(Book cover from here)
A thousand apologies, but there won’t be a fairy-tale post from me this week. I had lots and lots of homework from my course last week, but rather than sitting down sensibly in the freezing, poky little hole we call a study and getting on with it, I frittered away three valuable evenings lounging on the sofa by the fire in the belief that I really could learn about Belgian educational policy and prepare a lesson while watching Hitchcock films. I was wrong! And now I cannot afford to sleep between now and Thursday morning! Bother.
Oh dear, if I had a pound for ever time I've done that (and beaten myself up about it afterwards and sworn I would never do it again) I would be a very rich woman indeed:)
Posted by: Alex | Tuesday, 09 October 2012 at 09:34 AM
Haha! Oops, indeed. I decided I could read Sylvia Townsend Warner's diaries *and* watch The Voice at the same time. It was not a great success.
Posted by: Simon T | Tuesday, 09 October 2012 at 11:41 AM
Heh, I'm glad I'm not alone! I don't watch much television (Inspector Montalbano and Gardeners' World are my weekly exceptions) so I think I get a bit overexcited sometimes when I do see it. Look at the little people in the box! They move! They speak!
Posted by: Helen | Tuesday, 09 October 2012 at 01:17 PM
Oh that Hitchcock, how he leads a girl astray! I have often thought that watching Rear Window for the umpteenth time would be a doddle to combine with some other necessary labour. Oops indeed. However! The good news is that it's amazing how little you need for a lesson so long as you schedule loads of class participation. I delighted in putting my students in groups and then making them present to one another. It kept them occupied for HOURS and they liked it. I think the fire and the TV sound infinitely more tempting than your chilly study (I do that, too, make the work room distinctly unappealing!).
Posted by: litlove | Tuesday, 09 October 2012 at 03:02 PM
Heh, I don't really have a choice about the unappealing work room, everywhere in the house beyond a six-foot radius of the fire is freeeezing! But my partner just put a rug on the floor and found an old heater, so maybe I do make it deliberately unappealing, hmm.
My problem is that I am terribly indecisive, so I start planning a lesson and then think, oh it's crap, so I try something else, and then maybe I return to the first thing, or think of something else, and meanwhile I get more and more wound up about it. But I think tonight's lesson was OK and nobody died of boredom.
I think class presentations do sound like the way forward though. Thank you!
Posted by: Helen | Wednesday, 10 October 2012 at 10:11 PM