A quiet place.
Ailsa is seeing red this week: http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/09/07/red/
And that suits me.
One hot October afternoon I ate ice cream in this café because I liked the red awning (red is my favourite colour). On the left, a waitress is clearing a table. It was mine.
Of course, you’ve seen part of this photo before. It’s my header.
31st Aug – In a café I had a choice of sitting inside with people, heating, loud music, louder voices, coffee grinding and crockery washing, or of sitting alone in a cold, outer room. Which I did. Like a hermit. It was quiet.
1st Sep – Watched a young neighbour skip rope vigorously, a cigarette firmly held between her lips. Without removing it she dropped the rope and flipped into a handstand.
2nd Sep – A violent movie is playing in this room; I have my back to it. Earlier, when I approached the armchair to watch it, my young adult son cautioned me, ‘Oh, Mum …’, and I took the hint and walked away. Not many years ago it was me warning him! Perhaps the censors should create a rating for parents like me: FG – Filial guidance recommended.
3rd Sep – Outside the library while I was waiting for someone another woman was waiting for someone; she was red black red black in a brief red top, black trousers, red socks and black thongs. After a long while she gave in to the cool air and put on a cardigan, pulling it up over the right shoulder but not the left, which was tattooed.
4th Sep – Sticker on a small tradesman’s truck in front of me: A work horse, not a show pony.
26th Aug – Found out that lactose-free cream can’t be whipped.
27th Aug – A 10 year-old told me about a scorpion. It’s a dirt bike trick where the rider throws his body up off the seat, curling his legs up and back like a scorpion’s tail.
28th Aug – Taught English to an ambassador. That’s a first!
29th Aug – Read that some of Marcel Proust’s lines are the longest in English literature.
30th Aug – My students never write in cursive (running writing). One 13 year-old said he had one-hour cursive writing lessons once a week when he was in Year 3 (8 y.o.), but he didn’t like it and prefers to print. What is truly amazing to me is that teachers give them the choice.
Ailsa has just shown us some curves she captured in her travels: http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/08/31/travel-theme-curves/
Now she’s challenging us to show off our own curves. Here are mine:
La Basilique Notre Dame d’Héliopolis, or the Basilique Church, sits in the centre of Heliopolis, which at the beginning of the 20th century was a planned town built in the desert ten kilometres from the centre of Cairo by the Belgian Baron Empain. It’s now a suburb of Cairo. Alexandre Marcel, the church’s architect, was inspired by Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, designing a smaller version of the domed basilica to be the centre of the new town. The baron is buried beneath the church.
21st Aug – A Year 12 student arrived for a lesson today dressed in gym clothes with her cleavage pushed up and out like a French Madame from the 1800s.
22nd Aug – Received a letter from Germany with a Queen Victoria half penny stamp stuck on the envelope.
23rd Aug – One of my students wants to become an accountant and travel to the Mediterranean and beyond, using her accounting skills.
24th Aug – Noticed that when I shop at a shopping mall and run into someone, they are always in a hurry to get away. But if I run into someone at the fruit and vegetable markets, they are free to chat and are never rushing to be somewhere else.
25th Aug – Today I emailed a guy in Heliopolis, Cairo about some photos I have of his suburb; he was stoked and asked me to send them. This is the first time I’ve ever communicated with someone in Egypt.
16th August – Received a request to translate a very interesting children’s book, unpaid. (This is not as unusual as I wish it was.)
17th August – Snowed for half an hour. This is the first time I’ve seen snow in this city for more than 10 years.
18th August – Someone who ‘liked’ one of my blog posts was looking for postgraduates to do a survey on career prospectives. So I did it.
19th August – Spoke to an Alpaca farmer who had nails painted in a leopard pattern.
20th August – Driving home tonight I heard a meditation therapist interviewed on radio. He gave a few minutes of instruction in meditation and I did everything he said, except close my eyes. I wondered if the other drivers around me were listening to the same station.
Ailsa suggested we post a photo of a memorable sunset this week. On her blog she has photos of US sunsets in soft lavender, pink and yellow hues: http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/08/17/sunset/
The best sunset I’ve ever seen was almost a physical experience. Unlike the US sunsets, this one was a solid ball of gold in an unclouded New Caledonian sky. I had noticed the fiery sun low in the sky, just above the ocean, but before I could become too contemplative, it descended into the water and I couldn’t look away. Only seconds passed from the moment I first saw it to its disappearance below the horizon, as though it had drowned in the sea. I could almost hear a hiss! I stood in confusion, knowing that the earth had moved, not the sun.
I’m currently translating a small book of New Caledonian legends by Claudine Jacques, colourfully illustrated by Papou, so when I saw Ailsa’s suggestion of sunset images I immediately thought of late afternoons in Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia. This Pacific island, not far from the north-eastern coast of Australia, is a French ‘special collectivity’. That is, it used to be a territory colonised by the French from 1854, but now the people are working towards independence and power is gradually being transferred from France to New Caledonia over a 20 year period, looking towards 2018. Unless the French can convince them otherwise.
11th August – My oldest son is composing a piece of piano music. I’ve never known a composer before. He’s posted it on his blog: http://lukeworth.wordpress.com/
12th August – Saw a tiny finch digging in a planter box hanging from my porch. I looked in and found a slanting tunnel dug out beside the pansies.
13th August – When we read in a grammar exercise that King Charles Spaniels are named after Charles II, my ten year-old student told me that King Charles II liked to party. She learnt it on Horrible Histories.
14th August – A male and female finch are sitting on the winter-bare branches by my window. Now and then the female flits over to the planter box and scrapes a few more grains of soil out while the male stands guard on the branch just above. Now I have an unusual problem: how can I water my pansies without the tunnel collapsing?
15th August – Researched a holiday resort online and found many variations in prices for the same room, same dates. Rang the resort and told the owner we’ve stayed there several times over the past 25 years; he gave me a $200/week discount.
Thanks to Ailsa for proposing ‘Signs’ as a theme. She found some signs giving pretty direct commands: ‘be kind’, ‘be polite’: http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/08/10/signs/
This week I photographed a sign that is also unambiguous. I was tutoring a student who had to make a brochure to educate drivers on the combination of alcohol and driving. We talked about ways of preventing people from driving after drinking, and I thought of this sign on one of the freeways in our city and wondered if it’s successful in preventing accidents. I don’t drink alcohol, so I giggle darkly at this sign and its unsubtle message and try to imagine its writer. But I’d be interested to know what effect it has on drink-drivers.
6th August – Currently watching the documentary Shoah by Claude Lanzmann, all 9 hours of it, for an hour and a half each night. Each night I’m also learning German online.
7th August – This morning I woke when it was dark and looked at my clock’s glow-in-the-dark hands: 6 o’clock. After a long time waiting for the sun to rise, I looked at the clock again: 2 o’clock. The clock hands, the first time, must have actually said 12.30 am.
8th August – Through my window I watched a man arrive in a black car wearing a black suit and very black glasses. He had a quiet conversation with two guys in hoodies, then opened his car door and invited them to get in, gently touching one on the back, a reluctant passenger. The car moved away slowly.
9th August – A Superb Fairy-wren just landed on my windowsill. Never seen this in the 15 years I’ve been here. It’s female and looks like a fat flying mouse with a vertical tail.
10th August – Heard a story on the news about a Dalmatian breeder who also owns a newborn Dorper lamb which has black spots on a white-based coat (normally they have a black head on a white body). The lamb’s mother has rejected it, but a female Dalmatian has adopted it, licking it every now and then. The lamb has tried to nuzzle up to her udder.
