A bit late on my blog this week, perhaps because I was thrown off my schedule due to being out Monday. I got my Covid booster and flu shot Saturday and had a headache and nausea and chills Sunday. I’m still a bit more tired than normal but boy am I grateful for the ability to get a vaccine and subsequent booster, I can only imagine how getting the real thing would be way worse. I try not to be biased but I can’t help but feel extremely grateful for the modern medical miracle vaccines are, one of the most effective interventions modern medicine has created in its history. With some of the highest numbers for lives saved. I’ll try and avoid further soap boxing because there are few things I dislike more than arguing with people about their beliefs and many people seem to have very strong one’s where vaccines are concerned.
In other news, I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving break coming up. Already counting the days. I do feel like I am making progress learning how to be a good teacher, but there is much to go. Perhaps there always will be. One of the things I’m working on now is just being more comfortable, being wherever I am, teaching. It is, as always, the beliefs and thoughts about something that make one feel good or bad about it. For whatever reasons, I’ve got a lot of attachments and judgments about being a good teacher, and how it’s bad when I do poorly at it. Not very helpful. If I can’t be happy being where I am, it’s going to reduce my chances at longevity with the job.
I always hated being a leader, for instance, when we split up into groups for school projects. I didn’t want the responsibility. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I’ve been forced into it now. Something I needed to confront. Responsibilities for others, who are not necessarily safe on their own, doing something where there feels like a lot on the line, if I don’t succeed doing many things I feel naturally bad at…
It’s a good training ground, I suppose. If I can be happy and carefree, work efficiently but without worry or anxiety, in a situation like this, then I can do it in many if not most situations that life throws at me. When you lift weights at the gym, it doesn’t help if you lift styrofoam pretend weights. So to with life, if you’re not given any real challenges you’re unlikely to grow.
However, I have to remember that just because you’re given challenges, doesn’t mean you’re going to grow. What do you do with life’s challenges? Do you jump right in and try you best, then reflect back on what went well, what didn’t, and what you can do next time to improve? If you just complain, play the victim “oh woe is me” and scrape by doing the minimum just to get by, numbing yourself out with distractions, you may not learn all that much. Just like there is a huge difference between naive practice and deliberate practice, in you towards mastery. It’s not just practicing, it’s how. You practice. Your technique, focus, intentionality and intensity.
So, I’m working on practicing, training, well. It’s a little hard, because I have to figure out what that means.
OK, gotta go. My lunch mates are playing catchy add jingles from the 80’s, so I can’t focus on writing anymore either today. See ya next week,
-I
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