We were supposed to rock up for this mini-festival this weekend, but seeing as I had no transport back (like Borat, there is no transportation after 5 P.M. in this backwoods place: "Is there a telephone in this village?") I decided to skip it. I was toying with the idea of calling the luthier, but we've spent a fair bit of time together recently. I must say that I much prefer translating Latin, so that is precisely what I did.
I knocked out well over a 100 lines of Latin translation on that day (Seneca's Trojan Women). The play is also very nearly almost finished (Boadicea: Queen of the Iceni). Now comes the dreaded task of formatting. I dislike it very much, but it is a necessary stage, and the more I re-familiarise myself with coding, and recapture that software developer's mindset (which is a cold, logical, heartless mindset - generally speaking), the greater the progress will be. I am gradually overcoming my psychological barrier to all things programming related, through exposure to programming.
I took the week off this week. Yesterday I finished an editing assignment for the old ball and chain. She has yet to send the next one, which I asked her to do, but I guess she's got other stuff on, such as formatting that last one. I also have a kind of brief informal 'interview' (screening process) coming up next week, to see whether or not I may be a 'suitable candidate' for teacher training. It is the first of a few hurdles I'll need to clear. I should imagine that striking a balance between the amicable and the seriously professional is required. Patriotism (as well as professionalism) is required in this field (teaching history), or, at least it is in (almost) every other country world wide. The French, for example, only ever employ French history teachers (no foreigners), except in some private schools, which are outside of their national curriculum. In any case, I'm not going to hold my breath. I've had far too many knock-backs to stay positive. I remain instead... realistic.
Besides, there were a couple of really good books on teaching and making teaching plans in a second hand store I saw recently. I instead opted for their book on psychic wonders and unexplained phenomena, and a good reference work (ODQ). So I'm not really geared up for learning how to be a teacher right now. I have a lot more books on law, so will probably explore that route into work instead. Besides, I've had enough reading about successful and semi-successful authors, that I now need to overcome that psychological barrier I have with programming, and instead, let the tap loose after being blocked up for years, that I may yet draw fresh water, so to speak.
Imagine. You're a poet, a dreamer, a musician, a writer, a creative type. You discover something even better than simply reading works of poetry in libraries, but education, in your early thirties. You earn two degrees, and are yet at the behest of Captain Bligh and the teenaged underdogs. Now it is time to transform what I have learnt over these past twelve years into something practical and useful. Even if I only just manage to scrape by with this publishing malarky, that would be enough. That is, so I can wake up each morning, and do a job I love (translating Latin, writing poetry), rather than having to face a job I hate. Didier Deman once said, "It is not the learning which is important, but the application of that learning to something practical and useful."
Max.
No comments:
Post a Comment