Getting a Grip...

This week I've started my 25th year of teaching.  I started work at a small Upper School (actually a Secondary Modern) in Buckinghamshire back in September 1989.  I've taught ever since - without a break for Maternity Leave but in a variety of schools and situations, which has kept things interesting.

This week has caught me in a slightly pensive and reflective mood. 

I still love being a teaching as much as I always did.  I adore getting to know the kids, and trying to match my enthusiasms to their interests so that we both benefit from being in the classroom.  I think I'm lucky to have chosen Music teaching as my career.

BUT.... I'm not keen on the idea that another 12 months of teaching is going to have another 12 months of 'wear and tear' on me. 

IF.... I handle the 5.45 alarm calls; the 70 miles commute; the considerable workload; the additional concert schedule and stress generated by the general staff politics in the same way as last year.... I will just end up in the same place at the end of the year.  I was drinking a bit (sometimes a lot) too much wine; far too much coffee and virtually no water.  I slept badly and the sleep deprivation made the stresses and stupidity harder to handle.  I was too tired to function in the evenings and the cycle just kept on repeating and growing. Standard stuff really.....

ANYWAY...THINGS HAVE GOT TO CHANGE!

SO.... I'm implementing some 'New School Year' Resolutions.

• Exercise every evening - in the form of walking (while the weather is dry and we can get out) and Pilates (when the weather is wet).
• No 'habit drinking' - especially while I'm cooking or continuing through the evening after the meal while I'm watching TV. 
• Driving myself whenever possible, so that I can get home a little earlier and start dinner before Mark gets home.
• Doing everything I reasonably can to ensure that I sleep properly when I go to bed.  (This may result in a trip to the Docs - but we'll see..).  If I slept every hour that I was under the duvet, I'd never be sleep deprived again! 
• Working out some of my priorities.  I can't remember the last time I went out to be sociable mid-week because I'm become frightened of missing out on sleep.
• Keeping a sense of perspective - after all, 24 years at the chalk face must generate some useful prior experience!!!!!

Wish me luck.....

I hope that the new academic year is going well for everyone.
Jx

Catching up....

Thank you to everyone who left a comment on my last post.  I got back into work last Monday and - sadly - my colleague HAD been up to her disloyal tricks.  However, my line managers were absolutely great and 'took her to task' about her behaviour.  This is quite unusual for my school so I made sure that everyone knew how much I appreciated their support!  Unfortunately I had to take a little break from posting because my back really hurt each evening.  Here are a few rather overdue pictures from last weekend...

 

The weather forecast for last Sunday wasn't great - so we decided to take Dad and Mum to the Transport Museum at Coventry to celebrate Father's Day.  It worked out really well because there were loads of 'trip down memory lane' exhibits...

 

Mum remembered going on holiday in a caravan like this...

 

 

I remembered Mum cooking on a little stove like this in our trailer tent in the early 70s..

 

When I was a little girl and the Triumph TR7 was launched I always said that I wanted a white one - just like this...  (I had to wait almost 30 years and compromise on colour... but I did drive a TR7 daily for many happy years!!!!)

 

There's also a huge display about the land speed record - when they went through the sound barrier for the first time...

 

.. And, towards the end of the exhibitions, there's this little Metro.

It was Lady Diana Spencer's car in the months before she married Prince Charles.

I couldn't get over how tiny the car was...

 

We really enjoyed the museum because it focuses as much on the social history of transport as it does on the vehicles themselves.  I loved the section where some old road safety adverts were being played.  There was a hysterical Dad's Army sketch about how to cross the road at the 'new' Pelican crossings and several 'Tufty Club' adverts.

 

The thing is.... I remembered them clearly!!!

Have a good week.

Jx

A 'Letting Off Steam' Post

WARNING - THIS IS LITTLE MORE THAN A RANT!

One way and another I've just come to the end of a really grotty week.  The 'grottiness' didn't just come out of the blue - it's been brewing for several weeks.  Unfortunately once it hit me this week it sort of settled and I'm feeling pretty down.

Basically I have a really dodgy neck. Over the years, I've learnt how to manage it.  I avoid pushing shopping trolleys and packing the food shopping completely (first instance of how I couldn't manage without my lovely husband).  I drive an automatic car.  I do a job that rarely requires me to carry anything and allows me to 'prowl around' - thus keeping my back loose.  I also walk as much as possible the rest of the time for the same reason.  I don't even carry wet washing around (lovely husband again) or do the ironing or vacuum (more lovely husband).

At this point I should point out that Mark is incredible about all of this.  He is my rock - literally!

There are three reasons for this on-going problem.  Firstly I was born with the first vertebrae fused to my skull.  It wouldn't have been an issue, except that I had a major motor-racing accident in 1999.  Reason number two was a full 360 degree barrel roll at racing speed in an Off-Road Racer on the moors above Burnley.  (Hmmm - I should have had more sense!)  Thirdly, in 2005, I tried to picked up an amplifier which was way to big for me.  My poor neck sort of 'gave way' and I had quite a period of time off work.

Anyway, I've been back at work and managing everything for years.  Occasionally I get terrible headaches and painful muscle spasms, but I'm functioning and OK.  Lovely husband has learnt how to massage and manipulate my neck to keep everything moving.  In fact there have been weeks when I haven't need any work on my neck at all.

Then - just before the half-term holiday - Mark was working on my neck and he said that it 'felt different'.  There were huge lumps of muscle knots right up behind my jaw line.  On the left hand side of my face the muscles affected the nerves in my mouth and it felt like I had an abscess.  I couldn't open my mouth properly in the morning and eating was painful.  We slowly worked on the muscles and my mouth finally became less painful (it took about two weeks).  At the end of last week I started to get 'tunnel vision' and all the other symptoms of fainting.  I was also far more emotional than normal, which I recognise as a symptom of muscles and bone pushing and pulling at the back of my skull.

On Tuesday I gave up and phoned in sick.  I went to the Docs to confirm that it was nothing more sinister then have spent the last three days trying to find a functioning level again.  I'm so annoyed because I'd worked so hard to get rid of the 'Teacher with the Dodgy Neck' label.  My immediate (and much younger) colleague is quietly horrible about stuff like this.  She plays the martyr to the Senior Staff - one of those people who really knows how to work a situation.

Reading through this, I know that I'm doing the right thing by staying at home, taking the pain killers and following a programme of stretching exercises that will get me back on my feet.  It's just the unpleasantness of my school that upsets me.  The only person to ring and check on me was the lady in the office who does all my admin.  She's lovely and very kind.  Otherwise it would be fair to say that my school doesn't care at all.

Rant over.....!