imbalance

In the close-to-a-month since i last rambled here a lot has happened - excellent lesson observations, unacceptable lesson observations, lots of resetting and retyping, the death of Bingo, gaining a wee bit of street cred through being in the second-place team in the school sports day staff/parents race, getting burnt at the aforementioned sports day, taking a quick overseas trip with friends over the recent long weekend, coming back to school and having to fill that trip in an H1N1-related travel declaration.

Gah - so many things eh. Sian to type out so much. I think the reason why i've been absent from here for so long is that i finally got as close as i'll be getting during this soon-to-end (woohoo) practicum to a full teacher's workload. Which included having to forget about stoning over the weekend but instead planning lessons and marking piles upon piles of students' work [of which i've about four or so more sets which i've absolutely zero chance of returning to the class before their exam (in two days' time)]. If i'm to be honest i was quite impressed with myself (or rather, God working in me) that that much managed to be done.

But even if so much actually was done, it sure is not the brightest of signs for the years to come. While i've successfully kept to the 12-hour rule (sign out less than 12 hours after signing in), it's happened just barely a couple of times, and really the only thing keeping me from breaking that rule in the future is that they normally turn off the a/c by 6:30. The concept of a work-life balance is an illusory one, or at least on weekdays it certainly is. The scale may inched ever so slightly back over the past weekend, but it's poised to revert back sooner or later.

Of course, there is all of three days left of practicum, after which it's back to nie (which strangely enough i'm looking forward to just that little bit, if only cos even with the thrice as long travelling time and transport costs, it still will take up less of my day). And I don't care what viruses stand in my way, i'm going to find some place to take another (as long as possible) trip out of here before things get back into full swing once again. So maybe there is still some more hope in the life part of the equation...