Slow slow slow

My life keeps speeding up. I have a bunch of assignments due (11!) in the next two weeks, a practicum to prep for, the snow is currently falling outside my window, and I also need to maintain at least a minimal semblance of a social life (ha ha!) in order to maintain my sanity. 

I realize that this is probably a good example as to what the rest of my life will be looking like, but I certainly hope the rest of my life also includes an income! Times like these also reinforce how essential it is for me to find stability, quietness and moments to come back down to earth. I usually end up making a cup of tea, or stress baking (a past time also demonstrated by many of my friends) and then forcing other people to eat my creations. It generally works out well so long as I haven't invented anything exceptionally crazy- such as the time I dyed the milk blue.

Tonight I was washing the dishes by hand and listening to the radio softly twittering away and I had a moment of calmness in the middle of the storm. I'm one of those people who never really knows the 'right' thing to say, but I really believe in just being. Being present, being witness, being there and listening and grounding for people who need that when their lives get carried away with one problem or difficulty. I found myself being present for myself. Which sounds strange, only really, I don't know if it is.

I intend to do this for my students. To give them a foundation to ground themselves so that they can do amazing things. To perform this role, I need to keep myself calm (or create a reasonable facade!) be organized and maintain a structured classroom. For students to be productive they need a tightly run ship, else many get lost in the chaos that is learning. 

How do I keep myself in this place? By baking bread (something I just realized I missed tonight!), making tea in a teapot, crocheting the most hideous blankets you've ever seen, taking the time to interact positively with people in my daily travels, take pictures of things that make me happy, and to make time and talk to the people I love. 

Tomorrow I have a lot of work that I need to accomplish. But tonight I'm going to go make another cup of tea, get caught up on my crafty blogs, and hope that I can find my wool slippers somewhere. Its cold out there! 

Flitting around in my head

Before I begin, I want to give you a little bit of warning- I'm feeling all over the place today. I apologize in advance for the little bits and pieces I'm going to throw at you.

I feel like I've been in a strange educational bubble lately. I've been so entwined with learning theories, and creating sparkly art projects that I have forgotten that another world exists outside of Maclauren. I first realised it in my ELA class this morning, one of my colleagues was mentioning something that he had heard on the news. ... Wait. What?! Stuff is happening, and people are learning about it?! I'm so terribly out of touch these days. I get my news in snippets, usually much later than it has actually happened. I can tell you however, all about Piaget, scaffolding, and how there about forty quadrillion different lesson plan templates floating out there in the universe.
The one thing that I have kept up with is my love of Canadian independent music, and the only reason that happens is that I listen to it on my ipod via podcast on my morning trip into school.

I wonder if I will ever return to the media savvy, internet addicted person I once was. Only time will tell...

___________________________________________________________________________

 Last week I had the most rewarding curriculum class assignment. We were listening to a story and then creating a poster of what we thought a certain section of the book was potraying. It was so freeing and soothing and fabulous. I got to play with glitter (a love of mine for certain. I know you are secretly cheering about it on the inside too) and work with some FANTASTIC people. Seriously. This group was a dreamteam. Completely supportive and creative and just upbeat fantastic.
I was feeling the love- there is no other way to put it!-

And because pictures or it didn't happen:

___________________________________________________________________________

Now I'm sending myself away for a few days, before I get thrown back into the giant pit of lessonplanning doom adventures. It really isn't so bad, but the process itself is a little exhausting as I'm learning it. I come home most days feeling like I did when I was learning to drive at 16: twitching at the amount of thinking and focusing I had to do to keep control of everything. I know that it is going to click eventually and I am going to be capable and good at what I do, I just need to keep at it and it will eventually become an unconcious act. Eventually.



À la prochaine! I have some exploring to do!

K