Speaking of what we know not of....

These last two nights I've been watching 'Make me a Muslim'. I was addicted to 'The Monastery' in 2005. 'The Convent' in 2006 made me distraught! But with a project to complete in a couple of weeks on Islam I thought this would be a fascinating programme, and it's certainly been that! One particular guy in it has really annoyed me though. He's a taxi driver in Harrogate and to begin with continued to eat pork, drink alcohol and go to lap-dancing clubs. His view was we live in England and there are enough Muslim countries. We don't need their rules and regulations where they don't fit here. I hate the ignorance of comparing a nation with a faith. If he knew anything about his nation he would know that it's Christian by tradition- another dogmatic religion, so similar to Islam, with such similar histories. We have a monarchy, the head of the Church of England and Bishops within our government. His view of Britain was a hedonistic, free country where everyone has a right to their own life. He's looking at his home country through rose tinted glasses and contradicting himself in the process.
As if I wasn't irritated enough by him (although he did start to give them a chance) he then turned around and belittled all world religions saying they were wrong. He said that religions were only about a short space in time, a couple of thousand years old and the world was older than that. He then quoted from the Bible saying, it says 'In the beginning was the word' and said so therefore the Bible's wrong from the start because it didn't start with Jesus. AGAIN, if you're going to argue against it so arrogantly get your facts right. Genesis begins the Bible with the creation of the world, with two different creation stories- the creation of the world and the creation of man. The gospel of John begins with in the beginning was the word and the word was made God. That is not saying the beginning of the world began with Jesus, it's saying the beginning began with the word- the logos, God. God then came down through the incarnation as Jesus for humans to be able to grasp a concept of the logos. It has nothing to do with when the world was created and to dismiss all religions and to say 'If I'm proven wrong and it's proven God exists then fair enough but if I'm proven right I want every religion to say so' is missing the point altogether. He's completely missed the purpose of the program and of faith. It's got nothing to do with proof but a complete intoxication of the self, something he might begin to appreciate even if not understand if he followed the fasting and routine offered within Islam.
Rant over!

Advent, a time of preparation- and stress!

Ok, I'm just going to take the opportunity to moan about 50% of the population- or however much it is. I've had it up to here today with men- they're doing my head in. I dunno, maybe it's just me not having time to talk to anyone these days, although if I'm honest it is partly optional- filling my life with work even when I've completed more than enough. But I decided this weekend I was going to take a grip on my life- do the washing that should have been done 3 weeks ago, catch up on my mentor reflections of the last 13 weeks etc. So I put on my nerves of steel last night and did stuff I should have done months ago with my life.
I then headed to ASDA at lunchtime today to get my latest prescription from the doctors in the hope it wouldn't make me as physically ill as last weeks did. While there I picked up some staple diets we'd run out of at home. Queuing for a while I finally got to the front of the kiosk and asked for some cigarettes. The lad behind the counter grinned at me and said 'no'. As I say- today was simply not the day to push me! When I stood there looking at him with daggers he said, sorry, I forgot now what it was you wanted, so I repeated- 40 Benson and Hedges please. He replied with 'have you got any ID?' I know for a fact, that however young I look, I do not look 15 years old! and so through gritted teeth I decided not to trust myself to speak but instead handed over my drivers license. BIG MISTAKE! He then started going on about how that wasn't me in the picture and then when we established that it was, could he keep the card to 'perv on'. He's lucky I simply handed over the money and didn't tell him where to stick the cigarettes. Swine. Driving home afterwards I wondered why I got so uptight about such a little episode, but I didn't really need to wonder.
It's advent- two weeks until Christmas. I hate Christmas, always have had. Trying to do lesson plans on the theme of advent this weekend has been the hardest thing I've had to do so far this year, I've sat there staring blankly at the computer unable to write anything. I simply can't concentrate on the message of hope when I want to crawl into bed and drink the period away. Today has been the day that I've realised officially, Christmas is only two weeks away.
Having said that, I worked all afternoon in my room with Martin fixing my bed which had snapped in three different places, and when I got upset this evening, Andrew said nothing but got the Baileys out. So I can't blame the whole male species who seem to be doing a spectacular job at winding me up at the moment, but I will continue to sullk now for another 4 weeks I should imagine- so be warned, I'm just not a fan of the human race at the moment!

Top of the World

So here was me talking about Finland's superiority in literacy last week against the UK, and I kind of knew that they were good at maths because the head of maths in school was talking to me last year about how they've got courses in Finland because of their individual teaching techniques...and low and behold in the news this week Finland is top with North Korea in the world both in Reading and Maths. Full details are in this report. Maybe I should move back....but the I thrive on the challenges here in Wigan atm. :-)

Lost Lesbians

I sparked off a fascinating conversation today in the staff room. I was going over the key words for my year ten's new topic 'Marriage and Family Life' that we're starting tomorrow. It's been difficult to find appropriate photos for with words such as 'promiscuity' 'pre-marital sex' and 'adultery' but my particular problem was with 'homosexuality'. I wanted to use a picture of a gay and a lesbian celebrity couple that the kids would know. Could I find any famous lesbian couples though?! What a nightmare. So I turned to a couple of the history teachers to ask them and distracted them from their work for a good 20minutes while they tried to think of someone. They advised me to talk to the psychology teacher so at lunch I asked a couple of psychology teachers, another 2 re teachers, and a cover teacher who all struggled to think of a couple. Even within soaps, all the female couples in soaps ended for one of them to go back to their boyfriend/husband. From this the conversation went on to the acceptability in British culture of lesbians and whereas we tend to assume it's so much more than it ever was, maybe it's not as much as it should be.
Luckily, I got to come home tonight and the boys gave me lots of examples to use, with me sat there going, 'really?' 'I never knew she was', 'ooooh, I didn't know that', clearly displaying my ignorance in not being up to date on my celebrity gossip. But I wonder if there is a point in the staff's comments today and whether there are still problems with homosexual acception, particularly in women, in the UK in 2007.