Movember Adventures
This has been a busy month for me, professionally and personally. My calendar has been packed full of amazing opportunities and I find it hard to believe how much I managed to pack into the past four weeks.
The month started out with a wonderful visit from my sister and my nephew. Living out in Lakefield means that I don't get a lot of visits from family as I'm more than a 3 hour drive from everyone except my brother, and he's got a packed schedule at Trent. I really enjoyed getting a family dinner with Lindsay, Sam, and Fraser in Peterborough, and then being able to give Lindsay and Sam a tour of the place I've called home for the last two years. Getting to show off my nephew to all my friends and colleagues here was an added benefit; he's pretty darn cute!
November 9th saw me with my bags all packed and hopping on a bus for Washington, DC with an en route detour through Gettysburg, PA. This is the third time I've been leading this trip and it's one of my absolute favourites as I find it has the right pace, great options, amazing museums, and (usually) much better weather than home when we're there. This year was a little colder, and it was a much bigger group than previous years, and still managed to be the best trip yet. As always my highlight was dinner in Georgetown and eating the best lobster risotto at Martin's Tavern, which has some amazing history and a very prestigious list of regular guests.
This month also saw me back into the residences for the first time this school year, covering both my old res and one that was completely new to me. It really made me realize how much I miss being involved in the house on a regular basis. The connections I was able to make with my boys and with the student population in general were a lot different in a residential role when compared to my current classroom relationships. I don't necessarily feel like one is better than the other, I just found that I felt like I had a much deeper stake in the growth of my Ryder boys as a whole compared to my students in the classroom.
Somewhere in all that there were also report cards to write, tests and assignments to give out, collect, and mark, a PD trip to Toronto for Teacher-Librarians (something I'm more convinced that I want to pursue after that), and all the regular day-to-day teaching, coaching, and evening support. I found myself getting home after a lot of 14-15 hour days feeling accomplished and happy with the choices I've made and the things I've done, which I think goes a long way to show just how much I love this job.
On a more personal note, I made some significant growth in my resiliency and major improvements in my mood and attitudes towards life. For personal relationship reasons, coming back to work this September was extremely challenging for me. Things beyond my control left me feeling extremely anxious, depressed, and socially isolated from my peer group and friends. September and early October ended up being some of the worst weeks in recent memory, and I suffered my first anxiety attacks because of how I felt I was being treated in relation to this whole situation. I decided to do something about this, and finally found my own reasons to seek out and use meditation and positive psychology principles in my daily life. These are things that I've been adding to my "toolkit" over the past few years for professional reasons, but finally saw reasons to apply them to my own life. The improvement could not have been more amazing! Daily meditation, daily gratitude, journalling using positive psychology techniques, and more has seen a complete turn around on my anxiety and depression. Though I still have my ups and down, the highs are more constant and the lows are no where near as bad. I feel happier and healthier now than I have in years!
The month started out with a wonderful visit from my sister and my nephew. Living out in Lakefield means that I don't get a lot of visits from family as I'm more than a 3 hour drive from everyone except my brother, and he's got a packed schedule at Trent. I really enjoyed getting a family dinner with Lindsay, Sam, and Fraser in Peterborough, and then being able to give Lindsay and Sam a tour of the place I've called home for the last two years. Getting to show off my nephew to all my friends and colleagues here was an added benefit; he's pretty darn cute!
November 9th saw me with my bags all packed and hopping on a bus for Washington, DC with an en route detour through Gettysburg, PA. This is the third time I've been leading this trip and it's one of my absolute favourites as I find it has the right pace, great options, amazing museums, and (usually) much better weather than home when we're there. This year was a little colder, and it was a much bigger group than previous years, and still managed to be the best trip yet. As always my highlight was dinner in Georgetown and eating the best lobster risotto at Martin's Tavern, which has some amazing history and a very prestigious list of regular guests.
This month also saw me back into the residences for the first time this school year, covering both my old res and one that was completely new to me. It really made me realize how much I miss being involved in the house on a regular basis. The connections I was able to make with my boys and with the student population in general were a lot different in a residential role when compared to my current classroom relationships. I don't necessarily feel like one is better than the other, I just found that I felt like I had a much deeper stake in the growth of my Ryder boys as a whole compared to my students in the classroom.
Somewhere in all that there were also report cards to write, tests and assignments to give out, collect, and mark, a PD trip to Toronto for Teacher-Librarians (something I'm more convinced that I want to pursue after that), and all the regular day-to-day teaching, coaching, and evening support. I found myself getting home after a lot of 14-15 hour days feeling accomplished and happy with the choices I've made and the things I've done, which I think goes a long way to show just how much I love this job.
On a more personal note, I made some significant growth in my resiliency and major improvements in my mood and attitudes towards life. For personal relationship reasons, coming back to work this September was extremely challenging for me. Things beyond my control left me feeling extremely anxious, depressed, and socially isolated from my peer group and friends. September and early October ended up being some of the worst weeks in recent memory, and I suffered my first anxiety attacks because of how I felt I was being treated in relation to this whole situation. I decided to do something about this, and finally found my own reasons to seek out and use meditation and positive psychology principles in my daily life. These are things that I've been adding to my "toolkit" over the past few years for professional reasons, but finally saw reasons to apply them to my own life. The improvement could not have been more amazing! Daily meditation, daily gratitude, journalling using positive psychology techniques, and more has seen a complete turn around on my anxiety and depression. Though I still have my ups and down, the highs are more constant and the lows are no where near as bad. I feel happier and healthier now than I have in years!
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