A bit of opera

I ended up not going to art this morning - sad panda face. Instead I did some work and then taught my five year old. The lesson nearly didn't happen as we had an unexpected power cut mid-morning but luckily it did come back on in time. Taught my five year old The Prehistoric Animal Brigade song again. I had forgotten a wooly mammoth gets a mention - I told him about the Ice Age yesterday so it was fitting.

Went straight from teaching to my personal training and was tasked with three AMRAPs (as many reps as possible). Pushed myself a bit. Saw a crazy video of someone doing what looked like cross fit and jokingly showed it to my personal trainer. Am very relieved she also thinks it looks really hard - for a minute I suddenly thought, hope she doesn't make me try that :P

Picked my mum up from school and we went and joined the queue to get in to the main stage for the opera gala. It was an enjoyable evening and they sang some of my favourites. On the way back to the car park a Rastafarian street guy we know called Henry walked with us. He always greets us with the saying, "Another day, another life". My mum asked him if he had heard the opera and what he thought of it. He replied, "Another music, another culture." Not sure if that meant he enjoyed it.

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A slightly wet start for HIFA

Well I didn't manage to find out where exactly the book launch was this afternoon, so after teaching my Chinese five year old I put in some work on my time table. It is going to be jolly hard giving homework with no facility to print stuff out - grrrr. We spoke about banda machines and a new one to me - the jelly tray?! yesterday. I do have a small printer here at home. Might have to use it but I do have 15 kids in my class so I hope the electricity/printer situation can be resolved really soon. I hadn't planned for this.

Had a bit of a glitch with sound when I started my Zoom lesson today. It hasn't done that before. I thought it was asking for my Zoom password to resolve it but misread that it was actually asking for my computer's password. My five year old is suddenly taken with drumming so I showed him a group playing at HIFA on Youtube. Have found a great beginner's ebook site www.clarkness.com and he seemed to enjoy what I set him today. Some of the books even have fonts for dyslexia which is useful. I still end the lesson saying, "See you later alligator etc." I showed him the picture below - think he was more taken with the photo of the baby crocodile than what it says though as he was trying to take a screen shot of it. I am amazed at how he can use his tablet - some stuff I have no clue how to do but he's mastered it.

Went to our first HIFA show this afternoon - Trio Mapivi (a cellist, pianist and percussionist). I enjoyed it and particularly their performance of Piazzolla's The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires and their use of the piano as a percussion instrument. Loved the tango flare. Met up with an Italian friend after and we wondered round the craft market by the National Art Gallery a bit. It started to rain which is a pity for the opening show and other outdoor events tonight. Hopefully people will still enjoy it. Tomorrow we're off to the opera. Hopefully it's dry then.

Youtube clip which is not the trio that played today and not with the percussion but the piece of music by Piazzolla.

Hapana ZESA for 4 weeks!

It feels like school has started now, after having the staff meeting this morning. The actual meeting went well and I now know what is expected with my schemes and records. We will have four dress up Fridays in the term and the plan is to have a "Garden Creations" exhibition at the end of term as we are doing plant and animal life cycles (minus the sex ed). The kids will be tasked with creating an arrangement out of flowers and fruit/veg. Sounds fun and artistic. Well the downer of the day was that the school has been without electricity for four weeks now as the local transformer blew and ZESA has it on a waiting list to be repaired. This is going to be a problem with regards to printing material for teaching as the printer and photocopier uses too much power for the current generator. Fingers crossed a bigger generator can be brought in but it does mean I need to rethink my lesson material and handouts, a challenge when we rely on material from the internet and photocopying the single copies of text books - there are no sets of text books available. Aaah! Least I've got a week. The other problem is all the water is pumped from the water tank and so this also depends on electricity. Not fun for loos but will have to just have buckets. The joys of Zim.

Looks like my little friend who I taught Grade 1 to last year and I strongly believed to be autistic is coming to the school this term. His parents seem to still not want to recognise the autism diagnosis a psychiatrist gave and will only acknowledge that they think he has ADHD. Hopefully the school can help him and maybe his parents will come around. He does at least now have a speech therapist and OT which is a vast improvement from last year.

I have been invited to go to a book launch tomorrow afternoon to blog about it. Apparently it is centred round feminism and entrepreneurship. Could be interesting, I just have to find the place I'm supposed to be going to in town. From there will be going to a trio of a cellist, pianist and percussionist - the first on my HIFA line up.

The voters' roll is now ready for inspection - you can go check everything is correct between the 19th and 29th May. Elections loom! I will have to go to Selborne Routledge School. For the moment half term is set as the weekend of the 22nd June but this could change depending on when elections are. There are already observers in the country monitoring things.

Have been accepted to exhibit at the Wild Geese Art Festival on the 3rd of June. Going up to Nyanga with friends over the Africa Day long weekend. Plan to take my paint brushes while some of the others fish. Going to share a stand at Wild Geese with my good friend Lucy which will be fun.

See you in 100 years!

Finding things for the environmental science and social studies lessons and then I have my plans done for the term - will try start preparing lessons for next week this week in and around HIFA. Tomorrow's staff meeting looms and I will then know more clearly what I'm doing hopefully. Did a bit of clearing yesterday and found a bag full of old pointe shoes from when I did ballet. Could do an art installation piece with them but otherwise should maybe find a home or other use for them. Also dug out my winter things as it's getting cooler.

Almost forgot my lesson with my Chinese five year old yesterday - suddenly saw Zoom ringing on my laptop - oops. Was more on the ball today. I talked to him about taste buds today and different tastes. He decided to go and find stuff in his kitchen and bring it back for me to see for the different flavours. I learnt a new one - umami for sushi or other things that have glutamates (I didn't use this word). In his science book there was picture of supposedly how a cat would see a parrot. I said it was a bit like an x-ray and so had to explain what that was. He got very excited about the machine and said he wanted to make one. Did explain about the radiation. I think it was overall a good lesson but I think he struggles to sit still for an hour. Half way through he burst in with, "Excuse me Miss Kitty" and asked to go to the loo. On his way he shouted back, "See you in a hundred years!" To which I replied I'll be dead by then. Cheeky sausage.

A friend had an impromptu braai last night which was nice. Some of us stayed chatting until one this morning so I had a slow start to my Sunday. Decided to decline reviewing the journal article for Applied Geography on silvopastoralism. Don't think I can give a very fair assessment of it as I have been out of that field for eight years and I just don't have time with school starting next week to do background reading (as nice as free access to Science Direct for six months would have been).

Just applied to exhibit at the Wild Geese Art Festival in June. Fingers crossed. Sent the photos below of recent work and had to send links to social media pages so sent my Tumblr page and then Instagram (although I don't have that many paintings on Instagram, maybe better put some up :P ).

Lithium

You numb my reactions and soothe the pain,
while slowly rewiring my inner brain.
Am I the same person underneath?
Or am I slowly becoming another beast?
Where is my passion, my ambition and faith?
Is this apathetic person in their place?
But maybe it's better I don't feel,
but would it be me without the pills?
Oh lithium, I still take you
even though my body would rather reject you.

December 2017

November Days

A political upheaval, but has it really changed?
Is it the same except in names?
No more police, but army on our streets.
They call the shots at road blocks.
Honoured for "restoring legacy",
we are in an interesting period of history.
But will it really change, will we be free?
Next year's elections will be key.

Written in November 2017.

Unrequited

I'd do anything for you,
does that make me an utter fool?
I give you this heart to perhaps break,
a risk I take.
My vision's clouded, my reasoning gone.
Are you interested or should I just move on?
This is new territory for me,
the field is open or is it?
Is it just me, is it unrequited?
When will I know?
But I'm prepared to wait.