The Fag End of the Year

Love this quote

Well... I was looking at the number of entries in my blog this year and it is the second lowest entry I have done since I began 11 years ago. - 12 if you include 2007. It is probably no coincidence that it was a tough year for me because of the Class being in Class Six - a tough year for anyone really. Both the students and the teacher and parent. It was hard going, but we are now over it. And also... this year has been a weird year.

It was probably the year when I realised I was proper old - as in proper exhausted and a bit fed up and wondering why everything was so hard. Also not unrelated, was not writing enough - it is a vicious circle. Don't write enough, feel low, feel low, don't write enough. For instance, today, I caught myself feeling the end of the year's melancholia, and I have to do this to myself now, REMIND myself of how lucky I am to have friends I love and family who love me around me. It is sometimes like trying to steer a boat and fighting the sails in the wind. As I did this, sitting at the breakfast table and laughing, I also said, I need to write. Those appointments with my angel have been few and far in between over the past few weeks, despite my knowledge they are desperately needed.

Instead I end up lying in bed watching shite on the iPad. I really just want to bin the iPad. Ever since I discovered Netflix last year, while watching Stranger Things it has been so bad... I can't even remember when that was - was it over the Christmas holidays? For some reason I have a feeling it was cold and miserable outside while I mainlined the series in the space of two days. I'm sure if I look it up in my blog I will see it. So this means that this too much time on Netflix is actually a new thing, it is only one year old. Maybe this is my too much Netflix year.

Let's hope it is.

I was also watching Ninja Warrior with Ghin and the programme has completely evolved into a mental, OTT thing, which was inevitable I guess. The culture around fitness has become so toxic. From staying in shape and being healthy, it has over the past twenty years become a cult of the body. How do I know it has been twenty years, because I have been running for a long long time. Since I was 15 really. So I know. Running and swimming and cycling. And I did this at first as a counterpoint to my studying. But since then, I have always run, etc... sometimes more and sometimes less, but always I have run. Running consisted of running and then doing some stretching and then some sit ups using a planter. And I loved running because the culture was very low key. You just got yourself a pair of running shoes and off you went. The utter hype that now surrounds it from fad diets, to outfits, to running socks and timing equipment... it is slightly repulsive to me. I think we have social media to thank for that. But there were a few runs every year and people got together and it was good natured and low key and down to earth. Now it is full of something which I can't quite put my finger on. There is this weird superiority which is ironic since more people than ever are running.

That's the other thing, more people than ever are running and into this a coarseness has arisen... honestly I can't tell you what this is about, it is as if an activity which should bring relief and release to the soul has become corrupt. There used to be a time when you went running to leave all the everyday madness behind but now the everyday madness seems to have followed running into this realm. Mass participation events are the worst. Previously they used to be chilled out and good natured, now it is full of ugliness and waste. In an era when we now know the horrors of plastic... well... and the crap that is given away. In the past you got a T-shirt - now you get a plastic bag full of junk and a medal .... for what? It is like we are children or something.

I dunno. It is depressing. I just hope that this is a swing to the madness and we will be swinging away from it soon.

So, here I am writing, tacking my narrative and trying to make sense of the world. I wonder what will happen to my blog when I die. I'd imagine that I will continue writing in it for a long long time... possibly a few more decades... I know so many people who began blogs and never continued them after a couple of months...

Hard to imagine we were on Islandmagee one week ago - it seems like a lifetime away.

It is the Advent festival today.

What else did I want to write about? Oh yes, how shite I was feeling about the state of the world. In the past, when things were not falling apart doing what I do seemed like a good idea. As in, here we are making progress in fringes where things need to be done. Where progressiveness can flourish. Now everything appears to be falling apart. From education to the economy no one knows what is happening anymore. Everything is in full panic mode.

The circles cannot be squared, of course they can't, and the stupids, the cynical manipulators, they have managed to lead people into a very very dark cul-de-sac. It is depressing really.

I know what I have to do - my schedule tells me, but for the past week it has been so hard. I told a friend that I was so proud of myself this week, simply for turning up at work every single day. It has been so hard to get going in the morning. Once you do get going though, it is ok, once the momentum starts going, but fuck me, it has been hard to dig myself outta bed and do what needs to be done. And then after that the invisible Everest to climb each day. That said, it is now the end of the first term and the end of the first term is significant. That is one third of the year gone.

Now... this is really interesting - a third of the whole year and what's nice for me is that we have accomplished so much as a class in this third. It feels like a lot of the maths chickens are coming home to roost. That the work we are doing is being progressed nicely - and we return to history next year...

Seven long years - what is interesting as well as that my teaching over the course of seven years has also followed my own seven year cycle. So this seven and final year coincides with my end of my Class Teacher stint.

In some ways it feel like I am regenerating, renewing my skin and casting off my old skin. It is a slow, sometimes very painful process. I almost certainly feel less resentful and angry with people, I am more patient and less demanding in general, I am kinder....

The things I want in life are very much based on what I have come to think of as soul riches. They aren't external things. They aren't bullshit things. They consist of things like sunsets and the first green shoots of leaves on trees. Watching children take their first steps. Having a simple meal. My hard edges have been worn smooth and it is a nice feeling. Except when people are stupid and cruel to others, when they are manipulative - then I do go into battle mode. That at least has not changed.

Honestly, I no longer know what I'm saying...