Wednesday 8th November 2006

Hey guys,
Have been mega busy as usual, so I don’t know which of the many amusing anecdotes I shall regale you with today!

As far as school goes, it’s getting pretty ugly, long story, things are falling apart quite badly at the seams, aside from the teachers leaving, a number of people have been getting screwed out of money by the school and it’s all very worrying. I’m not quite ready to start looking for a new job, but it may come to that yet. Madame finally appeared after almost 8 weeks absence, but it still feels like too little too late in terms of management organisation.

Anyhoo, I don’t really feel like getting into all that just now, so instead I’ll tell you all about my Buddy Holly moment. I always felt that I had somehow missed out on the intense zeitgeisty-type moments that members of older generations had – the death of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, JFK, and, of course, The Day The Music Died.

However, I recently had just such a moment!
I was in the bookshop, looking for some resource books for my clasroom when I found this lovely Winnie the Pooh science book on nature. I was flicking through it trying to decide if it was too hard for my kids or not, when I saw this massive black mark across the
front of the title page. It was a brand new book, and I realised it was the same black pen/paint they use for censorship here. Now usually they censor things that have references to Israel, or Jews etc, but what on earth could be offensive in a children’s book?
I looked more closely at the picture, which had Winnie the Pooh and a giant black smudge on his back and then it hit me.

They had censored Piglet.

I literally couldn’t believe it.

I mean, I get that Muslim countries take not eating pork seriously, but I mean, it’s a fictional cartoon of a stuffed teddy baby piglet!!

(I had previously discovered when doing farmyard animals in class that the noises are: “duck?”
“quack quack”
“horse?”
“neigh!”
“sheep”
“baa baa”
“pig?”
“…. huh? …..”
“What’s that miss?”)

So there you are; for some people, Buddy Holly’s death really was The Day The Music Died, but I think I may have been the first person to truly recognise the significance of The Day They Censored Piglet.

Sad but true.

I guess I should leave off there, as there is so much more I could say, and only so much of your attention span left!

hope this finds everyone well and happy and healthy etc
tons of love and hugs and happy vibes
zeitgeist-Maya
xxx

p.s. – I’m in an uber-good mood at the moment due to the weather. The weather here has been hot and oppressive for so long that I just stopped noticing it completely and forgot
about other kinds of weather altogether. Day after day after day of the same hot blinding heat.
Then on Tuesday morning, I stepped outside to walk to work and it was cool!! Not just cool, but there was a refreshing breeze too!! I’m told the temperature has dropped to 28/29, which I know sounds hot, but it really is surprisingly lush after 40-something!!
It was completely sudden and was the same today too – I’ve been in a stupidly good mood ever since! I never knew it was getting to me so much until it changed!
The kids also started coming to school in jumpers, and the caretaker had a woolly hat on today – it made me laugh sooooo much – 29 degrees is apparently woolly
hat weather here!
hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa!!!!

kisses
xxxxxxxxxxxx