Mission 75% accomplished! I wish…

Today, 75% of this blogging challenge is complete. At least for those who, unlike me, have managed to upload all their posts. I’ve been writing, actually, but because I find the mechanics of the posting a little laborious, to say the least, I tend to save it for a rainy day. Methinks October will have to be the month I get a grip and start autumn cleaning the blog. Each post in its place and all that jazz.

November is NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month – and I’ve been thinking of giving it a go. Or maybe I’ll just make the little one do it. I’ll see. I’ll save the decision for another day… =)))

Monday morning blues

Methinks I’ve got a bad case of Monday morning blues today. Not because I’ve spent the weekend partying, but because last week was really intense physically as well as mentally. I only managed to get two days of work in and now I’m facing a gruesomely long list of things that need to be done this week. Sigh. I really don’t like swimming up stream and would prefer to start each new working week with a clean, empty desk.

Today is one of those days when I dream om going on holiday. I haven’t had one for so long I can’t even remember the what, when and where around the last one. The closest I’ve been was three years ago when the whole family met up in Amalfi for my mom’s birthday. I could only stay for the weekend, though, so it didn’t really feel like much of a holiday. If I could go away today, I’d go to spend a few weeks in the West Indies. I’d go swimming, I’d lap up the warmth and I’d sit by the sea and write. One day I will do just that. One day. But today, I’ve got a client to visit, a meeting to attend and a stack of paperwork to push my way through. Hey ho!

Seeing is believing, right

If you’ve read my blog before, you might know that I love Sundays and think they were made for us to be lazy, spend quality time with our family and enjoy good food. Today, it’s a particularly good Sunday as my bestest Tina is here over the weekend.

Dinner preparations are about to commence, but let’s first have a quick look at the daily topic: something I never believed in before I experienced it. Right… That would be everything then! I tend to believe things when I see them, not before. My little one, for instance, is due to return from Sweden tomorrow, but will she? I’ll believe it when I see her!

A disgusting old witch? Well, maybe I am… =)

The other day I blogged about how different people have different views or memories about the same thing / person. I wrote something about how my neighbours and my colleagues probably have quite different perceptions of what it is like to live/work with me. Yesterday, I got a whole new picture of myself as a very angry woman wanted to spit on me and beat me up, but chickened out and resorted to calling me a disgusting old witch instead. To her utter dismay, I found her outburst pretty amusing and laughed heartily at the whole thing. But seriously, the situation was far from entertaining.

My oldest daughter seems to be sick all the time, which is a major concern for me who, also, seems to be sick all the time. Three weeks ago she got a nasty inflammation of the lower back and was on sick leave for two weeks, with a prescription of rest and anti-inflammatories. On Tuesday, she went back to work even though the inflammation was still there. Thursday they called me from American Express (her job) and said they’d had to call an ambulance as she seemed to be paralyzed from the waist down and had muscle spasms. So Mom had to haste down to Brighton to take care of the little girl. Well, haste and haste…

First they wouldn’t let me catch the tube from Ealing Broadway to Victoria. There’s some sort of Health & Safety regulations about wheelchairs and carers, but a mother whose daughter is in an ambulance going to A&E is not to be messed with, so I growled a bit and decided they’d have to physically stop me from getting on that tube. Luckily, they didn’t, so I made it to Victoria in the end. Although a signalling failure on the line made the trip more than twice as long.

At Victoria, I missed two trains in a row because, again, I had to battle the forces that be. This time, however, the problem was that I needed to get through the barriers which they wouldn’t open. Bastards! Excuse the language, but I was angry. In the midst of the quarrel, two men appeared off a newly arrived train and they made themselves busy asking why the barrier bulls were treating their cousin with such apparent disrespect.

Cousins? Said the barrier bulls looking nonplussed.

Yeah, cousins! Said the strangers, looking like they’ve just stepped off the screen of some Guy Ritchie film.

So you’re travelling together? Asked the barrier bulls looking even more bewildered.

Yes, exactly! Said the cousins who by now had closed in looking very intimidating.

And where are you off to then? The barrier bulls asked with the air of someone who’s got the whiff of some nasty business.

I’ve already told you, we’re going to Brighton! I piped up and the cousins confirmed that this was indeed the case. We were all going down there to make sure the poor girl was being properly looked after.

And so it was that I finally sat on a train heading down to the coast, while my new cousins most likely stuck two fingers up to the barrier bulls as they made their way back to wherever they’d been going when they ran into me.

In Brighton, I found my baby and found out that no one seems to know quite what is wrong with her. Many different theories figured in the discussions, including the possibility that she is auto-immune like her mother. Two more weeks of sick leave and a whole battery of new tests await, and hopefully we will get some answers. Yesterday, we saw the doctor again, sorted out her paperwork with the employer and went to her pad to pack her bag to bring her back home. And that’s when the shit hit the fan.

Four weeks of sick leave is no joke, and my baby had to give notice that she’d be leaving her pad by the end of the month. Without a written contract, she had no proper arrangement for this, but her landlady had her own take on the importance of rental agreements. She felt that the period of notice on her part could be just about a minute whereas my daughter would have to give at least one month’s notice. Now she had two weeks and went totally mad in the process. All of a sudden she wanted us to up and leave instantly or she’d call the police. I offered her my phone, but that didn’t make her any happier. Instead, she grabbed her own phone and began to call in reinforcements. I shut the door and we commenced Operation Pack Up.

Luckily, the girl had a furnished room and her belongings were soon packed into three suitcases, two bin bags and three grocery bags. But how to get it all down from the third floor of a building with no lift when one us is wobbling around on crutches drugged up on muscle relaxants and pain killers and the other is in a wheelchair? I sent some texts to her friends and colleagues, and soon we had strong arms to help and a place to keep the stuff in until we’ve figured things out.

When her room was empty, I went to hand the key back to the angry lady, but that just made her angrier. She flew at me and wanted to both spit at me and clock me one or two, but she was for some reason not quite as brave as her filthy mouth suggested. Maybe she thought I was a bit too big and scary. Maybe she lost her cool because I kept mine. Who knows. I left the place laughing at her parting words that I was a disgusting old witch. She is welcome to her opinion.  Maybe it makes her feel better. Who knows.

After a very long and very tiring day, an old friend treated us to dinner before heading back to London. A very wobbly Hoppalong Cassidy is apparently a suitable companion for a wheelchair bound woman lugging a suitcase, so we had no problems getting back. Apart from the time factor. Trying to propel a wheelchair with one hand whilst pulling a suitcase with the other and keeping an eye on Miss Wobblylegs is quite a time consuming project. We finally got to London Bridge and took the tube to Stratford. But by then it was close to midnight and I had had more than enough and we took a taxi home to Ilford. It was well worth the £30 it cost!

Back home, my bestest friend Tina and her daughter were waiting for us together with two very worried brothers who’d been feeling rather useless throughout this whole ordeal. In hindsight, I should probably have sent them down instead of going myself. But then Brighton would probably be one crazy landlady shorter now and that would be a shame. For my sons.

My worst teacher ever

This is a retrospective posting as I was dashing in Brighton when this post was due. I wouldn’t want to deprive you of the daily topic, though, so here’s #38 on the worst teacher ever.

Hmmm… Well, that’s a bit of a tricky question. There are so many bad teachers out there and it’s not easy to say who was the worst. I’ll have to begin by leaving the ones who weren’t actually qualified teachers out and then maybe I can say that the worst ever was an old maths teacher from my A-Level years.

He was of the opinion that teaching maths to kids studying Humanities was a waste of time and he would take every opportunity to tell us so. When asked a question, he’d respond that it was nothing we needed to know and chuckle happily as if he’d just been very funny. Which he wasn’t.

No teacher working with me these days would get away with that kind of behaviour. And that’s that.

From someone else’s point of view

Things can look very different depending on what perspective you have. This means that you and I could watch the same thing, a painting, for example, and see two quite different motifs. We could also experience the same thing, but still have rather different memories of what actually happened. That’s why I find the whole witness statement thing to be so interesting.

In Sweden, one of the most discussed testimonies in modern times must be Lisbet Palme’s identification of Christer Pettersson as the man who shot her husband the Prime Minister. Some argue that such an experience will be so strong that you’ll never forget what you saw. Others believe that what you experience in a state of shock will always be pretty vague, like a clash of the senses. Personally, I am generally pretty weary of overly confident witness statements.

I have been questioned by the police four times in my life. Twice after what for me was very traumatic events (even if they didn’t involved murder), and twice in connection with criminal investigations. All four times I felt quite convinced that I must be the world’s worst witness, but then it dawned on me that I’m probably fairly normal.It is difficult to remember exactly how someone looks, exactly when something happened, or even how it happened. Often memories are pretty vague and fractional. You remember a sound, a smell, a color, a few words, but rarely a complete sequence of events as had it all been on video.

Looking at the same thing from another perspective is also often quite interesting. For example, we have very different views on a book we’ve read, a film we’ve seen or people we have met. If you were to ask my neighbours what kind of person I am, you’d probably get very different answers depending on which one you asked. One of them would probably say I’m nice, kind and helpful while the other one probably thinks that I am a stiff, reserved and introvert type. My colleagues would behave in a similar way. Some would say I am a very diplomatic type of leader who makes things happen and is inspiring to work with. Others would say I’m strict, harsh and finicky, and I make them nervous. And the funny thing is that they would all be right. A person’s perspective is always right. But we must try to understand where it comes from and why people think the way they do. That’s at least my perspective.

Resistance is futile

Yuck, today I’m feeling all washed out and broken again. Yesterday we did MRI phase two, and I learned that there is a very good reason why they say you shouldn’t wear rings in the tube. I did. My fingers are very, very sore today. But sore fingers and broken body aside, today has turned into a good day.

All morning I was sitting here in eager anticipation, awaiting wheelchair delivery number three. After much arguing and numerous lies from the seller, they suddenly backed off when I threatened to take them to court. Then they came up with a story about how they accidentally sent me a used chair that was meant for a retirement home. Yeah, right. Anyway, I was well curious. Would I dare to hope for a new red chair, or was it going to be a green bike? Or maybe just two handles and a bell? To my joy, it was a brand new red chair and I am now with Mustang again. Woopeedoo! Note to dodgy salesmen: I am not a woman to be messed with and resistance is futile.

Today we have come to topic 37 of the blog challenge and we’ll talk a little about the one who got away. They say it doesn’t necessarily have to be a love interest, and that’s good as that would make it tricky to keep things private. But when you talk about the one who got away we usually mean a person. Someone you let slip because you didn’t know better at the time. Because you weren’t ready. Or something. The question is whether you can apply the same theory to a phenomenon, an event or something else? I’m not so sure about that.

There’s really nothing I regret anymore. Life feels a bit too short for regrets and I have already wasted half my life on self-absorbed angst. But is there anything that’s slipped through my fingers during the (close to) 45 years I have lived? Of course there is! Loads of things. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it was a bad thing. If I didn’t manage to hold on to them back in the days maybe I wasn’t meant to have them. Looking back, I can safely say that I could have been richer (or less poor), have advanced more in my career and been much more established private and professionally if If did not exist. But I can also say that thanks to If, I have become a much better person than I would have been if everything had gone like clockwork. The humility, joy and peace of mind I have found enrich me and make me appreciate what I have in a way I never used to. If things had to slip away for me to reach this point, I am both pleased and grateful that they did.

What if teleportation was real

One of many things I like about Harry Potter is how they travel. On broomsticks. By floo powder. With port keys. And via teleportation. Gosh, I’d really love for the scientists to work out this teleportation thingie. I think my broken body would appreciate that.

Fancy never having to worry about snow or pouring rain. Just sitting at home in the morning, enjoying the morning coffee until you’re ready to face the new day and then just ZAPP and you’re in the office. And imagine the kind of life you could live! Just zap away and explore the world. And what about the dinners you could eat! Crabs in Donegal for a starter and sole with a cold sauce and new potatoes in Gothenburg for mains. Sorbet trio (raspberry, lemon and mango in a martini glass with sparkling prosecco) in Venice for dessert and then a cheese platter with a full-bodied red wine in Paris. And if I’m not too tired or too stuffed after that, maybe I’d round off the evening with a really nice single malt in Edinburgh.

But most of all I’d love to be able to visit family and friends regularly. I’d zap down to Emma in Brighton every Monday, spend Tuesday evenings by the fire with my parents, have coffee with Oscar on Wednesdays, and pop in to see my siblings and their families on Thursdays. On weekends, I’d discover the world and top up my tan in the Caribbean on Sundays. Except for one Sunday a month when I’d zap the whole family home for dinner. We can always dream…

On heroes and heroism

Right, so it’s Valentine’s Day again, but I’m not going to waste too much energy on that. I think that this is a silly, and slightly juvenile, celebration and in case you’re wondering why you can always read my post on the subject from 2009: On Valentines and true love

Now, let’s instead ponder a little on the topic of heroes and heroism. My youngest son was saying the other day that he found it strange that a doctor can save lives every single day of the week without someone calling him a hero, but if a grandmother save her grandson from a fire or a football player makes a crucial goal they are heroes. And that’s a rather interesting observation. Some people dedicate their lives to save others, but they get little attention. Other people do something brilliant once and are praised and rewarded.

I think there are many different kinds of heroes. Those who work day in and day out to help other people, for example. They work in our schools, our hospitals, and in the streets. They are often paid peanuts and work with inadequate, if any, resources; yet they’re doing an incredibly good job. And then there’s those who stand up for what they believe in and help change the world. But the greatest heroes of all are perhaps those who never give up.

Teacher: The best job in the world!

Right, let’s talk shop! If I could choose any job in the world – what would I choose? Simples! I’d become a teacher all over again because we seriously have the best job of all.

I remember each and every one of my old teachers. The bad ones. The good ones. And those who became more than just teachers. Those who wanted more, came closer, pushed harder, were tougher and generally showed that they cared. Somehow, they are all always with you, and this is a rather sobering thought for anyone contemplating the teaching profession as a career option. Or at least, it should be! Your students will never forget you. Whatever you make of your time with them, these memories will always accompany them on their journey through life.

When I see my students, I imagine them carrying an invisible backpacker in which they carry the wisdom that will guide them through life. As a teacher, I have the opportunity to remove and to add things to this invisible bag. I do my best to remove unnecessary things, poor tools and dubious knowledge. I try to add little seeds that I hope will begin to sprout and grow on their journey. Some may begin to sprout right now while others may take many years. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that they are there.

In the teacher training, I’m often asked what I think is the most important of all different roles a teacher has to play. I usually counter with the question “what do you think?” They tend to guess that it is making my students achieve their qualifications, but that’s definitely not it. Frankly, I don’t give a damn whether my students get good grades or not. I don’t even particularly bother about whether they pass or not. For me, the greatest goal of all is that not one single student has passed through my classroom and felt invisible. That not one single student has lost their self esteem. And that not a single student leaves my course thinking that he or she really is too stupid to learn anything. You see, I believe that I cannot teach anyone anything unless they actually want to learn something. And therein lies the biggest challenge of all.

Good teachers can make people want to learn something. Even things they didn’t know they wanted to learn. Good teachers engage, offer resistance and challenge. Good teachers make you work hard. Harder than you knew you could work. They don’t accept mediocre results. They can make a relatively high grade feel like a slap in the face and a relatively low grade feel like a gold medal. They care and they show it. They make a difference.

Being a teacher is a blessing. A gift. There are few other professions where you get to meet so many people, touch their souls and have an impact on their future lives. Unfortunately, too many teachers don’t realize just how much power they have. And then there are some who do, but who choose to abuse that power. This is why my participation in adult teacher training is so important to me. It gives me the opportunity to influence future teachers. To make them aware of their roles and responsibilities and to help them become better and stronger professionals. I do, indeed, have the best job in the world!