Tag Archive for habits

Pause

19/01/2010 Joh family, holidays, reading

I wish I could press pause on the holidays. I want the time to last longer. There is so much I am just beginning to get into after unwinding, celebrating, tripping off to Sydney and now the holidays have shrivelled up and there’s only a week left. How did that happen?

I am listening to an audio book each morning by Caroline Myss, called ‘The Language of Archetypes’. She speaks with authority and I am enjoying it a lot. She also injects humour into her conversation. I appreciate that. I have also started reading ‘Blink’ by Malcolm Gladwell. I picked it up in a second hand book shop in Sydney. It’s facinating. I hate to admit this but I had over 900 saved blog posts in my feed. I’ve been steadily reducing that number each day.

Last year we had lots of after school meetings and I believe it seriously inhibited my learning. My routine was to come home from school and pursue things of interest online and generally stay in touch with the wider world. By the time I got home from work I’d had enough of the wider world and just wanted to do home and family things.

I’ve also started exercising again. It always feels so good but when I am tired I just don’t make the time. I intend to be firmer with myself about that and perhaps get up earlier in the mornings to get it done.

Tom will be home on Friday. This time he’s staying for a week! I’m excited to see him, but I don’t want to wish any day of this lovely unstructured time away.

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These Days…

13/10/2009 Joh health, home

We have laptops in many classes now. There is so much to teach about using the Internet. This week we had a learning experience about Twitter. Some students were using it as though it were a private chat room. I guess because all their usual chat channels are blocked by the schools ‘protection systems’ it was too much to expect that given a way to communicate with one another, they would be able to resist! Never mind they are sitting in the same room… high tech note passing, yet pretty silly when they realised they had potentially shared their notes with anyone online who’s interested. The more I use technology in the classroom, the more I believe that the fear of computers replacing teachers is not in the near future. Young people may not fear technology, yet there is so much they need to learn about socialising, reputation, logic, the list goes on and on…..

I had a tense meeting after work. Before I went, I said to Rhonda “I’m going to shut up. I’m not going to say anything, I’ll let others have a go this time.” Famous last words. I find it so frustrating when people are full of remarks about things until given the opportunity to speak to the person in charge. So I can’t resist saying what’s on my mind, when others seem unable to remember what they think.

After school was a lot more pleasant on a lot of levels. I got to spend some time with the Wii Fit. It was the first time for a little while that I made progress towards my goals, so that felt good. I’ve been conscious lately of letting some healthy habits slip.

Tonight we registered to play touch football socially. I am not sure if it’s such a good idea now. I’m feeling particularly unfit. I will give it a try though. It looks fun. Maybe it’s what I need to get fit!

Kate my little sister called last night from Berlin. She is having a ball and has been through Bruges and Amsterdam. I had to cut my chat with Wilma tonight short because a delicious meal from Darin had arrived on the table and I wasn’t going to let it wait.

My daughter has just sent me something she has written tonight that is one of the most precious things I have read for a long time. Her expression never ceases to delight me.

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Wii Age & other improvements

03/07/2009 Joh family, health, holidays, home, relationships

This week I have exercised every day. It’s such a luxury. I must keep it up when I get back to school. When we got our Wii and I did the fitness assessment thingo, I was age 60… how embarassing. Last night I did it again and I was down to 35! Much better. I am amazed at how quickly I feel good in my body again. It’s only been a week of daily half hour on the Xtrainer and I’m already noticing ease in my body again. The chiropractor last night also added to my feeling of wellbeing.

This week has been really productive for me. I have got rid of a lot of junk and rearranged furniture. I’ve unpacked my books, beloved friends that they are. When I was planning to go to the UK, I’d packed up a lot of stuff. My upstairs bedrooms are looking great now. I’m expecting visitors next week and there is nothing like that, to get me into action. I have exchanged some of Darin’s furniture for mine and it looks better. I’ve been enjoying storming through my to do lists.

I have also meditated each afternoon, which is another habit I once had, that has drifted off somewhere and needs to be reinstated. I listen to a track on my ipod of binural noise. I’ve no idea how it works, but it’s more refreshing than a nap.

Tom got a job on Hamilton Island. I’m so relieved. He isn’t himself without work. I didn’t like hearing his forced happy voice on the phone, now it’s real again. He has excellent references from the part time jobs he’s had, so I knew he would get something sooner or later, now is good!

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Mercury Retrograde Coming Soon

04/05/2009 Joh astrology, health, relationships, work

Mercury goes retrograde on Thursday. Mystic Medusa’s blog post: Mercurial Bats 2 the Max can tell you which area of your life could be influenced by the planet of communications going backwards in the sky. It also gives the exact dates and so forth. I have subscribed to her nightly scopes, so I am looking forward to getting further amplification on those.

The post on the blog says its a fantastic time to review work, admin and health, and I couldn’t agree more. I have become very sloppy in those areas lately. I haven’t been exercising and there is a mess of paperwork unattended to at both work and home. So I guess Mercury Retrograde will be good for me.

Darin and I have moved back to my home. There were a variety of factors involved, mostly personal and I’m mostly glad about it. I did enjoy my month or so in the little place we had, but there were also plenty of irritations and things that weren’t working. It’s funny but a lot of people assume when I tell them I am back here, that I’m not with him anymore. Must be my excellent track record with relationships :-) .

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Downtime….

15/01/2009 Joh astrology, blogging, friends, gratitude, health

Andy’s phone line is down so I have taken this opportunity to have a guest post on Poohduck. How mercury retrograde is that! I have just changed the template on Poohduck and I like it. He hasn’t seen it yet, due to not being online since the changes were made… so hopefully he will approve.

I think I have shingles. I know I should go to the doctors, but from past experience I know they can’t do anything and the last thing I feel like doing is sitting in a waiting room at the doctors. I don’t need a medical certificate, I’m on holidays. I am resting. The achey pain in my ear/jaw/neck has not responded to the penicillan the dentist gave me, although my gum has reduced in swelling. I thought I was all better until the panadol wore off. I am optimistic about such things. It stands to reason though, when I stopped taking vitamins because I was holidays, have been eating poorly, haven’t exercised or done any of the things I do to stay healthy. I have spent the last 6 weeks partying like an 18 year old and staying up late. Then I began doing massive physical jobs around the house, that it’s possible I was going to get a bit run down! When will I learn?

I have been feeling sorry for myself because I have so much I want to do. The friends and family are pitching in and helping a lot. Mum and dad have been especially wonderful, but I still feel frustrated and annoyed that I can’t do all the things I want to do. It will stop hurting when the pain goes away!

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Retrieving…

16/11/2008 Joh random

I ran out of time. My laptop stopped working and my mobile phone was pronounced beyond economical repair. I had made some backups… but not enough. I have spent the weekend trying to retrieve contacts, music, photos and information. I bought a PC laptop, a compromise, because I really wanted an Apple but it was too complicated to get at the final hour. I couldn’t find one locally and I purchase my laptop through work so the easiest way was to get it from a local supplier. I am so busy right now at school, there was no way I could do without one for a week or so! I have to write reports. It’s my own fault for putting it off! Next time I will be more organised.

My folders and files were a mess on my computer. This weekend as I have been attempting to organise it all in a more orderly fashion. I have lost a few contacts. I expect it is a good way to clean out things that aren’t really in use though. I hope this experience will teach me to be a bit more organised!

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Spring and Mistakes

01/09/2008 Joh health, learn

Yay! Today was sunny and although I am still a bit bogged down with coughing and various other cold symptoms, I appreciated the sunlight. I went to school for half a day today and came home and slept all afternoon. When my son came home from school he put the heater on, but I thought it was already, cause I was so hot! My parents called tonight to say they should be home tomorrow. Mum can make me chicken soup then and I will be all better in no time! The tulips Andy planted a couple of years ago from me have multiplied and are about ready to flower. I am so glad we are heading for summer.

The only responses to my plea on Myspace were from students not in my English classes to say ‘Hi’. Many of my students had a learning experience today. They didn’t meet the challenge. The annoying thing was that quite a few of them had read the books and not yet got around to entering them. I made a conscious choice not to remember all the books I’d seen them reading and enter them all for them if they were year 9 students. I had a bit of a rant about it today with the worst offenders in my year 9 class (who have been through this process at least twice already) and when I said I took part responsiblity for being away for a few days last week with PD’s and illness, one of them disagreed with me. He said, it is our responsibility, we knew about it. I was very impressed and pleased to know that at least one of them will learn from it. Most students in this category though seemed to look regretful and I was pleased to see that and not because I’m a sadist.

We try too hard as teachers and parents to make young people successful at the things they attempt. Teachers track down and chase students for work, parents cajole their children to do the right things. It can prevent them from having the kinds of learning experiences I mentioned before. If they don’t get the chance to make a few mistakes and experience the consequences of them, they have a false perception of success and possibly don’t feel a sense of achievement. If all mistakes are opportunities to learn, which I believe they are, then you need to be able to make them without some concerned other rushing in and making it right for you. It’s hard to resist doing that sometimes, but possibly inhibits real growth.

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Stopping for a Day

29/08/2008 Joh health

Every year I say to my friend Rhonda, if I get sick, I’m going to take a day off. It’s so hard to do though. There’s always a good reason every day, why I feel I need to go. I have struggled along with a bit of a cold for a week or so now and today I really couldn’t go. I woke up with my throat feeling closed over.

I should have taken a day a week ago, but I kept feeling I could manage. There are so many people sick and away at school, you hate to put a burden on the remaining staff. Yesterday’s reflections on my performance made me realise though, I was actually creating more problems by going with the negative attitude and low energy. So today I stopped. I slept all day.

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Beep Test

11/04/2008 Joh family, health, work

Today I did the ‘beep’ test at school with the kids. I think beep actually stands for bleep or rather a swear word. I didn’t do so well. I got 3.5. However my son reassured me by saying I am old and I do smoke, so what do I expect. He then went on to say the half hour a day I do on my cross trainer isn’t really much in terms of fitness, and I needed to step it up. Crushed me, he did.

I did manage to be fitter than possibly one or two 15 year old girls, although I can’t be sure about that because I was too concerned about the sweat pouring from me to look around and see who’d retired earlier than me. One of the PE teachers said “Well, better to stop sooner than have a heart attack in front of the kids”, nice touch. The other kinder PE teacher tells me that I can work on my fitness, suggesting throwing away the ciggies as a first step and redo it in 6 weeks and see if I’ve improved. He also did the test and got around 9 something.

What have I got myself into?

I’m an English teacher for goodness sakes. Why do I take on these silly physical challenges all the time? The Sagittarian in me is possibly to blame! I like to be able to participate with enthusiasm in as many different parts of the curriculum as possible because I’m always saying to students that school is full of fantastic opportunities and they are lucky to have such a variety of things to learn and to try. I also dislike the subject centredness of secondary education. I find the whole faculty mentality kind of limiting. English is my favourite subject but it shouldn’t stop me from being fit, or creative or interested in science. All good in theory!

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Holidays End

06/04/2008 Joh family, friends, holidays

Woke up to my last weekend of the holidays and felt a little pang of loss, no matter how often I enjoy holidays, I still find myself a little sad when they end. It will be good to get back to school though, I’m getting a little too out of routine these holidays. Staying up too late, sleeping too late and generally leaving all the good healthy self imposed limits for dead. Always good to see the students and friends too, learn a little:-)

I’ve done no home improvements or trips this break, but I’ve spent time with friends and family, which was great, but nothing to show! I’ve read a few other teachers blogs and they put me to shame, with their knitting and so forth- you know who you are! 

I walked down town to get some cake for desert for dinner tonight. Earlier in the week I had attempted the same excursion and couldn’t get a park anywhere and found it all such a hassle. I went without the cake. That’s not like me. The walk was good, cleared out the fog of the holidays end thoughts. I used to walk down the street every night when Ella was with us. Since her death, I have less compulsion, but I should do it for myself cause it’s great on so many levels. It’s not really far enough to be exercise, but as this place is getting so busy now – grrrrr – it’s more pleasant than taking the car.

Old friends are great aren’t they? Tonight I’m catching up with some old friends. One of them I haven’t seen for a couple of years. I’ve been reflecting about how I let him slip from my life. It was actually a conscious decision because I wanted a real relationship and felt we weren’t allowing each other enough space for anyone else to come along. Why, doesn’t matter though really, just looking forward to catching up again. We were once very close, daily phone conversations and frequent outings when my kids were younger. We had a lot of laughs and adventures. Some great memories.

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