My first week of official full time is almost over, I must say that I am feeling rather proud of myself. I have a revised job description that includes the Faculty newsletter, a new website project and I have also finished the first Module of my course. I have still managed to get to both my girls' netball games and can still find time to read and relax. I am extremely grateful to my family for their support with all of this, together we are a mighty unit.
(Please take a moment to look at my poetry page - there has been an update there too, Rebirth was part of my first Module submission. The requirement was to write poetry or prose that covered the 5 senses).
Things are going well and despite the chill of a wet winter that is digging in down here in New Zealand, I am feeling hopeful and even optimistic for the first time in a long time.
The greatest challenge is to get out of bed at 6:30am when it is a black as night and make coffee, once that sweet manna has slowly permeated my senses I can progress to actually putting on clothes. I am out the door by 07h15, okay 07h20(ish) and on the road. I arrive at work about 07h50 and after the inevitable dash in the rain I have my next caffeine fix. How does anyone manage without coffee? By 08h00am I am ready to go, go go! Before I know it is lunch time and then there is the wee push to get to 4pm. I dash through the rain once again and begin the drive home. All in all not a bad working week.
Pity that we now have to get up just as early on Saturday's for Megan's netball games - at 8am in Northcote! Worse still is the fact that her OTT coaches want them to be there 40 minutes before the game for warm up; followed by an hour match; followed by "warm down". Warm down? How do you warm down, surely it should be cool down and surely that could be done on the walk back to the car?
Grrrrrr OTT indeed, but that is not where it ends. After "warm down" they have a feedback discussion about how the game went, including individual comments for each player (yes lovely but I am tired and hungry) then they present 2 awards, Player of the Day (based on Stats); and Best Effort. This is all fair and reasonable until you hear the next part of the trauma that has become my weekends. They have a 2 hour team practice on every Sunday from 2pm to 4pm! Why, oh why can they not have the feedback session then?
Do I sound pathetic and ungrateful or justified?
To be fair you should to understand that in NZ all sport is done outside of school, essentially as sport clubs. The coaches and team managers are volunteers that receive no payment for their efforts. Games are almost always after hours so that parents can support their children. Netball is almost as highly regarded here as rugby, even boys and men can play, although not many do. So, we simply sigh and co-operate and try our best to seem grateful but I still think that 5 hours out of my weekend for netball is a big ask.
I should mention that Jenna also has netball practice on a Sunday, hers is from 3pm to 4h30pm, her matches are on a Thursday afternoon/evening also a Northcote netball club. Thankfully AUT is about 1km from there and so on a Thursday I can just go straight there from work.
In the famous words of Forrest Gump,"that is all I have to say about that".
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