An update about my life since January…
When I began this blog in October, it was with great hope and optimism. I desperately wanted somewhere to talk about books and to be a part of the book community. However, I was spending all my time focusing on this, as I didn’t have work at that point, and so it very easy for me to dedicate myself to the project. Unfortunately, after starting the job that I had been working towards for quite a while, I suddenly found most of this extra time sucked away from me.
At the beginning, I still attempted to maintain the ability to continue blogging and reading, while working, but in recent months it has become obvious that this hasn’t quite been a success. I’m not giving up. I am just allowing myself to have a bit of an adjustment.
This is my first year of teaching, and being thrown in to this world is daunting and exhausting. I have a lot of things to try to understand, resources that I need to make, lessons that need to be planned and marking I have to comprehend. The procedures in work seem to take forever, work is physically and mentally exhausting and it is very difficult to shut off when I come home. That does not mean that I’m not enjoying it. It’s a place that I really like working, and no matter how hard, there are parts of this which are so rewarding. Part of not being able to switch off is because i’m so eager to think of ways that I could make things better and more understandable. A good part of my job is to help students to understand and enjoy stories, to engage with words, and to want to create their own – it is something which I am passionate about, and affords me the opportunity to talk about books and really try to enthuse others about them.
Despite work, I have also had a great amount of involvement with book related events this year. I have been to writers talks, discussions, book clubs, taken parts in readathons, and had my books signed! I have plenty of other events booked already leading up to summer, and I am really enjoying attending all of these. But what is falling behind is the actual blog writing itself.
I am not going to berate myself for this. It is something I enjoy, that I do for fun, and that I want to use as relaxation – I refuse to set myself unrealistic expectations. I will not stress or become anxious about this. But I do want to start posting more regularly again.
The next month is insane in college. GCSEs are the first week back in June and so it is a mad rush to push revision and extra sessions until then. Once these are over though, we will all feel like we can breathe. So for now, I plan on being kind to myself as I experience my very first exam period… And in June, I will return to your regularly scheduled blog posts…
Afternoon Literature 