Learn.Love.Laugh

I started this at 16. I’m 29 now. This is pretty much a time capsule at this point with no recent posts. Pretty much this tumblr is active so I can keep up to date on figure skating gossip...

[learn-love-laugh]

Update Nov 2021

I feel like I need to post something as it’s been about 6 years since I last posted. I’m still here! I’ve had this tumblr since I was 16... I’m 29 now and it’s essentially a time capsule. Life is going good. I moved back to Brisbane a few years ago. It’s hard to believe that I started this in high school and I’ve since graduated university and have been teaching for 7 years.  I am active with keeping up to date with people I follow and liking/replying to posts but I don’t post myself anymore. I figured I’d post this so it stays at the top and people know I’m still around. 

[learn-love-laugh]

Oh my gosh THANK YOU! You've no idea how relieved I am right now! I was so very stressed and you've helped SO MUCH!

No worries :)

[sookiestjames-moved]

[learn-love-laugh]

Reblogging this so i can remember the glorious time in my life when i binge watched all 7 seasons and mini series in two weeks. It was amazing. 

[georgiecrosswell-deactivated202]

At 23, JK Rowling was broke. Tina Fey was working at the Y.M.C.A. Oprah had just gotten fired from her first job as a TV reporter and Walt Disney had declared bankruptcy.

Read This If You’re 23 And Lost by Heidi Priebe (via twentysomethingstate)

[earpwave]

Female Awesome Meme: [17/30] female dynamics ★ Alex and Haley

“It’s not the worst thing to have your own personal cheerleader. I miss mine already.”

[learn-love-laugh]

If there were ever two characters that represented my sister and I it would be these two. The older we get, the better we get along. We will fight and disagree like crazy but the older we get the more we realise we have in common and the more we can look back and laugh at how much we used to fight. 

[snorlaxatives]

no offense but the whole kissin kate barlow and “i can fix that” sam storyline from holes is quite frankly one of the most gripping and tragic in the history of cinema and i’m still not recovered from it

[learn-love-laugh]

The 2015 Reflection

It is January 1st, 2016 and I am so glad that 2015 over. This year has honestly been full of ups and downs. As 2016 begins I am left with an overwhelming feeling of relief that 2015 is over. I need a fresh start. 

The past twelve months weren’t all bad. 2015 was the year I started my first real job. I developed confidence in my teaching and I realised that I was capable of doing my dream job and reaching others expectations. I got my new car. I met some great people, and I finally got to experience living alone. 

However it was also the year that I had the housemate from hell, a person who I had to live and work with, and dealt with a huge amount of stress relating to that. Thinking back on that situation still makes me sad. I made great memories with that person and for it to end so badly really hurt my feelings. I also dealt with a lot of work stress. I was teaching in a school that had never had Year 7 enrolled. There were many hiccups and everything had to be created from scratch. I am not a person who copes with stress well. I ignored my physical health and it has left me feeling all the worse. I also got my cat Sadie, then had to find a new home for her when I didn’t get the job transfer I had been pretty much guaranteed. Although I had been questioning whether owning a pet was the best thing for me I know I would have gotten used to it and I loved that cat. Letting her go made me feel like an awful, irresponsible person. I keep reminding myself that she has a new family who spoil her rotten.  

As the year came to a close I have started pulling myself together. I accepted my transfer to a new town. I closed the chapter on a negative friendship. I’ve have even been using the Konmari method to start removing clutter and baggage from my life. It feels good to let things go. I set myself one resolution for this year. End 2016 happier than I feel at this moment. 

[astroho]

2015 kicked my ass and i want revenge

[learn-love-laugh]

I have one resolution for this year.

Finish 2016 feeling happier than I did at the end of 2015.

[ktcorn]

Teachers!

Has anyone worked while student teaching? What hours did you work? What days? What kind of job did you do?

[the-littlelady]

I did… Even though they “strongly advised against it”. For part of it I worked at Walgreens– mostly Friday evening-Sunday and any breaks. Then I began doing ABA therapy after school for a few hours every day (except Wednesday) and on Saturdays.

Bills still have to be paid. Gotta do what you gotta do.

[inthemiddleofclass]

I worked evenings 4-9, M-Th. It was rough, but manageable.

[believerjen]

I waitresses 4pm-12am during student teaching. Not working wasn’t an option. I usually went straight to the restaurant after class and worked on units or paperwork before my shift would start. I look back on those days and wonder how I survived, but I was younger and stronger I guess.

[from-tutor-to-teacher]

I did tutoring from 5 pm - 10 pm Sunday - Wednesday for my university. If I wasn’t working with a student; I was able to do grading or lesson planning. It was rough, but I managed it.

[vwalker]

We were told straight up not to work while student teaching…which is totally unrealistic because bills…

Anyway, I taught 8-3:30 and worked as a cashier at Office Depot from 5-9:30, plus longer shifts every other weekend. Definitely an exhausting semester, but it was a calm job with no drama and a boss who was really good with giving me the schedule I asked for….so definitely could have been harder.

[artedish]

I still worked. I didn’t have the same requirements as a lot of you because student teaching was spread over 3 semesters. I student taught full days 4 days per week, worked the other weekday and Saturdays, and went to class in the evenings.

It was definitely exhausting and it was hard to take at times, but I knew myself well enough to know what I could handle.

[general-anxiety]

We were told it was unadvisable to work. For me it would have been impossible, since I needed to be home every night for my father-in-law and still had classes Thursday nights till 9 (yup, I went from 6am to 9pm those nights). I had to be at school at 7 until 3:30 and then did all my planning/grading at home in between caring for my father-in-law and doing the housework that needed done.

It full on sucked. That’s when my narcolepsy started acting up, by the way. But I ignored it because I thought it was post-concusive disorder. Because yes, I managed to get a moderate to severe concussion days before I started student teaching.

[adventuresinteachingx]

I worked in fast food Fri-Sun. Like 6 hours Friday and Sunday and like 9 hours Saturday. As well as tutored for 2 hours a night 2 days a week. It sucked, but it was managable. I was always exhausted, but not working wasn’t an option for me. 

[general-anxiety]

I should mention, the only reason I didn’t have to work was my husband (then boyfriend) paid all the bills.

[learn-love-laugh]

During my first few student teaching practicals I continued my normal job of after school care for a family three afternoons a week. I was lucky that their school was just down the road and they would walk to their aunt’s house after school and then I would pick them up at 3:30. For my final internship I did tutoring two afternoons a week and it paid really well ($30-$50 per hour) as well as casual babysitting. 

[4a0000-deactivated20170115]

I think 2015 tried to kill everyone

[hibiscusflowerhoney]

Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt personally victimised by 2015

[mandaisgone-deactivated20170429]

This seems to be like a universal thing though, like almost everyone I know has said that 2015 was a terrible year. What gives?

[celtic-pyro-deactivated20230725]

Honestly this whole year felt like a shitpost.

[learn-love-laugh]

I left work at 9pm. I finished working at home at 12am. All of my assessment is marked. All of my report cards are done. I can now collapse. Bed.

[learn-love-laugh]

I just created the cutest letter to send home to my future class. I thought it was pretty cool that I got to include a photo of myself attending the same school. 

[learn-love-laugh]

Life Update: Hopes and Dreams

Sometimes the things I want most in life feel so far from my grasp. I look at the people around me and so many of them have what I desperately want. They are all starting big adventures while I feel like I have hardly left the start line. In the past few years I have seen friends marry, babies born, and houses built. While I have seen myself fall deeper into bad habits, disappoint my family and become increasingly self aware. 

I know I am 23. I know this is melodramatic, and I hope so badly that I read this when I am 30 and laugh at how worried I was, but what if my hopes and dreams don’t come true. Who am I to be? Am I always going to be the wallflower? The one who helps others raise their children. The one who gives advice on relationships she is never in? I don’t want to be the one people disregard.

Most people’s greatest fear is dying. Mine is that I will live alone. 

[learn-love-laugh]

The 22nd of October, 2015

Welcome to the world Baby Silver. 

I have another beautiful god child to spoil. 

[learn-love-laugh]

Life Update: Transfers, Moving and Teaching at My Old School?

Sometimes I make the silly assumption that everyone is automatically up to date with my life and then I look back and realise I haven’t even announced the biggest news I have had all year. Here goes.

I AM MOVING BACK TO MY HOMETOWN TO RETURN TO PRIMARY TEACHING.

There it is. This is something I really didn’t see coming. Long story short is that I knew right from the beginning of the year that high school teaching was not for me. I missed having my own classroom. I missed spending all day with the same kids and I missed being able to set me own timetable - I mean seriously who schedules 2+ double periods of maths with the same kids on a Thursday afternoon? So in Term 1 I applied for transfer. 

At the time I had been given a tip from a previous contact about a teaching job an hour from my hometown in a Band 5, two-teacher school. Unfortunately, due to HR it didn’t pan out even though the school wanted me. Luckily I had also put down additional schools as back-ups. I just had to chose schools that were in the Central QLD region and were worth more transfer rating points (i.e. more rural/remote) than my current school. I received my second preference of Moranbah. 

At first I was very surprised. I never thought I would be heading back to my hometown. An even bigger surprise? I am teaching at my old primary school! I have so many ties to the school. I went there from pre-school until it was time for high school. I even went there for year eleven work experience! It feels very surreal to think I am heading back but I am also excited. After all, this is the place that inspired me to become a teacher. 

One side benefit of moving back is that I get to go into teacher accommodation. Last week I found out that I will be in C Grade accommodation. It is a two-bedroom duplex that I will be sharing with another teacher. It is small and very old but rent is only fifty dollars a week. I am hoping to save up for a house deposit while I am out there. 

Here’s to new beginnings. 

[learn-love-laugh]

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling twenty-two twenty-three.

Birthday recap.

My birthday fell on a Wednesday and I got some lovely gifts from my students. A group of girls from my class even brought me to the music room at lunch and played their instruments to the happy birthday theme.

I then went to Mackay that afternoon and had a quiet dinner with Kelly, Caitlin, Alaryse and Hannah.