Funfare for the Common Man

Part IV on my Reflections of 10 years of Teaching: How students annoy us If you missed parts I, II and III, you can easily find them on the right of this page, from April, May and July. What started out as a monthly series of ‘this time 10 years ago’ teaching reflections has hit a lengthy hiatus – at least I’m consistently optimistic even if I can’t deliver on my promises. Forgive me – I’ve been busy. But this has turned out to me one of my most pondered-over, drawn-out posts. I started writing this almost 3 months ago. I wrote a draft and put it aside, to be polished up a day or two later. But then I remembered one or two more ideas and then put off adding them for a week or two. And then I thought of more…and more…and then it started to get out of control and I could barely stop myself. I’ve probably updated this, re-ordered some of the points, added a few, deleted a couple…I don’t know, about 9-10 times now. I’d make a lousy journalist – I’m undisciplined,...

When it comes to longing and nostalgia, few writers capture it better than Milan Kundera.   ‘The Greek word for ‘return’ is nostos. Algos means ‘suffering’. So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.’ ( Ignorance ) ‘In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.’ ( The Unbearable Lightness of Being ) ‘We must never allow the future to collapse under the burden of memory.’ ( The Book of Laughter and Forgetting ) ‘But we know that memory is anything but reliable. It selects at random what it wishes to store, discards what is not to its liking, underscores the emotional, sublimates and distorts.’ ( The Snows of Yesteryear , Gregor von Rezzori) Rewind to this time 10 years ago and I was finishing up my first stint as a teacher, at a summer school just outside of London. After 6+ weeks of teaching, it was time to say goodbye. It wasn’t easy. I’m a sentimental old fool. Growing...