15/02

So today I had work, and finished at midday, like all fridays & with much relief I must say. By the end of the week my eyes are sore from being open and my head dizzy from tiredness. But in a good way. The rewarding type of tiredness, which comes after you've been working your ass off all week. Children are fun, full of life; they are bright, prosperous things which the world relies upon and to treat one badly is to sin on all of humanity, but nevertheless they're bloody tiring. I find the most tiring to be the 8-12 year olds, who are also hardest to control. They don't speak much english, their attention spans are shorter than a sleep-deprived ADHD person high on too much candy and e-numbers, and they are constantly "on" - there doesn't appear to be an off-switch, so to teach them I pretty much have to match that energy.

Anyway, working only the morning was a relief. After work, I took a stroll in the sunshine down to Catalunya Square. Lovely in the midday sun, full of people, buzzing traffic circling us and everyone appeared to be in good spirits. The obligatory pigeon feeders were there and those annoying Japanese tourists were about, the ones who go running through a flock, dispersing the demon things left right and center, just for them to shit everywhere and pester everyone. One went colliding towards me in a vengeful dustbowl of feathers and pebbles. Well I took my rest, hampered down on the grass behind the benches, as all seats were taken. First I finished planning my lessons for the next week, then I whacked on a bit of music via headphones, closed my eyes and with the warm sun resting its lazy rays on my skin, I soon fell into a somewhat restless slumber. Restless because I couldn't let myself fall to sleep completely for fear of my bag being nicked; it had my usb speakers in it...

Well I did slumber somewhat and I was suddenly awoken by the sound of Spanish voices. Through the sun I could just about make out two uniforms looking down and addressing me. Two policeman, I couldn't for the life of me understand them, but somehow through my half-asleep daze I managed to produce the words, "yo soy ingles", and with that they drew back, were somewhat more relaxed but then relaxed and carried on ploughing me with spanish instructions. Luckily I heard one of them say, "not on the garden" and with that I realised they wanted me off the grass. So I got up, they moved on to tell a tramp the same thing and I went to sit on the nearest bench with two old men beside me. I started reading some of the great Hunter Thompson, The Great Shark Hunt, basically aload of his articles, some of the finest writing of his career I might add. When I was reading it, I just thought what a great fucking writer he really is. If I could match any of his prose, if I could somehow get that great mix he does; the vicious wit, the lashings of outrageousness, the passion, the intensity, the pace, dynamic.... It would take alot of work to reach his status and level of prose, that's for sure. Tbh I doubt I could ever do it, I'm just not good enough to match him. But then this is what annoys me about the so-called Hunter fans out there. They seem to think he's famous because he drank everything under the sign, took loads of drugs, drove around the US like a maniac, got on the tits of Nixon and every fascist pig president America ever had, and generally lived like a hedonistic, bohemian lunatic. Which he did, I mean all those things he did do, but absolutely none of them account for his fame. I mean they probably added to it, sometimes alot to it, but first and foremost Hunter was a writer. A journalist really. A journalist who wrote with passion and excitement about matters he deeply cared about, mostly politics. Alot of people think they know about Hunter because they've seen Johnny Depp's portrayal of him in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and they've read his wikipedia entry. To these people I say, read his work. He's got soooooo much. He was a tireless writer. He worked his ASS OFF! Apart from his novels (& Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail is long enough) there are scores of articles, of which The Great Shark Hunt collates some of the best. And they really are good. I was reading the Kentucky Derby is Deprived and Decadent, one of the best. The point is to see how he was much more than all those stereotypes read his work, understand the man his motives and his majesty.

Anyway, enough about that. Sorry, that was somewhat of a rant.
So a beggar woman came over to us and the old men started joking and putting their hands out to her saying they were the ones who needed money (I'm guessing - it was in Catalan). Nonetheless it was funny and they laughed and looked at, including me in their humour. Well feeling reinvigorated I went to a cheap bar, got two San Miguel bottles at a euro each, and then realised how I hate the stuff. It makes me burp so hard I almost throw up - Estrella's where its at.
I went home, got dressed and aerosoled and headed up to meet Mike. We had a chat, got a really good burger from this sort-of fast food place down the Ramblas (nothing like McDonalds) and then met the other CAPS lot in a bar called L'oveja de Negra (The Black Sheep - actually a traditional British name for a pub I thought). It was a good night, we shared stories on the schools and the different age ranges everyones teaching, whilst being merry and drinking beer. The bar is a proper student/backpacker kinda place, cheap booze and loads of internationals. They were plenty of english there.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy all that
Ta'ra for now xxxxxxxxxx