They say a week is a very long time. Quite right – it goes quick, but a lot changes. Last week I found that by the time I got to Friday afternoon I was desperate for sugar. It wasn’t just a craving, it was a need. A week later, you’ll notice no sugar in sight – but instead, I’ve hit my own sweet spot (How’s that for a pun?) (And, needing a second set of brackets, I should tell you, that while I don't need sugar, this caffeine hit was certainly needed).
So - thanks for joining me, but I have nothing to share. Although, I noticed you've got a little something next to you, it looks alright. What do you call that? Oh, and how are you?
With the formalities over, let's get into it:
This afternoon I’m having a break in my classroom – here’s my secret: if you hide in your classroom, no one can find you. Of course, I've got a fresh cuppa. (I often end up taking a coffee to class, but it does seem to happen a lot that I forget about it in the busyness of lesson to lesson). Our common staffroom can be a noisy place too, so it works for me to be out of that and to collect my thoughts from time to time. And, at this point in the term – my thoughts are very much on the two week holiday break coming in. We’ve just rounded the end of Week 9, and we’re rapidly moving towards the final week, Week 10. Which, if I am honest, will certainly go quicker than this one. It is our Year 12 students’ final every week at school, so they’ll be doing their end of secondary education celebrations and assemblies and whatnot. Tuesday will be my last ever lesson with my group, and I’ll miss seeing their faces each day. I took quite a large class through this year; bang on 20 – (which, I don’t know if this seems big or not in places around the world, but generally, our senior classes have 10-15 students. Some run on even less than this – you know, in those more special interest subjects like Textiles or Software Design. I guess the disadvantage of English being a mandatory subject is that there is never a class with those sort of numbers).
In other good news, my book this week has been better than last week’s. I’ve been picking up an old favourite, ‘Raw’ by Scott Monk. It’s a great little read – it centres on a 17 year old kid, opening the novel with him being arrested following his break-in into a bottle shop (what are alcohol selling shops called in other places, in Australia, we’d just call it a bottle-o). Anyways, the kid, Brett, is sent off to a farm in the literal middle of no-where, ten hours north of Sydney. The farm is a correctional facility that houses 40 young boys, and the narrative follows his transformation over three months. At the start of the novel there is a beautiful image of a wild hall, which the farm owner will have to break – it’s a metaphor of course for Brett – who in the end comes to take responsibility for his own life. I’m doing this book for the fourth or fifth time now – and there is a familiarity in the storyline and knowing what comes next. My Year 10 class are really into it - I think because they can align themselves to Brett; he's an awkward kid, having relationship issues, and not getting along with his parents following a divorce, and things just spiral.
In other news, I've gotten back into the old exercise routine over the past few weeks. They say the hardest part is getting the routine in place to allow it to stick. In truth, I think I'm nearly at the routine-done point - and now it's just about being a bit more disciplined. I got back into running last year and was able to knock over 12km in 68 minutes. This week, I did the 12km in 73 minutes. It's still quite cold here in the mornings, despite being into Spring - and I'm finding the first 1.5km pretty hard actually - just warming into the run, and I guess that would be reflected in still wearing a jumper! I always wanted to be able to run a marathon, and last year I thought I was building nicely towards doing a half-marathon, and then Winter came and I stopped. By re-starting this year in Spring, I'm hoping to go for 3 seasons and by that point, if I can keep it up, I think I'll definitely be at the half-marathon (in fact, I have a tentative plan to have this done by the year's end).
The other benefit of jogging for me has been rather surprising. I'm getting up earlier and loving it! We usually have gotten up at 5.15, but to fit the long run into my morning, I've brought my wake-up time back to 4.40am. I think I could well be accused of taking the concept of being a morning person to the absolute extreme! Fair enough, but this morning I naturally woke up at about 4ish - and while I know this is 'too early', I find myself just laying in bed waiting for the alarm to ring.
And as for the weekend - well, I'm off to Bunnings, which is a hardware store. I need to get some Weed'N'Feed for the lawns; we had a lot of little Winter weeds pop up - and I have the ambition to kill 'em all!
And how about your weekend? Oh, I see - you're busy, and need to go. No worries. Well, have a good one then.