Tag Archives: writing

writing

Planning

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I’ve spent most of today planning out teaching schedules for the year. It’s been a little frustrating, but now that it’s done my life will be so much easier.

When I finished the overall plan, I realised that I should probably do the same with my various writing and yoga teaching projects — the bigger ones in particular. So tomorrow that’s probably what I’ll do.

Just now I’ve looked up yearly planners, and come across this one, which I really want. Because I work on so many different things at once, it’ll be good to be able use the whiteboard to plan one project, then put that plan in the documents I’ve made up elsewhere, wipe the whiteboard clean and start on the next project. Then when I’m done with everything I can put all the major projects up there together in brief. Woo.

Yeah. I’m a nerd.

Quick Saturday dinner

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I love revamping leftovers to make a quick new meal — and I’m always so pleased with myself when it works as well as it did tonight. Mushroom stuffing turned into pasta. Yummo!

I’m off tonight to have cocktails with a friend, and to chat about writing (and probably other, less artful, gossip!). What a perfect Saturday night.

Yum

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Over the weekend I went on a food tour in Sydney’s Bankstown with one of my housemates, as part of some research I’m doing for a story.

I learnt so much — about Bankstown’s culture, about food, about my own likes and dislikes.

I won’t go into any more detail just yet, but here are some pictures I took on the day. Yummo!

Teaching

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I never wanted to be a teacher. Actually, I was a little bit insulted when my careers advisor suggested it while I was still at school. I was an arrogant teenager then — I think my reluctance was partly because I thought that teachers didn’t “do”. Which is actually totally untrue.

And brings me to my point. Teaching has taught me far more — about writing, about words, about reading, about yoga, about myself than I ever thought was possible. Case in point: last week I taught a yoga class that was based around the theme of dharana, and I read out something from an old issue of the Good Weekend about how multitasking is actually really bad for our concentration. So of course I started thinking about how much I multitask. Or attempt to, anyway. And I realised that a lot of my frustration over the last few weeks at not getting anything done could simply solved by actually concentrating on one thing at a time, rather than flitting from one thing to the next and back again to the first.

I tried it this last week. I left the house so I couldn’t be distracted by the kitchen and its need to be cooked in, and I took one project a day up to my favourite cafe. I let myself be okay with the fact that I wouldn’t get anything done on the projects I hadn’t brought with me, and I put all my effort into the one I had.

I got so much done. And by the end of the week I really felt like I’d achieved something.

Teachers definitely “do”.

The other great thing about teaching is that you get to explore things you are interested in but might not otherwise have got around to looking at; and you get to re-visit other things you might not have had an excuse to otherwise. Last week I got to read both Friedrich Nietzsche and Roald Dahl.

Lucky

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Every now and then I realise just how lucky I am to be enjoying my days as much as I do. I’ll be honest: I’m poorer than I’ve ever been. But I can’t really complain because the work I’m doing is something I enjoy, and, more than that, I feel like it means something.

On top of that, because I do most of my work in the mornings and evenings, my days are slow, and usually see me pottering about the house cooking, writing, reading, researching.

Don’t get me wrong; I have regular moments of overwhelming fear or upset, when I wonder what on earth I’ve done (or how I’ll next pay rent). But when I find myself sitting down to a piece of toast and a cup of tea at four o’clock in the afternoon, or cooking myself a warm lunch, I can’t help but feel privileged to be able to live this way.

Today was one of those days. I had a productive day: I did a few loads of washing, I got my groceries done, I cleaned the bathroom, I cooked a couple of meals, I chatted to my brother on the phone for a couple of hours about life and thinking, and I did some yoga. Then it was dinner time. And now I’m doing some research for a class I’m teaching. My idea of a perfect Monday, really.

Follow your dreams, people. The obstacles along the way are well worth the struggle.

Slow Reading

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I found this article through Mad Bibliophile today. Interesting reading. It relates to a lot of the other things I’ve been thinking about recently, so I’ll try to write something longer about it at some point. Time is something that’s on my mind a lot lately, given that I’ve now got more of it.

But for now I’m off to get ready for a dress-up party!

Music

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This song is my current obsession. It somehow manages to make me sad at the same time as making me smile. I wish I could play it on piano (I used to play well, back in the day, but not so much now).

Amelie is one of my favourite films, but, until recently, I’d not thought much about the music. I’m not sure how, but at some point I kind of lost my connection to music. It seems to have come back (thankfully), and I’m reminded of another film soundtrack that I loved just as much as the film itself: the soundtrack to Pan’s Labyrinth.

I think the music I’m listening to probably changes how I write — and, in fact, I used to put particular albums on when I was trying to write an atmosphere into whatever it was I was working on. Clearly this needs further exploration…