Three weeks in a list

It's amazing how much coming home from a holiday can restore all the mild panics I have when I am away about who I am, what I want, and where I'm going. I suddenly feel like whatever was centering me before I left, has now returned. It's such a lovely feeling!

I've come back still without a plan, still without a clue what happens next. I have some work, but it's nothing permanent - thankfully! So next comes... a job search, a soul search, opportunity search, I suppose all of those ideas encompass what is to happen next.

I suppose I should be excited...

Colorado was good. Favourite memories include...

• Meeting Tia (brother's dog) in the airport car park

• Having the best nights sleep ever the first night

• Laughing in the car on the way to Telluride

• Driving into Telluride and remembering how damn beautiful it is

• Setting up camp under the aspen trees
  

• Luke scaring the life out of little Sean when he was least expecting it

• Hanging out with Ali

• Watching the Aspen trees glitter in the wind and sunlight

• Having so many innuendo's in my head that I didn't know which one to say first... and then I ended up saying none of them

• Meeting new, interesting people

• First shower in 3 days feeling like heaven on earth

• Eating a huge, juicy, cold apple!

• Taggart saying "Hay is for horses" whenever I greeted him

• Seeing and rocking out to The Frames live

• Shaking Glen Hansard's hand, realising it was really warm

• Wishing I'd said something better than what I did, to Glen Hansard

• Watching the crowd dance in the snow (in the middle of June!)

• Watching the crowd throw marshmallows at each other from all directions (I wish I'd taken a photo!)

• A record number of Americans saying "Heather?" when I introduce myself by saying "Hi, I'm Helen..."

• Holding a tarantula because my brother was too chicken to do it first
  

• Being surrounded by so many butterflies I felt like they were all there for me

• Seeing three beavers in the beaver pond

• Getting ridiculously drunk, and somehow becoming even more funny than usual

• Waking up the next day still feeling drunk

• Taking a photograph of a chipmunk eating a dandelion stalk - simple things!

• Hanging out in Boulder for the day, just reading

• Being able to say to people in town with clipboards... "No, I'm English!"

• Eating dark chocolate mousse cake in a posh Italian restaurant

• Watching "Wanted" and then slating the film afterwards with my brother

• Meeting an Irish guy called Keith before I got on the plane, only to find we were sat right next to each other

• Coming home to clean sheets, a shower, and my laptop!

I think I summed pretty much everything up on my trip! If you want to hear more about anything, all you have to do is ask ;-)

I'm so happy to be home, I cannot explain!

I want one.

Dear Miss Rickard...

Well, that's it! Placement is done, degree is done... time to get on with real life, finally!

I had an awesome first day, full of gifts, laughter and brilliant children.

Here are some of the things the little darlings wrote in the card they gave me... 

Dear Miss Rickard, 

You have been a great teacher this year and you taught me lots of things sometimes you can get angry but you always forgive us. I will miss you. 

From Harrison

Dear Miss Rickard

I will miss you throughout my life. 

Love, Sophie

Dear Miss Rickard

I am so sorry your leaving and we're all going to miss you soooo much and please come to visit. From Olivia

Dear Miss Rickard

I've had a lovely time whilst you've been hear I had an excellent time in art, literacy, re and numeracy. 

Love from Ellen

Dear Mrs Rickard

Best teacher in the world! 

from Elliot

Dear Miss Rickard

Thank you for the hard effort you put in teaching us Art, Topic, Literacy, RE, Handwriting and Numeracy. The next time I come into school I will look round the room frantically and you won't be there, I will miss you lots. 

Love from Chloe

Dear Miss Rickard

You will always be with me. 

From Rosetta

So yeah... beautiful children saying some of the sweetest (and oddest) things! I will miss them, it has been fun (if not ridiculously hard work). I did it justice though, I worked my arse off - and it paid off. Go me!

Onwards and upwards we go... 

A Day In The Life Of...

Good day to you!

Well, I have been home from school for just under an hour. Since returning home I have... tidied my room, sorted some washing out, and sorted out some finances. I'm on fire! (No, not literally.) And of course I have done a complete swoop of checking Facebook, it's amazing how much can happen in one day while I'm working my butt off for cheeky little tykes.

I'm sat on my bed, my laptop atop a pillow on my lap (how's that for a crazy phrase), with the window open and the sun setting in the distance. All I need now is to eat my dinner and drink some wine, and I'll be feeling happy.

The reason, though, that I'm feeling ever so relaxed this evening is due to the impending DAY OFF that I have tomorrow due to a teacher's strike. Woop! I'm not entirely sure what they're striking over (pay, probably), I'm not striking, I just can't go in because the school will be closed... but either way... I have a day to sleep in and hopefully catch up on planning and such-like things.

My life these days looks something like this:

6.30 - 7am - My alarm goes off repeatedly until eventually I arise and jump in the shower. While in the shower I'm *always* thinking about my lessons for the day, running through a mental list of everything I need to do when I get to school.

7.30 - 7.40am - I pile all my stuff, and myself, and my toast, into the car. Set off on my journey to school. Which actually, some mornings, is really beautiful. I drive down the country lanes to avoid main road traffic, and the amount of nature around is amazing! There are little rabbits running around, birds, pheasants, which incidentally are probably the worlds most DUMB animals. They don't seem to think they need to move out of the way for cars... no wonder so many of them are roadkill! Anyway...

8.00 - 8.15am - I arrive at school, lug all my stuff inside... and the long slog begins! I basically work solidly from the time I arrive to the time I leave (my duties include: teaching, walking talking, shouting, thinking, preparing, photocopying, standing, acting), which leads us nicely to...

5.30 - 7pm - I finish off whatever work I'm doing at school, that I can do whilst trying to fight the hunger pains... then I set off home..

At home - I finish off whatever planning I wasn't able to do in my 4 hours at school after the children have left. Try desperately to switch my brain off and think about something *other* than what I need to do the next day. And sometime between 9pm and 11pm I collapse into bed exhausted!

The next day... I do it all over again!

Anyone want to trade days? Answers on a postcard please!

I don't know

It's been exactly a month since I have filled this space in some way, and even though I know you are all secretly impressed that I managed to figure out how to embed a youtube video into my blog post, I also know you are yearning to read some words typed by my very own hand.

I also noticed, upon my periodic checkings of other people's blogs, some reference somewhere or another to the fact that it has indeed been a substantially long time since I have met the yearning previously mentioned.

Alas, I am here in an endeavour to satisfy this yearning of yours once and for all. You may thank me later, I accept payment in chocolate.

My life appears to be in this topsy turvy 'which direction shall I turn' place at the moment. I'm not enjoying it so much, I feel quite confused and frustrated, with a little bit of anger thrown in for good measure. About five years ago, I was coming to the end of a particularly difficult area of my life, and I was looking for the thing that was going to be next for me, I couldn't find it then, but eventually I picked something and started walking down that path.

Now, I'm coming to the end of that path I picked years ago, and I'm wondering if I've actually moved anywhere at all - or if the last three years have just been a bit like a hamster wheel. In which I thought I was moving forwards, when in fact, I was just keeping the momentum going.

That doesn't mean to say I wouldn't have learnt anything in my time in the 'hamster wheel' (excuse my metaphor), but it just makes for interesting thinking. I feel like I spend so much of my time trying to do the right thing, pick the right thing, find a direction, stick to it, walk through it. I guess I'm beginning to wonder what the point of striving for all those things is, if it doesn't work for me, or doesn't cause me to end up anywhere.

My goal, over the next 2 weeks I have left (of my 3 weeks off), is to master the art of knowing that, for now, it's perfectly fine that I don't know what I want to do, who I want to be, or where I want to go. I'm going to practise putting less pressure on myself, and practise lessening those crazily high expectations I have of myself - and see if that causes me to feel like I can come to big decisions through a relaxed mind, rather than a pressured one.

Almost like letting some air out of a balloon when you know you've put so much in it looks like it's about to pop, or, loosening your jeans after you've just eaten the most humungous (yet delicious) meal. That feeling where it's like your body breathes a sigh of relief without even realising.

Attention!

After years of painful searching... I think I have found my dream man!

In colour

I know I'm always a bit slow to catch on - and this is no exception!

Here is my "photo montage"... I decided to go for colour, cos I'm far too cool for black and white. It also isn't my year in pictures, it's just some of my favourite pictures and themes... in pictures!

If you click on it it should come up as a much bigger version!

Enjoy!