10 things I know to be true

1.
People are capable of change

but they aren't always willing to.

2.

The past, whether good, bad or neutral is always best left where it once was......The past is never ever ever easy to leave where it once was.

Ever.

3.

Some of us have to try more than others.

Some of us 'can' more than others.

4.
Changing yourself for the better is the one of the hardest things to do.

5.
I am never enough for myself.

6.
The future can sometimes seem full of something better. But sometimes 'better' is in the now.

7.
People are good. We are all good. Once we lose belief in that we lose everything that is important.

8.
Being able to argue with someone is the best way of knowing that you have a friend for life.

9.
Austen is the bestest bestest bestest.

10.
Imaan fluctuates. Such is life. We can always be better. Don't lose heart.

Surviving and not surviving the first term.

One of the things about the PGCE course is that it goes by slowly. Every moment seems to be protracted. And yet time whizzes past. I have completed an entire term at my first placement. Already. I can still remember walking into reception the first day. I remember the nerves. The anxiety. The awkwardness. I still feel those feelings now.

But something changes.

Everyone around me is being offered a job. How did we get here? How did we arrive at this strange place? I want to get to the end. Reach the finish line. I want to get through this year in one piece. I don't want to think about the future.
I want to be selfish.
I want to be a child.
I want to be unrealistic.
I don't want to face reality.
The thought of applying for a job terrifies me.

It's hard to explain, but it's not just the teaching part that scares me.

It's the department meetings, team briefings and other x, y, z meetings
It's being a part of an entire staff of teachers.
It's having a form class and being responsible for them.
It's teaching GCSE students and having an impact on their future careers and job prospects.
It's having to liaise with others on a daily basis.

It's being a part of a large group of people and not knowing where to fit in. It's the feeling of really wanting to be the best possible version of myself but always second-guessing myself.

I know it sounds silly. I feel like this is a given by now. I only ever seem to write when I am at odds with something (most of the time I am at odds with something or another).

This year is more than just me learning about teaching. I feel like this year I need to develop my confidence. I need to become everything that I have the potential to become. I need to stop belittling myself.

Of course, that is easier said than done.

Ode to Nostalgia

You are salty tears;

Nail polish in my mouth.

A scab

I unpick again

and again.

Blood that tastes of metal.

Bitter aftertaste.

December blues and other worried colours

So it's December. 

There's one more week until the end of term. 

My previous update on my PGCE was almost a month ago, when I first began teaching. I began with starters and small activities. I have since taught whole hour lessons. 

It's been hard and, well, just insert any synonym for difficult here.

I have noticed a few things:

I am constantly pretending. 

Constantly pretending. 

And I don't mean that in the sense that I feel like I have lost myself or that I am pretending to be someone else. It's more nuanced than that. I'm realising more and more that I have to feign confidence in order to have confidence. A teacher told me this week that I seem to be sharper and more direct in tone but I don't feel different. I still feel nervous. I still feel anxious. I am always worried. And I still feel inadequate. I suppose the hard part is that even when it may seem like I have had a good lesson, it never feels like it. So I find it hard to tell if I've made progress. This is a wider issue I have. You would expect compliments and positive feedback to gear me up a notch, encourage me. Instead, I feel like I am still trying to convince myself.

How does one do that? How do I convince myself?

Another issue I have is the planning and the understanding of teaching as a profession. As much as I love uni, in the real world, as a teacher, I need to prepare kids for GCSEs. That is an enormous responsibility. I'm terrified that I won't be able to give pupils what they deserve. There is so much to consider in the planning of a lesson that I worry that I am merely going through the motions and that once I am on my own, I won't be able to do it. I am absolutely terrified about being a member of staff and having to interact with so many teacher on a day to day basis. I am good at pretending that I am confident but I hate feeling anxious all the time, especially in staff rooms. I still feel out of place sometimes.

It's like I am a muggle, entering Hogwarts for the first time. I am excited and I know that I could fit in. I know that I do fit in. I have been invited. I got the letter. I went to buy my books. I have a pet owl. I have the robes.

But I don't have the language. 

There are places in the castle that other people know about.

I always forget the password to the common room.

I feel weird when sitting in the Great Hall. I talk to lots of people but I don't have my Ron, Harry or Hermione. 

I am adrift. 

If I was advising someone else I would say, 

               "Don't worry. You will learn about secret places in the castles. You will find a Hermione.                      She will help you with your exams. You will get better at remembering the passwords."

but life sucks and like most people, I ignore my own advice.

It's silly to worry, I know. But I am constantly second guessing myself. 

We shall see how I feel in January.

x

T

Affect: The 'Now'

In Semester 1 of my final year of university- from September 2014 to January 2015- I took a module in 21st American Fiction. As part of the module we studied Don Delilo's novel The Body Artist. Alongside the novel, we studied the theory of affect.

Eric Shouse describes affect as 'prepersonal intensity'. This is what we experience before feelings and emotions. Our lecturer described it as the experience you have when you walk into a room and you just have this inkling that there is tension in the room. Or when you just know that someone has been talking about you. Or when you just have this instinct that you like someone. It is an involuntary intensity. It is not something that you have made sense of. It is instinctive. Feelings and emotions occur when we make sense of affect. Feelings, as opposed to affect, are based on prior experiences. To be sad is to have experienced sadness in the past, and to recognise in the present moment what being sad means. Affect occurs in the space before this. It is not codified or understood. It is outside of time or culture or society. It is abstract. It is non-conscious.

It may seem like a strange topic to write a blogpost about and I doubt I've explained it adequately, but during the summer, I thought about affect a lot.

As a university student, summer is not just a regular holiday. It is an extended holiday. When uni ended in May, even though I had experienced the long months of holiday, it was a strange feeling. I was faced with this stretch of time where there was nothing really after it. Graduating is a surreal experience. It is the culmination of 3 years' work and the beginning of the end. I know that sounds pessimistic but that's what it felt like to me.

I sound ungrateful. Unlike many of my peers, I had decided to do a PGCE. I had a place at a university. I knew what I was doing in September.

You would think that this would give me perspective. That it would focus me. Surely, there would be no reason to panic?

I think it freaked me out.

Up until that point, school, college, university were abstract places. You went to learn. There was a freedom in that. But to follow a career path. That's the adult world. The real world. The scary world.

So summer for me, became a space where I was swinging between a life which offered me dozens of paths without the pressure to choose one and a life which involved a career. I love teaching and I am glad that I chose it. But during the summer, the prospect of starting the course terrified me.

I entered, like Lauren from The Body Artist, into a state of affect. The more worried and anxious I got, the more I entered into this state of pre-personal experience. The post I wrote about the Rothko murals for instance, is an example of how I became so attuned to moments. Staring not only at the murals but into them was like entering into this state of affect, the 'now'. You become submerged in the present. It's liberating but at the same time, it can be lonely. I'd really suggest reading The Body Artist. It really brings highlights how affect works and it explores grief in a wonderfully tentative, sensitive and poignant way.

I see affect as being in a long, blank space. You encounter moments. But they are small.

Minute.

Mostly mundane.

Small moments.

For me, during the summer, I became acutely aware of the most minutest of things. Spiders crawling across my wall in the early hours of the morning. Babies and young kids out in public, talking and giggling. Snippets of conversation from TV shows. Everything seemed to be going at lightning speed, and yet it slowed down. Time seemed to be emptying out and I got closer and closer to affect.

I spent a lot of time in this limbo. This period of affect. Of intensity. It was not easy.

I read Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem again and enjoyed it so much more, now that I was in a moment of involuntary experience.

Anyway, I realise that this all sounds utterly bizarre and strange but it's something that I have been meaning to write about for some time now.

If you have ever felt in limbo, or experienced a time where you were thinking a lot and reflecting constantly, I think it would make sense.

T

x

There is life beyond you.

standing on the platform
i watch the train drift away

you flitter through my mind

a vague memory

i realise-

i have not thought about you for a while.



there is life beyond you
without you
there is life beyond
you
don't need to exist here
anymore

Dipping my toes in-

For the past month or so, I have been hovering around the back of various classes. These are the classes which I will eventually be taking over. So far, however, I have been mainly observing and walking around the classroom. 

This week, I ventured to the front of the class for the first time. 

Classrooms are strange spaces. There are so many dynamics to it. I didn't notice until I began my placement how many different spaces there are in one classroom. There's the back and the front of the class but there's the space amongst the students also. Sitting at the back feels the most safest. Walking around the class, speaking to kids at different tables is slightly more difficult, but it still feels relatively safe. Moving to the front of the class, however, is a whole other kettle of fish. It's a scary place. It's terrifying. This is the space where all eyes are on you. This is the space which theoretically is mine- MY space. 

It doesn't feel that way though. I taught for only 10/15 minutes at the beginning of a lesson but I felt exhausted afterwards. And numb. I felt so numb. As if I wasn't actually there when I was teaching. Like an out of body experience. I couldn't remember anything about my part of the lesson after I was done. I immediately tried to rid myself of the memory. But I know this is stupid. Rationally, I know that it wasn't terrible. But I still lack so much confidence. 

Each day is a challenge for me. I consider often, the possibility of leaving the course. Of giving up. I know I can't give up. I know that I need to keep going. But I can't imagine the end right now. It feels like it won't happen. Like I won't get there. So I tell myself to not think that far ahead. To take it all one step at a time. One day at a time. One lesson at a time.

So, I have dipped my toes into murky waters... We shall see how I fare...