Counting My Blessings

So often I come to this blog as a space to whinge. Today wasn’t the best day of my life, but when I look over my last few posts, I feel silly writing about yet another of my problems. Particularly considering that my problems are so insignificant in the overall scheme of things. So today, I’m going to write a list of the things that, when looked at in the right perspective, remind me of the fact that God has blessed me far more richly than I deserve. 

• I had a long and tiring day at work today. That means that I have a job, so I don’t have the financial worries or long term boredom of unemployment. Not only do I have a job, but I really enjoy it. Getting out of bed in the morning is a challenge, but that’s only because it’s cold. Part of the reason that today was long and tiring is because I was planning a camp, which is one of the most enjoyable and rewarding aspects of being a teacher (the camp itself – not the planning!)

• Today was rainy and windy. But that means that now I can sit inside my warm house, listening to the weather outside and drinking peppermint tea – a perfect night in.

• I had a day off yesterday, so I was able to clean my room and go op-shopping. So now I’m wearing a cool knitted vest kind-of-thing. I know it’s a bit shallow, but new clothes make me happy. 

• Speaking of retail therapy – If you’re feeling a little bit overwhelmed by work, nothing will make you feel better than going to officeworks and buying a whiteboard/pinup board to write lists and pin things.

• I sometimes struggle to do my daily devotions, but then I remember that I own a bible, and I can speak the language in which it’s written. I have no excuses! But when I wake up and drag myself out of bed to do my bible reading over breakfast, I’m reminded what a privilege it is to commune with the Lord of the universe (and I can even do so while eating cereal!)

• Last week, I got to hang out with my sister. We had a couple of free hours on a school camp, and my sister was able to come and see me. My sister is awesome! She’s like me, except way cooler. There are very few people in the world that understand you the way that your family does, and nothing is quite like spending time with them.

I think that has made me happy enough to get back into the stuff I’m meant to be doing now, rather than wasting time blogging.

Greece 2.0

Greetings, Blogosphere!

I know it’s been a while since you’ve heard from me – my apologies. Life has been crazy busy. Even now, I can think of about five other things that I should be doing instead of writing, but I just don’t want to right now. So here I am instead. 

A few months ago, some of you will remember me writing about an upcoming trip to Greece. That has been and gone, and I managed to do most of the things on the list. I learnt a few traditional Greek songs and dances (at a conference, rather than the taverna, but hey!) I ate Greek Salad, ghalakto booreeko, dolmades, and almost died from caffeine overload when I drank the coffee. I spent three nights on the island of Naxos, and didn’t want to leave. I went up the Acropolis, and climbed the White Tower of Thessaloniki (on different days). The conference that I went to was inspiring. I met so many people who were really interested in the research that I’d done. It was just so exciting to spend a week in the company of people who are as passionate about music education as I am. To cut a long story short – I had an amazing time!

 Sunset over St George's beach on Naxos

 "If you like Pina Coladas..."

The Parthenon

On the ferry to Naxos

However, settling back into reality after an experience like that is always a bit difficult. I got back to Australia Sunday evening, went to work in the city Monday morning, and drove back to my town Monday afternoon. I’ve been working full time ever since, with busy weekends in between. Last week, I went away on a camp with the concert band that I conduct. That was really fun, but an exhausting kind of fun. Last weekend the concert band that I play in performed their annual concert; again, it was exhausting but fun. I’ve started a new job, one day a week at a local Christian school starting a classroom music programme. This is in addition to one day a week at a different primary school doing classroom music, two days at two high schools doing singing and percussion teaching, and often relief teaching on my ‘day off’, which is supposedly a day for preparation. To top it all off, I’ve had a cold that just took a really long time to shake. So lately, I’ve been really tired, but not yet sick enough to justify taking time out from my schedule.

I’m starting to get really annoyed at the hodge-podge of different jobs that I have to do to make up a full time work load. What I really want to do is just one job and to do it really well. Often, it takes as much time to prepare a day’s worth of lessons as a week’s. So my preparation time either spills into my personal time more than I think it should, or I go into classes underprepared and stressed – neither of which is much fun. However, with a lack of certainty in any of the positions that I have, I need to keep all my options open.  Either that, or throw everything in and move somewhere else to find a full time position. 

At the moment, in my current foul mood, what I want to do more than anything else is become a reclusive composer, preferably working from Naxos.  I do realise how impractical that is, so for now, I’ve decided to stick out for another year doing what I’m doing, and see what happens from there.