Painfully at Odds

This first week of the new term has been filled with surprises and a healthy dose of irony.

I've been teaching in primary schools now for eleven years. You would think that in those years I would have gradually come to feel more competent and yet I have to say that it has been quite the opposite. I have had so many student / family-related issues brought to my attention that I feel less and less able to cater to my students. Time and again, teachers are bombarded with information that asks us to consider medical issues, psychological issues, legal issues and cultural issues. The latest in this series of issues was brought to my attention this week and left me feeling disempowered and overwhelmed.

Bridges Out of Poverty

My week began with a professional development day organised for the public schools in our district. Called Bridges Out of Poverty and featuring the work of Dr Ruby Payne, the seminar addressed the challenges of poverty in the context of students and their families. Now, don't get me wrong. The information presented was both enlightening and disturbing. It made me realise that there are whole other worlds out there that I certainly wasn't consciously aware of, sitting here in my painfully middle class existence. I'm not just talking about the poverty class here either. I'm also referring to the wealthy class. It was a bizarre experience to feel simultaneously privileged and inadequate.

I guess I emerged from the training with some strategies for dealing with kids affected by poverty but also with the feeling that this was just another nail in the coffin for my teaching career. This job entails far more than I'd ever imagined and demands more than I've got to give. I'm done. I've had enough. Enough of the demands on my personal time, my emotions, my family and my finances (because I do end up spending my own money on my students - money that I really can't afford to spend). I don't know what the alternative is for me yet, though I'd like to think that it is going to be associated with writing considering that when I'm writing, I'm happy. In an ideal world, I'd love to get paid for being happy.

Looking for the Positive

At this stage, it doesn't matter how much I want to be out of teaching. It's paying the bills and is allowing me to provide my kids with a stable home and myself with the opportunity to travel. So I'll teach until the universe creates the conditions that will allow me to bid this phase of my life a thankful farewell.

I've made a conscious decision to approach each day with positivity. It seems that this is paying off too. On the first day of school, two of my toughest kids came to talk to me together at lunchtime to let me know that they have made a decision to try harder with their schoolwork and their behaviour. I was stoked, but tried not to let my elation get out of hand in case it scared them. I thanked them for their mature decision and promised to support them in any way that I could. I also reiterated that I believed in them, probably more than they believe in themselves. They are both intelligent kids who could be doing so much better. I've tried many different strategies to engage and motivate, but most times, the success has been short-lived. I know it is because they needed to make the decision for themselves.

So far they are sticking to their promise, and though it has only been three days, it takes very little to get them back on task when they slip. A raised eyebrow is now sufficient for them to self-correct. I've been really diligent about giving them public and private recognition of their efforts without actually offering extrinsic rewards and I'm hoping that they have made the transition to finding intrinsic motivation.They need to want to succeed for the sake of succeeding. Perhaps a positive experience with these two kids will help me to find the motivation to continue teaching for the moment.

UK Trip

Today, my travel buddy and I finalised a few more details of our trip. We have booked our London hotel, organised an overnight trip to Paris and a stay at Eynsham Hall in Oxford.

We were on the verge of booking our car hire when my very diligent bank decided that all this UK credit card activity was uncharacteristic of my spending habits and promptly suspended my card so no further fraudulent purchases could take place. I received a polite SMS asking me to call them to chat about it, which I did. After waiting for a considerable amount of time, I was greeted by a very flustered sounding call centre chap who apologised profusely for the wait before asking me whether my request was critical enough to warrant immediate attention as they were in a bit of a mess with something going down in all the call centres. I was quite happy to go cardless for the evening, so he thanked me and asked if I could call back tomorrow. Looks like I'll be booking the train to Oxford a bit later. Never mind. Better safe than sorry. I can't complain.

I must admit, I looked at this problem in a new light after the poverty seminar on Monday. At least I'm lucky enough to be in a position where I can have a credit card in the first place.

Hockey

As an ex-hockey player of many years (damn you osteo-arthritis for taking that away from me!), I'm excited to see the Australian boys and girls fighting it out at the Commonwealth Games. The World Cup winning Kookaburras are an amazing team (and VERY pretty to look at), and our girls have the potential to extremely well too after finishing second in the World Cup not long ago.

I had planned to write more, but it's very tricky to watch and cheer for the hockey lads and type at the same time, so I'm off to admire their skills...truly.

Apology Post

Just ducking in quickly to apologise for my lack of posting last Friday. I was totally caught up in finishing my first ever fic series and it left me exhausted but very pleased with myself. I will be back tomorrow for a full post, but today I need to say a couple of things...

As promised here is the link for the NME Music Photography Awards. As I mentioned, I've entered five pics in the Live Amateur Category. The link above will take you to this pic of Chris first. While it's not the clearest of pics, I just love the way the lighting has cast him into partial silhouette.


From this pic, if you vote, you can proceed through all five of my pics in this order.

Dom is looking unusually serious in this pic.







I adore this pic of Matt at the piano and it always gets a lot of love on Twitter.












The band on the stage during Follow Me sums up everything about Muse for me. The crazy lighting, massive stage presence and their roles. Matt could have been at the piano, or on guitar, but this pic of him with just a mic highlights that he is the primary vocalist.









The final picture of Matt is currently sitting in second place. As a Facebook friend said, it is that classic rock guitar pose. I love the lighting and the expression on Matt's face as he loses himself in the music.








I could go on about Muse, but I promised to keep this zone relatively obsession-free, so I won't carry on about how Matt finally tweeted me this week! and I like to try to keep my promises.

I'll finish up with a bit of humour and I'll be back tomorrow with a proper update.

I thought I'd kick off this late post (sorry) with a panorama that I took last night as the sun sank into the Indian Ocean. Don't be deceived by the warm glow...it was freezing cold down there, but there is something about the ocean that draws me to it, regardless of the weather. Not to swim, mind you. That's not my thing at all. I just appreciate the ever-changing beauty, the power and the mystique. If I started swimming west from this point I'd eventually hit Africa and a whole world of different! Yet another place on the bucket list. In the meantime...

UK Trip

Tickets have been purchased! This is really happening! Now I'm terrified because I'm going over there for the first week by myself. I have no idea where anything is, or how to use the rail system, or money conversion. Luckily, I have some friends who are going to look after me for part of my week. For the rest of it, I need to summon the courage to actually go out and do things for myself in a place I am completely unfamiliar with. *Deep breath* I can do this! I'd be happy with myself if I can find my way to a cafe and some local shops.

Photography

I've started to take my beautiful camera with me so I don't miss great opportunities. Having said that, the sunset pics were all iPhone photos and the colour is natural!

I took some nice pics down at the beach near my favourite cafe the other day. I really need to take some pics of my local cafe. It's called Dome and it's part of a franchise chain across Australia and internationally. I've never had a bad coffee at Dome (@DomeCafeGroup), no matter where I go. I was itching to get back to my Dome after my US trip where we experienced some truly dreadful coffee. We have two of these cafes in Mandurah, but my favourite is at Doddi's Beach in Halls Head, which is where these pics are taken. The staff are wonderful, the food is delicious (my daughter loves the kids menu and especially the mac cheese and creamy milkshakes!), the views are fantastic and it is just so darned relaxing. It's not uncommon for me to go there twice on a weekend. The vegetarian breakfast is absolutely perfect. Picture this - eggs your way, mushrooms, tomato, baked beans, spinach, toast and a hash brown. I should pre-order tomorrow's breakfast right now! My travel buddy and I planned our US trip while sitting in various Domes around Perth and we are doing the same with our UK trip. Free Wifi certainly helps with this.

Well, after that massive plug for Dome...back to my pics. I really enjoy playing with the light through clouds and off water. I've also been trying to compose my pics to give them more perspective. I don't really have any idea of what I'm doing, but it's fun trying and I've been happier with the quality of my photos, particularly landscapes where there isn't necessarily a focus.

I quite like including people in my pics, but I much prefer them to be unposed. In these photos, the people are completely unknown to me. They just happened to be walking along the beach. Rather than leave them out, I thought I'd use them to help make sense of the picture.

But even taking pics of my kids and my friends, I'd much prefer to catch them with natural looks on their faces, because that is how I see them all the time and how I love to see them.

Competitions

Back in April, I entered a photo competition for Western Australian photography and scored a creditable third place on public voting (I entered with only 4 hours remaining in the competition!) The winning pic is at the bottom of this post.

Spurred on by this success, I'm going to try again, but something different this time.

I've been really brave and entered 5 of my pics in the NME Music Photography Awards. Some of my photos from the Australian Muse gigs last year turned out to be truly spectacular (though I may be a tad biased since I'm totally in love with this band). This was quite by accident. The flashing lights combined with lots of movement and crowd jostling made things rather challenging. I'm waiting for the pics to be approved so they can be added to the website for voting by the public. I'll post a reminder when that happens, but the link above will get you there. I've entered the Live category for Amateurs.If I win anything I won't be able to keep my mouth shut, so keep your fingers crossed and vote if you feel enthusiastic.

Writing

Being on school holidays has given me a bit of extra writing time, but I've also taken quite a bit of time to read. There's so much to be learned from seeing how other people craft their stories. I see techniques that I can integrate into my writing. I'm particularly interested in world-building - creating the world in which the story is set, but in a way that feels natural, as though the setting is another character to learn about in the narrative. Endless streams of description without any meaning to the characters is pointless and boring to the reader in my opinion, so I'm studying ways to bring world-building into my stories and experimenting! I do love experimenting. My own novel will require this exact skill of world-building, so I need to train myself. So to my followers who are wondering what I am doing towards my novel, there you have it. It will all come together when the time is right. I just know it. But for now, I'll continue to play.

Holidays!

The fourth of July may have a more historical meaning in the States, but for me, it signals the end of the term and of first semester at school. The past ten weeks have been the most emotional, heart-wrenching, soul-destroying weeks of my teaching career and have most definitely made me adamant about leaving the teaching profession. I swear, I have received more support from my Twitter buddies during this time than from any of my colleagues, so from the bottom of my heart...THANK YOU! You know who you are.

Writing

My health has been on and off this week (probably a severe case of 'end-of-termitis'), so I plan to switch my writing nights for this week. Tonight is for fanfic, mostly because it is sitting on the edge of my brain demanding release. Tomorrow (after a decadent, child-free lie in) I will summon the energy I need to tackle my own novel.

Holiday plans

These holidays do not come with any grand plans apart from recovering from hell term and indulging my writing. There is also the important fact that I'm trying to save for my trip to the UK in October, so spending now needs to kept to an absolute minimum. That said, I daresay I'll splurge on a few lattes if only to partake in some admiration of the cute barista at the local coffee shop. Weather permitting, I will even make the effort of walking to said cafe. Caffeine, exercise and eye-candy...what more does a girl need? (You don't need to answer that.)

Reading

I'm continuing on my journey through the complete works of the most awesome and talented Millionstar who kindly agreed to me linking her page here. If you have a taste for the type of fanfics that I write, you will most certainly enjoy what this lady can do with words! Go forth and give her some much-deserved love.

Photography

As promised in my last post, I went out on the weekend to play with my camera. Here is a sample of my shots. Luckily for me, my daughter is far more photogenic than I could ever hope to be and really enjoys hamming things up for my camera.

Well, that's all for this week. Just a quickie. Plus I'm really keen to write. So goodnight all. Back this time next Friday. x