see

A thought crept up on me this evening out of nowhere, and has since demanded some level of presence in my head.  It's a bit of a random thought really, and I'm not quite sure where it came from.

The thought is basically this: we only record the extremes of our lives.  The very good and the very bad tend to be what are left behind, written down, recorded in any way.  We forget about the "boring" minutiae of life, the stuff we allow to pass us by day after day without noticing.
I suppose part of this comes from teaching History to a load of nine and ten year olds - I was trying to get over to them on Monday that what is left behind is not necessarily representative of the way things were.  It's a spectacularly hard perspective to try and teach - you're basically trying to get children to imagine something that a) they can't see/touch/feel/hear, b) can't do much to find out about, c) could be mistaken for not ever having existed at all.

But I think there's a more important here than "pay attention to the boring details of your day to day existence". If we did that, we would very quickly overload our cognitive capacities and long term memory - precisely the reason why our brains are selective as to what is embedded and which connections are lost.  I think though that, instead of occupying ourselves thinking endlessly about our minute by minute lives, we would probably do better if we considered the beauty of the things in our life.  So often, it is the small things that pass us by and yet they hold so much that we should be appreciating.  And so often, I choose not to write because I don't feel like I have anything important to say.

I feel like it's so important to teach children not to think that way - to teach children to have the confidence to write for the sake of writing, rather than waiting until they have some big idea.  I love that my inspiration comes from the most random of moments - a string of words, a line, a sentence will pop into my head and will refuse to budge, and I'll be forced to write something sooner or later.  And those moments of inspiration are never caused by ground-breaking, "significant" events...they are caused when I look afresh at something I thought I knew, they're caused when I make myself actually see instead of just look, they are caused when I try and stop to appreciate the small details.

I can't say I'm very good at remembering this, but I can at least say that I like the idea of taking our inspiration from the life and world in which we live - the things around us that we often don't take the time to see.

sunscreen

"Enjoy your body, use it every way you can...don't be afraid of it, or of what other people think of it, it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own."

Most people who grew up in the 90's know that a vast amount of sound advice can be derived from this song, and most people who know me know that I occasionally quote it out of nowhere.  Sometimes I get bored of my iTunes collection, so I flick through my YouTube favourites instead (most of which I have downloaded on iTunes, but somehow it's different).  This evening was one of those instances, and eventually in my favourites list I came across this song.

Every time I listen to it, it seems like something new stands out.  Tonight, it was that lyric up there.  We live in a culture that can make us so obsessed with what we look like, how we dress, what we do and how.  There are people who would tell me that I shouldn't go and dance twice a week, never mind start taking ballet classes at age 22, because I might look stupid, or because I'm by far and away not the greatest dancer who has lived on the planet.  But I don't care about those things.  What matters to me is that dancing makes me happy, it does something to me that I can barely describe, it makes me feel good about myself.  The times when I'm dancing are the times when I realise that my body is the greatest instrument I'll ever own, and that I really ought to make use of it - regardless of who's watching.

Some of my IoE friends have a real tendency for managing to find a link to weight, figure and size in any given conversation, and sometimes it can seem a bit obsessive.  One of the things I find peculiar is that it often comes down to telling each other how skinny/slim/thin they look, thereby implying how fat/ugly/huge they themselves look.  I have found issue with comparing yourself to other people for a long time, and now it's something I try to avoid.

I spent so many years obsessed by my weight, trying to get to a certain relatively random number.  I have only realised relatively recently that, although that number isn't what I'm at right now, I don't much care.  Sometimes I look down at my arms and can only see the scars there, but I think I'm very gradually coming round to the perspective that, well, that's life and there isn't much I can do about it now.  I have spent so long drinking in this culture of "hate who you are, aspire to something utterly unachievable" that I think I thought it was normal.  But now, I'm not saying I've got it all sorted 100% of the time, but I am happier in my own skin - happier with who I am just for being who I am, rather than thinking "but if only...."

If there's one out of ten million different non-curricular things I would like to teach the kids I work with, now and once I'm qualified, it's this idea.  That they have *nothing* to be ashamed of, that their bodies are the greatest instruments they will ever own and that they should use them every which way they can or want to - regardless of who is watching.

iceberg

This week hasn't exactly been the easiest one to stay positive throughout, for all sorts of different reasons.  Apart from the usual tiredness, busyness and stress that go hand in hand with being on School Experience, this week I've had 2 days of being in excruciating stomach pain for no apparent reason that I can work out, and a day and a half of stress caused by a very complicated situation at school.

Despite all of this plus some other bits and pieces thrown in though, I am trying to do my best to maintain that positive outlook I was talking about last week.  Yes, Tuesday was a day of pain when I frequently thought I might pass out, but it was also my first full day of class teaching - and I'm proud of myself that I got through it at all, never mind while feeling that ill(!)  The stressful situation on Thursday was just that, but I did at least resolve things on Friday morning and am now doing my best to stay out of school politics as much as is humanly possible.

This weekend has consisted of lots of lovely small things.  On Friday, Giles and I popped out for some dinner.  Yesterday we had a lie-in (a considerable luxury these days), and I saw one of my IoE friends for coffee in the afternoon.  It was so nice to be able to talk to someone about everything school-related who is in exactly the same position and often feeling exactly the same.  Last night I cooked dinner for Giles and I (omitting the pineapple upside down cake that I'd been planning when I realised I didn't have any self raising flour - girlfriend fail).
This morning we got up early to watch the Aussie Open Final, which involved plenty of shouting at the television and a sense of justice when the right person won :) And this afternoon, Giles and I went for a walk along the river and down to the Wetlands Centre.  We laughed at people on bikes whose backs were getting covered in mud, and admired random pretty windows, cute dogs, and the resilience of people going rowing at this time of year.  And started concocting plans for a Boat Race get-together.

I like those kinds of days when you can appreciate the small moments, because there's nothing getting in the way of them.  You can find them on busy days too, you just have to look a bit harder and keep your eyes open.  I aim to find at least one happy small moment at the end of every school day, because it means I go home with a smile on my face and that in turn means I go in the next morning in a much better frame of mind about how the day will go.

And at the end of it all, I only have 9 days left at school, and at least one of those will be on a school-trip. Hurrah! I'm looking forward to this week (despite the fact that this week involves two very important observations), but I am at the same time hoping my silly stomach decides to behave....

lessons

It's funny how much teaching can infiltrate your entire life, but not overly surprising.  This last week I have been teaching, evaluating, planning and dreaming about all of the above - sometimes infuriating, when you've been doing it all day and then you can't even get it out of your head when you're asleep(!)  But one thing I've suddenly realised this evening is that "WALT" h  as suddenly taken on a big role in my life.
WALT (also known as "We are learning to...") is important for all the lessons I plan - if we're not actually learning to do anything out of the teaching I'm doing and the activities the kids are engaged in, then it's a pretty pointless exercise.  But it has a sense about it of continuation, of a job not being finished - of an indefinite amount of time.

I ended today pondering the positives and thinking about focus.  Sometimes you don't realise, until you step back and take a look, how much you and the people around you have changed, and how much you've grown in the last few years.  I don't think I'd thought about it for a long time, but driving back through the pitter patter rain this evening it really got me thinking.
A few years ago, I was very good at dwelling on negatives - sometimes, I feel like that hasn't really changed but driving back tonight I realised all the positives that I've got going on in my life.  I'm developing towards a career that I love, I have a boyfriend who I adore, most of the people around me are there because they matter to me and they're important and good for me, I spend time doing things I enjoy.  The vast majority of the time, I think positively and I think happy.  That is a vast improvement on a few years ago, for sure.

Sometimes this year strikes me as "just another thing to be got through" - a box to be ticked, a year of not living with my boyfriend, a year to pass by as quickly as possible before getting on with things again.  But actually, I'm realising that this year has a lot to teach me and I have a lot to learn.  Already this year I have learned that I can live by myself - I am able to stand my own company for long enough not to go utterly insane, and I can even enjoy my own company sometimes.  I like the fact that I know I can stand on my own two feet, but of course I also like the fact that I have a boyfriend who I love spending time with.
I like knowing that I can find security and strength within myself.  I feel a whole lot more "grown up" than a few months ago, for a whole host of different reasons.

I feel like, at age 23, I'm just beginning to find out what my place is within this little world that we call home.  It's so exciting to consider all that's still to explore and to think about everything that's still ahead, but equally I generally love where I am right now.  Sometimes it can feel like you've only just opened your eyes to see what's right in front of you, and I like those moments in amongst all my tendencies to race ahead of myself.

Sometimes things can seem overwhelming, especially when I'm tired and/or stressed.  But I've learned this week that things go so much better when you have and try your best to maintain a positive outlook...and remember that life doesn't have to be lived at 100mph constantly.  I'm enjoying figuring out who I am, what that means, what I like and what needs to change.
For once, I'm actually enjoying learning life's lessons :)

fruitless

This morning made me realise, if nothing else, that trying to carry on with something once you've made a decision not to is a really fruitless exercise.

Perhaps it didn't help that it was a manic morning - a lot of setting up and last minute moving tables, leaving church as soon as I actually managed to get up there having finished setting up, having the kids for longer because it was a communion service, but trying to rush through the teaching in 5mins flat because the opening had been extended to allow for the longer service, which meant I had parents clamouring to collect their children while still trying to get through what I wanted to do with them - plus a few girls who either a) wouldn't stop asking questions, b) wouldn't stop chatting to each other or c) seemed to show absolutely no interest whatsoever.

Include in that a child with behavioural issues in the opening who I couldn't contain and who had to be taken out...it wasn't what I needed, and ended up only validating further my slight concerns from last week that right now, I'm really not a very good teacher.

I've half made the decision to stop, but the half of me that hasn't is the half that fears the conversation I know I have to have, and the half that hates the idea of letting people down. But I can think of better things to do with a Sunday morning than to make myself even angrier with myself and with God than I already am.

It's silly to internalise teaching sometimes, and I suspect that this morning may have been a bad one to choose. Deciding that you're weak because you gave into temptation, deciding that if you'd only known the Bible better then you could have fought it off, believing that you're inadequate and God hates you for giving in - it isn't easy to teach through all of that, especially when the kids don't actually understand what you're trying to say (mainly because you haven't got enough time to explain it properly).

I'm so tired of thinking that it's all about me and what I've done, and barely at all about God and what he's done...but I don't know how to make myself think the other way around. There was a verse today for the kids about not testing God...but without that test he isn't going to get any trust from me at all.

else

As a very brief, if very inadequate update: life has been crazily busy, but generally good. Christmas was a lovely time spent with family, but was peculiar in that it was the first Christmas Day morning I have ever spent away from home and my own family. It was lovely to spend so much time with my sisters, but seeing one of them go back to America was even harder than when she went before - because we don't have a definitive date for when she'll be back again. I'm exploring going out there at the end of April to see her. Having spent a week back at uni, I am once again embittered that I managed to miss out on snow days due to transport links being far too efficient, but such is life. And I'm back to school tomorrow for another 5 weeks - I am exhausted just at the prospect of it!

And as a fuller explanation of the last post...

Some more observant people may have noticed that I have been avoiding church for approximately...6 weeks or so. To begin with, it was an "I want to do something else this weekend", and then family commitments and Christmas and being away took over, and suddenly I'm back to the point at which even seeing the doors makes my heart start beating faster...never mind contemplating walking through them on a Sunday morning. It's at this point that I wish I had just kept going, but you can't take back what you've already done...you can only change what you do next.

And that's what I'm trying to keep focused on at the moment - I know I can't do much about what I've done and how I've felt, but I know that if that's going to change, then I need to "do" something. I've become very used to seeing people who I think have their faith life sorted, and seeing the easy parts of their faith life. Seeing them on a Sunday morning gives you very little insight into what actually goes on Monday - Friday, so I have built up this idea over the years that people who have got their faith sorted don't actually have to do anything about it - it's sorted, and that's the way it's staying, it doesn't require any extra effort. So unless I'm careful, I fall into an idea that I don't have to do anything to sort out my own faith life, it will just happen as and when. Bad perspective.

So I'm trying to figure out where to start on the "doing something" front, without doing what I always do and completely over-thinking it. I'm trying to figure out something to read, although I have no idea where to start so suggestions would be useful. I'm skipping every piece of God-squad music my iTunes manages to come across, because at the moment it isn't actually doing me any good to listen to it. I am at once trying to do something, but remain somewhat disattached so that a) I don't over-analyse everything and b) I won't be too disappointed if it doesn't work out.

I can't remember the song it's from, but somewhere on my iTunes there's a song with lyrics that say:

"Nobody said it was easy, no-one ever said it would be so hard."

New Year, same old me

I hate him. It's a horribly unconstructive, stupid way to feel, but it is the way I feel. I hate him.

I hate him for making me feel this way. I hate him for making me so angry.

I hate him.