The Thirty Eighth Blog Of Trig - Return From Barcelona

I got home from Barcelona and immediately started sorting out the insurance claim. I lost my new laptop, my prized and battered C902 with a wealth of photos and videos, and about £100, but the excess left me short the cash. 

I started looking for teaching work abroad, but found that many of my first-choice countries officially required a degree as well as the teaching qualification, so I looked for work in London and quickly found a job teaching in Edgware.

I had only three students, two Italian girls of 12 and 14, and a Greek lad of about 15. They did not know much English at all and I was given no guidance as to how to approach the three hour classes, so I observed another teacher in one lesson and then threw myself at it, but certainly didn't prepare for the lessons enough. I quickly learned that they hated writing exercises, so I tried to do more talking reading and listening, but the school did not have a great store of exercise books and no tape players. I would get to the end of my prepared lesson with half an hour to go and play word games until the end, or discuss the moon landing conspiracies, or holidays, or families, or anything else the talkative greek lad would frequently ask about. He wanted to speak English, and was not at all interested in writing or reading. His spoken English was certainly better than his written.

After a couple of lessons I developed a rapport with the students, and as we all became more comfortable the lessons became more enjoyable. However, they were only in England for a few weeks with family, and would be heading home soon, so I found myself having to look for another job to fall into.

I decided to go back into the City for a while to get some cash together so that I could go abroad and teach, so I put my CV together and posted it online. The next day I received a call from an agent and arranged to meet him at Liverpool Street Station for a coffee and an informal chat.

I met him, suited for the occasion, we grabbed a coffee and he told me about the role. It was at the London Stock Exchange, providing telephone support to users of stock pricing and order management systems. I told him that I had used the exact same pricing systems for three years at my previous role, which went down well, and he arranged me an interview the following week.

I bought a new suit and arrived early. The doors of the LSE are flanked by stocky security guards, solemn but fairly friendly, who ask you your business there if you do not produce a photo ID card. I told them that I had an interview and they directed me to the front desk.

In an indoor courtyard in front of me there was an enormous rotating digital planet Earth, and the walls had digital strips with global share prices moving round. A man with a device which I assumed was for detecting explosives asked me to take off my bag. His device 'sniffed' me, beeped its approval, and I was ushered forward to the front desk, where I was given a visitors badge and told to move through the barriers and take a seat.

G, the agent, had assured me that my interviewer D was a lovely lady. She came down after a while and introduced herself in a strong cockney accent, and took me upstairs. On the way to our interview room we passed glass cabinets with gold and silver trophy plates and other memorabilia which looked like they were worth a lot of money. 

The interview was fairly standard. She asked me about my experience, and why I left my last job, which I was dangerously honest about. She then asked me what I knew about the London Stock Exchange. I told her what I knew, but stumbled when she asked me more complex questions. She was very professional, and there was not much time for small-talk. At the end of the interview I was not too confident about how well I had done, having not answered all of her questions about London Stock Exchange business as confidently as I would have liked, but the call-back for a second interview showed promise.

I met with G the agent again, as he wanted to see how the first interview went and prepare me for the second. He congratulated me on my initial success and gave me great advice for the next step, although I was already confident in my interview skills. I like to think of it as simply meeting someone for a chat. I am interviewing them as much as they are me in my eyes. That perspective puts us on even ground, and makes both interviewer and interviewee more comfortable. Never tell them that though. Some people like their feeling of superiority. Bring them down to your level by relaxing, not worrying, and being friendly and confident, but of course don't tell them about your tactics, they will bounce back to their corporate personality in a flash. Find common ground. Talk about yourself in your professional and personal capacity, your loves and dislikes, but nothing too divisive or controversial, and if they sense your honesty then you are likely to find something that they can empathise with, and you can take a break from the interview and be human beings a while. Before you know it, if you're lucky, you've made a friend! Much better than gaining a boss.

The second interview was with the head of the business area I would be working in. He was in his late forties I guess, a very friendly guy, and it felt quite informal. We sat down in the lovely cafeteria area and chatted, mostly about my interests and hobbies, lingering on a commonality of snooker briefly, before discussing more my professional experience and aspirations. I can't really remember what else we talked about, but I remember leaving feeling good about my chances, and glad that so far my potential colleagues seemed nice. The only thing I was worried about at this point was that my high-frequency posting of alternative and controversial news and views on Twitter and Facebook might come under scrutiny. It seemed unlikely that it wouldn't at such a high-profile establishment.

As I left the Exchange I got a text message from Baz asking if I wanted to meet him in Camden for a couple of drinks. I gladly obliged. I met him outside the station, me looking like a city bod and him like a First Division football manager, and we headed to a bar. The drinks came thick and fast with the odd joint of pollen or skunk thrown in here and there, and the day disappeared. Before I knew it the sun had set and we were both pretty pissed and stoned, merrily pub-crawling our way around the bars of Camden. Barry soon suggested finding some drugs. I was hesitant, but agreed with conditions.
"Okay, but no coke. Get MDMA, but only if it's crystal. I'm not paying money for a bag of talcum powder, crystal is the only thing we can be half sure of - crystal ONLY!" I really stressed this point, "I won't pay for anything else."
Sure enough, Baz headed off and picked up in a flash off some dodgy street dealer, and within 5 minutes we were in another bar, and Baz was pouring semi-precious crystals into my open palm.
"Here you go pal," he said, "get that down ya. I'll see ya on the other side of the rainbow!"
"Cheers pal."
"Cheers buddy!"
Our glasses clinked together and the slightly yellow translucent crystals were washed down with rum and coke. 

More beer, more rum, and half an hour later we got impatient because we could not feel the MD, so we did the last of it between us. We waited, we waited...we probably waited only half as long as we thought because we were so pissed, and in my drunken impatience I subsequently decided prematurely that the MD was a dud.
"We got mugged off mate, this stuff is shit...Ah fuck it, let's crack on regardless!"
"Exactly bruv, we've had a great day, let's make it a great night!"

Now, here there is a bit of a gap. I think we were drinking in Wetherspoons by the canal when we came up off the MD hard. I think we headed to the Elephant after that. Barry says we were chatting with a bunch of big Russian lads, but I have no memory of it. I vaguely remember laughing with Baz about how we thought the MD was dud, but now we were off our pickles and entering a full ploughmans. It was in here that we met a girl called Sara and an Asian guy whose name I can't remember. Sara was a petite Camden lass, originally from the countryside somewhere, tattoos and leather jacket, cute and sexy, but a little rough around the edges. The Asian guy was fairly quiet, and seemed as though he had been hoping to get with Sara until she decided to tag along with us, and then he just tagged along too.

We had decided to go back to Barry's place in Edgware after the pubs shut. Here, my first clear memory for a while is of walking down Camden High Street, hallucinating severely. Each street light was showering glittery beams of radiance upon the pavement, and I had multiple vision that I could not for the life of me resolve through focus or concentration. Sara pointed out a guy across the road with a large dog, saying she always saw him about and that he seemed to be following her. I saw six identical men with six identical dogs walking down six identical streets. She asked me to put my arm around her and pretend like we were together. The memory gets hazy again here, but I remember the six dodgy guys and their dogs disappeared.

We got back to Barry's place somehow and came crashing in on his flatmate, a Somalian guy called Abdul, passed out with one of his friends. I was exhausted from all the drugs and alcohol and was unconscious pretty quickly, while the others cracked on with the beers and started chewing on some khat. I woke up a good few hours later, Tuesday morning, to a strange scene. Everyone was still up and awake, with Abdul's friend seemingly trying to convince Sara to take her clothes off. She was not interested in obliging. I sat up and said a sheepish hello to everyone. Hallucinations had ceased, but a tiredness was still lingering over me and a hangdown was lurking maliciously in the corner.
"What you guys been up to? How long have I been asleep?"
"You fell asleep as soon as we arrived! We've been chewing khat, drinking and smoking since!"
"Wow! I was pretty hammered. What's khat like?"
Abdul's friend chipped in, "it's great, have you never tried it? It's like cocaine, livens you up, but more naturally. Makes you really horny too!" 
He winked at Sara as he said this, and the unamused look on her face made me wonder what I had missed while I was asleep.
"Where's Barry?"
"Gone to get more beer."
"Okay."
I looked at Sara and when everyone else's attention was elsewhere mouthed the words: "What's been going on?"
She moved over to sit next to me on the futon and spoke under her breath.
"It's been a bit weird here to be honest. I wanted to leave but didn't want to go by myself. I was hoping you'd come back with me."
"Not a problem," I said, "I need to rest a bit longer though. I'm pretty hammered still."
I lay back down and she casually snuggled up to me. It felt good, but I was a little uncomfortable about the situation. It seemed like she had been getting hassle off this lad while I had been out. He was acting like a horny schoolboy, and as soon as he saw her cuddle up to me he started winking at me and motioning for me to get her on the bed. I simply shook my head and lay back to rest, and he lost interest temporarily. From Sara's affection I had a feeling she didn't just want me to walk her home.

I was very tired, half asleep, but Sara's hand feeling between my shirt buttons distracted me from drifting off. I looked at her and she looked at me, and we kissed. She had a gorgeous body, and my hands wandered down her back and over her bum for a gentle squeeze. She took a sharp breath in and I felt my cock go semi, but I did my best to take my mind elsewhere, stopped kissing her and lay back with her head on my chest. This was not the best time or place for intimacy.

Barry and Abdul came back with more beer soon after.
"Awww, havin' a cuddle you two?"
"Sharing body heat!" Sara said with an innocent smile.
We sat up and accepted a beer, and Barry started rolling up a joint.
"I'm gonna head off in a while mate."
Barry looked up from his spliff.
"Okay pal. You alright?"
"Yeah, fine. Bit tired! I'm gonna see Sara back safe to Camden and then I need some serious rest!"
I had been out for 36 hours and I was still in my interview suit.
"Ah you're gonna see Sara back are ya?" He said, looking at Sara with a wink.
"Yeah," I said with an ironic air of chivalry, "got to make sure the lady gets home safely!"
Sara's friend; who had faithfully accompanied her on this journey across North London with two random drink and drug-induced men out of what seemed to be a genuine concern for her safety, to end up in a flat with a khat chewing Somalian and his horny friend; did not seem too pleased about this turnout. Sara showed no sign of being interested in him romantically, and had not at all that I remember, so I did not feel guilty about the situation, although I did feel a little sorry for him.

The day wore on and I asked Sara if she was ready to go, but she wasn't ready to leave yet, which I found funny as she had been bugging me to leave a bit earlier. I soon got impatient as I was very tired, and told her that I was leaving; if she wanted me to take her back to Camden we were leaving now, so we left, her friend with us. As it turned out he lived in Edgware, so wouldn't be accompanying us on the train. As we walked towards the station he hung back behind us, apparently sulking. Sara convinced me to have a quick drink in a pub we passed, and we invited him to join us but he refused, so he said goodbye, with a little animosity. 

We decided to have a quick Jaegerbomb followed by a pint. The Red Bull in the Jaeger woke me up a little. We chatted and she told me that she had only tagged along with us because she liked me.
"But I was off my face on MD and pissed as a fart! I was tripping my balls off! Why would you want to chase me in that state?!"
"What can I say, I liked you. And I was pretty pissed myself." She said with a sheepish smile. I returned the smile and leaned forward to kiss her with an 'awww'.
"I'm going to be honest, I don't remember meeting you. I'd just come up off that MD and had been drinking for about 9 hours with Baz. The first I remember is walking through Camden with you and that guy with the dog following us."
"He is weird that guy. It can't be coincidence, I see him all the time, always walking the same direction as me."
"That is strange," I said, "I'd be careful. Especially with strange men you happen to meet in the pub!" We both laughed.

We left after we finished our drinks and jumped on the train. She sat on my lap and we kissed a while. When we stopped kissing I noticed a bunch of young lads checking her out.
"I think you have some fans over there." I whispered with a smile.

When we got to Camden she insisted on going for another drink. I didn't really want to drink any more; it had been a long night...well, a long day followed by a long night followed by another long day. I smiled at the realisation that 36 hours or so earlier I had been in an interview at the London Stock Exchange. We went for another drink when we got to Camden. 

When we left the pub we ran through the rain with my coat as shelter until we came to her flat. She explained to me that although she wanted me to come in, I had to leave before 11, as that was when her landlord came back. He was apparently an older homosexual guy, and was funny about her having friends over in the evening as he worked long hours. So in we went. 

It was a nice tidy flat, small but cosy. She took me straight into her room and said she was going for a shower, 'would I like to join her'? I said yes of course, and we both stripped naked, had a little kiss and a fondle, then headed into her shower. A bit of soapy romance ensued, and when we were both sufficiently aroused we quickly dried off and headed back into her bedroom, where we had amazing sex on her bed. When I pulled out afterwards I found that the ridiculously small condom she'd given me had broken.
"Don't worry, I'm on the pill." She said.
"Me too." I replied jokingly. 
We laughed, kissed, cuddled up naked on her bed and put her TV on, but before long we were both horny again. We didn't see the point of using a condom this time, since the last one had broken, so the sex was more natural, and subsequently even better than the first session. By the time we had finished we were both exhausted, and cuddled up on the verge of sleep on her bed. I kept myself from drifting off, knowing that I had to leave shortly, and suddenly remembered that I was supposed to be teaching one of my last classes at the English school the following day! 

We said goodbye with some passionate kissing and I took her number, promising to give her a call. I walked through the rain feeling pretty happy. Very tired, but happy. Unexpected sex will do that to you.

Over the next week I gave my last two lessons at the English school and said goodbye to the students. The Greek lad insisted on his mum taking a photo of us, even though I had only been teaching them a couple of weeks, which was nice. 

I got a call from my agent to say that I got the job at the London Stock Exchange, starting the following week. Before I could start I had to provide evidence of everything that I had on my CV, going back to my GCSEs at secondary school. This took some chasing; a couple of calls to previous jobs and my university. I asked one previous employer for a letter confirming the dates that I was employed there, and was told that they could only provide a reference to a new employer.
"I don't want a reference, I want a letter confirming the dates I worked there."
"I'm sorry sir, it's company policy."
"So any old person can call you up, say they want my personal details for reference, and you will provide them, but I myself cannot? It's not even a reference I want, just a letter confirming employment dates. Can I speak to the head of HR please."
She put me on hold and came back a minute or so later.
"We don't normally do this, but on this occasion we are willing to send a letter confirming the dates you worked at the company."
"Thank you very much, but as that data refers to me, I am entitled under the data protection act to have access to it. Please could you email a copy of the letter as soon as possible and forward me the original. Thank you for your help."

I sent off my references and started working at the London Stock Exchange the following week.

Thirty Eighth Blog Of Trig, signing off.

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.

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.

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 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.

The Eleventh Blog Of Trig - Footsteps on the Moon

I walk out of class on Wednesday the 20^th July, after what I consider to be the best lesson I have taught so far, and find that while I have been teaching, the people of Barcelona have converged in the streets to protest the ‘financial crisis’; the greatest theft in the history of mankind. I can't go home as I intended. I have to join the procession. 

I march through the streets looking around me with a smile. After a while I try to take some photos but my phone is dead, so I sit down for a coffee and plug it into my laptop. This is where I write from now. I don’t know how many people are marching past me now as I write this, but the street has been flowing full of people since well before I sat down. As with the London protests, I can not see the beginning or the end of the procession of people. I can only see the flow, which is steady and unceasing, reminding me of the rivers that washed through the streets during the heavy rainfall this week.

The noise of whistles fills the air like the screech of a football stadium, but this is different. These whistles have purpose. They are blown to the rhythm of the chanting that accompanies them. They synchronise with the drums that beat out the indignation of the Spanish people, of Earth’s people, at having their lives spat on with such disregard by those with power. A banner waves a giant hand with it’s middle finger clearly raised. The Spanish and Catalan people chant words which I recognise from Youtube videos: they sing, “They don’t, they don’t, they don’t rep-re-sent us! They don’t, they don’t, they don’t rep-re-sent us!” They speak of the politicians, and they are right, they don’t.

After twenty minutes or so I am half way through my small 4 Euro(!) coffee, and a largely built man in plain clothes with an earpiece hovers around me. It is obvious he is undercover police, wondering what I am doing on my laptop in the middle of this rabble of smiling 'terrorists', typing away so frantically. He isn’t very inconspicuous. The crowds start to thin out and I consider packing up and moving off after them, but then a new wave floods through the area and the chanting is renewed. Then, slowly, the streets return to their usual shopper + tourist bustle. Behind the protesters heavily armoured police vans crawl slowly and menacingly. Their drivers have balaclavas on…time for me to leave my coffee and catch up with the people.

By the time I catch up with the crowds they have been stopped outside Estacio De Franca (where I type now) by rows of heavily armoured, handgun-armed police. For a hundred metres in front of the barricade the protesters all sit down in the middle of the street. A car up front with a megaphone shouts messages to the crowd and they cheer and whistle in approval. I move up to the front and check out the riot police. A pretty girl walks up their lines smiling at them and offering her lollipop. They shake their heads without a word. I get the feeling many of them would love to take her up on her offer, and would jump at the chance in any other circumstances. What a sad world. I am reminded of the soldiers in world war 1 ceasing fire to play football and exchange presents on Christmas day, before going back to their lines to kill each other.

Fuck the police. I want the police to chant that with us, “FUCK THE POLICE”, and join the people, as people they themselves are.

I have been desperately trying to charge my phone off of my laptop at every safe opportunity I get to sit down, plug it in and type, but it is not easy. I move into the station and see seats. I am very aware of how I appear. There are security men walking round the station with sniffer dogs, eyeing me suspiciously as I sit down, get my laptop out, plug it into my mobile phone, and start typing frantically. I wonder if they are thinking, “is this some kind of hacker here to tap into our station and cause havoc? Is he setting bombs to go off? What is he doing?” I get my notes out, stick my pen in my mouth and get on with what I am doing. When I think my phone is charged enough to take some photos I’ll move back to my notepad and go back out, but for now this is perfect. I can still hear the crowds outside. I can still hear the lady with the megaphone talking in Spanish about how we have all been ripped off. I wish I could speak Spanish so I could tell them my angle on it all; ‘the biggest ‘Ponzi scheme’ in the world’; 'the biggest theft in the history of the world'; 'the biggest load of bullshit believed by the biggest number of people in the world, ever'. The protests are here to show people where they might find truth.

I check the clock and it is 21.34. Suddenly the crowd outside erupts into applause and cheering. I feel I am missing out, but I must wait a little longer so I have enough battery to take some photos. I feel a little bit uncomfortable, knowing that I have lots of work to do, but there is always time. It’s amazing what little sleep you can survive on when you need to, and I have plenty of experience of that, more than I can remember. I check my phone but it still doesn’t look very charged. Time to give it a try. I’ll be back soon.

My mobile works long enough to get some video footage of the riot police and some shots of the protesters, and then it's time for me to go home, cook dinner, maybe get some work done, and then to bed for some much needed sleep. As I walk back along the route that I took with the protesters earlier, I see that the signs they taped to the buildings on their way down are already gone. The banks seemed to have had men at the ready with soap and water to remove the graffiti daubed on their walls and windows. The physical evidence of the protest has been erased in the blink of an eye, but the footprints find no disturbance in my memory, or the memory of those who witnessed it, participated in it. Soap and water cannot remove this. These footprints remain, like a trail through a dark forest, reminding us that others have come this way before, smiling and fearless, passing through unscathed to look back and find the path behind them a little bit more defined, a little more pronounced, and as more and more people tread the path, encouraged by those brave feet that have cleared the way, the wider it becomes. As it widens it accommodates and encourages more travellers. They look down the path, venture down it, reassured by the parties of brave smiling people returning from hacking their way through the forest of the unknown, uncovering the path of truth as they go.


This is "The Eleventh Blog Of Trig", signing off.


(P.S. My phone and laptop got stolen a few days later, with all the pictures and footage of the event...)

The Eighth Blog Of Trig - The Barcelona Diaries (Part 2 - 01/07/2011)

Okay, Barcelona blog part two! As I write this I am sitting on the roof terrace of International House Barcelona, the school I am studying at. There are students all around me chatting, smoking, drinking coffee and eating. I have drowned out the background with headphones pumping Beck's album 'Odelay' into my ears (special thanks to Davey Bee for the great times we had trying to decifer the lyrics). I think I left off on Thursday night after meeting my host Alan. So I guess Friday morning is a good place to continue...


So, I wake up Friday morning and have a shower, hot then cold, taking care to pick all my failing hairs out of the bath afterwards (yes, I meant 'failing', not falling). I go downstairs and say hello to Alan and he offers me breakfast. We have Bran Flakes with a sliced banana, OJ on  the side. I'm out of cigarettes so I decide to go out and find a shop. Should be simple, but it doesn't work out to be. I head out into the streets and wander in what seems to be a promising direction, but the promise turns out to be broken. I didn't take my map out with me, assuming I wouldn't need it, forgetting of course, that all of Miss Assumption's children are named 'Fuckup'.


I failed to find a shop that sold cigarettes for some time, and by the time I did, I had no idea where I was. I wandered the streets for over an hour, sweating like a pig on a spit, pumping my legs faster and faster in frustration until I finally found my bearings again, realising that I had pretty much been walking circles round the block I was staying on. I also did not feel I had any better idea of the surrounding area. Lesson learnt - always take a map.


Alan greeted me when I arrived back, laughing as I told him my survival story, in  the manner of a man who has just crawled his way out of the desert. We had a sandwich for lunch and then I grabbed my bag and set out towards the Metro station. I was on my way to the language school to say hello, and then have a wander round the town and maybe the beach. At the Metro station I bought a ticket which gave me 50 journeys on Metro or buses, within 30 days, for 31 Euros. That's three days' travel in London, if you're lucky.


The underground Metro reminds me of the one in Budapest, but more modern. They both have similar '80s-computer-game' sounds on the train to announce arrival, departure, and doors opening. I prefer it to the aural torture inflicted on London commuters. I have on many occasions been very close to unleashing my fury upon the speakers on the London trains. I have envisioned myself running at the things with a biro-bayonet, sending the little beeping bastards straight to silicon heaven with a calculated stab through the tweeter, while commuters drop dead from shock upon hearing my horrific war-cry.


The Metro stations are all absolutely sweltering, being too large an area to effectively air condition, but the trains are nice and cool. I left the train and walked into the heat outside with a smile. It was bright outside, and I didn't have to look in the direction of the sun to be forced into squinting.

Getting off at Catalunya station, I found myself in Placa De Catalunya, a big square with water-featured monuments dotted about. I walked around taking a couple of photos and soaking up the atmosphere, trying to recognise the different accents around me. I heard lots of American, lots of Australian, and of course lots of Spanish. I gazed around me for a while, being reminded of Trafalgar Square a little (Spanish style, without Nelson), then I headed for the far corner of the square, which my map told me was where I had to go to begin the short walk to the school.

I arrived at the school 5 minutes later, and was directed to the first floor where I met Gloria, the Head of Administration. She had a bright smile which made me feel comfortable immediately. I was hoping for a tour, but her assistant was at lunch and she had to stay at her desk. She told me to arrive at 8.30am Monday and she would introduce me to my fellow students and show me to my class. Before I left she introduced me to another Sam, who holds a senior teaching position. He was also smiling and friendly, making me feel very positive about things.

 

I came out of international house and I walked towards the 'Ramblas', but I got distracted by the interesting alleyways cutting off of the main roads, and decided to investigate. A part of me echoed the warnings I had heard about the crime in Barcelona, but I wanted to see as much as the city as possible, not just the busy tourist areas, so I headed off the beaten track into the side passages, which were made slightly ominous by the tall buildings that created them. Some looked less inviting than others, with sombre faces staring out from the shadows, and the smell of urine and sweat wofting through the channels. I chose my alleyways carefully using the criteria of piss saturation and ominiscity. Is that a word? It is now. 'Ominiscity'. You heard it here first.

After wandering through the passages a while I came across the cathedral. I guess it was one of Gaudi's creations by its beautiful architecture. In front was a market with all kinds of antique curiosities, which I expected to be expensive by the looks of them. I browsed a while and then headed up the side of the cathedral where I found a couple of guys playing Indian music. I stopped a while, took a video (at the top of this page), and then headed off in some random direction. Maps are useless in these maze-like streets.

I had decided earlier to visit the port and the beach, so I headed down the Ramblas (once I found it by complete fluke) towards the ocean. At the bottom of the Ramblas is Columbus' column, very much like Nelson's, but for CC. Behind this is the port. I headed over and watched as two enormous Scottish guys were told off by police for jumping into the water in the port half-clothed for a swim. Then I sat on a bench and read my Spanish phrase book a while, then my English teaching book. I decided to walk round the port to see how far the beach was, but it was pretty far and I had already walked a long way so I decided to head back in the direction of home.

Shortly after leaving the port area I came across a small park by the main road with some amazing graffiti art. I stopped and took some photos, and then for the next few minutes, every corner I turned I found more (graffiti blog shows more pics). Then I came to the foot of Montjuïc (translated in Catalan as 'Jew Hill), a hill which begins the 'Port Vell Aerial Tramway', a 1300m long carriage journey on a 45mm rope across the harbour to Barceloneta Beach. I started walking up the hill to get a view from the top, passing a man painting the scenery on the way (below), before making it up to the top fifteen minutes later, covered with sweat.

At the top of the hill I found a lovely bar with a cliff-terrace overlooking the ocean, the whole of Barcelona, and even the mountains to the north-west. I ordered a beer and sat down to admire what I guess to be a 270 degree panoramic view of the city and surroundings, got out my laptop and started typing. I finished off a piece of writing about my history teacher, Mr Oulton, and what he taught me about analysing information to find truth.

I had a couple of beers looking out over Barcelona, feeling very comfortable about where I was (or WHEN I was - the one and only real moment of time - now) and the course I was about to embark on. I thought about light rays and the false wave-particle duality of reality. I read my English Language Teaching book. I read my book, 'Dope International', about the international heroin trade and how it was run after WW2 by the the Sicilian/Italian MAFIA, Corsican gangsters, and others. I read how the author suspected the 'Big Boss' to be in Britain. I looked out and smiled.

As the sun started to go down I left the bar and headed back to the house. It was a long walk, through busy pedestrianised streets, filled with tables and chairs occupied by the customers of the many bars and restaurants either side. Children kicked footballs around. Skateboarders tried their tricks out in front of their friends. The bustling noise of the people was comforting and friendly. 

When I got home I had some food and then went to bed fairly soon after. I had walked a lot of miles that day. Bring on Saturday!

This is "The Eighth Blog Of Trig", signing off.

The Sixth Blog of Trig - The Truth Teacher

I spent some time talking to my grandmother last night and I spoke of some of my school memories, specifically of my history lessons. When I was at school I had a history teacher by the name of Mr Oulton, who was also my head of year. He was quite a dominating powerful figure, tall and stern, but a very fair and decent man. I wasn't the most well behaved student, and I remember spending much time standing outside of his office. I wasn't a bad kid, but I was cheeky and mischievous and not particularly hard working, at all, so I spent my fair share of time in detentions, including the infamous 'Saturday Detentions'. I told my grandmother how, no matter how many times he found me outside his office for some misdemeanor, I never remember him speaking down to me, or treating me unfairly or contemptuously in any way. He treated me with unearned respect, and I hope that I returned that respect to some degree. I fear that in my immaturity I may not have.

Much of schooling these days is based around the learning of what we refer to as 'facts'. This is especially apparent in so-called 'history' lessons, where school children are often presented with a timeline of what are locally considered to be the 'important'/'relevant' events to be remembered. A good history teacher, such as was Mr Oulton, does not simply demand recall of these details from memory. Any good teacher should encourage and assist students in the practise of exercising a logical process to determine what is fact and what is not. A good teacher, a TRUE teacher, should teach and encourage the pursuit of TRUTH.

I remember Mr Oulton, possibly upon commencing his teaching of us, stressing to us the importance of questioning what is presented to us as 'fact'. We were taught to assess any given source of information logically, to ask ourselves to question who wrote it, what their background was, their political views, their personality, locality, and subsequently, what possible motive they could have had for producing that source of information. Then of course, you must then assess this background information for its own reliability and accuracy. If you can find discrepancies then you must question the information further until you have satisfied your uncertainty to the best of your ability. This is not just the study of history. It is THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH.

We are born with a powerful, inherent ability to assess and identify truth, and the ability to retain our findings as memory. Children naturally investigate their environment to the greatest degree possible, as this is the only way to properly understand the world we are born into. We grab at things in an attempt to understand the limbs we have been born with, and once we have established the truths of our physical abilities we can further analyse the association between ourselves and the world. The natural curiosity and inquisitiveness of children, this pursuit of truth, is what facilitates our growth and development. This is why we learn faster as children than at any other time in our lives.

Schools today all-to-often stifle our childrens' curiosity, for the sake of learning half-truths and sometimes blatant lies by rote, usually for the motives of the people bearing the physical power in the world. This is indoctrination; the bane of curiosity, enquiry, understanding and development. Indoctrination can be very obvious in some cases, and in others it can be very subtle. It is often very difficult to identify, as its very purpose is to restrict wider understanding and conceal truth. Indoctrination is to human beings what stagnation is to water.

There has always been division and conflict between human beings in the world. These divisions often arise from intolerance, which can be attributed to a lack of understanding, which itself is brought about by an indoctrinated unwillingness to understand and Empathise with anything outside of the doctrine. It has nothing to do with ability. As I have mentioned, everyone is born with a natural instinct to investigate and attempt to understand the world around them, but the enforcement of false truths upon enquiring minds forcefully occupies time and creates a distraction from our natural inquisitive instinct to search for truth.

Looking back, Mr Oulton was more than just a history teacher to me. I did not understand at the time, but he was teaching us to think for ourselves. He was teaching us to take in information, without being taken in by it.

Since leaving school I have discovered that many of the 'facts' presented to us in our history books were either half-truths or purely false 'truths'. Mr Oulton reminded us of our natural instinctive ability to question the 'history' he was forced to have us learn. He showed us the logical process by which we could assess the world as individuals, in order to form our own opinions and improve our understanding, based upon an instinctive logical process.

Mr Oulton was not just a history teacher. He was a teacher of truth.

This is "The Sixth Blog Of Trig", signing off.