Friday Half-Day

Today Lena has her last day at work before being based out of Gympie. As I have the half-day off, I was not at her afternoon tea which started at 3pm. So I had a short chat with her and do expect to see her when the different trainers and marketing people have meetings in the Board room at Nundah.

I went for a walk in the morning around the block opposite work, and found the Mayne Tigers AFL oval. It is opposite a unit block construction site and next to the Neighbourhood Activity Centre. The whole suburb has a very German and English aspect to it, apart from the cars parked on footpaths and Mum’s swearing at their children along Melton Road.

Dr Kamara did my regular skin check and wants to see me in four weeks to remove a spot and take some biopsies. She says I have had a spot removed from my back, but it is not an event that I can recall. Perhaps it was done at the Mater Hospital when I had day surgery with Dr Chris Pyke?

I felt better today after being unwell at work yesterday. The room where I sit becomes exceedingly stuffy with no air circulating. One part of the building becomes very cool when the air conditioning is set below 24 Celsius and all the other rooms become overly warm. It is important to have two desk fans running when there are people in my office, as it is quite overwhelming with the build-up of carbon dioxide and lack of circulation in the room.

 

Thursday Gym Day

This morning I had an appointment to talk to Simon about the gym. The receptionist let me go in early, so I waiting at the coffee shop. Simon did get me a small coffee. It was nice and they had awesome, gentle music playing as I came in to the gym.

After a tour of the facilities and a quick look at the ladies’ toilets and change room, I thought it was a very nice place and at only 20 months old, in great condition. There were lots of ads for PTs on the light box display in the foyer. It did not take too long for me to decide on joining up. So now I have my new gym pass and some extras thrown in as part of the welcome package.

Now, that morning, I had taken some Vitality Pack supplements that arrived recently on order from the aroma therapy company. Even though I only had Sultana Bran for breakfast, after taking the vitamins, I felt like I had just eaten steak. It was around 11 am though, that I noticed that something did not agree with me. Being at work it was a bit awkward, as I was physically ill, not once but twice. Afterwards I felt fine.

It was like I had to clean my system, probably from some slightly over-ready milk that was in the work fridge yesterday and I put in my tea. All in all it was quite an eventful day. A student attended training at our tutoring room. I joined the very nice gym across the road. I tried the Vitality Pack vitamins and will not need them again for a while as the effects will no doubt last for a few days.

My first appointment is for 7:30 am Tuesday morning. I have some 5-day passes that a student or two might find useful. The group exercise classes look great and the timetable is super-full. Hopefully, I can invite my work colleagues to visit the classes with me. I think it would be fun. Now to put my Diploma in Personal Training to good use!

Wednesday Training

I had two students for training today. It made the day rush past quickly. I was home having pumpkin soup followed by strawberries and cream before I knew it.

Friday is my rostered half day off, so I really look forward to that. Although I have lots to do tomorrow, I might visit the gym across from work to see what it is like there. From the photos on the web site it looks a bit thematic and cartoonish.

I would love to be able to take people as guests, though, as a way to build up PT experience.

The Man in the Rotunda

A colleague at work has taken to sitting in the park next to our place of work in the morning. He waves at me as I pass, so I have crossed the street to talk with him a couple of times this week. Two of the other trainers sit on the corner of Sandgate Road and Chapel Street, on the benches with little mosaics in the bollards.

It is amazing how few places there are for people to sit and write, apart from schools and libraries. I read of someone who rides on trains when he wants to read and write in the mornings. When I worked in the city my train ride to and from work was a great time to do study. Many an aspiring lawyer has taken their case and books on the city trains, as I have seen a couple on the Shorncliffe line.

Yesterday in my half hour lunch break I went to the local library and while reading the signs at the entry had to move further back while an elderly couple and a man with a bad leg tried to negotiate the six stairs leading up to the main lending floor. The children’s and newspaper area had about twelve stairs leading down to it. My work place also has a flight of old wooden stairs leading from the “Slightly Twisted Refreshment Lounge” to the front landing where the rain water tends to collect.

Monday with a Little Light Shining

After the weekend of finding out my thesis supervisor’s approach, I feel like a little light has been lit in a tiny part of the room where I have been looking for my thesis guidelines. We were warned about this during orientation sessions, but I did not even know why I was doing higher degree research, so I wondered whether it would ever be relevant to me.

Now it is relevant, as I try to make out what this has to do with my final draft. It seems a bit odd. I am immensely relieved, but have ten or more papers to read and a lot of editing ahead of me. As it costs about $300 to print out six copies of the thesis, I found a way to print it so that I just have to bind it at the university. That seems a long way away, though it should be very, very soon.

Today at work we were told that we are all permanent employees. We were also asked to book out Christmas holidays as the college will be closed for three weeks over Christmas. It is always a pleasure to have something like that to plan, so I will start looking at possible destinations for Christmas in England, Germany and possibly Italy.

The World of Fluid Concepts

Sunday was another day of researching, when I discovered more about my thesis supervisors and their approach to my topic. It finally fell into place, so I can understand where they were coming from. However, just because it is their point of view, I have no idea what it means for the topic that they gave to me.

Discovering this kind of means that my future days will be full of researching…. So mu for planning…..

Stetson Hats and our Prime Minister

Tony Abbott has been appearing in the news wearing a Texas Stetson, a gift when he visited the State with more citizens than all of Australia. The commentator said it would go in his luggage for the trip home. Perhaps he was hoping that it would not be worn to the airport. On consideration, that would be a wise move to stow the hat.

My Saturday has been interesting, as I asked about joining the gym across from work it is most likely affiliated with work, being Go Health and our work is Go Learn. Although, I think these businesses were basically set up to be sold for a profit. Steve called me and made a tentative appointment for 1pm Sunday to go in and take a tour of the facility.

The soccer World Cup is on television, so Dad will be watching it with enthusiasm. Then when Mum Skypes with Onkel Arnold, they discuss how Australia and Germany are going. Australia apparently has a difficult draw, so Dad will be talking about Chile and bribes, I think. Mind you, Brazil looks fabulous on the advertisements.

Uncle Eric has cancer that has moved to a bone, apparently. He was going in for tests a couple of days ago, and Dad has not checked back to see how they went as it takes a while for the results to come through.

Emotion Modulation Therapy

Yesterday evening I attended Dr Gioanni’s EMT session through the Queensland Guidance and Counselling Association’s Twilight Seminar PD series. He arrived a little late and the session went to 7:30pm. It was a great session, as he is a consulting psychiatrist at Griffith University and studied at the University of Rome.

EMT seems like a great therapy to use, and is in fact used already at some schools with guidance counsellors. I decided to listen to the Harvard Peak performance video delivered to students by an expert in the area. There are also some interesting articles about managing energy and related things

My Medical Doctor recommends writing for an hour in the morning and in the evening. This video seems to encourage 90 minutes on and a decent break, but in continuous cycles. He also recommends going for a run. He managed to fit in four of those sessions a day with more energy and engagement.

It is great advice from both Dr Gioanni, and Tony Schwartz who wrote “The Art of the Deal” with Donald Trump and “The Power of Full Engagement”.

Thursday Marking Day and New Chairs

We received some new student chairs for the tutorial room where Andrea and I sit, as well as the other open area and old kitchen where Merrilee and Bruce sit. That was the high point of the day. It being marking day, we were busy chasing things up.

I am trying out a blend of grapefruit, geranium and other oils which is supposed to help general wellbeing. Only one drop in a cup of water is enough to flavour the whole drink and the room. It leaves a beautiful, fresh, citrus fragrance for quite a while. I find that I eat less with this, but I think it is mainly the tingly taste that gives me something else to think about more than anything.

It also helps me to drink water during the day instead of green tea and a cup of coffee.

Without students coming in for training, the day was fairly boring. We do look forward to seeing our students and catching up on their news. Tomorrow is a half day Validation meeting. In the afternoon we might have some students if they are not cuddled up at home staying warm now that the temperature tends to drop below 20 degrees in the mornings.

Queen’s Birthday Holiday in Queensland

It was a great day for a holiday, except for dark clouds hanging over Mum and Dad who had me at home on a week day. I even took time out from writing my thesis to go shopping despite the absolute thunder storms and lightening hovering over Mum for the entire time.

When I finally got home after traipsing around Harvey Norman’s with a cardboard cut-out of a slice of bread for toaster-shopping, it was with a huge sense of relief. It took several hours for the thunder and lightning to subside, but outside it was a bright, sunny day.

I decided to look at multiculturalism in Australia, and was interested to see the European developments in this area, which are somewhat regressive. Jerzy Zubrzycki was the local expert in Australia right up until about five years ago when he passed away. It appears that the European and Australian positions, together with Canada is likely to have shifted significantly in recent times.

So I quickly applied for a research master’s candidature in the Faculty of Education at my university, printed out my thesis two pages to a side and started to look at multicultural policy.