Day one.

Allow me to introduce myself.

Fliss. 25. Dyed dark brown hair, now shoulder length (both mistakes of great magnitude). Teacher (also, possibly, a mistake of, possibly, even greater magnitude). Socially-able adult in training (in on-going life rehab for innate introverted state of being). Engaged to and in love with a wonderful man (he’ll like that). English literature graduate suffering from lack of time to read and write. Naturally not a cook, though I do try – much to everyone’s amusement. Very, very, very untidy. Ribena drinker. Cat lover. Noodle eater.

 

What more could you possibly need to know?

 

I am currently sitting in bed, partially deaf with tissues strewn about me left, right and centre. This is not where I should be. What I should be doing at this very moment is lying in a dentist chair, numbed – yet not quite numb enough – fighting back tears while some sadistic professional yanks at my tooth to relieve it of its current position in my mouth. “Extraction.” Such a lovely word, so full of hope and positivity. Alas, it was not meant to be. My tooth lives to fight on another day. Apparently my dentist wasn’t altogether desperate to fulfil his duties in my current state.

So, instead, I decided now be the perfect time to begin my new venture. I am technically on drugs so my decision making abilities may be partially impaired: forgive me if this turns out to be the case.

I lost my lovely cat this week. I still can’t talk about it. Understand I use the word ‘lost’ as a euphemism of the best kind. In my attempts to distract myself, though simultaneously wallow in memories, I managed to hunt down an old blog of mine which I began back in 2011, right back at the beginning of my degree. Well, the second year to be exact.

I have always kept diaries. I would write religiously as a teenager, recording the tumultuous on-goings of life in the shoes of a youth. Not that anything ever remotely exciting happened, however, they are highly entertaining to re-read now. As was my blog. I have also always had a terrible memory and so keeping record of things has always seemed quite important to me. Being able to recount things now that would otherwise have slid into the ether to be forgotten is a blessing. Hasn’t civilisation always found a way of recording what life is like for them? Cave paintings and hieroglyphs. It’s so important and so interesting!

I am thrilled at the thought of doing my bit to record history. Simple and small though it may be.

I am not going to pretend that I also find a little motivation to write in my desperation to find something other to do than to teach. I am a self-confessed, unmotivated teacher. I have lost the love of educating. To be very honest, I’m not 100% sure I ever really did love working in education. I love the people I work with…the majority of the time! I love it when my day turns out better than I had expected it to. I LOVE PPA day – a half day out of the classroom? Ah, bliss! But do I find moulding children into thoughtful, free-thinking model citizens thrilling? Not half as much as my colleagues appear to. Honestly, I find the demands of it all pretty annoying and unnecessary. Do I honestly need to spend a day trying to embed some understanding of ‘abstract nouns’, ‘fronted adverbials’ and ‘BIDMAS’ into 10-year-old’s little heads, before spending 2 hours marking and appeasing ungrateful and overbearing parents, a further hour preparing for the next day, dragging myself home to stick something, anything, in the oven to eat before sitting comatose on the sofa with my (equally exhausted) teacher fiancé, putting off bed which rolls seamlessly into the inevitability of doing it all exactly the same the next day, in…oh no, not 7 hours time!

Time for a change. This can’t go on.

I want to write again. I want to read again. I want to feel like I’m living again. I don’t want to feel as though I’m being looked down on because I just don’t want to spend another two hours of my life discussing the curriculum. Please, go ahead without me, because I think I’d rather go home and spend time with my family. I understand the need for people that are absolutely committed to their jobs – who are passionate about what they do and live to make a difference in the lives that they touch. I wanted that too. I think though when you lose the drive to do it, and there’s no pushing through it anymore, you are a drain not only on yourself, but everyone around you. I need to find something to be passionate about again.

Anyway, this is not at all what I began to write and certainly not what I intended to write as my first blog post. I will refrain, for the most part, from long moans regarding teaching. Largely, I expect, I will fill this blog with random contemplations on things I notice throughout the day.

Until next time.