Wednesday Wonderings

I'm fairly certain I haven't yet posted one of these post this year, so in light of this oversight here you go...

I've been contemplating, on my drives to work, what the Queen keeps in her handbag? A very interesting and worthwhile question to ponder if you consider she surely doesn't need money, so she won't carry a purse and I think she would think chewing gum is vulgar. Perhaps a packet of tissues, no a handkerchief surely!

Is there a link between hormones and bad driving? I'm not referring to road rage but rather my inability to think 'sensibly' and not park like an idiot? Probably.

Why am I avoiding writing my personal statement? Or, what is it about writing a personal statement which terrifies me and therefore allows me to stall doing it thus leaving me in the position of not being able to apply for jobs?

When will be grown up enough to realise I can't go through life avoiding the things I'm scared of, or the things I dislike and the things that I find hard?

Where am I going to find the energy for circuit training this evening? Probably not in the peanut butter on toast I just scoffed. Meh. At least it wasn't the jar of Nutella with a spoon.

Will this year get better for me in terms of my health? In the last month alone I've torn my calf muscle and rolled from a throat infection to the flu.

Would it be entirely frowned upon to spray children with some kind of disinfectant spray as they enter the classroom? Or, for that matter, to ask for my own decontamination unit?

Am I right to be concerned that with all the modern technology children have access to there is going to be a move away from handwriting and therefore a decline in penmanship?

What should I make of the fact that 2 people have now commented 'Hannah' in Girls and I share many similarities and characteristics?

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....

"I'm sandwiches and I love you"

Tuesday was my very first day as a supply teacher as a NQT and ....I survived! So I'm chalking that up as a triumph. I loved it: the school was great, the support staff were incredibly supportive, the rest if the staff unbelievably welcoming and the children immensely affectionate - I had 2 marriage demands. I had no real info about the children in terms of EAL, Sen, ability, class number, behaviour issues or timetable etc as such going in so it was very much a wing it in a sink or swim situation.

Not only that but I also drove by myself (how grown up), got myself - and the car - there (and back) in one piece with a torn calf muscle, did I not mention that?...Yes that happened Sunday as I did a spinning punch to a punchbag at the gym. BUT all in all another triumph.

Driving might be a small inconsequential thing to most because it's just driving a car and anyone can do that (with or without a license). Not to me it isn't. I'm terrified when I drive, hyper aware of everything - the tightness of my chest, the dryness of my throat, my Elvis leg shaking on the accelerator, the speed I'm travelling at, the drivers behind me I believe I'm holding up, my road position, my sweating yet cold hands, the drivers going passed me, the drivers joining the motorway..Ugh!

Flash forward to Saturday - now - and I must say this has definitely been a trial of a week in which I have been triumphant.

It's amazing how when taking the register and hearing "I'm sandwiches and I love you" or having a small child hug you can ease even the most anxious and nervous of NQT supply teachers.

Rabbit Holes

I'm a curious person and I have an inquisitive mind...it's a blessing and a curse - think adult version of the child who always asks "why?". I haven't been posting my usual Wednesday Wonderings but that doesn't mean I haven't been falling down the odd rabbit hole and getting lost in a world of thought, I have, it's just been more internalised.

On the subject of thought, I just listened to Lady Antebellum I Need You Now and I love it! I don't know why this happens but certain songs 'speak' to me, they create a reaction in me that goes beyond goose bumps to lost for words and lost in another world. It is hard to verbalise what I mean by this without some of the magic I experience being lost in the mundaneness of verbal communication. To try though, at times songs transport me into scenes and create images in my imagination, all it takes is first few bars and I'm tumbling down a rabbit hole into another world suspended between reality and ...I've no idea where to be honest.

To paint you a picture, when I was at university studying for my Bachelors I was also studying for a GCSE in Maths, every week I went to see a private tutor in Richmond. The walk took me over Richmond Bridge and up the hill, I always paused at the top and looked out over Richmond Park, just the sight of it shrouded in a mist on a fresh Autumn morning was enough to suspend all reality for me. But I'd take it one step further and play P.O.D Alive on my mini disc player...and as if by magic I was riding a dragon through the morning mist, swirling and diving while I took part in some epic battle. It was beyond words, I'd tingle all over, my cheeks would flush - as much from the cold as from escaping reality - and time stopped while I inhabited a Labrinthesque bubble.

Lady Antebellum I Need You Now is no different, when I listen to it I'm thinking of a particular scene featuring the main character in the story I'm writing. The scene is only half formed in my head, like I'm seeing it through some kind of veil and so the precise details are obscured but the feelings are all there. I think if I listen to the song enough what I'm imagining will coalesce sufficiently for me to be the conduit to the page, until I manage that I'm going to be wandering around the place never really being completely in the room.

I wonder if the creative process is like this for others - like being a psychic but for books and scenes? When parts to a story come to me they're never in a linear sequence, chapter one of book one is rarely followed by chapter two of book one.

So, reader, what's your creative process like?

Everything and Nothing

L and I no longer celebrate New Years Eve, the abridged reason is I can't be bothered and L just wants spring to arrive. He would rather we went straight to summer but he acknowledges there is a natural order to these things.

Every year as New Year's Eve approaches I start thinking about all the things I am resolved to do - chiefly what I want to achieve and this year was no different. My birthday, on the 29th, was hardly over before I was looking to the new year and creating a 'to do' list: 1) get a teaching job, 2) regularly earn money, 3) lose 10 lbs, 4) stop stressing so much, 5) stop living so much 'in my head', 6) stop being sensitive, 7) stop comparing myself and my achievements to others, 8) stop doubting myself, 9) stop letting fear govern me....I couldn't stop thinking and listing.

Was it any wonder I felt stressed?...Not really. I'd like to say I then resolved NOT to have any New Year's resolutions, to just let go and see what the year was going to bring me but I didn't.

A new year represents both everything and nothing, everything because EVERYTHING is possible and nothing because NOTHING is yet known: it has yet to be experienced.

WANTED!...

Someone to make my decisions for me.

I'm getting the feeling that every decision I have made lately has been the wrong one. I mean, it's fifty-fifty and I inevitably pick the wrong one and it bites me on the ass.

I didn't register for agency supply work or apply for jobs because I didn't know where we were going to be living...now trying to do both is proving a nightmare. Wrong time of year for jobs and the supply agencies I'm trying to register with are apparently too busy to speak to me to conduct the telephone interview I must have before under going security clearance.

I decided to take my time taking the maths test because I knew it was going to be a difficult one for me...now I am chasing and chasing and chasing my university for my certificate.

So, wanted...one person to do all the deliberating and decision making on my behalf because I give up.

Oh and I also want a large glass of mulled wine, some junk food like pizza and chocolate, a feel good Christmas film or carols playing because well....I'm sulking!

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.