I’m feeling strangely contented tonight, despite the pressure of work and the mountain of reading I have to do. Coming home after an evening seminar puts me in a good mood, I suppose because I feel I have been very virtuous and hard at work and now it’s time to relax and put my feet up.

It’s bitterly cold outside; the wind is howling and my fingers are tingling with the sudden change of temperature. It’s gloriously warm inside, and the light is low and soothing. I have a drink on the coffee table, music playing in the background, the smell of food wafting out from the kitchen, where Lori is concocting a very exciting new recipe which involves everything from strawberries and marscapone to sautéed triangles of sun-dried tomato risotto and turkey breast. I’m sure it has a much more impressive title, but it smells good and I’m pleasantly hungry. Last night was my cooking night, and I made pork escalopes with red wine and balsamic jus with garlic and shallots topped with baked apples and served with huge baked potatoes and baked asparagus with parmesan cheese and balsamic vinegar sprinkled on top. It’s become one of our favourite meals ever since Lori discovered a recipe, and since then we’ve added and taken away a few things. The recipe was so complicated, but I’ve simplified it quite a bit since then by sticking all the ingredients in a covered casserole dish and baking slowly so that the escalopes soak in the juices.

On a side note: the best baked potato recipe. Wash and poke large baking potatoes, melt some butter –not too much, just enough to be easily pliable- and (here comes the messy bit) roll up your sleeves, dunk your hands in the butter and rub liberally all over the potatoes, rolling them one by one after the buttering process in a plate of rock sea salt (kosher salt works best) before sticking straight into the oven and baking on 180 Celsius (350 Fahrenheit) for about an hour and ten minutes, depending on the size of the potato. Put them directly on the oven shelf with a baking tray on the shelf below to catch all the drips. Before serving, brush off the majority of the salt. Then cut open (I’m very picky about this – it has to be cut just a certain amount, not so much that it cuts in two, and then pressed from both ends to make it open like a mouth) and fill liberally with margarine or butter, salt and pepper (and sometimes a bit of Tony’s!).

No one is going to read that.

Anyway, I’m obviously letting my appetite talk. We’ve been watching West Wings every night over dinner lately, although we have run out and we’re waiting for the ScreenSelect DVD rental system to send us more. They won’t arrive until Friday, at the earliest, because I only posted them today.

I really wish we were able to work effectively enough during the day to have evenings off. It would be so wonderful to think there was no work to be done this evening. I was quite productive today though: I read half a book this morning to finish it before today’s seminar (Blake Morrison’s Things My Mother Never Told Me), did some research for my Narrative and Subjectivity essay topic on Ebsco, read a few pages of Tristram Shandy and skimmed over the articles Jane suggested we read for the class tomorrow. I really feel terrible about not having properly read Tristram Shandy, especially because we’re spending two weeks discussing it. I just do not have the time. I suppose that’s a lie, because I could be reading it right now, but, well… I read the whole of Clarissa, and that’s more than most people in the class did. Besides, I’ll make up for it over the next three weeks: Wollstonecraft’s Maria and Austen’s Emma and Persuasion are the texts for the last three weeks, so that’s not bad at all.

Someone said today that it is exactly five weeks until the essays are due in. *Trying to have faith.* That’s actually two days less than five weeks for us, because we fly to the States on the 28th (essays are due on the 29th) so we’ll have to hand them in on the 27th and then drive to my parents’ house ready to leave. I’m really looking forward to that flight. We’ll be exhausted after all this work, but at least we will have handed the essays in and we’ll be able to look forward to a vacation. I can’t wait to go back to the States. It’s been a while now – I left at the end of July, I think.

Lori and I have had a long discussion about education the other night, about the importance of teaching kids more than information. Education is more than building blocks; it’s about designing monuments, giving them foundations, discussing their significance. We were debating teaching certain philosophers and writers to children at an early age. There is a danger, we were saying, that children will skim the surface but not understand, therefore taking it for granted that they are not interested in Shakespeare because they don’t understand it or that Austen is boring. They might grow up remembering their education as something that taught them what not to enjoy. Generally, though, I think that’s a risk worth taking, and one that can be overcome with a good teacher who is able to teach on a level that the students can comprehend. How much more important is it that you have read Shakespeare and Austen? That’s a very specific case in point. But, while you do hear about child prodigies from unprivileged areas of society suddenly discovering a love for learning when they go to college, that is not very typical. First of all, many kids from underprivileged backgrounds never make it to college. Perhaps they’re taught it’s not worthwhile, but more often they are just never taught that it is worthwhile. Far better to attempt to instil something or inspire something early in a child’s life, to give them a chance to choose what they appreciate for themselves.

Education is not about pouring knowledge into a cup and hoping there is at least some that won’t spill over. Graduation shouldn’t just be about getting someone through school. It should be about developing an individual and encouraging them to aim for the stars: that anything is possible if they put their minds to it. Just because you’re an inner city kid from a poor neighbourhood doesn’t mean, for example, that you need to be content with your lot and accept it as a life-long predicament. Unfortunately, most public (or state) schools aren’t successful in giving kids this mentality, this attitude towards life. Of course, there is more to it than school. There’s family, community, friends, cultural group, etc. It just seems to me that all kids have potential in something, and that they need to be brought up in a way that allows them to develop that potential: to find what they love and follow that dream. Of course, not everyone is cut out to be a composer or a film star or a rocket scientist; not everyone can be a heart surgeon or a pilot or an engineer. But surely every kid’s education should be about encouraging them to fulfil their potential, to not take their fate for granted. I know this is all very idealistic. It’s not always possible to change attitudes like this, but in an ideal world it should be. There are some people who have succeeded in life despite their education, and that is all the more amazing for them, but a miracle. What if they hadn’t had that drive, that ambition to make it even though they had to face the problems of their education? It makes me feel almost guilty that my education has pushed me forward throughout my life, taught me to believe in myself, to aim for the sky. But I shouldn’t feel guilty, I suppose, but grateful, lucky.

*Steps off the soapbox.*

Why is it that my feet are perpetually cold in this country? The carpet is freezing. I suppose I’ve been sitting still here for a little too long and that cosy warmth that was wrapping me in contentment a few pages ago has waned a bit. Time to get up and move around.