I am... not the world's most prolific blogger!
Three posts.
Does that even qualify me as a blogger?
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"Tell me something good!"
That's one of my opening techniques when I teach. Very often it prompts a terrified look of panic from the student (as if they haven't had a week since I asked that question last!)
And I prompt gently further: " it could be something good that's happened to you, something good that you're looking forward to... or even something good that you've heard on the news..."
And what do I get? "The weather's good today." or "It's almost the weekend." Heheh.
I understand that not many people ask (or are asked) that question - and so people are not used to have to concentrate on the positive. Other teachers like to ask "What did you do at the weekend?" or "... since last week?" Not me. Let's have some positivity in the classroom right from the get-go.
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So, in answer to my own suggestion of coming out with something good...
I've done some job-seeking, looking for more teaching jobs and have found a couple of extra courses. One of which is at the HMKW in Cologne and the students are young, eager and enjoy speaking English. The pay is also good - which is a pleasant surprise. Although you may imagine that private universities have plenty of moola, not all of them like to share it and I know this from experience. This came up as a topic of conversation with one of the directors of the university at the semester-opening party and he told me that in comparison with some other private uni's here in the region (naming no names) the founders of the HMKW decided to do so because they enjoy what they do - not just for the lucrative profit possibilities. This is a great ethos in my opinion and I'm really looking forward to and hoping to be there a long time. I have good feedback from my students and it's great to be in that academic environment again. Hanging out with young people keeps me young.
And that's a good thing.
What else is good, is that I've published three T-shirts at Teepublic.com (https://www.teepublic.com/user/robgprice) and although three is not as many as I would like to have published so far this year, it is a good start and I have plenty more ideas. I just need to encourage myself to sit down, draw, scan and edit these ideas into the finished article. But as I mentioned, I have started and I do intend to carry on.
And maybe I'll think of writing another blog page sometime in the next four months so that at least I'll be consistent.
Thursday 30 April 2015
Sunday 11 January 2015
It is already crazy o'clock and I know I should be sleeping as I have to substitute for 2 classes in Cologne tomorrow morning (this morning)- but as I got the inspiration this afternoon for a cartoon in support of Charlie Hebdo (I do some good thinking in the sauna) I wanted to power through and see the job done.
It is much more hopeful than the last one I did - I was probably giving in too much to anger with that one. This one is more in line with standing together with the magazine. Although I've never bought or read Charlie Hebdo, I could not imagine what the families of those killed must be going through right now. It is right that people should show unity with them.
Here it is - I hope the message comes across and I hope it aesthetically pleases.
Tuesday 6 January 2015
A journey of a thousand Li...
In the fifth century B.C. the sage Confucius is purported to have said:
At 15, I set my heart on learning.
At 30 I know where I stand (my character has been formed).
At 40, I have no more doubts,
at 50, I know the will of Heaven,
at 60 my ears are attuned (i.e. my moral sense is well-developed),
at 70, I follow my heart’s desire without crossing the line (without breaking moral principles).
From the Analects – This excerpt swiped from http://bystander.homestead.com/Confucius_milestones.html
I prefer, however, to think of the philosophic words that were attributed to Kurt Vonnegut but actually written by Mary Schmich and Brenda Starr of the Chicago Tribune and formed the main text of the song “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen).”
“Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.”
That’s kind of comforting for a soon-to-be 45 year-old who is just winding up a late-commenced academic study. One more chapter is coming to a close and another one is about to begin.
And it’s been a trek and a half. Apart from the facts and figures (mainly years – maths is not my fortitude) studying for a degree has taught one two major lessons:
I love to learn.
I hate to sit down and study for the sake of it.
This is partially why I've dragged it out for so long: The reluctance to sit down and learn when there are a million other things to do. Another reason is my dissatisfaction with my written German. Oh, I can quatsch with the best of them in spoken German, but the complexities of German grammar and the need to sit down and learn them off by heart is... hard to do when the afore-mentioned million other things to do are there.
Yup, as my students will tell you (ah, another reason it’s taken a long time – I have to earn a crust and teaching English has been my bread and butter, or rather my rice and sweeet-sour for the better part of two decades) I get easily distracted.
Anyway, I have put a lot of things on the back-burner to finish my studies and now it’s time to pick up again from where I left off. So, is it another chapter opens or another chapter re-opens? In the last few months, I’ve been thinking about the things that I would have liked to have done in the last years, but never did because I should have been concentrating on my studies.
Two years ago, I started drawing again – something I looooved to do in my childhood. It was always my dream to be a cartoonist. And recently I have even sent strips to comics / magazines in Germany and the UK. The response was more promising in the UK and I sent in another strip, and another. Still not quite what they were looking for – but I should not be dispirited. I still have plenty of ideas in my noggin, but I need to sit down and put them on paper. (Did I mention how I’ve become averred to sitting down for longer periods of time?)
Those ideas in my head have been floating and brewing and building and growing for a while now. Now. Now is the important word. Probably it is the most important word. There is only now. The past is gone and cannot be changed. The future is not yet here and cannot be seen with 100%. All we have is now. That’s why I’ve decided to start this blog, now, here, today. Now is what I have and I aim to put into pixels what is in my head and get into the mode of putting myself out there. Out there, in the public eye, once more.
However things are getting ever-more serious and I need to push myself to do the things that are uncomfortable in order to afford myself comfort in later life – delayed gratification, eh? I’m married, there’s a mortgage to pay I can no longer afford to float semi-aimlessly along like some happy-go-lucky demented butterfly. (Doesn’t mean I can’t stop along the way and smell the flowers though.)
Here I go. I intend to keep on teaching – it’s what I really like. Sitting and talking with great people (and drinking coffee.) And I’ve been told I’m good at it (teaching,not coffee drinking). So there I get paid for doing something I really like.
But there’s more out there I could be doing. But some old fears hold me back. The same fears that held me back with my studies. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, etc...
Today I listened to an old cassette of motivational speaker Zig Ziglar. What he said about fear goes to the effect of ships are safe within the harbour, but that that is not what ships were built for. Aeroplanes are safest on the ground, but that’s not what they were built for. Safe does not equal potential. It’s time to set out and see what’s there. Not as I did whilst travelling in my twenties and thirties – although I hope to be doing that again too soon, but here in my neighbourhood with my unused potential. Doing more of what I could be doing – but so far am not doing.
It’s time to step out and see where other roads lie.
Another crossroads of my life.
Now where did I put my map?
At 15, I set my heart on learning.
At 30 I know where I stand (my character has been formed).
At 40, I have no more doubts,
at 50, I know the will of Heaven,
at 60 my ears are attuned (i.e. my moral sense is well-developed),
at 70, I follow my heart’s desire without crossing the line (without breaking moral principles).
From the Analects – This excerpt swiped from http://bystander.homestead.com/Confucius_milestones.html
I prefer, however, to think of the philosophic words that were attributed to Kurt Vonnegut but actually written by Mary Schmich and Brenda Starr of the Chicago Tribune and formed the main text of the song “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen).”
“Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.”
That’s kind of comforting for a soon-to-be 45 year-old who is just winding up a late-commenced academic study. One more chapter is coming to a close and another one is about to begin.
And it’s been a trek and a half. Apart from the facts and figures (mainly years – maths is not my fortitude) studying for a degree has taught one two major lessons:
I love to learn.
I hate to sit down and study for the sake of it.
This is partially why I've dragged it out for so long: The reluctance to sit down and learn when there are a million other things to do. Another reason is my dissatisfaction with my written German. Oh, I can quatsch with the best of them in spoken German, but the complexities of German grammar and the need to sit down and learn them off by heart is... hard to do when the afore-mentioned million other things to do are there.
Yup, as my students will tell you (ah, another reason it’s taken a long time – I have to earn a crust and teaching English has been my bread and butter, or rather my rice and sweeet-sour for the better part of two decades) I get easily distracted.
Anyway, I have put a lot of things on the back-burner to finish my studies and now it’s time to pick up again from where I left off. So, is it another chapter opens or another chapter re-opens? In the last few months, I’ve been thinking about the things that I would have liked to have done in the last years, but never did because I should have been concentrating on my studies.
Two years ago, I started drawing again – something I looooved to do in my childhood. It was always my dream to be a cartoonist. And recently I have even sent strips to comics / magazines in Germany and the UK. The response was more promising in the UK and I sent in another strip, and another. Still not quite what they were looking for – but I should not be dispirited. I still have plenty of ideas in my noggin, but I need to sit down and put them on paper. (Did I mention how I’ve become averred to sitting down for longer periods of time?)
Those ideas in my head have been floating and brewing and building and growing for a while now. Now. Now is the important word. Probably it is the most important word. There is only now. The past is gone and cannot be changed. The future is not yet here and cannot be seen with 100%. All we have is now. That’s why I’ve decided to start this blog, now, here, today. Now is what I have and I aim to put into pixels what is in my head and get into the mode of putting myself out there. Out there, in the public eye, once more.
However things are getting ever-more serious and I need to push myself to do the things that are uncomfortable in order to afford myself comfort in later life – delayed gratification, eh? I’m married, there’s a mortgage to pay I can no longer afford to float semi-aimlessly along like some happy-go-lucky demented butterfly. (Doesn’t mean I can’t stop along the way and smell the flowers though.)
Here I go. I intend to keep on teaching – it’s what I really like. Sitting and talking with great people (and drinking coffee.) And I’ve been told I’m good at it (teaching,not coffee drinking). So there I get paid for doing something I really like.
But there’s more out there I could be doing. But some old fears hold me back. The same fears that held me back with my studies. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, etc...
Today I listened to an old cassette of motivational speaker Zig Ziglar. What he said about fear goes to the effect of ships are safe within the harbour, but that that is not what ships were built for. Aeroplanes are safest on the ground, but that’s not what they were built for. Safe does not equal potential. It’s time to set out and see what’s there. Not as I did whilst travelling in my twenties and thirties – although I hope to be doing that again too soon, but here in my neighbourhood with my unused potential. Doing more of what I could be doing – but so far am not doing.
It’s time to step out and see where other roads lie.
Another crossroads of my life.
Now where did I put my map?
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