Personal Blogs

My wife.

She gets ideas. Ideas that always involve me suffering in some way.

Here's one. Last summer I woke up about four one morning to find my big-toe twitching involuntarily. It was really unsettling. It was only when I heard a supressed-giggling and clocked a big eye watching me through the crack of the door that I understood what was going on.

She'd tied some thread to my toe, a thread at which she tugged, probably for over an hour, waiting for me to wake.

Yesterday we visited my parents, my mum was quite taken with the size of my workboots compared to the size of my pigeon-legs, legs that are a genetic inheritance from her.

[This is deliberate. I wanted anime: huge black boots, black tight-waisted combats, black polo shirts with house badges on the collars and hi-vis bomber jackets with the sleeves rolled up. Spicky hair. When we really want to unsettle people we wear shades.]

So tonight my bloody woman gets the idea of accentuating this contrast: I was to wear my linings [thermal underwear, which are tight to the ankle] and she'd take a photo that would make a fine birthday card for my mother.

You have no understanding of the pressure that she can apply to me when she wants something. It got done, despite my moans.

I look ridiculous. So I suppose that she was right—that will make my mother laugh.

Being a school we get stuff delivered all the time, it all comes to us jannies. I'd guess that on average [outside of quickspend time, when it gets much worse] we get about ten deliveries a day. Mostly it's just a hassle, even the stuff I order for myself doesn't interest me. Until yesterday that is.

I saw the postie pass over a strangely-familiar looking box to one of my boys, "what's that?", I asked.

"Is says urgent educational material..."

"What!" I was over in a second; we had an OU brown-box situation here, someone was avid for its arrival. I read off the address. Someone I didn't know c/o a teacher who has left the building for good.

I took it to the ex-teacher's department planning to explain, there was nobody there so I just left it in their base assuming that it would be OK.  Mistake. I checked in often; the first time I encountered a human the box had been opened.

Is nothing sacred!

Jaw-dropped, I peeked in, religious studies, I was tempted to look further but this was another bod's books, there are boundaries. Boundaries which had already been crossed. I explained the necessity of immediate action.

"I'll send her an email". [The c/o is being referenced here.]

Something inside me screamed, "you couldn't phone her?", I asked.

"She'll be busy". Sod her routine I thought.

At this point I made the requisite noises and left, I was getting too excited.

Today I had a busy day and forgot to ask, after all if you trust your brown box to others you deserve what you get. Tomorrow I will ensure that if it hasn't got to its destination it will do.

I'm angry with me, for my lax attitude.

It's been over a month since I did any groups & geometry stuff. Given that I have a TMA due in under ten days, and I haven't read any of the units, this would seem to be a problem.

Well not so much.

According to the assessment calculator I need twenty marks [out of a hundred] to have an OCAS > 70. Each unit text has a related question of twenty-five marks => two units will do the job. It's groups and I have enough days. I can ignore the geometry s&^%e.

It's not as if I can make a 1 in the exam anyway.

To some of you this type of thinking may seem wrong, shouldn't I try my hardest?

I will try my hardest but I'll try my hardest where it will do the most good. I need to spend my time on topology. If only because I love it the most. [Although I moan about it.]

I won't get a 1 on topology and I'll be lucky if I get a 3 for the groups. Still, I know that I'm right: focused effort.

At some point in your OU career, dear reader, you will be faced with the same problem. Save what you can.

Oh, and do the stuff that you like...

Back when I worked in the primary school whose playground I still live in, there were only ever at most two men on the staff, one of them was me.

Primary schools are like families. You take on specific roles vis-a-vis other people—mother, husband, wife, father, brother, aunt...

To the kids I was always the slightly-deranged older brother. I had a toy soldier club, I had the best collection of Pokemon cards...if they had troubles they could come to me but when I used the voice and told them to do something it got done.

My relationships with female staff were based on our respective ages, I was old in janny terms even then. Some were my aunts, some my sisters, some my wee sisters—wee sisters who I spoiled.

David was a teacher and David and I were brothers who shared a warped sense of humour. We formed a male support group, our bodies ourselves, dedicated to maintain the masculine, in the face of this monstrous regiment of women. We told the other teachers that we had done so.

We had a catchphrase, "aw o' them?" Which related to a story that David had. He'd been a taxi driver and some other driver had said, "aw women are f^&*((g mad", to which some other taxi driver had replied, "what, aw o' them Rab?"

Actually it wasn't really a catchphrase, it was more of a way of us signaling to each other that we thought that what was being suggested lacked sense. Or a way of trying to get the other to laugh inappropriately.

I remember one christmas [a huge thing in a primary school!], we were doing the christmas decorations [it was a tradition that the entire staff put up the decorations some evening; so that the kids came into a joy the next morning]. I was at the top of a ladder trying to arrange a string of kid-made stars such that mother [the head] was satisfied. David was at the bottom of the ladder feeding me the needful. Julie [I think it was] came over and asked us to do something [I forget what]. The following conversation occurred...

Me: I don't think that's my job

David: Nor mine

Julie: Why not? [tetchy]

David & Me [together]: Because that's women's work

There was general shouting and laughter from all corners of the hall.

David always biked to and from work. I have a fixed mental-image of him doing it; when I saw him I always started thinking about how we could wind people up.

David died of some aggressive cancer a couple of years ago. By the time I found out he was so ill he was refusing visitors, he was in such humiliating pain.

Tonight as I was walking back from the shops dwarmingly realizing that I'd made a stupid mistake in my topology TMA I saw him cycling out of the school. Then I remembered. It was just someone who looked like him.

A striking sadness but a reminder of so, so many joys.

Thirty-one marks to get, one unit book to read, and this is topology.

Still I have an advantage, I can sit in the work-library all day, my boys will fend off anything that doesn't totally need me, not many people can do OU stuff at work. Why can I do this?

I'm not going to answer that.

Still, tomorrow will be hard day in, what seems to be, a life of hard days. What!. None of us here are stupid, we signed up for a life of hard days.

It's time I got back to computing, which seems simpler, until I actually tackle it

Still I've found a song to dance to when my TMA is off in the post. I can't find a good online version—still it's interesting. One pill makes you larger, one pill makes you small. What you aren't saying is anything about the topological invariants. Jings you don't even give us a proper metric?

Whatever...

plugging numbers into functions tonight. That ain't right.

Still.

You lose lots when you shoot for the stars.

Always remember to plug numbers into functions. And see what comes out...

of topology.

And you know what? I'm happy. Some of the solutions that I've produced today are the best solutions that I've ever produced. [I think, we'll see]

Usually I'm a four-page answer type-of guy. Today I've rarely gone beyond a single page, even for seven marks.

I could be utterly wrong. Actually I couldn't; I could be wrong, but when it comes to maths I can no longer be utterly wrong.

Jings. What have I just said?

If I have scored every mark, I have fifty. I have less than a week to do what took me a month.

The funny thing is that I think that this is possible.

I'm reclining and regarding a wall of symbols. I know what these symbols mean but that doesn't help. This is the hardest thing that I've ever done in my life so far. The temptation to blub is strong.

At some time in my past some-me decided that the horror I'm currently suffering would be good for me. I'm not sure that he was a complete idiot.

I'm also sure that the now-me is going to mire the future-me me in the muck big time.

I suppose that this will only end when my head explodes.

Still I have James to keep me warm.

She and I looked at each other. We'd been friends for years, there were things unsaid between us. If they were ever going to be said the time to say them was now. I felt.

In her eyes I could see that she wanted me to say these things. I suppose that she could see the same thought in my eyes.

She said nothing, I don't know why. I said nothing because I was pretty sure that we'd meet again and that anything that we said at this moment would make our future meetings fraught. I was wrong about that. So far we've never laid eyes on each other again.

I'm happy, functional and alive. Still, I can never listen to, 'this charming man' without seeing her face in my mind and wondering, what if?

And then I remember the first time that I saw my wife's face; the look in her eyes; the feeling in my soul. The days we spent together, the talks that we had. I love the Smiths, but this song will always makes me cry from joy. It's my Tish and mines.

I shall no more chase chimera.

For I have what I really desired.

Started with Danny and I painting the new pinboards in the front entrance. Pinboards are a pain to paint, they're dusty, textured and rough. Even with well-thinned emulsion and a thick-pile roller it takes for ever. Danny did the cutting-in, I did the roller work.

When we'd finished we stood back and admired our work. It looked great, as it should do—we've spent loads of time, effort and cash over the last few weeks making it so. Getting the War Memorial bronzes/brasses cleaned cost over 2K alone, the oak-framed pinboards weren't cheap either.

Danny and I have got a wee bit Colin & Justin lately, we spent ages agonizing over the exact shade of green that we wanted for the pinboards, Danny has been madly rearranging the trophies in the new display cabinets for over a week. There was still something wrong.

It was the plasma screen, it wasn't on but even if it had been it would have destroyed the symmetry that we'd worked so hard to create. I'm not a geek for nothing, so I created a powerpoint template that matched. For once I lucky, I get perfect colour matches.

Sad old sods that we are, we horizontal-beamed as we did three-sixties[2π] from various vantage points to check out our work. The thing looks lovely. Almost nobody will notice what we have achieved in any conscious sense, they will subliminaly clock that they are in a temple of education.

Then it was off to my topology tutorial.

I'd forgotten that it was festival time, central Edinburgh was stowed with mal-dressed folk. I was beginning to get ratty with them when I ran into Graham in the Grassmarket. He was having a fag, which I'd been in-head planning for some while. So I rolled one as we walked to the tutorial together.

I've had a couple of maths books wasting time on my bookshelves for a while now, so I'd been planning to give them to mates, who would appreciate them. I had two about my person when I met Graham.

His was: the philosophy of maths. He will have much more fun with it that I ever could. I, also, gave Chris my partial differentiation book, it's probably too easy for him but...

Graham and I were early, not the first, so we sat with the others in the reception cafe-typee-thingee [nobody ever eats the free fruit] and talked about t0pology, groups and the online OU life. I'm in an awkward place when it comes to either.

Then we did our topology. Towards the end of which I looked round my wee group of mathos, We were tired. Because I played chess from an early age I know that thinking is as knackering as digging holes.

When we'd finished doing the stuff that none of us understand [well I at least don't], I walked back through an even-more thronged Grassmarket/canal to my school. I did the few bits and pieces that were needed so that tomorrow, when the cleaners come, they won't be in my way. I would have liked to go for a pint with my mates...

When I got home I found my wife toiling in the garden, so I was obliged to help. She bossed me around for about an hour.

I was pecking by this point so, I played the astronomical card—the Perseids are due tonight Babe, I said. We might want to be out walking in the dark for that.

I'm now drinking strong cider, but come dark, if the sky is clear my wife and I will be out in the wild-world looking for the Persiads.

I don't often get days like today. But the fact that I get any days like today shows that I'm on the right track with my life.

Life is an existance theorem when it comes to the joy of it.

It's difficult to believe that these were the same players from four weeks ago. I suspect that I know what happened.

I used to play a lot of chess: it's a different game when you play as a part of a team. You still play on your lonesome, but when you're part of a team you play 'different'. You must 'maintain the draw', losing early puts pressure onto your team-mates and you have to watch what's going on in the 'meta-game'. If four of your team are winning and you have a better game then you should agree the draw to put the pressure on.

Murray won today because he wasn't playing just for himself—he was playing for the team. Hence the much more agressive attitude.

Hopefully he can carry this attitude into his own game and start winning majors.

upon a time wars stopped for the Olympics.

Then the Olympics stopped for wars.

Then the Olyimpics were a war.