I used to look forward to some things; not a lot. Just a few perhaps. To snow, for one. I’d watch out of my bedroom window for hours. Looking forward to more snow, more. Hours of snow, until morning, which meant a better chance of no school the day after. So that meant i looked forward to winter too, but see, not looking forward to school. School was shit; teachers were shit too; they were like recorded voices.

“Napoleon did this; Hitler did that. Water boils like this; X is unknown. Find X. Find Y. Find shit.”

You had to look forward to something. For school time to be over. For teachers to shut their mouths.

Most of the time, the looking-forwardness would reward me. School would be cancelled. That meant the school and the mouths would be shut altogether. What better than this? All shut!

Play Tchaikovsky’s Slave Marche — time to celebrate; marching in around my room; triumphant. Early morning, the next day; no school day…

That was not all. The anticipation of the winter to come and school closures would come way earlier. Often in spring. Spring makes everyone happy, it made me even happier. A winter to look forward to.

There is a lot to say of all of that; looking-forwardness to the end of the exam period. End of all the blame, the scolding, the embarrassment, the failures, oh, and the successes. Success meant I had to look forward to more serious shit to come my way. That’s the rule. Once you get good grades, you always have to get good grades. It’s like being good in sex. You can’t be good in sex only once. There must be a repeat. Otherwise there’s something wrong with you. Good grades followed by bad grades? Impossible! The good has to go on eternally. You’re eternally chained to looking forward to what you yourself created once. That’s how we function. We all build models once there’s a single sample of what we do. Perhaps that’s why being good isn’t something to look forward to.

Shit! I started this out because I always complain my students lack “looking-forwardness”. Nothing fascinates them. But it turns out my own fascination of looking-forwardness’s been for the reasons otherwise. Looking forward to things to happen, only for other things to be affected as a result. I must confess. I love snow, but who in their right mind sits in class thinking about snowfall, and then about school closure? I must’ve been mad. Oh, another thing. Looking forward to death is very similar. If you say you look forward to death, you’re depressed. You’ll be told you need medication. But if you say you’re looking forward to death to escape life and it’s contents; different story. But not now; you’ll wait until it comes. Naturally. From now until it comes, that’s the one type of looking-forwardness that I like.

Play Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake: Waltz in A major — time to celebrate

If you were dead now, you’d have missed the party. What are you looking forward to?