Category Archives: Life

Helping Make The Magic Happen

Posted on by

We’ve just had a national election. I’m not here to opine about the result. (For the record, the incumbent conservative government was ousted on a wave of green and teal.)

What I am here to opine about is being a part of the magic that is a well run democracy. We are (increasingly, as it seems) lucky in Australia to have access to uncorrupted elections. Our electoral process is overseen by the independent Australian Electoral Commission. The AEC is responsible for maintaining voter rolls, drawing electoral boundaries to allow for equal representation and conducting federal elections. (Each state also has an equally independent state based commission to oversee state elections.)

Voting is compulsory in Australia (you are marked off the voter roll when you vote, sent a fine if you do not). You can argue whether this is overkill or not but I support the concept because it stops the major parties from only appealing to their base. There’s a vast middle ground that vote that they have to try and keep onside.

I have worked as a polling official at almost every state and federal election since 2007. In the beginning I loved it because it gave me a day away from the children with adult conversation and I got paid for it! But now, as a working mother of adult children, I love it because I get to help people participate in our democracy.

Last Saturday (did I mention that our elections are always held on a Saturday when most people are able to vote?) I was employed as an Ordinary Vote Issuing Officer (as opposed to a Declaration Vote Issuing Officer – as I’ve done in the past – which just means helping people outside the electorate of the polling booth cast their vote). This entailed not only issuing ballot papers to voters but also, on occasion, being Ballot Box Guard, Queue Controller or Hygiene Officer (this one is a new COVID role – wiping down polling booths, vote issuing tables and the pencils used to vote (sorry, did I not mention that all our ballots are cast on paper?)).

Why did I want to write this post?

Because…

I got to share in the excitement of those who were voting in their first election.* You could pick them. The excited faces, often accompanied by mum or dad (or both), the keenness to be a part of the process.

I was able to help a woman with an intellectual impairment undertake her right to vote with support from a carer. Those familiar with my blog will know that I work in Special Education. It thrilled me no end that I was the table this woman came to for her papers.

I loved the young families that came to vote. I would joke with the little children that they were here to help Mum and/or Dad vote and could they count to 9? (The number of candidates on the House of Representatives paper in that electorate. We have preferential voting and every box must be numbered to indicate your preferences. This is so that if your top choice doesn’t get enough votes to win, your 2nd, 3rd or 4th choice may get up.) On our Senate paper, you could vote ‘above the line’ for the parties or ‘below the line’ for the individual candidates. When I’d finished explaining this to one father, his little girl told me she could count to twelve. While Dad thought he should hurry her along, I waited patiently while she showed me her counting prowess. It filled my soul with joy and love.

During a spell as Hygiene Officer, I noticed an older woman spending a long time in the voting booth and she did look over at me a couple of times. I approached her and asked if she needed help. She was feeling very overwhelmed by the Senate paper and I worked with her patiently to number six preferences above the line (she had managed one but then got stuck). I did not, as is stressed in our training, offer any opinion on her choices but just helped her get to number six to ensure her vote was valid.

I arrived at the polling booth at 7am. Doors opened at 8am. We were flat out until at least 5pm and then voting closed at 6pm. That’s a long time for an introvert to have to talk to a lot of people. And yet, I was energised, not depleted. I guess that comes down to the servant gene taking precedent over the shy introvert.

After the polls close, it is then the role of polling officials to open the ballot boxes and sort and count the ballots under the scrutiny of party scrutineers. At one point I and another worker were sorting the smaller vote tallied candidates into the two party preferred (how the preferences flowed for the two candidates with the biggest first preference votes – usually the two major Australian parties, Labor and the Liberal-National Party Coalition) and we had about six scrutineers gathered around us. “I don’t feel intimidated at all!” I said. They had the decency to laugh. But I welcomed them because it is a part of the integrity of our elections. Scrutineers cannot touch the ballot papers but they are there to ensure that those of us sorting and counting are doing it right.

My day ended at 10.30pm. That’s a long day. But I was filled with happiness because I had been a crucial part of our democracy.

There’s a state election in November. I can’t wait to be a part of that too.

*The Youngest Son was voting in his first election too. But he was working at another booth so I wasn’t there to see it. He was also working in a booth outside his own electorate so he had to go through the process of an absentee vote. I could have taken him for pre-poll voting before the day but it just didn’t happen. In a way, I’m kind of glad he had to see how that side of the process works.

PS The Eldest Son also worked for the election, counting some of the pre-poll votes. And while the Middle Son did not work at the election, he took his role as voter very seriously and happily voted out an under-performing candidate in his electorate. There is a great gift in teaching your children that democracy is important and you have to be a part of it.

What has been your role in the pursuit of democracy in your country?

It is a mystery

Posted on by

Have you ever been a medical mystery? Ever left medical professionals scratching their heads as to what’s wrong with you?

Two years ago, it was only the efforts of a very thorough GP that forced other sceptical medicos to discover the pain I’d been feeling for weeks was due to a pulmonary embolism (blood clot on the lung). To be fair, I didn’t have any of the key symptoms. I was a fit, healthy, normal weight, non-smoker who had not incurred an injury or been overseas within the required window of time. And yet, to the bafflement of many, there it was on the CT scan. It still remains a mystery as to how I got it.

Back in January, I noticed a lump under my left eye. I bet you can guess where this story is going to go…

First best guess was a type of stye called a chalazion. Heat treatment and massage did nothing so off I went to an ophthalmologist to drain this stubborn cyst. He was doubtful of the diagnosis but figured it worth a try. He sent me off to work the next day looking like this (peeling back your eyelid and poking around in it with something sharp will do that):

The Husband was concerned people would think he’d been hitting me but I pointed out that working in Special Ed meant that colleagues were more likely to assume an incident with a student.

Next came blood tests, an ultrasound and an MRI with the revelation that we were dealing with one large mass that spread into my eye socket.

So I was passed on to a second ophthalmologist with the requisite skills for a hospital procedure under general anaesthetic to extract tissue for a biopsy which fortunately ruled out lymphoma after an agonising 6 day wait for results.

Next best guess? Sarcoidosis – an inflammation disease rare in the eyelid and more likely found in the heart and lungs.

More blood tests and a trifecta of scans with the addition of a CT scan of my chest came next.

The contrast dye missed my vein and pumped straight into my arm tissue. It’s one way to gain a large bicep but I don’t recommend it.

There was an on again – off again prescription of high dose steroids until it landed on the off side when the tests came back clear and a respiratory specialist threw cold water on the sarcoidosis diagnosis.

Having exhausted the expertise of my second ophthalmologist, I was referred to another with eyelid specialism at the Eye and Ear Hospital in the state capital.

The answer from that appointment?

So after more than three months of appointments, tests, scans and procedures and consultation with three GPs and three ophthalmologists, I’m left with “Let’s just leave it and see what happens.” To be fair, it’s benign, not painful and since the tissue sample was taken from the most protuberant part of the lump, it no longer impedes my vision so I guess I can live with…

All this is to explain why I’ve hunkered down this year and not been around much {both in the blogosphere and in my real life). All those appointments and procedures without answers take a mental toll and life has become about getting through each day by going to work (my happy place) and then escaping into binge tv on the couch at home. I’m still running but long distance endurance running is a mental game so the latest marathon training has not gone well. I’m ready for a break after this next race in two weeks.

It’s not all bad. I’ve been lucky. Each stage could have revealed a terrible answer but I’ve escaped with a basically harmless if annoying condition. Not everyone is so fortunate.

So what’s your mystery illness story? Feel free to share in the comments.

2020 A Year of Endings

Posted on by

“Everything has to come to an end, sometime.”

– L. Frank Baum,The Marvelous Land of Oz

It was a year of endings. We knew that going in.

The Eldest Son would finish his Masters of Software Engineering.
The Middle Son would finish his Bachelor of Arts degree.
The Youngest Son would finish his final year of school.
The Husband would finish his employment at a company for whom he had worked for 32 years.

Me? Mostly I was rolling along as before. But there were endings for me too. Changes. A new way of being.

“At such times the universe gets a little closer to us. They are strange times, times of beginnings and endings. Dangerous and powerful. And we feel it even if we don’t know what it is. These times are not necessarily good, and not necessarily bad. In fact, what they are depends on what *we* are.”

– Terry Pratchett

Of course, like all of us, we weren’t expecting the added extremity of a global pandemic.

Finishing in midyear, would the Eldest Son be able to find work?
What would living on a university campus that was mostly shut down be like for the Middle Son?
How would an unmotivated Youngest Son cope with remote learning?
Would the Husband be able to find another job?

And how would I manage my mothering role of carrying the mental and emotional load for us all?

“Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.”

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

So what happened in the end? We survived.

The Eldest Son had a successful ending and a new beginning. He found a job within weeks of finishing his course. It was initiated by one of those ‘right person at the right time’ scenarios but given the company hadn’t intended to employ someone for another year but after interviewing our son, put him on right away, he totally got this on his own merits.

The Middle Son managed a not-quite-ending. He moved home temporarily in the first lockdown and when restrictions eased made a brief return but when the second more severe lockdown came into force, we moved him out permanently. After he contemplated pulling out of his course midyear, not being a fan of remote learning and struggling to achieve at the level to which he was accustomed, he pushed through and succeeded in all but one subject. He’ll catch that up this year.

The Youngest Son seemed destined for a rocky ending to match an unprecedented final year of school. He was lucky to be able to experience graduation, even if his family had to watch it on the tv at home, like it was the Oscars or something. Practice exams did not bode well for final results but somehow he pulled it off, passing all his subjects and gaining an entry score that would gain him admittance to his first choice of university study.

A graduation photo to show the children and grandchildren.

After remaining unemployed all year and just as I was beginning to wonder if I would need to find a temporary job as a barista over the non-teaching summer holidays, the Husband landed a job that ticked a lot of boxes. Managing a small staff for a not-for-profit organisation, four days a week and with flexible hours, it will hopefully make us all a little happier. It’s only funded to June but we’ll trust in the continuation.

My ending is happy. I find myself, weirdly, in a better place than I was a year ago. And I’m excited to discover what new beginnings await in this coming year.

“Celebrate endings – for they precede new beginnings.”

– Jonathan Lockwood Huie


What endings and beginnings did you experience in 2020?

Pandemic Survival Answers

Posted on by

Question

There are some mysteries, wonderings or questions to be answered so here’s an update:

RE: Pandemic Survival 7: Reality Bites

I am pleased and relieved to advise that the Youngest Son has tested negative for COVID-19. He still has to see out his quarantine for a few more days but the spectre of illness has left the building. And I can go back to work. Although not in quarantine myself, because of the vulnerabilities of the kids I teach, it was deemed best I stay away until we knew if the Youngest Son was infected. Unfortunately as a casual, no work = no pay, so I’m doubly relieved for a negative outcome. Or a positive outcome in a negative way…. Or a negative outcome in a positive way…. Or something….

 

RE: Pandemic Survival 6: Pubbing on the Couch

Thank you to those who attempted to locate this blogger in a sea of 1500 faces in Pub Choir’s latest video. Unfortunately (but predictably) nobody won the TimTams. However, for those of you who are still wondering, this is me:

Me in Pub Choir

 

Now, don’t you all feel better? Because I sure do!

Pandemic Survival 6: Pubbing on the Couch

Posted on by

Specifically, this couch:

20200702_171134

The pandemic and its lockdown necessities has certainly set many people on some steep technological learning curves.

Teachers, students and parents alike have had to learn about new apps and software and how to recreate lessons in purely online and electronic settings including, in this household at least, how to conduct an English exam through remote learning.

Those who have never had to work from home have had to see how that can work and to make it work. Admittedly, this now has possible positives in giving employees ammunition to argue for more family-friendly flexible working arrangements. (“See, I can do the work from home, so how about I do that two days a week from now on?”)

Restaurants have turned themselves into gourmet takeaways or suppliers of meals to essential workers.

And in the world of Arts and Entertainment, creatives have courageously embraced the technology available to make it Happen. From filmed stage productions being shared on various platforms to casts of musicals getting together to record songs via isolation to books and plays being read by all manner of celebrities all the way to small community outfits doing whatever they can to share their creativity.

As someone for whom singing forms a key part of my wellbeing, I have survived this pandemic and the inherited income adjustment in a number of ways.

Firstly, let me just say how grateful I am for streaming services and YouTube that provide a plethora of musicals to watch and join in. As a lover of and previous performer in many musicals, this has been an easy and inexpensive way to have a sing when I feel like it. (And yes, even if I wasn’t such a big Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar fangirl, joining Disney+ would have been worth it just for Hamilton.)

Secondly, I was lucky to be offered work in my role as a casual special education teacher despite schools being closed to all but the necessary. Singing is a big part of my teaching so getting to sing every week with some very special students kept me upbeat day after day.

Thirdly, my bar choir of which I wrote not long before the shutdown, scored some funding from a local government to offer Back Bar Choir Iso-style. This was conducted over Zoom every Thursday night for 6 weeks for free. Because of the time delay in the program, we all had to be muted other than the lovely Anna and Kate but even though you couldn’t hear the others, just seeing their happy faces on the screen made you feel like you were singing with a group of people. And, when restrictions eased a bit, I was able to turn my little she-shed into a bar for two. Singing Aussie classics like Horses and You’re The Voice in full throttle with a special friend in person and a collection of yet unknown ones on the screen in front of me whilst enjoying a glass of wine was enough to fill up my week with joy.

20200702_171017

One of those cupboards may or may not contain the ‘bar’. 😉

And then, just recently, fourthly, I joined Pub-turned-Couch Choir because you can never have enough of pub singing. Pub Choir was started in Brisbane by the lovely Astrid Jorgensen and just before the pandemic hit, had become an international sensation with a tour of the USA underway. (My local Back Bar Choir is obviously based on the same model, something of which Astrid is supportive as long as it isn’t called “Pub Choir”.)  Rapidly closing borders caused Astrid, Waveney and the Pub Choir team to cancel the rest of the tour and hightail it home. Not to be squashed (Astrid seems a very upbeat type), Pub Choir launched Couch Choir as shown in this short documentary:

The procedure follows the usual pattern – learn one song in parts and sing it. Only, this time, Astrid teaches the parts via video and participants firstly learn their chosen part and then record themselves singing it. This recording is then sent to Couch Choir and through the monumental magic of video editing (thank you, Paris), all of it is put together to form one sensational performance. You can check them out here. I’d recommend the David Bowie song Heroes. Six thousand people from around the world submitted a video including many of our health workers. It’s quite moving.

But at the very least, check out the one below – the most recent one – because you may spot a familiar blogger. Mind you, with more than 1500 singers from 30 different countries, you’ll be hard pressed to find me (you’ll need a magnifying glass and a quick eye) so if you do manage it, I will send you a packet of Tim Tams.

 

It’s an incredible feeling to be part of this stunning community collaboration in a love of singing. I’ve wanted to participate in Couch Choir since I first found out about it through the documentary but it always takes me a while to convince myself I can do something and the usual three day turnaround just wasn’t enough time. For this song, we had a week to prepare and submit a video so I was able to spend a few days telling myself I could do it, then spend a day learning my part and then another recording and uploading it. What a fabulous reason to spend an afternoon in my shed and sing!

This pandemic has certainly stretched us all in a myriad of ways and I’m so happy people have discovered new means of sharing their skills and art for us all to enjoy.

Have you managed to find ways to pursue your joy?

A Claytons Resolution

Posted on by

June

It’s June. We’re almost at the middle of the year 2020.

So, how’s it going for you so far?

Yeah. I know.

I doubt any of us is experiencing the year we thought we would on January 1. Nothing quite like a global economic downturn on the back of a global pandemic to put a kink in your plans.

Although, as the world protests and campaigns against racial injustice on a scale not seen in decades, I can’t help thinking that this forced global awareness and time to reflect has some up sides.

I’m wondering if you made any New Year Resolutions for this year and how they’re faring in this “new normal”? Are you still on track as planned, on track but in a modified form or have you abandoned them altogether?

Did you give up on “going to the gym every week” or just adjust it to online classes? Did the lockdown actually make it easier to “learn a new skill”? Did it become just too challenging to “spend more time with friends”? Did you lose your job making it impossible to “save more money”?

2020 new year resolution

At the end of last year, I announced that I wasn’t making any resolutions for 2020 because the family was already facing enough challenges with an ending of long term employment and high stakes final years of education. Just surviving the year intact was enough of a goal to achieve.

But now, at the midpoint of a year that threw in even more challenges to exacerbate the ones we were already facing, I’ve realised I actually did make a resolution of sorts. A Claytons resolution. The resolution you have when you don’t have a resolution.*

At the end of last year, on the back of some work I had begun on improving my mental health, I made a commitment that in 2020 I would put my wellbeing first, closely followed by the needs of my own family. I would no longer be “on call” to others and if something wasn’t right for me and my wellbeing, then I would politely refuse/withdraw.

I also took on a mantra from a card I read early in the year: “I did not cause it. It is not my job to cure it.”

This wasn’t easy. I’ve been known to answer the call when unwell, when it inconvenienced my own family and when it probably wasn’t appropriate and it’s in my nature to want to step in and make things better in any way I can. But I knew I couldn’t go on the way I had the last few years and for my own health I had to change.

Of course, when the pandemic and subsequent restrictions hit, it became even more important to try and maintain this promise to myself as anyone who has followed me through the last three months will be aware.

But with support, I stuck to my plan. And, as it turned out, reaped the rewards.

Lessons Learned:

  1. It is not selfish to take care of yourself. In fact you owe it to the people around you to do so.
  2. You can look after your own wellbeing and good things will still come your way.

Even in the midst of all the challenges this year has wrought, I have been blessed. I’ve reached out and discovered the true friends in my life, been acknowledged and respected in my work, found joy in running for fun and explored new places to be fed spiritually and creatively.

Looking at stars

 

My wish for you at this midpoint of A Year For The Ages is that you are finding the kindnesses in life and that the route you are travelling while occasionally bumpy has stretches of smooth straight road in the company of people you love and who love you just as equally.

Blessings from my heart to yours.

 

*This phrase comes from a drinks commercial in the 1970s whose catchphrase entered the Australian vernacular to mean anything that you have without it really being that thing. More info here. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a video of the original ad with Jack Thompson but here’s a blooper:

 

 

Pandemic Survival 3: Finding a Way Through

Posted on by

The announcement finally came. It was predictable and I was expecting it but it still hit hard.

On April 7, our state government announced that students would continue to learn at home for Term 2, due to start after Easter. So another three months of unemployment for me.

But, as a dear friend said to me, “You can take the person out of the teaching but you can’t take the teaching out of the person.”

I’ve been finding a way through.

I have you wonderful people in this amazing blogging community to thank for the first step. When I first wrote about losing a job I love, many people asked if there was a way to communicate with the students online. Being a casual teacher, I don’t have access to those platforms at my school but then Dan mentioned recording videos and a germ of an idea sprung up in this still fertile mind (it’s all that bullcrap I store in there).

My ‘thing’ when teaching is music. I get a lot of jokes about moving out of home when I’m working because I walk in and out with an enormous suitcase and a guitar on my back. The suitcase holds a collection of instruments and song props – my own ‘bag of tricks’ as all good CRTs carry. I’ve previously mentioned that a favourite song is “When You’re Happy and You Know It” done with all sorts of different emotions and different actions to match.

So, I took a deep breath and I videoed myself singing this song, doing eight different emotions. (Trust me, this was huge. I am not a fan of being on camera.) I then split them up into different videos and edited them to include the PCS (Pictorial Communication System) card for that emotion before and after the song.

Slide1

Sample of PCS cards for feelings

The videos are not flashy. They are just me singing and playing the guitar with no great video effects. It’s because I wanted it to accurately replicate what it would be like for the kids at school. Truly. It’s not at all because I honestly couldn’t be bothered doing that much editing. Besides, there’s a plethora of flashy songs on the interwebs for the kids to access. How often will they get to see ME this term?

I also tried to keep the file size as small as I could while trying to keep a reasonable standard because some of our kids won’t have access to great internet.

Here is where I want to thank my lovely friend Naomi who has been my cheerleader through this process. She was the one I sent them to first because I knew I could trust her to tell me honestly if they were okay.

Fortunately she thought they were more than okay.

The next step was to send them to a suitable focus group. Luckily I am great friends with a number of preschoolers (even related to a few) so I sent the videos off to this treasured cohort and received a very positive response.

Last step – send them to the music specialist teacher at my school. I needed a gin and tonic before I could hit that send button despite all the previous positive feedback. Sharing your own creation with others is like sharing some deep uncertain part of yourself.

To my enormous relief, my work was received with great enthusiasm and gratitude.

Phew.

The videos are on YouTube but marked as Unlisted so you won’t find them without a direct link. While I wanted them easily shared, I didn’t particularly feel like making myself available to the world’s troll network.*

However, in the spirit of community and doing new things, I’ve included one of the videos here for you to have a squizz at what you helped create. I chose Sad because this is the one the kids always find hilarious at school and the great-nephew also declared it his favourite, with a giggle.

 

My other task to keep the sadness away has been to build activity boxes for a couple of three-year-old coffee buddies I know. I knew their parents would appreciate a bit of help keeping these bright and active little boys occupied over the coming weeks. Along with my colleagues Fellowes and Carl, I’ve been madly producing resources over the past week to box up and deliver as an Easter surprise.

Fellowes – wooh, he’s so hot!
Carl – such a precise straight shooter

If I were to list activities that help my mental health, I would definitely include laminating with rotary cutting close behind. I’m also a big fan of Velcro. So making these resources was like being in my happy place.

I knew I well and truly had my teacher hat on when I found myself with fifty gazillion tabs open in my browser from eleventy hundred different education websites and blogs looking for ideas and resources. If you think I’m exaggerating, you’ve obviously never done lesson planning.

As is always the case, it started out as a tiny idea that probably would have fit into a standard envelope that then morphed into a major undertaking for which I had to buy a packing box for delivery.

But boy, did I have fun? You bet your last dollar. Or my last dollar. In light of my current situation, I probably shouldn’t have been wandering the virtual aisles of the local office supplies store and hitting that Buy button quite so regularly but it’s always been way more fun to spend money on other people than on myself so really from a mental health perspective it’s money very well spent. Cheaper than therapy anyway.

And this little episode during a video chat with one of my little friends after he opened his box made my day:

A: Thank you for my box of things just for me! It’s awful!

A’s Mum: Awesome. You mean awesome.

My little teacher soul has been fed and will feel able to carry on for a little while.

I’m finding a way through.

How about you?

*If you really want to see the full playlist because you’d love to see all the videos or you can think of some little person in your life who would enjoy them, you can email me at mosyet42@gmail.com and I’ll send you the link.

Pandemic Survival

Posted on by

I’ve escaped to my she-shed. I have The Sound of Music* on my laptop, a glass of Four Pillars Shiraz Gin and tonic to hand, also a (large) packet of sweet potato chips and there are pretty candles inside and out and the city lights twinkling away.

Sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do to survive unemployment and a house full of men in the Age of Lockdown.

*Yes, tragically I am quoting whole tracts of dialogue and singing all the songs. It’s my own special Isolation Sound of Music Singalong.

How are you surviving the close quarters with your loved ones?

Not About The Money

Posted on by

I lost my job yesterday. I work as a casual relief (substitute) teacher in a special education school. On Sunday, our state government announced that schools would be closed from Tuesday. It made sense. We were due to finish for two weeks of school holidays at the end of the week anyway so it’s only an extra four days. And I’d be happy to view it as that except that in the current environment, nobody actually knows how long this will last. Three weeks, six weeks, six months? It’s the unknown that gets to you.

Permanent and contracted staff will continue to be paid. Casual staff will not. I was booked in to replace a teacher for the whole week but that’s now ended. Should schools remain closed after the holidays, teachers will revert to the online provision of a program. How that works with high needs special education, I don’t know but what I do know is that online teaching will not require casual replacement teachers so there will be no work until the schools open again.

I’m luckier than others. I know that eventually, when this crisis is over, schools will reopen and my work will return. Others will not be so lucky as extended lockdowns send businesses to the wall. We’re also in a pretty solid financial position so we will survive the loss of income. I know I shouldn’t complain.

But here’s the thing – it’s not about the money.

I love my job. Work is my happy place. My students fill my heart and soul with joy and satisfaction. It’s the loss of this that has me feeling weighted down and my heart aching.

What will I miss?

I’ll miss

  • the utter joy on faces as I play my guitar and we bop along to I’m A Believer or Down On The Corner
  • the hysterical giggles when I sing all the funny voices for the different emotions in If You’re Happy and You Know it (angry and sad are favourites – that my students find my singing a song while crying as hilariously funny is slightly disturbing)
  • the literal tears of pride when a student achieves a learning goal for the first time
  • the cheeky and mischievous grins
  • finding that new way of doing something that means a student has a better day
  • the cheerful greetings as I walk around the school – as a CRT, all the kids know me and I know the name of every single one of them
  • working as a team with my Education Support co-workers, the true rockstars of special education
  • singing made up songs while pushing a swing to give a student with difficult behaviours a happy play time
  • all the feels – when my students are happy, sad, angry, upset, proud, unwell – they touch my heart so deeply

And I worry. I worry for the students for whom school is their safe space, the only place they receive what we call ‘unconditional regard’ and are nourished in body, mind and soul. I worry for the parents forced to give up work to care for their child every day and the financial impact of that and the lack of respite they will receive from the intensity it takes to care for a special needs child.

I know I am luckier than so many others but sometimes you just have to acknowledge that pain in your heart and what is causing it. I am grieving and the only thing that will fix it is a return to the job I love. It will come but it’s likely to be a long and challenging journey to get there.

How are you bearing up under the conditions imposed to combat COVID-19?

Stephen King quote on change

You Say You Want a Resolution

Posted on by

Well, you know, we all want to change the world…

(Apologies to Lennon and McCartney)

As the year ends and another begins, it behoves me to check in with my resolutions for the year and see what progress was made.

Hang on.

Just gotta go back and look up what they were…

Oh, that’s right.

1. Decline to take photos of other people when asked

Result: Failed

It’s hard to say no when someone asks you take a photo of them standing in the snow with the Himalayas behind them. (Apology: I never posted about this trip. Life got busy and complicated and I never quite got around to it. It’s still in the pipeline so keep an eye out in the coming weeks.)

P3020359

Obviously the photo I took is on their camera but here’s where we were at the time

2. Answer a question with another question to avoid talking about myself

Result: Failed

I do not possess this skill. Guess I’ll never be a politician. Sometimes failure has benefits.

3. Write all emails and messages in 25 words or less

Result: Mixed

I started out well on this resolution and was becoming quite adept at not only limiting my words to 25 words or less but managing to hit 25 words exactly on many occasions. It became something of a challenge. But some people were unhappy with my restricted words and once you make one exception, it’s hard to remember the rule as you go on. I still think it’s a worthy goal and may re-institute it for 2020.

4. Limit my consumption of American late night talk show monologues to once a week

Result: Passed

I pretty much stopped watching them altogether. Too depressing.

5. Go to the gym more regularly but not talk about it on social media

Result: Gold Star

Okay, so the actual gym attendance side gets a ‘Mixed’ result because I did drop off in the middle of the year but as I’d been diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism in May, all my exercise goals kind of took a nosedive. I did make up for it later in the year, going every day, but as it was part of getting caught in a dieting trap, that’s possibly not good either. However, I get a gold star for the social media thing. I did not post about it at all. How good is that? Okay, so it’s because I quit social media but it still counts. I ditched Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in April and have never regretted it. I wish I could say it means I spend less time on my phone but I’ve just switched to reading the news and doing brain puzzles (currently addicted to Picture Cross puzzles). I may be wasting time but at least my brain is getting a workout.

Picture Cross

Picture Cross puzzle – Maths and Art in one puzzle!

So it would appear that my New Year Resolutions took the way of most resolutions and landed in the ‘seemed like a good idea at the time but who can be bothered’ basket.

I’m not making any resolutions for 2020. The year ahead already has enough challenges in it and I’ll be too busy navigating those to set myself up with additional goals.

A very Happy New Year to you and I wish you the bestest of all things in the year ahead.*

Have you made any resolutions for 2020 or are you just going to wing it?

 

* I will not be wishing you luck for the next decade. My congratulations on completing another decade will be made at the end of 2020. Honestly, when did people stop being able to count to 10??

And in case, like me, my post title put a certain earworm in your head, here’s the full song. It’s gonna be all right.