Another one of my anti-tech rants, plus a frightful deluge of nostalgia

Amongst all the words I use to describe myself – not that I describe myself on a daily basis to myself or to others – ‘luddite’ must come in near the top.

One of the pitfalls of working for a good school is that it’s far better equipped technologically than any place I’ve ever worked before, including in the US and Britain. Hell, when teaching in America last spring, I had to use the standard green chalkboard that I grew up with, and occasionally I had access to an overhead projector with a temperamental bulb. I once joked with my Kyrgyz students about whether they still used chalkboards and they looked at me like I was nuts. No, they coolly replied, we have whiteboards in our schools.

Just less than 2 months into my tenure here, I’m having my difficulties with technology – and that’s a whopping understatement. It befuddles me at the best of times, and this is far from the best of times. I’m lucky I have a remarkable capacity for remaining calm and collected in public (as cool as a cucumber, if you like) on the outside, except around my sister, whilst inside I’m a raging torrent of foul language and pent-up rage if something isn’t working to my satisfaction. When I’m alone…steer well clear.

Though I’m struggling with a great variety of technology, at the moment the primary culprit is the dreaded, ghastly interactive whiteboard (IWB). I’d never used one until now, and each day is a tumultuous process of trying to get the blasted thing to work properly. There are plenty of other issues besides the IWB, but that’s my current bête noire.

In the interests of clarity and fairness, I should point out that although the school is well-equipped technologically, not all of the technology works. Certain rooms have faulty DVD players, others have mal-functioning monitors, while the rest all have some particular quirk that isn’t meant to be. So, there’s an issue with the damn stuff working in the first place – the fact that it’s not makes life infinitely trickier.

But here’s the point I really want to hammer home: EVERYONE STRUGGLES WITH THIS CRAP!!! Every day, multiple times a day, another victim of the IWB bug comes storming into the teachers’ room, throws down their books and lets forth a hail of foul-mouthed bile in no particular direction. No one is immune to the disease. Nothing ever works right. My general problem with technology is its inconsistency. Inexplicably, one day the IWB just won’t work. The next, a computer or the CD/DVD drive isn’t working and the textbooks we use are all digital and so if the application isn’t working, then we’re pretty much screwed for the lesson because there is no back-up. Of course, you can’t write on the IWBs either, and half the time the sun streams in so brightly, rendering the IWB completely useless since it’s impossible to see. Honestly, I could catalogue a whole host of problems that plague us all one day to the next. It’s so utterly unpredictable and there’s hardly anything funny about it. At least I’ve got my students on my side, for they actually find it funny. Lucky for me.

Every day there’s something new. Just when you think you’ve seen it all…

[This blog itself is another case in point: you may have noticed different formattings in different posts, whether font, font size, spacing, picture captions, etc. Every time I post, I do the exact same thing. Sometimes blogspot cooperates, other times it doesn’t. Sometimes I spend ages on the formatting and then give up on the process, starting afresh on a new day. But it’s generally frustrating and rarely goes smoothly.]

Back to the fairness doctrine…when it is working, it is damn nice to have. It’s great to be able to use the internet in my lessons and although it means I’m now spending so much more of my time planning, I actually enjoy the planning when it means I can design some snazzy stuff. One word of warning though: always, always, always screen a video before showing it to a class. I had one group the other day, the same lovely group who bought me gifts for my birthday and still regularly bring in cake and champagne for no apparent reason, who were clamouring for something funny on Youtube to watch. The only thing that sprang to mind was the farting televangelist, which was [debatably] hilarious about 7 years ago, but certainly isn’t anymore. I had recalled a colleague telling me earlier in the day about ‘Drunk History’ and so I thus chose a random – yes, random in the proper sense – episode, the one with Jack Black as Benjamin Franklin. Though we all found it funny, I was mortified by its effing and blinding, as well as another somewhat disturbing scene that probably put some of the students off their dinners. Probably not the most professional approach in the world, but then I am rather unorthodox in my methods, to put it mildly.

From the last paragraph, dear readers, you will have noticed that far from constantly whingeing about my lack of technological know-how, I’ve decided to stop lamenting the fact that I’m technologically inept and am instead doing something about it. Instead of running and hiding, I’m doing my damndest to tackle it head-on and defeat the monster before it defeats me. You see, I am mature after all.

Before this degenerates into my most boring post ever, I’ll nip my anti-technology vitriol in the bud and move onto somewhat more interesting things.

I’d like to share a variety of links. Some I’ve discovered recently, others I’ve been saving for a couple of months for an occasion like this where I can deluge you with various bits of nonsense I’ve been divulging in.

Starting with, yet another anti-technology rant!

Cassette tapes: when music was hard work, but fun (and much more rewarding)

At the risk of getting excessively hyperbolic, I can’t remember a time in my life where I’ve come across an article that has come so close to echoing my thoughts or experiences verbatim. It’s short, but I will share one particularly apt paragraph here. How should I put it? It’s just, so, me:

Cassettes are a reminder of a lost age, when you had to work a bit harder to be a music fan. You couldn't make a compilation by disinterestedly dragging and burning in iTunes. You actually had to sit and listen to the music you were recording, noting down track titles on an inlay card as you went – which meant you really had to like what you were taping. Stealing music didn't involve clicking a mouse, but recording off the radio, finger hovering over "pause" to get as much of the song's dying seconds in, while still cutting the DJ's voice off the end. The judicious use of the pause button is one of the great forgotten folk arts.

When I read that over the summer it took me back quite a few years. I’m a bit of a past master in the forgotten art of mix tapes. Starting when I was about 14 I was constantly on the rampage making mixes for myself, my friends, girls…my sister and I would sit and listen to the UK top 40 on Sunday afternoons taping our favourite songs, trying so desperately hard to cut out the DJ's voice whilst getting as much as the song as possible. I got my first CD player when I was 15 (Christ, am I that old?) and then I could finally record songs onto tapes so much more easily. Back then, there was no greater gesture of showing your feelings to a special someone than giving them a mix tape (sorry, but mix CDs aren’t quite the same, and CDs from mp3s have hardly any romantic value) and I remember making at least 20 different mixes for various friends just before graduation from high school (I wonder if any still have theirs). I would spend hours deliberating which songs to put on, thinking of the right order, then writing them down in my neatest penmanship on the inlay card. And then there was the all important title of course, which was sometimes the most difficult part of all.

Listening to mix tapes that others made me was equally joyous, and another long lost art was having to fast forward and rewind to find a particular song you just had to listen to at that particular moment. To truly love music in those days you had to be patient and devoted. These days it just isn’t the same. The album’s importance has declined to the point of irrelevancy in this age of clicking and downloading tracks.

Whenever I’m at home I still rummage through my boxes of cassettes, checking out all the amusing titles that I came up with. There were various Britpop concoctions, there were alternative 80s ‘manic depressive’ mixes, there were dance mixes, there were soppy mellifluous ballad collections…there were definitely some very eclectic mixes. But perhaps no other series of tapes captures the nostalgia of that era like the ‘Swell Trip Tapes’ (no further elaboration necessary) that Andrew and I used to put together. There must have been at least 4 or 5 editions of these epic collections and we whiled away many a long summer afternoon and evening listening to these endlessly.

It goes without saying that I still listen to my tapes from time to time, poor sound quality and wear and tear notwithstanding.

I held out from buying an mp3 player for as long as possible, resistant to part with my massive tape and CD collection, and lamenting the fact that technology was rendering cassettes obsolete. But among other things, the sheer impracticality of lugging CDs round the world put paid to this and I finally caved in and got an Ipod a few years ago.

But what is this? More trips down memory lane as news of the demise of the Walkman hits the wire. This takes me fondly back many years, and…ach, never mind. Enough of this wallowing in the past. It was great while it lasted.

The rise of the e-book: say it ain’t so!

I might have given into popular pressure and relented in buying an mp3 player, but books…that’s another story. I may look back in a few years on what I’m writing now and laugh, but I can’t imagine I’ll ever go down that route. No way.

Half the pleasure of reading is the feel of the book. Then there’s the cover (you can’t judge a book by its cover? Bullshit), making notes in the margins, exchanging books with your friends, sneaking a peek at what some stranger is reading on public transport, checking out someone’s collection when visiting their houses (this is the first thing I go for), carefully deciding which books to take on holiday (here, thinking about space and weight limitations is part of the fun/challenge), cracking the spine, the range of different fonts, the smell of a new book (!), picking up a gem of a second-hand book and reading previous readers’ inscribed notes to loved ones (probably the most tragic thing that would be lost if books vanished forever), not to mention giving books as gifts with that oh-so special inscription, and so much else besides. (Honestly, does an e-book gift have anywhere near the same value as an actual book?

[Here’s a real gem from a collection of William Hazlitt’s essays that I found about this time 1 year ago in a second-hand book sale: “For Mary R Drury, as a token for her last birth-day, for sundry ‘bets’ about exams, and a small amt. of personal regard. from her brother, S. S. Drury. June 19, 1898”.]

One of the best covers around

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t imagine a time will ever come when we can look at a coffee stain on our e-book and reminisce about that special café in Siena...or even a beer stain, taking you straight back to a bar in Prague…or having sand falling out of the pages, taking you back to a certain beach in Sicily…or countless other mementoes and reminders that come only with a book in proper book form.

Let’s face it: e-books are hardly a conversation starter. There’s hardly any romance in leaning in at the right angle to see what someone’s reading on their Kindle or whatever and then commenting upon their choice of material.

It was my ever-so-astute pal Jeff who told me to calm down when I panicked that books would eventually go the way of the cassette tape. After all, he pointed out, books have been around for centuries. Cassettes and CDs for decades at most. And I’d like to think that diehards like me will continue to prop up the old-fashioned way of reading. Not that I’m an expert on this, but my bet is that e-books will appeal to a lot of people, but predominantly to the Da Vinci Coders amongst us. In other words, those who read mainstream fare casually, and not literary snobs such as myself. There will continue to be suckers like me weighing ourselves down as we traipse about the globe acquiring massive tomes, moaning about the fact that there’s nowhere to put them all. But then dreaming of a day when we might finally have a place of our own to display the books for the benefit of our viewing public.

‘No matter who busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.’ (Confucius)

I don’t think he had e-books in mind.

The Sheltering Sky: another classic cover

A quick-fire round-up of various nostalgish links

* An ode to Twin Peaks, in my humble opinion one of the greatest series of all time, even if for only 1 season. At the time, I think I was one of the only kids at school watching this, though these days it seems like everyone watched it ‘back in the day.’ Yeah, I’m cool.

* And here, paying homage to another great 80s masterpiece, Back to the Future. Although for me this fell a bit behind the brilliance and majesty of Top Gun and the Karate Kid, it was still a splendid classic of my childhood, one watched over and over and over.

* This is merely nostalgia dating back to spring and summer 2009, but it’s nostalgia all the same. You will do doubt recall my fetish for amusing t-shirt slogans, and Bishkek was home to some of the greatest in history, with a firm favourite being ‘No Romance without Finance’. Is Jane Austen popularly read in Kyrgyzstan?

* Is there a greater exchange in 80s cinematic history than the one between Goose and Slider?

Slider: Goose, whose butt did you kiss to get in here anyway?

Goose: The list is long but distinguished.

Slider: Yeah, well so’s my Johnson.

Here's a slightly more ‘scholarly’ look at Johnson.

* Definite nostalgia here: I have many fond, hair-raising memories of zooming around town (Port Harcourt, mainly) on okadas, Nigerian motorbike taxis. The first few times you’d hang on for dear life as the blasted things zipped in and out of traffic. It wasn’t an uncommon sight to witness people hurtling off their bikes. But it was one of the only ways of getting around and one soon got used to it. There’s an image of a family of four with live goat crammed onto one that’s indelibly planted in my mind. Just in case you missed out on the hoopla and are wondering what all the fuss is about.

* And lastly, if you want to read about the plight of the poor English teacher abroad, then this is for you. However, I must say that it’s a woefully inadequate, unfair and misleading account. Most of it anyway. Bits of ring painfully true, but keep one very important thing in mind: by nature, English teachers are some of the biggest whingers around. We complain about everything and anything. It’s almost a prerequisite for the job. If I can be bothered, I may spend the time to Fisk it at a later date, since there are parts of I vehemently disagree with. It is a bit long and rambling, and most certainly dated. Which also pretty much describes your typical Tefler.  

Let’s end on some sappy, epically cockles-of-your-heart-warming nostalgia.

For my money, one of the most moving, inspiring, yet ultimately cheesy moments in cinematic history, featuring some of the more underrated film villains to ever grace the silver screen. Does it really get any better than this?

And one last cover for the road

The best laid plans

I came to Kyiv with all sorts of grand ambitions: I’d really get my Russian up to scratch, further develop my career, broaden my range of reading, exercise regularly, be a bit more adventurous with my cooking, keep in better touch with friends, and update my blog more regularly, even 2-3 times a week. So much for all that. I’ve instead become drowned in work with barely enough time to breathe. In that sense, I suppose I am ‘furthering’ my career. And though I have started Russian lessons, I’ve been unable to dedicate myself much to this pursuit. Instead, I’ve gone and done silly things like watch way too much crap Ukrainian football and joined an amateur theatre group, with rehearsals for a Christmas pantomime now taking up 3 of my precious hours every Sunday. At least I’ve managed to get away to Lviv for a weekend already.

In the meantime, I plug away at work, which despite one or two hiccups (mainly due to my ongoing technophobia, to be discussed in an upcoming post) is going rather well. But fret not kids: uncle Danny isn’t about to bore you with details of work!

Ignore the following paragraph.

[Current inner monologue revealed: I must eliminate the posturing, the waffling and just get down to it. In other words, stop trying to deliver a well thought-out, polished piece every time, and just concentrate more on throwing a few thoughts together on a more regular basis.]

Tennis, anyone?

I thoroughly enjoy playing tennis and deeply regret that I’m unable to play more of it. It’s one of the few sports I take seriously, too seriously, in fact, when I play. I’ve never been great at it, but I think I can hold my own against the odd semi-decent player.

One of my students has been on at me to play tennis with her, which would be tempting for various other reasons, though in this case the task is awfully daunting: she’s a former junior Olympic champion! Like hell I’d stand a chance against her without humiliating myself.

This calls to mind many years back when I worked in Boston, when of one of my colleagues Christine and I discussed playing some tennis after work. We had agreed on a date when my colleague Jim so kindly called me over to his computer and showed me a few news stories he’d gathered discussing Christine’s tennis prowess at university: she’d been the #1 player on her team and had won all sorts of titles. Sod that, I thought, there was no way I was going to stand a chance there and I promptly made my excuses and we never did play.

One of the great faults of taking any sport seriously is that tempers often get in the way of my performance. Playing tennis my first year at university with Dr Wasabi Islam was a great treat for me, probably not so much for him. One evening, there were 4 of us on court playing under the lights and I was losing my cool when the shots weren’t going my way. At one point, I let loose with a torrent of foul language and whacked the ball baseball style out of the courts and onto the street.

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ asked Dr Islam. ‘Go get the ball, come back, and sit down over there. You’ll watch us play.’

I duly obliged, and went off in a sulk while the rest of them played. After about 20 minutes of this punishment, I was invited back into the game.

‘Are you going to behave yourself now?’

‘Yes,’ I muttered sheepishly.

At the extreme level, I broke my fair share of racquets, which is fine if you’re Marat Safin and can afford this type of luxury. In one of my darker moments, whilst on holiday in Grenada with my girlfriend, I smashed a racquet after only a few minutes of playing. My girlfriend was by no means a good player, and this was meant to be nothing more than a bit of light-hearted pitter-patter, so she was no doubt taken aback by my antics and refused to take any further part in my petulant charade. So it was back to the pool and the swim-up cocktail bar for the duration of that trip.

Besides tennis, I’ve been known to lose my cool at other sporting pursuits: baseball, where my crowning moment of glory was being tossed from a game for hurling my bat at the umpire’s legs after being called out on strikes (in my defence, it was an atrocious call); miniature golf, where I’ve been known to whack balls in rage when they don’t roll the right way, regular golf, where I’ve launched the odd club or two off into the distance and even snapped an iron; and bowling, not a sport I’d want to profess to taking too seriously if I want to maintain any street-cred, but one in which I definitely stropped and huffed around way too often. Another favourite tactic used to be slinging my hat down onto the lane after an errant ball.

Though I’m not terribly good at regular golf, I tend to lose my cool only at sports I’m at least halfway decent at. So rest assured, my dears, that when it comes time to play a bit of football, basketball or skiing, I generally maintain my composure no matter what minor tragedy befalls me.

Back to the story at hand, and this pesky student

I’ve tried to explain that I’m not on her level but she doesn’t seem to care. Now, and I’m not sure whether this has any relevance at all, but she’s a very attractive young woman. And very attractive women who play tennis very well are even more attractive (see Caroline Wozniacki, for example, who would be merely just ‘attractive’ if she didn’t play tennis, but is infinitely more so because she’s so good). This is, thus, a huge distraction and even more of an imposing task. I don’t want to embarrass myself, especially when I have to face her a couple of times a week in the classroom. She wipes me all over the court, and suddenly she’s got all the leverage.

On the other hand, I really want to get back into playing, and I am sorely tempted – time permitting, of course – to take some lessons in the interests of getting back into form. It would be a tremendously great feeling if I could break her serve a few times and take a game or two off her, at the very least.

I should also point out that I’m good at dealing with adversity on the tennis court. One of my proudest moments came a few summers ago, when I was playing with my sister against the doctor’s orders. It was back when my foot was in pretty foul shape and I had no business being on a tennis court. My stubbornness won out in the end, and I played against my sister virtually on one foot. This has to be one of the proudest achievements of my life, the more so considering I beat her 7-6, 6-0. She will no doubt claim her ‘tennis elbow’ was acting up. What’s truly disturbing is that I still remember this in so much detail. I think it’s time to move on.

Back to the women playing tennis thing: I’ll confess that this is not my theory, but that of my high school pals Ravi and John, but they used to claim that there was nothing more unattractive than an attractive woman who can’t play tennis. In fact, it’s one of the most awkward sights one will ever witness the fairer sex performing and is a massive turn-off, along with the chicken dance and the Macarena. Conversely, of course, is that an attractive woman is that much more attractive if she plays tennis well. We’ve covered this route already.

Let me apply a corollary to Eastern European fashion: high heels. I’m no great lover of high heels (I go more for the high boots), but women who can’t walk well in high heels is equally as unattractive as lousy tennis players. The trouble is, high heels are absolutely de rigueur in these parts, yet I’d say roughly 70% of women can’t walk properly in them. When you factor in the ubiquitous cobbled streets, that number soars to 90%. And the further east in Europe you go, the higher the heels seem to go. That means that only a tiny minority can pull this treacherous feat off with any aplomb. For the rest, it’s the daily awkward sight of women stumbling around uncomfortably simply for the benefit of mankind. But surely men can’t be attracted to such clumsy women? I’m probably the wrong person to ask, for even that 10% at the upper echelon fails to really do it for me. I’m a big fan of a woman being comfortable – that is far more attractive to me than anything else. 

The moral here? Stick to what you’re good at. And keep your cool.

One excuse out of the way

That of the quest for a comfortable computer chair. Though it wasn’t nearly as easy as it should have been.

To save myself the bother of putting a chair together at home, I bought one ready-assembled from the furniture store. But this involved lugging it onto the metro and trying to get through the throngs of people without whacking anyone in the process. Passers-by were generally amused at the sight of me carrying this chair, and even more so when I plopped myself down into it whilst on the train. Eventually, after a bit of huffing and puffing, I got it home, and sat down, eager to start working away at my computer.

Barely a couple hours later, as I leaned over for my coffee, the whole bloody chair gave way and I went tumbling over onto the floor, thankfully unhurt, and with coffee unspilt. So much for that.

A few days later I returned to the shop, determined to get a refund. I knew this would be a daunting endeavour, what with the standards of customer service and the general public’s impatience to queue for anything. After a lot of jostling and bickering, I managed to at least exchange the damn thing – they refused to give me a refund, claiming I must have rocked back and forth in it. Anyway, it was onto act 2 with me and the chair and the metro and the same bemused passengers smirking at me in my chair. This one has held up – for now.

By the way, incidents like these are a textbook example of what my sister calls The World Against Darnell Syndrome, or TWADS. In a nutshell, the deck hasn’t been stacked in my favour, and I generally have it more unfair than most in this world. It really is difficult being me in this world when so many forces are conspiring against me. I can’t reveal the origins of this condition, for it stems from the most absurdly politically-incorrect origins, and I’d lose most of my readership and a third of my friends if I revealed the reasons behind it. I’ll have to leave it there for now.

As for this amateur theatre group malarkey I’ve got myself wrapped up in: never make a drunken promise, one. Two, don’t keep a drunken promise. Three, don’t go to an ‘audition’ of something you aren’t sure you want to be a part of and then put in a stellar performance to get a plum part or two.

This is the position I’ve become embroiled in. I’ve dabbled in a bit of theatre before with the kids, usually at summer schools but also in San Sebastian where I directed a ‘Theatre Club’ performance with a group of whippersnappers and put on a spectacle called The Day of the Robots in front of a packed theatre of friends and fellow teachers. And I’ve done a bit of acting here and there, but nothing too serious. Until now.

I thought it would be a bit of a laugh: do a couple of rehearsals over a fortnight, have a few drinks, a bit of banter, and then a small show, mainly improve-style, in front of a select audience of my peers. But no: this is some serious shit! Over 2 months of rehearsals, 3 hours a week for the first month or so, then 5-6 for the 2^nd month; original, full-blown costumes and everything; a production crew with light and sound ‘experts’; and to be performed in a proper theatre with ticket sales and advertising and an expected decent-sized audience consisting of much of Kyiv’s expat community. And there’s a fair range of people acting – a few teachers, but mainly some older teenagers, younger brats and people from the local community. This isn’t childs’ play at all! I’ve got to memorise lines and everything!

Damn it.

As for the play, if you’re familiar with the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s repertoire, where all of the bard’s works are performed in a comedy-packed 2 hours (there’s also an American History version), then you’ll recognise this effort: it’s titled The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon, and your dear author, after putting in a stellar audition, has been ‘rewarded’ with 3 roles: Rumpelstiltskin, the main [unnamed] dwarf from Snow White, and the host of a ‘This is Your Life’-type show. A lot of responsibility has been thrust upon my shoulders, and I can’t be letting them down now. With my sieve-like memory, this is going to be one hell of a challenge.

If anyone happens to be in Kyiv on 12 December, by all means come along. On second thought, you’d better not. By then I may have humiliated myself as a sportsman and a thespian. As well as a teacher, for good measure.