Category Archives: Challenges

Dropping Bombs and Throwing Grenades

Posted on by

via Daily Prompt: Detonate

Yesterday I wrote a post about being someone who always instinctively wants to help people. I call it the ‘servant gene‘.

Someone left the following comment on my post:

servant blog comment

I had to read it several times to be sure it was saying what I thought it was saying. Is it just me or is this person accusing me of bragging about having a servant gene and that I think I’m better than everyone else because of it?

It upset me. A lot. Because one of the key things about those with a very active servant gene is that they never think they’re superior to anyone.

I started going over my post. Was it braggy? Did I sound like I was making out I was better than other people? Admittedly, I’d ended with the comment that those with servant genes are an important part of the community but it had actually taken a lot of effort to include that. If it sounded like I was putting myself above other people, I hadn’t meant it.

I’d never seen this person on my blog before so I clicked through to their blog to try and understand where they were coming from. There was nothing there. It’s a nothing blog. They just have a profile.

So this person just came by and threw a grenade at my house before driving away.

fire-1030751_640

What is it with these people?

You see it too often these days on Facebook posts and online newspaper articles and the like. People say whatever they want, often inflammatory, and then disappear. Drop a nasty bomb and take cover.

If I had presented what was in my blog post as a speech somewhere, I’d be willing to bet that person would never have come up to me afterwards and made that comment to my face.

I just wish people would have a little common decency and stop detonating bombs wherever they feel like it. Not all of us are bulletproof.

Postscript: Amazingly, I’d already considered writing a follow up post about how much this comment had upset me and then the Daily Prompt landed in my inbox. It seemed meant to be.

Post-postscript: I feel better now. 😉

 

 

HOME button Able Theme small

How’s The Serenity?

Posted on by

“How’s the serenity?”

If you’re Australian and you didn’t think of this line when you saw the Weekly Photo Challenge for this week, well…. you’re just un-Australian. (We love to bandy that name about a bit too much in my opinion but I’ll still use it.)

Then again, if you didn’t think of that line, I’ll excuse you if it alternatively made you mad (again) that Joss Whedon’s masterpiece Firefly was cancelled after twelve episodes. The follow up movie – Serenity (what else?) – was little consolation.

Serenity for me, living in a household full of males, is anywhere they are not. The safest place is out on the river in the very early hours of the morning in a single scull. I particularly love the winter when the school crews have gone on hiatus and I can row in peace without looking over my shoulder every two minutes to avoid the boats full of hormonal teenagers.

And, setting out in the dark, I get to watch the sun rise over the water and to move gently and silently through the early morning mist.

Ah…. how’s the serenity?

IMAG0498

 

 

 

HOME button Able Theme small

Weekly Photo Challenge: Descent

Posted on by

P1000726

That’s the Yuracrumiyoc Pass in the Urubamba region of the Andes in Peru. It was a breathless view from the top. Mainly because it’s nearly 4700m above sea level and we’d got there through a foot of snow.

The descent was just as hard going, picking our way down the other side, until I worked out there was a much easier way. I sat on a plastic bag, my walking pole across my knees and slid down it on my backside. Thus proving to yet another new group of friends that I am completely out of my mind.

 

 

HOME button Able Theme small

All Manner Of Verbs And All Verbs Of Manner

Posted on by

I love these writing prompts that ask me to define myself in some way. Makes me laugh out loud.

To be, to have, to think, to move – which of these verbs is the one you feel most connected to? – Daily Prompt, Part A

Hm. Which of those verbs do I connect to?

All of them. Natch.

For example, today:

I had a blood donation appointment and the offspring had a movie-making afternoon so I had to be a donor and a taxi. Also house cleaner, cook, washerwoman, blah blah blah, daily grind.

Despite the fact that I am prone to getting kicked out of the Blood Bank and put on 6 months’ suspension because of low iron levels, I went for a run this morning. With Spring very much in the air, I had to move. And hang the consequences. (It’s okay, I passed my haemoglobin test. Almost failed the blood pressure test but that’s an issue for another day.)

Then I had a planning meeting where I got to think about creative ways to express an idea, something to which I am rather partial.

I’m not big on the have – I don’t need to have things. [She says as she tries to ignore the piano, guitar, banjo and ukulele sitting in the corner.] Okay, so maybe a bit.

Or is there another verb that characterizes you better? – Daily Prompt, Part B

To pursue? (New things) To invent? (New Mes) To pretend? (I know what I’m doing)

To decide. That, like everything else about me, there is no one thing.

A Jack of All Verbs.

Verb Cloud

 

 

HOME button Able Theme small

Just Enough To Wet Your Tongue – An Early Wine Education

Posted on by

“Just take enough to wet your tongue,” my father said.

“How big is your tongue?” my mother quipped.

Sunday lunch. A bottle of wine. And our wine education proceeded.

In my reflection on my father last week, I mentioned his late-in-life introduction to wine and the subsequent passionate interest he passed on to his children. It was interesting to note that each of his children mentioned wine in their reflections in the booklet of eulogies put together for his funeral. (Dad refused to have any family eulogies, stating that only the minister was to speak. He’d been to too many funerals where “every man and his dog” had to say something. Of course, we found a way around the rules. He taught us well.)

It seems to me that if I were to write a memoir, for a start it would be short and mostly boring, but it would undoubtedly be dominated by stories of wine.

My brother in his highchair with a liqueur glass of watered-down riesling. We graduated from liqueur glasses, to sherry glasses, to normal wine glasses as we got older.

Visiting a winery, the busload of tourists that came pouring in and the woman who asked, “Do you have any spumante?” I scoffed and did not hide my disdain. I was ten.

The cellar under our house that my father built himself with hand tools. The home-bottling that went on in there and the stacks of bottles with the hand-drawn label.

My favourite wine story, however, is the one most indicative of my father and is also linked to one of the greatest gifts my father gave me.

My parents took my younger brother and me to Europe for 10 weeks when we were 9 and 12 years old respectively. It was what started my love affair with travel. When I was asked to choose a symbol to place on my father’s coffin at his funeral to represent who he was to me, I chose my passport from this trip. Travel has become a major part of my life and it is an opportunity and love I have passed on to my children. They have travelled because I have travelled because my father took me travelling.

But what about the wine?

I’m getting to that.

On this trip, my father had arranged a private tasting at the Pieroth Winery near Bingen am Rhein in Germany. While my parents tasted wines, my brother and I drank fruit nectar (three whole bottles) and ate Ryvita crackers (or whatever the German equivalent was then).

It was growing dark by the time we finished. (It wasn’t that big a session – we always travelled out of season so this was in late October.) The winemaker offered to call us a taxi but my father refused declaring that it was close enough to walk. Just around the corner really.

Off we set along the side of the autobarn with no path, no streetlights and the sky turning darker by the minute. As we stumbled along and the familial air grew increasingly tense, my mother began to make noises about a taxi being a good idea. My father continued to insist that it was just around the corner.

After several kilometres, Dad at last conceded that it was further than he had anticipated. Approaching the first house we could find with lighted windows, he knocked on the door and in his best non-existent German, asked to call for a taxi.

The taxi soon arrived, we piled in and the car took off like a rocket, throwing us all against the back of the seat.

Around the corner and up the street and we arrived at our destination.

It really was “just around the corner”. We just had to get to the right corner.

(Daily Post Weekly Writing Challenge – Memoir Madness)

Pieroth

From the Pieroth website. Non-existent when we went there. All communication to set up the tasting was done by snail mail.

 

 

HOME button Able Theme small

Five Go To Challenge Island

Posted on by

Five go to Challenge Island

CHAPTER ONE

“I’m so jolly glad it’s the holidays! What shall we do tomorrow?” Foolian stretched out his legs in the chair under the tree.

“Well, Forge is supposed to be here soon,” said Fick, munching on an apple. “Perhaps we could go to Challenge Island.”

Fanne jumped up. “Oh, yes please! It’s such jolly fun on the island!”

Suddenly the children heard barking from around the corner of the house.

“Oh!” cried Fanne. “That must be Forge and Fimmy!”

The two boys stared at her. “Why did you call him that?” asked Foolian.

“What?” said Fanne.

“You called him Fimmy. His name is Roger.”

“Oh.” Fanne started to cry. “I don’t know. It just came out.”

The boys put their arms around their sister. “Don’t worry, old girl,” said Fick. “Everybody makes mistakes. Last week I called the headmaster Mr Dumdum.”

Fanne laughed. “Oh, Fick! You didn’t!”

Fick laughed and rubbed his bottom. “Yes, I did.”

“Did what?”

The question came from a girl with short curly hair dressed in a shirt and boys shorts. She was standing next to a large brown dog.

“Forge!!” the three children cried in unison and fell on their friend, patting her on the back and shaking her hand. “It’s jolly good to see you!” “How was your term?” “Isn’t it just smashing to be together again?”

Forge was really Forgina but she had always wanted to be a boy so she wore boys’ clothes and would only answer to Forge. Recently she had developed a lot but the friends didn’t have the heart to tell her that nobody was going to think she was a boy with a bust like that.

“So, what were you talking about?” asked Forge as she sat down on the grass under the tree. Roger flopped down next to her.

“We were talking about going to your island, Forge,” explained Foolian.

Forge had been given Challenge Island as a prize for being Freshly Pressed when she was only 7 years old. Lots of others visited the island but they knew it would always belong to Forge.

“Mmmm,” said Forge. “I don’t know. It’s been kind of busy lately and whenever I go there, there’s so many other people already there.”

“Oh!” said Fanne. “Not these holidays! Forge, didn’t you hear? No one is allowed on the island for five whole days!! We’ll have the whole place to ourselves!”

Foolian looked concerned. “But if no one is allowed on the island for five days,” he said severely. “Then we shouldn’t be there either.”

Fanne, Fick and Forge looked at each other and shook their heads. Foolian always wanted to follow the rules. Forge laughed. “Oh, Foolian, you silly,” she said. “It’s my island. We can go whenever we want!”

Fanne and Fick nodded. Foolian thought for a moment. Then he smiled and said, “Let’s do it!”

“But after lunch,” said Fick who was always hungry. The four friends laughed and Roger jumped around them happily. Just then, they heard a voice calling them into the house for lunch.

“Coming, Mother!” called Fanne and hurried the others into the house.

****

CHAPTER TWO

As they walked past the parlour on their way to the dining room, Forge suddenly stopped and stared.

“What is that??” she exclaimed.

The three friends stopped and stared into the parlour. “What?” said Foolian.

“The tuba,” said Forge. “Who on earth plays the tuba?”

“I do,” said Fick, suddenly embarrassed. Forge stared at him. “I…, I…,” Fick stammered. “I…, well, they were looking for people to join the orchestra at school last term and, well, I thought, why jolly well not?”

“But why a tuba??” asked Forge.

“It was the only instrument they had left,” said Fick.

Forge laughed. “Well, go on then,” she said. “Give us a tune!”

Fick glanced at his brother and sister who shrugged and nodded their heads.

“Right-o,” said Fick. He picked up the tuba and sat on the sofa. As he placed his fingers on the valves, he said, “I’ve only been learning for a bit so I’m not very good.”

Forge sat down next to him. “Go on, Fick,” she said enthusiastically. “Give it a good old blow!”

Fick took a deep breath and then played a few deep notes on the tuba. When he was finished, the friends all clapped and cheered. “Oh, jolly good, Fick!” “That was marvellous!” “Brilliant!”

Just then the children’s mother came to the door. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Oh,” said Fick. “Forge just wanted to hear my tuba.”

“Well, isn’t that lovely,” said Mother. “Now put away that tuba and have your lunch.”

Fick put the tuba back in its case and the four friends and Roger went to have lunch.

****

CHAPTER THREE

“So how was your term, Forge?” Foolian asked as he took a bite of his ham sandwich.

Forge swallowed her mouthful of ginger beer. “Oh, it was jolly good, you know. They took us to an orphanage one day and we got to play with the orphans.”

“Oh, yes! Fanne told us about that,” said Fick. “She loved it, didn’t you Fanne?”

“I thought they were sweet,” said Fanne. “I wanted to take them all home with me!”

The friends laughed. “Oh yes, Fanne,” said Foolian. “I could see you as a jolly matron of some orphanage somewhere. You’d be fat and cuddly and feed the children too much cake!”

Fanne laughed and reached for another boiled egg. “I would love it!” she cried and the friends all laughed.

When they had finished their lunch, they returned to their spot under the tree. “So,” said Foolian. “When shall we go to the island?”

“Today!” cried Fanne, Fick and Forge all together.

“Hm. Are you sure it’s all right for us to go there early, Forge?”

“Of course. It’s my island, isn’t it?” she scoffed.

“Well, if we’re going to go today, we’ll have to get supplies.” Foolian stood up. “Come on, everyone. We’re going to Challenge Island!”

The others all cheered and clapped their hands and then the friends went off to get ready.

****

CHAPTER FOUR

“How was I supposed to know the shop wouldn’t be open today?” grumbled Forge. The friends would not be going anywhere today. Mr Godwin, the shopkeeper, had taken his cat to the vet and closed the shop early.

“Nevermind, Forge,” said Fanne. “We can go tomorrow. It will give us more time to pack our things.”

Forge sighed. “You’re right, Fanne. But it’s still jolly disappointing.”

The next day the four friends walked down to the boat landing laden with rucksacks bulging with tinned tongue, boiled eggs, sardines, bread, sausages, tinned peaches and lashings of ginger beer. They carried them down to the edge of the water and loaded them into Forge’s sturdy little rowing boat.

“Come on, Roger!” Forge called out. Roger, who was saying hello to the Pekingese that belonged to old Mrs Foster, looked up, barked at the Pekingese and ran down to the boat. “In you go, Roger,” said Forge.

Roger clambered into the boat. “Here, watch out!” said Fick. “You nearly knocked over my Brainies you silly old dog!”

Forge stared at Fick. “Your what?”

“Brainies,” said Fick. “We made them at school in our Home Economics class. They’re a brownie that looks like a piece of brain.”

“Why would you make those?” Forge asked.

“It’s in case of an attack of zombies,” Foolian explained. “You can throw them a Brainie and while they’re eating it – thinking it’s a bit of brain – you can escape.”

Forge stared at both Foolian and Fick. Then she shook her head and climbed into the boat. “You know,” she said. “I’m glad I don’t go to a boys’ boarding school. How peculiar.”

Soon they were on their way across the water to Challenge Island.

****

CHAPTER FIVE

The little rowing boat with the four friends and a dog was about halfway across the bay to the island when suddenly the wind picked up. Fanne shivered. “Oooh,” she said. “Do you feel that? It’s like a winter wind blowing! Mackintoshes everyone!” They all pulled their mackintoshes out of the rucksacks and put them on. Roger was hiding in the bottom of the boat.

“It’s all right, Roger,” said Forge. “It doesn’t look like it’s going to turn into a storm. We’ll be on the island soon and we’ll get a jolly warm fire going.”

“Do you think there will be anyone there, Forge?” asked Foolian.

“It’s hard to say,” she said. “They’ve been told before not to go to the island but they still do it. I’m sure it won’t be as many, though,” she added as she saw her friends’ disappointed faces.

With Forge and Foolian on the oars, the boat sped across the choppy waves. “Here, hold on a bit!” cried Fick. “We’re getting near the landing.” The two rowers held their oars and the boat bobbed into the wooden landing on the island shore. As it bumped against the timber, Fick jumped out and tied the painter around one of the posts. Fanne was out next with Foolian close behind her.

Forge passed up the rucksacks, tents and other supplies and they piled them on the landing. “Come on, Roger. Out you get,” said Forge. With a giant leap and a bark, Roger was on the landing and sniffing at the pile of belongings.

Forge laughed. “All right, old boy. Let’s get a fire going first and then I’ll give you that big juicy bone you can smell.”

The friends picked up their supplies and hurried up to the campsite at the top of the island.

****

The four friends and their dog went on to have a very exciting adventure that involved bad people, not-so-bad people and a policeman who said “‘Ere! I fought I tol’ you kids to clear orf! Are you fick?” to which Fick replied “Yes, I am. Who are you?” and got into a lot of trouble.

—————————————

This was a response to the Daily Post Weekly Writing Challenge. The challenge was to write a post over five days and incorporate the following:

  • Day One: start your post.
  • Day Two: add a quote from a conversation you had with someone today (an email, instant message, or text conversation is fine, too).
  • Day Three: add something related to what your childhood self wanted to be when you grew up, or a dream you have for your future.
  • Day Four: add a reference to something currently in your refrigerator.
  • Day Five: add something inspired by a song you heard today. If you didn’t hear any music, use something you read (and turn on the radio!).

I’ll leave it to you to work out what was what but you can find a recipe for Brainies here.

(Book cover image sourced from exhibitions.sevenstories.org.uk. Defacement by me.)

 

 

HOME button Able Theme small

It’s A… No, Wait, It’s A…

Posted on by

Sherlock Holmes had his pipe. Dorothy had her red shoes. Batman had his Batmobile. If we asked your friends what object they most immediately associate with you, what would they answer?

(http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/object-lesson/)

I don’t smoke, so it’s never going to be a pipe, or a fat cigar, or a cigarette in the world’s longest cigarette holder. I do wear hats, though, so if it had said “Sherlock Holmes had his deerstalker”, I could do a comparison.

I don’t own red shoes and certainly nothing like the sort Dorothy wore. I’m not into the sparkly slipper thing. I do have pink ones and green ones and chequered ones and striped ones. Chuck Taylors –  I could be known for those.

I’d love a Batmobile. Well, you know, without the bats. I have had a succession of notable-coloured cars in recent years, though, so maybe people go “There she is in her bright blue / apple green / purple / orange car”.

What object would friends immediately associate with me?

A glass of wine?

No, wait, a cup of coffee.

Oh, a geeky t-shirt! Or a social justice one?

Jeans. I do wear a lot of jeans. But then, given my latest proclivities, maybe it’s now inexplicable dresses?

I’m never far away from a smartphone or computer but then who is these days? It’s hardly distinctive.

Maybe music. But in what way? Piano? Guitar? Banjo? Nah, I don’t even know how to play them properly. I doubt that’s it.

Oh.

Boys. I do have a lot of those. My life is dominated by them.

Surely not.

Hm.

Um.

Nope. I give up. What object would friends immediately associate with me? I’ve no idea.

I’m a Jack of All Objects.

 

Jack of All Objects

 

 

HOME button Able Theme small

Kind Hearts Are The Gardens – A Journey Across The USA

Posted on by

Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots,
Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits,
Take care of your garden, And keep out the weeds,
Fill it with sunshine, Kind words and kind deeds.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In the early 1990s I made a 7-week trip across the USA from New York to Los Angeles by Greyhound bus (seriously). I was alone, in my early 20s and I don’t know what I was thinking.

The trip was the tail end of a traditional young Australian rite of passage to travel to the other side of the globe for a year or so. Having already spent nine months in Europe, I was on my way home via the States.

I was ready to go home, I was heading in the right direction and it could have been the miserable journey of a long drawn out homecoming.

Ah, but for the kind hearts I met along the way…

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
– Henry James

Some were pre-prepared. A year living in Kentucky before I was old enough to hold memories and subsequent study by my father for his PhD at the University of Cincinnati (not to mention the conference contacts to which this lofty attainment would lead), gave me ready-made homes away from home across the country, strangers as they were to me.

I arrived, terrified and drowning in the horror stories, at JFK Airport in New York at 9.30pm in the middle of December. Adamant that I would put my safety first and stay in the nearest airport hotel until morning, the purse strings didn’t agree and I found myself inexplicably on a bus on my way to Port Authority Bus Terminal. Next plan – find the closest hotel to the bus station I could afford. Mad scrambling through the guidebook (this being prior to the days of Tripadvisor and its ilk). Alighting the bus, I made a beeline for the hotel, late at night, in the dark and politely ignoring the gentleman who offered to carry my bag.

The next morning, I picked up a payphone and called my first angel of mercy, living in New Jersey. In the daylight, I was brave enough to cover enough of the essentials to be able to say “I’ve been to New York” and then I hotfooted it out of that den of iniquity to the relative safety of the NJ ‘burbs.

They picked me up, took me home, fed me, gave me a bed, introduced me to their friends and kept me safe.

005

The first kind fruits of my garden.

But there were more to be harvested.

Christmas in Cleveland, Ohio – unexpected gifts and dinners as one of the family.

004

New Year in Lexington, Kentucky – a connection to my babyhood and the patient tour of the places of my history but not my memories.

003

A stop in Gainsville, Florida – after a lengthy ride from Philly and the one face I actually remembered when collected at the bus station. And another in Tuscaloosa, Alabama – an extended family welcome and unexpected snow.

002

The contacts my parents had so assiduously maintained over the years brought kindness and love into a tired, travelling, homesick life.

And my garden of kindness grew.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Some angels I had collected in my travels, like souvenirs, but souvenirs that were useful and didn’t gather dust.

A place to rest in Philadelphia after a 30 hour bus ride from Kentucky. I was a total stranger but their friends – the London family for whom I had worked as an au pair – had spoken highly of this strange, young Australian and they welcomed me into their home and family.

Philadelphia

A mid-country stop in Houston, Texas – the result of a chance encounter on a bus en route to the Taizé Community in France. At the time, they moved on quickly to their next destination while I stayed on for a fortnight but at their urging, we re-acquainted at their home, thousands of kilometres from where we first met.  As I was moving ever closer to the flight to take me home, their substitute parental love and care was both soothing and heartbreaking as I longed for my own family.

Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?
– J. M. Barrie, The Little White Bird

And some – perhaps the best? – were random.

The woman who struck up a conversation on Boston Common and invited me home for lunch.

The actor on his way to Hollywood who kept me company on the long bus ride from San Antonio to Los Angeles.

The mother of the girlfriend of the grandson of the couple who took me in at Tuscaloosa, Alabama (did you get that?!) who gave me a place to live and a bicycle to travel by at UCLA in Los Angeles and saved me from my mortal fear of living in a big city that still lingered from the starting point of this American journey. And she took me to Disneyland.

001

 

These were the kind hearts who were the gardens of my USA travels. Some known to me, some not. Some are still known but many have been lost in the passageways of time, a result of the communication slackness of young adulthood. Some have left us, now true angels no longer earthbound.

All of them the roots, the flowers and the fruits of my garden of kindness.

Give us days to be filled with small rebellions – senseless, brutal acts of kindness from us all.
– Jars of Clay, Small Rebellions

 

A response to the Daily Post Weekly Writing Challenge – Honey versus Vinegar which made me think of all the acts of kindness I’ve experienced on my travels. These are just some of them.

 

 

HOME button Able Theme small

A Jack of All Leftovers

Posted on by

Leftovers

Being asked to write about something you haven’t touched in a while – your ‘leftovers’ – for the Weekly Writing Challenge could be a lengthy post for a Jack of All Trades.

Let’s begin, shall we?

The harmonica – two, actually – hidden in the bottom of the piano stool from my unrealistic ‘I’m going to be in a blues band’ phase.

The sailing boat collecting dust and all manner of flotsam in my parents’ shed from my caught-up-in-the-hype ‘I’m going to compete in the America’s Cup’ phase.

The set of pastels and rolls of artist paper shoved in the top of the wardrobe from my very brief ‘I’m going to be an artist’ phase.

The practice pipe for a set of bagpipes I never quite ended up getting from my unexplainable ‘I’m going to wear a kilt and play with the highland band’ phase.

The large dolls house built by my grandfather, undecorated and unfurnished, from my overly ambitious ‘I reckon I could wire this up with working lights’ phase.

The unfinished online course to get a Comp TIA certification from my totally deluded ‘I’m going to work as a techie in schools’ phase.

The expensive trek pack and other hiking equipment for my once-only-never-to-be-repeated “I’m going to climb mountains’ phase.

The graphics calculator and textbooks I bought in preparation for my short-lived ‘I’m going to be a science and maths teacher’ phase.

The reflector telescope I spent three years paying off from my childhood-dream ‘I’m going to be an astrophysicist’ phase.

The…

Well, you get the idea.

I’ve got more leftovers than… whatever the opposite of leftovers is… rightovers?

But, you know, I’ve still got them so I can always go back to them. I hear some leftovers are actually better reheated.

Or there’s that ukulele I’ve been wanting to buy…

 

 

HOME button Able Theme small

Collision Course

Posted on by

Do you ever notice how many different versions of you exist?

That’s this week’s writing challenge. No kidding. You do know the name of my blog, right?

As a Jack of All Trades, I’ve got so many versions of Me it’s hard to keep track.

Lately, they’ve been arguing.

About six months ago, I made a tentative foray into casual relief teaching at a school for children with severe intellectual disabilities. I enjoyed it and I received positive feedback so why then have I not pursued more work this year?

Scientist Me thought I should have more study under my belt before inflicting my inexperienced self on unsuspecting children and support workers.

Accountant Me pointed out that I couldn’t afford to study and maybe doing some work first might be a good idea.

Sporty Me was too preoccupied training for Oxfam Trailwalker and didn’t want to know about it.

Humanitarian Me was conflicted, wanting to concentrate on fundraising for Oxfam but feeling that working in the disability sector where teachers are sorely needed would also be a good thing.

Introvert Me was hanging on to the hope of still finding a way to make money sitting in a room by herself.

To shut them up, I went back to the school this week and put my name down to teach again.

It didn’t work.

Academic Me wants to spend this weekend preparing enriching and challenging activities to implement when she’s called in.

Musician Me wants to buy a ukulele and a set of bongo drums so she can just sing songs all day. She’s having an argument with Accountant Me.

Creative Me wants to hit the art shops and buy lots of art and craft activities to do with the children. She’s arguing with both Accountant Me and Musician Me.

Control Freak Me is, well, freaking out because she doesn’t really know what she’s doing.

Actor Me is telling Control Freak Me to get a grip on herself and that she’s got it sorted. She just has to finish work on the script. (Control Freak Me is not convinced.)

Teacher Me is frighteningly absent from the conversation. I think she’s pretending she doesn’t exist.

Sigh.

I think I’ll go lie down and have a chat with Counsellor Me.

'Armageddon' by bubor (www.freeimages.com)

‘Armageddon’ by bubor (www.freeimages.com)

 

 

HOME button Able Theme small