I know you’re sad and feeling upset
And your anger is directed at me
But I know you just don’t get it yet
And one day you’ll eventually see

These growing pains are emotional times
And you gather support for your cause
But you’re still misreading all the signs
And banging your head on closed doors

I hope the light will reveal the way
Towards a path that’s free from pain
There’s nothing now that I can say
That you can understand when I explain

Take your bravado and all your bluster
And point it in the right direction
And all the learning you can muster
Will offer you a lifelong protection

---

Today I’m feeling:

Better for a good sleep although it wasn’t long enough. I almost succumbed to the snooze but powered through and did my exercise. My busy day ahead, I need to relax into it. 

Now I’m back at home and glad the workday is done. I did get home to discover one of our cats decided to use the lounge in the dining room as a toilet which stunk up the dining room. Thankfully it’s not so hot and humid now otherwise I might have been asphyxiated.

Today I’m grateful for:

The projector in our classroom that can share my computer screen for the class to see. Keep reading to find out why this is relevant today.

The best thing about today was:

Being able to keep myself under control despite a series of frustrating events throughout the day.

In my first class, three students didn’t show up and after about 10 minutes I got a message from one saying that they were helping another, Earn, to sort out a problem with her phone. I replied that Earn could sort it out by herself and they should come back to class. A reply came back that Earn doesn’t know how to ride a motorbike so they had to go together. The smell of bullshit was confirmed when I asked the rest of the class about this. I asked their homeroom teacher too and he said to deduct points from them in the system which I duly did. They complained to me later but I told them that their actions have consequences. It feels to me like they are not used to this in general.

In my next class, we don’t have a remote control for the projector and I just use a long stick to push the ‘on’ button. Sometimes I ask the students to do it for me and today I asked Opor. Somehow she had managed to swivel the projector around so it no longer pointed at the wall. I then took over to try and realign it. Now, I already knew that the projector was not quite secure up there as I had seen that there was a bolt missing to keep it slotted into the bracket. This wouldn’t normally matter so long as the projector wasn’t moved. And so…..

With a nudge and a push suddenly the projector slipped off and the wires pulled the cover off the cable concealer and the projector bounced off the table, luckily not injuring anyone.

Somehow it was still working and I quickly managed to rig it up by putting a chair on the table and the projector on a chair with a couple of books to angle it so the kids could still see. I later managed to get it back up onto the ceiling and wound a couple of paper clips through the bracket so that it shouldn’t fall again!

About an hour into the class, I realised one of the students wasn’t doing any work. All they had to do was copy what was showing on the board. He’s not the brightest kid but today really took the cake and it was so daft that I just had to laugh. 

I asked him why he wasn’t doing anything. He told me he didn’t have a book. It then came out that not only didn’t he have a book but that he didn’t have anything! I asked what was in his bag that was next to his chair on the floor. He said he didn’t know! What? His friend then explained that somehow he had picked up someone else’s bag and presumably someone somewhere in the school had his!

I asked whose bag it was and again he said he didn’t know! I have no idea what he planned to do to find his bag later! I told him to look inside to find out who it belonged to which would at least give him a clue as to who might have his bag.  FFS!

Ok. Enough of that nonsense. But wait… there’s more. I had warned two girls already about playing with their phones in class and had already taken them once but had to return to do the online quiz. The second time I took them and gave them to their homeroom teacher and told the kids they could ask her for them after class. 

After class, they went to see her and she said they could have their phones back at the end of the day. They begged that they needed their phones to pay for lunch but the teacher told them to go away. Another student told me they were crying as they walked off. 

I felt a little bad for them at that point but the longer I thought about it the better I felt about it as it was a good lesson for them and if they were really hungry they could probably get their friends to pay for them.

Knowing where they hang out I walked past them a bit later and they half-heartedly told me not to talk to them. When I asked what I did wrong they tried to blame me but they knew that they had done the wrong thing. They had accepted the result at this point and didn’t seem too upset in the end.

And…..in the library, some serious gossipy drama was going on between students in the M2 classes and though I couldn’t understand the details it seemed to be heavy teenage stuff. Apparently, they’re having trouble with a couple of other students and I advised them to just ignore it and avoid them if they can.

Then…. For my last class, I decided to sit one-on-one with each student and have them read the text that they had been familiarizing themselves with this week. Yesterday we went through the text and written on the board how to pronounce some difficult words using Thai phonetically. 

But it soon became obvious that no one had bothered to help themselves by writing it down themselves! Instead of getting upset (although I was!) I used it as an opportunity to reiterate to them that they need to help themselves and I can’t just magic knowledge into their heads. 

They got it. But they will need constant reminders.

I still love all these little rascals.

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

I guess all the above could apply here though I never really felt out of control. This at least shows some growth within myself.

Something I learned today?

There is now so much information casting doubt on the truth about the hijackers flying planes into the Twin Towers in New York that the whole thing is just making the USA look like a giant clown world. It seems best not to believe anything and not to think too much about it. Is this a sidestep on think global, act local and pushing everyone back towards think local, act local?

The world is a funny place and sometimes I want to switch it off.

What is one thing that I often take for granted in my life?

I answered a similar question to this recently. I take so much for granted really. I don’t have to worry about so many things that other people have to.

Electricity and water are always taken for granted (until that time I forgot to pay the bill!).  I would totally have to change my life if either of those went missing for whatever reason. 

Showing daily gratitude constantly reminds me of the situation I am in so even if I do take things for granted I can still put out to the world my appreciation.

How did I change today?

It’s appropriate that this question came up today and though my answer doesn’t actually show a change on this day it is the day that I noticed how I have changed in the last couple of years.

The day of challenges thrown at me (described above) would have been handled differently maybe even just one year ago.

I am comfortable where I am right now though I’m unsure if I can take this positive relaxed attitude into future stressful situations that may arise. Nothing to do except to find out.