Sniffles and catnaps

I have been keeping busy or trying to.
I've not been very good at relaxing lately but I never was.
I often only take time for myself when I'm procrastinating as odd as that may sound.
A mind that seldom rests and that doesn't sleep well is a recipe for disaster or at least some minor hardship.
Sniffles are a prominent danger.
How can one avoid such a debilitating condition?
Healthy eating and good sleeping are one way to reduce the risk.

I believe I will never get used to rising early.
I wonder will I wander around for the rest of this life always in a dazed stupor of various levels of fatigue.
It's the sleep or lack thereof that gets me, hindering my immune system that undoubtedly struggles in the germ incubator that is school.

Thankfully there are weekends but they are buffered by five days of early starts.

Microscope

We seldom stop and look around us, look up, look down and take in every facet, every eroded and aged surface as the meandering river of time rushes by.
There is so much beauty immediately before our eyes but we trivialise it and take for-granted that which is right in front of us.  Instead, we fantasise about the other, the erotically exotic pastures just out of reach.  There is so much more to be seen in the here and now than we actually see.  The buzzing computer behind our eyes a blurry mess of opened and abandoned tabs, multiple progammes running at once; a drain on power and all at a poor resolution.  The human being is a complicated creature, fragile and stubborn, curious and careless.

A young boy I tutor took my hand excitedly today to show me the present Nikolos had brought him.
A white and black scientific microscope.  He ushered me to sit on the couch by the coffee table while he plugged in the apparatus and popped open his box of glass slides.  He had collected a few new samples over the weekend.  He adjusted the lens and then offered to share this microscopic universe.

The various glass slides held cells of different organisms.  It was an exhibition of the life aesthetic; an onion that resembled a forested dream-scape, grains of salt that may well have been a cluster of asteroids and other wonderful intricate designs within cells.

He is excited; keen to put life beneath the lens and scrutinise its delightful complexity.  A multiverse of wonder within our grasp.

Forever A Student

There I was; typing, copying, and pasting my worksheet when I realised I was in my element.
Browsing the depths of the internet looking for the perfect image to complement the incredibly complicated simple tasks I had put upon paper.

I was enjoying it.
I was happy to put time and effort into this worksheet; editing the language to make it more accessible. There were boxes to be numbered, crosswords and word spirals, pictures to be coloured, a story to be read and a song to be sung.

I enjoy searching for, reading and examining other's foray into lesson plans and student worksheets.  Every teacher is an artist searching for a new means to communicate a theme or topic to a hungry audience, an audience that is desperately seeking an interpretation relevant to their life and existence.

I am forever learning new tricks. I keenly watch my colleagues and peers, taking a note of their approach, the resources and the reception.  I ask too.  I ask questions and I ponder out loud.  I read and I read often and I complain even more so.  But in complaining and opening myself up to criticism I am also learning.

Life is a learning curve.
I'm staying in school.

I don't know if I can ever leave.
My mind is buried there under a messy pile of lesson plans and uncorrected papers.

The starfish children

02/12/2013

There are creatures that lurk in the Vienna Christmas' markets.  These beings weave between the legs of hapless would-be shoppers and browsers, tiny things not coming above the knee mummified in a cushioned membrane.  These creatures are the starfish children.

They come in different colours and shades but they have one consistent physical feature and that is that their static bodies resemble the celestial pentagram.  

Their parents take great pains to wrap these babies up and shield them from the cold.  

Layer upon layer upon layer of clothing until the child resembles the Michelin man more than any other mammal on Earth.

Their movement is a fascinating spectacle.  Unable to move individual joints like the elbow or knee, these children move their entire body in a zig zag motion, swinging from side to side as they shift their weight to each foot and pivot their entire body.  

They rush off to the next exciting wonder, be that something hot, sharp or inedible.  They tend to loiter under steaming mugs of punsch and mulled wine.  Perhaps it is the aroma that attracts them or their taste for danger.

The starfish children float through the crowds at the markets, giggling and gurgling and sometimes they are eerily silent.  They love mischief and impulsively dash into the path of unwitting spectators.

Thankfully, their parents come and swoop them up and off before the starfish children become agitated and decimate the wooden market huts with their gummy jaws and high-pitched shrieks.

They are a creature one should be wary of.  Look out for them.