That ol' devil called Pressure

The beauty of our lives is the phenomenon of survival.  Fight or flight.  Wheat from the chaff.  Survival of the fittest.

Week three of the new role brought the biggest baptism of fire yet.  The demands on my time in these past few weeks has been much higher than expected and until a few days ago I was relishing all it brought:  challenge, stimulation and a sense of purpose.

How am I to know?

And so the first week is complete.

I went in with certain expectations, mainly because I was so desperate for things to be rather different to before.  And, thankfully, in the most important areas, they are very different.  But certain other gripes I had seem to have made the move with me.

The rules of positivity.

As I said in my previous post, I'm not afraid of hard work.  I'm not afraid of putting in a few hours extra work, of going that bit further to try make my life, my colleagues' lives, and the students' lives that bit easier in the long run.  As far as is possible by myself, that is.

This past year, trying to motivate the team I was working in to push things that little bit further was a challenge in itself.  It felt like I was the only one who actively wanted to make things better all round.  I know I make myself sound like some spoilt little school girl who wants to be noticed for her efforts.  But I can assure you, all I want - and all I've ever wanted - is an easy life.

Summer: a teacher's utopia.

Or is it?

It goes without saying that the summer holidays bridging the gap between one academic year and the next are the most welcome of breaks in any teacher's life.  Not just for the freedom to sleep in, take a holiday or finally finish off that pile of ironing.  And certainly not that teachers have absolutely no work to do* for six whole weeks...

With the best of intentions

Commitment is a funny thing.

And something I can't commit to.

No matter how hard I try, I can't keep doing things until they're all done for fear of leaving myself with nothing left to do.  (I shall skip over the fact that, as a teacher, such a status is non-existent.)  And so, one menial task could take weeks to get done just because I have nothing left on the list once that's finished.