Compostable Kate

I spent all of 2011 trying to get used to the fact my Dad was no longer around, having died suddenly in November 2010. It’s taken a lot of getting used to, and although I’m not altogether resolved to it, I don’t seem to be constantly reminding myself of his absence.  It’s been a long time since I lost a family member, and I definitely wasn’t prepared for Dad to go, even though he’d been ill for a number of years. He was only 65, after all. Dad and Alex, not long before Dad died. They got on extremely well!  Although I was literally incoherent with grief – after being bizarrely calm while my poor brother Damian was breaking the news to me – my awesome friends, Karen and Steve, came and collected me and my furkids, and looked after me for several days while I processed the news. As Dad lived in the UK, and I am in Australia, I couldn’t be there for my family, and I wasn’t able to attend his funeral. However, I was in constant touch with my siblings, and my Mum (who w...

I'm pretty sure that I learned far more on my prac than the students I was teaching. Some of it will stand me in good stead for my next prac, and for when I am a fully-qualified teacher. Some of it was very disappointing and disallusioning. One of the first things I learned was that my supervising teacher no longer wanted to be a teacher, but was sticking with it for a few more years, while her youngest child finishes high school. Another teacher in our staff room was only staying with teaching to boost his superannuation before he retired. Yet another teacher didn't speak to me during my four weeks sitting at the desk next to him, and seemed to dislike all students and the teaching of them. There were frequent discussions in there about students being "not very bright" and "unteachable", including one entire year. No effort was put in to teaching these students, as it was deemed to be a waste of effort. However, imaginative teaching was hampered ...

This is my own, personal story of my disability and how I have chosen to manage it. My thoughts and choices are in no way a judgement on anyone else's thoughts and choices.    I acquired my painful hip condition in my mid-20s, just after I had started as an undergrad at uni (I was a “mature” student, after failing school and going out to work instead), and started using a wheelchair after about six months of increasing pain and decreasing mobility (I was trying to keep going with my studies). I went through a lot of specialists (you name it, I've probably seen one), only to have no-one able to come up with a specific diagnosis for me. I have lots of weird stuff showing up on MRIs, bone scans, blood tests and x-rays, but nothing that can be put together and conveniently labelled. I was eventually referred to a rheumatologist, someone who specialises in joint issues. I saw the Professor Rhuematologist, and in our first meeting he angered me by saying that he thought my dis...

I haven't fallen literally on my arse for at least two weeks (had a bit of an incident in the shower at Hotel KaznSteve , but it didn't even leave a bruise, so it's hardly worth mentioning), but I have well and truly fallen down in a metaphorical sense. Fallen down and scraped both knees, and even though I'm 40 years old, I feel like crying to Mum about it. I came to this uni course full of confidence, straight from a job I felt I was good at, to do something that I was sure I would be great at. I felt that the stars and planets had all aligned to make my high school teaching ambitions come true, on the second time of trying. I was available, and – at QUT at least – qualified. I could get financial assistance from Centrelink (Austudy is more generous than Newstart, so it would marginally easier to survive without working). Friends and family all thought it was a great idea. Then I started. By the time I got over the physical shock of uni life I had fallen...

Today was Day One proper of my Graduate Diploma in Education, which will qualify me to become a high school teacher, specialising in senior English (supposedly; more of that later). Today, was EXHAUSTING! I have a 3-hour workshop from 8am , two hours off, then another 2 hours of lecture/tutorial. From next week, one of those 2 hours off will be taken up with another lecture, and I think I may even gain another tutorial from 5 - 7pm. So, although I am totally stuffed after today's effort, I got off lightly. There was a timetabling mix-up, which meant that 2 of our tutorials (or "tutes", to use the vernacular) were scheduled at the same time. I thought I had stuffed up my enrolment, so un-enrolled from one of the modules, but then found out this afternoon that I can re-enrol, because they are rescheduling the 2nd tute (thankfully, not to Mondays). However, if that does leave me with an 11-hour day, I might have to stay un-enrolled, and hope I can catch this other modu...

Obviously, unemployment equals a lack of money, and since I stopped working/volunteering at my last job (I was only paid for 2 and a half out of the 3 years I worked there) last November, money has become increasingly scarce (while I volunteered, the organisation paid my petrol and contributed to my internet and phone costs). Being really, really skint isn't fun, but that isn't the real reason I hate being unemployed. In fact, there are several reasons why I hate being unemployed. One reason is that I'm not used to it. I have been working since my teens, and have only been unemployed three times. Once when I quit college, after having left a great job to get my university entrance qualification. It was only briefly, as I found some casual work, and returned to college the next year, doing a different course. Then I was unemployed when I returned to Australia after graduating, but that only lasted a few weeks also (and how I ended up working as a telemarketer of all thing...