I’m Still Here…..Just!

I just wanted to check in to say I’m still here but I’ve just distanced myself a little. I have become a bit bored with writing about the same thing and being stuck in the endless cycle of on the wagon-off the wagon-back on the wagon…on and on and on! So what’s been happening since I last posted?

Well, I’ve been ill for over two weeks. It started out as a cold, then flared up my sinuses as it always does then just as I thought I was getting better it decided to invade my chest. On Wednesday night I had to phone my mum (who’s a nurse and has had pneumonia) as I couldn’t breathe properly and really thought I may have pneumonia myself. Anyway to cut a long story short I am on the mend after  few days off work recuperating. If I had just stayed off the first week I was really poorly I probably wouldn’t have the chest issues and would have got over it quicker. I am a martyr though and drag myself in come hell or high water!

Week beginning 16th September

This was my birthday week. I turned 30 on the 19th.I had  lovely week, some lovely presents off people and my boyfriend did a really good job of making it special for me. We went out for a meal on the Wednesday night with him and some of his family On my actual birthday night I had to stay late at work to run a gifted and talented evening for some primary school pupils then got home and fell asleep on the sofa I was that knackered! On the Friday I travelled back home to Manchester for an amazing meal with my family and then Saturday I finally got to see my best friend and her new baby who was three weeks old. Saturday night I travelled back and Sunday was me starting to feel very ill and school work

Week beginning 23th September

This was the week of the seemingly never ending illness! I ploughed on through though and worked on school work every night so that I could go see our friends at weekend in Norfolk. Friday night we drove down to their house, Saturday we went to the zoo with them and their kids, Sunday they cooked us Sunday lunch and then we drove home. Got home about 5pm, I did school work; surprise surprise!

This week

Monday was usual work, felt like I was turning a corner with the illness, Tuesday was a teacher strike day which I took part in and the start of the next wave of illness. Ironically 80% of my strike day was spent at home doing school work! I did have a really productive day other wise though. Wednesday was my first day off work through illness and the  ‘crap I think I have pneumonia’ day, yesterday was ‘ou, I feel so much better lets do some jobs – Oh crap all I’ve done is have a shower and get dressed and I can’t breathe’ day, so because of that, here I am off work again today feeling a bit like a fraud because I don’t really feel ill as such I just can’t breathe properly when I do anything! I might add I have also spent my entire three days off doing school work. I mean, jeez, its all I do after all!!!! Tomorrow I’m going to brave a trip into town to get some new pages for my new paperchase version of filofax then the rest of the weekend will be spent doing ………yes you guessed it, more school work! Oh and on a happy note I weighed in for the first time in a few weeks and was surprised to see I had lost 4 pounds when I’ve not even really been trying.

I was fine about turning 30, I’ve not got that fear that some people have at big birthdays. It did however make me think about how 15 years ago I planned my life to be completely different to what it is now. In fact 5 years ago, I planned my life to be different to how it is now. 5 years ago I totally expected that I would be a size 12, have at least 1 kid, maybe even 2 by now and would be married and a home owner, living near family and friends and financially stable by now. 10 years ago I thought I would be also a size 12, financially stable, owning a little farm house/cottage near family and friends, a vet, with a horse, a great social life, maybe married, maybe kids but I wasn’t that fussed about them too much, the animal side was more important. The reality? I am a size 18-20, living 120 miles away from my childhood friends and family, very few friends that feel like my childhood friends do and so often feeling quite lonely, living with my boyfriend in a relationship which on one hand is super and I’m very happy but on the other hand we have issues that he refuses/doesn’t want to talk about, unmarried with it not even being a near future possibility, discussing the possibility of starting a family next year but after the last 5 years, going full circle and being a little bit petrified of the idea of kids, not a whiff of an animal in sight due to the ridiculous hours I work, I don’t own my own house but instead am nearing the end of paying off nigh on £20K of empty debt as a result of my previous relationship, in a job I hate that stresses me and makes me unhappy………….phew! Happy days

I have to say that at 30, truthfully, I have never felt as lost as I do at the moment. Normally when I feel lost I can see some sort of path out of the woods but at the minute I feel like I have been searching for the path for nearly two years and I just feel like I’m getting more and more lost. I’m not really sure how to get myself out of this one.

Never mind, I’ll just keep searching I guess.

 

An OCO Moment

I’m feeling completely out of control and overwhelmed (OCO) at the moment. I feel out of control of my eating, motivation, emotions and workload. The work load alone is completely overwhelming me but coupled with the rest of that list I feel a bit like I’m sinking. This often happens; I get a tightness in my chest, headache and just a general exasperated feeling. Sadly this feeling is completely counter productive as it makes me feel so down that I can’t be bothered to do anything so the work just sits there and grows!

Currently my work list stands at:

• 9 assignments and schemes of work to write for our new btec course
• 11 assignments to review and re work for our old btec course
• Two lots of controlled assessments to mark – approximately 64 pieces of coursework
• 14 folders of btec work to re mark and update the mark sheets – approximately 245 pieces of work
• Lessons to plan for the first week of teaching when I go back

I also know that when I go back it will be back on the weekly grind of planning lessons and marking work, parents evenings, reports to write, meetings……..I can’t breathe for thinking about it! The whole point was that the list above was all going to be done and finished so that I can literally just focus on the usual weekly grind but as is always the case every year that I’ve been teaching there is too much work and not enough time. I hate teaching right now and I plan to be out of it and doing something completely different in the next 2-3 years. What? Who knows and frankly at this point in time i don’t care as long as it pays enough for me to pay my bills and get my life back!

I don’t really know how to solve this feeling. In the past I’ve just I have just forced myself to get on with it and ridden it out and the feeling has eventually just passed but this seems to be lingering and if anything I feel like I’m sinking deeper each day. To ease the feeling I usually write a to do list for the day. The list usually includes even tiny details like ‘have a shower’ particularly if I’m feeling very overwhelmed. I then try and tackle some of the smaller jobs to attempt to gain some momentum and hope that I keep going.  so the list is as follows:

• Put on mascara
• Brush hair
• Put my clothes away
• Wash up
• Go and feed my friends cat
• Tidy up around the house a bit
• Book dentists appointment
• Make tea

I then have the list of other stuff I want to get done before I go back to school:

• Seal round the bath
• Clean the house from top to bottom
• Get haircut and dye it – appointment booked for friday
• Book car into have balancing and tracking done
• Book car in to have windscreen repair
• Remove the weeds from the patio and drive
• Plant some vegetables in pots
• Clear out my wardrobe
• Get all my shoes and boots reheeled

I then have the mountain of schoolwork list as touched on above. This is the list of ‘must do’ tasks:

1. 9 assignments and schemes of work to write for our new btec course
2. 11 assignments to review and re work for our old btec course
3. Create and review teaching, verification and lead verification plans
4. Create and review marksheets for assignments
5. Two lots of controlled assessments to mark – approximately 64 pieces of coursework
6. 14 folders of btec work to re mark and update the mark sheets – approximately 245 pieces of work
7. Organise Btec afterschool catch up schedule
8. Create class lists and seating plans for all classes
9. Lessons to plan for the first week of teaching when I go back

Other jobs that I would like to get done but haven’t got a cat in hells chance of doing are:

1. Write skeleton schemes/lesson outlines for Key Stage 3 lessons
2. mark all my exercise books from last year (our school begins the new academic year early so I already have 3 weeks of work in books to mark)
3. Do wall displays in my classrooms

Now, a lot of both lists I could continue to do throughout the next school year and no doubt I am going to end up doing just that but thats part of the problem. Teaching is a full on job. I am usually doing school work every night especially in this last year after changing my job. I was really looking forward to having some time this year where I didn’t have to work at night and could have some life instead. The only way I was going to really get that would be to have completed the lists above before going back in September. Unfortunately this is not going to be the case and I’m going to probably be spending another year chasing my tail! Oh well, only another 2-3 years to go until I’m out of it 😦

 

 

Warning! Lots of Photo’s Coming Up!

A beautiful church adorned with flowers as part of a
religious festival that had happened
before we got there.

A breathtaking coastline view from near the top of the cliffs

Helloooooo! Well it’s been a while and what a good few weeks it has been! 207 photo’s were taken on our holiday to Madeira. Here are just a few of the selection of amazing views and scenery on this beautiful island. Wonderful people, amazing food and a superb holiday. We went on three different tours around the island to try to take in some of the beautiful sights and views and discover some more about the culture and history of this amazing place.

Madeira is basically an inactive volcano in the sea therefore there were A LOT of hills to climb. The combination of this, lots of walking in general and not as much eating as I normally do on holiday resulted in something I have never had happen on holiday. I maintained my weight! Brilliant! I do think I had actually lost weight on holiday but I didn’t weigh myself as soon as I got back therefore Ive had another week of not so great eating on top of that so when I finally got round to weighing myself I showed a maintenance. Happy days! I will weigh in officially on sunday to assess the damage of my week back home after our holiday.

Another stunning coastline view

The view from our hotel room each morning

Another beautiful view at the top of the mountains.
Above the level of the cloud.

Amazing view from the top of mountains over the valley

One of the places used in the TV series

After our amazing week away we came back and had one day at home and then went off on a day trip to a place in the Yorkshire called Goathland. This is where they filmed one of my favourite TV shows so I was a little bit excited!

Three A4 locomotives including the famous Mallard

The next day we were off again. This time to York. This is somewhere that I have wanted to visit for a long time and I wasn’t disappointed by this beautiful city. It was however very expensive to park anywhere!

We stayed overnight in a lovely bed and breakfast hotel just near the abbey gardens and up from the river. We visited the railway museum and the castle museum which I loved as they have a victorian street set up. I’m really interested in social history so this was ace!

All in all it has been a brilliant couple of weeks. Absolutely knackering, but brill! Seen as though I am in a situation where I have maintained my weight that I lost I am quite positive to get back on track for the next three weeks before I go back to school and hop back on the relentless work/stress hamster wheel! I would love to be under 200lbs before I go back to work. Ideally I would like to have lost a stone in total for my birthday on the 19th September. Then I have three months to try and lose another two stone before new year. That will leave me with only two stone to lose next year for me to reach my target.

I WILL DO THIS!

I’m Still Here!

Sooooooooo, long time no see! As you can probably guess, I have fallen off the wagon. Fall off the wagon = stop posting. Reasons why? I’ve been really busy with work, I’ve been really busy with life, too many social events tempting me (successfully!) off the wagon, I’m bored of it, I’m tired of it being hardwork all the time. Thats it really. I’m not going to use them as excuses, if I really wanted this then I could have made better choices whilst life was still happening. I could have picked the plain chicken breast and boring salad option everytime I went for a meal. I could have avoided the belgian waffle topped with chocolate sauce, cream and nuts at the airshow and munched on my apple instead. They are all could of’s though. At no point did I really want to and here in lies the problem. I want to be slimmer, I want to be healthier but I can’t be bothered, sometimes, to put in the hard work to get there and stay there.

The result of this? I don’t know. I haven’t weighed in for two weeks, I couldn’t bear it. I am tempted not to weigh in this sunday either as I am scared I have put my half a stone back on. I certainly feel like I have. It’s far easier to put my head in the sand and ignore it and skip, no, trudge along at the back of the wagon. Easy isn’t going to get me where I want to be though is it.

Here’s a run down of the last 14 days

• Mondayto Thursday evening – ate pretty well, over the calories a few days but generally ok. I hadn’t done well with eating my fruit but I didn’t go mad with other food.
• Thursday evening – Had a massive emotional meltdown after I STILL didn’t get a good in my lesson observation, so I came home angry, upset, fed up, annoyed and fustrated. To top it off the other half was on nights therefore the house was empty so I added loneliness to that list. How did I deal with those emotions? I ate. And ate. Ate a little bit more and then just topped it off with a bit more eating. I need to deal with this emotional side to my eating. It’s not good and it really succeeds in jeapordising my good intentions
• Friday – I then felt crap about the previous nights binge so whilst the day’s eating was good I then continued the binge from the night before by getting a big, dirty, greasy pizza and cheesy garlic bread from the takeaway. I had half of each, shared with my boyfriend. I had been craving pizza all week but the original plan was to get a shop bought, bake at home pizza, have it with chips and still be in my calories for the week. Hmmmmm. We also went food shopping at this point and I bought crappy food like biscuits and ice creams.
• Saturday – I went to the local airshow which I’ve been to before. I have become a not so secret plane geek since moving to live near Royal Airforce Bases so this was a brilliant day out. We took a picnic which I tried to make reasonably healthy but not so healthy that I would be bored of it and attack the food stands. That didn’t work. First I didn’t have time for breakfast in the morning so a bacon roll  went down the hatch at 10am. I ate the picnic and then attacked the food stands anyway practically inhaling a belgian waffle with chocolate sauce and cream. I then had a crappy tea later on to finish it off with!
• Sunday – Crappy eating again, picking at crap foods, biscuits, crisps……!
• Monday to Wednesday – not bad eating in the day but then binging on biscuits and crisps at night.
• Thursday – ok through the day but indulged in cake for our sportsday afternoon tea.
• Friday – meal out at an all you can eat establishment with work and my god I am a seasoned pro at all you can eat places! I was in actual pain by the end of it!
• Saturday – meal out with friends at an american style burger place with amazing burgers, desserts and cocktails
• Sunday – staying over at friends house on saturday night so they’re doing us a barbeque on the sunday

Don’t get me wrong, it has been a thoroughly enjoyable two weeks in all other ways but in some ways I resent it as it interfers with my eating. It has also meant that as a result of two weeks off the wagon, an upcoming ‘piggy day’ at work where we all bring in stupid amounts of food and an impending trip to Harry Potter World on saturday I am finding it HUGELY difficult to get back on the wagon and stay on it. Most of the day starts off well and then I hit the food when I get home 😦 This is not boding well for my holiday weight loss. Why does this have to be so bloody difficult!!!!!!!!!

I WILL DO THIS………just maybe after a wee break

Late Nights, Drunkeness and Binges

This week started off well. I stuck to eating, drinking at least 2L water, I didn’t get out walking but still it was good. I ruined it slightly on wednesday by deciding to have a sneaky mid week weigh in. STUPID GIRL! Whilst the scales were showing a projected 1-2lb weight loss I think it threw me into an old negative thinking….’only 1lb, thats not enough, you lost 5lb last week….’. Thursday was a looooonnnngggg day. 12 hours on my feet at school because of open evening. school put a buffet on for us and I had factored into my eating a tuna mayo sandwich and maybe, maybe if I was desperate a toffee muffin. Still within my calories though. Thats where the landslide began. No tuna sandwiches on the platter. The only other sandwich choice I liked was brie and cranberry. Hmmmm, how shall I soften this blow that I can’t eat what I wanted to eat….lets have 2 muffins! What the hell. How does half a brie and cranberry sandwich and two toffee muffins equate to one missing tuna sandwich and one muffin. I’m not a maths genius but even i know that that doesn’t fit the law of equality!

3 hours into the open evening only 5-10 people had been round. It wasn’t as busy as our usual open evening we have at the start of the school year unfortunately but we were trialling a new idea with this one. Its safe to say it wasn’t a hit. Boredom set in so myself and my collegue decided to have a wander round and look at the other departments. Humanities had food out from different cultures. They had these amazing samosa’s that were really talented and could jump into your mouth ;-p then we passed through the canteen and they had tea coffee and cakes out, so a couple of bites of a chocolate shortbread happened and then we passed on to food technology. Big mistake, they had cakes too. One slice of lemon madeira later and the calories were well and truly spent! I got home at quarter to nine absolutely exhausted. I was hungry. I wasn’t, I was just tired but I wanted to eat. So I did. I ate two tortilla wraps, a packet of walkers sunbites and a snack sized chocolate twirl.

I had broken the diet seal and so friday was spent arguing with myself all day about why I needed to not eat the biscuits, not order a jacket potato with double cheese and butter, not eat the chocolate a collegue had brought in. I did it though, I avoided it all. I was very proud. Then I got a phone call. The mother of one of my childhood friends had had a brain haemorrage and was critically ill in hospital. She’s a lovely lady and it upset me. It brought back a lot of memories of my grandad and the time he had his brain haemorrage, emotions that I didn’t even know I was still harbouring. This was then shortly followed by a text message from a friend. Him and some of my friends were going out. The first thought was to say no. It was friday, I had had the longest and busiest working week, a hard dieting week and a tough emotional end. I wanted to get on the sofa and not move. But I am also sick of not living my life and behaving little a pensioner at 29. So I jumped in the shower, did a quick food shop with my boyfriend, had a quick bite to eat and off out I went. The quick bite was a lamb and mint burger. Definitely not diet food but with the amount of alcohol I was about to chuck down my neck I figured it didn’t really make that much difference!! I got drunk, I danced like a mental for hours, I laughed like a mental all night, I had fun. It was good and exactly what I needed.

This morning I’m regretting it. My head hurts, I have zero energy, my legs hurt, I have just polished off two slices of cheese on toast (the only thing that helps my hangovers), I want to eat the entire contents of the kitchen. Myself and my boyfriend are off out later to his mums for buffet food prior to going to watch Madness in concert for his step dad’s birthday. Thats today’s eating ruined. Then tomorrow they have booked the whole family in for sunday lunch so thats probably tomorrows eating sabotaged also.

I could do two things here. I could jump off that wagon, throw in the towel and give up. Or, I could accept that I might not have a weight loss this week and I haven’t done things perfectly but it doesn’t matter because I will have had two brilliant fun filled days, get back on it on monday and have a good week next week instead. My boyfriend is back on nights next week so I have the best opportunity to stay on track. I will also come on here mid week so that I don’t end up with a stupidly long, boring and rambling post like this again!!! Weigh in tomorrow so just a quick check in tomorrow to update.

Week 1 Day 1

First day back at work and first day back on the wagon. I arrived in work at 7.30am and after only an hour back in work I was begining to feel like the healthy eating was already slippling. The masses of work I needed to do started to get me panicy and I had been in work nearly an hour and still hadn’t sat down to eat my breakfast. Cue the negative voices – ‘you’re going to fail again, back an hour and you’re going to fail’, ‘Whats the point? Work just takes over and then you don’t stick to it’. So I stopped mid panic mode, mid drowning in work mode and had a selfish moment. I countered the negative voice with a very positive ‘bugger the work, it can wait this is now me time for the next 10 minutes and I am going to sit down and eat breakfast!’ So I did. Next moment of slippage came at lunch when an upset pupil came to see me and took up my whole luchtime whilst trying to calm her down. So, two hours later I hadn’t eaten any lunch. Unfortunately the nature of teaching is that you’re tied to the pupil breaktimes and I was teaching all afternoon. Again the negatives started but I silenced them and pushed on. As soon as I hit the end of the school day I ate my lunch and afternoon snack in one. Unfortunately due to the sheer volume of work I had to do today I didn’t leave work until 6pm. I then had another hour and a half of work to do once I got home so I didn’t eat dinner until 8pm. In some respects it was a good job I did have lunch late! Because of this however I haven’t been able to get out to go for a walk and it’s nearly dark now 😦

Anyway, to the right is what I have eaten today and to sum up the first day in three sentences:

1. Work is crazy, mental busy and still crap!
2. Eating and drinking has been nothing but successful. Hurrah!
3. Exercise has been a bit pooh but it’s sort of not my fault

Oh, I also forgot to say that I weighed myself in bra, knickers and socks only this morning on an empty stomach. Not good; 208lbs. The aim is to be on or under 200lbs in time for my holiday in 7 and a half weeks. Highly do able with some focus, commitment and effort. 😦 I will be weighing on sunday mornings from now on otherwise I’ll forget to do it before work.

Brain Vomit Part 2….Beware….Very long post ahead!

It’s been over a week since I had a bad case of the brain vomit and I’m pleased to report that I am on my way to recovery. It was a very bad case and for a short while I was a little concerned that it was a terminal case. I did however manage to identify the source of the infection and take steps to deal with and contain the spread. Joking aside I have been having a few issues. Lately I have been having a major wobble with my career choice and this has started to spread to and affect how I feel about my life in general. I did used to like (never loved) teaching, I still do like it but I am just sick of the constant jumping through hoops, decreasing responsibility taken by parents and the children I teach, more responsibility being placed on the teacher, I also want my life back. 14 hour days including weekends are also starting to grind me down. But I need to start at the begining.

As a 10 year old child I decided that when I grew up I wanted to be a vet. My family had horses and other various animals so from the age of dot I had been around all manner of animals and farms. I also loved science (and still do), I have a passion for problem solving and analysis so the decision to be a vet was a completely natural one. I was also reasonably bright, in top sets for all of my subjects, talented (ish) musician, high achiever etc etc. Unfortunately though I was never innately bright. I had to work for my high grades and I envied and still envy these people who can walk into an exam after a mere flicker of revision the night before and come out with an A*. But work I did and it payed off.

At the age of 11 my mum married my stepdad. I have never known my biological dad and it had just been me and my mum for so long so the arrival of my stepdad into the equation was, how shall I put this……..DIFFICULT! I was very mature for 11 and had been brought up as almost an equal with adults, my opinion was often sought and usually valued amongst the adults I shared my life with. My stepdad had previously been married and had his own children so putting us together was like asking Hitler to live with Anne Frank. Two completely different people, completely different upbringing’s, hugely different attitudes and opinions. He had brought his own children up as children often are raised, seen and not necessarily heard. To say we clashed is an understatement. It didn’t really help that he also wasn’t so nice to my mum. Not that he was violent or abusive or anything that bad, just that my mum was a very strong independent woman who had worked her way up from being a teenage mother with no qualifications to become a successful senior nurse on her way to great things. My stepdad was very controlling and critical and over the years this changed my mum and she became an unopinionated peace keeper. I began to stick up for her.

My stepdad and I clashed even more. We clashed for nearly 4 years until I hit a breaking point with it and made the decision to move out and live with my grandmother at nearly 15. My relationship with my mum changed forever. On a consious, adult level I knew it was my choice and that eventually I would go my own way as an adult, therefore I may have potentially saved my mum’s relationship by making the decision to move out. On an  unconcious, 15 year old child level my mum had choosen him over me. This shook me to my core. I lost interest in school, actually no, I didn’t lose interest in school, I think I just lost my way generally, in life. I stopped eating, began exercising excessively, had suicidal thoughts, cried a lot. Looking back I was probably very depressed. This carried on for a good few years, I dabbled with laxatives, vomiting and mild self harm along the way and as I hit 16 and started sixth form college I also dabbled a bit too much with boys and alcohol. Of course my grades suffered dramatically and the dream of being a vet slowly started to fall out of reach.

At 18 I got engaged to what I thought was a wonderful man, and for nearly 8 years he was. Until 4 months before we were due to be married he left me. Two weeks later he was dating a woman form his exercise class and 2 months later he had moved in with her, got engaged and she was pregnant by christmas. During this time he also stopped paying his half of the mortgage on the house we jointly owned, declared himself bankrupt and as a result left me financially up shit creek without a paddle. But thats another story all together and I am digressing! Anyway, at 18 I went back and resat my A levels, still didn’t manage to get the results I needed so decided to do a first degree before applying for Vet Science as a second degree. During my three years at uni though, two things happened. 1. It became apparent that it would cost me around £80k to do a second degree and 2. Due to my engagement my prorities changed. I wanted to get a house, have kids, get married….I couldn’t do all of this with £80k debt round my neck. So I didn’t apply. I went into teaching instead.

Fast forward 7 years. My (new) boyfriend is very supportive of anything I want to do. We were talking about me changing my career and he said something jokingly about me ‘loving’ teaching (he knows I am sick of it!). I sarcastically ‘joked’ that I only ever wanted to be a vet and live on a big hill in Wales with my animals so I was probably never going to be happy in any job because none of them will ever be veterinary anyway.

It was a passing comment but my god it stuck with me. I couldn’t shake off the feeling of regret for days. I even started to research if it was possible for me to go back and do it. I found a glimmer of hope at a local University until reality kicked in again and I realise that financially I couldn’t afford it and that even if I stumbled across a money pot it would mean me giving up my want for a family and to get married to my wonderful boyfriend. It was an odd feeling. I felt like I was grieving. Not the grief felt from the loss of a loved one but the loss of a dream I had held in the back of my mind for a long long time. If I am honest I am still grieving and I think I will be for a while. It’s now left me though in a bit of a limbo situation. I still hate my job but I am also not sure that I am ever going to like any job.

A few months ago whilst looking for a job in a different career field I came across a job, still in teaching, but as a lecturer in animal management at a local agricultural college. At the time I dismissed it a little as I was trying to got out of teaching but after my ‘grief’ I think I dismissed it too easily. I think this would be a really good compromise for me:

• Day to day contact with animals
• The best bits of teaching
• More motivated, slightly older students doing something they actually want to do
• Not quite the same level of assessment, marking etc as it is a vocational qualification

Don’t get me wrong, there are some down sides, less money and job security for a start, but seriously I think this would be a good compromise. After missing the boat with this one though I just need another job to be advertised now!!!!

 

David Attenborough and Naked Mole Rats…..

I don’t have anything in particular to say tonight, I just fancied a ramble about random stuff. I think it’s because my boyfriend is working nights this week and usually by Wednesday I start to feel lonely. When he’s on nights we literally see each other for all of ten minutes at half three in the morning when he comes in, I wake up and we have a bit of a chat. Having only lived in my current location for 3 years I also haven’t really reached that stage with any of my friends where I can just ‘drop in’ unannounced for a brew/chinwag etc and my really close friends and family are 120 miles away. Anyway, you unfortunate folks are going to have to put up with me whilst I satisfy my longing for company!

First topic of one way conversation. David Attenborough. What a legend. I am sat here watching his Africa series and yet again he has succeeded in amazing me with the wonders (and they truly are wonders) of the natural world. I love nature and science in general. It is one reason I ended up becoming a Science teacher; oh how I regret that! But thats a whole other blog post! Anyway back to Attenborough and naked mole rats. I love these little critters! They are one of the ugliest little things on the planet but for some reason I find beauty in ugly creatures. Its such a shame I can’t view my own body like a naked mole rat! They look like a penis with legs and teeth. It will be a sad, sad day when David Attenborough dies. I can’t imagine life without his programmes. Lets not think about it.

On other completely different topics, work is ridiculously busy and stressful at the minute. Its usually pretty busy and stressful anyway but wow, it’s gone into overdrive lately. This is mainly due to the fact I have an external verifier coming in next week to check I am correctly running the course I am responsible for. If I fail the visit the school won’t be allowed to run any of the courses offering this qualification in any other subjects so its pretty important that it goes well. As a teacher it’s fair to say you spend term time in a constant state of medium to high stress and only in school holidays does your stress level tend to drop to a lower level. By constant state I literally mean when you get home (more work to do and bringing work home with you mentally as well as physically), when you go to sleep (I regularly dream about work and wake up with a panicky feeling), it’s the first thing you think about when you wake up and I am even planning my day on my drive into work. I have to admit that I am a perfectionist and if I do a job I give it 100% so teaching is difficult as it’s the type of job where you physically can’t do everything 100% and your to do list is never empty. There’s always something else you could be doing. I’ve still not decided if it will be my lifelong career and is a question I have been ruminating around my brain for a while now. For now though I will plod on with it.

The first thing that happens when work is particularly busy is that my diet suffers and my god it has suffered lately. I am however, trying not to get too stressed about it as this makes it worse and the whole thing becomes self perpetuating. so I am riding it out in the hope that it will pass as work settles down. My next diet related habit I am going to introduce/break is to not eat when I get home from work before my tea. This has become a really bad habit that happens as a result of habit and not because I am at all hungry. The breakfast habit is still going strong and I am starting to feel a real sense of achievement with this one.

Right, back to David and his naked mole rat!

T’ra for now!

The Wanderer Returns….Tail Between Her Legs!

ME: (sheepishly) ‘Helloooo’

BLOG: (Knowingly) ‘Ahhhhhhh. You’re back I see!’

ME: (still sheepish and apologetic) ‘ Yeah, sorry about the lack of blogging. Work got in the way, I’ve been really busy, then it was christmas…..(tails off)’

BLOG: ‘ Anymore excuses….?’

ME: (objecting) ‘No really, I have been stupidly busy! Honestly! I know I have been lapse but it’s been hard! Anyway, I’m back now and I promise to be better this time.’

BLOG: (exasperated) ‘Ou that sounds familiar..! So, along with half of the population you are vowing to get back on the wagon for new year, change your life, lose 5 stone in a year, stop this, stop that, start doing this, do more of that blah, blah, blah…!’

ME: (quiet voice) ‘Yes’

BLOG: ‘…..hmmmm…..we’ll see….’

Bad Habits 1:Good Habits 0

Wow it’s been a while! So much has been happening and yet so much has not been happening all at the same time. I’ve now been in my new job for a week and a half and so far, so (very) good. I don’t want to get too excited about it yet as I have so far found that teaching jobs take at least a term until your true feeling for the job show but I am still a little bit excited already as initial feelings are very promising. I have some challenging kids to deal with along with some extra whole department responsibilities that are currently keeping me really busy but I am loving the new challenges. The new job however has temporarily but severely interfered with my diet and exercise plan that I was doing so well with.

As statistics currently stand I have not weighed in or measured myself for a couple of weeks, I haven’t done any planned exercise since 2nd September and I have now also slipped with the eating and more importantly, logging of my food. My last food log was on the 5th September. My eating hasn’t necessarily been bad in terms of exceeding my daily calories, it has just been sparse, poor quality and inconsistent. I haven’t eaten a proper lunch during work days for about 5 days sadly and on some of those occasions I haven’t eaten anything between breakfast and tea. I know this is not good but the new job is keeping me massively busy at the moment and when I am busy or occupied I don;t tend to feel hunger in the same way. I am also currently running on stress, something my stomach has repeatedly been telling me lately with horrific bouts of heartburn, indigestion and acid reflux. My brain is struggling to switch off when I get in bed (usually late) and I am working every night until bedtime. My day currently runs like this:

• 6.00 – get up, breakfast, get ready for work
• 7.00 – Leave for work – 35-40 minute drive, through some beautiful scenery and lovely little villages though! This is just one of the beautiful roads I drive down.
• Arrive at work at 730/7.40 and begin general schoolwork, planning, sorting out lesson resources, admin etc.
• 8.40 – Kids arrive, lessons start.
  Break, lunch time and any free periods currently involve me doing more work
• 2.55 – kids leave I carry on working
• 5.30/6.00-I leave school to go home arriving home around
  …
• 6.40 – jobs around house, washing up etc, cook tea, eat.
• 7.30 – start school work again
• 10.30-11.30 – bed

Obviously there is a really crap work life balance going on there, especially when you consider that I am also working most of my weekends too. I know this is not a permanent schedule, if I get ahead with my work then it should start to ease off in the new year.  My other problem is that I struggle to motivate myself to exercise when I have so much on my work to do list. I’m certain this is because I don’t see exercise as a relaxing way to spend my time but instead see it as a mundane, unenjoyable task that I have to ‘endure’. However, I also know that it will help me to unwind and de-stress, it’s a catch 22 situation at the minute.

As it currently stands I am not promising myself anything in terms of exercise or my commitment to it. I find that if I do this and fail it demoralises me and I have no chance of getting back to it. It’s very hard not to feel guilty for not doing it though and the longer it goes on like this, the harder it’s going to be to get ‘back on the wagon’. I think I need to go back to square one, start small, baby steps and make a new plan…..hmmmmmmm………