Good byes

I avoid good byes. They are (almost?) always sad, even if on another level they are also happy, exciting occasions. I steel myself for the hugging and promises to get together in the hours and moments leading up to the moment. Then I walk away without looking back, but I'm always thinking of all the other good byes I have been through in the past. Facebook and Skype and such have made parting less final and more bearable, for which I am grateful. However, that doesn't change the fact that I will miss our close friends who are moving back to the States tomorrow.

Going to bed full

I am going to bed tonight feeling very full. I had dinner with friends at a restaurant with a European chef/owner. The food was very good and we ate and drank more than we needed. I don't think there's much that's better than going to bed pleasantly full. I would think then, conversely, that going to bed hungry would be one of the worst feelings one could have. I am very grateful not to have experienced that often in my life, and never with the dread or fear of long-term hunger. I am saddened that people still do live with that reality.

Useful friends

I don't think most people choose friends because they are useful, but it is a nice surprise when they turn out to be so. Two of mine saved me quite a bit of money and hassle today by coming over and working out how to change the drainage hose on my washing machine. The manual had been conspicuously silent about what would seem to be a fairly simple task, thus leading my husband to assume we would need to call (and pay for) a service-person to come out. Fortunately, I mentioned it to these two friends and they said they would take a look at it, and like me wondered how hard changing the hose could be. Unlike me, though, they are strong (for manoeuvring the machine into an open place to work on it) and repair-savvy (I will coin that as a state of being, if it's not already done). They knew what they needed to do, what tools to use and how to go about it without breaking anything. I even learnt new things about my washing machine (there's a huge cement lump in it for weight and balance) and plumbing components (some are rubber and some are hard plastic, and although they look the same, they are not). I suppose what's even luckier is that until early this year, I didn't know either of them. They are friends of friends who moved here on a working holiday visa and will shortly be going traveling again. They will be missed (and for much more than their generous appliance repair skills)!

Cornucopia

The last day or two have felt plentiful and vibrant. The weather has been hot and summery, I've been out with friends enjoying good food and drink as well as pursuing small things to move in the directions I want my life to go in. I got some good writing done this morning, then went to my first book launch this afternoon. Although I contributed two biographical articles to the book, I didn't know how the project originally came about. It was interesting to hear the history and meet the author again (and her co-author for the first time). Between those activities, I've had time to get some housework done so that I'm sitting in a bed with clean sheets in a fairly tidy room with most of the dishes done. I am grateful for this weekend day which has felt like a holiday.

'Lead not read'

I got some advice today for how I could cope teaching with a perpetually negative co-teacher. I was told to, 'lead not read.' It was then explained that this meant, if I understood correctly, that it's better to lead oneself in the direction one wants to take (like valued actions) than to spend energy reading the emotional impact/landscape of a situation. I think this might be easier said than done. I will try to keep the strategy in mind tomorrow when I'm at school working next to my co-teacher, and I think it will work best when I can also get a sense of detachment from my raw emotional reaction to her pointless comments.
On a slightly related note: I put 'wisdom' in the label, but now I don't know whether the phrase is wisdom or advice. It's too late to investigate the difference between those two, maybe another time.

New beginnings

Tonight I'm going to bed thinking about new beginnings. I've applied for two jobs for 2013 this week, which is 1) exciting to be wrapping up the school year and moving on, and 2) interesting to be looking at my current job in a new way as I describe my experience to non-teachers when applying outside my current field. I have vowed that I am going to spend at least the next two months applying for any job that I want, whether I think I can get it or not. Luck, according to a TV pseudo-documentary I saw (always the voice of reason, I know), is more about taking opportunities and having some of them pay off than a magical, universal force working in one's favour. Unlucky people tend to ignore or thwart chances that come their way, and therefore think they never get any good fortune. So I figure if I apply for lots of dream jobs and talk to lots of people about my dream job, something wonderful might happen. If it doesn't, I'll go back to applying for sensible jobs for which I'm fully qualified (plus the odd long-shot job). Does anyone reading this want to hire an inexperienced, but highly motivated, writer/editor to work part-time?

Best thing for Mondays

I think the best thing for Mondays is a cheap dinner special out with friends. I did pizza and beer/cider tonight. A colleague and his group of friends swear by wannabe Mexican to start off their week right. My feeling heading to bed tonight is one of positive forward momentum to carry me through the week; whereas when I spend the night at home, eating dinner alone with the cat or in front of the TV, then the attitude I take through the week is closer to desperate drudgery. I'll see if this mental shift permeates more of the week than just tonight.

A day of rest

Tonight I am appreciating sleeping in this morning beside my husband and my cat. I got to lie in bed and listening to rain drumming on the roof. Then it cleared up and I got out in the sun and did some gardening until I got rained on. After doing some school work, we went and got some exercise in the late afternoon sun. Now, after a homemade dinner, it's time for a documentary on TV while the dishwasher runs, then into bed not too late because my husband has to be on an early flight back to work. Although it hasn't been a physical day of rest or a totally boring, mindless day, it has felt like a self-paced day of pursuing mostly what we value doing together. Sunday as a day of rest and reconnection, although not in a traditional religious sense, still has relevance and I am very grateful when our hard work during the week pays off in a restful weekend.

Emasculate vs. Effeminate

Last night my husband came home from working interstate for the first time in two weeks and suggested we go out for dinner. We had a lovely spontaneous date night at a delicious Greek/Italian restaurant started not long ago by a local celebrity chef. The crux of this post was going to be about gratitude for having my husband home somewhat unexpectedly for the weekend. As nice as chats-in-bed over the phone are, obviously they're ten times (perhaps even a hundred times) better when we're actually beside each other in the same bed. Anyway, that's what it was supposed to be about. Then he said something and I ended up lying awake in the middle of the night ruminating.
Some background: often it's our habit, when we go out for dinner just the two of us, to decide what we each want, then my husband relays the order to the waiter. I am happy with this arrangement because of my shyness and difficulty hearing in loud, crowded places. I sometimes wonder, though, how it would look to Caitlin Moran or Naomi Wolf, were they sitting at the next table. Would they think I was unliberated? They would be wrong. My husband and I have a very pragmatically equal partnership in most domains.
Now, back to the thing he said at dinner. Last night I felt keyed up and full of confidence (from working at a writer's festival event and having been to said restaurant before) so I placed the order for our entrees and my main. After my husband had ordered his main and the waiter left I half-laughed/apologised for taking over and changing our normal procedure without consulting him first. He replied, 'It's ok, but a bit emasculating.' Here's my problem, that I lay in bed in the middle of the night thinking about instead of sleeping: why does emasculate have connotations of making my husband less of a man in a negative, turn-him-into-a-genderless-worm sort of a way, but effeminate means a man that has the qualities of a woman, with the implication that this is a bad thing. (We'll deal with the fact that my ordering caused these feelings in my husband in the first place in the privacy of our own home, not in the forum of this blog.) I realise there are several other problems here as well, not the least of which is what's the point of going around asking, like a child, why any thing is called what it is. Why is that long orange thing called 'carrot', why is the blue thing over our head called 'the sky'? I do know that the answer to my post's question is more substantial, historically relevant and politically charged than to those other etymological examples. My point in this post is about the impression these two similar sounding words, from presumably related concepts, leave in one's mind, especially when lying awake at four o'clock in the morning. I think I've come to greatly dislike the word effeminate and will scratch it from my list of acceptable vocabulary forevermore. It now strikes me as out-dated and inappropriate, much like the martial arts instructor, who just this week, sneered at my students saying, 'Don't do girrrrls push-ups, off your knees, boys!'

Married fun in bed...

I meant to post this last night, but I was in bed and the computer was away when I realised that I hadn't written anything yet. So I will post it tonight because the wonderful thing I went to bed appreciating last night is the same thing I'm looking forward to when I go to bed tonight. Intrigued yet? Well, I reckon one of the best things about being happily married is lying in bed talking to your spouse before sleep. It's like having a slumber party whenever you want, even on a week night. Sure it means I'm a bit tired today, but it's worth it. (I'm going to consciously focus on the loveliness - not the loneliness - of the in-bed-chat, since that's what my husband's and my relationship is reduced to at the moment due to his interstate work.) Rereading back over this, I have realised how insular it is to refer to this phenomenon as solely a married one, sorry. Therefore, I go to bed tonight wishing that everyone who wants it, finds that special someone to lie in bed and chat with before they drift to sleep.

Non-perfection is ok

Today I cut myself some slack. I probably do that a fair bit, particularly this year when I'm in a job situation that I don't like, but today I did so consciously and without guilt. After the migraine of yesterday, I needed today to recover so I called in sick. I realised as soon as I did so that I had actively not wanted to see a particular colleague with whom I work very closely. This was a day to take care of myself, to realise that staying in bed recuperating is not a sign of weakness, that not being able to politely laugh off yet another caustic remark is ok once in a while. Other than reading and sleeping, I spent time resetting some value-directed goals and brushing up my CV, both of which will hopefully lead me out of needing to take these recovery days so much in the future.

The Quiet Observer

The thing that got me through today was 'the watcher' or 'the observing self' or whatever name you want to give to the part inside that notices what's going on with detachment. That immeasurable part of me spent the day quietly observing the sensations and whinging of my body and mind experiencing a migraine and gently reminding me to not get sucked in. I managed to stay focussed on my job (taking my students around a work site on an excursion), then on doing something important and healthy for myself (going for a walk with a friend after a visit with her baby at his bath time). Thanks to this quiet observer's reminders, I stayed focussed instead of getting sucked into the painful sensations of the migraine. Thanks to the reminders, I also did not come home immediately after school and wallow on the couch in an empty house getting more and more depressed. Instead I enjoyed sunshine, fresh air and company as well as getting some errands done on the way home from her house. This was not another day lost to a migraine; this was a day truly lived as well as it could have been with a migraine.

Sunday Reading

Tonight I feel grateful for having had such a productive morning - cleaning the floors, writing report cards, doing laundry and dishes - that I could spend a few hours in the afternoon reading in the park. There is something magical about getting lost in a book about young lovers in the snow in the mountains of Japan while sitting by a lake in a busy city on a hot spring day. I am reading Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. I find his writing style seductive and meditative. And by writing this up now I am reliving that memory and hopefully imbedding the warm, hypnotic pleasure of my afternoon into my brain.

Hairdresser Wisdom

Hairdresser wisdom can often be invaluable. 

Today mine gave me the answer to a question I’ve been thinking about for days, when answering a totally different question I had asked. I asked how a mutual friend, Sam, was doing and she replied that Sam hated the marketing work she had quit hairdressing for. The low commission, rejection and sales pressure were not what she wanted, thus answering for me whether selling ad space in a travel magazine on commission might be the right job for me as a break from teaching next year. Then, because my husband obviously knows me better than my hairdresser, I discussed the job opportunity with him and he confirmed that I should follow my intuition about the job - if it didn’t feel right, it probably wasn’t - despite his being one of the most logical and calculating (in a good way) people I know. My brother has also weighed in and is of the opinion that I would HATE (his capitals, not mine) it. A tiny part of me still wonders if I’m using these opinions to validate my desire to remain closer to my comfort zone when looking for other job options. For now I’m going to trust the trifecta of hairdresser, husband and brother wisdom and keep looking for other ways to branch out of teaching.

November 10, 2012 - Getting Started

This blog came about because the last blog I started, at this time last year, was long-winded and frustration-filled and I am in danger of falling into that rut again. That one was about the issues at the school where I teach - difficult coworkers, misguided administrators, demanding parents, misbehaving children, unreasonable workload, pointless paperwork, malfunctioning IT, and the list goes on. These complaints certainly don’t apply to all people or times at work, but negativity has a way of clouding out all the little sparks of positivity if we’re not careful. In my personal life, my husband is working interstate, tomorrow marks the seven year anniversary of the day my mother tried to commit suicide (ages ago, I know, but traumatic enough to still bother me sometimes), I live thousands of kilometres from my family (by choice, but I still miss them occasionally), I suffer from chronic migraines and anxiety and am just now getting over the severe cough I got at the beginning of July.

With that last whinge out of my system, now on to my small, positive considerations of life.

I will start retroactively to make up for my whinge. Yesterday, I got to zip around town in an orange Mini in the sun for a little while in the middle of the day because my car was in the shop. The Mini was a courtesy car and some of my students were receiving awards for a Remembrance Day competition they had entered. It was fun to drive a cute, little car and the ceremony was moving. I was proud of my students' work and their impeccable behaviour at the service, which was attended by other schools, many parents, retired veterans and local politicians.