Break time

The staff room is a dug out.
Only the strong survive
in this hard-working madness.

Newbies sit shaking in a corner,
eating lunch at the computer
getting crumbs in the keyboard.

Working too hard.

Seasoned professionals drink coffee
before the sound of the bell:
the big push.

I look into the eyes of my collegues
and see my hollow self reflected there.
It can't be hate? Can it?

The waiting is the worst part.

Wake Up Cliche - Joe's Blog

http://numbers1311407.blogspot.com/2011/02/writing.html

Hopefully we will see more posts from Glencross(see left, stretching before a bouncy castle session with the author). He is returning from China for a visit soon.

Hooray for writing blogs! As a blogger, he feels the pains that I feel. Let's see what happens ...

Misssisyphus: "musings, poetry and whatever ..."

Suprising what stalking your friends on FB can uncover! Quite simplely, I am in awe of Misssisyphus, the Manx nihilist. I dare not comment too much on anything about her for fear she will beat me up. I am very much Walter the Softie to her Dennis the Menace, but I think that everything she does is great. Think Thomas Hardy, punk, Russian authors, metal, the Beats, Henry Rollins, Amanda Palmer, Hunter S Thompson, Oscar Wilde ... Intense intensity.

Anyway, I'm glad I've found this cache of her writing - I've always been curious to read her work, ever since she told me about the stuff that she sumitted for creative writing seminars... It seemed only fair to share the wealth with the wider blogging community. If you like bleakness and rants, check it out! Although the layout does make the text a bit hard to read ... if you persist it's worth it!

No doubt if Misssisyphus gets wind of this, she will be reaching for the catapult and the rotten tomatoes.


'Siberia'

Cast out, we stagger alone through
the wilderness.
A vast Siberia of lost hopes and
new fears.
We encounter no-one, for this hell
is our own.


Read more here:
http://misssisyphus.wordpress.com/

God bless,

Walter

Travel Blog: Ra Fish working for YWAM

(Our prayer team. From left to right: Rebekah, Matt, Andrew, Libby, Pippa, yours truely, Rach)

This title may not make sense unless you know two things. One: Ra Fish is the pseudonym of Rachel Patterson, another of my university chums who is doing something exciting on the other side of the world. Two: YWAM stands for 'Youth With A Mission' - Rach says:

"[this] is basically a course which teaches you about God and encourages you to apply what you learn through outreach both locally to the base to on outreach trips to different countries. It is all about knowing God and making Him known."

So far so good. Now, the blog itself.

My first thought is to compare this to Merrett's blog: Christian in a strange land, etc. etc. BUT they are obviously very different. Whereas Simon's blog was full of his trademark wry wit and hilarious ramblings about NYC, Rach puts her own personal stamp on the travel blog genre in a different and delightful way.

Firstly, and this is classic Patterson, btw, she is a diligent and detailed writer - unlike Merrett, who would always start with something like "sorry I've not written in a while, but I contracted this disease from someone on the subway the other day ...". With Patterson at the keyboard, I doubt readers will not be kept out of the loop for lengthy periods.

Next, what is the blog about? Well, it's a hodge-podge of notes from lectures and accounts of Rachel's adventures in Oz. Although she compares her posts to "essays", they are certainly not dull! Apart from dropping SPIRITUAL TRUTH on yo' ('My sins have gone, I've been set free' - stories from Repentence and Forgiveness week), Ra's writing is peppered with honest accounts of day-to-day struggles (cash flow - praying about it, btw) and humour (I particularly like the story about getting bitten but an ant: just the sort of thing I'd do in that situation!)

There are also some outreach stories not-completely-unlike-Christian-Union-scenarios which I can empathise with and fondly reminisce about.

Find the blog here:
http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Ra-fish/

Find out more about YWAM here:
http://www.ywam.org/

So, to conclude, a thoroughly readable, enjoyable and educational in the best sense, with nothing "fishy" about it ... ahahhahah lolololol

'Fin'

Persuit of Beauty: Olive Su at the Manchester Art Gallery

Another person to add to the list of my inspirations.

So I was on FB today and I discovered that one of my fabulously talented friends from uni has gallery space! Olive Su's Chinese paintings will be on display in the Manchester Art Gallery, in the 'Pursuit of Beauty' Gallery on from today (Sunday 6th Feb.)! If you're up North-way check it out! They are amazo!

Also try:
Su's Chinese Painting Gallery website:
http://www.chinesepaintinggallery.org.uk/artists.php

Olive's interview on the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/lancashire/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_8721000/8721992.stm

I'm mega-excited! Go Olive!

Introduction

Hey gang,

It's nine o'clock on Sunday morning.

So, I'm thinking about getting (back) into writing. There are a number of factors that are stimulating me at this particular moment:

1.) I am reading and my reading is veering towards autobiographies of writers. Murakami, Kafka ... anyone in the literary section of The Telegraph weekend magazine - my parents' subscription, because I would 'obviously' be a Guardian reader ... Oh, and the Beats. Awesome people. Anyway, what is amazing about these stories is that they just went ahead and did it. Murakami was a bar-tender, then, if my memory serves me correctly, one day he just started writing. I suppose that is the thing to do: start.

2.) Starting writing moves on to the next point: the blog. It is surely the way forward. It is accessible - holding Hamford as my inspiration here. I must keep it going. If I keep writing something must happen someday.

I will also add a 'writing' label to my previous compositions.

3.) Job. Teaching: can I keep it up? I keep asking myself that question. For the moment things are going ok; after a week of absolute horror you might get a week of passable success. I've even had a *gasp* 'good day' recently - don't think I've even had one of those before. If I keep writing, writing on the blog, who knows? Maybe one day soemthing will come of it.

I mean to keep in the teaching game for a while at least. Maybe move out over the summer. Next year will be the real test, once NQT is over and I am 'qualified'. Eep. But it point is to keep writing because it will give me hope. Not the God-given hope that I rely on to get through each day, morning and evening and every other concievable time, but the hope that one day I will be able to create something tangeble and say "I did that."

Like that time at uni when I made a 'zine for the Christian Union mission week. It was, I have to say, pretty cool; an anthology of different work from Christian artists, poets and writers. El did some poems for it, poems that you can actually find on her website: ( http://elgruer.com/poems.php ). I made a sort of soap-box section for rants and I put in a short piece voicing my annoyance at people who took down the posters we put up for our Christian events. The good thing about this was that was it did hit home with people. Hearing people saying "Man, I do that!" and thinking that this was aimed souly at them. Not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing, but it had an impact and it felt amazing to actually do that!

It's sort of the feeling that I get when I 'publish' my posts - although I don't get that gratification of comment (unless of course someone DOES leave a comment - and THAT is exciting). It is still thrills me and THAT is why I must keep going.

That'll do for now.

Peace out and God bless,

SM

Year 2011

Happy new year, everyone!

This is what I did last year: completed PGCE,got a job. That is pretty much it. Not easy, and it took up forever. Now 'the hard part' is done, I gotta get on with it! Still not easy, but I am feeling a bit better about it all. Still have the Sunday afternoon dread, which continues to ruin my Sunday lunch, but having a Bank Holiday tomorrow will help ease me into the week nicely.

Will I stick at it? is the big question. I would like to give it a shot and not cop out too soon. I would at least like to get the hang of it, if that is even possible. Who knows. It is dastardly having A JOB, but someones got to do it... Who knows what the future holds? We can only hang on.

Anyway, God bless you all.

SM