Music for travelling and teaching

One of the things I have wanted to do for a time is to reflect on the music that will be the soundtrack to my travelling and teaching (and learning, and writing.)

Here we are:

Gladiator OST - Now we are Free 

The first is the theme at the end of the swords and sandals hit 'Gladiator'. The protagonist has died, and the film focusses upon his African companion who is free from his previous life. He tells his friend that he will meet him in their after life.

"But not yet. Not yet."

The music evokes a feeling of possibility, and of having fought for the choices that you can now make.

 

Gattaca - The Departure

An incredible film about aspiration and sacrifice, and of class and entitlement, this theme expresses with  slow-burning potency the profundity of ambition. There is an embraceable loneliness in its slow strings, and a quiet dignity within its winding melody.

The theme could be placed at any point in the film. It is, for me, the leaving on a plane, and the quiet moments when a decision is to be made. And the silence ensures.



The Piano OST - To the Ends of the Earth

There is fear in travelling. I have chosen to give up the comfort of my home, of my car, of my circle of friends and acquaintances, for something that I cannot know.

The film itself sees a Victorian woman, voluntary mute from her belligerent will, sent to New Zealand from England to marry a man for land. Her passionate affair with an ex-patriot who has immersed himself in Maori culture changes her.

The theme itself sustains the melancholic dislike and distrust



Florence and The Machine - Dog Days are Over

A sociable, upbeat number, this was my running song for several years. It demands the effort and momentum  needed to travel and teach with any success.

The first bridge is effective. "And I never wanted anything from you, except everything you had and all that's left after that, too."

I travel and teach because I want to give everything I have, including all that just before my limits. To go over my limits is, of course, not what I want to do.



Love is a Mystery - Dr Zhivago OST (BBC)

Welling the flow of expectation of new lands, new people and new life, this song begins with a beautiful melody that rises without pause.

It is honest aspiration, and yet soft with it. It feels flawless - a honeymoon song for certain.



Time - Inception OST

I watched Inception in Glasgow after completing a running tour. Like all great stories, it enhanced the control of my perception.

Time flows too quickly and seemingly without consequence on years like the past few. As I near the day of my death, I struggle to accept the comfort that I have already secured.

Instead I want to see how my perception can be something more indescribable. I want to defamiliarise myself, and my regular routine of cradle to grave.



A Design for Life - Manic Street Preachers

I am not poor, but I lived for more than a few years on £10,000 a year. I will be earning five times that in my new position.

I drive a ten year old car. I will not drive a new one. I refuse to travel extensively to expensive destinations (although that might clearly change).

This theme (appropriated by Sainsbury's) decries the notion of Working Class Pride: that people without education do not need to reflect on their future. Instead they have an unspoken nobility. Quite how far I agree with that, or how that fits into this selection of music, I do not know. But it does.



Good Enough - Dodgy

A quintessential British tune from the mid 1990s, this is cheerfully mindless banter. The band themselves folded after a surprisingly successful first album.

This song is reminiscent of ambition, "if you don't ask question, you won't know why" and "there is a bridge to the other side". Its light humming balances the intensity of other selections here. It loses itself in the meandering bridges, and becomes sentimental. But it is perhaps pleasing quaint for it.




Blur - The Universal

A underrated band (and they are hugely influential), this theme calls upon the listener to accept what will happen. It calls upon the days that do not build upon something: "when the days seem to fall through you, just let them go."

Like with the Manics song, this has been appropriated by entirely the wrong corporate entity (in this case, an energy company). I know some people who played the theme to an energy company at their wedding. It sounded great; it was the theme to an energy company.

This is more of a case of accepting the situation than striving for change.



Fix You - Coldplay

I am writing the song and artist names for each of these songs without consistency. That matters not - I am writing this on coffee after an immensely busy day where the whims of people wore away my will to even write anything.

This theme reminds of Japan, a place I have never visited. After graduating and working in a desperate school, I applied to work in another place (on a payrise to £11k a year). Most days after work I would cycle to the university and write and plan a teaching-adventure abroad.

This song evokes the distinct tinge of wanting to escape from England, with its failed relationship and its lack of prosperity, to somewhere where possibility did exist.



Braveheart - Main Theme

This was one of my favourite movies when I was younger. It is still dear to me now. When I was younger, I ran often, and far too much. This theme evokes stepping out onto an open road ready to run, misty breath and frosted tarmac underneath fit feet.

Those days might one day return!



The Last Samurai  OST - Main Theme

Following on from my Fix You thoughts, this theme reminds me of repressed tradition gradually unwinding into majestic endeavour. I played it when I walked the cold fields of the fields near my frosted terrace in the aftermath of a time when I felt like my future did not seem as prosperous as my careers advisor made out.

This theme is the embracing of the exotic.



Tonight, Tonight - Smashing Pumpkins

A beautifully geeky song by the band of the 1990s. Angsty possibility, and totally empty.




The Cave - Mumford and Sons
An incredible band, this song talks of aspiring to live an authentic life surrounded by dynamic and inspirational individuals.

It is a great running song, and literary, theological and philosophical allusions abound! One that can be played at any point in this journey with appropriate aplomb.

A job secured

It has been a three weeks since I have last posted, and in that time I have secured a job. That understated opening does not give inkling to the life-changing consequences of that fact.

Or maybe it does. Perhaps I knew that this is something that I have wanted to do for a fair time. I have worked hard, and smart, for many years (six) and feel that it is time for something else.

Part of the reason behind this blog was to track the experience of attending the generic job fair. It wanted to express the hopes and fears, the dreams and desires of each interview I attended. It doesn't need to do that now.

My interview went well, it seems. Speaking as I would do to you, my reader, or (more importantly) to myself in the absence of other vindication, I said a few of the principles by which I live and teach. And this seemed to work. I found out a few days later that I secured the job.

The school itself was one of my first choices. I wanted an established school in a country that had a culture beyond malls and cinemas. I wanted high academic expectations. And I wanted it to be distinctly focussed on the NC (something that the job fair didn't offer so much).

Negotiating the package wasn't too arduous. It was appreciably substantial. More importantly, the settling-in package was clearly caring (and that, for me, is the most important thing as a new teacher). Once completed, I signed the contract and I await my visas.

In the meantime, I was offered to interview at two other schools, and I was offered a job (!) at a school in the Middle East. The good fortune of these alleviated the possible pressure of nerves elsewhere. So, my apologies if you wanted (as I somewhat did) the tracking of the interview process.

Thoughts for the future include:

1) Getting fit, physically, mentally and emotionally.
2) Planning my curriculum based on materials sent from the school.
3) Relocating: what to do about my car and furniture and the like.
4) Last meetings with friends: embracing this isle to which I may never return.
5) Telling colleagues and friends: especially with the threat of redundancies and creating insecurity in my students.

For the time being, though, I am happy to focus on the simple acts of the day: of chores, cleaning and working. These routines are ones that I want to experience elsewhere, to see if this body and being can function according to the principles I have chosen to follow.

Oh, and I have made a funny video I intend to show friends when I leave :-D