I Am 31

OK… I’ve been writing this one for a while. Forgive my tardiness, I need to get back into blogging (sounds odd saying that after last year – I’ve enjoyed my break too much!)

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This past week (yes, it was over a week ago I typed this), I had a birthday. I am 31.

It was a good birthday. My wonderful wife created for me a cake based on our cat. Here they are side-by-side. It’s hard to remember not to cut the breathing one.

In other birthday news, I now have a new camera. I’ve never really played around with a decent digital camera before – my last one was a simple point and click Kodak from the turn of the millennium – and I’m getting the hang of things. Kit is coming in handy as a willing subject for now, but I need to take it out into the wild soon!

At work, the focus remains on Literacy and Numeracy… I can finally see some pay off from all of this hard work, thankfully. However, there is still that hardcore of a few children who will not use capital letters or full stops in their work. The encouraging thing is that they can tell me where they should go, so that at least is a step in the right direction.

Soon it is internet safety day (11th February). A key part of my input with the children will be a video that I posted earlier this week (see A Message For Everyone). This utterly struck me as being one the best pieces of explanation ever. I have always used the phrase, “Once they’re said, words stay spoken,” a line from The Divine Comedy‘s Sticks And Stones, to explain the problems of name calling – but this video takes that idea one step further. Hopefully it will strike a chord with the children, seeing the reaction of someone on the receiving end of what is essentially cyber bullying.

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Elsewhere, Mrs Pitts has hurt her foot and that has been the reason for the delay in posting this really. I have been a husband of goodness looking after her. Things seem to be on the mend though.

I’m writing this on the day that Facebook turns 10. Back when I was 21, in 2004, I was still at university, still working for Debenhams, and I had a huge amount ahead of me – some of which I was aware of (the whole teaching thing), others not so aware of (conducting, drumming, all the maths I’ve learnt, the relationship I’m now in, the cat and fish I am now responsible for etc.). Other things haven’t changed much in that time. I still spent a long time on computers, still watch Formula One (I can’t think that I’ve missed any race in that time) and there is this site, still here now.

I probably have changed far more than I realise. Hopefully for the better.