Say that again?

On some days the rooms that I work in are converted broom closets - little cubbyholes where it is just possible to squeeze a piano in and a couple of chairs. On other days the piano rooms are part of a larger music room. I much prefer the broom closets, despite the lack of space, because they are isolated rooms, and I'm not bothered by kids who are (or should be) having their class music lessons.

Today was one of the latter days. I'm in the piano room, within the large classroom, and there is a year 10 class (15-year-olds) going on outside my room. Jackie, the teacher, tells the twenty or so students to do some compositions. She gives the boys and girls some basic instructions, then lets them loose on the keyboards while she sits at her desk. The way they chat and just mess around on the keyboards, they might as well be decomposing. I hear my name occasionally being chanted by that one student. I decide that it's not worth stopping my lesson, to go out and confront him, give credence to the fool and make him look "cool" in front of his friends - especially when there already is a teacher in charge of that class - and so I put up with it.

Soon it's time for "Listening". The students have to listen to a piece of music and answer a few questions. Jackie explains each question, plays the extract, and sits at her desk again.

It's a piece of classical music. Within two seconds there is a loud yawn. The extract plays on, the murmuring continues, students start to chat. Jackie sits at her desk - if they don't want to learn, that's their problem. Pretty soon the chatting is louder than the music, students are talking across the room, and Jackie is at her desk. Someone shouts an obscenity, one so gross I peek to see Jackie's reaction. Erm.... Jackie is at her desk. The music plays on, the chatting continues, and mercifully the class soon ends.

Break time. I casually stroll out.

"Rough class."

"Yeah."

"Who was that chanting my name?"

"Was there? It might have been Jason. He was being a prat today."

I decide to be really blunt. "Was it Jason who yelled 'fucking cunt'?"

"Probably."

I leave it at that. Neither of us wants to get into any further discussion, but at least I've made my point - it was audible, the class heard it, I heard it, and she should have dealt with it.

Most class teachers have a thankless job. I know, I was one until I decided enough was enough. I feel for the teachers who often feel trapped in their jobs; powerless to stem the tide of anti-social behaviour or lack of student motivation. I feel for the teachers who feel trapped and are destroyed by the system - a system that doesn't really address learning, but at the very best, can only keep the downslide at bay; teachers that feel they are fighting a losing battle, wrestling with bad behaviour, trying to meet targets, and teachers who eventually decide that in the interests of self-preservation, least resistance is best - and give up, and let the tide carry them, by which time they can't be bothered to deal with students, or teach effectively. Usually by that time, they've given up on life. It's sad, but most teachers that I see end up like that - by that time, they are talking about "early retirement" - with still well over a decade to go. Sad.

Tuesday Tattle

Me (to student): "Let's use the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Can you play on the piano, the notes that spell the word ... 'age'."

Student: (plays A-G-E)

Me: "Cab".

Student: (Hesitates.) There ain't no "K"!
.
.
.
Me: Now try "cabbage".

Student: Aw, that's too long. Can we do "Veg"?

Student: (carries on without waiting for a reply). Hang on, there ain't no "V" - that's a trick question! I knew it!

++

5 miles this evening, 36:35. If 5 miles in 35:30 is a "10" effort, this one was more like an "8". I'm very pleased. I ran all the way concentrating on allowing my spine to lengthen naturally. My theory is a bit Alexandrian in nature - since the brain transmits signals down the length of the spine to the nerves, keeping the spine in a relaxed natural position (i.e. not arched or humped) would avoid unnecessary tension developing in the body. It works for me anyway.

# 38

Another ARID - had about half an hour in the morning yesterday so it was going to be 3.5 miles in 26 minutes. That's under 7:30 mins/mile, and I wished I had more time to go longer at that pace, but that's life these days. In any case, the left hamstring has been getting a few twinges here and there over the past few run, so I was content to do just a short run.

I'll hit #40 on Thursday! I'm a bit excited to be ahead of last year's pace. Why? Because it means when I'm finished with #50 before Christmas, while I'm at the in-laws' then, I can return to my basic instincts and pig out for a bit - it's really a "taper/carbo-load" - without feeling guilty.

I need to stretch a bit more - my running's getting to the point where I'm starting to stagnate a bit, and I think part of it is because of my leg inflexibility. More doorframe hamstring stretches, I think.

Have a good week of running, folks! Here's a shout out for M, Michelle and Rob. Go tell them they were great.

nothing spectacular

Ran 2.5 miles yesterday under 20 minutes. I was supposed to run on Tuesday but was a bit sniffly, and didn't see the point of giving my immune system more to deal with, so I took an extra day off. A lot of people I come into contact with are nursing colds; about 2 in 5. I'm quite wary of getting a cold - I can't afford the time off work. Some days it can be "Drink lots. Wash hands, especially after opening doors." You'd think I'd been hanging around Monica from Friends.

Later on I'll run 4, maybe 5 miles. It all depends on what pace I'm going on and how I feel. The weather's turned a bit cold, and I don't like to run too fast when it's cold. I end up gulping too much cold air in my lungs too quickly - which, after Sunday's run, might have contributed to my sniffly self.

Remember this? I've succumbed. It's being FedExed somewhere.

On another note, to satisfy my inner ranting self - is this one of the most pointless things you have ever seen? Er, how would you get to that page in the first place?

Happy Thanksgiving, folks!

# 35

Ran 4 miles on Sunday morning. Did the first 2.7km (1.678 miles) in 11:20, then the next 2.7km in 12:00, and then went up to the 4-mile mark as fast as I could. Given the occasional side-to-sides to avoid dogwalkers and other obstacles, I am tempted to claim that I ran a bit extra and covered 4 miles of ground under 28 minutes - but I won't. I'll leave that as a mark to aim for in the future. For now, I'm satisfied with having run four 7-minute-miles.

Did some free squats, calf raises and hamstring curls in the evening. I'm intending to do a few easy runs this week, no more than 5 miles at 7:30 pace.

My colleague Mike emailed everyone in the department some jokes - yes, that's Mike who's been ill with the winter vomitting virus. Mike, it's not good, on a day you're supposed to be off sick, to be seen to be emailing everyone bad puns. But these are funny, so I'll share them with you.

+
Two aerials meet on a roof - fall in love - get married. The ceremony was rubbish but the reception was brilliant.

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Man goes to the doctor, with a strawberry growing out of his head. The Doc says "I'll give you some cream to put on it."

+
A man takes his Rottweiler to the vet. "My dog's cross-eyed, is there anything you can do for him? "

"Well," says the vet, "let's have a look at him." So he picks the dog up and examines his eyes, then checks his teeth.

Finally, he says "I'm going to have to put him down."

"What? Because he's cross-eyed?"

"No, because he's really heavy."

+
Two elephants walk off a cliff...... boom boom!

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So I went to the dentist.

He said "Say Aaah."

I said "Why?"

He said "My dog's died.'"

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Apparently, 1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese. And there are 5 people in my family, so it must be one of them.

It's either my mum or my dad.

Or my older brother Colin.

Or my younger brother Wong Fei Hong.



I think it's Colin.

+
So I was in my car, and I was driving along, and my boss rang up, and he said 'You've been promoted.'

And I swerved into a tree.

A policeman came up and said 'What happened to you?'

"I careered off the road."

+
Police arrested two kids yesterday, one was drinking battery acid, and the other was eating fireworks.

They charged one and let the other one off.

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A man walked into the doctor's.

The doctor said " I haven't seen you in a long time "

The man replied "I know, I've been ill."

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Phone answering machine message - "If you want to buy marijuana... press the hash key..."

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My friend drowned in a bowl of muesli. A strong currant pulled him in.

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I went on my own to a seafood dinner-and-dance party last week. I pulled a muscle.

Three Blind Miles; see how they run

There is a stomach bug hovering around in one of my schools. Apparently at least 20 members of staff have been felled by it, suffering from flu and diarrhoea, causing Parents Evening and an Assembly to be cancelled. Some of my students have got it too. I happen to share the same room as one of the teachers who recently went down with it. I've been washing hands after clicking the computer mouse in the room, washing hands every few hours, washing hands, washing hands, washing hands.

I only had about 20-25 minutes to run today, so I went out and did three miles blind. The weather's scuppered my plans a bit. I've no intention of running fast on our slippery sidewalks in the rain. I hate rain - I've been lucky so far, and this is the first time it's seriously rained on one of my running days. It's normally HSKT when it rains, but I decided to dress up in the rainproofs and the hat, and didn't like it one bit.

The audacity of some people amazes me. A car drives by, the passenger-side window rolls down, and the passenger asks, "Hello, want buy laptop?" Amazing. I don't know how these people expect someone to buy an electronic item like that without any warranty. In any case, a laptop is too complex an item to decide to buy within 5 minutes. Maybe they think I'll fall for the "laptop switch" trap - they demonstrate a fully-working laptop, then distract me and give me a pre-packed laptop bag with weights in it. Or maybe they hope they can convince me it works by demonstrating it haphazardly, and blind me to its faults. Maybe they think the thought of getting a laptop on the cheap will convince me to buy it from them. Maybe maybe maybe. But seriously, guys, do you think with that sort of drive-by sales approach, I'd believe the laptop genuinely works, or isn't stolen?

It's the fifth time it's happened to me. I take three steps back, and mimic memorising the license plate number. Vrooooooooom! Faster than you can say I'm-bugging-outta-here-move-move-move.

Then again, the car's probably stolen too.

# 32, # 33 - Cars, Bikes, Buses and Trotters

I rely extensively on public transport to get to work. In this part of the world the benefits of a car are almost invalidated after taking into account car insurance, fuel, tax, congestion charging , the lot. Personally, I think a car here is a bit of a hindrance unless you have children and need to ferry them to and from school, or have a really busy social/work life, or you just want to show off. Of course, there are the odd occasions when your own set of wheels would really really help, but then, it would be cheaper just to hire a car for the day. The daily cost of running a car just isn't worth it, and there have been many a time when I've jumped off a bus, strolled home and admired the motorists caught in gridlock.

Some bus companies went on strike yesterday. Their last-minute strike notices posted at bus stops mentioned that "Some services may possibly be cancelled or be running a reduced service due to possible strike action". It would have been helpful to remove the ambiguities, to save me half an hour of wasted time spent standing around waiting for a once-every-20-minutes bus. In the end, I did the best I could - a 3.5 mile brisk walk, heart rate over 120 bpm for 50 minutes, just to get to somewhere within a bus ride of getting home. My criterion for logging a workout is that it must be over 20 minutes long at 160bpm or higher, or over 30 minutes at 120bpm or higher, so I'm counting it. And a pig whose time has been wasted is a pissed-off pig.

Coming back to designated workouts, today's blind run was 3 loops in 37:02, or 5 miles in 36:33. I lost about 15 seconds due to cars and a close meeting with some cyclist's handlebars. I don't know why cyclists, without lights or reflective gear, are doing the Tour de Sidewalk, but it irritates me slightly - they should be on the road. I can understand it if they feel the sidewalk is safer, but it's a bit too much when a cyclist rides illegally on the sidewalk, and like he/she owns it, and then expects that you'll move out of his way when he/she comes barrelling down a hill towards you. And then gives you a mouthful when you both nearly meet.

I hope to do 4 miles under 30 minutes (dare I try 29?) sometime this week, more likely the next. Happy running!

# 31 - Speed Sunday

The plan today was to do the loop of 1.678 miles as speedwork. I'd actually been looking forward to that over the past few days, believe it or not. The way I viewed it was as a "get it done quick" session. Come this morning, though, I felt like I'd rather do 5 miles at a slower pace. Anyhow, I got it done in 11:20, 6:45 minutes per mile, then jogged back home and did some free squats, to get my heart going above 60%MHR for slightly over 20 minutes. I didn't need to look out much for times along the way when running - I know if I'm putting down a pair of footsteps for each inhalation and exhalation(?), then I'm on track for a quick time, which brings up a point I've noticed over the past few runs: Cadence seems more important than foot stride. I seem to run faster times when I concentrate on plonking down footsteps, than by thinking "open your stride, cover more ground".

11:20 for that loop seems to be the limit for me at the moment - I suppose I'll have to do shorter and more frequent bouts of 800s or 1000s to try to lower that time to about a 11:15 or 11:10.

I expect to do 4 miles under 30 minutes on Tuesday and 5 miles on Thursday. If I keep this up I'll get to #39 by the end of this month, but let's not jinx it by getting greedy.

Have a good week and happy running!

Blind

I did a "blind" run on Thursday – running without looking at the watch. Ran 5 miles by feel, at a pace sufficient enough to keep me going without stopping. I have no mile splits; the only occasion I looked at the time was 30 seconds from the end, when I needed some form of motivation to run up the incline. It seems a little cruel to have to end 5 miles on an uphill – although having said that, I have to confess that my hills are more like zits, really. I was pleased to finish in 36:03. It was good to know that I could run five 7:13 miles without pushing too much. I only put in a bit of a sprint towards the end. That’s #30 done.

For the next few sessions, I’m intending to do a few more 5-mile runs under 37 minutes, a few loops in 11:30 or less, and comfortably and consistently do some 4-mile runs in under 29 minutes. It’s only when I start to plateau at that level that I’ll start to increase the "long" runs to 5.5, or 6 miles. The weekly mileage of 13.1 might be split into something like 3/5/5 or 3/5.5/4. I'll make it up as I go along.

Weights and a quick run this weekend. Have a good one, folks!

#29

Today, in a way, was a semi-arid day. By the time I'd got home and finished my odd jobs, it was already dark, I was hungry from not having eaten properly, and I was tired from teaching. With regards to the latter, Tuesday is a notoriously slow day - partly because a fair bit of my time is spent teasing out of kids the answer to "What's the letter between C and E?" And even when you press these notes down on the keyboard, a few struggle to realise that D is actually that white ridge between your two fingers. Now, we're not talking about kids with special needs here - these are 8-year-old kids that have normal abilities, but don't use their reasoning powers. They wait to be told the answer, or try to give you the answer you want - either by sussing it out from your tone of voice, or by process of elimination("A!" "No." "B!" "No." "C!" "Don't guess. Use logic to work out the answer." "Then it must be D! It must be!"). They don't want to think; they just want to give you the answers and get it over with, because it is the quickest way, the shortcut.

Sometimes the requests are unbelievable. "Can you use your pen and point out the notes to me?" The student, rather than wanting to follow the music, work out what the notes are, where they are on the keyboard, and then play them, simply wants to reduce music-learning to a process of following a guiding pen and pressing notes down, oblivious to what they are. Does it matter? It's the fastest shortcut to get some semblance of a tune, but kittens tracking a beam of light along a ceiling use more brainpower.

I'm running out of rant tokens, so I'll move on.

Weather - mid 40s, grab the thermals. 2 loops in 11:37 and 12:20. The thing that I didn't like, though, was having to dodge people. Especially (this is very un-PC now) stupid ones. You would think that if people were moving in different directions on a sidewalk, whether they were running, walking, pushing a pram, or otherwise, it would be common nature for each group to at least try to move to one side, so that both groups could move in their respective directions at the same time. (If you were the one running, slowing down as you pass people in whatever direction would be common courtesy, obviously expected.) Somehow the unwritten law of showing some inclination to give way seems to elude some people in these parts. Pretending to be too engrossed in your friend's conversation to say "thank you" when people stop so you can stroll over doesn't really cut it, either. The Red Sea doesn't part for you, Sir and Madam. Go drown in it.

I eventually finished 3.5 miles in 25:40, which I'm satisfied with. I've thought about what I hope to achieve at the end of the 50 runs - do a half-marathon, perhaps? Over the past few days, blinded by the exploits of others, my goals have been lofty and flitting. It's easy to be blinded by the euphoria of distance (10K! 21K! 20 miles!), but all I want is to run a fairly reasonably long distance fast. I want to eventually run 10 miles consistently under 1:15 and hope to get a half-marathon time of under 1:40. I might not get there at #50. But I'm slowly going to claw my way there, doing the short fast runs to get to that distance instead of running long all the time, and have the patience to believe and trust that what I'm doing works. I want to build a stalactite drop by drop, instead of merely dumping a bucketload of water on the ground and hoping it will develop into that shape.

I've probably said more than I should have, so I'm back to rolling in the mud. Over and Oink!

Improving

Running-wise, this has been an easier week - I've only run on Tuesday, Wednesday and today. Total mileage this week: just over 12, which is what the serious runners will do in one sitting, and which is what the hardcore runners will double or quadruple in a single session. (P.S. I hope to have race reports to read this week at work, guys.) Around 13 miles per week seems to be the right figure for me, considering what I want to achieve and how much time I'm prepared to give to it. Beyond that distance, the knees start complaining, especially at this time of year. The weather's turned suddenly cold (for me, anyway) midweek to about 48F at the height of each day, and old Lefty makes a lot of noise, but still, I'll take cold bright days over dark ones.

Today I ran 3 loops around the neighbourhood - I've recently got into the habit of not looking at the stopwatch on the first lap, so I'm running by feel, judging pace by how I'm breathing and by how my feet are moving. I find that it's when I start paying attention to the times that I try to do too much, go too fast, and then slowing down seems almost like going too slow, and before I know snails are moving faster than I am. Today's times - 1st loop: 12:20; second loop: 11:40. On the third loop I ignored the times, ran by feel, except for when I had this uphill section just before the end. I needed to see where I was. Finishing time: 8.1km in 35:56, 5 miles in 35:29, 7:06 per mile.

I think that entitles me to a bigger portion of Mrs Try's hard work.

Brrr and Boo!

A cold day today. Varying work hours in the later half of this week meant I had to choose either:

Option 1
Run today (and hence on back-to-back days), tired after work, in fading daylight, on a cold 50F afternoon.

or

Option 2
Run at the crack of dawn tomorrow, tired after having got up, on a cold 35F morning. Then rush to get ready for work.

No contest.

My knees hate me, especially after HSKT as well yesterday, but 20-25 minutes this afternoon is better than tomorrow morning.

I'm not one for Halloween - on this side of the pond it's viewed more as an American thing, even though the costume industry keeps plugging it - but these photos by M, Susan and Zara are hilarious. Think so too?