Once again I am apologising for promising a lot and then delivering so little!!
For someone who had ten weeks off work, then produces only one post...well, you could accuse me of being VERY SLACK!!!
I honestly thought that I'd have so much time on my hands at the start of the year, but time literally flew through my hands.
As my wife was still working full time, I made sure I put a nice dinner on the table each night. It meant I didn't have to rush it at the end of the day, and I took time during the day to prepare it.
I also had the time, and made the most of the opportunity for quality exercise during the day rather than rushing it at the end of the day as I usually did. This meant good walks, gym work, runs and cycling. I just loved it!!
Unfortunately, an old school friend took his life in February, and at his service I caught up with a number of other school mates who I hardly see. We all live across the state, so organising catch ups is often difficult. However, today we committed to making better efforts at seeing each other, and now that I was in a position to do this I made sure I'd make the most of the opportunity.
BANG!!!
My first visit a few weeks later was down to Mornington to visit my great mate Andrew Tunks.All was going well until I was about 40 minutes from his house on the notorious Monash Freeway in Melbourne.
It was peak hour and I was stopped in traffic in one of the middle lanes of the 4 lane freeway, when all of a sudden there was an almighty BANG and massive shunt from behind.
At first I had no idea what had happened, but then I realised someone had crashed into me.
It turns out that a truck ran into the back of a car, then shunted the car into the back of me.
Most importantly, no-one got hurt, but the car that hit me was written off. I sustained some damage that was eventually fixed, but it took the towies two hours to pull the damaged car off the back of mine.
And throughout this I had my mate ringing me wondering where the hell I was!!
Two hours of pushing and pulling was needed to get this car unhooked from the back of mine.
At least I could still drive mine afterwards.
A few weeks later I was off to Moama to catch up with another good friend, Dan Powell.
I'd only seen Dan once in the nearly 40 years since we were at school together, so it was just great to see him and go over old stories about our boarding school days.
There was one story he told me about when he decided to use the private showers of the Brothers who ran the school one night rather than clump through the cold to the shower block that we all used. How he didn't get caught (although he came within a whisker) still baffles me, and hearing him tell this story had me in fits of laughter!!
How good was it to see Dan Powell again, and hear one of the funniest stories I've heard about our boarding school days!!
Then a few weeks later I got up one morning, wondered what to do, so took off on my motorbike to visit another mate, Doc Wellwood, who runs a pub up in the Victorian highlands at Tolmie.
Once again, a great few hours with a longtime friend spent recalling all of the stupid, funny and dangerous things we got up to at boarding school.
The iconic Tolmie Tavern, get there if you can!!
A stop at Bonnie Doon, a very famous Australian town!
A stop at the Colbinabbin Hotel, another pub my family owned.
The amazing host at the Tolmie Tavern, Doc Wellwood!!
More Job Changes...
Well Readers, after a few weeks on leave I must have started to wonder what else I'd do this year.
Lo and behold, a maths position was advertised with the State Education Department, teaching maths to Year 10 students who were way below the national minimum standards.
I managed to get appointed to this role which I was excited about as it promised so much, and was exactly what I do best.
Unfortunately, it didn't really work out as I had to travel between three schools, sometimes all 3 in the same day to get to see my students. Due to conflicting timetables, it also meant that I was only seeing students 1-2 times a fortnight, 4 times at the most. This is clearly not enough contact time to achieve much with these students, so I regretfully resigned a few weeks ago and finished up last Friday.
But all is not bad, as I have already been appointed to teach a STEM program a few days a week at two schools that I have previously worked at, something which I am very excited about.
I'm also trying to develop my own Maths Consultancy business, which is rather challenging as it is such a competitive market with so many quality educators out there. I just need to get my name out there and hope for the best.
A clip promoting my website and business.
And another showing some work being done with teachers at a conference.
So Readers,
If you do watch the clips, you might want to have a look at my website.
You'll see that there is a Blog on the website also.
Yes, I can hear you already..."You can hardly keep this one going, so how will you manage a second blog?"
Trust me, I'll keep that one going as it might need to feed me!! It is also a more 'serious' one, and there's no way the type of content I put in this blog would be acceptable for my work blog.
Go to mathsconnection.com.au
Once again, I'll try to be more consistent with this blog, but I've said that many times before. Time will tell!!
If anyone does have a look at the other site, please feel free to give me some feedback.
Even better, book me up!!!!!!
As always Readers,
Until my next post...
Cheers!!
