Tennis

Language teaching - Life :) - Tennis

Little people

September 14, 2018 by 0 Comments

Earlier this evening I paid my doctor the usual monthly visit to get my prescription. He commented on my new look: a beard and a load more hair in general than I used to have. He said I looked more manly. In truth I’ve always wanted to look like this, and it’s pretty bloody awesome that I now can.

Matei comments on my facial changes every time I see him. We had quite a busy lesson this afternoon. I finally beat him in the Formula One game, after four losses in a row. Tomorrow I’ve got four lessons planned, three of which are with kids, including the new sister-and-brother combination. My only lesson with an adult is on Skype. I hadn’t mentally prepared myself for teaching children when I came to Romania, and when I started getting calls from parents my initial reaction was, yeah OK, if I have to. But in general I’ve found my lessons with kids to be extremely rewarding. At times I’ve had to pinch myself: not that long ago I was staring at (or more accurately, straight through) spreadsheets relating to ghastly insurance “products”, and now my job involves playing racing-car board games with ten-year-olds. Vroom-vroom, baby.

This morning I spoke to Mum and Dad. We chewed the fat once more over the events of the women’s US Open final, which had moved well outside the sphere of just sport. My parents and I were puzzled at how many people, especially in America, sided with Serena. The only people any of us felt sorry for were Carlos Ramos, who earned only in the hundreds of dollars for the “privilege” of umpiring that match, and Naomi Osaka, whose spectacular victory was overshadowed. For that matter, Novak Djokovic’s win – his 14th grand slam, which came less easily than the final score suggests – was spoiled a bit too. And then there was that Australian cartoonist’s take on it all. Cartoons work by exaggerating the protagonists’ features. Real racism happens, and it’s abhorrent, but this cartoon isn’t an example of it.

On Monday I went back to the cheap eatery I stumbled upon three weeks ago as I was posting flyers. I noticed the name of the place was Aditex, which I found unappetising: the -tex ending invokes something manufactured in a factory, a textile perhaps. Definitely nothing that should pass between one’s lips. Realising that it was just a word and I shouldn’t be bothered by such things, I sat down. My meatball soup was absolutely fine, but then I got the rest of my meal. My fork was dirty, and I should have sent it back, but I wimped out and tried to minimise my fork-in-mouth action until I finished.

It’s warm for the time of year, with temperatures pushing 30.

Language teaching - Other sports - Politics - Tennis

A cluster of random thoughts

September 9, 2018 by 0 Comments

I didn’t watch the women’s US Open final, but now wish I had, for the sheer drama alone. Serena is an incredible player but she’s also a bully, with a “Don’t you know who I am?!” attitude. She has a history of using her bullying tactics at the US Open in particular, where she knows the crowd will probably side with her (as, shamefully, they did in this match). This time she also made completely irrelevant comments about being a woman and having a daughter. I’m pleased that Naomi Osaka played great tennis and got over the line, even if Serena and an obnoxious crowd robbed her of that special moment of winning her first grand slam. Osaka even felt the need to apologise for winning. I suppose I shouldn’t feel too sorry for Osaka – she took home US$3.8 million, which is a crazy amount just for being rather good at whacking furry yellow objects over a net with a bat.

This year’s US Open has seen its fair share of upsets and retirements; the searing heat has been a major factor in the latter. The biggest shock on the men’s side was Federer’s loss to John Millman. I remember Millman from my first day at Flushing Meadows three years ago. I was queuing with my cousin and his fiancée, and Millman (who I didn’t recognise, but I saw his name tag) was at the next-door kiosk, trying to sort out something quite important for his match that was due to start in half an hour. I thought at the time he was clearly one of the have-nots of tennis. With his win over Federer he’ll make the world’s top 50, and he earns nearly half a million for reaching the quarter-finals, so he’s starting to do quite nicely from the game.

On a different day, Federer would have beaten Millman in straight sets, but on this occasion he wasn’t at his best on the big points. On the same day as this match, I watched the Red Sox beat the Braves by the totally flattering score of 8-2, a game in which they were outplayed for long periods, with the result in serious doubt until the eighth inning. After these two results in different sports, I thought about the importance of clustering and sequencing, in sport (and in life too). There are different concepts from timing, which obviously has a profound impact on results as well – a double fault or a walk can range in importance from meaningless to game-changing depending on when it occurs. Sequencing, or the order in which events happen, is also very important, as is clustering. As a rule, you’re better off if good things happen to you one after the other, but you spread your bad things out a bit. That’s very true in life too – we can often handle one issue at a time, but a pile-up of problems can send us into a tailspin. On the other side, achieving a major success (say, a deal with a large record label) relies on a series of positive events happening one after the other. Baseball analysts have tried to figure out what determines effective timing, clustering and sequencing, and the answer (in that sport at least) is very clear: luck.

Politics is one area where clustering is of paramount importance, especially in first-past-the-post systems. The clustering of Democrats in urban areas was a big (and understated) reason for Trump’s win in 2016. Clinton ran up the score in those large cities, making her vote inefficiently distributed. It also affects the other branches of government. Because their opponents are neatly clustered in areas of high density, and because they’re arseholes, the Republicans are able to gerrymander effectively, and that’s why the Dems will need a hefty popular-vote win if they want to take the House in November. Clustering isn’t always bad for political parties, however. If you’re a big party trying to form a government, it harms you, but it’s to your advantage if you’re a small party trying to get some representation in parliament. An interesting case (and a terrible advert for FPTP) was the 2015 UK election, where 3.9 million people voted UKIP but they won just a single seat because they weren’t a dominant force in any geographic area. In the same election, the SNP managed to achieve the best of both worlds, by being entirely “clustered” in Scotland but very unclustered within Scotland. Their 1.5 million votes (half of all votes in Scotland) gave them a whopping 56 of 59 Scottish seats.

I spoke to my parents yesterday. The All Blacks v Argentina game was about to start, and they pointed the camera at the haka. It sounded like a great game. Mum and Dad had just spent a few days in a chilly Moeraki.

Last week I posted about 100 flyers in letterboxes in Dumbrăvița, and I got a reply. Hopefully this week I’ll be starting with a 17-year-old girl and her 9-year-old brother.

Language teaching - Life :) - Other sports - Tennis

Insults, intensity and incredible finishes

September 6, 2018 by 0 Comments

This morning I had my back-to-back lessons with the brother and sister in Dumbrăvița. On the way I got a coffee from the little shop with benches outside. On one of the benches was a slightly darker-skinned man in his twenties with his feet on the bench, and on another bench was a man of about sixty who didn’t look particularly healthy. The older man didn’t like the fact that the young guy had his feet on the bench, and told him, “This is Romania! We don’t put dirty shoes on benches. Go back to Turkey, you fucking immigrant!” The young man said only a few words and otherwise ignored him; he was soon in the middle of a voice call.

As for the lessons, well this time I started with the boy. He’s hard work, and he really doesn’t want to be there, but it’s only for one hour and he seems to find the motor racing board game at least somewhat engaging. It was a relief though when he was out of the way and I got to see his big sister who’s much less of a handful.

I’ve watched some extraordinary sport – both tennis and baseball – in the last few days. This morning I turned on the TV – it was well past midnight in New York, but you never know – and lo and behold, Nadal and Thiem were still out there. They were out there for a good deal longer too, Nadal squeezing through in a fifth-set tie-break, a few minutes past 2am local time. There was incredible shotmaking under pressure from both men. I only just managed to see the finale before heading to Dumbrăvița. Then this evening, after a high-intensity grammar workout with two beginner students, I saw that the Red Sox were down 7-1 in Atlanta, heading into the final two innings. In other words they’d all but had it, but hey, this is the 2018 Boston team and you just never know, and over the next 90 minutes I saw the most incredible comeback.

Language teaching - Life :) - Other sports - Romania - Tennis

Heading into the home straight

August 31, 2018 by 0 Comments

It’s the last day of August, the final day before we hit those similar-sounding month names that signal the home stretch of the year. As yet, there’s little sign of autumn. Our expected high today is 31 degrees.

Yesterday morning I got a phone call during my lesson. The number was unknown and I couldn’t answer it. I rang him or her back straight after the lesson, but the number was busy. Later I’d need to see my landlady, or to be more accurate my landlord’s intermediary (my actual landlord is based in Israel), to pay my rent in euros and my expenses in lei. Having to trek across town at the end of each month to physically hand over cash in two different currencies doesn’t seem any less ridiculous now than it did nearly two years ago. I walked to Piața Badea Cârțan where I handed over 1390 lei in return for €300 at one of the many exchange offices, picked up some fruit and vegetables and a 2.25-litre bottle of Timișoreana, and then read the final chapters of Station Eleven. I called my landlady to ensure she’d be home, then hopped on the tram (Line 4) just around the corner from the market. It was the hottest part of the day by then, and it was steaming inside that old tram. The only respite I got was when it stopped and the doors opened.

For the first 17 months I met my landlady at her work, the power company which is situated almost next door to the Timișoreana beer factory and conveniently close to Piața Badea Cârțan, but she no longer works. She lives with her husband above a pizza restaurant, almost right outside the penultimate tram stop on the line. Her husband seems to be suffering very badly from depression, perhaps with additional complications, but severe depression is more than enough on its own. The last few times I met my landlady at her office, she broke down in tears. I called her again when I got off the tram, and I could hear a small child in the background. Her husband came downstairs to meet me. I asked him how he was, and immediately regretted it. “Sick,” he said. He took my money, said goodbye, and that was that. I went home on Line 7. When I arrived home I called that unknown number back. After several rings a young woman answered, and said she’d found another teacher in the intervening few hours, almost certainly a non-native speaker.

I had four lessons on Wednesday, two of them back-to-back with the brother and sister in Dumbrăvița, and then two with adults. The lessons with the kids went pretty well; the ones with the adults less so. My 6pm session was with a bloke who is just one day younger than me. His wife used to attend too, but I think she took a dislike to me during a lesson in which we discussed Romanian customer service. She got a job in Vienna soon after that, although she’s since moved back. As for him, he’s had a tough year. His father, who lived in Spain, died in June after a long illness. On Wednesday he was very tired. I wasn’t at my best either, getting myself all confused about the meaning of “repatriation” in a particular context. At 8pm I had a lesson with two beginner-level guys in their early thirties, and I probably made most of the lesson boring, hard and confusing, all at the same time. The final part, where we discussed the habits of British people (football, beer, tea, and so on) possibly just about saved me.

When my aunt and uncle were in Timișoara, I took them to the Museum of the Revolution. The woman at the desk was called Simona, and my aunt said that one of their rhododendrons had the same name. When she was back in New Zealand, my aunt emailed me a picture of the Simona flower, for me to pass on to its namesake at the museum. I don’t think my aunt realised how many Romanian women carry that name, including one of the most famous right now, Simona Halep. Unfortunately for Romanian tennis fans, she fell at the first hurdle at the US Open. It’s been a brutally hot first week in New York.

The Red Sox appear to be back in business; they lost six games out of eight but have now won their last three, including Wednesday night’s game in which they belted a colossal eleven runs in one inning.

Tennis

Should Wimbledon introduce tie-breaks in the final set?

July 21, 2018 by 0 Comments

That question got a whole heap of airtime after – and during – last Friday’s marathon Wimbledon semi-final between Kevin Anderson and John Isner, which Anderson eventually won, 26-24 in the fifth set. The match took six hours and 36 minutes, and wreaked havoc on the schedule. The second semi between Djokovic and Nadal was billed as the main event, and it was a marvellous encounter when it finally got underway. Unfortunately that wasn’t until after 8pm, and thanks to the council-imposed curfew, the match couldn’t be completed in one go. It too went to a long fifth set, and the women’s final, which has started at 2pm on Saturday for as long as I can remember, was pushed back two hours.

People weren’t complaining only because the timetable was thrown out of whack. Some commenters were fed up with watching hours of so-called servebotting. Others thought it was inhuman that Anderson and Isner were kept out there so long, with no endpoint in sight, and whoever came through that match would be a wreck for the final. (For the first two sets against Djokovic, Anderson pretty much was.) Then there were debates about whether Djokovic and Nadal should have played part deux of their match under the roof on a sunny day in what is supposed to be an outdoor tournament. Even though neither of the men’s semi-finals will be forgotten by any self-respecting tennis fan in a long time, the lack of a tie-break in the fifth set did cause some major headaches.

What do I think? Well, honestly I’d be fine if the rules didn’t change. Anderson–Isner-style matchups in a grand slam semi are pretty rare. Near-seven-foot goliaths don’t get that far very often, and on this occasion both players saved match points on the way there. And for me, there’s something conceptually cool about a set that can feature theoretically unlimited games. I’ve always been a bit of a numbers geek, even as a kid, and I always got excited when I saw big yellow eights and nines and double-digit numbers on the right-hand side of the scoreboard. However, the current rules (tie-breaks at 6-6 in all sets except the last) were implemented at Wimbledon in 1979, since when tennis has become much more physical. A marathon five-setter takes a far greater toll on one’s body than it did back then. And perhaps the clincher for me is the fact that the game state at 24-24 in the Anderson–Isner match was exactly the same as at 4-4, two and a quarter hours earlier! Rightly or wrongly (and I would suggest wrongly), we no longer live in a world where that is OK.

The Wimbledon committee are probably a bunch of old blokes and the not-so-old Tim Henman, so there’s not much use predicting what they might do. But I have a sneaky suspicion they’ll change the rules in time for next year’s tournament, and in a typically British compromise, bring in tie-breaks at 12-12 in the fifth set. They might even exempt the final from the tie-break rule. I also expect the Australian and French Opens to do the same, or even go the whole hog and have tie-breaks at 6-6, à la Flushing Meadows. Third-set tie-breaks for the women will almost certainly come in too, for the sake of consistency, even though marathon women’s matches are a non-issue.

It’s interesting that Anderson–Isner appears to be a line in the sand. Here are some other matches I can remember that went very long in the fifth (reaching at least 12-12), but for whatever reason didn’t leave everyone clamouring for a tie-break:

1992 Wimbledon doubles final: John McEnroe and Michael Stich beat Jim Grabb and Richey Reneberg 19-17 in the fifth.
This was back in the day when top singles players – even former champions – played doubles. At 33, McEnroe didn’t inhabit the very top echelons anymore, but he had quite the tournament, reaching the semis of the singles and winning the doubles with Stich, the previous year’s singles champion. This match was played on the old No 1 court, and was finished on the Monday, having been suspended at 13-13 the night before due to bad light. I don’t remember any complaints about the suspension or the length of the match, but McEnroe always drew the crowds, and at any rate, ’92 was a much calmer time when nobody could tweet to the @Wimbledon account that it was fucking bullshit.

1997 Wimbledon third round: Tim Henman beat Paul Haarhuis 14-12 in the fifth.
The first week of Wimbledon had been ravaged by rain, so they needed to play serious catch-up. This match, therefore, was played on the Middle Sunday, in a football-style atmosphere. I felt sorry for Haarhuis, who served for the match in the fifth set but double-faulted on match point. No complaints from the crowd, who once Henman had finally got over the line, probably thought it was “coming home”.

1998 Wimbledon semi-final: Goran Ivanisevic beat Richard Krajicek 15-13 in the fifth.
This is the closest precedent to last Friday’s marathon semi. Goran missed match points on his own serve in the fourth set, and in the fifth a holding pattern, quite literally, developed. In truth it wasn’t much fun, and just like last Friday, the crowd were eagerly anticipating the second semi-final, in this case between Henman and Pete Sampras. Had the match gone on much longer, and had it taken place in Twitterworld, there would surely have been calls for tie-breaks. For the record, Tiger Tim played a great match against Sampras, but in the end the great champion just had an extra gear.

2000 Wimbledon third round: Mark Philippoussis beat Sjeng Schalken 20-18 in the fifth.
I watched this in Penang with my grandmother. It was played on an outside court and took five hours in total. “Scud”, or “the Poo”, recovered from this ordeal to beat Henman in round four, again in five sets.

2003 Australian Open quarter-final: Andy Roddick beat Younes El Aynaoui 21-19 in the fifth.
The crowd really warmed to El Aynaoui; they hadn’t expected him to push Roddick so hard. Unusually, Roddick broke in the extended final set, but in a twist, was broken straight back. This added drama, plus the fact that it was a night session with no matches to follow, helped this match attain classic status. I don’t remember any tie-break talk.

2009 Wimbledon final: Roger Federer beat Andy Roddick 16-14 in the fifth.
I didn’t see this match. There was a lot on the line here, not least Federer’s legacy. Could he break Sampras’s record of 14 grand slams? With that in mind, and it being the final, nobody was particularly bothered that it took a while.

2010 Wimbledon first round: John Isner beat Nicolas Mahut 70-68 in the fifth.
70-68. Eleven hours. Jaw-dropping stuff. So why were there fewer calls for tie-breaks as a result of this match? A few reasons. One, the match reached such unprecedented proportions that people were in awe of it. Two, not many people actually watched all those aces and service winners. They were going about their everyday business while this animal, this colossal thing, was prowling in the background. Three, neither player was a real contender for the later stages. It didn’t have much bearing on the rest of the tournament. Four, we hadn’t quite entered the age of intense polarisation, where something as unimportant as a tennis match can cause people to lose their shit on social media.

It was perhaps because of Isner’s match with Mahut that his encounter with Anderson provoked such negative reactions. Oh no, it’s Isner again! Please make it stop! And unlike eight years ago, millions of prime-time eyeballs were directed at it.

Other sports - Tennis

It’s all over!

July 16, 2018 by 0 Comments

No, I’m not leaving Romania or anything that ridiculous. But the month-long sport-fest finally came to an end today. It’s been a nice distraction, I must admit.

France won today’s highly entertaining final of a marvellous World Cup. One of the goalscorers, Mbappé, has such a fun name to say and even type. It reminds me of a certain Hanson hit from the nineties. Four members of Pussy Riot invaded the pitch early in the second half. I wonder where they are now. Even the presentation at the end provided drama: it was absolutely teeming with rain. Putin was duly provided with an umbrella, while Macron and Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic (the Croatian president, who was decked out in national football attire) were left to soak. Croatia played very positively throughout the tournament and will have won plenty of fans. So France have now won two World Cups in my lifetime, as have Germany. And Brazil. And Italy. Argentina and Spain have won one each. Hang on, so that means I’ve lived through ten World Cups, so I must be nearly f… Oh shit.

To be honest though, over the last few days, my sporting mind has been in London. The later stages of Wimbledon were staggeringly good. I didn’t see it all, because I have to work occasionally, but I did pretty well. Much better, certainly, than I ever managed when I lived in New Zealand and it all happened at night. Anderson’s crazy 6½-hour semi with Isner was much better, and less serve-dominated, than some people made out. I was just the bit after 11-all in the fifth (admittedly quite a long bit!) that started to become monotonous as both players were holding with ease and not doing a whole lot else. Anderson was clearly the fresher of the two players as the fifth-set game tallies hit the twenties, and his improvised left-handed forehand while down on the ground was the killer blow in the end. Wimbledon will quite possibly change the rules in time for next year to prevent a 50-game final set from ever happening again. I’ll write another post on that topic specifically. Then came the other semi, itself an epic at 5¼ hours, which was played under the roof and spread over two days. It was probably the best match at Wimbledon since that final ten years ago. At 8-all in the final set, my parents phoned me from their hotel room in Singapore. They were stopping over on their way to New Zealand (they’ll now be on the plane). Mum is quite a big Djokovic fan and she was following the live scores on her phone, in the absence of tennis on their TV. I commentated the best I could (which isn’t very well) for what turned out to be the dénouement.

Predictably, Anderson was buggered today, after playing a stupid amount of tennis to get past Federer and then Isner. Although he found a second (third? tenth?) wind as the match progressed: he suddenly started to produce on his first serve and forehand, and Djokovic did extremely well to prevent a fourth set. Anderson came across as a thoroughly nice bloke, and is now firmly on the tennis map, even for fairly casual fans. Yesterday’s women’s final was a little disappointing, with Serena spraying errors everywhere, but she was so gracious in defeat and Kerber equally so in victory. Kerber was unbelievably consistent – only five unforced errors in the match, according to Wimbledon’s (possibly generous) stat-keepers. I even saw the men’s doubles final last night: extra drama was provided when they closed the roof between the fourth and fifth sets. The Kiwi Michael Venus came oh so close to grabbing a Wimbledon title.

So that’s it. Back to reality, and it’s just as well that’s not too bad these days.

Language teaching - Life :) - Other sports - Tennis

It ain’t coming home

July 13, 2018 by 0 Comments

It’s staying right where it is. Football, I mean. I had a lesson last night from 8 till 9:30. The semi-final started at 9, and as both my students are big football fans (and play regularly), we decided to watch the start of the match. They predicted 2-0 and 2-1 England wins, while I picked a simple 1-0 England victory. After five minutes that was on the cards; England dominated the first half-hour or so and could easily have led by more than one goal. But in the end, after 120 minutes and an inexplicably long final period of stoppage time, they were beaten by a better side. Oh well. Making the semis, even with a kind draw, is no mean achievement, and hopefully it’ll be seen as such when everyone has calmed down a bit. England still have to play the third-place play-off (which, in Romania, they call the “little final”). Before last night’s match I would have picked France to be champions no matter who they faced in the final, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t expect Croatia to be hindered that much by having to endure all those extra time periods, effectively a whole game more than France have played.

If one or two of Colombia’s penalties had been placed an inch higher or to the right, England’s campaign would undoubtedly have been seen as a failure. Knockout football often hinges on such tiny margins. Grand slam tennis, on the other hand, can sometimes be a bit more clear cut. The scoring system tends to magnify small differences between two players, especially in the men’s game where they play best of five sets. Roger Federer cruised through his opening four matches, for the loss of 8, 9, 10 and 9 games. Yesterday, in his quarter-final with Kevin Anderson, he won the first set 6-2 and negotiated a tricky tie-break to win the second set. Anderson’s chances of coming back were incredibly slim. But he did. Even after facing a match point. I was glad to see a “Fedexit”, mainly because I really can’t stand his Wimbledon fan base, who are often disrepectful to whoever happens to be across the net from their hero. I also enjoyed Nadal’s match with Del Potro, where he just squeaked out a win in another marathon encounter. In three days Wimbledon will be all over, and my rekindled interest in sport will be snuffed out.

This morning I had a lesson with a guy who comes from Italy originally but has lived in Romania for 15 years. We talked about bike usage, or rather the baffling lack of it. Timișoara is almost dead flat, and almost perfect for bikes. But you don’t see very many of them. He said that in Romania, riding a bike is (increasingly) an admission that you’re a failure. Successful people drive cars. He told me about his friend in nearby Arad, who works in a fairly senior role in a large company, just 500 metres away from her home. Sensibly she cycled to work, on a smart and expensive retro-style Pegas (a revived Romanian brand, which in Communist times was all you could buy here). But she was told to drive instead, because her bike (any bike) didn’t project the right image. That attitude is what’s sending the planet to hell in a handcart.

Life :) - Other sports - Tennis

Sport that matters

July 9, 2018 by 0 Comments

Twenty years ago I’d have just about watched televised coverage of two flies crawling up a wall, but in recent years I’ve gone off most sports. The dominance of money, and changes to society, have made the whole experience of watching sport less interesting to me. Who wins hardly matters. But as Wimbledon is in full swing and England have made the semi-finals of a World Cup for the first time since I was ten, now is a bit of an exception.

Yesterday, while battling an intense headache caused by my right sinuses, I watched Simona Halep – French Open champion, let’s not forget – lose in freakish fashion to Su-Wei Hsieh of Taiwan. She led 5-2 in the third set, but after Hsieh had held authoritatively in the next game, the remaining four could all have gone either way. But they all went Hsieh’s way, including at 5-4 when Simona had a match point. Hsieh was one hell of a tricky customer, playing two-handed on both sides. She was a far cry from the kind of ball-basher Simona is more accustomed to. Incredibly, nine of the top ten women’s seeds are out of the tournament. Serena Williams is still there, and so are Kerber and Ostapenko.

From the tennis I switched over just in time to see England take the lead against Sweden, and they ran out comfortable winners. England’s campaign has already been quite something. Suddenly there’s a sense of real optimism: “It’s coming home!” In the bread shop today I met an American who has a Romanian wife. As soon as he realised I was English he mentioned the football. I talked to Mum yesterday about the heat wave they’re experiencing in England, as their team progress through the rounds in Russia. She said that should they win the World Cup, the summer will become the stuff of legends. “Do you remember the Summer of ’18?” Mum and Dad will be back in New Zealand by the time the final kicks off.)

Today has been a day of sport-free bliss: a rest day at both Wimbledon and the World Cup. I spent most of the day creating a new board game for my younger students (well it’s not new at all: Dad came up with the basis for it circa 1993), reading a book by the frog pond, and sheltering from a storm.

Five lessons scheduled for tomorrow.

Language teaching - Life :) - Tennis

A potential problem I never expected to have

February 5, 2018 by 0 Comments

I taught for almost 32 hours last week, my busiest week to date. It wasn’t easy as I battled sinus problems, diarrhoea, and general feelings of lethargy. At the last minute, my students asked me to postpone this morning’s lesson, so I hopped on the number 7 tram and browsed the bustling Flavia market, but didn’t buy anything. I went there several times during my first winter in the city; at that time there was an entrance fee of 2 lei, but that’s since been bumped up to 5. I also went to Shopping City, as much as I dislike malls, and at the checkout in Carrefour was an old student of mine whom I failed to recognise initially. We had our rearranged lesson this afternoon.

I’m very likely to beat last week’s record in the coming seven days, and may even smash it, but I’ve got to be a bit careful here. As nice as it is to have heaps of business, if it becomes stressful over a prolonged period then the purpose of my coming here in the first place is mostly defeated. I won’t be able to enjoy the city because I’ll either be stuck at home or rushing to get to my next lesson, probably in Dumbrăvița. I’ll certainly need to take some time off every now and then (at least I’ll be able to afford to), and on that note I’ve booked a few days in the UK over Easter. Not Easter as I know it, but Orthodox Easter which is the following weekend.

The face of Timișoara, or at least some of it, is changing quite rapidly. A monstrous 1200-apartment complex, complete with three schools, is going up at a rate of knots on Bulevardul Take Ionescu. A nasty triangular corporate behemoth with M-shaped sides sprung up last year outside Iulius Mall. And on a smaller scale, premises that don’t seem to belong are popping up all the time. “Go Nuts 4 Donuts” operates from a twee pink caravan, and looks totally out of place next to all the refreshingly untwee kiosks and stalls of Piața 700. A few days ago a shop selling Scandinavian clothing brands, but whose products have almost certainly been nowhere near Copenhagen, opened just 100 metres from me. Before long shops like that will probably be the norm.

No, Simona didn’t win. I only saw the tail end of the second set, where she was in the ascendancy. What a titanic battle it must have been. I saw rather more of the men’s match, which never really scaled the heights despite going five sets. Cilic played very well, especially on the important points, and I thought at the start of the the final set that there was every chance he could pull off the upset that I was hoping for. Alas, the protracted games at the start of the decider all went Fed’s way, and that was pretty much that.

Language teaching - Tennis - Travel: Romania

Happy memories

January 27, 2018 by 0 Comments

Next week I could have over 30 hours of lessons, and that’s without that young couple with whom I had 12 hours a week until just before Christmas. They said that they’d be back shortly after 2nd February, when their exam session finishes. In other words, I face the imminent prospect of being totally knackered.

My travel companions from four months ago have sent me (as a present) a quite wonderful scrapbook of our trip, full of photos and diary entries. It must have taken several hours to put together. So many wonderful little things happened; I’m so glad that someone had the presence of mind to record them. I can’t believe how much I’d forgotten, like the time the car-hire man told me to maintain a good distance from the vehicle in front because the brakes might not be up to it, or the rubbery omelettes we had for breakfast, or the huge wedding party, out of the blue, at 8pm in a primitive village. And of course, just the wonderful scenery, pretty much wherever we went.

Twelve hours from now, another big opportunity to snatch her maiden grand slam will come Simona Halep’s way. I only saw her semi-final with Angelique Kerber from 2-2 in the final set because I had a lesson, but I was grateful to see what I did. For me it was literally edge-of-the-seat (and off-the-seat) stuff. Halep played noticeably more aggressively than I’m used to seeing her, and that bodes well for the final. Perhaps the fact that her very participation in the tournament has so often been hanging by a thread will relax her for the final. Wozniacki, her opponent in the final, has had a very precarious path too. In fact the two players have faced a whopping seven match points between them, including five for Simona in two separate matches. I’ll miss most of the final, or perhaps even all of it if it’s a quick one, because I’ll be working.