in his van, obviously didn't want them, and now they were his. He also said that they had found work that day and were at a job. I asked if we could speak to Aaron, but he refused, saying Aaron was on a job. One of the French policemen asked if he could speak with James, but he got nowhere. James promised he would bring Aaron and our bags back on Monday. We did not believe him, but he refused to tell us where he was, and the chalet was over the border in Belgium, so the police could not go there. We ended our call and the police asked Barry and I what we wanted to do. We looked at each other. There was nothing we could do. "Can you take us to Calais?"
We drove to Calais in thoughtful silence. When we arrived we thanked the police for all their help and headed to buy tickets. They ended up costing £70 each, but it was worth it to get home. We had a short wait and finally got onto a ferry, relieved, almost ecstatic to escape the scene of the drama we had experienced. We got on board and went straight to the bar. I remember looking at Barry with a big puffy 'phew' look on my face, and we had a laugh and a good old man-hug before tucking into a well-deserved pint of beer. We sat and watched France disappear and the white cliffs of Dover emerge on the horizon, glad to escape, but worrying and discussing Aaron's fate. We felt that the involvement of the police might have saved him from serious trouble, but we still weren't sure. We resolved to top up his phone as soon as we were in England again.
We got a train to London from Dover, and decided to hit Camden for a drink or two. We were tired, and I was in pain still, but glad to be alive on more than one count. We grabbed some smoke and had a little on the way home, meeting a couple of Barnet pals on the night bus, sharing some of our crazy story. Finally got home and slept like a baby in a comfortable bed, still nursing my injured back.
The next day I put some money on Aaron's phone, and sent him a message. He replied back that they had not hurt him, but had scared the shit out of him, threatened him some, and that we could kiss our bags and their contents goodbye. I told him to stay in touch and that if he needed anything he just had to ask. They brought him home a few days later, leaving him at the side of the motorway a good few miles from home.
I spoke to James a few times over the next few weeks to try and negotiate the return of our bags, but he insulted me and asked what charity store I preferred, Oxfam or Barnardos. I ended up offering him £100 if he returned it to me. He didn't respond. Barry lost a laptop among other things, and was going to go and make a police report, but it never happened in the end.
So, that was the France fiasco. The last I heard from them was that Barry got a call from Martin apologising that it got so out of hand. He thinks that they probably wanted him to go and work with them again, as he was a good worker and made a lot of money for them. I asked and Barry assured me that he was never going to go and work for them again. Good idea.
So that was France. Went to earn some money. Came back with back injuries and stories of gypsy car chases, a couple of hundred of pounds down from the return journey. All good fun though. Or as Barry describes it, "The horror.....the horror..... :)"
This is 'The Fifteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
2011-08-27
The Thirteenth Blog Of Trig - The Barcelona Diaries (Part 4 - 03/07/2011)
Finally, my first Barcelona beach day! Sunday the third of July, CELTA-1.
I woke up leisurely after my long walk and party-watching day Saturday, and went out early to go shopping. I had not had the opportunity to buy any groceries yet. I kept it simple; cereal, yoghurts, bread, cheese, ham, pasta, and of course a couple of large bottles of water. When I got home I made myself two large sandwiches with ham, lettuce, tomato, and avocado, and packed them into my bag with some English teaching books and my notes, before saying goodbye to Alan and setting off to the beach.
It must have been lunchtime by the time I got off the Metro at the bottom of La Ramblas, and I was feeling quite hungry. The sandwiches in my bag were calling me, but I decided to wait until I made it to the beach before I tucked in. I headed past Columbus' Column by the port and walked down towards Barcelonetta, occasionally looking up to smile happily at the sun above me. This was partly to distract me from the multitude of lovely bronzed legs that surrounded me on the route to the beach, not one fake-tan in sight. Gotta love summertime.
I arrived at Barcelonetta Beach and sat on a bench facing the shore. Barcelonetta is a long stretch of beach with bars dotted along the back, each with a public shower/changing area for beach-goers. Volleyball nets are all taken by lovely bikini-clad ladies and lads straight out of the gym. Behind the beach there is a foot-and-cycle path that covers the entire length. Here, as with most of Barcelona, rollerskaters pass constantly like a Malibu cliche. The female skaters catch my attention; wonderful thighs. I eat my sandwiches and watch the world go by before moving onto the beach to enjoy my last day before the course starts.
I chose a spot near the back of the beach and before I've sat down an oriental lady approaches, calling "Massaja? Massa-he?". I say no initially, but she is persistent and it's only 5 Euros, plus I have a bad back, so I accept. I try to tell her to be gentle with my back but she doesn't understand. It takes a minute or so of acting to explain that I am injured, and that she must be careful around my spine. I wrap my arm around my bag and lie on my front and she begins.
The massage is good. She works my back, bum, arms, neck and head for a good ten-to-fifteen minutes before asking if I want my legs and feet done for another 5. I accept. When she is done I am very relaxed. She tries to get more out of me but I am happy. I give her ten and another Euro tip and she says goodbye. I lay back and enjoy the sun on my body.
It is very warm. I consider going in the sea, but I hadn't brought any swimming shorts with me, hoping to buy some here. In any case I couldn't leave my bag here what with all the thief stories I'd heard, so I made myself a sand-pillow, got out an English teaching book and did a little last-minute revision, while enjoying the view of theose ladies who were confident enough to go topless, and the others too. It's hard to concentrate under these circumstances, but I somehow managed it in between cheeky peeks.
While on the beach I listen to the voices around me. I hear lots of Australian girls, a few loud American guys, a few Brits, and a few Spanish. I start getting pain in my back from the way I am sitting, so I remake my sand-pillow a few times to keep my posture straight. I've not written about this yet, but a few weeks previously I fell something like 15 foot off a ledge in a forest in France and landed on my back, breaking a log that I fell on. I was very lucky to walk away, or hobble as the case was. My back has not been the same since, and might not ever be. I'll have to write about that trip sometime.
As the sun moved slowly behind the city I got my stuff together and moved off. On the way back past the port I encountered a salsa-style band playing well-known songs in their own style. I sat down amongst a sizeable crowd of people to listen a while. They danced as they played, jumping around each other with so much energy I wanted to get up and join in, but I didn't. I filmed them a while, enjoyed their music a little longer and then headed off, dropping my change into their hat at the front.
When I arrived back at the house Alan offered to take me out for dinner again since it was my last evening of freedom before the course started. We went out for pizza. As we eat and drink a couple of beers we discuss 'demons', those insecurities which can whisper in our minds and drain our confidence with their patronising self-criticism. We discuss ways of defeating these demons, and whether they actually need to be defeated, or just understood and satisfied. Alan says that he tries to imagine them as having some positive purpose hidden in our subconscious, and through discovering this purpose and giving attention to these subconscious monsters we can satisfy them. Of course, any subconscious demon is simply an aspect of its' host's personality, and for a person to be whole and complete they must acknowledge their own subconscious and not do battle with it.
We discuss the demons of worry. When I have things to do and I put them off, I worry about them. Subconscious demons whisper words of discontent to me, making me uncomfortable and causing me stress. This is remedied simply by acknowledging the demon, by either doing the task I am putting off or making solid plans to complete it. The 'demons' are a call for unity from my subconscious. A part of me separates from the 'active me' and attempts to influence the active me. It should be my aim to eliminate the distinction between these parts and myself. These nagging thoughts I am referring to are just like any other thought; an integrated part of myself. To allow for internal conflict creates them. When I eliminate my internal conflicts my subconscious will have nothing to say. Rather than my intentions materialising as thoughts trying to initiate actions, they will manifest as actions first time around, removing the need for internal nagging.
Anyway, got a bit lost there. I talked to Alan about Krishnamurti and his views on the thoughts of man, how thoughts are time, and time is an illusion that can be escaped by the cessation of thought. How we try to observe ourselves in our lives, but in doing so split ourselves into an observer and an observed, where we are only one person who should embrace our unity within infinity. I could go on and on about that but I won't. It's quarter to four in the morning and I need to get some sleep.
Alan and I finished our food and went home. I got to bed straight away to get up early for the beginning of my CELTA course in the morning. I was a little sad that my free time in Barcelona had ended, but excited to be starting the course. It was going to be one hell of a ride.
This is 'The Thirteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
I woke up leisurely after my long walk and party-watching day Saturday, and went out early to go shopping. I had not had the opportunity to buy any groceries yet. I kept it simple; cereal, yoghurts, bread, cheese, ham, pasta, and of course a couple of large bottles of water. When I got home I made myself two large sandwiches with ham, lettuce, tomato, and avocado, and packed them into my bag with some English teaching books and my notes, before saying goodbye to Alan and setting off to the beach.
It must have been lunchtime by the time I got off the Metro at the bottom of La Ramblas, and I was feeling quite hungry. The sandwiches in my bag were calling me, but I decided to wait until I made it to the beach before I tucked in. I headed past Columbus' Column by the port and walked down towards Barcelonetta, occasionally looking up to smile happily at the sun above me. This was partly to distract me from the multitude of lovely bronzed legs that surrounded me on the route to the beach, not one fake-tan in sight. Gotta love summertime.
I arrived at Barcelonetta Beach and sat on a bench facing the shore. Barcelonetta is a long stretch of beach with bars dotted along the back, each with a public shower/changing area for beach-goers. Volleyball nets are all taken by lovely bikini-clad ladies and lads straight out of the gym. Behind the beach there is a foot-and-cycle path that covers the entire length. Here, as with most of Barcelona, rollerskaters pass constantly like a Malibu cliche. The female skaters catch my attention; wonderful thighs. I eat my sandwiches and watch the world go by before moving onto the beach to enjoy my last day before the course starts.
I chose a spot near the back of the beach and before I've sat down an oriental lady approaches, calling "Massaja? Massa-he?". I say no initially, but she is persistent and it's only 5 Euros, plus I have a bad back, so I accept. I try to tell her to be gentle with my back but she doesn't understand. It takes a minute or so of acting to explain that I am injured, and that she must be careful around my spine. I wrap my arm around my bag and lie on my front and she begins.
The massage is good. She works my back, bum, arms, neck and head for a good ten-to-fifteen minutes before asking if I want my legs and feet done for another 5. I accept. When she is done I am very relaxed. She tries to get more out of me but I am happy. I give her ten and another Euro tip and she says goodbye. I lay back and enjoy the sun on my body.
It is very warm. I consider going in the sea, but I hadn't brought any swimming shorts with me, hoping to buy some here. In any case I couldn't leave my bag here what with all the thief stories I'd heard, so I made myself a sand-pillow, got out an English teaching book and did a little last-minute revision, while enjoying the view of theose ladies who were confident enough to go topless, and the others too. It's hard to concentrate under these circumstances, but I somehow managed it in between cheeky peeks.
While on the beach I listen to the voices around me. I hear lots of Australian girls, a few loud American guys, a few Brits, and a few Spanish. I start getting pain in my back from the way I am sitting, so I remake my sand-pillow a few times to keep my posture straight. I've not written about this yet, but a few weeks previously I fell something like 15 foot off a ledge in a forest in France and landed on my back, breaking a log that I fell on. I was very lucky to walk away, or hobble as the case was. My back has not been the same since, and might not ever be. I'll have to write about that trip sometime.
As the sun moved slowly behind the city I got my stuff together and moved off. On the way back past the port I encountered a salsa-style band playing well-known songs in their own style. I sat down amongst a sizeable crowd of people to listen a while. They danced as they played, jumping around each other with so much energy I wanted to get up and join in, but I didn't. I filmed them a while, enjoyed their music a little longer and then headed off, dropping my change into their hat at the front.
When I arrived back at the house Alan offered to take me out for dinner again since it was my last evening of freedom before the course started. We went out for pizza. As we eat and drink a couple of beers we discuss 'demons', those insecurities which can whisper in our minds and drain our confidence with their patronising self-criticism. We discuss ways of defeating these demons, and whether they actually need to be defeated, or just understood and satisfied. Alan says that he tries to imagine them as having some positive purpose hidden in our subconscious, and through discovering this purpose and giving attention to these subconscious monsters we can satisfy them. Of course, any subconscious demon is simply an aspect of its' host's personality, and for a person to be whole and complete they must acknowledge their own subconscious and not do battle with it.
We discuss the demons of worry. When I have things to do and I put them off, I worry about them. Subconscious demons whisper words of discontent to me, making me uncomfortable and causing me stress. This is remedied simply by acknowledging the demon, by either doing the task I am putting off or making solid plans to complete it. The 'demons' are a call for unity from my subconscious. A part of me separates from the 'active me' and attempts to influence the active me. It should be my aim to eliminate the distinction between these parts and myself. These nagging thoughts I am referring to are just like any other thought; an integrated part of myself. To allow for internal conflict creates them. When I eliminate my internal conflicts my subconscious will have nothing to say. Rather than my intentions materialising as thoughts trying to initiate actions, they will manifest as actions first time around, removing the need for internal nagging.
Anyway, got a bit lost there. I talked to Alan about Krishnamurti and his views on the thoughts of man, how thoughts are time, and time is an illusion that can be escaped by the cessation of thought. How we try to observe ourselves in our lives, but in doing so split ourselves into an observer and an observed, where we are only one person who should embrace our unity within infinity. I could go on and on about that but I won't. It's quarter to four in the morning and I need to get some sleep.
Alan and I finished our food and went home. I got to bed straight away to get up early for the beginning of my CELTA course in the morning. I was a little sad that my free time in Barcelona had ended, but excited to be starting the course. It was going to be one hell of a ride.
This is 'The Thirteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
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