Celebration of Achievement

(Just to remind Caroline of what she will be missing tonight)

Like a scene from The Lion King they begin to assemble, taking their places in the circle of light below the sinking scaffolding above the stage. Some take up their stance, like bold alphas, looking down upon those destined to remain in the dusty ground of the savanna, nearing the end of the dry season, and waiting for the life-giving 'varnishing' of the school holiday. Others reluctantly take their place on the high rock behind the pride leader, wishing they too could be among the lesser herds, not placed on display among the clothed hyena. One by one the various packs assemble, to watch the spectacle of colour and 'special occasion plumes' taking place on the stage. As the evening wears on, applause becomes stifled, muted. Some may find entertainment in chattering secretly about those on high, while others, grateful to be buried at the back of the pride may even manage to complete the crossword without being seen. All will turn away from the rock at the end of the gathering, drift back to the watering hole, savouring their survival, safe for another year.

small worlds

The world seems to be getting smaller. I don't mean in the typical sense that I may have bumped into someone who just happened to once share a chat, over a pint, in a remote pub, with the best friend of my colleague's mother-in-law. Right now, the world is pressing against me, rather like the walls closing in on someone remotely rugged, and Harrison Ford-like. While the world of blog seems to have sucked me into a parallel universe tonight, in which I have spent far too long wandering around the labyrinthine corridors of 'template tags' just getting the thing to "DO WHAT I WANT!", the real world feels a bit crowded and rather cramped. Perhaps, in fact, it's just the world inside my head which feels that way, with the boxes marked 'coursework', 'broken boiler', 'broken toilet', 'broken communication' all marked 'URGENT' and all tumbling into one, like some unfortunate incident of 'resting a little too heavily against one of those boxes' in the main hall of Tate Modern.

Oversensitivity and culpability seem to work together at school at the moment, draining those of us still human enough to care as we drag ourselves through the final week of term before the holidays come, bringing 'coursework', 'broken boiler', 'broken toilet', 'broken communication' to that other small world phenomenon: "how did the holiday fly by so fast?"

La Ghirlandata

The garlanded one sits ensconsed in
flowers varying in their symbolism.
What is it that encircles us in our day to day lives?
Work? Friends? Love? Hope? Awareness?
Hopefully it is the positivity of all of these things,
floating around us like music.