Back towards the light

I'm working on Assignment 2B and judge myself to be about half way through. I'm yet to decide on a second teaching resource, but that's okay. I'm responsible only for myself and to myself and I know I will get there in good time.

I've really been giving a lot of thought to my decision to teach over the past week or so. I admit, I got a little impatient this week, waiting for the assignment to come together. It's still not finished, I'm still waiting, but I've decided that I've done everything I can and there's nothing I can do to force the issue right now. Still, I've not let my impatience show to those concerned. To them I've been the model of patience, but inside...not so much. Ask my beloved husband.

My teacher friends tell me that teaching has up days and down days. They tell me that teaching in the classroom is not the same as working on a group assignment. They also tell me that the majority of teachers who give it up do so in the first three years. Four years learning. Three years teaching. I've therefore made a promise to myself to spend as long teaching as I do learning to teach. That's a minimum of four years. That seems like a good promise to myself.

The thing is, I love learning. I love taking in new information and forming new attitudes with the knowledge I have. I love sharing information. But I love it more if people interact within the process. I love learning so I don't understand it when others don't share that love with me.

Which is why we have to be taught to be teachers, I guess.

And now, here's a song about teaching (or, how not to be a teacher) from when I was at school:

The downside of frustration

Do I really really want to be a teacher? Do I have the patience?

Not so sure anymore.

Almost done

I've spent close to six hours at uni this week putting the finishing touches on the 2A website. All I'm waiting on is one more lesson plan to arrive and I'm done. The best part is, I uploaded the ppt as both a ppt and a pdf and they both work brilliantly! We did away with a timer function, so it has to be clicked over, but other than that it does exactly what we wanted it to.

I will be so glad when it's over and I can concentrate on 2B.

Frustration, thy name be Yola.

Okay, I may have had to pay good Aussie dollars for my website, but at least it works whenever I need it. At this point I'll be putting all our work from Google Docs and onto my website because it's the only way I can work on it.

Hating Yola with much hatiness. Hate.

My favourite part of this week

A good selection of Australia's horror writers having a fantastic dinner at the Balti Restaurant in East Perth, Saturday night. A night off from assignments, children, uni and all things Not Writing.

From left: me, my beloved Lee, Kate Eltham, Rob Hoge, Alan Baxter, Peter M Ball, (unknown blurry person from other table), Jason Nahrung, Kirsten McDermott, Paul Haynes (who had a book launch that made many of us cry), Matt Chrulew, Ben Payne and Rob Hood. Photograph by Daniel Russell who managed to freak out the hardcore horror writers with his oh-so-sordid jokes.

Since I want to at least try to make this about EDN113, many of us own and use our iPads and/or laptops as a normal part of our day. A lot of what we talked about was the publishing of ebooks so we believe in authentic learning. There. I did it. :)

Easter

It's holiday time and the family have been out going to movies, the pool, Swancon, watching DVDs, playing video games and doing all the fun things families do on the holidays.

Yes, I've done some of that, too. I went to Swancon because Lee and I were both up for awards (and therefore got together with the best of Australia's Horror Writers for a night of catching up over drinks, dinner, more drinks...) and I saw two movies ("Thor" and "Paul") but other than that, my life has pretty much revolved around my two assignments. I'd say that in all I've probably spent about 25 hours on my EDN113 assignment, doing research, building sites, building the Powerpoint etc. I'm very, very, very happy with the work I've put in. I have worked extremely hard on this, putting in time that I could have spent seeing "Hop" with the kids or playing "Halo" with Aiden and Georgie or having lunch out with Lee during his extended public service break.

And now, when I'm attempting to add various parts of the assignment to the website, I'm finding that Yola is down. Still. It was down yesterday as well. Yes, my paid-for website isn't as newbie-friendly as others, but at least it was always there when I needed it. No issues, at all.

I hate it when things are out of my hands.

Grrr. Okay, I have PMS today and it's possible that this is bothering me more than it needs to. Maybe. Grrrr.

I'm off to meet up with my assignment-buddies at 9.30 to see what they've got to add to our assignment. I'm doing this while Lee takes the kids to the movies and shopping. And I have PMS. All I can say is, I hope they bring chocolate. Those poor, poor people :)

And that's all I'm going to say about that.

A new skill put to use!

I have Endnote! And it works! Colour me freaking proud, dude!

And here's a snippy (or two) to prove it. I tells ya, I'm rocking the granny's panties in this unit. And, I'm loving it. Oh, and look. I've even learnt how to upload a snippy (aka screen capture) to my blog.

I've also chatted with my assignment buddies and we've changed the structure slightly. Podcasts are out. Skype is in. I love being in mum-mode :)