Category: Work

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Random thoughts Work

Website Fun

Do you want to know something funny? I’m blogging this onto my iPhone, using Siri. I absolutely love this voice to text function! But as I was trying to dictate the title of this blog post, it absolutely refused to recognise the word ‘Fun’! Maybe, for some reason, the two words websites and fun should never be together?!
Never mind. I’m actually pretty excited about today. Because today, I’m going to be playing with websites!
The very clever Paul, ICT guru from down at LEQ headquarters in Milton, is coming up to St Pauls today, just to visit me! And we’ll be playing around with the creation of the new St Pauls website. Very exciting stuff!!
So… what’s on your agenda for today? Whatever it is, have a great one, dear readers! 🙂

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Random thoughts Technology Work

Just a few minutes…

Good morning, everyone! I just wanted to share this with you today – it’s something that we watched here at school just now.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Z-afKPmxs]

 

 

Have an awesome day today, people!!! 🙂

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Random thoughts teaching Work

Staff meetings

So I’ve now done two full days (today and last Friday) of staff meetings / professional development.

I’d forgotten what they were like.

Now… I’m not particularly looking forward to another 8.15 – 3.30 day of meetings tomorrow. Followed by trying to fit in marketing work afterwards.

Sigh…

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Life Random thoughts teaching

Back into it…

I have my own classroom again. It’s strange how that sense of ownership, of responsibility for a space, has driven home the reality of this new job. It shouldn’t be strange; it’s completely natural, completely understandable, yet it has taken me by surprise. I find that rather amusing!
So today has been book covering day. Book covering & day dreaming. I’m thinking about registering for the Sunshine Coast Tough Mudder challenge. More on that another day though…
Have a great rest-of-the-day, dear readers!

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momentous events teaching Work

Orientation

Today’s the day! My first ‘official’ day as a staff member. It feels strange; I haven’t been one of these – teacher with a permanent position – since 2007. Not too sure how I feel about it… Mixed emotions, that’s for sure!
I’m stoked that I know so much about the school already, as a parent, as a relief teacher, and as the person who’s been contracted to oversee their marketing for almost two years. I’m ecstatic that I’ll be teaching my daughters – and more than a little amused that they’ll finally see me in a role I’m more familiar with than parenting, having had three times as much experience in it!
But I’m sad too. Sad that Mr 3 will be in Kindy, three full days a week. Sad that I was hoping to devote my Miss-5-free time to Bloxham Marketing, and now I can’t. Sad that my life is looking to be just that extra bit MORE full-on and intense this year than I was expecting. Sad that this’ll mean that my Masters studies will inevitably be more prolonged than even I had bargained for.
But, happy that Hubby’s happy. Happy that the extra money coming in will start reducing our debt levels – and maybe even, one day, reducing the mortgage as well! Happy that I have such security, when I know that there are thousands out there who don’t have that. Happy that I’ll be in a role which is a second skin to me; something I’m familiar with and know that I can do well.
And finally, a little anxious. Concerned that I’ll be able to cope (nodule-on-my-right-vocal-cord-wise) because Primary School Music teaching is probably the most intense job on your voice that I can think of… but other than that, I think that’s it. That’s enough!
So today is Orientation day for new staff; everyone else will start Monday. Wish me luck! Here goes!!! 😀
Oh… and an update to yesterday’s “schoolbooks” story?
I quizzed Hubby (yet again!) when he walked in, late last night after interviewing for new staff all day, and he said, “yes. They’re at the school. I meant to bring them home today but forgot.”
YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!!
Thanks ever so much for your kind thoughts & your prayers, dear readers… You guys ROCK!!!

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Bloxham Marketing Life More about me teaching University studies Work

one fish two fish old work new work

LOL I crack myself up sometimes!

This is probably going to be a bit of a crazy blog post because it’s 12.16am and I’m not sleepy. So I thought I’d write you all, about the job I’m starting in 10 days time.

I’m a teacher. Qualified in English and Music, but have taught Dance, Drama, Geography and History, Christian Education, Sex Education (NOT fun! Not when they’ve split the cohort into girls and boys and you’re given the boys class. The Year Ten boys class.) Leadership, Core Skills Test skills, Life Skills, and probably a host of other forgettable bits and pieces. I’ve taught mainly Years 7 through 12, but have also experienced Preppies through to Uni students. My last permanent stint was as Head of Middle School at Caloundra Christian College, which I resigned from at the end of 2007 because I was due to have our second child in January 2008. I’ve since done some contract teaching work, Music Preppies to Year 9 at Coolum Beach Christian College for a year, and Preppies to Year 10 at Glasshouse Country Christian College for a couple of terms, and relief teaching at a number of schools, but I haven’t really been looking for teaching work, what with our youngest not yet 4, and autistic.

So it was rather a surprise then, to find myself suddenly the owner of a teaching position again. The classroom music teacher at St Paul’s Lutheran Primary, Caboolture, announced her imminent departure on the last afternoon of school, leaving them in rather a tight spot. I was called, offered the position, and within a number of hours, had the job. Just like that!

It’ll mean quite a few changes that I hadn’t planned for. The biggest will be Mr Not-yet-4 attending a mainstream Kindy for three days a week. Three full days. That’s going to be interesting! but things are hopefully going to be working out, in that St Paul’s will have their Kindy operational by the 29th of January, and that the funding will have come through so that he’ll receive the assistance he needs to help him cope…

The second biggest will be my ‘other’ job. The one I love! Bloxham Marketing, which I was hoping to grow this year, seeing as Miss 4-almost-5 would have been going to Prep, Miss 7 continuing on into Year 3, and Hubby taking the both of them to school… but now I’m down three days a week, so that’ll take a bit of wise delegating and working smarter…

The third biggest will be my studies. Unfortunately, they’ll have to take an even bigger back-seat than what even *I* had anticipated! I was thinking of only doing one course (of the two I have left) – but now it would appear that I won’t even be able to do that! So that’s something I’ll have to broach with the powers-that-be, over at the Uni, when they start back later this year…

So yes. Some huge changes on the fast-approching horizon. Lucky I like change, huh?!!

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Bloxham Marketing More about me Random thoughts University studies Work

Realities

I’ve blogged before about my TV watching habits. Well, on the recommendation of @joeyroo1, I watched Grimm last week. And again last night (taped from Wednesday night, when I was busy trying to get my bomb-site of a kitchen in some semblance of order). So. Grimm. Not bad, I must admit. Pretty witty in places too, which I wasn’t expecting! A lot darker than I’m used to, but I like the premise. Hopefully the storyline will get a little deeper though – the three episodes I’ve watched to date (this week’s was a double episode) have been rather similar, and I can see it getting old rather quickly, if it remains this repetitive. Not when you compare it to “Once Upon a Time”, which also started last week and which has quickly become my all-time favourite TV show. The script-writing is clever – to drag the ‘Snow White’ story into a second season, it would need to be! But even this show, with the introduction of Mulan and Lancelot in the second series, is becoming rather predictably far-fetched. I mean – how many extra characters do you need to add in here?!!

Be that as it may, I was thinking about Grimm as I fell asleep last night. And something occurred to me. They mentioned that “Marie”, the protagonist’s Aunt and ‘mentor’ in the area of ‘fighting evil creatures’ was a Librarian. Which makes sense, in that she needed to research the huge variety of evil creatures, in order to know how to kill them; and then pass this wealth of knowledge onto her nephew. And so yes, research and keeper of information, seems to go hand in hand with the occupation of Librarian. So far, so good. But you add her moonlighting (haha) as a sword-weilding killer of evil fantasy creatures, and then her character becomes enviable. I mean – who *wouldn’t* want to be that kind of a secret hero? That’s what all the comic books told us when we were kids, right? That to be good, and fight evil, and protect the innocent who were unfortunate enough to not have any super-powers… that’s what we’re all brought up on, right? So here she is, a little old Librarian, all the more pitiable because she’s little, and (apparently) frail, because she’s dying of cancer and keeps slipping into and out of comas at the most inconvenient of times, so that her nephew who is new to all this killing werewolves etc has to turn to  a ‘good’ werewolf for help, and then she calls on super-human strength to wield swords, daggers etc and overpower people trying to kill her, and kill them instead. I mean – how cool is that?!!

And it occurred to me that I – me – am studying to be a Librarian. Yes, now that my Application for Advanced Standing was approved just a few weeks back, now I have just two courses and my 100 hours Prac to do, and I’ll be fully qualified to stand behind the desk in a Library and help people. By day. And maybe be a superhero by night.

Hopefully I won’t end up frail and weak, dying of cancer. Maybe I’ll be a Librarian like Superman’s mum was, or along the lines of Batgirl?! Or maybe I’ll just getthe qualification and keep on keeping on with Bloxham Marketing, and be a SuperHero marketer?!! Whatever happens, I guess, remains to be seen. Which do *you* think I should opt for?

Image credited to IMDb at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1830617/

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Life More about me teaching Work

Dreams

A while back now, I used to be a teacher. High school kids mainly, but I’ve taught from Prep through to Uni kids. But it was the High School kids that I enjoyed teaching the most. They were the right age that you could hold a conversation with, logically reason with, argue points of view with, and – if it was a good day – possibly be honoured enough to be a part of expanding their horizons. Witnessing that ‘lightbulb moment’ when a concept they’d been grappling with, finally made sense. SUCH an honour!

Well, some of those kids, at the end of each year, would bring me their Yearbook, and get me to sign the ‘Autographs’ page at the back. It must have been one of the early years of my teaching career that I really worked out what I wanted to say – and then I used the same phrase on each and every child’s book. Because I wished the same, hoped the same, and so gave the same advice, for each and everyone of them.

“Chase your dreams as hard and as far as you can.”

I wonder how many people read that. I wonder how many people remembered it. I wonder if any of them look back at their High School days and think that maybe, just once, someone hoped that they would have the best life they could possibly have.

Dreams are hard. They can be scary. They can drive us, inspire us, or freak us out if we think that maybe, just maybe, if we work that little bit harder, they might actually be within our reach.

How great a feeling it is to have a dream! To have hope!!!

What’s your dream today, dear reader? Whatever it is, my wish today? It’s for you. My advice, the same as I gave my High School treasures, as they set out into the next phase of their lives.

“Chase your dreams as hard and as far as you can.”

Go. Go on. Start chasing.

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Bloxham Marketing GoodOldTalk momentous events University studies Work

Hasn’t sunk in

What the opposite to sinking? Floating, right? But if I titled this blog post ‘floating’, that would be rather misleading, I think…

A few weeks ago, I posted about my Masters studies this semester. I was due to complete an elective (the only option available to me if I was going to study this semester) and had discovered the course “INS040 Advanced Standing”. Where you could apply for your Workplace experiences to be recognized towards your degree. So after chatting with both the Course Coordinator and the Head of the Faculty, I finished and submitted my application just a few weeks back. 7000 words (well, they had said 3000 words or more, and you would know me by now, dear readers,
I can tend to be rather long-winded!!!) and then I sat back and waited. (And yes, that’s an expression only. As if I would ever sit down; I’m far too busy for that!!!)

Last week, I received an email from the Head of Faculty. My application had been approved!!! But it’s been a week, and it still hasn’t sunk in. I guess, in a way, the idea of ‘floating’ is, strangely, appropriate. When I think of where I’m at in my studies solar, I *do* feel as though I’m ‘floating on air’!!!

Categories
Bloxham Marketing Work

Back of a bus…

Check this out – what a COOL ad is this, hey?!! Congrats to Tony Wilson and the QUT marketing team for this one!