I wonder if they know? Reflections on being a teacher...

I wonder if they know?

Sometimes you do think quite lucidly about death, and about how you might be remembered.  Well, I do.  Its odd, placing yourself outside everything to try and think about how others will ultimately see you.

And I wonder about my daughter - how she will recall the days months and years during her childhood being put through the crap we get put through as teachers.  Will she recall the days I shut myself away when I got in from work due to the weight of stuff being asked of me.  Are those days when I was sweating over OFSTED inspections, lesson observations and the like going to stick in her mind as they stick in mine.

I know for a fact that I forget how much this job has taken over the years.  How tired I get, how mentally drained, how distracted I am.  I forget that its not just me that lives with the reality of teaching, but all my family.  The dreaded Sunday night has been a night to stay away from mum - the night when I'm turning all the next weeks tasks over in my head, and finishing planning, and marking and other stuff.  Weekends include being utterly shattered Friday night, getting everything you can't do through the week done on Saturday, and then Sunday the stress starts again, getting planning and marking done.  I always laugh at those telling me how lucky I am with all those holidays. - the ones where you spend half the week winding down, before spending the next half turning over what's coming in the next half term.

The longer breaks are great - but sooo bloody needed.  Christmas is an absolute blur, spent running up to christmas, then New year, and suddenly you're back to the grind.  Easter has become my favourite, time for a break and going back with the knowledge its just one term to summer.  And summer is respite in its purest form - I get to know my house again, see the world during the day, truly escape it all for a while.

I feel like I've probably just leapt from summer to cherished summer for my whole career.  Which is all of my daughter's life.  Never took her to school, or saw her at Sports day. Didn't take her to the docs or dentist.

Through all this, I truly wonder if the powers that be - Heads, or higher, politicians and the like - really know what its like to teach.  More and more, it seems there are things on their agenda that cut into my mental wellbeing immensely.   And more and more, it seems some of those things are there for the sole purpose of doing that very thing.  So I wonder.  I wonder what terrible misdeeds teachers ever did to deserve the seemingly deliberate undermining of their professionalism, their day to day grind and their value as people.

Or is it that they just don't realise?  No, that's ridiculous.  How can they fail to spot the dwindling morale of an entire profession, and continue with the onslaught of politically driven ill judged initiatives that make things ever more desperately depressing in education.

Sadly, I feel a little too battle weary these days to turn to other things, or make a noise about it.  I think I give enough of myself to it all as it is.  Weak, I know.  But its the reality.

 I bet they do bloody know.   Shame on them.

With a little Help from my friends...

Its that time of year again - looking back, looking forward, judging yourself, evaluating, all that shizz.

Its no real surprise that its a miserable time for loads of folk who struggle with various mental health issues.  To be surrounded by people either celebrating amazing achievements or strongly professing how they are going to set themselves right in the new year, just hammers home the difficulties they face.

Difficulties like realising what their achievements have been in the face of either negative voices form outside, or their own damning voices from within.

Or that feeling that everything that was wrong about this year will be even worse in the next.

Or the feeling that you know what needs to be done, but you can't see any way to get there.

The list could go on.  I know its a dreadfully destructive mindset.  So do the others with depressive issues.  Sadly there's the rub, folks.  It is a SET mind that keeps us down, and its as hard to tackle as things like alcoholism, drug addiction and the like.

Winter weather is a bugger too, and more so this year, with its endless gloomy rain stretching on day after day.  This year in particular, people with depression will be struggling with the New Year stuff more than ever.

BUT its is survivable.  It is beatable.  It is defeatable.  With help.

Help comes from the little things
- posting a catch up message to a friend that you have let slip a little
- recalling good times with others
- sharing the niggles and the crap that grinds us all down (yours and theirs - so they don't think its just them)
- giving out some positivity whether its asked for or not
- Just recognising that it is hard to "cheer up" sometimes is a huge thing.
- Give people time to come around, see the brighter side, take a step forward.
- dropping in for a brew - great for all concerned!
- Lend an ear, listen carefully, and try not to offer solutions unless they are asked for.
I'm sure  you can all think of other stuff too :)

So this new year, try not to "leave em to it" when someone is struggling to find the brightness in life.  Every little nudge of support will make a difference.   Definately nudge away - you'd be suprised what a difference it makes.  :)

Daisy xx

My Big Fat Rant about Body Image Stuff

I always hated shows like Ugly Betty that try their best to present different body models, but end up as a patronising shit soup of endless self justifying skinny folk saying stuff like "some of my best friends are unpretty..." and "you're pretty smart for a fat/ugly/mental/whateverlabeltheychoose girl".

But it seems E4 have taken my annoyances and amplified them. Its like some rancid, maggot riddled hand expecting me to let it squeeze my inflamed boil of fury.

New show My Big Fat Teenage Diary is about Rae who is 16, struggling to cope with being a teenager in the 90's.  That alone might have been interesting and at least worthy of a look see.  But then we have this - 

"Though Rae is over-weight and struggles with mental health issues, she’s still a fun-loving girl with a lust for life and a big crush on Liam Gallagher."

So, basically, even though she's FAT she will still be having fun. Oh Excellent, because I was thinking all fat people are miserable and sad on account of their poor fat bodies and the fact that no one likes them. 

From the trailer and the E4 blurb, it seems the thing that will "save" poor fat mental Rae is that she will become part of an entourage of "The coolest people I've ever met" and her life will have meaning where it had none before.

What an ace message - dear overweight fat girls with body image worries, the closest you will get to having a normal life is to latch on to a bunch of "cool kids" and hope some scraps of cool fall your way.

And the so called cool kids look like a bunch of Blue Wicked drinking Jocks and Mean Girls just desperate for a pal like Rae that they can set up for falls and patronise to maintain their deluded superiority over all.

NOW obviously, I haven't seen it.  But I just feel these elements need not be the show's selling points - Overweight girl, with mental issues, seeking acceptance from non overweight gang of so called "normal" kids.  As billed and as promoted, I can't see anything other than a disgustingly skewed presentation of what overweight girls with mental issues need to put themselves right - Normal friends, who can help her to conform i.e. become not overweight and not mental.

This blog was written before the show even airs.  Here's hoping that the heroine shows the gang of straights what a bunch of shallow twats they are and kicks them into touch, replacing them with friends of whatever shape size or mental capability they might be, for it need not be made a feature!!!

Here's hoping. 

Daisy xx

Ebay sucks donkeys.

Right, ebay.  Time to speak my mind.

A few weeks ago, out of the blue I got an email from ebay saying I was banned from buying because of leaving low detailed seller ratings.

No warning, no negotiations, just cut off for 90 days.

I had very recently had a seller who was extremely awkward with me, after I won an item.  Told me he no longer had the item but only after I mailed after a week to see if it had been posted.  I then had to request a refund, he didn't offer one.  He told me it would be a week.  I waited a week, it never came.  Then I mailed and he said paypal was at fault and it would take another week.  So I opened a case to get my refund, which then came within 2 hours :)

I left him feedback.  It was neutral, and said he wasn't forthcoming with refund and didn't sell the item.

It was after this I got my ebay email, saying I had left low detailed seller ratings and was trying to undermine my competitors.  Confusing, since I sell maybe half a dozen bits and pieces every few months, usually in school hols when I have time to make sure things are posted.

Now, I feel it was likely a complaint from this guy, who thinks because I got my refund I should have just shut my trap.  My feeling is that feedback is to inform other buyers that the seller isn't all that, and may decide not to sell and mess you about on a whim.

The guy emailed to ask for the neutral to be removed and I said no, and he was lucky wasn't a negative.  That must've rattled his cage I think.

Anyway, I stand by my ratings, and giving stroppy sellers the ratings I think they deserve.

However, I have currently NO right of reply or redress with ebay.

Here's another nark though - I can't BUY on ebay, but I can still SELL - because of course MY seller ratings are very high across the board as I'm not a dick and dont refuse to sell something if it is won for less than I like.  Also, because ebay makes MONEY from sellers, not from buyers, they will let me sell.  As far as ebay is concerned, buyers are ten a penny, so it costs them NOWT to ban a few to keep their sellers happy.

The more I think about how ebay has treated this, the more annoyed I get.  And its just not good to keep things inside to fester so I'm blogging.  Feel free to pass on this moan about the online giant EBAY being a bit of a twat to the little folk.  I'll feel better and more like I've had a say.

Ebay, you are a bunch of anal retentive, money grabbing bureaucrats.  Your ethics stink of corporate interference and low morals.

Oh and no, I won't be selling either so you can't still sponge your ten percent from me.

Daisy xx

Needs and Wants

Needs and wants - A comparison.

So, I'm a little bit reflective right now, because I'm doing a kind of gig soon, and its been a while. I have been thinking about whether or not it will all work after so long, and hoping my funny hasn't healed up on me.

The obvious things pop into my head - hmmm,  do I still need it? do I still want it? do I still have it?

Do I still need it?

Need has taken on a different meaning lately, and things I used to think I absolutely needed have been dropped from the list.  I think its because the NEED list is the scary one.  The list of things that will mess me up if I don't have them.  Those are things that should be solid.  Stability comes from keeping that list of things flowing in substatial amounts.  On the list are things like my family, my home, my job, some money, some medication, some peace and quiet times, sleep.

Now here are a few of the things that USED to be on the NEED list, and that I'm glad to say I've crossed off - writing, improv, comedy, theatre, pleasing people.

Don't get me wrong though, they aren't gone from my life.  I just moved them.   I moved them from the NEED list to the WANT list.  I realised that I'd been holding those particularly things on my need list in error.  I really really thought I needed them.  Sometimes I thought I couldn't keep going without them.  Sometimes I thought they were the things that made me, well, me!  

And those times were way way too hard to hold on to.  But I kept on thinking I NEEDED those things, because I thought that if I didn't need them, I'd lose them.

Then one day I crossed them off the need list.  I stopped worrying too much about them. I stopped trying to share myself out between the real needs and the ones I'd kind of created.  I thought I'd just sink then.  Become one of the straights. Become a boring nobody.   At first I thought I'd given in.  That life's demands had robbed me of those other things, and that being ill now meant I had to let them go.  To some extent I think this is true, but what has changed is how bothered I am by it.  Or not so bothered.  I think I came to realise that those things should have been in the WANTS list all along.  Those things are supposed to be a choice, really. Not something you do because you feel compelled in order to feel whole.  I realised a lot of those things were about proving something, and about seeking approval.  I'm kind of proud to say I no longer give that much of a shit.  Perhaps I'm entering that OLD PEOPLE phase, where you just aren't arsed what people think.  Oh, I know lots of young people *think* they are in that phase.   They aren't.  They just want everyone to think they don't give a shit.   It really isn't the same as actually not giving a shit.  Not so much not caring anymore, more like not worrying about it.

Anyway, I'm there.  At the "not too bothered" stage.  It is amazingly liberating.  Though I still expect the worrysome feeling to kick in any minute, it just doesn't seem to.  Perhaps because when I think about what might happen if...  , there really isn't anything to be scared of or worried about.  I'm much happier being myself.

Do I still WANT it?

Oh hell yeah.  And if stuff happens then it happens.  If I get the urge, I write.  If not, no big whoop.  If I was asked to do funny stuff, I'd think about it, but I'm not worried about not doing it.   I know I still could, I know that I did, I know that I loved it and lived it.  I just don't feel like I have stuff to prove.  That said, I love to entertain, to write, to interact, and I know that won't change.  So yeah, I do still want it.

Do I Still Have it?

Well, whatever the hell "it" is, then as long as I live and breathe its gonna be there when I want it to be. It is gonna be there because its part of me, even more so now that I'm not doing stuff because I feel I need to.  I'm doing stuff because I want to.  Will I still be funny?  This I don't know.  Will it matter if they don't like me - Ahh that one I know - nope, it won't.   I will be myself.  I will be charming, I will revel in the humour I'm seeing, and enjoy sharing how I see things.  I'll grin, smirk and chuckle at meself and my thoughts - whether anyone else joins in is academic.  I'll enthuse.  Its what I do.  It might be contagious, might not be, but it won't change the fact that I'm enthused.  I'll be fired up, animated, ebullient and i'll genuinely enjoy it. It's a given.  A constant.   Law. Of. Daisy. Physics.

So here's what is certain - I'll be fired up, animated, ebullient and i'll genuinely enjoy it.

And seriously, people,  what the hell else matters?

Daisy xx

Stages in the Life Cycle Of A Depressive Butterfly

Fucking butterflies....?  This blog is actually nowt to do with butterflies.  Bloody analogies, Eh.

Still, I guess they serve a purpose, in that they sometimes allow others to latch onto something we are thinking and feel like they "get it" a little.

So, picture a cocoon.  Inside, protected from the things that might do damage by a hardened shell of meds, trusted routines, and somewhat isolated from the world for a time, is a fragile thing.   A fragile thing trying to heal a little, and attempting a metamorphosis, a huge shift of both mind and body.  That shift is potentially huge, and takes a mighty effort.  Its a shift that MUST occur in order for the fragile thing to move on, grow, blossom, even thrive again...

That's me, then.  In my cocoon right now.  Have been for some time, having thrown out the stuff that might take my energies away from changing, from coping.  The cocoon I created was warm, safe, had less stress, mostly because I created it by cutting out a lot of things from my life - performing, comedy, writing (thought I kept a little of this one) improv, socialising, theatre, and sadly some of the friends that went with those things...   It was insular, more limited, an attempt to concentrate on the really important stuff like just getting up every day, going to work, staying focussed, managing financially, managing mentally...   I kept my focus on the very barest of essentials for surviving - the people I love and trust, keeping a roof over our heads, keeping my balance mentally.

And over time, from within that cocoon, I have begun to feel stronger. I'm actually starting to feel like I can cope with most things.  I am actually managing to convince myself I'm not all bad. (a HUGE achievement in itself!!)  Occasionally, these days, I smile to myself. (I know!!!)   I'm starting to plan further ahead than a week or so.  I am definitely starting to change.

Now here's the bugger, will it be a change for good or bad? - Was there a fly in the booth ( I end up falling apart, turning into a monster and trying to take everything down with me like Jeff Goldblums Brundlefly) , or am I actually going to be able to wriggle free of this self-made cocoon and fly again?

The fact that I actually miss the flying has to be a good sign, right?.  That I'm even pondering such things now, and remembering stuff with affection, instead of putting it out of my head like an alcoholic banning all thoughts of drink.  That is great in the truest sense of the word, isn't it?

I'm nowhere near being there yet.  I still feel much happier in the cocoon.  But I'm maybe thinking about how I can cut a wee peep hole in that shell, to tentatively observe from behind my hide.  I'm feeling far more open to joining in again.

I've not changed completely though, for as soon as I do allow myself to think about getting out more, doing more stuff, flying a little bit, that is when the darker part of me chips in.  Ahhh my old friend Little Miss Self-doubt (I should write that book!) - with worries about not being able to do it anymore, worries that I just don't have it, I'm too far out of the loop, no-one will let me back in, I should just stay where I am, I'm not good enough, things have moved on now etc etc etc.  If there was a medal for finding reasons why I should stay home from the party of life, I'd win gold. Well, silver.  Actually I'd probably not even place...  (Oh here we go....)

Just Kidding, I'm more able to see what a turgid, stagnant habit that is, and try at least to shake it off.

And that's where I am now in the cycle - trying to shake off the cocoon, come out of the shell a little, dip my toe in the water and other such analogies that help you guys to see that I do intend to take back some of the stuff I've put to oneside.  I do intend to claw my way back.  I do want to build some bridges again.  There is a butterfly waiting to....  Ok Ok... Stupid analogy... ;)

I'm hoping some of you old pals will still be around, but if not, then I'll just have to make some new pals, eh.  :P

To help, should you be so inclined, just say hi.  That's all I'll need to leap back in I think - a few hello's, a few "where the fuck have you been"s, y'know - same ol same ol.....  Them as don't ask...

Debs - Daiz, whichever....  :)

What I'm really saying is... (School reports translated)

Yes, its that time of year again, when teachers everywhere struggle with the dilemma of telling parents what they think about their kids, without actually TELLING the parents what they think of their kids - fearing that the parents will smack them upside the head.

Here then, is my guide to what (some) teachers (not me, though) are really trying to say about little Johnny Smartarse, Penelope Pickanose, Bobby Bumblebutt and Vic Astushort-planks. (None of whom are in my class)

IT SAYS...Has made a significant contribution to class discussion...
IT MEANS- basically, your kid rattles on and on about utter shite for most of the time, usually until another kid smacks him or her in the mouth and they start bawling.

IT SAYS...Prefers to work as part of a group...
IT MEANS - You mollycoddle your kid, so they can't do anything for themselves, and rely on their peers to carry them the same way you do.

IT SAYS...is beginning to develop skills in...   
IT MEANS - They can't do it.  At all.  The only way they can do whatever it is, is if the teacher walks them through it step by step, spoonfeeding them the answers.

IT SAYS ...is always enthusiastic about ....  
IT MEANS - Again, they can't bloody do it.  But they like to think they can.  They are deluded, probably due to over praise from you bloody parents...

IT SAYS ...needs occasional reminders to stay on task.... 
IT MEANS - Your child is in cloud cuckoo land most of the time, and would be distracted by air.  Cross out "Stay On Task" and change it to "Stay On This Planet.."

IT SAYS ...has a challenging mind...
IT MEANS - Your kid is a right bloody know it all, who thinks teachers are there to answer his constant whining enquiries instead of teaching the whole class.

IT SAYS ...needs to improve their presentation skills...
IT MEANS - Your kid writes like a spastic spider dipped in ink.  Trying to read their scrawl is a daily soul destroying exercise in futility.

IT SAYS ...really needs to remember their PE Kit...  
IT MEANS - Your kid is followed around by a cloud of stench to rival school dinner cabbage and garlic bread day.  Wash their kit, for fucks sakes.  And wash the kid.

IT SAYS ...is a delight to teach ....
IT MEANS - No one knows your kid's name because they sit at the back and say bugger all about bugger all.  Wallpaper kid.  Flatter than Flat Stanley.  Put a personality on their christmas list, before its too late.

So there you have it.  You know I speak the truth.

Daiz xx