Today I will make pound cake.

Doesn't that sound like the first line of a poem? Something along the lines of that 'When I'm an old woman I shall wear purple' poem. 

Anyway, I didn't choose it as my title because I was writing a poem, I chose it because...well, because today I'm going to make pound cake.

If only life were always so beautifully simple.

It'd be great if they could make a week last longer.

About two weeks, say.

Only the weeks we wanted, of course. This week needs to be twice as long but I want my last seven and a half weeks of work to fly past. Only the days, though. The evenings have to last longer, to make up for the 8 hours wasted at work. 

Hmm. Time may be relative, but I'd prefer if we had a bit more control over what it was relative to. 

Still recovering from yesterday. Mystic Meg promised me a day which would include a brush with showbiz, so I headed off to Harrods ready for anything. Would I be discovered? (I'm not sure what I'd be discovered as or for, but I was ready for it nonetheless). Would I trip over Brad Pitt and convince him that Angelina was a worthless piece of fluff and that I was the woman he'd been waiting for? (Not that I think Angelina is a worthless piece of fluff. And actually, I think they make a lovely couple). 

Such possibilities - plus all the possibilities I hadn't considered - were very pleasing, so I headed into town in a high good humour. I was off to Harrods for donuts (all this talk of Krispy Kreme) and to buy a new collar for my cat.

No, she's not that spoiled, it's just that there are actually very few places in central London were you can buy pet stuff.

My first brush with showbiz came at Knightsbridge Tube station. As I headed up the escalator, I spotted an advert for Guitar Hero on those little TV screens they have on the wall, an advert that stars a buddy of mine. Well, I say starred...he's air guitaring dressed as a tennis player. 

I was still laughing half an hour later. It's classic. I'm going to tease him about it a lot.

Then, donuts in hand, I walked over to Piccadilly Circus and popped into Zavvi (used to be the Virgin Megastore) to check out new CD releases. I didn't see anything interesting to buy, but I did walk past that actress from Love Soup (she's also been in an episode of Doctor Who). 

Then, after that excitement had passed, I crossed the road at Piccadilly Circus (to check on the process of the Cinnabon store. Yes, I am that sad) and passed a German TV crew preparing to film some film thingie.

Oh! The glamour of it all!

So Mystic Meg was entirely correct. I did brush with showbiz three separate times, and it's not her fault that I'm not currently inked in to scribe three major new Hollywood blockbusters, is it?

But that wasn't the most exciting part of the day. Thank goodness I was still high on the sugar rush when I got home because, when I got home, my door lock had broken and I was locked out.

Now, my housing office is closed for a half-day on Wednesday. Guess which day most emergencies seem to occur on? That's right. Luckily the head office was open and they called somebody who called somebody else and, twenty minutes later, a man with a drill came to try and get me in.

It took him an hour and a half - and seven drill bits - to bore a hole through the lock and jiggle the little brass bar within. During this hour and a half I sat outside in my hallway and wondered whether it would be wrong to eat the rest of my donuts in front of him without offering him one. I erred on the side of caution and went hungry.

An hour and a half! I felt quite exhausted, watching him work away. Still, I got home at last which is the crucial thing. I still wrote my 1000 words, as well, so the donuts did their job.

No flow! *sad*

Well, it's not really so bad. I've still managed to write about 1500 words today. It's not my best stuff, though. It feels like hard work and will probably read like hard work as well.

I'm currently avoiding watching Murray's first round Roland Garros match. It's hard work for him out there as well, to be honest. Shouldn't be, but there you are.

Isn't subjectivity annoying? I wish there were some kind of quality meter built into Word. You know, so that when you save a draft, the little dancing paper clip helpmate pops up and says something like 'Wow! That's genius!' or (more likely, today), 'Hmm. I don't want to say you've completely wasted your time, but...' 

Actually, that'd be quite fun. If I were a computer programmer, I'd spend far too much time thinking of all the sarcastic things the little Cowell-esque paper clip could say. Sure, it could just be blunt, but where's the fun in that?

Anyway. It could never work because of that whole aforementioned subjectivity thing. More likely you'd have to have two little dancing paper clips so that they could argue about it. On the days when they can't argue, you must either have written something truly great or something truly dire. You'd know which one by their comments. And then when they argue, you'd learn a fair amount about what you're doing well and what you're doing badly. 

It could be a very valuable tool, but more likely it'd turn into yet another reason not to do anything. I don't need another one. Not while there's the internet, anyway...

I do feel I should say something about yesterday's Eurovision contest, but there isn't much point. I used to love it, back when I was a kid, because there was a genuine excitement about who might win. Nowadays it's just unfunnily political. I reckon the UK (and the BBC) should just remove their substantial financial investment from the franchise. Well, what's the point of it nowadays? All it does is highlight simmering resentment and age-old bias. Not even its high campery acts as a suitable distraction anymore.

So, I reckon we should bid farewell to Eurovision. Well, who needs it? We've got Britain's Got Talent to watch. It's as good a replacement as any.

Celebrate good times, oh yeah!

Half-term! 

Also in the good news headlines: it seems that Cinnabon is opening a franchise in London at the Trocadero.

I have very fond memories of Cinnabon: I seem to remember visiting stores in Vancouver and Calgary, back in the day. As I recall, the cinnamon buns were sold warm from the oven, and you were given little pots of icing to pour over them.

However, it's altogether possible that I'm remembering something different. It doesn't matter. As far as cinnamon rolls are concerned, there is no bad. 

Same with donuts. I planned to go to Krispy Kreme today. I didn't. 

Mmm. Krispy Kreme.

The BBC Writer's Room are currently running this competition. I'm thinking about entering. On the other hand, my current project is going very well and if I navigate away from it then I'll lose all the flow. Flow, as I have mentioned before, is as desired as a warm cinnamon bun on a cold morning. I'm having a little hiccup this week - a night out in London Town, not a late night but late enough that I didn't write which threw me out for the rest of the week - and I'm not keen on having another. So I don't know. I'll think about it.

Too many passwords.

I can't remember them all. It often takes me four or five attempts to log in to any given website. Bring on retinal prints, that's what I say.

DWF is buzzing with the news that Russell T. Davies will no longer be the showrunner of Doctor Who after the 2009 specials; he'll be replaced by the great and mighty Steve Moffatt. I'm pretty pleased by the news: RTD has done a fantastic job and is cruelly savaged on the forums for no reason other than the fact that this isn't 1975 and he's not writing the series in the same way it was done back then. His detractors condemn him for being 'populist' while blithely ignoring the fact that, if this were a bad thing, Doctor Who wouldn't be figuring so consistently well in the weekly TV rating top 10. 

So, thanks Russell and well done. I'll be sad to see you go.

On the other hand, woo-hoo! Steve Moffatt is a talented writer who has written one of my favourite TV episodes of all time in the DW S3 episode 'Blink'. Some fans are now predicting a show with more gravitas, darker themes, better scares... apparently they've forgotten that the strength of Doctor Who is that it shows such great variety and that many viewers would stop watching if it turned into a darker BSG-style show. The crucial thing is that Moffatt believes that the show needs a) more scary monsters and b) more scary things in it. All this is Very Good: the whole point of DW is that it should be watched from behind the sofa.

In other news...er. I did have some, can't remember it. Oh yes! More Ofsted tomfoolery. I was going to rant about it but now I'm in a good Doctor Who-styled mood, so I'll save my rant. 

Needless to say, I am extremely glad that I am leaving my current job and extremely glad that I will be doing my utmost to avoid having a full-time teaching position in the future.

I might like this week.

I've two days out, two different courses. Actual time spent in classroom? 3 days. Nice.

Next week is half-term. Nice.

Nadal beat Federer yesterday. Nice.

No pesky evening things to stuff up my schedule. Nice.

No Doctor Who on Saturday. Grrr. On the other hand, I won't be wasting Saturday pm on the boards. Nice.

So, that's all good stuff.

I ended up being quite productive yesterday: quite by accident, of course. Astonishing, since I spent some time yesterday preparing stuff for today's lessons, and watching the final 4 episodes of Series 1 Gilmore Girls. But by the time I shut down my computer I'd written over 3000 words. Nice.

Okay, so not that much to say. Nothing in the news that is making me rant, nothing happening that is worrying me. Just a sunny start to what should be a decent week.

Don't worry. I'll be ranting again by mid-week. 

Still suffering from the blahs...

...so I'm going to blame the weather. The sky's all stuffed up and it's made me feel all dozy and slow. For proof: I've written barely anything. And I had such hope yesterday!

I blame Doctor Who. Well, I blame it for most things, but definitely my currently laziness. Last night was the 'The Unicorn And The Wasp', an Agatha Christie episode. I loved it, voted it my first 5 out of 5 of the season and generally wore a big beam on my face for the rest of the evening. 

Then I went to the Forum.

Here's a piece of advice to any writer: whatever you do, don't go to any sort of internet community that builds itself around your product. Oh, you'll read lots of good stuff that makes you feel Pretty Special. But mostly you'll read a lot of rubbish that'll make you want to dash your head in with a brick of China Tea. 

It is true that most people like Doctor Who right now, apart from the fans.

But never mind that! I loved it, which is the only thing that really matters. But I did spend far too long, last night, refreshing the rating thread so that I could watch the voting numbers change. Good grief. I can reach new depths of obsessive behaviour so easily. It's almost scary.

Anyway, today I've spent reading 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.' I've no idea who the murderer is, but there's no surprise there because I've always been rubbish at figuring it out. It's why I like Agatha Christie so much (compare with M. Night. Whatsisface, whose twists I always spot in the first three minutes. I then spend the rest of the film looking out for the real twist, because I figure that if I can see it, it's too obvious to truly be the twist. So then I concoct ever more elaborate plots in my head, only to discover, in the final reveal, that I was right all along and that I've just wasted 90 minutes + of my life. This, you'll understand, is why I don't watch his movies anymore).

Reading is good. Therefore, I won't feel guilty for not having written yet. Besides, it's not yet five. There's still time.

Oh, and I almost forgot. I shouldn't apportion all the blame to Dr Who. It was the fault of tennis, too. Great match against Nadal and Djokovic yesterday. I am trying very hard to avoid the Hamburg final right now, played between Nadal and Federer. My blood pressure can't handle it...

Weekend blahs...

...which is odd. 

Yesterday I handed in my notice. I didn't mean to, was going to wait until Monday. But then the Head asked me into the office for a quick chat which turned out to be the one about what my plans might be. 

I thought I'd feel good after doing it, thought I'd feel relief. I remember my grandmother telling me that she felt like a weight had lifted off her shoulders when she left a job that had become pure purgatory by the end. I thought I'd feel the same.

I don't. I think it's because I've already done the mental disconnect: in my head, I've left. Which is a bit dodgy, considering that term doesn't end until July.

But this all sounds very miserable and melancholic and certainly shouldn't be either! If I'm honest, the adrenaline isn't flowing because it doesn't need to. This all feels right, it feels like I'm doing the right thing and, because it feels that way, there's no need for analysis. This, then, is that marvellous thing called 'Flow.' 

Apparently 'flow' makes me tired, because when I got home I was shattered. I watched 'Ghostlight', a 7th Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) adventure from the final series. Since this episode is gloriously barmy, it instantly filled me with the desire to write something equally barmy and totally non-linear. But since I was so exhausted I treated myself to an evening on the sofa... in other words, I fell asleep. In other words, I didn't write.

I feel a bit guilty about it this morning - I've noticeably not written anything this morning yet, despite being awake for nearly 2 hours - but never mind. I felt terribly daring, not doing anything. It was quite exciting.

Anyway, this weekend will be productive because I've nothing planned. Such bliss! I ended this week's word count at 38 816 words, which is about 400 words short of my 10 000 words a week target. So that's okay. And next week I don't have any pesky evening things to do, so it should be 40 000 words by next Friday. Very nice!

Although... non-linear narrative, eh? No exposition, no explanation, as per Ghostlight? Sure, I can do that. Why not?

Consistency is something I have trouble with...

...though I do have a talent for the blatently obvious.

Two months! Well, not quite, but near enough. Two months since I lasted posted, and what a two months it's been.

In all fairness, I've been pretty busy getting back into a regular writing routine. I'm novelizing, which means I set myself a daily writing target of 1000 words (although I've got a broader target of 10 000 words a week, so there. I'm a writer. I'm not a mathematician). It takes me about an hour to actually get the 1000 words minimum down on the paper, but that hour requires a good hour of preparation and a fair amount of bimbling about during the writing. So one hour of writing takes about three hours. Which, if you get home at six and eat supper and then have to watch an hour of Gilmore Girls before bedtime (as well as check emails, wander through DWF etcetera) means that you don't have much time to do anything else. 

Wow. What a life I lead.

Anyway, over the last few weeks I've made the decision to leave my current job. At first I was going to apply for another full time position: got a few interviews, didn't take them. I couldn't really understand why I was so resistant, but I kept sending off for more application forms.

Then, a few weeks ago, I realised what it was. There I was, sitting at my desk, looking at the pile of forms and job descriptions, and I felt like crying. Did cry, a little, in fact. 

I just didn't want it. I didn't want the daily routine, didn't want the pressures and power plays and personal agendas that a permanent position would present. I didn't - don't want - anything to do with the political world that enwraps education nowadays. 

Basically, I just don't want to be a teacher anymore.

But I'm a sensible girl and I have to find money for the rent, so I've decided to work as a supply teacher from September. The idea is, I'll do some tutoring as well - to bulk up the monthly wage - and from talking to a few people, I've found that it won't mean too drastic a drop in salary. I made the decision a few weeks ago - and felt great about it - and now I'm less bouncy since fear is replacing pure excitement. Nonetheless, it's the right thing to do. Behind it all is my motivation to make writing the absolute centre of my life. To declare to all and sundry that this is what I want -- no, not what I want, but what I do. 

This being the case, I've also determined to enjoy the last half term at my current position. To end the year on a high, to end the year with the memory of what teaching can achieve if only the politicians and the advisors and other idiots would let the classroom practitioner get on with their job. To remember that the best teaching is all about the relationship that exists between the teacher and their students, and to remember that a good lesson inspires as well as teaches. At the height of my six year career, I've known this and I've lived this. I'd like it to be how I end this part of my career.