I needed to write this.

Frikkin internet is down so I’m blogging

I don’t mean it like, oh, theres nothing else to do.... this is what I mean;

I’ve just made a decision, I’m going back to UNI. I miss it. I actually feel a little bit empty without it. A bit like when you know you’ve not packed a toothbrush when your going away, or you have a sneaking suspicion that somthing isn’t right.

I know it.

Maybe I was a bit foolish not going this September as planned, but hey ho. If I had I wouldn’t be feeling this urge, I need to go back.

I think the time has given me the opportunity to set myself up right. So what, I have perhaps from one perspective wasted a little bit of time, but hey, what’s a year? I’ve been reading, I’ve been thinking, reflecting, and jesus, I feel like I could go and write three whole essays on anything and everything.

This could be linked to the effort I’ve made tonight, treated myself. I’ve been for the first run in about a year (and after putting on about a stone since my last) and then swam and then, I did a face mask and read. I feel GOOOOOOD.

So I’m a bit frustrated because I the internet isn’t enabling my begging emails to Ms Torrence and also to the boss so that I can leave next season early. I just want to DO. SOMETHING. I’m at a very uncertain point right now and to know that I have made at least one decision about the not to distant future is great, but I want to act on it. I shall just have to wait. And read.

So my current book, which I LOVE (!) is Emotional Intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ (by Daniel Groleman (I keep going to write Dave Grohl, ha)

The two chapters so far that have really... Moved (?) me are Mind and Medicine and The Family Crucible. The first one, really relates to my feelings toward the work I did with the hospital and with the mental health service, or really the work I wanted to do I suppose.

 It’s like he’s written my mind for me, aside from the actual scientific stuff that I would never have discovered. He describes and proves the link between emotions and the Immune system, the impact our emotions have on health and then the impact emotions have on recovery from ill health.

One bit that I find soo scary, but really interesting, is the possibility of Anger and hostility causing heart disease leading to heart attacks. Woah. How many kids do we see who are hostile and angry (with just cause) in youth work. Obviously they need help to sort out whatever is going on with them, but just think how important it actually is, to help them work through their anger and deal with it.

Then in the family chapter, I feel a bit sad (and maybe if some of my family read this they may dislike what I’m going to talk about, but hey, it’s my blog)

I won’t go through what it talks about but I had to put the book down, I was just thinking.... S**T, the boys are actually going to be really affected by this, and they totally are, you can see it. Not just because of the obvious break up and stress, but because of the emotional issues and then the pressure on them to live up to the male stereo type. (If you are reading this, beware, I am not judging, I have never attempted to bring up a child and I am never, will never lecture you on how you should bring up yours)

[Earlier in the book, I was comparing myself to the people they describe as having no emotion = Zero empathy = psychopath (it doesn’t read exactly like that...) and I got a bit worried, because I find it difficult to show emotion. I’m not worried now though, I totally want to cry]

So yeah.

I love my book.

I want to go back to study sooner than I expected.

I think I only want to do it part time.

I still don’t have a job when I get home.

But today has been a good day.

Totally just finished my first season.

x

Being accident prone is no joke.

Coincidentally, I write this on a, so far, accident free day.

So for as long as I can remember I have built up a catalog of little accidents, mishaps, calamities and f**k ups. I don't know why, I just always have been a little bit prone to both minor injuries and making a tit out of myself. 

and at the grand age of 22, I'm getting a little bit bored of it.

I've created a list of little accidents that have happened since I flew to better climates in May

• The first day of work, I slipped down the steps in the pool and had bruised shins for three weeks.
• I also had a swollen right foot for a few weeks too. un explained but frikkin painful.
• I cut and scraped my leg climbing a tree on more than one occasion.
• cut open my knee climbing up a wall.
• I have a third degree burn-scar on my right inside ankle from burning on the exhaust of a motor bike.
• I slipped down some steps when I got out of the shower one day. my foot swelled up and my little tow went purple, couldnt really walk either...
• I bruised and scraped my knees and shins climbing some rocks...
• I always bashed my head off the window on the bus, just trying to see that little bit further...
• Bought some new flip flops after breaking three pairs, and slipped over in them about 6 times in one week.
• I had a fight with a sun lounger and bashed my nose in.
• last week I headbutted the roof of the minibus when I got in on the way to babysit
• three nights ago I stepped into the van and slipped straight out again. (of the van that is, oversharing/exposure is another one of my many faults, but it didnt happen this time)
• last night I was over gesticulating and bashed my Elbow off the door in the van again. It wasn't even a good story. 

And that's just when I'm SOBER!

I think I'm still feeling that Gangly stage, you know the one we all get when we're a teenager and your body parts grow at different speeds. I remember being about 14 and my legs being massively out of proportion to the rest of me, in length that is, I just didn't know what to do with myself. I wasn't leggy like you'd describe say.... 'ooh that leggy blonde' but I did feel like my legs didn't stop til my armpits. I'm in a better proportion now, well at least the rest of me has grown outwards, but I'm still walking around and bumping into things and tripping over, like the 14 year old gangly geek I was. 

Pedagogy is a funny word / I am a geek.

Super geek alert!

Little sis sent me out some things this week, I have never been as happy, although she did send me the wrong top ( :-( ) She also sent me chocolate (always appreciated) a weird Panda thing to make and one of my uni books, Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Frier.

I was supposed to read it at the start of last term, so I'm a little late in discovering the really interesting (but hard to read) work of Mr Frier, I'd heard of his theories from lecture so bits of it ring familiar to me. The thing is, once you have read (and reread) a chapter its like 'DING!' ohhh yeah!

I think it's the first chapter which is about the oppressed beating oppression and their oppressors and it talks about violence. So I start thinking about Libya and Egypt and their uprising and Iraq and things, the book says that the oppressed never start violence, that it all comes from the oppressors somewhere down the line. It also says that to be Unoppressed, the oppressed must not oppress their oppressors (see why its a bit hard to follow, this isnt just the way i speak) and other people who aren't oppressed cant facilitate/lead their freedom (that make sense?) so for instance, you could say, Iraq, the argument that the army was going in the help the people who were being oppressed and shat on by their 'Government' is bull, and that the people in Iraq just became oppressed by us rather that Saddam Hussain and his cronies.

And another chapter, his one on education and oppression, It's like, exactly how I think! He compares two methods of teaching, Banking and Dialogical (may have the titles wrong there) basically that most school and teaching is like churning out kids from a sausage factory, you fill them up with facts with no meaning or discovery behind them, Dialogue is more about enquiry and two way learning between class and teacher and learning things because they interest you.

What a frikkin geek I am, I'm so glad she sent it out though, Kudos to you sis. you know when you start to feel like your brain is starting to melt a little bit from not exercising it enough? well I've woken it up.

x