(no subject)

I don't think I remember my first day at school but I do have memories from the first year (actually called the pre-first year). I remember tracing round letters in the learning-to-write lessons; when writing something, leaving a gap between the vertical and horizontal of a capital T to see what would happen, and having Mrs Heywood display it to the whole class saying never to do that (without saying who did it, which I thought was nice of her); A4-on-its-side exercise books with blue covers; the way a long line of writing slipped down the page rather than being a straight horizontal line; a nasty boy called Lee; a girl crying because she had to wear boy's socks (I don't however remember why she needed a change of socks); a brightly lit classroom; being told off on a next day for leaving before Mrs Heywood had spotted my Mum outside and saying I could go, and not remembering this at all; taking home letters from school; not "getting" the standard way of sitting cross-legged; deciding to staying silent during prayers; getting bored when writing and doing very light scribbles on the same page (I don't remember being told off for this but I'm sure it happened).

(no subject)

I'm reminded by stuff going on elsewhere at the moment of the two operations that took place on my toe - one in a GP surgery, which in the end did no lasting good, and one in hospital. The former seemed well organized and was in a freshly painted room, but had just the doctor and a nurse; they rushed the anaesthetic slightly and of course in the long run didn't do any good anyway. By contrast the hospital version was a bit disorganized in that the timing and details like whether I'd have a local or general anaesthetic were unclear until surprisingly late, and the room seemed really quite spare compared to the gleaming theatre in the hospital of the collective unconscious; but there were two people at the business end of things, plus an anaesthetist in attendance all the time (and they waited until it was clear it had taken, not that it took that long), and they actually fixed the problem on a permanent basis.