PPD

Yesterday I went to university to submit all of my paperwork. I finished typing the last of the assignments on Monday night and for a brief moment I enjoyed that wonderful feeling of lightness and freedom one gets once a big burden is out of the way. Unfortunately, it had changed overnight in to a full-blown postpartum depression and so I went to the university a proper and sorry mess. Every time I tried to say anything, it made me want to cry. Every time someone asked if I was ok, my eyes would tear up. As I said – a proper and sorry mess. My tutor thought that it was all about the job I didn’t get, which I suppose it was a bit, as in no job equals no stability, and yes it was a deception, but hey, it was almost a week ago, enough is enough! (Okay, fine, I am still a bit upset about it, but life goes on, really, I do mean it).
Anyway, I didn’t really talk to anyone at all cause, as I said, every attempt on conversation made me cry, and I definitely wasn’t going to make my PPD into a public event. People were feeling sorry for me as it was and you all know how much I like people feeling sorry for me.
And then I got back home, opened a box of wine, got out that jigsaw puzzle I had bought a few weeks ago and went into a full relaxation mode, screw year 7 reports, screw everything, I’m relaxing and that’s that.
And today, today I got a message from Jose on Facebook, he actually sat and wrote this long, thoughtful message about how I shouldn’t let it get to a point where I was feeling burnt out, how I should let go every once in a while and not forget to relax and recharge my batteries and what a wonderful person I was. And I felt loved. Cause he doesn’t really know me all that much, and here he serves me a perfectly accurate diagnosis of my PPD and cares enough to sit down and type it all up when he has only two days left to finish his assignment.
Two conclusions from all this: (1) I love Pepe, and (2) I need another jigsaw puzzle. Both shall be acted upon tomorrow, as I’m having coffee with Jose and then am going shopping.

On Bank Holidays

Have you wondered why public holidays in the UK are called ‘bank’ holidays?
I have. So I asked around but nobody really knew (or maybe I was just asking wrong people). But Wikipedia did – you’ve got to love Wikipedia. So, it is so because they are days upon which banks are shut and therefore no other businesses can operate.
Well, now they can, but before they couldn’t.

To me bank holiday means an extra day to finish off my assignments. Although it starts to look like I will need a miracle, cause until now I seem to have been rather more interested in organising my medicine drawer and dusting all I could find that needed dusting than in Gifted and Talented policies or assessment for learning.

The Perfect School

I’ve spent so much time around people marvelling at what a wonderful teacher I was that I ended up really believing it. The downside of it was that I also believed when they said any school would be lucky to have me. So I was confident. And apparently my lesson was excellent, my answers perfect, but somehow someone else got the job. I knew that would happen as soon as I saw her name on the candidates list. And I’m happy for her, and all, but it remains that I had time to persuade myself that this was my perfect school and well, I have quite a lot un-persuading to do.
And, quite frankly, I’m just tired. So tired that I’m not sure that I have enough energy for another one. So tired that I’m starting to wonder what the hell I’m doing. Cause maybe I would have been better off if I had put all that stupid curiosity in the bottom drawer, married my first boyfriend and lived dully ever after. My mother for one would have been thrilled.

Tomb Rider

Some people from my programme get together every Friday for drinks. I used to join them in the beginning but then I realised that the last thing I needed on a Friday night was more teacher trainee talk and then I found Rush Hour Blues and so I started going there instead. But this week was José’s birthday, and he’s got a job, and he wanted to celebrate, and José’s soft and warm and gives big bearish hugs (so that no one thinks that my decision was completely selfless) and so I decided to go for a drink with them.
It started with… trainee teacher talk but they reassured me saying that it would only go on for half an hour and then stop – in a get-it-out-of-your-system spirit. But then two hours later it was still going on and quite frankly, I found that I couldn’t really relate. Maybe I’m really lucky, but I have nothing to whine about (if not excessive amounts of work). And I’m definitely not looking forward to the end of my placement (if you don’t count looking forward to the last two weeks where there will be no more paperwork, just teaching and when I actually might finally have time and energy to finally just enjoy it). When I think about saying goodbye to all them little buggers, I get really, really sad. It could be that I’m weird – it could be that it really is a vocation.
But hey, today was a good day. My Vile Year 9 were well, themselves, but we have our own dynamics by now and I’m enjoying working with them again. My Fast Track Year 9 were well, themselves, their own wonderful selves. And apparently I look like Lara Croft – which coming from a 14 years old is a huge compliment. Even if no matter which way I turn and from what angle I look at myself I somehow fail to see the resemblance.

Avalone

There was a freckled arm in a rolled up sleeve of a white shirt.
There were a few lines around a corner of the mouth.
There was a teasing twinkle in a blue eye.
All in a tall, skinny, blond package.
And then there was the look he gave me as I was getting off the bus. Appraising and dismissing. Or maybe it only seemed so to me.
It’s just a thing. Don’t even know what to call it.
Could be just that it’s spring and all that stuff.
Whatever it is, I wish it wasn’t.
I also wish my family stopped reminding me of their birthdays as if I had ever forgotten.
I need a drink.

(PS. I know I’m whining. And I will shut up. After the drink.)

Narrow

Lunch break in the staff room, I’m heating up my Polish soup (yum!) and am asked about what is it that smells so good. I explain. My interlocutor is immediately triggered into motion, and bestows me with two cans of Polish fish specialities, which – as he explained – someone had given to him. All surprised at how someone could so easily part with such a delicious thing, and none the less grateful, even if as I’ve later discovered the fish had expired a year ago – it was canned so I still ate it and am still alive and feeling well. But that is beside the point. Or maybe not completely. But never mind. So I cautiously enquire about whether my benefactor is sure and certain not to want to eat it himself and he replies, to my utter bewilderment: “Yeah, sure, I don’t like imported”.
The sad thing is, that he is a teacher and his job description is therefore broadening his students’ horizons.

Cups of tea and missing people

Some mornings you just wake up feeling miserable for no particular reason and the world is just not a very friendly place. Sometimes it’s for no reason at all, sometimes it is because your hormones are going berserk, and sometimes you’re just stressed and tired. For me, I think, it was to a big extent because last night I was looking at photos from Hil’s and Dom’s wedding, a wedding I didn’t make it to and I missed all of you people like crazy and felt lonely.
So this morning I woke up feeling miserable.
But then someone knocks on your door and asks you to help them with the washing machine they’ve never used before and makes you a cup of tea and you’re not feeling that miserable anymore.
Cheers Manpreet!

Others would boast about it, I will simply say

My uni tutor came to observe me on Friday and it went great. Apparently ‘I have made extensive progress since I started’, and ‘I’m as good as a PGCE student could possibly get’. I should be proud of myself and quite confident about the future, especially since ‘I’m a very strong candidate’ and ‘a school that gets me will be very lucky’.
Well, the problem is that the application I’ve sent off a week ago didn’t even get me an interview. I sincerely do not understand why, considering the above – I mean, if they didn’t want an NQT (Newly Qualified Teacher) why did they send the advert to my tutor so that she would give it to us? I would understand if they didn’t think I would fit in, but how could they know it before actually meeting me?
Oh well. I’m sending another two applications off on Tuesday and I’m not particularly worried about finding a job, not just yet at least.
I have however realised that if I don’t get employed as of 1st of July, my trips to Poland and France will be a no-no – the summer will be ‘teeth-in-the-wall’ and temping away. Unless a series of miracle translations happens.
Well, what can I say – let us pray.