FRIDAY NIGHT MISCELLANEOUS POSTING - ON LOVE LETTERS, ANGELS, POETRY AND MORE

It's been a while since my last miscellaneous post. But, today has been such a full day, so intense and tiring that ...I can't simply stop now, nor close my eyes and sleep yet,  though it's nearly midnight. So, maybe to share some of my thoughts and emotions of the last 24 hours can help me to relax. 

Let's start from ... last night, more or less this time last night.

I'd been quite unwell yesterday, a virus's conspiracy against my poor digestive system has knocked me down for a while and being in bed all day but not fit enough to read or write, I re-watched some old stuff (ehm... not saying what, try to guess) and watched the latest episode of a new ITV1 series. I turned off my husband's iPad just at midnight, after the episode finished in fact. 

I started watching this new series because it was set  in York and I was curious to see the beautiful city I visited in July filmed on TV. Then,  I went on watching it trying to understand whether I liked it or not. 

Eternal Law is the title of the series, have you seen it? Sam West, Orla Brady, Tobias Menzies, Hattie Morahan are the other reasons why I got to see last night's episode too. However, I'm still undecisive on my response after 4 episodes. York is stunning, the cast is of first quality but ... the storyline hasn't convinced me, hasn't won me. Written by the same writers as Ashes to Ashes, though it features extraordinary winged beings like angels ... it doesn't fly. I'll watch the next two episodes and then ... the verdict, your Honour.  

This morning I was exhausted, weakend by the desease, but got up and got ready to be at school in time. No regular lessons because the students had organized activities for the Holocaust Remembrance Day ... Lest We Forget. Could I stay at home? No, I went. Feeling dizzy and unstable, I tried to do my best and concentrate on the series of poems, slides, songs, literary passage readings, video interviews and movie clips they had prepared. Could I miss the chance to  revalue my spoilt kids once I had the chance? They did a good job, for once they were not the lazy, unmotivated kids to blame but young people to appreciate. And I was glad to do it. Lest We Forget, a poem to reflect on:

Holocaust

by Sudeep Pagedar

    - Selected Poems

How do you

explain that term

to a ten-

year old boy

who, one day,

hears it mentioned

by some relatives?

And even if

you do manage

to make him

understand what it

actually does mean,

do you also

tell him that

because he is

A GERMAN JEW,

perhaps, some day,

he might be

included in it...?

Or should he

just not be

told, so that

he remains calm

and doesn't lose

sleep over it?

But what is sleep,

in front of death?

Perhaps Death is greater,

perhaps the two are the same;

we do not know yet

but we'll know, by the end of the day;

the Chambers are yet some hours away.

"To die, to sleep...to sleep, perchance to dream..."

How did Shakespeare realise that?

Did he know some Jew

who was persecuted too?

Perhaps he was wrong,

maybe he was right...

Anyway, I suspect we'll find out

by tonight.

I've been correcting two different tests all afternoon and till this evening, then I prepared notes, excerpts, tasks  and videos for tomorrow's lessons. Yes, I work on Saturday. Five different classes each Saturday. Don't envy me that  much, please! 

1. Shakespeare, Macbeth (Reading and Watching act II scene iii)

2. Writing Test (I prepared 3 different tasks among which students can choose - 120/130 words)

3. Shakespeare, Macbeth (Reading and Watching act II scene iii) (same lesson, different class group)

4. Medieval Literature - From the Ballads to Chaucer (Medieval Poetry) - I should revise the ballads we studied (Edward, Lord Randal, Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne) , eliciting the students comments and introduce Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales.

5. Reading excerpts from C. Bronte's Shirley and comparing them to the excerpts we read (and watched)  from Gaskell's North and South .

Curious coincidence:  while reading from, on and about Bronte and Gaskell for my lessons, I happened to find this article online: "Charlotte Bronte’s lost love letters to married professor were preserved by his wife". Of course, I'm not going to discuss such intimate matters with my students tomorrow but I've been thinking over and over about the cold picture we wrongly get of the eldest Bronte sister from her official biographies (Gaskell's especially) and how different, how fragile and human she becomes through these letters. Her passionate, improperly brave pursuit of a married man makes her quite modern and strong willed,  not the pious , almost frigid inhabitant of a desolate Yorkshire parsonage someone might have wrongly perceived . Sad, moving and touching that she could at least be fully herself through her characters. Jane Eyre could fulfill her dream after much suffering and Charlotte through her. As for Villette, at least Lucy's love was requited ... 

Good night. Off to sleep. I have to work hard tomorrow so I must really go now.