In the Thick of Things

Seems that the stress level in moving house is right up there with divorce and death. Throw in a recent birth and a career 'change' - from being a student to a teacher. Those are major events. Not so major ones (but still very significant) - finally finishing probation for worship ministry in church - I got to go on stage on the first service of 2007, Abigail starting school, Abby's poor eye health, Shalom's shocking episode of a leaky ear, getting a new car (we collected our Wish on Saturday), my stuff's not organised - everything's all over the place - at home and in school, the classroom's not done up, getting a foreign student who knows nuts about English in my already rather weak class (just kill me), having a handful of hyperactive kids in an already distracted class for my other class, taking double English for P4 not realising that i dislike hate nagging and repeating myself...

What a load.

My body's not taking it very well. Have been having headaches that's associated with the gas in the tummy. The more gas, the worse the headache. It doesn't help that I haven't been able to rest well coz Shalom's sick again and I'm on night shift. I'm shuttling between rooms in the middle of the night and I have to get up at 5 the next morning. I was almost late on Monday and Ben was stuck in a terrible jam coz morning traffic home was horrendous. Last night I resorted to sleeping in the kids' room. Thank God Shalom stayed asleep most of the time. The night before he kept waking up and fussing because of blocked nose (I guess) and at one point I jumped out of my sleep and caught him crawling away, almost off the bed. Another time he was falling off our platform bed, face stuffed in the gap between the huge feather pillow and the mattress.

And I have to get up at 5. If I get to sleep, that is.

Last night, I forgot to set my alarm. I woke up hearing the phone alarm from Ben's phone in the other room. Thank God, otherwise it'll be terrible. Didn't have enough time so I didn't pump in the morning. Was terribly engorged by 3.30pm in the afternoon. Had to rush back, with two huge stacks of chicken scratch to mark.

Workwise, I have been given the honour of being the level's English rep. The last time I remember feeling so stupid was when I was in the hotel. I lost my job because of prolonged stupidity. I am feeling that same kind of stupidity again. I'm expected to know EVERYTHING and how things run at the LEVEL REP level. Thank God there are very helpful colleagues to tide me through this time. The last thing I want is to affect my colleagues because of my incompetency - like getting the spelling list out. I'm already screwed for the minutes of the last meeting (not out yet), the spelling list (also not out) and the English worksheets (don't know what on earth they specifically are). See how screwed?

Tried to requisite for a laptop. The current batch is due for condemnation. I think I"ll take my iBook to work tomorrow. Forget about the various connection - the laptop I requisited was still opening up Microsoft word when I was at contact time today. Damn slow man. I could literally see my stress level meter increase with the laggy laptop.

It really helps to offload. I am feeling slightly better actually. Though I still feel like I'm close to tears, at least I'm able to press on and not give up. Out of all these things, the only thing that upsets me is that my body isn't coping very well - it is very disabling. The bubbles in my tummy seem to have stopped. Now I can start tackling these obstacles one at a time.

Oh, and did I mention that the non-shopper me has NO CLOTHES TO WEAR? And I HATE SHOPPING. Especially for shoes - coz I have gloriously big feet and I hate hearing "I"m sorry, we don't have your size." I don't usually pay full price for shoes coz we've been living on single income and cash isn't free-flowing. I usually wear shoes to their deaths and then literally drag my feet (Ben drags me actually) to get new shoes. So now, with work, I'm in serious trouble. No fitting shoes - my feet have been hurting - and only about 5 pieces of top to play around with. And I don't like to wear the same piece twice in a week. Help. What has added to the problem is that the new head requires female staff to be dressed in sleeved attire. So no sleeveless. 80% of my wardrobe is condemned. I've been watching my other female colleagues get around this obstacle - everyone's been wearing this short cropped jacket. I think I'll look really odd in it. I'm damn old-fashioned man.

Enough grumbling. Back to solution-focused management.

Oh. One good thing that happened today - I finally saw Abby in her kindy school uniform. Today's the fifth day of school. What a lousy mother.