The Upside of Anger

I really enjoyed this movie. I strongly identified with the main character. Not that my husband died and I thought he’d left me for another woman, but I have been equally outraged about wrong assumptions and she was just playing it out to an extreme scenario. She was angry and wrong and hurt and wrong and fabulously self indulgent and witty and wrong. I have been all those things before and it really made me think to watch someone else do it in such a spectacular way.

My wonderful fairy godmother Auntie Angela said to me once that the great thing in life is that she is so often wrong. Most of the hurts and pains and negative things we imagine are wrong. It would be great if I could keep that in mind in future. When you are hurt or imagining some betrayal or slight, it is very difficult to suppose you could be wrong. I intend to do that though. That is my intention.

My 40th Birthday

I am 40. My wonderful family and friends celebrated a washed out party with me last night. I enjoyed seeing all the people I love and enjoying their company.
I don’t feel different.
I feel the same way I have always felt.
I appreciate my family and friends and all the great things I have in my life. I feel blessed.

Louis Sachar & school counsellors

I read Holes at school during reading class a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it. I watched the video last Friday night and it was great. I am going to use this book and film with students as I feel there are a lot of good things to be learnt from it. I found another book There’s a Boy in the Girls Bathroom by Sachar. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the counsellor at our school. I don’t know how often I have heard or said the comment that the counsellor is not doing enough to help. I read that book and it made me appreciate the kind of long term effort it can take with people for counsellors. It is an important role and to expect instant results would be silly. It is a great book, was an enjoyable and mostly very light story. I think there is something in that story for everyone. I realised in reflection on my own behaviour, how it is easy to become disliked when you are angry and sad. You push others away and it can happen very quickly that you end up with few people who want to be around you. It is not some kind of huge personality disorder, that needs to be untangled. It was a great read.