I did it again, or loops

Because I should be either working or relaxing, this is just a short text to test a writing technique described in a resource book for EFL teachers, loopwriting. The idea is I can’t stop writing or even correct whatever’s already written, which is especially diffult to me, see? Diffult. I’m a horrible typist. And I’ve already paused for too long. And just cheated here, I did correct a couple of typos in my provious, previous, sentence. Anyway. I wonder who’ll resist the urge to stop reading this load of - whatever.

I have no idea what to write about so I’m trying loopwriting. Which, BTW, consists of writing nonstop for a few minutes or whatever other limit set by the teacher or someone else in authority, oneself or who knows who else, then pause and summarise the main point of the chunk produced in a single sentence. Hopefully, this won’t become too long or too boring. I’d thought of writing about my first day in Cardiff this year, which will be the first of July, when I’ll be fying in from Paris, after a long flight from Rio.

Loopwriting might help me establish the topic of this text. As I was saying, this blog post could be about my arrival in Wales this summer, a little event I can hardly wait for. My current plans are more than a tad bit crazy, I reckon, for I intend to catch a plane from the French capital at half past noon, then be at Llandaff Fields for Tafwyl’s first musical performance by two. Aled Rheon is, after all, the main reason I’m going to the festival this time, I can’t miss him. The worst part is at the end, though, as you’ll see in the next paragraph.

Through loopwriting, I’ve found out that one of the main subjects of this post is Tafwyl 2017. So I was saying that I don’t know how to make the end of my first day in Cardiff this year work out well - for Y Niwl will be playing from 6 to 6.40 pm, they’re the second attraction I really want to see, but I’d also love to be at the Millennium Centre by 7.15, when the last performance of Jane Eyre starts. Can you see why it’s been so hard for me to make final decisions concerning my holiday this time? I don’t want to miss any of that. Why did it have to be on the same day? Not fair, not fair at all.

Still thanks to loopwriting, I believe this text revolves around 1 July 2017 and how hectic it’ll be. Actually, come to think of it, this day, my first day back in Wales this year, is a sample of the state of the rest of my holiday plans so far - as Genia can certainly confirm. And angrily, I suppose, angrily confirm. I can’t seem to be able to make myself decide on the smallest of things. Truth be told, if that’s the phrase, I’ve been awfully busy. One must work in order to earn a break, right? I can only hope I’ll have things more or less defined by, I don’t know, mid-June? Two weeks before my departure date? lol What an adventure.

My holiday plans are worryingly undefined due to lack of time and excess of ideas.

P.S. This has to be the fastest post I’ve ever produced (and one of the worst, I’m aware - but I’m not apologising this time, enough of apologies, I must be the most insecure writer ever). Loopwriting isn’t intended for final drafts, though, not even for first drafts, actually. It comes in a chapter called ‘Focusing’, dedicated to the pre-writing aspects of text production. In case you happen to be interested (who knows, there may be another language teacher around), the book’s called Process Writing and was written by Ron White and Valerie Arndt. I’m still in the third chapter, but I already can say that I like it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

mundão

Image
It’s surprising how many people from the course I’m still in touch with. I chat with Genia on whatsapp and\or on facebook messenger daily ( diolch am dy gymorth di gyda fy nosbarth i, BTW - if that’s any accurate), Liz and I also have a few nice little conversations every once in a while (I’ve just sent her pictures of the flat I’ll hopefully be moving into next week), Ren’s always a joy to talk to, despite the fact that she’s often lost somewhere on the globe and hard to track down (she shared cool photographs of Chinese terracotta warriors with me some time ago), Charles might be silently reading the mostly nonsensical messages Genia and I, and sometimes Ren too, exchange on our messenger group, Matt has been following the blog ( diolch yn fawr !...), Phil and I jokingly became husband and wife ( gwr a gwraig , can’t use accents on ws here with this keyboard configuration) for an imaginary Welsh soap opera with a great soundtrack , and even Ioan, who’s wisely not on facebook or ...
Read more

(viva la) vida, ou celebrating (o aniversário da Carol!)

I’m back to working, well, part-time and doing all sorts of ELT-related jobs, from teaching a few of the school’s one-to-one students and filling in for colleagues to fulfilling Cambridge English speaking examiner duties like examining kids and attending meetings. I’ve also been trying to move into another flat for over a month now, wasting time and money on bureaucracy and putting a lot of effort, physical effort, into taking most of my stuff to what’s soon, all being well, going to be my new place - on foot, in suitcases and rucksacks of various sizes (well, let me give credit where it’s due and add that my father, besides helping me with the whole process in various ways, spent over a week in my current flat and carried more rucksacks and dragged more suitcases than I did - and he’s nearly 70, and I really love him). I believe all this has kept me away from Wales and from Welsh, that is, from writing about the country and studying the language. I equally believe I haven’t don...
Read more

sunbeams

Image
'If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.' (Roald Dahl, The Twits) So today I finished reading one of the many books I've brought from Wales, 'Boy', by Roald Dahl, whom I didn’t know was Welsh before I started searching for things to do in Cardiff this year. It’s a big year for his fans, his centenary, so there were, and are, quite a few events going on in the city. I myself only saw an exhibition of Quentin Blake’s, his illustrator, works at the National Museum (and left it with a beautiful book called Sad Book, by Michael Rosen , which earned its title for a reason I won’t explain here in order not to spoil anyone’s reading - believe me, it’s worth it) and visited what is probably a permanent smaller one at the Norwegian Church , which is actually about the building itself but features a photograph of the author of Norwegian origins who was christened there. I’m still talking about Dahl, i...
Read more