Tag: work

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#blogjune family anecdotes teaching

Data woes…

So Mr8 discovered the game Diep.io several weeks back. He loved it, and got Miss12 and Miss9 also hooked on the game. I don’t get the appeal, but they like it and it seems harmless enough – a very non-graphic shoot-em-up game, from what I can tell.

The trouble is, the game can only be played over the internet. And I didn’t realize exactly how much data it was using. Cue cries of frustration when suddenly I was out of data – with over two weeks before my data allocation was renewed! [To be fair, I don’t think the game uses *that* much data. But playing it kept Mr8 busy while the girls and I watched ‘Once Upon A Time’… so, in retrospect, it *may* have been the sheer amount of time he was playing the game which may have been the issue here…]

I’ve been out of data before. Generally, it’s not too much of an issue.

But this time, I was in a pickle. I’d gone ahead and changed the assessment items for the Year Eight English classes, you see – made it all blog-based. Which meant to mark my kids’ work, I needed to view it over the net… and, of course, this is rather difficult to do when you’re out of data!

Whoops.

But I get my monthly quota renewed tomorrow. And then it’ll be all guns blazing – because my reports are due tomorrow as well! Arrggh!!!

Have a great day, dear Reader. And wish me luck with speedy marking!

— KRidwyn

Categories
Christianity Random thoughts teaching

Some recent ponderings…

“Wolf! Wolf!” cried the boy. It was just a bit of fun, getting the villagers to run up the hill; relieve him from the boredom of looking after sheep day after day after day. Sure, they got mad at him, but hey! it was something different. Different was good; even being yelled at was preferable to boredom.

“Wolf! Wolf!” he cried again. The yelling continued. This time, it was harder to hide his smirk. Furious, the villagers tramped back down the hill again.

“Wolf! Wolf!” he cried once more – but this time, in fear. The wolf had come, and was ravaging the sheep. The villagers, wise to his tricks, paid no attention. And later, when the sheep were dead, the villagers’ anger at him knew no bounds.

The problem here? Besides the dead sheep: the boy hadn’t thought about what name he’d been making for himself. He’d thought his ‘game’ was just a bit of fun. Just jokes; perfectly harmless. And yet – what had eventuated? He’d made a name for himself. ‘Liar’, ‘untrustworthy’, ‘deceitful’. No-one believed him, even when he told the truth.

The question ‘what name are you making for yourself’ is one I’ve been discussing with my students recently. Our words, our actions, our attitudes towards others, define who we are. People recognize us by them. What impression do we give others of ourselves? And are we happy with the name we are making for ourselves? At the end of the day, are we going to be satisfied with the consequences of the choices we have made?

One of my favourite Bible verses is 1 Tim. 4:16. It says, “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.”

If I profess to be a Christian, I need to watch that my life reflects this choice. Timothy tells me to watch my life – my choices, my attitudes – closely. And to persevere in this watching. So what name am I making for myself? Is my life one which reflects Christ’s? I’d invite you to ponder this question with me, and with my students, this week.

And have a wonderful week, dear Reader!
— KRidwyn

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#AtoZchallenge Blogging challenges Random thoughts teaching Work

Q is for ‘quiet’

Which is what this blog’s been since… um… well, since the ‘P’ post, well over a week ago. But it feels like a month, indicative of just how crazy-busy my life has been since the last post.

To be truthful, that last post kinda scared me a little too. “P is for Power” means that I also have the choice to *not* post – to be lazy, to procrastinate, to pretend life is just too busy.

Well, right here, right now, it’s May 1st. I missed completing the final 10 posts of the #AtoZchallenge in April. My blog was dead quiet. Silent. As in, as the grave. Goodbye, dear April, I’ll never see you again. #AtoZchallenge, I failed you. I did not manage to post 26 posts during April.

April in my time zone, that is.

New challenge: finish them before May 1st worldwide!

Ready… set…

GO!

[And have a great day, dear Reader!]

— KRidwyn

Categories
#AtoZchallenge Blogging challenges Christianity More about me my novel-in-progress Work Writing

J is for ‘job’

The regular reader of this blog may remember that I started a new job this year.

Head of Middle School at Caloundra Christian College.

I have well over one hundred 11 to 14 year olds to be responsible for. That’s a lot of hormones!

It’s been fun. So far, I’ve laughed and cried, exulted and been furious, enjoyed every second and wanted to tear my hair out with frustration. And that’s just before Morning Tea each day! Just kidding.

It’s been a wild ride, and I’m loving it. As a Christian, I *do* feel ‘called’ to the position, and I also feel as though I’m making a difference in the lives of the majority of the children in my care. And that gives me such a feeling of satisfaction!

But it’s also been far busier than I’d expected. So much so, that my writing has fallen seriously by the wayside. I knew it would – but not quite to this extent. No matter. This #AtoZchallenge is helping me get back some writing mojo – and when April finishes, I have JUSTINE BROWNING AND THE MEDDLING MERMAN to complete. Hopefully by Mother’s Day, which is the challenge I’ve set myself.

But school starts back next week after the two week Easter break, so it’ll be interesting to see if things go to plan…

Anyway, have a great day, dear Reader, and hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow with ‘K’ !

— KRidwyn

Categories
#AtoZchallenge Blogging challenges family anecdotes

H is for ‘hammer’

Which is what I used for a goodly part of the day.

After my early morning gym session, my time spent gardening, and then ensuring that my three cherubs *were* in fact up and had broken their fasts, our friend Charlie arrived – he of the building and installing our lovely kitchen a few years ago. He arrived laden with cabinets and toe kicks, ready to install the internal shelves of the cherubs’ bedroom wardrobes.

Cue the hammer. And my part in today’s labour (because no, the gym session and the gardening weren’t enough) which involved the demolition work of the old shelving.

Whoa. The lovely gentleman who built our house, built it GOOD. As in, I swear he had shares in the glue company. Shelves were coming off ATTACHED to their shelf supports (quick flashback to the demo of our original kitchen, where we just decided, rather than chipping off the tiles glued to the gyprock, to just cut out the whole section of gyprock and replace it with new stuff).

So, several hours and an equivalent number of knots in my back muscles later, the cherubs all have new wardrobe internals. They’re happy. I’m happy. And sore. And a little more broke than I was yesterday.

Oh! Note to self: go pay Charlie!

Have a great day, dear Reader 🙂

KRidwyn

Categories
#AtoZchallenge Blogging challenges

G is for ‘gardening’

That’s what I was doing today. Gardening. In massive quantities. Planting, transplanting, weeding, sowing seeds, clearing, weeding, watering, and – oh! too much else to think about, let alone name. It was lovely; such a feeling of accomplishment!

But now I’m exhausted. And heading to bed.

Hope you also had a lovely day, dear reader!

– KRidwyn

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#AtoZchallenge Blogging challenges Christianity Random thoughts teaching Work

C is for ‘clever’

As a mum to three cherubs under 12, and also as a Head of School with over 100 ‘cherubs’ aged 11 to 14, I find myself ‘praising’ kids a lot. It helps, you know? Builds rapport, which in turn assists in ‘training the child they way (s)he should go’ (nod to Proverbs 22;6, if you were wondering).

But I find myself often using the same words. This wearies them – the words, the kids, and also me – and thus forms the topic of today’s post. Synonyms for ‘clever’. If only to keep myself from going stir-crazy!

So. ‘Clever’, according to my handy MacbookPro thesaurus, has four different meanings.

Clever – as in intelligent – could also be: bright, smart, brilliant; talented, gifted, precocious; capable, able, competent, apt, proficient; educated, learned, erudite, academic, bookish, knowledge, wise, sagacious. Also brainy or genius, if we’re being informal.

Clever – as in shrewd – I could use: astute, sharp, acute, quick, sharp-witted, quick-witted; ingenious, resourceful, canny, cunning, crafty, artful, wily, slick, neat. And informally: foxy, or savvy.

Clever – as in skilful – dexterous, adroit (I love this word!), deft, nimble, nimble-fingered, handy, adept; skilled, talented.

Clever – as in witty – quick-witted, amusing, droll, humourous, funny, sparkling, entertaining, scintillating (love this one, too!)

Which one did you like the most? And – here’s the kicker, if you choose to see it as such- will you use it in a compliment to someone today?

[In case you were wondering, this set of 26 ‘A is for’ posts is a part of the global A to Z challenge, where consequential letters of the alphabet are used on an a daily blog posts in April (with Sundays off for good measure). My topic for 2017 is ‘word of the day’. Feel free to tune in tomorrow for ‘D’ 🙂 ]

And until then, here’s me wishing you a scintillating day!

Yours,

KRidwyn

Categories
Life momentous events Random thoughts teaching Work

I’m still smiling…

So the first day of school came, and went, and I’m still smiling. No, not everything went to plan, but that’s okay. Tomorrow’s a new day.

And yes, I’m planning on being smiling at the end of tomorrow as well 🙂

Have a great week, dear reader!

— KRidwyn

Categories
Blogging challenges Life momentous events teaching Work Writing

Where I’ve been…

So my last post on this blog was over a month ago. It feels like longer.

I’d posted just prior to a weekend away with Hubby on Moreton Island. I was hoping it would be fantastic; it was. The snorkelling; the dolphin feeding; the quad-biking; the all-you-can-eat buffet meals; the amazing weather and luxurious accomodation; the 3.23am evacuation due to another hotel resident setting off a fire alarm because he attempted to cook food inside his kettle… it was all memorable.

And that marked the beginning of November.

November is the worst month of the year for music teachers, did you know? It’s end of the school year here in Australia, which means the usual end-of-year marking / reporting chaos. Add to that, the same end-of-year ‘let’s showcase what your children have learned to play on their instruments’ performance chaos, and – of course – all of the instrumental marking / reporting deadlines to co-ordinate. Don’t forget, there’s a class of graduating students who – naturally – get their own set of dedicated performances to prepare for etc. And then, just for fun and because It’s November and because the music teacher doesn’t have enough to do, let’s add in a Christmas carols event or several.

And then we all sit back and watch the poor music teacher’s head explode.

Because that’s – generally speaking – what happens.

Hence my taking a month hiatus from this blog. But this year, there was another reason as well; and this other reason meant that instead of just the month off, I needed an extra two weeks on top of that: I changed jobs.

Yay!

Yes, I am no longer the Music co-ordinator at St. Paul’s Lutheran Primary School. Instead, I have returned to the world of Prep to Year 12 education, with the role of Head of Middle School at Caloundra Christian College.

And boy! Am I stoked about that!

(Just in case you hadn’t picked up on that, from the excessive use of exclamation points in this blog post… sorry about that, by the way…)

Anyway, I’m back blogging again. Yes, the plan is to blog weekly, every Monday morning, my time.

And who knows, but that perhaps I shan’t need the month’s blog hiatus next November?!

See you next week!

KRidwyn

PS And have yourselves a very merry Christmas too! 😀

Categories
Life Random thoughts teaching

When you’ve gotta go…

I lost my wallet yesterday.

The cherubs and I were at the ALDI checkout, a couple of dozen grocery items jolting along the conveyor belt toward the cashier when I looked at my hands and realised both were sans wallet. As were all my pockets – both jacket and pants.

Assuming I’d left my wallet in the car, I sent Cherubs 1 and 2 with the keys, to retrieve it. While they were gone, I made it to the front of the queue and Cherub3 helped me bag the items as each was scanned.

The lovely check-out guy rang up the total… then Cherub 1 arrived back with the bad news. They couldn’t find the wallet; Cherub 2 had remained in the car and was still searching, and where did I think they should look next?

Apologising profusely to both the lovely check-out guy and the man waiting in line behind me, I left Cherubs 1 and 3 in the store with our groceries; the check-out guy suspended the sale, and I raced out to join Cherub 2 in what was to be a thorough but fruitless rampage through the car.

No wallet.

If you know me, you’d know just how much panic would normally be ensuing at this point in time.

And yet – it wasn’t.

Reason being? It was 4pm after my most-full-on day at work. The day where I start at 7am and literally don’t get a minute to myself until 2.50pm- and yesterday, even that minute didn’t happen. I therefore found myself in the middle of a missing-wallet-dilemma, and all I could think about was how soon I’d be able to extricate myself and find a ladies room.

Man, oh man, was I ever regretting the whole ‘drink plenty of water, it’ll cleanse out your system’ regimen I’d decided to try!

So there I was, turning my car as inside-out as is physically possible, and although the back of my mind was trying to tell me that ‘Losing my wallet was a Very Serious Situation that I’d need to deal with, pronto’, my bodily urges were saying, ‘Nuh-uh! My problem trumps yours, bucko!’ And the bodily urges were winning.

Long story short, I was back at the checkout with Cherub1 – Cherubs 2 and 3 safely ensconced in the back seat of the car, groceries paid for with the generous assistance of an old friend who God had just-so-happened to have take out the right amount of money and shop there at that particular time – when the lovely check-out guy (who’d taken my name and number when I’d scoured every aisle, looking) called me over and told me a wallet had been handed in.

Yes, it was mine. So I could pay back my friend, pack the groceries and Cherub1 into the car, and make it to a ladies room in time.

Relief all ’round!

Moral of the story? Not entirely sure. It’s good to know that God’s in control, maybe? And does every story even need to have a moral? Who knows. Perhaps what every reader gets out of a story is different, anyway…?

Anyway, just thought I’d share that with you this morning.

Here’s wishing you a wonderful week, dear reader!

— KRidwyn