The Tuesday Curse Continues

Bonus Challenge: To not make an ass of myself at work on Tuesdays (or any other day)

Result: Fail

Last Tuesday I set myself the challenge to act as a fully functioning adult at work after stapling my fingers and accidentally drugging myself the previous Tuesdays. As of yesterday I felt that my week had gone pretty well; I had taken on some extra responsibilities and had even managed to be reasonably well behaved at afterwork drinks. However, this afternoon my ability to not make an ass of myself took a serious blow. Of course, it was bloody Tuesday.

I have been feeling pretty dodgy the last few days as a result of erm..."lady problems". As if paralysing stomach cramps and splitting headaches aren't enough, I have been extremely tired to the point where I spent my entire Sunday and Monday afternoons in bed. Unfortunately, this afternoon during Year 5 Victorian history, the fatigue hit with no bed in sight. Perched on a stool in front of the whiteboard my eyelids began to feel as though they had been filled with concrete. Despite my best attempts, I could feel them drooping closed and my head bobbling like a buoy in the ocean. 

I'm not sure how many times I drifted off only to wake myself when my chin hit my chest, but it was enough times for the teacher I work with to notice. First, she moved her lesson away from the whiteboard I was dozing in front of to avoid any gossiping from the kids. Then, stifling her laughs, she started to drop comments into the lesson like, "has your character in your story ever fallen asleep and then woken themselves when their head dropped?" Finally, she put me out of my misery and sent me to get some fresh air with some photocopying. Admittedly, I had no idea this was occurring at the time; I thought my sneaky snoozes had gone by unnoticed. I realised this wasn't the case when she began laughing at my misfortune with another teacher after class.

Moral of the story is I'm not going to be winning TA of the year any time soon. This was reinforced when I was quizzing the children on a poem about adulthood and one of the questions was, 'Have you ever met an adult who behaves like a kid?' They all just stared and eventually one of them pointed at me and silently mouthed 'you'. I know I should have told her off, but secretly I was kind of proud. I staple my fingers, I accidentally drug myself and I fall asleep in class. I don't have it together enough to be considered a fully functioning adult just yet...so what?

Troublesome Tuesdays

Bonus Challenge: Not to make an ass of myself at work on Tuesdays (or any other day of the week)

It appears that Tuesdays and I don't get along. For the past two Tuesdays I have managed to do something completely ridiculous at work, putting any credibility I had in the bin along with the kids' pictures of dragons. It is for this reason that I have set myself a challenge: to go an entire week without doing something straight out of the script of a bad sitcom.

Last Tuesday I was feeling a little under the weather after a big weekend. I had attended a barbecue with a friend which somehow turned into me dragging myself home from the pub around 5am. As a result I could feel that I was getting a cold so I decided to take some cold and flu tablets to ease my sinus pain. Not long after I had taken the tablets I was overcome with a sense wooziness, bringing me to the horrible realisation that I had taken the nighttime tablets instead of the daytime ones. I could feel myself swaying gently in the classroom like a bear shot with a tranquilliser gun and the children's confused and concern filled eyes fixed on me. However, when they asked, 'are you ok Miss?' I was unsure whether it was appropriate to explain that I had accidentally drugged myself.

I managed to make it to lunch time where I hauled myself to the staff room to rest my befuddled head. Before I knew it I was fast asleep, only to be woken by a hand gently shaking me to make sure I was ok. It wasn't enough to make me open my heavy eyes though, so I lay there, semi comatose and listening to other staff members suggest that they draw on my face. Eventually, I began to drift off again only to be woken by another soft shake. Assuming it was my friend I gently opened my eyes to discover it was the teacher I assist telling me, "you have five minutes to sort yourself out then it's back to class!" Oops.

My instance today was a little less dramatic. I was photocopying the children's homework for the week but unfortunately the staples in the copier ran out. I was manually stapling the sheets together when suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my middle and index finger. I looked down to see two tiny punctures spurting crimson all over the kids' worksheets and the responsible staples scattered on the desk. Trying to keep my cool, I grabbed a paper towel and attempted to continue stapling only to hear, "Miss you've got blood all over you...and my work." Apparently my paper towel wasn't doing the trick so I sulked off like a kid who had fallen in the playground to the first aid cupboard to find bandaids. Of course there were no small plasters for my dainty fingers, so I had to settle with the conspicuously large ones which prompted questions for the rest of the morning about my battle wounds.

Evidently I'm accident prone. This is probably the wrong type of person to be working with children, but luckily the only things hurt so far have been my fingers and my dignity. So over the following week I will endeavour to prove that I am in fact a fully functioning adult and get through next Tuesday conscious and unharmed.

Confessions of a Karaoke Queen

Challenge 2: KARAOKE!

When I first started reading the four challenges that inspired this blog, the easiest immediately appeared to be karaoke. I actually managed to tick it off the list within my first week of being in London, however I'm realising there's more to this simple task than meets the eye.

To provide a bit of background the exact wording of the challenge was, "KARAOKE (you can do this anywhere but you have a crazy good voice and its easier in front of strangers, especially if they're British)". My friend and I used to take music together as well as being choir nerds in high school. She would often accompany me on the piano for group assignments, so she knows better than anyone how nervous I get singing in front of people. I have no doubt that this deceptively harmless idea was presented to encourage me to take on the new and scary.

I was reminded of the karaoke recently as I've had a bit of 'new and scary' thrown my way. It was suggested by friends that I start going out and enjoying the London dating scene. As I'm 23 and have only been on one bad date in my life, this thought terrified me. The date was with a complete stranger who I met one night when collecting my drunk friends from a club. When he asked me out I was tempted to say no, but was encouraged by my girlfriends as I was only recently single and had never been on a date. The conversation throughout the dinner was nothing groundbreaking, but he was perfectly nice. It all seemed to take a turn when I thought it best to broach the subject of his age. I had spotted P plates on his car when he picked me up, but had naively hoped that he had taken his driving test at an older age. It turned out that the cute Irish tradey (no less) was in fact an adolescent and younger than my little brother. What's worse was his reaction to my age, making me feel undoubtedly like a cradle snatcher.

I think for me, singing is like dating. I have had some bad experiences of forgetting my words or losing my voice and as a result have become more and more timid performing in front of others. In both dating and singing my worries come from holding onto bad experiences and worrying about others' judgments.

As mentioned, I have ticked the karaoke box since the challenge was set. Once with my tour group in Scotland, and the other with an old friend and her mates in Soho after a pinot-feulled dinner. The latter involved masks of the royal family, a tambourine and a private booth and was actually a lot of fun!
So really karaoke has taught me that sometimes you just have to get over your fears of judgment or any bad past experiences and get on with it! All those worries disappear when you realise how much fun you're having. Also, a little wine doesn't hurt to loosen the inhibitions. I feel that all of these lessons should be applied to my irrational fear of dates. I'm sure my friend wasn't talking about dating when she said, "it's easier in front of strangers, especially if they're British", but I think her philosophy definitely applies to more than karaoke!