there are visions much clearer than these blurs
2003-04-27 || 11:41 a.m.

Thank God I slept last night. Thank fucking God. Oh. I don't believe in him do I? Oh well, thanks anyway.

I've been thinking about some defining book moments. I remember I already wrote somewhere here about the time I took three books out of the library in the morning and read them all and tried to take them back and change them in the afternoon but they didn't believe me and shouted at me and wouldn't let me. Bastards!

I was thinking about a couple of other times last night.

Both of these were when I was in year 5 - I had a real witch of a teacher. Not a nice witch like me, a horrible fucking sadistic witch. Why is that? What is it about 9/10 year olds that the school system wants to scare the shit out of them?

Anyway, I remember starting in that class in the September and the very first thing I did (well, its the very first thing I do everywhere, schools, peoples houses, people's bedrooms, still, even today) was to check out the books.

The books in this class were not very inviting. She had them in a bookcase with glass sliding doors. They should be accessible for kids shouldn't they? Not shut away behind glass doors. And we couldn't just go there whenever we fancied, we had to wait to be directed and that hardly ever happened. She had some of the 'Cherry family' books that I wanted to read but the one that jumped straight out at me was one with the intriguing title: 'Nigel Eats His Words'. Oh how I wanted to read that book. I finally got my chance and raced to the bookcase. It never occurred to me that no-one else was racing me there, everyone else was dragging their feet and not excited like I was! Stupid me. Anyway, I got my hands on Nigel. I can still see him now. He had a yellow cover and he was a bit of an interesting looking boy with ruffled brown hair and above his head were all these words in giant big thought bubbles.

I just couldn't wait to find out how exactly you ate your words.

Wouldn't it be an amazing trick?

So I read the book and boy was I disappointed. He never ate his words, not on a plate with a knife and fork. He just went back on something he had said!

Rebecca very cruelly looked on Amazon - and you can still buy it!

So onto second terrible book moment.

Same class and it was some time just after Christmas. It was a horrible cold rainy day and we were allowed to get a book from the bookcase. I picked one that was a long fiction book based on Pegasus the winged horse. I had a real fixation with the Greek/Roman myths and legends anyway but I had a particular thing for Pegasus. He was my absolute favourite, so I was well excited to find this book.

I remember sitting reading it. I was a really fast reader. I got to the end and looked around. It was pretty quiet and everyone else was still reading. I never liked approaching teachers. My philosophy was only speak to them if you have to, like if they've asked you a question and really try to get out of speaking to them even then if possible.

But I wanted another book.

So I went up to her desk.

She scornfully held the book as if it were something rather nasty. She flicked through the pages. It WAS quite a large book. She looked down her nose at me and accused me of lying. There was no way, she said, that I could have read the whole book in the time since we came in from lunch. I protested that I had and now I wanted another...please. She said I was just a bored little girl who wanted to change her book. I muttered that I was not. She wasn't happy about being challenged so she randomly opened the book at certain pages and asked me questions about the content. I got them all right. She let me change my book.

But I felt like a piece of crap.

And just imagine if I had found that book boring. Just imagine that I was a very shy, quiet person who did just want to change their book. What the fuck honestly would have been wrong with that?

Some people have absolutely no empathy and they should not be teaching.

And just imagine, I might have had problems reading. Imagine how humiliating her quick fire content questions would have been then.