I don't like it when I suck at things...

Today was my first solo opportunity to teach a class. I went in really psyched, thinking I had awesome activities organised for the kids and that they'd be really engaged and into it.

*Insert depressing buzzer sound here*

Wrong. Some of the kids got really into it and followed through on what I wanted done. Some of the kids got really into the second activity - to the point that we were probably disrupting other classes. But there were boys kicking each other, girls opting out and the whole time I had a feeling that I was cocking things up. When I dismissed the class, quite frankly I felt relieved. I finished doing the roll on the computer system, locked the door and walked to the main staff room (where I knew I wasn't likely to see any of my associates ) feeling like I wanted to cry.

I was sitting in the staffroom texting PianoMan when the teacher of our independent learning centre started chatting to me. She ended up giving me this big pep talk and telling me to embrace the feedback that I get, even if it isn't positive (which I knew it wouldn't be). After a strong cup of black tea with sugar, I went back to my associate teacher for my feedback. It wasn't all negative, but as I knew there were vast areas for improvement. We altered my plan slightly for when I teach the class again on Thursday and I'm just praying it goes well then.

What I realised from this is that I don't cope well with failure... I always have ideals for things and then when it turns to shit I freak right the fuck out. I need to accept that I'm not always going to be perfect right off the bat at something just because it is something I want to be good at. Wanting to run before I can walk is not an option here and I'm just going to have to give it 110% effort if I want it to work out.

Now if only I didn't feel so burnt out...

Cognitive overload... implosion imminent!

One of the few things I learnt in the introductory weeks of my teaching diploma was about cognitive overload - with children and informative teaching, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing! The downside of learning about this is that I now have a new word to describe how I am feeling at the end of my first week of practicum!

One wonders why after a week mainly sitting on my bum, watching teachers interact with their classes, I am soooooooo tired. Like continually rubbing my eyes while typing this blog post tired. Like my body feels completely heavy tired - it's not even a mental tiredness, it's a physical body ache. It is my body screaming out for rest, if not sleep, like a junkie looking for another fix. I'm happy that the boy has a boys' night tonight so I don't feel bad for spending an evening staring into blank space.

I'm not alone; loads of my colleagues are feeling the same way - the teachers at my practice school are all exhausted as well. We're all at the point of absolute overload... and eying those Easter holidays. It's funny, when you're young you know that these holidays have a religious aspects but you are all about the chocolate... when you're older, you know these holidays have a religious aspect but you're really excited about the break.

Any of my Scribblettes also suffering from tiredness, achey body syndrome or absolute cognitive overload?

But everyone else seems to have their $#!& together...

Photo Credit

Come join with me in the ranks of the socially retarded! Raise your hand if you are not where you had always planned and hoped to be. Say "aye" if you are completely happy with how your life is going BUT.

Life is so easy to measure by what we haven't done or what we don't have. Daily, we're shown in different ways by different people how far behind we really are. Just today, two different people's travel pictures have made me realise how little of the world I've seen and reading a friend's blog about how her plans for children has made me realised just how far off that dream is. Reading A cat of impossible colour reminds me that my slack ass is yet to craft anything worth sending to a publisher at all (another life-long dream - but I love your inspiration, Andrea, don't get me wrong!). I walked out the other end of the grocery checkout yesterday to see a leaflet on houses under $300,000 and it reminded me that I don't have a home to call my own. All this talk of engagement and marriages makes me look at my naked left hand and sigh... As I've discussed recently, patience is not my strong point. I want all of it and I want it now.

What's my antidote? Reasoning and planning. How does this work?

• Travel - most of the travel pics that make me jealous are people on their OE. An OE has just never appealed to me. If I'm going overseas, I want it to be purely on holiday and if that means that it takes me a while longer to get to exotic European destinations so be it. I'm also making travel a priority in my financial life, saving for my travels to Sydney next year and a trip to one of the french polynesian islands (as a 25th birthday present) in 2010.
• Marriage and babies - I can't plan anything for this. In fact, planning to be married and have children by certain ages is part of what has me feeling socially retarded. With this I just have to put my faith that this will happen at the right time and with the right person - I reason with myself that being unmarried and child-free is better than being a divorced, solo mother (not that there is anything wrong with that, I just don't feel that its a path I could handle very well).
• Writing - this is a bit more of a challenge and if I'm going to be perfectly frank, it's something that I just really need to get my ass into gear on. When I get sad about this one, I remind myself that I only have myself to blame - there is absolutely no one and nothing but a lack of time set aside stopping me from achieving this one.
• Buying a house (and other big financial goals) - I have to appreciate that there is a finite amount that my student dollar can stretch and that I made the choice to go back to university in order to pursue a career that I am truly passionate about. Here again, planning helps. My hope is to save my dosh over summer break 09/10 and the first six months of 2010 (with full time money!!) to buy a replacement car for my old bomb and then save furiously for a downpayment on a small wee house or unit that I can cover the mortgage myself. I've got this urge to have a place of my own... regardless of size :D

So this is how I handle being behind where I want to be - it also helps to talk to others and realise that regardless of what goals they have achieved, there are areas that they've fallen behind. So share with Aunty Scribbles... where do you feel you're lagging behind?

Pets and Peeves

Pet: The cafe that I went to for lunch today and the gorgeous people who entertained me and listened to me moan for an hour.

Peeve: The overwhelming "tireds" I am feeling today making me a bit nauseous and not that hungry. The carrot cake muffin I had was delicious, but I would have like to have tried one of their meals

Pet: The gorgeous sunset I can view out the windows at work.

Peeve: That I am at work, I am usually okay with this but am so tired (see above) and all I want to be doing is lying in bed sleeping right now.

Pet: Getting emails that I've been waiting for.

Peeve: Not being able to do anything with those emails because the websites that I need to action are blocked on the work computer.

Aside: Why block universally anyway? As long as I meet deadlines and do everything I am asked, what is the issue? My position is one in which a large percentage of my job is just being on site, rather than active work. Ah well, at least they haven't banned Blogger and Twitter yet.

Pet: Lunch out with a friend tomorrow, a couple of errands paying off things I have purchased and going to a show tomorrow night with free tickets.

Peeve: Having spent money on plane tickets to Christchurch for end of Jan and on trying to finish off my Christmas shopping, I am SO poor. Not on the bones of my ass or anything, but my bank accounts look considerably less healthy. Going to have to tighten my belt over Dec, when I only have part-time income and no student living costs.

Pet: Going to Christchurch at the end of Jan - my cousin and friend down there are already in the process of planning a fantabulous weekend for me. If you are a reader from ChCh and you'd like to meet up, let me know - that would be wonderful.

Peeve: Crud, I just had a thought - my car registration might be expired. *Runs outside work to take a look. Crud, it is!* I have been driving around for almost a week with an invalid rego. Add to list of things to do tomorrow.

Pet: Being asked to take a dance class if it works in with my uni and normal work shifts next year - heck yes! How fun!

Peeve: Uni not being over yet - still have one exam on Sunday but it is so long since we had classes that it is really hard to get into the studying habit.

Pet: All you wonderful people who read and comment on my blog - it makes me feel extra special gooey loved!

Peeve: Not being able to get Google Analytics running on this site (I am a techno-spaz) - I want to know about you shy guys out there that don't comment as well!

Panic Stations... or the story of how Scribbles went to work in her pyjamas

Photographic proof of said event - note massive polarfleece jumper, oily hair bound back by pen, decided the grey trackpants were truly too ugly to show you.

I was so excited about what I had learnt yesterday that I forgot to share how... ummmm... exciting my Sunday was.

Your favourite Scribble woke up at around nine in the morning, not hideously late for a Sunday lie in. After pretending to sleep for just a little longer, I gave up my warm bed and trundled down to the lounge. Made my coffee and my breakfast, did some email correspondence, etc and then sat down on the coffee to savour the second coffee. At this stage I'm planning to do some of the housework I've been talking about for the whole of last week - a start is better than no progress at all, right? It'll make a productive morning before heading over to the shore for a christening.

All of a sudden the Scribble-phone starts ringing. Checking the caller ID, I realise that it's my boss calling. After being very tempted to just reject the call, I answer. It is my frantic boss calling - she is about to leave for America (literally, heading out the door to go to the airport) and our weekend person advises that she can't come in to manage the function, her car has broken down about 120kms away on her way to work. She's told my boss that one of the other girls that can cover but that the cover doesn't have keys. My boss can't get hold of the acting manager so is getting hold of me to go and unlock the centre. The time is quarter to eleven. I live about thirteen minutes drive from the centre. The hire starts at eleven am. You do the maths.

I can't find my shoes anywhere - the only ones I can see are the stilettos I wore out last night. I tear out the door in the sweatshirt and pants that I slept in and my "hori shoes"... i.e. bare feet. I'm running my fingers through my sleep afro on the way to work, speed up the driveway like a rally driver (we're currently having road works at the homestead, resealing driveways and repairing drainage etc) and leap out of the car bang on eleven apologising profusely that the centre isn't open and why... of course once they all see me hot-footing it over the gravel in my bare feet they realise how "dedicated to the cause" I am, and all is forgiven. I open the centre and do start-of-hire liaison with the hirer while waiting for the cover to arrive. I settle down into the office and think "Huh, I would have expected her to be here by now". I ring the girl that I've been told is covering only to have her go "Scribbles, I said I COULDN'T come in".

Scribbles says "What?"

At this stage I start whipping out the admin book to see who I can beg/plead/bribe to stay in over the entirety of the hire... there's no way I can stay until the end. A christening is a once in a lifetime thing. I ring Big Boss to inform her of the situation and tell her what I'm doing. I finally get the Director of our performing arts programme to come in and take over from me - he and I go way back to when we used to attend the same performing arts programme together. He comes in and I have just enough time to shower and get some lunch down my gullet before driving over to the shore (for my foreign friends this was around 40 kms or 25 miles, no small feat on Auckland's motorway system).

The christening/family dedication was beautiful though and I ended up staying at Ms Bee's house far too late, just talking about life, the universe and everything. Ms Bee is like a sister to me and I'm really happy to see her finally having a joyful, positive life (including finding the soon to be Mr. Bee, once all the legal stuff with Mr Aye is finished... long story LOL) with her children. Mr. Bee's constant drunken proclamations that I rocked helped too :P

PS - FarmBub squares knitted since goal set: 2. Ten more until goal completion. Twenty nine more until blanket completion :)

Grrrrr...

Without fail, whenever I have a particularly stressful period (such as four assignments all due at the same time - cough cough bad timing lecturers!) and I come out the other side I have at least a day or two in which I get some sort of cold or illness in order to make up for being a Superwoman. It's like I'm being influenced with the talent of rebound (see Piers Anthony's Man from Mundania for my geeky lit reference). I woke up this morning feeling like I'd been hit by a truck but the oddest thing is that it's like the aches and pains of flu without anything respiratory at all... is that even possible? Or did I actually get hit by a truck in my sleep? I could barely move. I'm at work this evening, making good use of my wheatie bag to ease my aches and pains... and on the bright side, everyone thinks it makes me smell like popcorn. There are definitely worse things to smell of :)

I'm toooo old...

I didn't even think that I had drunk that much on Saturday... I mean sure, I drank a lot... but I felt so rancid for all of yesterday. I'm sure I used to bounce back much better when I was sixteen (yes, that is underage, even for NZ - our drinking age is 18) but I spent most of the morning lying on the Ginga Ninja's couch before driving home and sleeping most of the afternoon. I had to pike out of a dinner out at Lone Star because my tummy was still not settled. What a waste of a day. I need to pace myself.

Unpleasant behaviours... or 5 rules for not coming off like a complete tosser

In the spirit of being a grumpy old hermit (I'm overseeing a function at work which largely involves me sitting battened up in the back office at work) I'm going to have a bit of a grumble as to what I've seen lately as unpleasant behaviour.
1. Whilst out at dinner with both people you know and those you don't, please don't make suggestive comments towards your dinner companions - regardless of your sexual orientation or gender. Just act pleasant, gauge interest and then go for it in a more appropriate forum if you feel it's right.
2. In continuance from Rule 1, avoid any behaviour that could be considered offensive in situations where you don't know the background of all the people there. This could be in the workplace, at a party or even when two seperate groups of friends meet in a bar. While it would be ideal to say that people shouldn't be rascist or sexist, etc, it's not really realistic... but only let that side show if you are sure it won't offend anyone present. Case in point, someone saying that an ex-boyfriend had an abusive nature "because he was a Maori". As a person with a potential Maori brother-in-law who is more docile and less volatile that my sister, I found it really offensive.
3. Don't judge a book by its cover - this is something that is really getting up my nose lately. Especially at my 2nd job at a lotto shop, customers will assume that I'm some slow and unintelligent school leaver who couldn't get a better job - condescension is rife. The amount of times I've wanted to turn around and say "Look, buddy, I have an IQ of 158, a complete high school education, one degree under my belt and I'm only working here to earn money while doing two post-grad diplomas" and kept my mouth shut, plastering on a pleasant smile. Be warned - that person giving you your Big Mac at the drive-thru may just be trying to work there way through a PhD.
4. You kill more flies with honey than with vinegar - if you want me to do something for you, ask nicely. Being snotty and/or threatening is not going to make me want to do anything for you and I'll begrudge doing you favours every second that I'm doing them. Ask nicely and I'm more than willing to help.
5. My god, if you are going to borrow something - ASK first, and make sure you return it. If I have to go looking through the house one more time for my hair straightener and find it underneath clothes, etc, lying on the concrete floor outside of it's protective pouch, I am going to lose it. No wonder yours is broken if you treated it like that.
Phew... feeling much better after all of that. I'm actually finding this enforced hermitage quite nice - peace and quiet that I wouldn't have at home, food supplies, books and knitting sorted for me to carry on with in the eventuation of boredom. If the weather would just clear up in time for my meet-and-greet date with Flyboy this afternoon, life would be perfect :D
P.S. Best thing ever - the accordian player at the function next door is currently playing "Money Money Money" by ABBA

It's a bright and shiny morning...

And I feel dull and rusted... I'm not quite sure what is up at the moment but the last two days I have woken up feeling like I hadn't slept at all. I've been playing this game when the alarm goes off - how long is it possible to stay in bed before I have to get up and get ready for training/work without being late. For some reason it seems to be easier to lie in bed for another half an hour and then rush to get ready than to get up on my alarm and get ready leisurely. I'm on the serious caffeine diet today - I had a red bull with my toast for breakfast and I'm already onto my coke. We have a cafe at work too, so it may just be worthwhile to get a midmorning mocha - the last time I felt this crappy was when I was doing 60-hour weeks at my old job. I am wondering whether my restless sleep is due to underlying issues I'm not confronting - uni starts next week and the nervousness of dating again but I'm really not sure. It might be time to spend some time in meditation tonight, letting the stream of consciousness take me where it will and seeing whether I can resolve my sleep issues.
Also need to see if I can reschedule my meet-and-greet date with Spidey this evening for earlier on... I'm yawning now, heck knows what I'll be like at eight. I also have work at Job #2 tomorrow morning - exchanged shifts so that I can go to a birthday dinner tomorrow night - so that's a definite 7am get out of bed on Saturday. Cannot wait until I lose the scheduled shifts from that job... think it's definitely not helping with my mental state.

Sigh

Yet another average date... this guy would possibly make a great friend, but he didn't really make a great first impression. I appreciate that men will be men, but do I really have to hear about your previous unsucessful dates, and the fact that some chick flashed her tits for a bar tab at a singles party you went to recently? I'm happy being single, I'm not about to settle for less than I want or deserve.
My friend S was devastated that it didn't "work" - I guess she held a lot higher hopes for me than I did. Ah well, I have dates booked in for Friday and Sunday as well (tell me about it, it never rains and then it pours right?) so who knows what the future holds? When it's right, it will be right.

Another addition to the "I want" list

Was doing my "social admin" last night, trying to get several things sorted at once (yay for being a woman and multi-tasking). Part of the organisation was using Facebook Chat to make plans with my friend K regarding her housewarming party on the Saturday after I get back from Christchurch. Now the set-up of my "office" at the moment is on my small dining room table - not as odd as it sounds and left over from the period when I lived with Ex-S - next to my father's computer desk in the open plan lounge/dining room/kitchen area (the dining room table is actually smaller than my dad's computer desk). For those of you that don't use Facebook Chat, it makes a small sound, probably best described as popping, if you get a message and are in a different tab than the one that has Facebook up and running - useful to alert you that you've had an IM reply. My dad turns round at one point and starts this tirade about how this popping sound is intensely irritating (he really does get grumpy-old-man sometimes) and being the slightly feisty daughter I am I let him know why I have the sound on to hear it, that I won't be on there that much longer, and unlike his other daughter I pay for the privilege to live there (yeah, I can get grumpy too). My mother stands up for me at this stage, and reminds him that I can't afford to sort out any sort of option to fix the situation until my return from Christchurch... which I have to admit jogged my memory. When I first set up my computer here, I thought that once I sorted out my Vodem cancellation (which would be another post in and of itself) I would purchase a wireless router - Ex-S bought one when we were living together, but took it when he left. It was so handy and meant I could use the net anywhere in the house. Attaching it to my parents modem would give me the ability to use my computer at my desk in my room, in the lounge, in bed, in the bathroom LOL... Seeing I'm not on my computer at home as much when my father is doing all his Facebook Triumph stuff (my mum does too, but in her office in the spare room... it's a worry, I tell ya) I hadn't made it as much of a priority, but I think it maybe needs to slot in between tyres (urgent) and hair straightener to keep the peace LOL. Time to investigate pricing!

This is why I take my diary everywhere...

... and why I sometimes wish I had a smartphone or Blackberry or whatever. I'm meant to be going into work for some extra training this week (school holiday programme's coming up, and it's a completely different way of booking classes than usual) and after discussion with the day-time receptionist I'm pretty sure we decided I was going to come in early tomorrow. Only problem being that for some unusual reason, I didn't have my "paper" diary with me to record it down, and when I tried to log it onto my Google Calendar at work last night, the web-page froze (seems to be a bias that the network we run off has against Google - Reader is prone to do the same thing). I wake up this morning and I can't remember whether I'm meant to be starting at 3 today or tomorrow, and all my efforts to get hold of J (day-time reception) via phone and email have so far been fruitless. I want to go to the gym on the way to work, and I don't want to waste my time (soooo much study to do) by going in early today if it is tomorrow. Grrr I hate it when this sort of thing happens... makes me look so unprofessional.
UPDATE: Finally got hold of J and she said that she couldn't remember either (LOL) and just to come in whatever day suited - so tomorrow it is :) I'll be up that way already with some errands I need to run, so it makes more sense.