I sent myself home from school at 10:30am today on account of I have the plague. I should probably have not bothered to go (I don’t have any classes to teach on Tuesdays), but I think it makes me look kind of hardcore? Claire showed up and stayed until she virtually PASSED OUT. She believes in education THAT MUCH.

But so then I came home and watched She’s the Man from my couch and actually did pass out. And then I ate like 40 slices of my sister’s birthday cake. For the healing properties of chocolate and cream.

Oh viruses. I feel like such a sickness-veteran these days. What is wrong with my immune system, I don’t know. It is a big slacker? Last winter, I got sick in four distinct instances from August to October. This year I’ve been supercareful to get vitamins and not to breathe in public, and I haven’t had anything very bad (possibly also related to my having had a flu shot? which, incidentally, is the least painful injection I’ve had in years; everyone should get one!) since May… so as it’s now September that’s technically an entire Winter without a bug? I am awesome!! But streak is over :(

I can map out the timeline of Claire Gets Plague so well now. Two days of scratchy throat with possible fever on second day. Two days of all-out cold. Two days of asthma. Currently in day three. I have taken Codral but it is doing nothing. The power of the plague is too strong!!

The good part? Getting sick on a Sunday afternoon means you can expect to be better again by the weekend. Timing, you guys. It is key!

How tolerable has the weather been this week?! I have been stuck inside the dim maze that is my prac school all day, but my drives home have been so sunny! Summer still exists!!

Currently struggling with the ruleyness of schools. Like. Teachers tend to toe the line a lot; they do stuff by the book. Possibly as a result of the fact that I have been in uni and/or employed as a casual/temp for the last seven years, I am pretty bad at engaging with strict expectations!

I am also fairly bad at enforcing them. For example, if a student swears in front of me… I know they’re not meant to, but I just don’t care that much. I am rather laissez-faire and I like it that way, cos it means I don’t get stressed out when people do things I don’t approve of. I find it very unnatural to impose my will on other people so explicitly. But I think I have to get more uptight while I am at work? Or at least train myself to notice when the kids aren’t doing the right thing! Also, there is an element of teaching that involves belittling students in order to mould them (usually when they do wrong because aren’t thinking as opposed to when they honestly find things difficult). Most teachers seem to do it and students seem to respond to it surprisingly well? But just the thought of it, at the moment, makes me go ugh! I have some instincts to seriously retrain.

I feel like I finished my last prac about a day ago… and suddenly I am on prac again :(

Teaching, as a job, seems fairly purposeful and challenging but the problem is that it is exhausting. Being a non-organised kind of person, I can see the next 40 years ahead of me as a long, long series of rushes towards deadlines followed by crashes that I recover from just in time for the next deadline to knock me down again? I know I found 9-to-5 office work absolutely soul-crushing, but… I hope the meaningfulness and the momentum are enough to make up for the fact that I am going to have homework every night of my life.

That said! This prac is looking better than last prac so far, although I don’t want to speak too soon. I have one class of about 10(?) international students who all seem like really sweet kids, and I also have a year 9 Italian class who are… year 9s. Insufficient observation so far to say what they’ll be like. And I’m still trying to pick up a mainstream ESL class.

There are seven other student teachers there, and we’re all camped out together at a table in the staff room, which is really nice. Having other-student-teacher Michael in the languages office to whinge to was one of my last prac’s few saving graces, and this time you can’t walk into the room without being pretty sure there’ll be someone there to bug. It’s nice.

Anyway, there is also life beyond prac!

For example, I turned 25 on Friday! It was good, I liked it. Then sister’s family 21st on Saturday afternoon (this means: talk to your grandparents for a couple of hours and have a quiche), and Chow’s(/Josh’s) housewarming on Saturday night (/well into Sunday morning). COLDEST HOUSEWARMING EVER. But also good. And then sleeping on Sunday (…well into afternoon).

And then last night, after prac, I went to the Cobra Starship/The Academy Is…/Panic at the Disco show. It was really good!! I had forgotten how much I am entertained by CS and TAI. Panic less so, to be honest. But definitely worth it. I need to go to more gigs. A+

Humph. It is two days to my 25th birthday. Despite my dramatics, I am not actually very distressed about it. I am having a pizza party on Friday night? NOT REALLY ON PURPOSE. But. Pizza. Also, have to work all day but going out for lunch? So lose/win/win.

Then on Saturday I am going to two parties (for other people)! And then I go on prac on Monday :( I am already exhausted; where am I going to find those five weeks of energy?! Ahgh. Oh and on Monday night I have Cobra Starship/The Academy Is…/Panic at the Disco. So that is good. Though also tiring. But I got seated tickets, cos I have some genius foresight.

Could do with less interpersonal drama at the moment. Very, very lame Sunday that has resonated through the whole week. Am determined to have put it out of my mind by the end of tomorrow, but inclined to think some enduring damage has been done. Bit cut up about it. But at some point you have to draw a line? :/

Today I:

- Actually saw some sunshine after the fog cleared
- Got some seriously reduced comfortable boots for $34!
- Had a good lunch with a boy until I had to go to uni :(
- Was so bored at uni omg *HANDS OVER EARS*
- Got home and found out my ESL practicum placement is IN THE CITY \o/

I have been in a totally baseless funk for the last couple of weeks. I don’t know why! My eye is bodgy but in general life is good? I’m pretty busy, but being busy is a nice change from feeling like a big slug. So HMMM.

I think I am worried about prac teaching. And about, like, actual teaching. I had the epiphany today that hey… I don’t have to apply for Spanish teaching jobs! I think I forgot since I started this Dip Ed that I went into it to improve my opportunities for working in ESL. When I ditched Law and went into Linguistics it was to be an ESL teacher. I’ve been sucked into the whole culture of “you will teach what they give you to teach”. But… no! I want to be an English teacher with migrants! That’s my deal!! I actually tried to talk my way out of getting enrolled in Spanish at the beginning of the year because I, really, am no Spanish teacher. So on reflection, no wonder my prac was stressful!! And since February this image has been growing in my head of me living in a country town 10 hours from Adelaide, teaching Spanish and SOSE and… tech studies or something, and I’ve been getting all ohhh I don’t know if I want to do this teaching thing after all. But, no. I just want to work in the metro area, and teach ESL. I think I should stop seeing these as unrealistic goals and get a grip!

I will be stressed out until I get my placement for this prac. Which will be in ESL, thank goodness. Hopefully getting my placement will make me less stressed, depending where it is.

Regarding my eye, I need to get lasik again :( Damnit.

In my inbox when I got home from work (paraphrased or it’s creepy):

Dear Claire,

An appropriate country teaching practicum placement was not available for you. Therefore, you will do your placement in the metropolitan area. Details to follow.

Love from uni.

…

UNI I LOVE YOU TOO.

As teaching practicum heads for its conclusion (three more teaching days = 4 more double lessons and 1 single, yaaaaay), the prospect of having free time again is making me feel very virtuous in advance. Sure I have quite a few assignments due in the next few weeks, but never have I cared so little about assignments! I am homesick for the familiar boringness of assignments! Also I have to be at uni all day on Monday for debriefing but they wrote in the email in capital letters FREE LUNCH, twice, because obviously they know what will motivate uni students to turn up, haha.

But gasp, the end of Friday is calling to me. Always during stressful periods when the end is in sight, I make plans for how productive I am going to be when it’s all over. When prac teaching is finished, I am going to:

-Do craft-geeky stuff like finish knitting my current scarf (my first in moss stitch! moss stitch is hot!), binding my quilt that I started well over a year ago and which is nearly finished, and reconning some of the various badly-fitting clothes that I have in boxes.
-Do some freaking exercise for the first time in like two months, especially weights which I have basically not done all year :(
-Bug someone to give me some work.
-Try to find the floor in my room.
-Teach my puppy how to go for a walk.
-WRITE MY NOVEL.

What will actually happen? Probably I will do an autopsy on the last 5 weeks and stress out over all the things I did badly, then be cranky and play the Sims until the start of semester two. It’s not ideal, but it will still be heaps more fun than prac.

Prac is going much better.

So. Prac is not much fun. If I had even the barest scrap of a contingency plan, I do not think I would be going back tomorrow.

Sadly I don’t, so I guess I have to go.

But jebs am I not happy about it.

Two weeks left and I am honestly not sure I’m going to make it.