Monday, October 6, 2008

day one hits you for six......

First day back in term 4. I have 7 weeks and 4 days until I go on LONG SERVICE LEAVE for the last 3 weeks attached to my holidays. I am so excited.

First day back is always interesting for various reasons. The kids can be a little feral. The staff are often ridiculously happy - only to be crushed in spirit by day two!

My day was thrown by two things today.

1) A male colleague (early 50s) had a heart attack on Saturday and is in hospital at the moment. His father died when he was quite young and my colleague has worked on keeping himself fit (rode to work each day and worked out in the gym) but it still was a shock to the system. He is older than his father was but still it is a shock. This man has a reasonably young family.

One of the reasons I am a little affected is that I am thinking about my own situation. My father died when I was 12. I still have images of him falling down while he was helping my mother dish up the dinner. It was (and is) a pivotal moment in my life. The image has not faded and has made me aware of my health.

I realised that I have put on a few of the kilos that I lost and I had made the decision to lose those kilos again. One reason for my back and the other for my heart health.

I also have been looking at the work/life balance. I have brought my laptop home - but I have not brought any work home. I am going to make sure that I live each day in balance - work rest and play.

2) The second thing that threw me is not as intense. In fact I am still laughing at this situation.

A student that I do NOT teach came up to me and told me about a dream she had about me. I have never taught this girl. (At least I don't think I have) I believe she is in year 12.

The girl came up to me and told me that in her dream she was in my class and I asked her if she knew her scales. She replied that she had and I then, for no real reason she could think of, jumped up and sat on her knee and told her that I was very proud of her and gave her a big hug.

It threw me then as it does now. The fact that a student I don't teach dreamt about me and the fact that she told me about it!

It has been a day of highs and lows.

I very rarely share my thoughts about my family so I do hope you treat me kindly as you have entered into the inner sanctum.........

3 comments:

Laura Jane said...

Hmm, a thought provoking day in many ways.

Its only natural to have strong and lasting memories of such an important event in your life as the sudden death of your Dad. It is very confronting to see someone die suddenly like that. And similar events in others are natural triggers for those memories. Be gentle with yourself, and enjoy your exercise.

And I would be a little freaked by a student having such a dream about me too! But would be secretly tempted to throw myself on her lap for a laugh anyway. Or pretend I was about to!

Did the fabric arrive yet?

Anonymous said...

Geeze, if you need to lose some kilos maybe you'd better wait before jumping onto students' laps.

Keep the lap jumping as a reward once you become a stick-thin super model.

(Though I give you permission to jump onto my kids' laps. I just want to be there to see their expressions...)

Anonymous said...

A few years ago, I too lost a relatively young coworker. He was in his 50s. He wasn't very healthy, but he never seemed sick until he was diagnosed with cancer and died 6 weeks later.

It's good for you to be able to turn a negative into a positive. If it makes you live your life the way you want to, the way that makes you happy, then something good can come out of something tragic. I just got angry at my coworker's death. I wish I had been able to be more positive about it, but I think it just made me even more cynical.