I'm Not an Earth Mother....

Today I am 37 weeks + 4.

In amongst all the 'great' (I'm rolling my eyes here) and oh-so welcomed (sarcasm) advice that EVERYONE has bestowed upon me, not to mention their wonderful predictions (never knew I was acquainted with so many mystics), I've learnt that I am not an earth mother.

I've not enjoyed pregnancy and have been made to feel like I am some kind of monster because of that.

For whatever reasons I've not bought into the 'precious cargo' theory, nor the 'I'm precious and special because I'm having a baby' - my attitude has been 'I'm pregnant not incapacitated' throughout this journey.

I've worried about so much and experienced so much too - jealousy, turning into the female hulk, struggling psychologically with my changing body and lack of control over that, learning to have a deaf ear to everyone's well-meaning but negative predictions and assumptions about my pregnancy, unborn child and fitness to be a mother.  That's just to mention a few things that I can think of off the top of my head!

I'm continuing to work up until a few short days before my due date, with a bit of a Easter break in between, but I have my reasons and to be frank - you aren't owed justification for that decision.

I've not enjoyed battling my way emotionally and psychologically through the uncontrollable changes to my body and hormones.  I've felt out of control at the best of times and seconds away from first degree (unrepentant) murder at the worst of times.  And I swear if one more adult asks me a question that they've not even bothered to mull over for themselves before seeking me out to answer for them....I won't be held responsible for the devastation afterwards!

Am I excited about meeting her, holding her, looking at her in absolute wonder and seeing the person that she is going to grow into?....A thousand times yes!  But this pregnancy thing?  Just isn't for me!

No I've not got stretch marks - yet!
No I didn't get the cankles thing until the last two weeks.
No I've not suffered with carpal tunnel until this week.
Yes I can still do 25 meters under water without coming up for air.
Yes I can still do a tumble turn in the pool and 30 - 50 lengths.
Yes I can (just about) still bend down to pick things up that I've dropped.
Yes I am still working - because I can!
No she doesn't keep me awake with her moving
Yes I did suffer with 'morning sickness until I was about 18 weeks pregnant)
Yes I know I don't look that far gone.
Yes I am tired despite not looking it.

Does that mean I've enjoyed being pregnant?  No, not at all. 

Here's the thing - having lost a baby and gone through that trauma I am acutely aware of how special the baby inside me is, but it doesn't define me, not any more that having lost one does.  I have not made being pregnant the centre of my world, my conversations, my dreams, my hopes, my fears, my life and my relationships.  I've not been overcome with the wonder of how magical an experience this has been and continues to be - why?  I don't know, because it is magical but life goes on.

Talking of life, I'm off to baby-sit my friend's children so she and her husband can have a much needed night out together!!

Things They Don't Tell You About a Career in Teaching

When you're training to be a teacher there's a great deal your lecturers will tell you, in fact for the most part your head will feel like it's going to explode will all the new skills and knowledge you're trying to cram into it, but there's a vast amount they DON'T tell you.

1. You never stop being a teacher in hundred little ways from meerkat peering at your ducklings to make sure they're behaving, to constantly having to resist the urge to use your 'teacher voice' when any situation feels like it's heading in the wrong direction.  It never stops.

2. You will hate the sound of your own voice.  You've no idea how true this is for me, I have reached the point where I do not want to talk unless it's via the medium of inarticulate sounds or rapid hand gestures.

3. It's okay to say 'no' to the feeling you must work even though you were in school at 07:30, have brought your uneaten lunch home (twice to both of those), not walked outside in daylight for three days - or was it more? You will wake in the middle of night thinking "Shit! I haven't done so and so".

4.  You will crave solitude like an addict and even if you aren't a bath person you'll start taking them because it's one of the few places where you can get five minutes of echoing silence.

5. Everything is a potential resource or has a lesson or activity in it.  Everything - running that bath?  Maths - capacity and volume, English - the poetry of the sound of the gushing water, PSHE - how fortunate we are have running water, History - Victorian plumbing and the invention of, Geography - water sources, Art/DT painting reflection in water and designing a water floatations, Science - the minerals and additives to found in our water....the list is endless

6. It's possible to loath and love your job in equal measure.  You will hate the endless paperwork, the bureaucratic paperwork that stands in the way of getting your ducklings all right help that they need, the long thankless hours, but you will love being the person your ducklings rush to share something with, love their pictorial offerings, love when you see them working so hard to grasp a concept and you will love their nativity efforts.  Most of all you will love trying to help them unlock their potential and encouraging them every stumbling step along the way.

7. You will be exhausted and frustrated and hungry and needing a pee and you will convey all of that to your ducklings.  Then you'll be saddened that you're turning into one of 'those' teachers, it will break your heart in every possible way but from that you will pause, take a breath and exhale and change.

8. There will be days when you will come home and feel the inexplicable need to cry, your day has been relentless and you've been reactionary to a myriad of last minute decisions for books to be scrutinised for marking, for risk assessments, behaviour reports written, parents who wish to speak to you, lesson plans, gifts for hampers, etc. Some days you cry, some days you say "no" and go out for a meal with friends and some days you just have a bath

One Foot in Front of the Other

I'm sitting, alone, in a coffee shop in a food shop, just watching the world go by and processing things.  Once upon a time my anxiety would have prevented me from doing this,  so the fact I drove here - alone - am sitting - alone - is a huge achievement.  I know all things are a journey.

Between you and I I've been somewhat of a crazy obsessed lady lately, it's all been internalised but I've been...target fixated for want of a better phrase.  I lost a baby a few months ago and as you would expect it's been a defining moment for me.  It was a planned pregnancy but neither L and I expected to fall so quickly, so it wasn't really a surprise when I handed him the test and burst into tears.  I could say a dozen things about timings, fears and muted joy but none of that matters, not really, not now.

I can be really good at hiding from the truth and despite learning that this is never possible (Freud had to be right about something) I still do it.  I have this deep inner self-doubt, this childish thing of running away when things get too emotionally intense and I panic.  A voice in my head tells me 'I can't do this, I don't love you enough for this' and then I spiral out of control as panic, fear and self-doubt vie for dominance.  Three snakes twinning themselves about my heart, my head and my confidence.

The moment that test turned positive I told myself I didn't want the baby.  I was going to be a terrible mother, I already had a bad relationship with my body and body image, I was going to suffer with postnatal depression, I wasn't going to cope, I wasn't going to bond with it, and it was going to drastically change mine and L's relationship.  Between that and getting a new job, in which I was going to have to tell my boss more or less as soon as the ink was dry on my contract, that I was pregnant, I felt some sense of relief when I lost it.  At least I thought I did.

I don't know where I am on the losing the baby-getting pregnant again thing.  I just know that I've become obsessed with buying pregnancy tests, checking when I might be fertile, putting our sex life under the microscope, checking if I were to fall now when my due date would be, buying new clothes and checking that I can get some maternity wear out of them, and feeling frustrated that I have an irregular cycle (suspected PCOS).  This is the point in which I would usually inject a bit of humour, like telling myself I need a hobby, to defuse the situation and take some of the intense emotions out of it.  But I'm coming empty.

Taking my unhinged hormones out of the equation I really don't know where I am on... all of this.  I just know that I need to keep putting one foot in front of the other and eventually, eventually, I will arrive at wherever I am meant to be.

Therapist

I'm a big fan of nature and exercise being a natural antidepressant.

This, this here is my therapist....

The road of 2017 has been tough so far, so very tough.  I've been on my knees sobbing more times than I can bear to think about.

I've had days when anger and frustration have taken over me, days when I'm consumed by grief and bitterness, days when I just don't want to 'people' and days when the voice in my head Just. Won't. Shut. Up.

It's a lot to carry even for my broad shoulders.

I do my best to be a functioning adult, but there are moments so dark I can feel myself sinking further, so I lock myself away with my therapist until I can face the world again.  Sometimes it's 20 minutes, sometimes it's an hour and other times I'm coming back day-after-day-after-day, muscles sore and cramping, knuckles and elbows skinned but I am there.  Each punch is an inarticulate emotion, a thought, a fear, a release.  Each kick is a wordless shout to be understood.

I will keep being there.

What Next?

I'm on automatic, sleep has gone out of the window and I'm largely living for those quiet moments in which I can be unguarded and just stop.

It is only May and while 2016 saw the celebrity world decimated with loss it seems 2017 is being personal.  A year for growth?  I don't know, I can't tell, I'm .....numb, just mechanically getting through the days whilst unconsciously bracing for the next event.

2 heart attacks
3 heart surgeries
A house move
Numerous job interviews
A new job
A miscarriage
Investigations into a hereditary heart condition
Suspected stress induced stomach compliant
Stage 4 stomach cancer

Always a internaliser, always able to find the right word to describe a feeling, a situation....I am suddenly without words, without the desire and vocabulary to recognise this.... Period? Situation? Experience?  No words, no labels, no impetuous...just numb in what next?

Wednesday Wonderings

It has indeed been a while since I knocked one of these up, I've been very busy this summer more or less living out of our car as L and I have been up and down England, and here, there and everywhere in Italy. It was almost a relief to start school and work again. Almost.

1. Why can't all the consultants at the supply agency I work for give clear information, you know like the postcode of where you're going, the year group, if there is planning... Apparently it's rocket science!

2. When should I decorate for Autumn? Part of me is itching to and the other part doesn't relish digging about in the cupboard under the stairs. There will be spiders and I will scream.

3. Why do I stay up and eat rubbish when L goes away? It's like I turn into a rebellious child! What do you mean LIKE, you do turn into a child!

4. Will I get that job of teaching 3 days a week for 6 weeks? You can but hope. And smile nicely, but don't show too much teeth, you look like you're snarling when you do that.

5. When will they change our windows and doors? Everyone is having them done where we live but I'd bet my last £10 that it won't be before we move and can therefore feel the benefit with a lower heating bill. Yeah, so that will be the day you move out!

6. Why are some people so doom and gloom? Sheesh! It's exhausting listening to their misery! Which is why you stop listening when they resist your attempts to cheer them up. You're nice like that.

7. Why does toast always land buttered side down when you drop it? Because it's the last slice and you really, really want it.

8. Why are my dreams so weird at the moment? I actualLy dreamt about having a temper tantrum over people not making enough fuss of me and my birthday! What a diva.

9. If I promise myself that I'll go to bed and try to sleep at a reasonable hour, will I actually do it? Not in this life time, apparently you like looking haggard.

10. Is there anything more despicable than football hooligans? Yes but it makes you sad to think of them, so don't.

11. What can you do with a child who kicks another child simply because they are in their way? Communicate with them, put consequences in place and repeat, repeat, repeat.

12. Will I ever stop jumping every time my phone lights up or vibrates in case it is a call for work from the agency? Probably not anytime soon.

13. Can I be more excited about my mumma coming to visit in a few weeks? Yes, but not too excited you might pee yourself, since going back to work and having to hold your bladder for hours at a time it's not as strong as it used to be.

14. Will L and I get the kind of house we've requested when we move? Truth is I'd be happy with any house as I know there are people the world over without one. Patience Natasha.

15. Where has my gym mojo gone? To the bottom of a crisp packet at a guess.

16. Am I seriously down to my last £40 in my account? Ah man! Yes, so get off the Internet and stop torturing yourself with what you can't have!

Therapy

These...

Are my therapy. They have got me through some tough times, some dark times and times I still can't talk about without it hurting.

They've got me through L's numerous deployments.
They've got me through the stress of moving house. More than once.  With another to come within 6 months.
They've got me through anxiety (and continue to do so).
They've got me through depression.
They've got me through a number of disagreements with loved ones.
They've got me through finding a lump in my breast and getting the all clear.
They've got me through my Masters in English Literature.
They've got me through my PGCE, my first year supply teaching, my NQT year and my second year supply teaching.
They've got me through a Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome diagnosis.
They've got me (and again, continue to get me) through the frustration of managing my psoriasis.
They've got me through the death of a friend.

I find it hard to talk, to open up to people and to let them in.  I can't deal with being vulnerable.  Yet, those items that I so often take for granted, that I pick up, sling in a bag and carry with me have been my therapy, been the way I have got, and continue to get through, so many of the trials life slings my way. 

The mileage on them is more than geographical.

Supply and Demand

In September of last year I went back to supply teaching once I'd completed my NQT year. To be entirely frank it was a really easy decision to make, I weighed my stress levels, exhaustion, the work load and my mood against my need for quality of life and love for my marriage. Many non-teaching professionals across the world are unaware of just how many arguments between husbands and wives are about the amount of work teachers do, how little time and attention they truly give their loved ones. I'm not masquerading under the elitist illusion that teaching professionals are alone in the domestic strife caused by the pressure of workloads, it's endemic to modern society unless you are wealthy enough not to need to have to work for a living. And that statement there - 'work for a living' is what made me go back to supply teaching, I want to work to live not have my life consumed by work.

On the plus side since starting in September I've hardly been out of work, aside from early in September and January when teachers hadn't had a chance to run themselves into the ground and fall prey to illness but otherwise I've been turning down bookings. Yes, I've had the luxury of turning down work because supply work and listening to my mind and body needs allows me to do that.

My agency have been pretty good, accepting when I say 'no thank you' to bookings, checking in with me while I am at bookings and providing feedback from schools. I don't expect any different as a happy worker is someone making everyone money. That isn't to say I've not had to chase them up for various things, or fight my own corner at times to not take bookings when they are in desperate need, or push back at schools when I feel they are starting to take advantage of my good nature (the last is a work in progress).

I've been extremely lucky that the two schools, yes I've only been to two schools since starting supply in September because both have continued to ask and book me on a weekly rolling basis, have been fantastic and I've loved them. I love the children I'm currently working with to the point I know I won't be dried eyed when it comes to leaving, but I will leave and I'm okay with that. I can forego the pleasure of hearing their clambering need for my attention so they can show me the work they've completed, or to share with me just as I need to take the register their latest joke, or their desperation to tell me all about their weekend as we're going into mass. My heart will break but I am confident there will be others and my fingers ar crossed that there will be.

Undeniably it's fantastic to be in demand as a supply teacher, I know I've been accepted by the children because I receive offerings of their affection on a daily basis and the permanent staff have accepted me by offering their support and guidance. I've been included in daily school life in every way.

So while I am in demand as a supply teacher, while we as a family unit are fortunate enough for us to have the luxury of choosing where and when I work, I am going to continue listening to my mind and body and making sure I get the balance right between supplying others demands of me.

Better the Devil You Know

As the new school year approaches and I go back to agency work I find I have a whole host of niggerling anxieties, like:

1) Will I be able to teach in a main stream environment?
2) Will I get regular enough work?
3) What if in my first temp role the sea of 30+ faces makes me panic?
4) What if all my behaviour strategies/management go out of the window and I can't control the class?
5) What if I have to drive on the motorway to get to one of my temp roles?
6) What if the school doesn't like me and they complain?

Right now I can safely say I have a deeper understanding of the saying 'better the devil you know' and why some are tempted to go with it.

Life is Short

Sometimes, just sometimes I wonder what it would be like to pick an idea – just one – and to run with it.  Not have about dozen other ideas follow on from that one, not get so excited and fired up by ALL the ideas that are shouting around your head and clammering for attention, but you know – just have ONE idea.

Yeah, I wonder what that is like.

The older I get the more ideas and exciting projects I think of and therefore want to experience.  For years I was afraid of change and didn’t like trying out new things, because new things = potential failure.  Now, I can’t sit still.  I don’t want to sit still.  I don’t want to do the same thing over and over again.  I don’t want to still be in the same place one year from now.

Life is short and experiences fill it with a richness the English language can’t even begin to encompass.  I hunger for more, there’s always something new to taste, to possess, to create, to shape, to form, to give life to.

Life is short.  Every moment should be seized like it could be the last.

Work vs Life

Some time ago I read an article that angered me greatly, it questioned whether a teacher in the current climate of education can ever hope to have a work-life balance. An undeniable hot topic. An unresolved one.

A work-life balance is hard to achieve in any business sector or job. For a start, everyone's understanding and concept of what a work-life balance differs.

No one argues with the notion that we all have a right to a life and to some relaxation time, but actually having those things....is another thing entirely. If you listen to the news or read the papers a picture of there being a dark cloud of doom hanging over the economy and working world is painted in infinite detail. Competition for jobs has increased, companies can afford to be more selective, the pressure in a job is increased as every company or establishment demands the very best from their employees and if you fail to give it...well step aside because there are plenty to fill your shoes. Rightly so when it comes to doing the job to the best of your ability, but I ask at what cost to the individual and eventually that sector?

As a person who has never been work shy and has regularly worked a 60+ hour week in my working career, I find myself stuck between a rock and a hard place when trying to navigate the conundrum of guilt versus a work-life balance.

Personally, I'm a perfectionist and I have high expectations for myself, which means I have a tendency to drive myself to stressed exhaustion. This doesn't bode well for my current career as a teacher. Yet, I've started to do a u-turn on many habits and previous beliefs, it's just a shame it took L rolling the car in a accident and his ruptured appendix for me to do that.

This time last year I was shoulder deep in my second placement on a PGCE course, training to be a primary school teacher. Understandably a PGCE is tough - the government, head teachers, parents and children want the very best you've got to give and I've started to view that period of my life as being equivalent of a 9 month obstacle course. When the afore mentioned things happened - L rolling the car and his appendix rupturing - I initially made the decision that the course and my placement came first...and have never quite forgiven myself for that. I swiftly realised I wasn't coping with the demands of physically looking after L, the masters level course work due and the general workload of the course and looking after a home, so I went to see the powers that be in university. Suffice to say I was stunned and distressed by the lack of support I received, especially as it was from a person I had somewhat put on a pedestal. That's a demon for another day.

It was precisely that moment that I asked myself 'Is anything or anyone worth more to me or more important than L and my own health?' The answer was an emphatic 'no'. Since that moment I've been struggling to define what a work-life balance means for me. I no longer think it's acceptable to spend hours at a laptop planning lessons, or bent backed over exercise books marking and responding to work while L waits patiently to spend time with me. I no longer think it's acceptable to use my own money to purchase resources or things to use in the classroom and most importantly to put anyone above and beyond L and myself. To be frank, I don't think it's acceptable to be consumed by a job even if it is a calling. Perhaps then I shouldn't be a teacher but I ask this, were I an accountant in a finance department I wouldn't be expected to bring my own calculator to the job, or pens, or any equipment in general in order to do my job. Should I be made to feel less or unsuitable for a job because I am not willing to put myself under unrealistic and unsustainable pressure to do it? Should I be ostracised or judged negatively because I think my health is far more important than marking books? Should I be made to fee guilty for putting my home life before my work life?

The answer to all those is 'no' and I resent anyone who thinks it is acceptable to make an individual feel guilty for giving any other answer. With this attitude in place I'm fearful of what a career as a teacher is going to be like for me. Perhaps my opinion is slightly skewed on this but the prevailing and very much dominant ideology present during the PGCE course was if you weren't prepared to sweat and bleed planning and teaching you weren't a teacher and you weren't suitable, taking care of a home and those you shared it with came down to 'just dust that will still be there at the end of the course' and loved ones 'will be understanding that you aren't spending time with them, that you are tired and snappy and swear and will often be tearful'.

The fact remains as I do embark on a teaching career I am not certain it is for me, I don't think any job and anyone is more important or more deserving of my time and attention than loved ones and my own health. I don't believe that it is healthy to be consumed by a need to spend every ounce of my energy and spend the majority of the hours in my day on my job. Perhaps it has gone unnoticed by many but without a good stable home life with support, a place that is your sanctuary to retreat to when your head has become a tangled ball of things left undone, there can be no happy work place or ethos. When we go out to work to earn a living, what are we working for? What do we do it for? Who are we doing it for! If it's money to buy things like holidays or gifts for people they are our motivation, we are working for them, our loved ones. If it is to make a difference in children's lives what use to them are we if we're exhausted, fuzzy headed, stressed and emotional?

So, to answer the question can a teacher ever have a work-life balance?....I'm inclined to say not if the prevailing message being conveyed during your training is one that tells you teaching comes first and family/personal life second. Until universities and schools tell students and teachers alike 'Your health NEEDS family and relaxation time and you SHOULDN'T be made to feel guilty about having it' there can be no balance. I could go into a lengthy diatribe about university lecturers using positive modelling (you know, like they told us trainees to use with our class) or I could mention Ofsted and Michael Gove's penchant for only providing negative feedback despite research stating this causes students (of any age) to shut down and disengage. But I don't have the time because I took the time to blog and now I've got to claw back the hour or so I spent doing that because I feel guilty it wasn't time spent planning lessons and I'm obviously not working hard enough if I've time to blog.

One of Those Days...?

If my throat wasn't so sore and I had the energy I'd scream, a real AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!
From frustration, anger and disappointment.

I've had a few intense days - I worked a couple of days in a nursery setting and feel like somewhere along the line I've been well and truly stitched by someone I.e either the school or the agency: I did and am doing the work of a teacher but am getting paid the wage of a teaching assistant?! So I'm stewing about it because it's not on but I hate conflict, so....I don't know what to do about it....

AND whilst I'm stewing about that I'm sick:( As in feeling like I've been kicked by a horse, shivering and with a sore throat, thus I turned down a days work at full pay and not the pittance they're giving for the nursery work. *sigh and note to self to buy industrial size/strength sanitiser*

Then I made the fatal error of looking to a man for comfort and support....

New Girl

Ever been the new boy or girl?...It's hard isn't it? Even harder, I'd say, when you move around. I suppose the more you do it the easier it gets. Or least it should if you think about the fact the amount of times in your lifetime you are going to be new girl - every time you get a new job, when you move house, if you attend a course on your own, dating a new guy and meeting his friends...to mention a few.

When you're the new girl....

Every person you happen to make eye contact with you smile at, after all they could be a potential friend.

Every person who talks to you, even if it's to repeat your coffee order back to you, you make small talk with or in the very least put on your friendliest smile...they are a potential friend.

When you join a social networking page or other group and post a message...you hope someone responds - they are a potential friend.

The point is when you're the new boy or girl you're on the outside until someone invites you in. When you're new one of the hardest things in the world to do is to walk into a room without some degree of trepidation. After all, you know no one in that room, not a single soul. If you're writer there's an exciting element to that - there's a room full of people with quirks for you to observe and plagiarise in your characters and stories. Although, I wouldn't say this is anyone's first thought upon entering unknown territory.

So, you're there, on the threshold...What do you do - stroll over to the group of the first person who happens to make eye contact with you? Or head to drinks table and help yourself hoping someone will join you there that you can strike up conversation with? Or stand to one side hoping someone will take pity on you and come over to say hello...

I shudder at all those scenarios because they are awkward and make a person feel vulnerable. They make me feel vulnerable. New girl however, is precisely what I am.

Next time you're sat there in a group with your friends, spare a thought and have sympathy for the new girl on the threshold.

Brave New World

It's my last weekend in this house, my last in Berkshire. I've a weekend of packing and indecision ahead of me, in fact some of that indecision has started already, how much and what do I pack? In theory, I love that mythical impractical thing, I should just be able to hand over the keys to the removal company and they should do everything. But I'm impatient and I have control issues and so this leaves me with what do I pack and where do I start??

Even as I descend into a dog chasing their tail with indecision I find myself turning toward our new house, the new area we're moving to, the new job I'm going to get...it is all very exciting. This isn't something you would usually find me saying, Usually I'd be listing the things I'm worried about, the things I fear may go wrong and generally being quite apprehensive about it. This time I'm not, this time I'm smiling, I'm eager, I'm ready and I can't wait to experience this new world - bravely!

"And that," put in the Director sententiously, "that is the secret of happiness and virtue-liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny."
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Ch. 1

Couldn't have put it better Mr Huxley, couldn't have put it better.

It's Not the Years Which Have Done You in...it's the Weekends!

There comes a moment (or 5) in a woman's life when she realises she's old. Well, maybe not old but she has this dawning realisation that the blush and exuberance of youth is a little behind her, unlike her behind which is perhaps not so little. Like mine.

So, here are 10 things that tell me I am on the road to my dotage

1. Liking men with beards and a hairy chest because they look like men. Not in the breathy blushing 'I only date older boys' teenage I like men with beards way. No, in the there's something sexy, reassuring, calming and enticing about a man with a beard and a hairy chest.

2. Needing caffeine to wake me up. Long gone are the days where I can open my eyes, be wide awake and compos mentis. No, that doesn't happen anymore until I'm either finished my first cup or have been awake for at least half an hour, whichever comes first. And I never seem to get enough sleep and no longer think 'I can sleep when I'm dead' or 'I just need to power on through the day'...nope. Sleep + caffeine = essential.

3. Not being able to lose weight by just skipping lunch. Now I have to skip a few lunches, and dinners for that matter, to lose weight.

4. Hangovers that last days. I used to go out drinking and I'm ashamed to say drink for 10 hours and the hangover would last a few hours to a day, maximum! Not so much these days. Once had hangover after only 4 beers and that lasted 2 days. 2 days?! Beyond lame.

5. Needing my own bed. I seem to have developed this inability to get a good night sleep unless I'm in my own bed. That's normal. For an old person. Within the first few minutes of being in it I can list all the ways that it's different - in a bad way - from my bed. Who compares beds other than old people?

6. Listening to girls talk about boys and the drama surrounding them. I don't miss the 'will he, won't he phone' nor the 'if he likes me why is he flirting with her' conversations. Okay, maybe I miss the butterflies in my stomach sensation but then again seeing L after he's been away does that to me.

7. Today's fashion. I do not have the body for it whether I like it and want to wear it or not. I have boobs, no waist as such (it's a thick one), hips and an ass that just isn't conducive to wearing today's fashion and not looking like mutton dressed as lamb. Mutton as lamb is definitely an old person thing!

8. Having a dozen things, worries, on my mind at any given second like blood pressure and my cortisol levels - old person concerns. I didn't even know what these were when I was younger and I'm pretty sure even if I had...I wouldn't have cared.

9. My idea of a good night out features a few - ahem 4 tops because as we've already established that's sufficient to give me a raging hangover - drinks in the kind of establishment where you can 'have a good conversation and be heard'. Failing that pizza, some kind of chocolate and a Disney cartoon. Not dancing the night away in some dark dingy club with thumping music, scantily clad girls, boys in crown jewels squeezing tight jeans, sickly sweet drinks and a carpet you stick to. See? Old!

10. I sound like mother.

Argh! That one in itself is more proof than all of the above that I am morphing into someone I would, not so long ago, have written off as old, out of touch, judgemental and boring. So not fair!

Hurry Up....and Wait!

Anyone the world over who is married to military personnel will know exactly where I'm coming from when I say that. It's like the phonetic alphabet: universal.

We're 'waiting' to move.
We're 'waiting' to hear when this is to happen.
We're 'waiting' to be allocated a house.
We're 'waiting' to know where this will be.
We're 'waiting' to find out what the house is like - how many rooms, their sizes etc
We're 'waiting' for the above so I can apply for jobs

And that's just the immediate future. In the long term...
We're 'waiting' on finding out the changes to civil servants' pensions in order to decide whether, where and when to buy a house.
We're 'waiting' on a member of L's family becoming a US citizen so they can sponsor and support our VISA application.
We're 'waiting' on being in a position to start our application.

That is a great deal of waiting...and it's stressful and tiresome and frustrating.

I feel like I'm on the phone being kept on hold for the Life Company, listening to some tinny lift music that is rage inducing and zapping my will to live at one and the same time. I keep listening to the automated messages, pressing the indicated buttons and being held in baffling line for different departments that give you conflicting information and dates all the while judging you. It's all a bit reminiscent of Franz Kafka The Trial.

Mean while the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years of my life clock tick-tock away in the rhythmic sound of a beating heart.

Coming Up For Air

My Masters level assignment is done and handed in.

I have finished university for 3 weeks.

I still have a presentation, another M level assignment, 2 tests and 2 subject knowledge folders to be assessed but they seem manageable and I have 3 weeks. So I am coming up for air.

Last night I treated myself to a beer, a bath, some tv and I slept until 9am this morning.

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.

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.