Just hanging in there

Hello my faithful little band of red dots on my cluster map. Who are you? Do you just drop into my blog for an instant? Do you actually read it? I read recently that blogging is a narcassistic activity. I have to confess (don't tell anyone) that I actually prefer writing in my blog than reading other people's !! but I do read other people's blogs, I really do. Sometimes they are very informative, instructional all that sort of thing.

Well, we are in the least bearable time of the year for a high school teacher in the southern hemisphere - end of semester assessment, exams and reports. You have to take the piecemeal approach and nibble away at it, bit by bit. that's my approach. Been doin it for 20 years and it seems to work.

You know we are all heroes, plugging away at our lives in little corners tucked away out of notice, unheralded but satisfied that we're still at it. I'm actually echoing some sentiments expressed by Melbourne journo Catherine Deveny in the Age newspaper this week. I'll quote her for a bit:

I watch office workers, jolted out of their slumber by the alarm clock, who have shovelled in their breakfast, thrown on their clothes and rush to catch the train to a job they hate. I say good morning to elderly neighbours who gingerly walk around the block trying to get their creaky bones and foggy heads working after a night of constant pain and little sleep. I wave to the woman from down the road who has lost her mother after a long fight with cancer. She is shrouded in grief, yet she gets her kids up and dressed, the lunches made and has, against all odds, got the kids to school on time again. And I cheer my mate, overwhelmed by anxiety and depression who runs, every morning. He forces himself out of bed when what he wants is to pull the doona over his head and disappear. Where's his medal? Where are all of their medals?

............

1."Every day the sun will rise. It is a different day with endless possibilities."
2. "This too will pass. These words, engraved on an ancient Sultan's ring, made him solemn in happy times and happy during sad times. Remember these always."

You are amazing. You're doing a great job. Just. Keep. Going.

I love Catherine Deveny, she can be so irreverent and cheeky but here she is getting to the heart of pathos - and she's talking about us - all of us. But especially those of us who are doing it hard - from the victims of unspeakable disasters in China and Burma to the lady across the road who is old and bed ridden and no hope of getting any better but who still manages a smile and a joke on the too few occasions I go over to visit her.I wish my dad was still alive - he would have loved this blogging business. Maybe I can send a message to him and he will pick it up in the ether somewhere out there. Hi dad - look at this, you can do it too - maybe post some excerpts of that latest piece of writing you were thinking about when you so unexpectedly left us. Your writing will be immediately accessible and available to an unlimited audience.