Another brick in the wall

"Micaylah! Do you want another letter added to your name?"
"No..." comes the mumble from under the small heap of child, lying just off the carpet from where the other children are sitting cross-legged and upright in their obedient lines. On the whiteboard, amongst the list of the other occasional disobedient childrens' names, Micaylah's name (ironically the longest name in the class) is almost fully spelled out: 'Micayl'. But the six year old is still spitefully lying on her side and fiddling with the chairs foot next to her, unwilling to fit in with the crowd. It is my first day working as a teaching assistant and I don't quite understand my role in this disciplinary system, but I am feeling slightly sorry for the small children forced into such a strict school system every day of their lives. Finally the teacher had enough and asks me to take her out to miss who-ever in an office where-ever. I'm slightly panicking, because I'm very lost in the school's corridors although I don't want the children to notice, but I confidently urge Micaylah to stand up and come with me. I am very aware of the fact that the children know I'm new, and will therefore try their luck with me, because I haven't earned my respect from them yet. After no response the teacher drags her out on her one hand and I take the other, but Micaylah refuses to walk on her own two feet. Just outside in the corridor, where she plunges into a heap again, I give up and sit next to her.

"What's wrong, Micaylah?" I try to make eye contact, but her eyes are spitefully fixed on the floor.
"I don't want to be at school!"
"I can understand that, but neither of us has a choice and now you’re just making it difficult for me."
“I just want to go home.” She mumbled.
“I can’t send you home, so we’ll just have to make the best of it.” By now, the rebellion in her eyes was turning into complete helplessness and a big tear were rolling down her one cheek. “Won’t you try and participate in the class, please?”
“School is boring, I want to go home.” No more naughtiness, just true sadness, true regret.
“Micaylah, you’re just making it hard for yourself. Do you understand that? It would be so much easier if you just obeyed and tried to cooperate with the rest of the class.”
Real tears, real sadness, she couldn’t stop herself from giving in, she looked completely helpless, defeated, overpowered, and my heart is aching for her. Her battle was lost. Just another brick in the wall. At that moment I just wanted to sit down on the floor and cry with her. “We don’t need no education! We don’t need no thought control. Teachers leave them kids alone!” I’m sure she could see in my eyes that we understand each other, so she dried her tears and willingly took my hand to lead her to her time-out session. Micaylah was the first child in the Schools of London that really entered my heart.

In the last few weeks, these children really opened up my heart and showed me a part of myself that I didn’t know existed. My job has changed from setting tables and serving afternoon tea...

to explaining to four year olds why they cannot eat their pudding before they had some vegetables...

Instead of explaining to customers about Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio, I have to remember names like Shadenay and Omarian.

So, in short, this is the changes in my life going on while my blogging is silent and non-existent. the main reason for this, though, is because I have another (Afrikaans) blog to manage lately. Feel free to check it out for some of my other philosophies and experiences that I share with the Afrikaners at home:

http://dieburgerblogs.mweb.co.za/ViewBlog.aspx?blogid=67

Some time on my own

Spending my time just walking through London, these are some of the sights I come across.

ThamesHyde Park Corner Hyde Park

Green Park

After visiting some art exhibitions and walking through the parks on Monday, I ended my day reading brochures and writing some notes by the candlelight in a little Italian restaurant. My humble travellers dinner... who am I kidding!? I really struggled eating that whole pizza all by myself and I even finished it off with a proper tiramisu. It was a good treat and a perfect way to end my day: Surrounded by all the noise and the people in the restaurant, just wrapped in my own thoughts, enjoying my own company before I took the bus home from across the street.

My friend, London

London and I had a bit of time to bond. I had a serious chat with him and we have come to an agreement...

See, I was paging back to a few of my first posts on this blog and I realised how everything has changed in the past three months. I look at the previous pictures and I see myself as a traveller: Traveling through the streets of London for the first time and everything is new and exciting. I look terrible, because I'm living out of a suitcase, wearing the same clothes over and over, not having the time or place to style my hair properly or put on a bit of make-up. Feeling very unsure about everything, living in a low budget hostel, missing home, missing my comfort zone, but enjoying every moment of it, because everything was one big adventure. Today is exactly 116 days since my first arrival in London and everything is different. I have a home with my own bed and my own space, I have a routined life with a job and an income, I've come to know the streets of London and became used to the culture and the surroundings - I have created a new comfort zone for myself. I am still missing home, but I have become accustomed to it.

My circumstances have changed completely, but that is not important. The thing that has changed the most is my mindset. I've read through my post, Contradicting my self-image, again and realised how much confusion and disorientation I am facing in my life. A lot of it may be caused by pride and bitterness and because I have subconciously formed expectations of my life, that have not come true the way I expected it to be. I have thought about these things a lot and realised that I will not find the answers unless I change my current mindset completely. I have come to England to take a break, to see places and do things that I would otherwise never have done, to free myself from all the barriers that kept me from living my life to the fullest. I broke away from everything that was me, in order to find a new me, and at the end, what do I find myself doing? I was trying so hard to find some instant answers, that I was simply closing myself off to the exact thing I was looking for. Instead of letting myself be free and just enjoying my current day-to-day life, I found myself worrying about life, about the future, about my career and about who I am and what I am doing here, becoming more and more trapped in the cage of my thoughts and my own little space.

So, I decided to spend some quality time with London and the two of us seem to get along quite well after all. The past few days I have been focusing on taking some time off to see the parks and open spaces, while the last of the warm autumn sun is still with us. I have made a promise to London: That I will stop blaming him for my unfulfilled expectations and my bitterness in life, and start enjoying everything he has to offer me while time is on my side. And what do you know... my dear new friend has shown me a little bit of myself in his streets and the parks. From now on whenever I have the time, even if it's just for an hour or two before I go to work, I will spend some time with London.

The footpaths and walkways in Rotherhithe, where I live.

Southwark Park

I want to go back to being the traveller, taking one day at a time, living life as an adventure. Everytime I have a little money to spare, I want to spend it on short trips outside of London. It's all about having different experiences, seeing different places, not about luxury and comfort. The rest of the time will be spent taking walks, going to exhibitions and markets, experiencing, exploring life. Although I've become used to my everyday surroundings in London, there is still so much to see and do in this city. The possibilities are never ending.

Musicians

This was a sad picture. An excellent violinist, standing outside Embankment Station at midnight with an electrical violin and a small monitor. He obviously doesn't even have enough money to take care of his violin properly. I was wondering how he gets such a beautiful sound out of his instrument with that broken bow. The few hair that's still left on his bow is held together by masking tape. How does a musician with so much talent and potential end up here? Walking along the streets at midnight, you can hear the sounds of musicians on the sidewalks and bridges. Trumpets, accordians, guitars, violins... sad little tunes floating through the dark, echoeing over the water of the river. It makes me wonder: Is it a lack of ambition or a lack of opportunity that drives them to the streets? Maybe it's just the pleasure of playing their music, anywhere, anytime, dedicating their talent to the night.

(I turned the camera upside down again. Sorry! I always forget!)

Thoughts

Thoughts scribbled on a piece of paper during another boring shift at work... in my mother tongue :)

Seer Oe

Ek kyk na die wereld deur baie oe.

Elke dag 'n nuwe bril,

maar elkeen laat my visie blur.

Daar is geen helder beeld.



Ek probeer my oe toeknyp,

vir dae lank aaneen,

maar kort voor lank moet ek weer loer...

Daar is geen verandering.



Ek neem my oe ver op reis.

Elke dag 'n nuwe beeld,

maar die fokus bly steeds effe dof.

Geen lense is voldoende.



Ek soek steeds na 'n ander bril.

'n Ander visie moet bestaan,

maar elke soeke lei net weer

na dieselfde troebel beelde.



Vandag maak ek my oe oop

En sien 'n nuwe beeld

In die verte is 'n helder lig

Wat net-net wil verdwyn.



Die nuwe bril laat my oe pyn.

Die inspanning is groot.

My oe raak dit nog gewoond

Maar die moontlikheid is daar.

Contradicting my self-image

Touching the Micros screen to check the time for the second time in 5 minutes, a block pops up in the centre of the screen reading '24 Sep '08 19:50'. Another three hours and ten minutes left before closing time. I am standing on my feet, trying not to look bored or distant, while I listen gratefully to Paul, playing his heart out on the piano to the only three guests sitting in the lounge. They didn't order anything interesting, just three pints of beer, and they've been sitting there for the past hour. Neatly dressed in my hotel waistcoat and bowtie, I keep my hands busy by folding napkins, because I have no other customers to serve, no English tea to brew or cappuccinos to make. My head is not with my work tonight, during afternoon tea I even forgot to serve the customer's tea with a milk jug and sugar pot and they weren't very friendly about it. The guests will probably stream into the lounge just when I start making plans to cash up and go home, coming back from the theater and ordering expensive wines and whiskeys from the overpriced menu on the table and signing it to their rooms without even looking at the cost of the bill or leaving one cent for the waitress. Putting my head down on my pillow long past midnight, I will count myself lucky that it's my day off tomorrow, although most of the day will probably be spent at home, searching for a job on the internet. Any job, as long as it's not this one...

If you painted this picture to me years, even a few months ago, I would've thought you were talking about someone else. Never would I have imagined getting myself into this: Living a low budget life in London, sharing a small house with 8 other people and doing some random job just to pay the bills - Not knowing where I'll be next month or what I'll be doing by then. Sometimes I look back and try to remember when was the actual time and place I made this life-changing decision. Where did the sudden urge come from to spend all the money that I had (and didn't have) on a two year visa and moving to the UK?

If you asked me about coming to England previously, I would have told you that I am not one of the many South Africans who are willing to move to England or a year and do some hard labour or a random, unfulfilling job just for the sake of being here. I would also tell you that I would rather be poor than just doing a job for the sake of the money. My whole life I have always been so focused on working hard, getting as much experience and qualifications in the shortest possible time to ensure a good future for myself and to have a career in something that I actually do have a big passion for. I was chased by the idea of starting a career as soon as possible, probably mainly because my haunting study loan was growing big and maybe because my mind had a strange misconception that life only starts once you have a qualification, a job and a stable income. So how did I end up here? I will try and rewind my thought processes.

After completing four years of studies, I felt like taking a break from it. I realised that it was necessary to figure out where I'm headed and why, before taking one step further down that path. You see, being a student is a huge comfort zone. Your life is planned out for you for those few years of studying and in the back of your mind you believe that having a degree will automatically open the doors of the future. In some fields it may be partially true, but the truth is a degree doesn't have much meaning if you don't know what you want to do with it and even less if you don't have the passion, talent and experience to go with it. I would like to believe that I don't lack talent and passion. I worked hard, had good grades, I was one of the top students in all my fields of studying, but one element was missing: direction. I didn't know where I was going. And with this realisation, my student years ended on quite an anti-climax. I had some good qualifications on my cv, a bit of money saved up, I was tired of being a student and I wanted to 'start my life' and take the next step, but I suddenly had no idea in which direction to go, I was stuck. I felt like I needed to break away from that comfort zone to clear my head and force myself to start thinking. I wanted a shock to my system, a change in my life that will open up my eyes and give me the answers I have been searching for. And somewhere along the line a trip to the UK felt like the right answer. I don't really know why, I don't exactly know how it happened, but a few months later I found myself on a plane to London with tears in my eyes. My family, friends and boyfriend left behind, not knowing when I will see them again.

So, now you might ask, is the answers to life questions written in the lights of west end, at the feet of the Eiffel or carved in the stones of the Stone Henge? No. I don't know where they are. I don't know where I will find them or if I ever will. I can only hope that this distraction and change of scenery will force me to find them for myself one day, even though it is much harder than I have ever thought it to be. Even though, at the moment I feel like I am moving further away from everything I have ever worked for, doing a waitressing job out of mere desperation, for the sake of paying the bills. If this struggle makes me a stronger, more confident person in the long run, then I am willing to push through it and keep trying, keep searching, keep going.

Thames Festival

On Blackfriars Bridge during the Thames Festival this weekend. There were quite a lot of people, so I was mostly just stretching out my cellphone over the crowd's heads, hoping to capture a few glimpses of the magnificent costumes.

English weather indeed

Everybody warns you about the rain and the miserable weather in England and, being a witness of the very wet british weather the past two weeks, I do think that an umbrella or a jacket, an extra pair of shoes or, if possible, all three of the above, are some of the neccesities in an English lady's overgrown handbag. Because even though the sun is (kind of) shining this morning, doesn't mean that it won't be wet, cold and simply pouring this afternoon! Luckily, all Londoners still have there cosy, dry beds to sleep in, but all of Britain are not that lucky at the moment:

"A total of 227 separate flood warnings were in place in England, Scotland and Wales last night. Seven were severe flood warnings - the highest level of warning that advises people to prepare to evacuate. Northumberland was the area worst-hit by the weekend's flooding, with well over a month's rainfall in two days. In Morpeth, 900 homes had to be evacuated amid the worst flooding the area had seen since 1963." The Daily Telegraph, September 8.

Video of Waterloo

On my way home from work, these are the people and places that I see everyday at the south end of Hungerford Pedestrian Bridge. The big palace-like building at the northern end of the bridge is the hotel where I work.

Waterloo

Waterloo artists

Waterloo

I walk past these guys almost every day on my way back from work. Especially on Saturdays, you will find a mime or a musician every five meters along the riverside. They are all artists at Waterloo, standing near and around the London Eye (the southern river bank) for a few coins in the hat. They know that most tourists in London spend their weekends around this area. It's amazing to think that these artists go through so much trouble to entertain people. The people love them, especially the children, but I can't help to wonder how much money they really make. I think some of them must have a permanent silver glow from painting themselves everyday!

...Yes, They are all real people inside these characters. Even the statue and the guy without the head. Most of them tend to move or do a little act when they hear a coin falling in the box, but the trick of the statue guy is, well, to be a statue. People stare at him for a long time to see if they can see his nose twitch or his toes wiggle and the children get a kick out of it to say out loud: "Look! He blinked! I saw him blink his eyes!"