Of mice and men . .

Grrrr, Bad Community Activist!

Last year I really enjoyed the Beeston Festival and had an absolutely clear intention to go this year and contribute by baking a cake or just buying something from one of the lovely food stalls. However, as so often happens real life gets in the way – bloody real life.

I am currently in the midst of completing an assignment for a Masters course, which is proving a lot more difficult than I had intended, and writing this post is proving to be a welcome respite from writing about pedagogical rationales and reflective and collaborative learning.

After initially finding it difficult to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, it is 2011 after all) I now find that I have to cut 1000 words from my assignment.

So what happens to the best laid plans of mice and men? In the face of the above I completely forgot about the festival, about baking a cake (I love baking) and enjoying a bit of interaction with the fellow members of the South Leeds Massive and I am gutted and very cross with myself for being such a knob. I saw a banner advertising it and thought “oh I must go”, and then realised that it had taken place the day before, curses!

I’ve missed the hottest day of the year sitting at my laptop, grrrrr, and have become a virtual recluse in the last three to four weeks (I really don’t remember my last assignment being this difficult), barely leaving the house not even for beer and disco.

I have taken a fair bit of time off work however to write, so it’s been interesting to be at home during the week and seeing what occurs in our little derelict corner of the world. As predicted in other posts the summer weather, disappointing as it has been, has brought out the evening socialites of South Leeds. It’s the South Leeds Summer Lullaby – blaring music is short bursts (just long enough to pop outside and have a nice fag) and shouting to the person standing less than 2 feet away from you . . . . aahhhh, how lovely; squealing car tyres, screeching breaks and revving engines and yes the ever present bass-heavy throb of dub step.

Yesterday was Father’s day though I did manage to get a card, my Dad’s present didn’t arrive until today and I’ll be honest I didn’t really make a big fuss of him which is not great is it? So confessions and whingeing out of the way it’s back to work on my assignment and to wrap my dad’s belated pressie.

Hopefully I’ll have something interesting to report next time.