Christine, Wondering

Random Musings of a Human Becoming

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Very funny, universe . . .

I was right . . . I was coming down with a virus. 

I should have expected it really. As Tassiegirl astutely pointed out below (thanks for that Tassie *hugs*), I’ve been spending heaps of time with kids, both the prac kids and my own 11yo and 9yo siblings, who go to different schools, so that’s 3 schools’ worth of viruses I’ve been exposed to in the last 3 weeks; and then of course I’m on study break. So as soon as I stopped rushing around, my body went “right, there’s a gap, I can afford to be sick now”, and bam, here I am.

I’ve just taken two panadeine to try to knock out the all-encompassing headache and stomach cramps that are the hallmark of this particular virus, and they’ve made me feel awfully weird, kind of spaced out and dozy. Maybe I should just go to bed, but I can’t be bothered getting changed and I don’t think I can sleep in jeans. Wheeeeeeee . . . .

Monday, May 28, 2007

Two things

. . . two disgruntled, unhappy things.

Firstly, by and large I'm at peace with the fact that the unhappy parts of my childhood were largely due to undiagnosed Aspergers (which wasn't even recognised as a condition until I was 13 anyway) and that it's no one's fault that I had problems. But today when searching for my tax file number I came across all of my old reports from primary school and early high school. And I suddenly felt a surge of real anger over what I was reading. "Seems withdrawn" . . . "very quiet" . . . "seems to be happy sitting alone" . . . "sometimes seems tense" . . . "is prone to daydreaming" . . .

WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T ANYONE REALISE THAT SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH ME?!

Even though Aspergers wasn't recognised at the time, surely someone somewhere should have noticed that I wasn't normal! Between my parents (accepting me for who I was and not worrying about it) and my teachers (noticing that I was different and wanting me to be punished / bullied into acting normal), it never seems to have occurred to anyone that my differences might be real differences rather than misbehaviours or personality defects.

I have no idea whether there’s anything they could have done, if they’d known that I really wasn’t capable of just being normal. But it hurts to think that there might have been something.

Secondly, and on a less dramatic note, I’m currently a rather frustrated namesnerd. I want to get some reliable, sensible name suggestions, but I can’t go to the only sensible name site out there without getting dragged into personal stuff. I don’t want to be involved in all that, I just want names. But if I go back, I’ll get pounced on and bashed up for stuff that happened in the past, so I have to stay name-suggestion-less. Bah.

I think I'm coming down with a virus, too. Blech.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

. . . Well.

So where to start? 

Prac was FANTASTIC. I thoroughly enjoyed it and didn't want my time there to end. I really miss the kids, now, too - I'd got to know them and I wish I was going back to that class again. I'd tell you all about them but it would probably get boring lol. I also wish I could share the interesting names with my namesnerd friends, but that would be unethical. Gah.

I taught five smashing Maths lessons, ran a very successful 5-lesson min-programme in English, taught a bit of SOSE, and otherwise just ran things here and there. Wonderful experience, and I'm feeling very confident about next year now.

*

Living with my parents is going fine. It's odd to be back in some ways, but normal in others. My bedroom is hilarious though - I'll have to take a picture sometime to show the delightful personality crisis it's having. The single bed (my baby pink pipeline one I had from when I was 11) is covered by my gold-embroidered, $179, very much adult queen bed quilt cover set. This dichotomy is set against a backdrop of two-toned blue walls (from which the dividing strip of wallpaper has mercifully been removed - it was a frieze of buses and cars). And at the window, behind the bed, hangs a set of Toy Story curtains. It looks ridiculous  It used to be my younger brother's room (he's now 9) before my other brother moved out and left his larger room vacant.

But I’m used to the room’s décor inconsistencies now, and otherwise it works very well and fits an astonishing amount of stuff.

*

I’m really looking forward to this afternoon – my 11-year-old sister has finally decided to get her ears pierced, and since Mum and James are too squeamish, I’m the lucky individual who gets to take her. So we’re going in to the city together later to get them done, and then we’re going shopping for some jewellery. The reason she wants them done now is that her Year 6 Social (a formal dance for the year sixes, in other words) is 6 weeks away, so if she gets them done now, the initial studs can come out just in time for her to wear dangly earrings to her social. So we’re going to find some earrings to match her dress, and something to go in her hair too. The dress is amazing – quite grown up but she’s now got a bit of a figure so she’s really old enough for it. It’s royal purple and she looks smashing. But oh, so grown up!

BtN people: I wish I could post a pic, as you guys have been watching my sister grow up for some time, but I feel too exposed on this blog and on the internet generally these days, especially as sis gets older. But if you’re one of my long-term BtN or real life friends and you’re really curious to see how she’s changed, email me and I’ll send you a pic after the social (the addy is on my blogger profile).

*

Jemima has mostly settled in to the new place, although she’s not entirely happy as my parents already had a cat, Mia, and she’s been bullying Jem a bit. She’s a big 10-year-old sook who doesn’t want to share her territory lol. But we’re sorting things out by keeping Mia outside during the day (Mia doesn’t hunt) so that Jem can have peace and quiet and access to the food, water and litter tray. Jem sleeps in my room at night, quite often creeping under the covers and snuggling up next to me. Awww!

*

I got a new job! And just as effortlessly as last time, too. The job at Subway was proving too far away from Mum’s place for me to keep working there, so I went around the local major shopping district with resumes and handed them in anywhere there were “help wanted” signs. That was Tuesday; by Friday I had a job. I’m going to be doing reception / retail sales for a branch of a major chain of optometrists / spectacle dispensers. Any more detail would give away my workplace lol. It’s MUCH better pay ($21/hour before tax compared to $13.50/hour – woohoo!) and far less mucky and annoying. Yay!

*

I think that’s all for now. I have a week off next, then two weeks in which I have 4 exams. After that, things start to get interesting!

Sunday, May 20, 2007

All I can say . . .

. . . is that you know it's been a long week when you wake up on a Sunday morning to realise that you've been dreaming that a litter of 30 kittens - which have the names and faces of the kids from your prac class - have been harrassing you for answers to their maths problems.

That's what comes of having a cat sleep in your room after you've been teaching maths all week!

Full wrap-up coming, I promise. First, I have a science assignment to write. What possessed them to make it due the Monday after prac, I will never know!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

LMFAO . . .

Those who know me online will know that I have little patience with people who ask questions before trying to look up the answers themselves . . . especially when they've been previously shown how. I'm not alone in this frustration, and it's become a not-uncommon internet snark to say "google is your friend" or some such, or to just direct the asker to a tongue-in-cheek fake website like golookitup.com.

So you can imagine my delight to discover this: www.justfuckinggoogleit.com

Go on, click it . . .

All I can say . . .

. . . is that you know your brain is running on empty when you try to spell 'volunteer' with an 'f' and it's only 9pm.

Apologies for the lack of bloggage - it's not because anything's wrong, just because I'm insanely busy, and prac is so full of sights and sensations and thoughts and happenings that I can't find a sensible place to start blogging about it. Suffice to say that it's going brilliantly, I couldn't be happier, and I wish it wasn't going to be over on Friday!

Hopefully there will be a proper post on the weekend, if assignments allow.

Monday, May 7, 2007

*Blank look*

Just a quick bit of bloggage, because I'm tired beyond comprehension!

Moving took ages with my stepdad's small trailer (3 loads, and it's a 40-minute drive between the two houses!) but we survived and I'm neatly tucked into the little room at my parents' house. I miss my big, comfortable, expensive queen bed though!

Prac looks to be fantastic, my supervising teacher is great and the class (about 28 kids in years 6 and 7) are a nice bunch. We're going on an excursion tomorrow which should be fun.

Internet will be intermittent this week because my stepdad won't have time to put the cable through the ceiling until then, and I can't use the cable-draped-across-the-floor method during the house's busy times of day, nor after the lights are out. But I hope to blog properly tomorrow if I'm not still utterly exhausted.

Saturday, May 5, 2007

May the Fourth . . .

Well, it's the 5th now, but I've been reminded by various sites of the "May the Fourth be with you" pun. Ha.

Anyway, I was thinking that if there was an "International Day of Fantasy and Sci Fi", it would naturally have to be celebrated on May the Fourth, don't you think?

Yes, I'm in a whimsical mood. It's a distraction from trying to do a week's packing in one day . . .

 

Friday, May 4, 2007

ROFL . . .

I should have been packing all afternoon - having skived off work for that exact purpose - but I've been feeling kinda dozy so instead I've been sitting at the computer reading funny teaching stories and education jokes. This one I just *had* to share:

Then Jesus took his disciples up the mountain and gathered them around him. He taught them saying:

"Blessed
are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are the meek.
Blessed are they that mourn.
Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are they that thirst for justice.
Blessed are you when you are persecuted.
Blessed are you when you when you suffer.
Be glad and rejoice for your reward is great in heaven."

And James said "are we supposed to know this ?"
And Simon Peter said "will we have a test on this ?"
And Phillip said "I don't have any paper."
And Bartholomew said "do we have to spell correctly ?"
And Mark said "do we have to hand this in ?"
And John said "the other disciples didn't have to learn this."
And Matthew said "may I go to the toilet ?"

Then one of the Pharisees who was present asked to see
Jesus' lesson plan and inquired of Jesus:
"Where are your learning and assessment objectives ?
What range of teaching strategies did you draw from ?
Did you provide a differentiated provision ?
Can I see a cross section of pupils work ?

And Jesus wept.


Found here: http://re-xs.ucsm.ac.uk/cupboard/jokes/jokes.htm

I'm sure the teachers / TAs / Ed students will appreciate why this tickled my fancy!

The jokes on that site are religion-oriented not teaching oriented, but do peruse it, some of them are delightful.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Oh, Wow . . .

Today I got back an assignment for my Learning & Assessment Processes unit. The assignment was written under huge pressure (it was one of the two I was working on when I had that huge fight with my Mum and that really bad episode of depression which I blogged about). I really didn't want it back because I couldn't even remember what I had written, and I was sure I'd written some sort of garbled nonsense.

Well, I got it back . . . 33 / 35, or 94%! A High Distinction, of course, and to top it off, the workshop leader privately asked me if she could have a copy of it! She didn’t ask anyone else in the class, and although there’s many other classes, that puts me at the top of hers at least. I’m hugely relieved and very chuffed.

And it finally feels like my academic life is snapping into focus. My Credit Pass (ie 60-69%) for the pre-semester unit, and my 70% mark for my first English assignment, were making me feel like a failure, because I was an excellent, high-performing student when I finished university, and I felt like I’d somehow lost something somewhere along the line. These two marks show that it was just a case of getting my assignment techniques up and running again. These are the marks I should be getting!

I’m very, very happy  

I've also finally got a placement for my prac which starts on Monday. It's not at the most convenient school, but it's good enough, and the school itself is in a nice area (mostly middle class and upper middle class families) which will be an interesting contrast to my previous prac which was in a very low socioeconomic area. It's good to get a perspective on different school demographics.