Saturday after a long week. Slept in after staying up pretty late noodling about on the Internet. Made a plan with Matt to go over with the kids at 1pm. Had to call later and say Hattie wasn't feeling up to it, so maybe we could come over later. Aw bugger.

Oh well, I said we'll call back later on and maybe just pop in for a bit. Then against all the odds, after looking like refried crap all morning, Hattie turns up washed and brushed and ready for church. Cool. I called Matt and said we'd be right over. Matt said that food would probably be out of the question as he had already made only enough for them because we changed the plan. Arse.

Okay so we went over. We had a nice time. Then Matt says how about we get fish and chips for the kids and we'll eat the curry I made. I was jazzed, man. I'd watched him make the damn thing and it took him like four hours grinding spices and cutting leaves and working over a bunch ingredients like they were a criminal he was trying to get information out of. What he had made was "kare" the original curry, but saying all curries are "kare" is like saying all British food is fish and chips, even roast beef. Language is a strange and beautiful thing.

So we eat this "kare" and mother of god... it was sensational. We even had some really nice mango chutney to go with it, but because we had potatoes in the "kare" we had no rice, and we kinda missed it. But hey, it was the best meal I've had in weeks so I wouldn't be so churlish as to complain about such a thing.

Having fed ourselves to a comfortable level, just enough to get that food buzz, we drank coffee and shot the breeze about film theory and how games production is solely in the hands of big corporations these days and really only film is still the preserve of the gifted amateur. You don't have to have a budget to make a film which gets noticed by Hollywood, you just have to have the talent. Plus I have this theory, filmmaking isn't about budgets. If you care that your film cost a lot to make then you run the risk of the budget being a lead character in your film and totally compromising your story. Anyway, we had fun discoursing.

Home around 8pm and we watched bunch of "Clerks: the animated series" before the kids conked out and I stayed up late again messing about with Internet and my script.

Free at last. Now I can catch up on all the things I didn't do this week. I tell you it's been one long rush from one place to another all week. I'm totally pooped.

Hattie came into work with me again. Mia was going away this morning at about 4.30am and when I left the house with her Hattie was still awake. She was going to go into school but I said no way will she be up to it.

Mia's away in Liege, Belgium, for a conference. She's back Sunday. So it's just me and the kids and the pets all weekend. We'll have a weekend in. Although... there might be plans afoot to go over to Matt and Ali's. Matt might be cooking curry, and we might be staying to eat some of it. Matt's a great cook, and I'm dribbling just thinking about it.

Almost there. Just this day of teaching and then I'm free. Well, until next week's sessions. Not sure what I'm going to do next week. I might just make sure they really are ready to go for the shoot the week after, and then show them another 10 minute film school, the good one from El Mariachi.

Today's session was one of those which restores your faith in human nature. After a week of dragging people around by their nose rings to try and make them have any spark of initiative or drive, I hit this group. The good group.

Again I say, here's a kit of parts to make a film studio, just put it together and... no sooner are the words out of my mouth, they are standing up as one person, working as a team to get things together. I just kind of sat there with a far away dreamy look in my eye. This is how it's supposed to be.

Then I notice a pile of neatly mounted art boards with photos and labels on. I took this to be a presentation from our marketing department which got left here accidentally. No, it's these guys location materials, photos of all the locations they want to work in, maps of where they lie in Bristol and how to get there. (Expletive deleted) me! I've died and gone to techie teacher heaven.

You know what it is? As a teacher you start to realise the people you get the most pleasure out of teaching are those who really don't need your help, who would get there anyway if you left them to their own devices long enough. But just a little guidance and they bloom into these great professionals. And they want to know everything you know, they ask questions, they pose scenarios and on a molecular level totally GET what your talking about. It's the joy of teaching. That joy which makes the hard, bone aching slog of trying to beat the information into the other unwilling brains that much easier to bear.

It was fun, but I'm really ready for tomorrow.

And again. Boy oh boy.

Hattie's not well. She stayed at her grandma's house today. If she's not well again tomorrow I'll take her in to work with me.

Another day another group. This lot were quite sparky, although they did drag their feet a bit initially. Lit some nice stuff, and seemed to get a grip on the proceedure, but the group dynamic in this group is a bit weird. Part jokers, part stiffs. Tricky to strike a balance. We got stuff done though which is the point.

Roll on tomorrow.

More of the same today. Worse thing is today was meant to be a day off teaching but they switched Friday and Tuesday so I got to wait till the end of the week for a break.

Today's group was a little better. Asked more questions and got off on lighting the scene. Plus some interesting discoveries that certain rather unassuming techie girls are absolute knockouts when properly lit. :)

This teaching all the time is really taking it out of me. I'm on duty teaching for the first 8 weeks of the term, possibly 11 weeks. Now I LOVE teaching, putting something back into the business as it were, but I don't have quite enough time/energy to keep up with my technical work, managing the network etc. I'm doing what I can. I like the teaching and I don't want them to cut it back to allow my other work to flourish. It is possible to do this, in the same way it is possible to keep up your "first date" level of charm in a relationship, but it takes it out of you after a while.

Onwards.

Monday morning, teaching all day. Did that thing where I say, Okay, here's a kit of parts to make a TV studio. Off you go set it up and I'll guide you...

Seconds passed. A tumbleweed blew by on a hot desert breeze but no other thing was stirring. It was like looking at a freaking oil painting. I jumped up and clapped, come on come on. Finally they stirred and kind of half assedly started trying to fit patently non-fitting parts together. Jeez. Sometimes you have to drag people by their noses.

And I only have another week of this. :(

Sunday.

(It's a few days later and I can't remember a single thing I did on this day. Oh wait is this the day we tidied the kids bedrooms? You know what that was last week. Damn. It must have been an uneventful day. I'm sure I got loads done but for the life of me I can't remeber what.)

Anyway, roll on this week. The video project moves into high gear. I'm teachging both sessions for four days this week, in the mornings in the VRS (video recording studio) teaching them how to use the kit, and in the afternoons catching up on where they are in their projects.