Just another day in Paradise? OR Lack of direction just another name for being lazy.

Well, almost four weeks since my last post. (I feel like I am at the Confessional) Some could say that I have been lax and perhaps I have been however, at the moment I am feeling so ill all I want to do is slink away and hide.

It has been five days since I checked and/or read any emails, blogs or even turned on my notebook. Thank goodness I am not a popular person, or I would have had 500 emails, rather than 50. Most of them I just deleted without even looking at them and of the others there were only a handful that held any real meaning for me. In the past hour, most of what I have been doing is trying to get on to my Bigpond email address. It's playing games again only this time it must be the storm that is the cause. I am still able to use the internet so the connection is okay.

I need some direction in my life. I feel that it is so easy to find excuses not to do stuff. I know I am not well enough to get back in the classroom and I must admit, I don't really know if I have it in me to ever stand in front of a classroom full of kids again. So direction is what I need.

Perhaps I need to go and see a career guidance person, are they trained to deal with shit like mine? I wonder. Perhaps it's time to find out.

Copy of Article for The Weekend Australian

This (stressful) life

At this present moment, at the age of fifty-eight, I find myself on stress leave yet NOT on Stress Leave.

It sounds silly I know however half-way through Term 4 last year, after what seems a lifetime of teaching at a hard to staff school in a low socio-economic area. I was standing in front of a class of almost teenagers when it all became just a little too much. One could say that I just dropped my bundle and crawled on home.

I've always known that I worked in a tough school and I saw many a teacher leave our hallowed halls after a year or two (sometimes even just a day or two) but I knew that I would never leave because I usually don't lose my cool in the really stressful situations.

I am a touch old broad who can handle being called some not very nice names, and hey, the extra body weight is handy if one has to throw oneself amongst it when a fight brakes out. And I am sorry to say that the confiscation of a knife, screwdriver or sharpened object has become just another thing that happens either in the playground or the classroom.

So taking it all into consideration it really is hard for me to accept that six young people constantly at me in the classroom was the proverbial straw that broke this camel's back. Just like the dripping tap as in what we in our childhood called Chinese water torture.

I was being bullied in my own classroom.

It is hard to continually have to listen to, "I'm not doing that", "Why do we have to do this?", "Who's gonna make me?", "I can use my Ipod (mobile phone, camera) whenever I want to, you can't stop me", "my Mum's gonna come in here and bash you one if you don't watch out", "you keep looking at me like that I'll smash your f-----g face in" all of these and more were being constantly yelled at me in any one period. What to do?

Go on stress leave which isn't yet Stress Leave.

It seams to me that the government makes teachers go through a myriad of obstacles - ironically causing more stress - in order to verify a claim.

Try the stress of jumping through flaming hoops (weekly GP visits), running over a bed of glowing coals (weekly psychologist visits), weaving in and out between very large bandsaws (a three hour investigative appointment) or being chased by a large rolling boulder (a three hour psychiatric appointment) AND all this can take three months (using up sick leave, annual leave, long service leave and any other leave entitlements).

Then it is another three to four weeks before the department contacts one to say, "hello Ms

-----, your application for sick leave has been accepted." A SLIGHT PAUSE AS YOU PICK YOURSELF UP OFF THE FLOOR... and straight away into, "when shall we begin to look at the process of placing you back into the classroom?"

Apparently there is no recovery time, you had your stress leave whilst you were attempting to outrun all of the obstacles detailed above.

As one colleague stated, "so they f-----g stress you out as you, just to make sure that you are on

f-----g Stress Leave."

That pretty much says it all really...

I wrote the above article in one of the days that I didn't have an appointment, but I thought I probably should have had one. Sounds strange but in writing this I found that I got a clearer picture of what is going on in my head. Between this article and the narrative of my life and times at KSHS/GC I'm beginning to think that the writing is helping. Perhaps in the future I'll not go to as many appointments as I have in the past.

Two weeks and the time....

Yes, two weeks have passed and the time has simultaneously gone slowly and quickly.

By slowly, I mean that after many visits to health care professionals I am still waiting for the approval or disapproval of my application for stress leave. HEAR THAT, STILL WAITING...

By quickly, I mean that I had thought I had so much time on my hands it would be a good idea to get a few things done around the house. NOT HAPPENING HERE...

I'm upset with myself. I can't believe that I am still crying over things that have happened and thinking that a return to work will probably bring on the workplace bullying - by kids no less!!!

I'm annoyed with myself. So much time and not a thing done yet! I really need to stop hiding in bed, reading (more often a book that I have read a dozen times) and prevaricating. More than anything I must get on top of things and do my financial stuff, then I might be able to see where I can organise two rooms into one! Get off my backside and start making lists, yes that's it!!!!

Okay, let's see where I am next week...

Monday February 1st

First day of the new school year and I am wondering what is going on at my old school. Folks around me - family and friends - are suggesting that I should put my thoughts away and concentrate on getting well but, I can't do it, I'm still feeling that it is my school and I should be there. My friend Cathy says that this will pass, so I'm waiting... AND not particularly patiently either!

I am thinking all of the kids coming through the gates: the girls squeeling and running up to friends that they haven't seen for six or seven weeks for a big hug and the boys posturing in that "how's it going man" stance waiting for a high five from their buds. It's a wonderful sight for those of us who love to teach.

So - I'm thinking of volunteering overseas as a teacher!!! Yes I know that I'll still be teaching, but that was never the problem...

I think in a way, my problem is that it was the terrors of classroom teaching I succumbed to, the fact that the students (the seven to eight of them in my class) would muck around and therefore not allow me to teach. Imagine fourteen years of teaching in the same school with that problem, along with the fights, bad language, both physical and emotional abuse and many other situations.

... teaching children in a country where so many of them do not receive an education seems to me to be a great way to continue doing something I am passionate about and perhaps making a difference for some children.

I need to find what to do next... where to go, what to do?

Destressing at Kings Park

Yesterday I met my friend Cathy at Kings Park - for those of you who don't know where it is, it is at the top of Mount Eliza which sits overlooking the city of Perth - for brunch.

After we ate - cinnamon pancakes with berry coulis and vanilla sorbet and an iced coffee, perfect for a morning when at 10.30am it is already 31 degrees - then took a walk on the grounds, found a lovely spot under a huge tree overlooking the river and city and tried to do a wee bit more de-stressing.

If we had both been well we would have been having out first PD day at school for the start of the new school year. We were feeling different stages of guilt, in fact I had had a migraine all week thinking that if this had been any other start of the school year I would have already begun my school year - I like to be really organised. It was hard.

I must admit that although I have my routine visits to the psychologist, I feel that fifty minutes with Cathy does me one hell of a lot more good. Who'd have thought it!!!!! Maybe we should start a self help group??? Needless to say I went home feeling much better.

Anyway... the photos probably don't do justice to our wonderful city. AND today is, after all, another day.

Busselton

Shaking the blues away...

Last week I visited my friend Cathy in Busselton, driving down on Monday morning and leaving mid afternoon on Tuesday.

I had a lovely time just chilling, chatting and attempting to chase our blues away. We looked around, ate out and drove to a camping site we used to visit when the kids were young, great stuff. Cathy had her dog Mischa with her (see photo, if I can add it) and I loved making friends with her.

Everyone around us was in a relaxed mood and I think it helped me, BUT, arriving home I fell into a hole. PERFECTLY SHITTY!!!!

January 2010

Saturday the 9th



Well here I am sitting on the couch wondering what to do with myself. Still out on stress leave - yet it cannot be REAL Stress Leave until one has dotted all of the Is and crossed all of the Ts.

I'm more stressed out now than I was two weeks ago and that is because I have no idea whether my claim for Workers Compensation will go through - I need to see an Investigator and a Psychiatrist, on top of the Clinical Psychologist whom I meet with each week. So the question is: am I going to end up off work, perhaps with no job and consequently out of money?



In the meantime I have some vacation leave, very few sick days left and some weeks left of my Long Service Leave. If my claim isn't accepted and I run out of the above leave, what will happen?



Do I quit now and try to find someone who will hire on a 58 year old woman? Do I just bite the bullet and go back to school at the beginning of the year, and probably be in the same position as I am in now before the end of first term? Do I sit back doing nothing but visit with my clinpsych, the department's investigator and an independent psychiatrist and wait the two to three months that it will take to find out whether my claim has been recognised and then duly go through the processes of going back to a school of the department's choosing?



SHIT - it's all too bloody hard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!