Procrastination

Today (Monday, a public holiday in Western Australia) I got a fierce burst of energy, and cleared and spring-cleaned the bathroom, main bedroom, kitchen and dining areas. Why? Because I should have been working on assessments for school. Ahh, procrastination.

I got rid of my old car this weekend - I sold it to a wreckers' for $120 and have to hand the plates in. I'm glad that's sorted, and I'm still extremely happy with my new car.  It needed new windscreen wiper blades, and I discovered a hitherto unimagined fact - you can get wiper blades in many different colours! I did not know this. So my staid, sensible white family-sized sedan now has bright pink silicon wiper blades. Heehee! I want to get a particular set of seat covers for the car, as I don't really like the leather seats and they'll be uncomfortable in summer. The ones I want are black with pink frangipanis on them - trendy I know, but cute - but it's $50 for the set and I can't afford that right now, so it'll have to wait. But I'm looking forward to customising it a bit.

I'm feeling a lot better today than I have for a while. For the past few weeks I've been battling through the worst bout of depression I've had since before I met S. They do warn you that you will get sick and depressed during your first semester of teaching, but they usually expect the depression to happen earlier, so I thought I'd dodged it entirely. No such luck. So the past few weeks have been full of self-deprecation and self-loathing, and poor S has had to put up with a girlfriend who was prone to flipping out over little things and crying at the drop of a hat for no apparent reason. He has been wonderful and very patient and is beginning to understand the nature of depression a bit better (we had a couple of rows at first because he insisted on knowing what was wrong, and with depression there often isn't anything specific!). He has been a rock - mostly! - and I'm beginning to get through it.

It will be better once reports are over and done with - they're my major stress right now. I love teaching but I hate the paperworky-things, and reporting is the scariest of the lot. It's my first go at reporting and I'm not looking forward to it, especially as two or three of my students are failing in basic literacy and numeracy (I have a year 5 student who can't accurately write down any number over 100 - as in, she wrote one hundred and two as 201 . . .). They're not failing because of anything I've done / not done - one has learning difficulties and another two were not under my tutelage for the majority of last term - but it's still unpleasant. 

I have nothing much else to report . . . life has been pretty quiet apart from my depression and S's car accident. Otherwise, we trundle along nicely and have a fair bit of fun along the way.

Oh, and I'm teaching my class to play the recorder. I know, I'm a cruel woman!