Love What You Do
This lockdown is a bit of an inconvenience. Businesses closed for the foreseeable future, people unable to meet up, have a coffee and a slice of cake together in a favourite coffee shop. Even go and have a haircut. (I am cutting my own few remaining hair strands at home, as always. Smartest lockdowner in the street.)
But of course, we understand the seriousness of lockdown. The impact on so many families who have lost loved ones or who are ill due to coronavirus. And the health professionals who have worked tirelessly to care for the sick and dying. Life is on hold. But it is a small price to pay to help secure the health of the nation and hopefully the future of our country and economy.
There have been some benefits I suppose. Commuting dried up to a trickle, the roads were clear, pollution reduced, turgid meetings in stuffy rooms became enlivened and productive digital Zooms. You could even do your meeting in your underpants. Unless you stood up of course.
(For the record, I am wearing trousers in this photo.)
My own employment as an English language Teacher stopped. The school was one of numerous businesses that had to close in the face of the pandemic and lockdown. When it will reopen and how the business will recover is uncertain, but I hope it will. It is a place that has seen such a diverse range of students from every corner of the world, Algeria to Brazil, China to Yemen, Syria to Sudan, Mexico to Nepal. A wonderful place to work, highly motivated and professional teachers, dedicated and supportive owners and brilliant students. I hope the school will reopen and thrive as it has before. It deserves to.
Lockdown has seen me confined to barracks, with my wife and daughter. I have continued to work online, providing English language tuition. It is something I enjoy. There is a lot of satisfaction in completing a lesson with a student who has made progress, expressed their thanks for your help and support and is smiling and looking forward to their next lesson.
In addition, this time at home has helped further my own creativity. I have written my first novel called The Shadows That Sang. It is now with a group of 25 friends who are reading it and providing much needed feedback. It is the story of two young brothers, growing up in a rural village in Java Indonesia, a village that lies at the foot of an active volcano. After a devastating eruption, the brothers escape, but their lives follow very different paths, from homelessness and destitution to extremism, as well as the arts, opera and music. I would love to have the book picked up by an agent, secure a publishing deal and one day see it on the shelves of bookshops. It is a hope, a dream, but without dreams what are we? I will keep plugging away, probably tearing my remaining hair out at the 15th rewrite, but determined to get the book into print.
In addition, I have just self-published my 8th poetry collection. Life Waves – Poetry for the New Decade, is a collection of poetry written during 2019 and the first part of 2020. The poems reflect the state of the world currently, with sections on the Coronavirus / COVID19 crisis, Nature and the Environment, Mental Health, The state of British Society and the impact of Social Media, among others.
The link to Life Waves is
Life Waves and my other poetry collections are available in both Kindle Download and paperback formats.
You can find my other poetry collections
I love writing. It keeps my mind focussed, is an outlet for my emotions and feelings. We all need to do what we love and writing provides so many tangible benefits. For my mental health it has been a lifeline, especially using poetry to communicate my feelings. Poetry played a huge role in helping me come to terms with the loss of my daughter Milla in December 2016. Poetry provided the template for my emotional expression, but writing my novel helped me escape into a different world. A place I know well, but with a narrative provided by me, with a cast of characters who took on personalities and complexity as the writing progressed.
I love teaching too. It is immediate, rewarding and satisfying. It serves both the student and the teacher. What would I choose to do full time though? It is an interesting question. If you said you could be a full-time writer, financially secure, I would choose that life immediately. But the reality is very few people are fortunate, or talented enough to be able to give up the day job and write as a career. Until I do, teaching will continue. I will still write, and I will love doing both, equally.
I specialize in conversational English at any level and all ages, as well as Business English for Professionals.
More information is available on my website, www.frobisherenglish.com
Best wishes and keep doing what you love.
Tony Frobisher
Worcester 2020
Online English Language Lessons 