sick and tired

Well I seem to spend more time feeling sick than not at the moment, what with a virus in my eustachian tubes (in my ears for the less anatomically minded!), a lengthy dose of bronchitis and now seasonal flu the last few months have felt like something of an uphill battle. "Why do you think you keep getting sick?" asked my boss when I rang in today to say that I wasn't sure going in tomorrow was a great idea.

Why indeed? I've not been this sick this often since I worked in residential care... and before that in day care... hmmm, maybe I spy a pattern here? Lots of people in a relatively small space all day, many of whom have health issues and/or are more vulnerable to whatever is going around. I spend a hefty chunk of my day wiping noses (and bottoms if it comes to that), cuddling snotty nosed kids and sitting in a warm confined space with them whilst they fall asleep. We teach them that it is good to share, but some things are best kept to yourself!

But what annoys me is the pressure that there is to go back to work as soon as you are vertical again. Especially when I read the Ministry of Health guidelines that state no matter what type of influenza you have, H1N1 or seasonal, you should be off for 7 days and/or until you have 24hrs free of symptoms. It would have made far more sense to take the week off and get properly better in the first place than struggle back to work after a couple of days and then end up off sick again by the end of the week. But I only get 5 days paid sick leave a year, which got used up when I had the virus, so now I'm eating into my not exactly extensive annual leave and am being made to feel guilty for being off sick. I now appreciate, in a way that I never really did when I had it, just how good the sick pay conditions are in the UK!!!

It felt decidedly wrong to be sitting in a staff meeting on Friday where we discussed extensive cleaning regimes to keep down the risk of infection and excluding children for x number of days who had been overseas when there I was coughing and sneezing! I was probably the biggest infection risk we had. Admittedly I would have already gone home had a lift been available sooner, but I had to ask if I could go I didn't get sent home!

Anyways, time I went and made another hot honey & lemon drink. At least the universe provides lemons, limes, grapefruit and oranges in season when I need them most and I live where they grow in the garden =)

exercise in disbelief

I'm housesitting, well actually dog-sitting, tonight for F/friends in Ahipara. They've gone down to Auckland to meet F/friends off a plane from the States, the first installment of another Quaker family coming to live in the area. Northwest YM will soon account for about half our Meeting here in the Far North!

When I told some of my colleagues where I was staying tonight I was met with horrified looks...

'But how are you going to get there?'

'Walk' I replied, somewhat bemused.

'Do you want a lift? I can take you?' (offering to drive in completely the opposite direction from home up a dead end road)

'No it's alright thanks, I'll be fine. I'm used to walking'

'Have you ever walked up Tasman Heights before?' (sounding totally disbelieving that I'd even consider it)

'No, but I've been up it, I know what it's like. My parents lived at the top of a hill like that for 20 years, I'll be fine!'

'Are you sure? You're crazy!'

Well, I accept it is a slightly longer road than Cooper Lane but I'm pretty sure it's no steeper and in any case it has flat bits part way. What's more I got a stunning view of the sun setting over the ocean on the way up!

It never ceases to amaze me why walking or cycling anywhere is considered to be such a strange idea by so many of my colleagues, most of whom head straight for the gym after work to spend an hour on an exercise bike doing 'spin' workouts etc. Personally I think they are the crazy ones...

ups and downs

oh dear, so much for more regular updates eh? Hmmm, now do I write blog posts like buses (nothing for ages then three come at once) or one long one? Well let's just see what happens...

The big thing that's happened for me since I last wrote I was my graduation! Unlike my degree in Newcastle-upon-Tyne where the graduation ceremony was only a few weeks after my last exam the graduation ceremonies here are months after completion. So whilst I finished my course at the end of November last year I only graduated on 6th May.

I'd been having a bit of a rough time at work for a few weeks and was beginning to question just how much I did know about what I was doing and how to reconcile what I was fairly sure I'd been taught with what I was expected to practice. I'm not good at debating things and as the new kid on the block and least experienced team member if things didn't feel right for some reason I wanted to go away and reflect on why it didn't and if possible talk it through with someone first before trying to go back and put my point across. I was also getting a bit fed up of being made to feel like I should've thought of something myself when I didn't even know it needed done or that I was expected to do it.

Just walking through the campus again and remembering what last year was like helped enormously - it reminded me that actually I did know a reasonable amount thank you very much. Whilst there was plenty that left me decidedly flummoxed at times the one subject I'd been really good at was personal pedagogy (style of teaching... well sort of) and so really I ought to quit worrying about the fact that my teaching style differed from most of my colleagues and believe in my A+ assignment instead!

Whilst I was away my team leader must have had a word with a few people and pointed out that I'd only done a 1yr very theoretical course not a 3yr centre based one like they had/were doing, plus it was my first job with toddlers and my first job in a day care (rather than kindergarten) setting, as I came back to some sincere apologies and a lot more support! I no longer seem to be expected to know how to deal with some of the more practical stuff without guidance which is a relief (those ear thermometers are just plain weird, toilet training techniques are still a steep learning curve for me and if we agree to do something in a team meeting we do it, right? Apparently not always....).

However graduation itself presented one of those moments when I was expected to know something I'd never even heard of... Gaudeamus? They don't teach that at Holmfirth High School and it certainly wasn't sung in Castle Leazes either! And then if that wasn't enough they had slightly different words to the Maori verse of the National Anthem which completely threw me as I thought I knew that one at least.... I got so stuck on the fact that one of the lines ended with 'Ao' when I was expecting 'ra' that I lost where we were up to 'cos I was so busy trying to work out if the rest of the words were the same as I expected. It was in a crap key anyway...

It was great to see some of my classmates and all the other friends I managed to catch up with whilst I was in Auckland (more about that another time methinks) but by the end of a week down there I was glad to get away from the big city and back to the clean air and quiet roads of home.