Crackberries and Dumb phones

Day 1: Sunday, 12:00 pm  I can do this. It's no problem at all.  Here I am taking a walk down the High Street armed only with a basic Nokia mobile.  No touchscreen, no apps.  I have made a wager that I can go twenty four hours without my iphone.  Certain people seem to think that I can't survive without it.  Of course I can.  I am the master of my iphone, not the other way around.

12:15   What if someone needs to email me?  What if it's urgent?  I have to admit I keep checking the Nokia, like I reflexively look at my wrist when I've forgotten to wear my watch.  I've written an 'out of office' reply with this number in case anyone needs to reach me so if it really is dire... But in a work situation people expect quick replies.  I bet I have tons in my inbox when I get home. 

12:20 What has happened to all the internet cafes?  They used to be everywhere.

12:25  That Starbucks down the road has free wifi.  I wonder if someone would let me check my email on their laptop?  Probably not a good idea.

12:30 How does the Bluetooth on the Nokia work?  Can't I get internet access that way?

12:35 Better head home.  Nice to be outdoors for a change though.

2:00  No problems at all during lunch.  Laptop, television, kindle provide enough entertainment.  I've promised to take the kids to the playground - this will give me a great opportunity to interact with them. 

2:15 Lots of parents in the playground checking their phones.  Man, I'm glad I'm not that bad!

2:17 Check the Nokia.  No texts.

2:20 Check the Nokia again.  Absentmindedly touch screen.  Nothing happens. 

2:31 When did Rocky come out?  1977 or maybe 1976?  I guess I can check on the laptop when I get home... 

6:00  Bathtime, stories, then bedtime for the kids.  No problem at all giving up the smartphone for a day.  The wife has hidden it somewhere and has promised to return it to me tomorrow at lunchtime.  Usually while the bath is running I check the rugby results, send some emails (the wife does not allow it at the table and the last time I checked it during dinner she gave me a look that would strip paint of the wall).  But I'm fine just getting the bedtime stuff ready and listening to Radio 4.  Programme on cheese preservation.  Cool.

6:07 C'mon water.  Flow.

6:11 It just has to be accepted that multitasking is the way in today's world.  Quick information is a necessary developmental milestone.  Smartphones are helpful and beneficial.

6:12  I wonder where she put it.  Not under the bed, not on her chest of drawers, not under the rug.  I don't want it, I'm just curious.

6:13 If I phone it, I can figure out where it is!  She might not hear the ring over the bath running.

6:14  It's not upstairs.

6:30 Bedtime stories with no smartphone.  I have to listen when it's the wife's turn to read.  I hate how Dr Seuss can't scan the rhyme properly.

6:35 How long is this story?  EAT THE EGGS AND HAM ALREADY!!!
 

Monday 6:00 am  I drowsily reach for the bedside table to find... nothing.  Then I remember.  The sounds coming from downstairs indicate that the wife is getting breakfast ready. 

6:02  where is it where is it where is it!  All work and no play makes jack a dull boy.

6:10  Aha!  That minx buried it under my socks.  I turn it on.  Nothing happens.  What the hell!  Did she disable it somehow?  Damn it, I can't ask her because she will know I went looking for it.  Fiend.

8:00 On the way to my office I run into a colleague carrying her morning coffee.  She stops me.  'Did you get my email?'
'No, when did you send it?'
'About five minutes ago.' 
I tell her about the wager.  She laughs and says, 'I thought you looked different.'
'What do you mean?  How?'
'Well, you're making eye contact and your arms are at your sides.'
I am never sure when she is joking.  If she is, not very funny. 

10:30  Morning management team meeting.  I look across the oval table hoping it's a quick one.  While pretty much everyone is checking their phones, I stare at the meeting agenda. The letters seep together and no longer make sense as words.  I have no choice but to pay attention.  The Head is talking about deadlines for budget submissions.  Why does he look so annoyed?  And why is he repeating everything three times?  God, this is taking ages.  Is it 12 o'clock yet? 

I discreetly check my wrist.  There is nothing there.  I check again five minutes later.

12:00  She's late.  She's never late.  She's doing this on purpose to torture me.  Well, it won't work.  I was absolutely fine without it. 

12:02  She knocks on the office door.  She hands me the phone.  'Here it is.  Was it...' 
I slam the door and caress the phone.  It's on.  My apps shine like beacons on an airfield guiding me home.

'Let's never be apart again.'

Sleep debt

The sweet embrace of sleep could not hold him...

I read the Iliad in college and what I remember most about one of the world's truly great epics is sleep.  Throughout the poem the characters seem to have sleep thrust upon them (or are tricked into it) rather than choosing to go to sleep.  Sleep is a god, a brother of Death, who can use his power at will, 'Sweet Sleep rushed to the Achaean ships, to inform Poseidon, the Encircler and Shaker of the Earth.  Coming up to him, Sleep spoke—his words had wings...' Perhaps sleep is portrayed this way because the Iliad describes a warrior culture where needing to sleep is considered weak.

Sleep is in very short supply when you have young children.  When they are babies they sleep in short stretches that eventually lengthen.  The midwives always tell new mums to get your rest and sleep when the baby sleeps.  That never worked for me because I could never predict how long Big One would sleep and just before she slumbered I would have consumed three cups of coffee to stop the near constant grogginess.  Luckily both Big One and Little One slept through the night right away so the stage of late night/early morning feedings and snatched naps was short. 

Now they go to bed willingly enough around 7 pm.  However, they have taken to waking up around 6 am - even on weekends.  Highly uncivilized.  My attempts to convince them that it is still night-time have not worked.

What I miss most about the pre-children era is the Sunday lie-in. I can no longer spend Sunday morning reading the Times (Yes, I know it's part of the diabolical Murdoch empire but I like their Culture section) in my pyjamas.  Once when my husband asked what I wanted for Christmas, I described such a morning to him.  It was a great gift, as it wouldn't cost him anything and it was what I really wanted.  A look of pure terror crossed his face.  'Why don't I get you some jewellery instead?'  Hmmmm Koh-i-Noor diamond or a Sunday lie-in complete with fry-up?  The choice is obvious.  I’d like my eggs scrambled, please.

Lots of people think sleep is overrated.  Margaret Thatcher bragged that she only needed 4 hours of sleep a night and such brilliant thinkers as varied as Thomas Edison and Bon Jovi have pointed out that you can sleep when you're dead.  I can understand the idea of life being too short to waste but I don’t want to spend those waking hours feeling like I’m covered in molasses.

Parents with older children assure me that when Little One and Big One become teenagers that it will be impossible to wake them up in the morning.  So at least one aspect of the stroppy teenage years to look forward to... 

Those who can't...

He says the problem with teachers is
What’s a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life
was to become a teacher?
He reminds the other dinner guests that it’s true
what they say about teachers:
Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.
I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the dinner guests
that it’s also true what they say about lawyers.
Because we’re eating, after all, and this is polite conversation. 

Mondays are good days for rants.  And this one is longstanding.  Similar to the notion that a stay-at-home mom lives a life of ease, there is an all too common misperception that teaching is an easy job.  Please allow me to debunk some of the more persistent myths.

 

1. Teachers have really short hours.  When the school day is over, you're done!

The misperception here is that we only work when students have lessons.  However, in order for those lessons to be interesting and educational, we have to plan them.  If the set has an exam at the end of the term or year, we have to know what is on that exam and find a way to help our students learn the content.  We also must deal with marking and if you teach a writing-heavy subject (English, History, Philosophy), marking is the ravenous beast that devours most of your 'free time'.  If you must mark board-set coursework, you may have to deal with a mark scheme that sometimes appears to have been written by mental patients who only communicate in seventeenth century vernacular.  Then there are meetings; department meetings, health and safety meetings, parents' evenings, meetings with parents who children have misbehaved, meetings about how we can have fewer meetings... I could go on but I'd really rather not.  Teachers also moderate extracurricular activities and coach sport.  If you work in a boarding school and someone remarks on how lucky you are to have such fantastic hours, depending on how far in the school term you are, you either laugh until no sound comes out of your mouth and tears flow freely down your cheeks or you bludgeon them with something heavy.  Like a car.

2.  You have summers off. 

Sort of.  By the time summer arrives and the lovely little darlings are released into the wild, you are so exhausted that the Bataan death march seems like a relaxing holiday.  In August you must deal with exam results.  This can mean your Head of Department inquiring as to why your student's marks were so low, mixed or high.  This also means parents demanding to know why little Jago only got a B or since little Tarquin now has an A* can we not get him into Oxford?  Now?  While we're on the phone?  If your school introduces a new syllabus, summer is the time for teachers to incorporate the new material into what they already teach.  Being able to rehash the same lessons year after year just never happens.  You must also find time to keep up with any new scholarship in your subject or new ideas on education (No fear, there will also be copious meetings about these topics within the school year).  And because of item number five below, many teachers I knew in NYC worked second jobs during the summer to ensure a decent income.

3. You're job isn't really hard.  The children just read and write and watch movies.

Again, sort of.  There are 'filler' lessons where teachers decide to relax before moving on to a new topic, where it's the last day of term and you know no one is motivated enough to do real work.  So you put on a DVD and watch the drool pool on the desks next to the little bent heads.  But such passivity cannot last long.  You are responsible for your charges' learning and accountable to a Head of Department, a Headmaster/mistress and many fee-paying or tax-paying parents.  During lessons, you don’t get a chance to go to the loo and hide for five minutes because you are having a bad day or don't feel well.  And sometimes it is easier to man up and teach your lessons when you are ill rather than come up with an interesting cover assignment and risk the wrath of the teachers who have to look after your lessons while you are gone.

 4. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

In other words, if you had any ambition you would have a proper, challenging, well-paying job. But you either couldn't get one of those or you were too lazy to really try.  Not even close.  Before I started teaching, I was a copywriter in a large multinational advertising agency.  I had a PA, an office (well, a little one), job security and a good salary.  I did not leave that career behind because I wasn't driven.  I left because after beginning a part-time postgrad degree, I realised that my job didn't really satisfy me anymore.  I wanted to be around people who were as excited about and interested in History as I was.  Admittedly as a secondary school teacher that engagement doesn't happen often - but when it does, when you have a really great lesson or read an incisive, well-written essay, it's an unbelievable high.  I didn't get that when I saw the Visa advert I had worked on in The New York Times Magazine.  Okay, maybe I did a little bit.  Of course there are teachers who are not very good at their jobs.  And that is mainly because they became teachers because they believed numbers 1-4 were true.  Most don't last long.  Research shows the teaching profession has the highest burnout rate of any public service job and if you're in it because you believed it would be easy, then you usually run far and fast very quickly.  A huge majority of the teachers I have met are dedicated and enthusiastic about their jobs and make a real effort to improve.  Luckily for Jago, Tarquin and others, truly terrible teachers are few and far between.

5.  Teachers aren't paid very much.

Yes, this is true.  It shouldn't be true (of course, I would say that).  Dostoyevsky opined that the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.  I would add schools to that as well.  The opinion that teaching isn’t a worthwhile occupation because the paycheck isn’t big doesn’t diminish the value of our jobs.  Rather it demonstrates the value the speaker puts on money and status and value society puts on what we do.  Big paycheck does not equal valuable and fulfilling career.  Just ask the bankers over at Lehman Brothers.  Oh, wait, you can’t.

All right, the rant is over.  This particular rant, that is.  For now. 

 

Proust questionnaire

Like most girls, I went through a magazine phase when I was younger.  I would read Seventeen, Cosmo, Glamour, later Elle and She.  Their glossy covers were so full of promise.  Inside I would learn to attract boys, perhaps even men, discover the real truth about Cindy Crawford's exercise regime, find out what personality type I possessed and how I could make it work for me.  Not exactly James Joyce, but it was a good way of avoiding writing essays and they were good with tea and biscuits on a rainy day.

Like chocolate bars, they are delicious while you eat them, a lovely sugar rush, but no real nutritional value.  And as I grew older (I can’t say ‘grew up’) I had less time to spend reading articles about self-tanners and Men Who Loved Too Much. I still have a quick peek at Hello! or Marie Claire at the hairdressers but I have moved on to more substantial fare.  A few years ago, I received a subscription to The New Yorker.  I loved it but couldn't really commit to a weekly magazine and they gradually piled up in the corner, berating me when I walked by them.

'Oh, watching television?  You realise you could be learning about something culturally significant, but if you'd rather watch Poirot, I guess it's up to you.'

'Oh, marking essays?  Wouldn't you rather read this Julian Barnes short story?  At least have a quick look at the cartoons.'

And so the pile grew until I finally told my mother not to renew the subscription as the unread issues made me feel inadequate. And sometimes homesick.

There is one magazine I still buy, a nice monthly called Vanity Fair.  It's dishy enough to be a guilty pleasure but you can feel virtuous by reading the financial, newsy articles.  But my favourite part of each issue is on the back page, the Proust Questionnaire, where one random celebrity answers a set of questions.  Apparently pondering such queries used to be a popular pastime among Marcel Proust and his friends and the answers you gave were meant to reveal your true nature. 

Anyone who's read an issue or seen Inside the Actor's Studio will recognize it.   The questions range from 'What is your biggest fear?' to 'On what occasion do you lie?'  It's not that I am especially fascinated by Dolly Parton's personal motto or what living person Stephen King despises.  Rather I am interested in the depth of the answer and (egotistically) whether I have anything in common with them.  I sometimes wonder if the subjects respond quickly, instinctively, or if they take time with their answers.  Some answers are funny (What is your greatest fear? Converting kilometres to miles - David Bowie) and some are revealing (What is your favourite occupation? Eavesdropping - Dustin Hoffman).

The Vanity Fair website has one you can take that will see which luminary's answers most closely matches your own.  It's at http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/proust-questionnaire.  I took it and my closest matches were Eleanor Lampert (a fashion guru I had never heard of, odd match as I am very uninspired in what I wear) and Donald Trump (no idea how that happened!).

I'll leave you with one that made me laugh - What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?  Thinking of the right thing to say—later.

Queen bees and snooty cows

Why were you so concerned? She will find her way.

One of the joys of teaching in a boarding school is Saturday lessons.  Yes, you are at work while most of the adult population has already begun their weekend.  Last year after finishing lessons on a lovely warm Saturday afternoon in September I walked past the garden of another boarding school mum on my way home.  There is a tall wood fence around the garden so I couldn't see anyone but I could hear children giggling and women chatting.  I heard the lady of the house say my name and then say 'that snooty cow'.

I stopped.  I admit I listened outside the fence for longer than I should.  I didn't hear anything else and it would have looked like I was eavesdropping if anyone happened to see me.  I continued home ruminating (see what I did there?) on three important facts:

1. It was definitely the tenant of the house as she has a distinct regional accent.
2. It was very, very likely to be me that she was discussing, as there wasn't anyone else at the school with my first name.
3. It was unlikely to someone else with my first name that she knew in another area of her life because...

It's a bit true.  Well, I don't think it is but I can see why she would think so.  You see, I am a slow burn.  Many of my closest friends have admitted to me that they didn't like me when they first met me.  The explanations ranged from, 'You just seemed really remote' to 'I thought you were kind of a bitch.'  I'm the one at the party staring at the bookshelf or talking to three or four people rather than working the crowd.  Luckily for me, fate threw me together with some lovely, tolerant people who were willing to, or were forced to, get to know me and ended up liking me.  I had a demanding job and two small children, which left me little time or energy to be as outgoing as some of the mums living on the school site.  And I've never needed to occupy the queen bee role, to have lots of friends/minions at my command.

So I wasn't upset at the Snooty Cow sobriquet on that afternoon.  I even contemplated having a t-shirt made up in a cow pattern to wear at the next community coffee morning. 

But as the month went on I noticed the mums and their kids around the school site, riding their scooters down the avenue or going to lunch in the dining hall.  My two were tolerated when they were around, but not invited beforehand.  The mums involved weren't mean but I worried about Big One, who can be a little sensitive, not being part of the group.  I blamed myself.  Maybe I should be friendlier or bolder about getting her included in picnics and playdates.  I did say to one mum that she should bring her girls around one afternoon to play and she looked at me like I had suggested that she run naked through the staff common room at break time while singing Baby Got Back.  While I was fine not being part of the Mummy Mafia, I didn't want Big One to become Snooty Calf.

While considering my approach, I ran into another teacher; he had grown up on site and his mother was a Head of Department at the school when he was younger.  I asked, 'How did your mum put up with this?'  He told me that he was never invited to parties so his mother would just find out when the parties were and send him over with a present.

'She would ring the doorbell and run away, leaving me standing there.'

'What did people say?'

'Oh, they were always pretty nice about the whole thing.'

He gave me a sympathetic look and said, 'The solution is easy.  You have to not care. [Big One] is fine.  She has no idea.'

It was sound advice.  Big One started nursery, got invited to lots of parties and seemed much more confident around other kids.  I can see now that most of my worry came from not wanting her to exhibit the aloofness that sometimes made my childhood painful.  Somewhere inside of us lies the desire to protect our children from making the mistakes that we made.  But we can't do that any more than we can prevent cuts, scrapes or falling off bicycles, and maybe we shouldn't.  Children learn from the mistakes they make, not the ones we make.  Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb on his first try and he took a healthy view of the situation, saying, 'I have not failed. I've discovered ten thousand ways which don't work.'  It's the attempt, not the result, that matters more.

And in the end, bees perish after they sting - but cows have very thick skins.

Money, room and a car

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write.  Oh, and a reliable mode of transport.

There are certain patterns I've established to make the week flow more efficiently.  The Little One goes to nursery on Tuesday and Friday mornings.  We attend music classes on Monday mornings and do a big food shop on Wednesdays.  If it's raining we go to the library before picking up the Big One, if it's sunny we go to the playground.

One pattern that I am enjoying less and less is what I call 'the Halford's run'.  This is how it works.  After the children go to sleep, I try to get some work done.  About an hour or so into it, I start to get sleepy.  I debate the options; either I keep on working through my tiredness or I go to bed and resolve to work in the morning when I have more energy.  On Monday and Thursday nights I usually choose the latter option, knowing that the Little One will be occupied at nursery.

The next morning is almost always when the car decides to mutiny, like sailors taking advantage of an upcoming storm to prey on the captain's vulnerability.  First it was the cooler leaking, then it was the spark plugs, a few days later the engine light blared yellow which I was told 'could mean anything'.  Turns out it was just toying with me but the car spent most of the day hanging out at Halford's when it could have taken us places.  The car may be able to get Big One to her bus stop and Little One to her nursery, but each morning it becomes less and less certain.  Sometimes the yellow van will have to come to start the car, other times I can nudge it along to Halford's.  The car remains there until it is diagnosed and cured and I have decide what combination of train, bus and foot I will have to use to retrieve the children and get us home.

'Stop whinging and buy a new one.'  A brilliant plan, but buying an automobile is not like grabbing a bottle of wine at Sainsbury's.  Although my husband would likely look askance at my choice of both wine and car, I've only spent about £7 on the Cote du Rhone.  And the bottle is perfectly legitimate as a solitary purchase whilst buying a car involves some thought and bargaining.  It will have to wait until term ends to fill our driveway with something more productive. 

This past week both the car and washing machine went on a tandem strike.  The machine became very possessive of the precious soapy water it was filled with and would not release it.  The car, perhaps feeling neglected and seeking attention like an ignored pet, muttered, 'I can top that.'  It decided on Tuesday morning that the engine light would shine again.  The washing machine repairman was supposed to arrive between 8 and 1 on that very day.  He did not.  Meanwhile the pile of laundry had grown so high that I observed some Sherpas setting up camp at the base, with small binoculars pointing toward the summit, a lone pink sock.   

The answer may be to stop working on the book.  Then these breakdowns would not lead me to lose writing time.  'I'm not working on a book' is how I could respond to people who asked what I did for a living.  But I have a perverse need to finish it, to have something to show for the year.  So I must find other ways to outwit the car.  And the washing machine.  Perhaps the dryer and teakettle too.  But please, please, not the boiler.

I have some money before car repairs and taxi fares devour it all.  I have a room; my husband kindly gave me the study as he has an office at work.  Now all I need is a car that will start consistently.  I don't know if Leonard and Virginia Woolf had a car.  Mrs Dalloway did not have to rely on a Ford Mondeo to get the flowers for her party.  If she had, that novel would read very differently.  The ending would no longer be, 'For there she was.'  Instead, 'Clarissa had not arrived at her party as she was waiting on the taxi queue outside Lancing Station.'

What do you do?

Cleopatra's lips are kissed
while an unimportant wife
writes, 'I do not like my life'
underneath her shopping list.

'So, what do you do?'

I have been asked this question many times in the last few months.  My oldest child just started primary school, which means meeting lots of mums at pickup and children's parties, and my husband just started a new job, which means meeting his new co-workers.  The initial conversations all seem to involve the query about what I do 'for a living'.

It is a difficult question to answer.  I can reply, 'Nothing,' but that response would not be accurate.  I can say, 'I'm taking a career break,' which is a bit closer to the truth, but still implies that I don't do very much. 

The reason for my supposed inactivity is twofold.  My husband's new job meant having to move farther away from the job I had.  I could have commuted, but as our car has recently decided that it doesn't want to work all the time, I am glad I decided not to go that route.  Also, our youngest is still at home and the idea of not having to madly scramble when childcare arrangements fell through seemed more relaxing than the previous mix of pre-school, nursery, part-time nanny and occasional babysitter which led to panicked phone calls and lots of cash spurting from our bank account like the final gushes of oil from a drying well.  So now I am the childcare; the buck stops here.

But a break implies that I am considering other career or educational options.  And I'm not.  I enjoyed my job and I would happily take another one in the same field.  My husband and I both work as teachers but there were no jobs going in my subject area at his new school and there weren't any other jobs available that are part-time and close-by.  As teaching is seasonal, the jobs come in cycles unless a teacher gets sick and they need someone right away.  It seems ghoulish to wish ill upon other teachers, so in the meantime I trying to write a book.

Ah, I can guess what you're thinking.  And that's why I don't respond to 'What do you do?' with 'Oh, I'm working on a book' because I don't want to seem like a pretentious git or a dilettante who needs to sound important.  So if I use this rejoinder, I hope for a follow-up question on what the book is about.  Then I can say that it is a history book and that I have written two others.  I can assure the questioner that they would not have heard of them unless they were especially interested in Irish politics.  And then we're fine.  But if I don't get that follow-up question, I tend to blather on and, if I get bored listening to myself, I can imagine how the poor person I'm talking to must feel.

I could say that I am a 'stay-at-home mum' or a 'homemaker' but these terms bother me and I am not sure why.  The lack of status?  No earning power?  The inability for the person receiving that answer to define you, to figure out something about your personality based on the job you have chosen?  Perhaps it is the silence that sometimes greets that answer, especially from women who do work - the assumption that we will have nothing interesting to talk about from that moment further.  So if I choose that answer, I always feel compelled to add a 'but' to show that I am involved in something else.

My husband reassures me that it will only be for a year, that another job will come along and if it doesn't, there is always the book.  The verse above is a spoof of a W.H. Auden poem called 'The Fall of Rome' and it comes from Alison Lurie's The War Between the Tates.  I read the book a long time ago and have forgotten a lot of it, but I think of that bit of it every so often when I am doing the everyday Sisyphean chores of a household, chores that get completed only to begin again almost the moment they are done.  Sublime revelations out of the mundane.  I hope these posts can provide an outlet for me whilst wading through dry academic material (and piles of laundry) and maybe some mild entertainment for you. 

We'll see, won't we?