Am I Boring You?

The question of whether I'm boring is one that has often passed through my consciousness.  I mean, no one wants to be boring, do they?

But people are boring.  They only have a limited number of stories and they tell them over and over again.  They have things that interest them and topics they will talk about to the exclusion of all others.  When I was growing up my Dad used to say of someone (although I can't remember who), "That man could bore for England," and I would think that he must be exceptionally talented at boring.  I wondered who would judge the Boring Olympics because it would probably be difficult to find a judge who wasn't boring themselves.    Being bored can suddenly sneak up on you, as it did on me last Wednesday for absolutely no reason at all. You can be doing something interesting, talking to someone who is saying something new and exciting and all of a sudden you feel bored.  What you shouldn't do, is express your boredom out loud and I do apologise to my friend who had done nothing to cause me to suddenly say, "I'm bored!"

Generally, I quite like boring things and being bored can be good for you and make you create something.  I've always enjoyed reading a telephone directory or listening to conversations that without context are extremely dull.  This is one I heard in the High Street today:
Man:  I'm a very strange individual
Woman: Really?
Man:  Yes, once someone upsets me I never talk to them again.
Woman:  Oh dear.
Man:  He runs that club really badly.  I go in and say hello and no one even acknowledges you are there.
Woman:  Maybe you upset them.

I like Facebook and Twitter and most of that is incredibly boring, especially the people moaning about other people's boring statuses.  I frequently post about the weather and I know people who put a picture of their dinner on Facebook every night.  It's the boring stuff that makes a life.

However, liking boring stuff and knowing that being bored is no bad thing doesn't stop me being slightly offended when someone implies that I am boring.  As a teacher, you do everything you can to make interesting lessons.  You want to engage children, so that what you are trying to teach them goes into their heads and stays there.  On Friday, I was really looking forward to teaching a lesson that I thought would be exciting, fun and hopefully memorable.  I woke up, not being able to wait to teach the class, knowing that I was going to use a Grade 1 Piano piece (about my level of playing) called Saturday Stomp and change it to be Saxon Stomp (Invaders and Settlers topic).  The children were going have Boomwhackers to 'sword fight' in time to the music.

 I thought the children were really enjoying the lesson, apart from one bashed eye they had taken on the role of Saxons, practising their fighting and they were all in time.  They were so good we decided to add some words to the tune.  We sang, "We're Saxons, we're Saxons, we're Saxons and we're brave!" My afternoon had been fantastic and I was just beginning to congratulate myself on a great lesson when one of the children excitedly came up to me.  "We've made up some new words to the song," she said.  I couldn't wait to hear them as she has always seemed to really enjoy her music lessons and she couldn't wait to tell me.  "We sang, 'We're Children, we're children, we're children and we're bored!'"

Well that told me then!