Running Out of Steam

It's only just occurred to me that I am feeling flat and lifeless because I am running on empty, as in running out of steam.

Its strange that while you are charging ahead and fully engaged in something - like a school placement - you don't feel so bad, don't feel like your ability to stay on top of things is such a tall order...

If I could hold a thought long enough for it to give rise to another...I'd say something thought provoking and insightful about that.

Escapism

Riding home from a day on placement the other day I had this overwhelming need and urge to pour myself into the pages of a book and to lose myself amongst the text. I don't mean to just pick up a book and to catapult myself into it, I wanted to literally be someone else and somewhere else. I had this vision of my essence being poured from a jug out and in between the lines, my surroundings morphing into somewhere else and suddenly finding myself in another world, living someone else's reality in some make-believe world.

Unsurprisingly Alice in Wonderland made a whole lot more sense.

It's true I really miss reading for pleasure and I miss creative writing too, I'm just not sure that my desire to escape is only about recharging my batteries by hiding away in a book for a while.

Tiredness, nightmares and stress has a lot to answer to.

Past, Present and Future

When I visit my mum I often like to trawl through old photos from when my sisters and I were young. We don't have very many photos, my dad didn't take too kindly to his wife leaving him for being a serial adulterer and he exacted his revenge...well suffice to say in many ways. More often than not when I'm looking through these photos and remembering the past it is because I'm feeling unsettled or insecure, my sense of self is in a state of fragmentation and I feel destablised. It's almost as though by looking to the past I can recapture certain things: where I've come from, where I'm heading, the reasons I do the things I do, my sense of purpose and most important my sense of self and my identity.

This is me as a toddler, my sense of self is entwined with my mum, she is me and I am her.

This is me and my sister Terry, I'm no more than 4 or 5 at most. I feel loved and secure, I know my place and it is perfect.

This is me just before my world fell apart and we left my dad. He is the one who took the photo.

After that there aren't really many photos except the odd school way in which I stare back with a shy hesitant half smile. Looking at myself there are times that I think my eyes show a wisdom far beyond my years, other times I think I'm hiding many things behind that smile.

I used to think it was incredibly important where a person came from, not just geographically but their personal history. I used to think that my past was the sole reason I am who and what I am. Now I'm not so sure. Now I'm starting to believe to a certain extent events and people can only shape you as much as you allow them to. You can't change an event or unsay something that has been said, but what you can control or change is how you react to it and the amount of influence it has on you.

Fabian

This is my nephew Fabian, who is nearly 2 months old and I haven't met him yet.

Isn't he gorgeous?...

I feel awful that I haven't met him yet and it feels terrible to admit it's because my life, every moment of it, has been swallowed up by training to be a teacher. I mean look at him...he's perfect!

He has my sister's nose and Steve's eyes.

*sigh* I can't wait to see and meet him.

Sharing the Red Crayon

There are many things which play on my mind and give me pause for thought, I've dedicated (although not so much lately) a regular post every Wednesday to such mental musings, yet I only have one thing on my mind right now....why some adults are completely unable to 'play nicely' with others?

I've just spent the day working on a group Science presentation for AFL (assessment for learning) with 3 others. We will be assessed ourselves on it in two weeks. We're all adults training to be teachers, yet two of them were distinctly UNABLE to accept others' ideas and to compromise. It is safe to say they haven't yet learnt to share the red crayon.

One, who has a degree in Art, was incredibly put out by my injection of random pictures coloured in and cut out to feature as a boarder for our poster. I'm not entirely sure what offended her most: the fact the drawings came from a colouring in book or that there was no 'pattern' to where I had placed them. Apparently in marketing you need to stick to 'one concept'....I resisted the urge to say 'we're not in marketing and we're not trying to sell anything' but I didn't. It would have been counterproductive. And quite frankly the whole thing is just not that important.

Perhaps it is an age thing, as in I'm getting more perceptive, but the older I get the more frequently I see inflexibility, intolerance and rigidness in others which all really come down to displays of ego centric behaviour. The kind of behaviour I expect to see in children. Not adults.

I shouldn't surprise me but it does. How are we going to be 'models' to young children and teach them how to function as a valued member of society if we don't practice it ourselves? It's just a Science presentation admittedly and obviously after this course I never have to see or speak to these people again, which to be frank going by my track record is precisely what will happen. That's neither here nor there and I digress, I guess the point I am taking the scenic route in making is that I'm astounded that there are people, adults, out there in this world who have the social skills of a dying rabid wolf.

I'm far from perfect and I certainly have my moments of digging my heals in to get my own way, but I pick my battles and when it's over something equivalent to sharing the red crayon....go ahead be my guest.

A Note From Me To You....

...just to say I will be back blogging very soon and I have lots of things to say! I am currently on school placement and I LOVE IT. Never in my life have I ever been so certain and sure that I have found what I am meant to do.

It's one thing to feel that there is a plan for you, something you are meant to do in life, but it s something else entirely to know you have found it! It's unbelievably exciting. Stupendous and jaw dropping and Cheshire Cat grin inducing!