Tonight, my son came home from school (eventually) and told the world might end on Wednesday, so I had to investigate. I’ve been reading about the Large Hadron Collider tonight. I don’t understand a word of it. Astrologer, Jonathon Cainer has been making mention of it in his column all week and I’ve assumed he knows what’s going on. His talk has been about bending time and such. He seems to think everything will be alright along with the scientists.

After reading a little, I have absolutely no understanding of what is going on so I’ll just have to trust everything will be alright. The good thing is that it will happen before the parent teacher interviews and the reports are due, so perhaps I won’t worry about planning too much.

I am so glad it is Friday night. This week has been a marathon! I spent at least half an hour today with every year 9 student at school today, whilst they did their online subject selections. It wasn’t too bad really, but I’m just glad it’s done. My cold is still lingering, but easing up tonight after an after school nap. Only two weeks till the end of term, reports, parent teacher interviews, a few loose ends to tie up and possible end of the world to be survived and holidays will be mine!

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Thank-you, big time,  to whoever invented that concept. I’ve never been in a job long enough to entertain the idea, but today I received the news that I have some… and I can get my hands on it. I have to give a years notice though. What to do? Should I let it pile up and have a big holiday that I may never return from, or should I just regularly take a little. Decisions, decisions….

Today, I would have just grabbed it and ran if I had only needed to give half an hours notice. There are so many people away sick at the moment! I felt like I couldn’t take two steps without being asked something or given just a little job to do. Thankfully I was teaching for most of the day and had a meeting in my prep period, so they couldn’t get to me much. One of my classes was impossible though and when they left I felt like throwing up my hands and walking out the gate. I think I’m still in recovery mode myself.

My meeting was about introducing blogging to my year 9 classes. I did this a couple of years ago and could only use moodle, which I felt to be a waste of time and was only within the school intranet, so didn’t have much to offer students. They couldn’t even comment on one anothers blogs, so they lost interest pretty quick. I know it’s safer but I feel it is time we teach the kids in a more real way. They are kind of beyond these limited type applications.

One of the people asked me to teach them to blog (the staff) in three easy steps, cause they don’t have time. I said ‘No, I don’t have the patience to teach adults’. That possibly sounds rude, but what I find when I try to teach some, anything technological, they are too scared to make a mistake and they want a step by step instruction that will work every time. Kids are more willing to take risks and have a go, and make a mistake. They don’t have that fear factor that drives me crazy. I am generalising here, because there are exceptions, but really if you don’t have the time to learn, I can’t just inject someone with the information and off they go. Grrrr… I am a bit cranky today.

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I know I’ve always wanted life to come with a bit of a manual or a how to guide. This book was a story and yet it contained some spiritual truths that could serve well as a guide. It was easy to read and enjoyable, whilst delivering a message. My colleague won it at the course we attended last week and as she was in the middle of a thick volume and I indicated interest, she offered it to me to read first.

It was the perfect reading material for me whilst I’ve been unwell the last week or so. In between big sleeps I’ve read it and it has reset my jaded thinking. Just like the course began to. It reminded me of the tools I need to include in my daily life to keep the meaning in what I do. Sometimes I just get too caught up in all the problems and start to feel a little hopeless. Trinidad’s book guided me out of that rut.

I had the morning off school today and I am feeling a lot better. I paid attention to what I love about school this afternoon and I didn’t feel so tired as I have been. The drama’s and problems were still there, in fact there was a bit of a backpile to be honest, but I didn’t feel like I had to solve them all and asked others for help. I have a massage tonight! 

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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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And I’m not afraid to use it!

I got it when my own children were quite young and I wanted to keep an eye on what they were doing online. Students have added me to their friends over the years. I think it’s a bit of a novelty for them to see an adult they know on Myspace. It’s good to stay in touch with past students. I rarely interact with students online. Mostly because I don’t have that kind of time. Five days a week is usually enough. There are teachers who use it effectively. I check it about once a fortnight now. I think my adult children are beyond me supervising them online now.

Tonight I have been verifying books for the Premiers Reading Challenge. I was absent from school on Friday, cause I’m not well right now. I didn’t get the chance to do all my usual last minute chasing up of kids who had forgotten to update their reading lists. So I posted a bulletin on Myspace! I will be interested to see how it goes down. So far, none of the kids I wanted to read it have responded.

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Today our school choir went to Melbourne to a recording studio to record their awesome voices for a CD. I love the music department at school, so when the music teacher asked for teachers to help out a while ago, I offered. I don’t know how much I helped, didn’t feel like I did anything. It was a good day though and it’s always great to hear the kids sing.

We went for long walk and checked out some furnishings shops in the St Kilda area. It was an interesting stroll. We spent most of the day listening to the kids. They were very self controlled and it was almost comical to hear all the coughing during every break. I think over 50 percent of them have a cold - if the coughs were anything to go by. I was impressed by their self discipline though and the control the conductor had over the 80 odd teenagers. They are well trained.

Driving home today along the South Eastern Freeway for the forth time this week, I thought it is unfair to have to pay tolls on a road you can barely get over 80kmph on. It’s not a freeway and I noticed a sign that said the upgrade won’t be complete until 2010. That’s quite a wait. I feel for those using it daily.

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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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The title for the PD was actually longer, but hey, it was about intellectual, emotional and social intelligence. I enjoyed the workshop. The presenter, Trinidad Hunt was passionate and engaging. She delivered a polished, well-prepared course, yet also adapted her material to her audience. I have been interested in EQ and SQ for a long time and I believe most effective teachers do this unconsciously. I did get some personal distinctions from the time spent.

Getting out of your school environment for a day and being led to reflect on your performance is always a good thing. It really isn’t about content, but about being asked the right questions of yourself. It’s often said that kids don’t always remember what they learnt at school, but you remember the people and the way they made you feel. Today’s course was an experience of that for me.

I am pleased that these ideas are mainstream now. Trinidad’s methods and content reminded me in many ways of a course I did over 15 years ago ‘Money and You’. I find this way of teaching easy on me and I don’t drift off and wish I was spending my time doing more important things, which is sometimes the case in PD’s that I have attended. Looking over the colourful notes I took, we covered quite a bit and I remember stories connected to the notes. It works!

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I am a fan of Billy Bob Thornton. This song is funny! I bought this CD for Andy and we loved it. It was one of those bargain box classic finds.

There was another one called ‘Smoking in Bed’ that I really loved as well, but I can’t find it on You Tube. I love that line ‘under the influence of Merle Haggart’. Enjoy.

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Start thinking about the goals you want to set for the next month because Sunday is the new moon. A Virgo new moon is an opportunity to purify. About.com’s article covers all the aspects of Virgo energy that can be tapped into by this new moon.

There are lots of Virgo teachers at school and Frogdancer, a blogger/teacher whose writing I enjoy, is one too. They are all so organised and get all the details right in my experience. If you were need to apply some of those qualities to an area of your life, and in order to be organised that I’m giving you plenty of notice!

To get a sense of where all the planets are and what’s going on astrologically, Cafe Astrology covers all the positions and transits.

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