Galaxy of Emptiness

Last night I go the usual place again

I'm blocked before I get there. I stagger in. I meet my friends. Music blasts. Lights Flash. We dance. I don't think I even talk. The music is too loud. Its all a blur. Dance. Take photos. Go outside for a smoke. I don't think I talk to anyone. If we do talk I can't remember what was said. Nothing important that's for sure. Drunkenly dance. This is what life is about. Go to a club with your friends. Get Blocked. Sniff poppers. And dance. Did I dance on my own? Probably. I can't remember.

Take away the lights, take away the people, take away the music and what do you have left?

The background disappears. I'm at a large blue lake surrounded by music, the music is silence. It's warm, the sun shines down on me from high above. I'm lost in a forest but I'm not afraid, the false faces have gone forever. I walk slowly towards a waterfall I see in the distance. A sound resonates and draws me closer and closer. The person is there, inside. The person I've been waiting for. They are sexless, they are part of the dreamscape. They glow with light. Not the light of religion, but the light of true understanding. They will complete.

A man walks out. He looks more like a boy. He is perfectly formed. His smile bores into my thoughts, becomes my entire being. He is not Jesus. Jesus was a fabrication created by men. He is not God, God is the name we give to what we do not understand. He is something else. He is part of the past, present and future. He lives in fairytales, in places of solitude, in pockets of our mind.

He disappears. The waterfall disappears. The lake disappears. The sun disappears. I am back in the club but my friends have turned into skeletons. They smile back at me through hollow eyes. They continue to dance around me. The DJ is asleep but the dancing continues. I try to run away, to escape, but my feet remain firmly planted to the ground

The wind blows through the building. The light changes colour.

Goose Chasing

Your Class Was Pathetic.

It wasn't what she was saying, it was what I was hearing over and over and over again as she told me 'you need to be more interesting' 'pace the room' 'use your voice' 'never sit down' 'always keep an eye on them' 'take drama classes to improve your voice' 'you have to own the room or they'll be hanging off the rafters'. She was being helpful, she was giving me good advice....

Your Class Was Pathetic.

It was my first lesson. I had to cover a passage on the atomic bomb. I walked in to the room, shaking a little, starting to sweat a little. The teacher introduced me to the class and told them that I was going to take a lesson with them. She sat on her desk in the background marking work and it was over to me.

I had been given a passage on the atomic bomb to grab their interest. So I got each of them to read out a paragraph, asked them what a handful of words meant, and then went over the questions.

Or so I think I did.

Most of it is a blank. The thing I remember best was sitting there worrying that the perfuse sweating on my forehead had been picked up on by the members of the class.

After the class, and my feedback on it, I went home and went to bed. I don't think I can do this. If I can't teach a well-mannered P7 class a pasage in a book for half an hour, how on earth am I going to teach a rabblesome class of teenagers? Sometimes I wonder what the hell I'm doing.

I feel sick and exhausted. I've been invited out tonight but I just want to stay in bed as my cold just seems to be getting worse and worse. I've also got my dissertation hanging over me constantly. As soon as I awoke after my sleep this afternoon it came to my mind. I felt ill. Its just waiting there demanding to be done. And I'm not doing it. I've lost interest in it long ago. To be honest, I don't even know why I did the Masters. And also, after today, I don't know why I'm doing the current teacher course either.

Everything I do is average. My life is an endless repetition of things someone else has said, things someone else has done. The only thing I was ever brilliant at at school was English, which is why I've pushed and pushed in that direction since - doing my Degree in English, doing my Masters in English, training to be an English teacher. And now I'm fed up with English. My Masters has taught me that I'm not good enough to be a Lecturer. These past few weeks seem to have taught me the same about teaching.

Maybe I should wittle my days away in a boring office job somewhere. Boring, but safe. But no I'd never do that. It would be my worst nightmare. In fact not wanting to end up in such a position is the only thing that is really spurring me on.

Oh, to regress back to childhood. All this adult stuff gives me a headache.

Behind The Mask

Friendship. An interesting concept.

Since I've moved out of a shared house enviroment I've realised more so than before that none of us are especially 'close'. Is it entirely possible to have friends that you've gone about with for years but yet not to 'know' to them? I mean we all go out in a group and have great nights out. But everyone can bond over booze can't they?

And so my teaching placement comes to an end tomorrow. Today was a complete disaster. I was given a reading group and got the kids to read the wrong pages, I was told to put them on a bus with another teacher after swimming and I put them on the wrong one, and I sat and blew my nose all day and felt completely rotten. It's probably best it's coming to an end really, although I have enjoyed it. The only problem is, I haven't actually taught a class yet. I've mainly been observing, helping the kids with questions, telling them to be quiet etc. Tomorrow I think the P7 teacher wants me to read a story to her class, so we shall see how that goes. With my bunged up nose and nasty cough I'm sure it won't be the most fluent story they've ever heard.

Got some good advice today from one of the teacher's in the staff room. She offered me some cheese and crackers and as I sat beside her we had a wee chat about the rest of my placements. I was saying I had really enjoyed my time at the school but that I was somewhat worried about my secondary school placements - with discipline etc. She said that the most important rule was don't let them read you. If you put on a confident front, no matter how much you are shaking inside, you will be confident. It may be all a front but that's what teaching is - it's playing a role. That's what I must remember. I can't and won't let any of them get the better of me, no matter how hard they try. It will be a challenge, but challenges are what makes life exciting. It may be cliché for a wannabe English teacher to finish with a Shakespeare quote but that's exactly what I'm going to do.

"Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt."

,

Messiahs Need People Dying In Their Name

So Mum and Dad have returned from their holidays. Its the first time I've lived with them in over two years and it's going to be tough. I can feel the bad atmosphere returning already.

So here I sit in my bedroom, burning insence and listening to tori to keep me sane while attempting to write the last chapter of my dissertation. Hopefully the fact that I intend to avoid the crazies will enable me to actually get work done.

I was downstairs a few minutes ago. Dad's on the phone, talking to some JW. Not just any JW though, a special one who has the title of 'presiding overseer'. He's talking about my sis. "Its worse than death, Billy, it feels like we're living in a nightmare". SOLUTION: LEAVE THE JWS AND START SPEAKING TO YOUR FUCKING DAUGHTER AGAIN YOU NUT!! But he won't do that. His god dictates that he can't. So I eavesdrop for a while, but then I feel my blood pressure rising, so I come up to my room, close the door behind me, and tori's on the CD player, pancake. A song about religion making people insane. And I realise that she will keep me sane during these next few months

PANCAKE

I'm not sure who's fooling who here
as I'm watching your decay
We both know you could deflate
a 7 hurricane
Seems like you and your tribe
decided you'd rewrite the law
Segregate the mind
From Body From Soul...

I believe in defending
in what we once
stood for
It seems in vogue
to be a closet
misogynist homophobe

a change of course in
Our direction
a dash of truth
spread thinly
Like a flag
on a popstar
On a Benzodiazapene

You give me yours
I'll give you mine
cause I can look
your God
right in the eye
You give me yours
I'll give you mine
You used to look my God
right in the eye

Oh Zion please
remove your glove
+ dispel every
trace
Of His spoken word
That has lodged
In my vortex

I'm not sure who's fooling who here
as I'm watching your decay
We both know you could deflate
a 7 hurricane
You could have spared
her -- oh but no
Messiahs need
people dying in their name
You could have spared her
oh but no
Messiahs need
people dying in their
Name
You say "I ordered you a
pancake"
You say "I ordered you a
pancake"

We Make It Up As We Go Along

Well we do don't we?

Old situations become new, new situations become old.

Last night I stood at the front of the house having a cigarette. It was the early hours of the morning and all was silent. I was the only one there, apart from a cat that had placed itself in the middle of the road and was just sitting there. Staring at me.

I was standing at the top of a hill overlooking the city. I was in a trance, gazing out over the bright lights. My granny in the early stages of her illness used to do the same thing. Just sit and stare. One day she said to me, half in a dreamscape, "It's like a fairy land". And last night I thought the same thing. Lights everywhere. Twinkling. I remembered him. I remembered the hours we spent in the middle of the night walking around our part of the city. Planning our escape. The times we would just sit in the field overlooking the city below for hours just talking, or not talking, it didn't seem to matter. The time we spent just being together. One night I wasn't able to sleep. It was about 2am and I was sitting at the computer chatting to him. It was a cold Winter's night. All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye I saw white droplets falling down across my window. We decided to go for a walk. The roads were empty, the snow fell undisturbed. We got lost together, lost together in the snow.

But now he was gone. Sex came between us. He cheated on his girlfriend with me and our friendship was never the same after. He spent the time after convincing me endlessly how 'straight' he was. The event was never directly referred to again. The final nail on the coffin came last Christmas. He was in a miserable mood, he wasn't sleeping. But it was Christmas Eve so at midnight he helped me open his presents. We both got drunk. I tried it on again and he ran out of the house. We haven't spoke since. Now he's in America somewhere and here am I, back in my parents house. And what has changed? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except now it is just me.

The cat stared at me a little longer. I stared right back at it for a while, and then it disappeared. I was left alone.

I finished the cigarette, flicked it into the nearby bush and went in. I poured myself another G & T and I sat down on the sofa and stared.


We make it up as we go along.