We’ll Be All Right – 25th March 2024

Get ready for the struggle
Get up and get strong!
Don’t waste time on the puzzle
If all the pieces are wrong

Injustice sits in the heart
Sending signals to the head
Ignore them from the start
Choose to grow instead

The world is not unkind
Neither is it cruel
Fast forward, not rewind
The correct use of the tool

Inspired and paraphrased from The Red Hand Files #272

2nd Jun 2024 – Submitted to the Word of the Day Challenge


Today I’m feeling:

I’ve got some energy today, mainly through having ideas for lessons for next semester, which I need to focus on this week in preparation.  

I just hope that what I’m working on is suitable for the students and not above their level.  

I sometimes overestimate how skilled the students are and as this is my first time teaching grade 12 I have some reservations.

Today I’m grateful for:

Cap being able to come home from the vet.  He hates being there as he is a princess scaredy-cat a lot of the time.  

I doubt he slept much for the last three days but the saline has helped stabilise his blood levels and hopefully, he soon gets his appetite back.

The best thing about today was:

Getting on a roll with my lessons.  I checked with the grade 12 teacher from last year and they were very supportive of what I was hoping to teach some of these students.

What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?

I talked to Kru Mai about changing one of my classes so that they matched the other classes in that grade and he said he will look at it.  

But in the process of that conversation, the annual discussion of integrated study came up again and our grade 7 and 10 classes may need to follow that format.

I argued against this unless we are given the lessons to teach (which is not likely).  Every year they try to implement this and it’s always been shot down but it looks they are going to try and muscle it in somehow this time.

Also, any rejigging of our classes may also mean I don’t end up teaching the grade 12s that I just spent all day working on lessons for.  I asked if that could be left alone because I hope that I can get this opportunity to test out my skills and abilities, as well as the students.

Something I learned today?

USA TikTok users said that they were worried if the company was sold to a US corporation, believing that it would be more censored and restricted than it is currently as a subsidiary of a Chinese company.

Review your acts, and then for vile deeds chide yourself, for good be glad. — Discourses 3.10

Amy asked me to do many little things for her this evening and I’ve done them as required, even though it interrupted things that I was doing.

I took this picture because the full moon was looking rad as I went out to help Amy in the teaching room. She has plans for it but I’m not sure exactly what yet.

Come on and give me my drugs – 21st July 2002

It’s getting worse.
I see my whole life mapped out in descent.
All my mistakes stay with me.
I make them again.
I kill me.

I’ve betrayed everyone. But I betrayed one too many. The one I loved most. It’s hard to get back up from this one and it has been over a year now.

Beer is here of course – my friend for too long.
I kill me.

How long before I betray Hayden? Can I be that selfish?

8th Mar 2022 – Still in my darkness. The fallout of a betrayal to someone I loved deeply and hurt badly. There were reasons for the betrayal, possibly justified and I did try to handle it softly but in the end, I had to tell the truth. Asked if I regretted what happened I said no. But I did regret having to tell the truth to make things clear. I didn’t want that truth to be painful for her, perhaps because I knew that in time, and as such times as this, the truth would turn around and become more painful for me.

I missed her so much, but only when I wasn’t distracted with directing my affections elsewhere. She had understood that about me very early on in our relationship. She was way smarter than me.

So after this betrayal, and the one that led to that relationship in the first place, I began to wonder when I would betray my own son. I felt like I hurt everyone I loved. There were reasons those things happened. I’m still stuck on the pain of the end of that relationship even now. I don’t think I regret it though. We all learned some things and grew from them, whether we wanted to or not.

*The Week That Was – 24th December 1984

Record of the week: Manitou (live)

24th December 1984
Met Bernice and Steph. Wandered around Wimborne and got cold. Came back. Not feeling too well. Felt like dying. Jim, Jez, Roo have betrayed me and themselves.

25th December 1984
DAMIAN DIED TODAY – R.I.P.
Went to Murray’s. His dad has borrowed a business computer – decent.

26th December 1984
Found out the bastards put my name in the paper.

27th December 1984
Pissed around at work. Everyone from Gaunts is being a cunt. Especially Murray.

28th December 1984
Played cards at work. Got letter for payments through.

29th December 1984
Got copying done. Went up to gig. Gave out leaflets. All groups were good, especially Manitou. Went back to Fog’s. Got back at 2.15. Went to sleep at 3.

30th December 1984
Got up at 12. Tried to start bonfire but it wouldn’t go. Will Damian never rest? Read a bit more of book. Went to sleep.