Bards and poets and wizards

I am having a student friend for dinner. I am not sure what to have for dessert.

She's coming to sing for her supper - or rather, speak. I think stories are a great way of using tenses with advanced students, because when constructing stories we have things in the past, the past perfect, the imperfect as well as wishes, desires, hopes, dreams, ambitions and so on and so on. That's why a good storyteller is a wizard, and to be a wizard you have to be able to tell convincing stories - after all, what's a spell but a story that starts with a desire and ends in fulfillment?

And everyone has stories to tell, whether they're autobiographical (auto, Greek, meaning self- or one's own, hence automobile - self-moving and autograph, something you wrote yourself) or famous tales from one's homeland. Strange and marvelous things happen to us all the time, and they happen by chance.

Take the story of the crane operator who was an hour late to work on Wednesday and, hustling up his ladder, saw a helicopter smash into the structure above him. Two people died in this awful accident. They died because that day they got up on time, and he survived because he happened not to. That's it. The universe is random and without purpose.

Returning to stories, then, and my autobiography - my story written by me, although since it's typed - but I digress.

I have finally concluded the translation project that I thought I'd finished way back in December, so I'm going to add that to all of the important documents that make up my application for a job when I (finally) graduate. My colleague was so pleased with it that he insisted I put my name on it, and so I am now immortal - or will be, for as long as this unit is taught with this translation. Still, it's something. I've also been finalising a video - for some reason a perfectly gorgeous video in iMovie became absolute, pixelated crap when converted to .avi, but a little research and a solution was found. The internet is brilliant.

I've also taught myself the basics of plan drawing, and using Sketchup - and playing around with a lot, there's a strange sort of childish glee with grabbing a cube and deforming it like putty - I've knocked together something at which I daresay my brother would cringe. On the other hand, he's in Dubai, but because he's a really good guy the minute I mentioned I'd done it, he facebooked me and asked why I hadn't asked him. He's in Dubai and he's still willing to help me out at a moment's notice. My brother is awesome.

In any case, it's been a really interesting day, despite my first French lesson being cancelled. Next one's on Tuesday and I'm actually a little bit nervous.

So here's something fun I've found, because laughter is a natural cure for nervousness: NFL players overdubbed with very bad lip-reading. Hilarious.

Wherein a Narrative Law kicks our Hero in the genitals

Tuesday is the worst day of the week. I know I’m flying in the face of received knowledge here on the Internet, but bear with me. The title of this post will become clearer, too, as you move to the conclusion of this piece.
Mondays are excellent. I like Mondays. You’re chilled and relaxed from the weekend; you’ve got exciting projects lined up and you feel like you can take on the world. You got up early, had plenty of time for breakfast, and a run, and your shower was hot.
Wednesdays are the midweek point; the hard slog is over and the end is in sight. In fact, you say as you work through the boring minutiae of your day, you’ve already had lunch and that means the day is half done, so now you’re just past the halfway, and it’s all downhill from here.
Thursday is the starter to the main course that is your weekend, enough to summon saliva to your lips as you contemplate the decadence with which you will spend your free time (or, indeed, the IKEA furniture that you’ve not had a chance to put together yet).
And finally Friday, the way you shiver in antici-

-pation, and watch the clock, and probably bum off a little bit early. And then enjoy yourself all weekend.

Tuesday, on the other hand, is the worst day of the week. The buzz has worn off, the projects that you were hoping would be exciting are, in fact, the same boring projects you do day in, day out, and the rest of the week stretches out in front of you, as limp and dull and insipid as the off-white walls in your cubicle cell.

That having been said, I had a pretty good Tuesday. I finally finished a translation work that’s been hanging over my head for too long, I finalised details for the upcoming dinner, I played Scrabble with my students and found a chess partner, and my brother is doing me a huge favour out of the goodness of his heart.

Here’s a picture of him kindly not looking handsome so that I look better. First and only time in our lives.

Since then he’s found a lovely girlfriend, a seriously decent job, and gained several inches in height on me. And a better dress sense. And he’s in Hong Kong.

Bastard.

On the other hand, there’s a chilli bubbling away behind me, rice gently cooking, I have money and warmth and I’m teaching a language I love in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

So looks like Tuesdays aren’t all bad.

And now the meaning behind the title of this piece becomes clear, because having written that, I added a little pinch of spice, checked my rice, turned around and found that my laptop had crashed and lost every word that I had typed. I have just retyped this blog post, and in doing so forgot the rice and over-spiced the chilli. By over-spiced I mean my eyes are boiling in their sockets from the fumes wafting around my flat. This the narrative rule that states that when a Hero's life appears to be defying all the odds and going well when by all rights it should be going badly, it is just about to go hideously.

Alternatively known as a Hope Spot, for you trope-spotters.

So I take it back. Tuesday can get stuffed.