British Book Covers

I have always known the British to be wily creatures, but their strongest efforts I believe, are all poured into the book industry. More specifically, in the covers of said books. Book covers here seem to be more of an art form than they are back home, at least certainly when I lived in Canada. I go into W.H. Smith just to look at their book chart and all I see is eye-catching masterpieces. I want to read everything, even books that are titled "A Touch of Crimson" and other rubbish reads that only my Grandma would desire to pour over in the wee hours with a flashlight. On more than one occasion, I have purchased books that I have not and will not ever read because the cover was so epic but the first chapter was absolute crap. To illustrate my point, I have uploaded a few book covers for you to pleasure your eyes with. Feel free to shade your peepers from the Canadian womp womp covers.

Harry Potter books - the whole set. Gee thanks Canada for your third-rate cartoon drawings, especially the Deathly Hallows cover. The last cover, considered to be the most compelling and serious of the books, has Hermione vomiting out lava with two fat red squirrel cheeks, Ron's face so sallow he looks like he is recovering from a drinking problem, and Harry is a 45 year old man. Where is the quality control on that baby? Also, is the most important aspect of that book the 15 page section where they are in the vault with jewels? No. Thanks for illustrating the most insignificant of storylines.




















Next we have the Hunger Games Trilogy. Although quite similar, I think you can see sometimes less really is more. Poor font choice and cheesy added background graphics make the Canadian versions not only less appealing but a repellent to the reader. Luckily this book had decent writing, otherwise Suzanne Collins might have only had a purely British (and Canadian immigrant) fan base. The black background of the British versions, link all the books together but also sets them apart with their striking singular image and colour scheme.

Finally, the Game of Thrones book aka Song of Fire and Ice series. Although very similar again, one book looks like it was made by me in 9th grade computers class and the other by a gifted marketing guru. The plain orange background reminds me of hospital walls, with the white strip of light guiding me into the afterlife. And thanks for terrible font choice once again. Is this 1970? If not, clean up your act and get with it. Also, the entirely wrong image is chosen to be the focal point of the cover, especially with art skills as bad as this one. Figure it out. The British cover has a textured background which is epic because of the plain colouring, and again a great text choice and colouring. The dragon symbol has advanced with the times (unlike the wolf circa 1998....before common era) and all the colours blend together. Winner winner chicken dinner.

So hopefully you have a little more insight as to the number of reasons I am staying in this country besides occupation, love, and travelling - book covers.

Child Rejection

The worst kind.


In my class I have ONE child who does not like me one bit. No matter what I do, this kid is not having it. He seems pretty serious and not one for theatrics, which is where I think the problem lies. I tend to do a lot of gestures and voices when telling stories or singing songs, and all the other children fall into wild giggles. BUT not this one. I spotted him on the first day when everyone was laughing and joining in and through the slew of children I saw one still one. My eyes were met with a deadpan, unimpressed glare as one might see in a horror film. I called on him to join in and went over to help him do the actions. He confidently moved away and made it clear he will have nothing to do with my pathetic attempts to please him.

This has led me into a down-spiral of sadness as my exertions were always turned into failures. I pick him first for activities, I praise every dot he makes on paper, and I try to put out activities I know he will like. He runs over to the set out area to play with his favourite things and when I join him, he just looks at me with a smug little scowl and says "no" so firmly that I know there is no negotiation to be had. The worst is that usually the "no" is accompanied by an arm bar so he can keep me at arm's length. One time I was praising how well he coloured in a picture (I was lying) and he stopped drawing, looked up, put his crayon down and pushed himself away from the table. He walked away shaking his head. The shame.

On Friday, things were going pretty well (he could tolerate my presence). We even had to hold hands because he was at the front of the line when we walked to the play area. I thought I was in, so I presumptuously asked, "_____ do you like Ms. Thomas?" He looked up with cute brown eyes so full of thought...then furrowed his brow and asserted "no" and scampered off. Devastation.

I will conquer this task even if it kills me and it just might as Monday I am planning a series of acrobatics and tricks to gain his favour.

Do You See What I See? I Doubt It.

I have always been blind. I remember getting my first pair of glasses when I was in grade 1 and knowing that I definitely needed them. I can't remember how it came about that people realized I needed them, but I am sure it was something ridiculous like squinting to see my own hand when counting on my fingers. Looking back on my style, I went from being insanely Suri Cruise cute, to being an ultra dork with the purchase of pink-tortoiseshell glasses AND to top my humiliation off, I chose a Mario Brothers glasses case. In case anyone was wondering what my destiny would be in terms of favourite literature/movies, that single purchase sealed the deal. Sure some children would have chosen a Northern Getaway-type case with a cute pattern, but no, I chose Mario. Thanks younger conscious, you were a great help to my social status as a child...not.

Everyone I meet, who finds out I am blind and wear contacts, begins the series of very predictable questions and outrageous requests as if I hit my head, and they are determining if I have permanent brain damage. "How far can you see?? Take your glasses off, how many fingers am I holding up? Can you see me now?? How about from here??" I understand that it is hard to fathom if you never had a sight problem, to then wrap your head around someone who can't see their hand in front of their face, but really? Come on. If someone said they had trouble hearing, would you then start whispering to see how little they could hear? Or if someone was in a wheelchair, would you demand them to just try to stand a little?

I used to not understand how the people in comics couldn't guess who the superhero was. How did people not know Clark Kent was Superman, when he was just wearing a different outfit? At least I thought that until one day last year I had to wear my glasses instead of my contacts to school. Everyone's reactions were actually appalling. "Whoa! I didn't know you wore glasses! Wow you look so different!" Really? I have a small, mostly transparent item across my face, do I really look that wildly different? Perhaps I should fight crime, but only in my glasses so no one will be able to guess who I am. 

I have also always wanted someone to do a research study linking extreme nearsightedness to being afraid of the dark or what I like to call "shadow fear." When in bed, the moment those glasses come off for me to sleep, my room changes from a fun-loving ikea model, to Dante's 9 circles of Hell. The coats handing behind the door become the latest badies from Criminal Minds and even Pinkball gives a horrifying death stare. Someone needs to legally and undeniably prove that my cowardice is related to my physical disability, rather than a weak mental state.

One day I will probably get laser eye surgery to help with my sight, but I think I'll give it a few more years until they get out all the kinks. If I lose my eyes, I will be seriously bummed. Which is probably similar to when they started doing appendectomies, no one wanted to be the first person to just get their appendix out. I would hate my eye surgery to be something like Tom Cruise's in Minority Report and knowing our house, Bond would leave a rotting sandwich next to my new lunch, for me to mistakenly munch on. Until then, I might apply for a golden retriever to fetch me my glasses in the morning when I can't ever find them directly beside my bed or to help me sniff out a dropped contact lens in that awkward transition between putting my glasses down and placing my first contact in when I am completely blind for 15 seconds. 

I have typed this entire blog without contacts/glasses and it has taken me 3 days. This is why I haven't posted in so long. Sorry.

Exciting posts.

Well, I guess I am pretty settled in England. The thing with moving to another country is eventually you establish a life there and all your routines return to you. I have been seriously thinking hard about what to post in the blog lately, however I find it difficult to create material. Here is why,

Schedule:

5:00 am - wake up
6:00 am - catch train
7:05 am - arrive at school
8:00 am - 2:30 pm - teach
6:00 pm - arrive at home
8:30 pm - fall into bed exhausted
9:30 pm - zzz

Where do funny things come from? I wrote a recent post and it was about our boiler breaking.
"Oooo great fun. Hilarious insights! What funny anecdotes" - said no one ever.

Here it was:

Hot, hot, heat.


Our boiler broke. To be exact, we believe someone broke it. We were on holiday (which was lovely) when we discovered our flat had been broken into but remarkable, nothing was stolen. However, when we went to turn on the hot water and heating, it was kaputt. 

After nearly a week of no heat/hot water, and many a gym trip to shower... the boiler man was able to get the heat working but only if we kept it running. 

This would be ok if we had some sort of thermostat. We do not. We have heat on, or off. No regulation of temperature whatsoever. We either live in the Arctic, or the Sahara.

Once we left the heat on for almost a solid two days. Mistake. I would shower at night, and wake up with hair still wet, only to discover the water had been replaced with pure sweat.

I will never go back to that. We turned it off, and of course it stopped working. Since then, someone has fixed the boiler again but only temporarily, and they don't know when it won't turn on again.

It is alright though, because I find when sitting in the humid flat, I find my complexion quite fetching. The heat brings about a flush I cannot achieve with cosmetic blushes.

After reading this post, I thought, can I even post this? I want to die reading this and it is MY life. I actually had to live this to write about it. I think I have to make a more conscious effort to find the funny in the mundane. I find I usually think life is at it's funniest when I am into watching ridiculous tv shows like Seinfeld or Arrested Development. However, right now HBO and AMC are making golden dramas. I can't get enough of the heavy material. It is trickling into my worldview though, and I need to break free. Yesterday, I saw someone wearing a dark hoodie and I started to tear up, thinking that they were like Jesse from Breaking Bad and likely addicted to crystal meth, having a soul mate who OD'd, and had no relationship with his parents. Then he stood up, and I realized the hoodie was Burberry and he was probably doing jussstttt fine.

Life needs more laughter. I will try my best.

New Meaning of Limp Wrist

This is not to be offensive at all, but just as some terms need reclaiming...I'm cracking this one out. I was trying to describe what happens to me at work and could not manage to give an accurate depiction without using the two words "limp" and "wrist" together at once. Some of you may be familiar with this ridiculous urban dictionary descriptor, however today I am using limp wrist or I use "limp-wristing" to describe what a child does when not wanting to join an activity.

Some of you know I started a new job last Monday. It was an end of a era for me, but am excited about a new beginning. Now I am working with very young children, and often times, they do not want to do things they have to do.

For safety reasons, children have to come inside/outside once in a while, or join carpet activities and cannot be left unsupervised. Some children decline. Not even politely.

I bring out all my bag of tricks to bend them to my will. Often times it reminds me of trying to get Freckles (the world's worst trained but best furry friend) back inside after escaping out the front door to the park across the street. "Come on cutie! Come on! Do you want a treat? How about you chase me back? Come catch me! No? Ok..." In a voice that is often high-pitched enough to break glass. After running through a course of teacher tricks to curve behaviour, you inevitable make that ONE wrong step in their direction, which brings about a resulting reaction what I call the "chase instinct." Again, like puppies, suddenly they crouch down with their bottom waging, ready to bolt in either direction, because of course you are only playing and WANT to chase them around the playground. I draw the line at running. If I run, I am chasing, if I walk around a tree to catch, I am collecting - see the difference? They don't either.

Minutes pass and I pull out another trick, distraction. "Look at that beautiful flower, come with me to water it" *hand snag. For children deemed as "runners" I have admittedly even used the "oohhh ouch! Miss Thomas twisted her ankle and needs help to come inside. Will you help me get ice on my foot and be a helper?" *limping inside with children "supporting" me to get to a chair and thus where I actually want them.

However their is the odd time when children then perform what I now have coined as limp-wristing. It is the act of holding a child's hand to guide them to the desired location, and their body becomes limp at the wrist. This inevitably ends up with you thrown off balance, trying to recover, all while attempting to make your actions look completely safe and kind. Limp-wristing occurs with even the softest touch of a hand and they make the dropping as dramatic as possible. It is like you are holding spaghetti that had some ends sticking out of the pot. Their body is noodle-ish, but their hand is still holding you like Jack from the Titanic.

Limp-wristing, I believe, is the most difficult thing a teacher will have to face during the day. Forget lessons, physical activity, singing, or crying. Once limp-wristed, you are in impossible territory. No efficient method has been decided yet, as we would never lift a child in school, where a limp-body is irrelevant when it is entirely elevated. So it is somewhat of the child's ultimate trump card. They know they will be joining you in the next activity...exactly when they want to.

Well done children, you have defeated me for now.