Day 16: Biggest Accomplishment

Gawd! All this banging on about how ace I am. It’s getting hard to handle.

I initially thought of writing about getting first class honours and being accepted in to the PhD program at Deakin. This was a big achievement for me, and something that I was proud of, but it’s probably not my biggest accomplishment.

Then I thought about Nic and what I see as the very successful, happy & supportive relationship we have cultivated but the term ‘accomplishment’ indicates to me something that is finished and, of course, all relationships are a work in progress. Besides, how sappy would that be as a blog post?

So, really, when I think about the thing I’m most proud of accomplishing I think about sitting next to an ex-student of mine, Vanessa, at her house that was bubbling with family and friends celebrating the naming day of her youngest son. She made a point of thanking me for my role in her life as an English teacher and a friend; as someone who supported her through some tough times at the same time as helping her to improve her grammar. She said that I made a difference to her and that is something that I’m very proud of. That’s my biggest accomplishment.

2011

I'm taking a bit of a leap and have decided to try to take this writing game a little more seriously than I have in the past. 2011 will be a year of words. And I've gone with a new background for the new year.

This year I'll be focusing on being a marriage celebrant and writing, I've taken twelve months leave from teaching so that I'll have the time to actually focus on something other than school. Ridiculously, I already miss the students but I won't miss the correction and reporting.

Being a teacher (in the past), I've decided I probably need a timetable or I may end up frittering away all my time shopping on anthropologie.com or chatting to other time-wastey people on facebook. My list for daily inclusions is:

• coffee (not sure it needs to go into the timetable since nothing happens until coffee does anyway but I'll slot it in, that way I can tick something off my things to do everyday even if it all goes pear-shaped from there)
• shower (again, it's about ticking off things - I promise I would have a shower even if it wasn't on the timetable)
• reading time
• writing time
• editing time
• celebrancy time
• household jobs
• jobs at Lady's Pass (when the house is done this will include becoming a painter since we are doing all the internal painting)
• lunch and coffee breaks

Now all I need is somebody responsible enough to sort out the timing of these things so I don't end up with 90% of the day dedicated to drinking coffee and eating lunch... help!