I AM OFFICIALLY A TIT

Show recently extracted the wind from my sails with typically well-intentioned down-to-earthism. Armed with several diagrams and a kitchen knife, she extolled her opinion that I should concentrate on doing what I can do and stop fannying around trying to learn how to do things I can’t, in yet another feeble-minded attempt to divorce myself from TEFL. Yet again, I believe her to be right.

It all started back in May, when I went to Poland with my male voice choir and on the plane to Frankfurt found myself sitting next to Jetro, one of our second tenors.

I’d never really spoken to him before, but during the trip I discovered that he ran a small yet growing Internet company, an online system through which owners of used car dealerships could manage their businesses. He explained how previously he’d been something of a factotum, working around the country in various jobs and starting various businesses, until he discovered that he could neither work for somebody nor manage others – leaving him no option but to work alone.

Casting aside these ominous sociopathic leanings, I became fascinated with the idea of running an Internet business. I had visions of getting a site up and running, then sitting back and watching my bank balance swell to extraordinary proportions.

I played down the significance of his confessions that he really needed this break, as he was near breaking point with all the stress of running the business. A complete novice at web development, he’d recently employed a young programmer who knew much more than him, and who’d one day blocked all the users’ passwords in a crude attempt to blackmail him.

In Poland, he persistently badgered the locals to allow him Internet access, so that he could check his email every 30 minutes and answer the many support requests that derived from the shaky architecture of his site. Of everybody on the trip, he was probably the one that relaxed and enjoyed himself the least, a fact I managed to conveniently overlook.

Undeterred by these revelations, over the past few months I’ve been attempting, yet again, to learn how to design complex websites. And quite honestly I’ve had enough. I’ve bought videos by a likeable Aussie from the Internet. I’ve spent a good part of most days hunched over my laptop, face screwed up in constant discombobulation. When I do actually manage to understand how to do something, I immediately forget the fucking syntax, meaning I have to trawl through endless reference pages to enlighten myself yet again.

I’ve become obsessive and irritable and constantly distracted by trying to solve programming issues. I’ve become distant and preoccupied – ladies and gentlemen, I have become the nearest thing a tit can get to a geek.

Web development is like a pox-raddled strumpet that I keep returning to, in the unlikely hope that she'll magically turn into someone I can introduce to my mother. No more! TEFL is the life for me. And translation.

2009 - no more waving, only drowning.