Tag: Employment

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momentous events teaching

Excuses and a photo

Yes, I know. It’s been a while. Life, you know?
On the homefront, Master12 started High School this year, meaning all three cherubs are at the one school again. What a relief! The school notes, the synchronising of term calendars, the transport issues – all cleared up! But yes, settling him into High School was more problematic than I’d expected… but that’s more my excuse for the dearth of blogposts, rather than the reason I’m putting fingers to keyboard today.
Because check this out!
Yup, that’s me! Third on the list of ‘Top Contributors’ for the conference I attended, the last two days. #NESB2021 – the National Educators Summit, Brisbane, 2021 – was absolutely brilliant, and helped me get my tweeting mojo back again, something I secretly hoped for.

Plus, oh! The learning! Getting back to a space where I can hear latest research on issues from Evidence Based Practice to ensuring diversity in the Library collection, not to mention the joy in listening to authors Aleesah Darlison and Peter Carnavas, and (of course) the networking opportunities presented – wow! So it was a stuff-as-much-information-as-possible-inside-your-brain kind of two days, and now I’m exhausted and happy and eager to start planning what ideas I’ll be implementing first. Because there were just SO many!!!

Thank you to all the presenters for giving up their time and sharing their cumulative wisdom; thank you to the organisers ensuring it all ran smoothly, and also a huge thank you to my boss for covering my classes on Friday, and agreeing to the cost from the PD budget. It was well worth the money 🙂

And now, let’s see if I can keep up this whole ‘blogging’ thing which I’ve wrestled with for over a decade now. Hopefully more regularly than has been, so far this year!

Have a wonderful week, dear Reader 😀

– KRidwyn

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#blogjune teaching Work

#blogJune day9

The first 5 weeks of this current school term was hard – but what I love about my workplace is that everyone pulls together. As in, Day 2 of ‘online learning’ we received a special delivery of hand-made and hand-decorated cookies made by the children of a school family.

And the school contributed $5 per person for whatever they wanted from a coffee/food van they organised to have on-site on a weekly basis…

Just fantastic!

But it was good when the students returned. I missed them!

I hope your day is a surprising one too, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
Categories
momentous events Reading teaching

New Year, new start

Welcome back, dear Reader!

Last year was a ‘photo’ post each week, which challenged me to improve my photography skills. Which worked… to some extent. In fact, I even considered challenging myself further and committing to a years’ worth of “selfie” posts (because those ones are like, a zillion times worse than actual photos. Well, for those of us who remember a time before the internet was even invented. Am I right?)

But no. Perhaps next year. But I’ll still attempt to include a photo with each post this year. Let’s see how we go with that, huh?

But today’s post is still about challenges. Specifically, the Goodreads challenge I set myself last year. 3 books per week. That’s 156 books in the year. Which seems a lot.

And I made it!!! So proud of me 🙂

Admittedly, numbers of those were the picture books which I ended up reading to my classes after being made redundant mid-year and being blessed enough to get Teacher Librarian work in July. But still 🙂

So. Goodreads challenge this year. 208 again – because I can! and it’s only 4 per week. right? – but the aim this year is to have only one picture book per month. Perhaps two. But no more than 24 of those 156 will be picture books. Because, well, why not? 🙂

How about you, dear Reader? Are you planning on reading books this year? How many? And if you’re also on Goodreads, want to connect?

Oh! And I almost forgot. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

– KRidwyn

Categories
momentous events More about me teaching

28/52

A new semester starts today.

For 4 out of the 5 in my household, today marks the start at a new school too.

Exciting times!

(Feel free to guess the kidlets’ schools from their uniforms…) And have a ‘new’ week yourself, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

Categories
Life Random thoughts teaching Work

Out the window…

Holidays! A time of refreshing and renewal. A break from routine (and yeh, I needed *that* one like a kick in the head) and a needed period of not-regular-activity so that time with family and friends can happen.

Some routines should never be broken though. Eating and sleeping, hygiene, etc, these must all be maintained at some kind of a minimal standard. I think pretty much everyone would agree with me there. Sure, the work – school routines can go ‘out the window’ for holidays, but I wonder what other ‘important stuff’ we let slip without meaning to, or even realising.

I remember when I was a girl, reading ‘Little Women’ by Louisa May Alcott. The four daughters decided to take a break from their routines for a week, and see what would happen. Laziness, slothfulness, uncleanliness, and arguments resulted. By the end of the week, all four were keen to get back into their normal routine.

But the lesson wasn’t over. Day 1 of routine again, and the discovery was made that their pet bird had died. No food or water for a week had killed it. Tragedy had resulted because some things had been let go, which should never have been.

Relationships fall into this category. Does that mean that relationships are just routines? Like the apostle Paul I rush to say, “Perish the thought!” But that doesn’t mean that we can’t, out of necessity and convenience, consider them routines for the sake of this example. Because when these get neglected, tragedy strikes. They die.

So. These holidays, I have resolved to relax the ‘work’ standards and improve the ‘relationship’ ones. Let’s see how well I do…

And have a great week, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

Categories
Life places to visit teaching Work

[This post is a cheat]

Well – kinda.

It’s still me writing, at my desk, putting words onto the little white rectangle on the computer screen in front of me.

But it’s not Monday morning, the 17th of September, 9am.

It’s last week (well, it will be last week, by the time you read this – and I know that this sentence isn’t grammatically correct from when I write this, but it’ll make sense when you read this later… I hope!) and yes, there *is* indeed a very valid reason for this cheating post, which I’ve written and scheduled ahead of time.

I’m in Canberra right now. Or Sydney. Or en route to one of those places. At this point in the planning of the event (because it hasn’t happened yet) I’m still a little fuzzy on the details.

But Hubby is at home with Miss10 and Master9 and my mum, keeping the house fire burning (although maybe not, because the weather’s starting to warm up nicely and it might be too hot by the time this post is published, to need a nightly fire) because Miss13 and I are with sixty-nine other 12- and 13-year olds, enjoying (ha! hopefully ‘surviving’, at least) a week-long camp to our nation’s capital and other ‘worthwhile to visit for educational purposes’ places.

Hence the need to post ahead of time. I have absolutely no idea where I’ll be at 9am on Monday 17th September, but I *do* know that multiple kids will be there. All with pre-teen and early-teen needs, which is to say MULTITUDES!

Sigh. I’m tired now, even just thinking about it. And I haven’t even started packing yet.

So. That’s what my week’s going to be like. How about you?

– KRidwyn

Categories
Life teaching Work

And… it’s all over :)

until 2020, anyway! The CCC musical, Conundrum, was an absolute blast… and now the adrenaline is wearing off, I’m realising I’m the most exhausted I’ve ever felt in my life. And my back is SORE!

But it was worth it to see the smiles on the kids faces. And I learned heaps too 🙂

And check out these beauties!!!

Very blessed.

See you next week… I’ll have managed some sleep by then!

God bless,

– KRidwyn

Categories
More about me teaching Work

in which I get pragmatic…

I’m directing a musical at the moment. Performance dates Thursday 9th and Saturday 11th August. That’s pretty close! And it’s a pretty huge undertaking – over half the student population of my school is involved, in one way or another.

So because everything’s ramping up and I’m getting even less time to blog than I usually would, I’m going to make this post short and just say, YAY! We’re alive and have the chance for happiness, both for ourselves and to bring happiness to those we interact with every day 🙂

Here’s praying you have a wonderful week, dear Reader – a blessed week, a happy one!
– KRidwyn

Categories
Christianity Life momentous events More about me

In which I contemplate how amazed I shouldn’t be

I keep telling people how amazed I am at my quick recovery from the evil back injury I suffered recently.

Monday 25th June, 10am. The last Monday of term. The doctor who was treating me said he thought I’d be immobile for two weeks, and he’d be able to get me back to ‘normal’ (mostly pain-free) mobility by the end of 5-6 weeks.

Shock doesn’t even remotely describe how I felt. But then again, I was also in childbirth-like agony at the time, and my brain cells weren’t firing anywhere near their usual capacity.

I left the doctor’s office and called my boss, relayed the news, emailed my colleagues. Put the diagnosis out on Facebook. Then I received message after message after message, from friends and family near and far, who offered their support – and their prayers.

I was touched. (And in agony. And tears – many, many tears.) But determined to do everything I could to aid the healing process. The doctor had said ‘ice’? I’d be the ice queen! He’d said ‘horizontal’? I wouldn’t move a muscle!

(Admittedly, the phrase ‘off work for the rest of the week’ did *not* mean that – ask my Mum, who watched me plough through marking paper after paper, responding to email after email, proofing and writing report after report, all in a horizontal position either facedown or face up, ten minute interval changes, non-stop, from 5am until 9pm-ish!)

And wouldn’t you know it, but by Friday 2pm I was back at school. On crutches, but vertical. Yes, you’re probably thinking, ‘stupid!’ but I’d missed the kids terribly and wanted to see them before they left on two-and-a-half-weeks holiday, pray with them and for them, and testify to them just how amazingly their prayers for me had worked. That I was vertical, and walking on crutches, and was amazed at my recovery – but SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN!

Because I’d been holding fast to James 5:16. Especially the second part:

“The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”

Because I knew what the doctor didn’t – that the God who had made me, and who had let me go through this experience for His own good reasons, was able to heal me as well, for His own good reasons.

And He was doing exactly that! I should not have been able to be mobile – and yet, I was. And now, two weeks later, I should be starting to achieve pain-free mobility – and yet, I have it! Sure, sometimes it’s uncomfortable, but I’m just happy to be upright and without crutches 🙂

And in conversations with many, many, many others since then, I’ve been telling them how amazing my recovery has been – and then realising, over and over and over again, how amazed I should NOT be by this.

Wow, our God is an incredible God, isn’t He?

I hope you too, dear Reader, are having an AMAZING day today 🙂

And see you next week!

– 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