Since moving my newsletter to this blog, I must admit that I miss writing about my other lives. I know many readers have enjoyed that section of my newsletter and have told me that they often read that first, instead of the featured article that probably took me twice as long to write. Since starting this blog, I have had fewer things to say about my other lives; I am not sure why though. I did write about my holidays but beyond that, it seems that my everyday life is whizzing past too fast for me to record any deep thoughts. Where’s the mindfulness you’ll ask. But whatever it is, the truth is that I am suffering from some writing blues too.
I have been writing a piece on teaching the functions of language and it is still sitting there on my desktop mocking me. It’s saying things like, “Is this the best you can do?”, “Do you know what you’re talking about here or not?” and other similar confidence sapping comments. So in a desperate attempt to kill these voices, I concluded the piece with a quick summary but it just felt like I have committed murder and now have a corpse to deal with. Ah well, I’ll just have to stick it in deep freeze and let it hibernate a while. So in the meantime, I have nothing useful to offer you.
I must confess though that part of my time in the last 2 weeks have been taken up by excursions into Facebook. I have always been on FB but under a pseudonym and purely for family exchanges. But having my own name up there also means a lot more interactions with friends and people, and what’s the point of a presence on FB without any postings? In a way, I like FB too because it allows me to post short bits of stuff as and when I like. So does a blog, you will say, but FB gives one the instant gratification that a blog doesn’t. And like it or not, more people are on FB and they log on to it more frequently.
So I’ve taken to posting several things on FB. One is my School’s Cool posts in which I post photographs of cool teachers and cool things I see in schools. If you are not a teacher, you don’t get access to many places within a school. I am lucky enough to be able to do this and I get to read stuff posted on walls and in toilet cubicles and I also get to see little nooks and corners of each school. Our schools are beautiful and contain many delightful surprises. This picture -the girls’ toilet in one school – is so completely unexpected in its design.
The view and the plants all make the toilet a real treat to visit. True, there are ugly and bad things in our schools, but generally these are few and far between. There are scenes of ugly behaviour, yes, but the physical infrastructure is always quite admirable. Sometimes we don’t think much of what we have here, but I have seen (and smelt) toilets in my nieces’ schools in Malaysia. These dank and disgusting places didn’t exist when I was going to school there as a child, and mind you, as a primary school child, we had to be given a lesson was how to use a flush toilet because most of us didn’t have one at home. What happened to the standards of hygiene there over the years will remain a mystery to me.
Another post that I intend to do every now and then will be short video clips or podcasts related to education. I posted one in my last blog entry here because I didn’t want blog readers to miss that. Some of these are short enough for busy people, and they are a good way to keep up with what’s happening around us.
And yes, there will be the usual sound bites about this and that and particularly about activities, people, places and things I am involved with. I don’t intend to inundate you or my page with all sorts of blow by blow accounts of what’s happening in my life, so don’t worry.
Other than Facebook, I am still busy working on the P4 textbook and teaching classes. Working on the textbook is a learning experience, and has given me so much insight into our education system. But, hey, I love my job so I have no complaints. In my free time, I am still practising yoga, gardening and reading. Yes, the reading has been taking up many hours of my days especially since I am now hooked on Susan Hill. I began with her Simon Serrailler detective series and then went on to her other books. I enjoy the characters in the book and the fact that the excitement in the books do not come from various imaginative ways of dismembering bodies, a feature of some of the more popular thrillers. I’ve also read her Lady in Black which is a really chilly ghost story. In between, I am trying to catch up with the many good movies and concerts in town.
Right, enough of the ho hum details of my life. I hope to get my act together and get the article done this weekend. No, let me rephrase that - I will get my act together and get the article done this weekend.
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