Being A Reflective Practitioner...

Right so- it's been a while... My sincerest apologies for the delay- this annoying 'Postgraduate Diploma' was a bit of a hindrance over the last few weeks... but now... I'm.... FREEEEEEEEEEEE!!! And what helped my through it? 





And I would be remiss in not thanking all my family and friends too- thanks xxx


But enough of that... here's the last 5 weeks condensed into ONE post- it's like your getting more bang for your buck.


Week 12 - Learn Spanish for a week


Difficulty: 3/5 
Overview/Rant: Spanish is awesome. I had a lot of fun learning it at this brilliant website found here. It a teaching website that is completely free and has really helpful tutorials. I spent about 15 hours learning the language, which over a week is considerable I think. Completed 5 online lessons and feel I got a good understanding of creating day-to-day verbs and sentences. In terms of getting in touch with my Spanish speaking friend(s), I totally screwed that up with the whole 'life' getting in the way. So yeah- you can give this challenge the olde 'Epic Fail' stamp if you like- personally- I think Senor Juevo more than made up for the lack of success.


Oh- Senor Juevo died after he tried to make a run for it... yeah.. sorry about that... he did survive another 2 weeks though...




Week 14 - Record a song in a week


Okay- originally I was supposed to WRITE and record a song in a week... but yeah- life was busy. I DID write a chorus and verse which were both quite good- but totally didn't relate to each other... so that was scrapped. Instead I recorded a song I wrote about two years ago. Anything which sounds remotely good is all thanks to a certain Mr. Keith Burke with his awesome recording skills and even awesomer hair.


Here's the song- feel free to abuse it to no end. I know it's not perfect- but anything that sounds remotely good is down to Keith's editing skills. 


Special Thanks: Keith Burke for giving up his time to edit the track. Check out his own stuff here. (check out the hair while you're there) Also thanks to Laura for attempting to help me write lyrics. 


*** Note: For some reason youtube is being douche- I'll repost the link once it's working. Apologies for delay.




Week 15 - Buy the Lotto for a Week

I spent a total of €24 on the lotto this week (€4 quick picks in every store I walked into that week). Zero winners. My personal hatred of the lotto comes from the fact that it gives you this false belief that you're holding on to the winning ticket. You're sitting on the bus and you're looking around at strangers thinking "Sh*t, that dude knows I'm holding the winning ticket... okay... just be cool, get off at the next stop and wait for another bus..." 



In future I'm going to spend the €24 on pints, get drunk and imagine how awesome it would be to win the lottery... I might also buy myself a panini with the remaining euros... 


It could be me? It IS me... living the dream...




Week 16 - No Caffenine for a week

Difficulty: 4/5
Overview/Rant: Anyone who knows me knows 3 things... 1.) I can be grumpy, 2.) I can be tired and 3.) points 1.)and 2.) are dictated purely by what degree of caffeine is present in my system. No amount of loving family or friends can replace the caffeine fix I so need. I found this out the hard way... 


Monday - Wake up at 6:00am... "Feeling okay- wouldn't 'mind' a cuppa tea, but sure- I'll drink some hot water." 11:00am... "Man, is it me or have the students got more annoying..." 2:34pm... "Wow, what do non-tea drinkers do with themselves?" 


Tuesday - "No feelings of wanting tea... ha... maybe it's easy to give up tea. I CAN DO THIS! Maybe I should give up tea and coffee for good, I mean- who needs em?"


Wednesday - "Oh my god... what is this feeling in my brain? It feels like someone is cracking open my skull with a jackhammer... I feel ants behind my eyeballs and there's definitely a leprechaun making an appearance in my peripheral vision..."


Thursday - "MUST RESIST URGE TO KILL EVERYBODY!"


Friday -  (Steve sits huddled in a corner) "I'm a little tea-pot short and stout..."


Suffice to say- no caffeine had two major noticeable effects...
1.) I got incredibly bad headaches...
2.) I slept like a baby... (that's to say "I slept well" as opposed to "I cried all night and wet myself")


But... *dilemma*... is a good night sleep worth giving up caffeine... science would say "Oh god yes..." but what do I say... (Steve downs his tea, some of it dribbles onto his chin) ... the short answer is 'no.' The long answer is best said by... 







Week 15 & 16 - Finishe PGDE and get Blog up to date...


DONE... quite challenging. I finished my Postgraduate Dimploma in Education- I'm going to be a fully qualified teacher in a month or so.... uh... god help the children... well guess that's another 2 weeks challenges done... *cough cough*


"But wait one second!!!" (I hear you say with anger and confusion) "We were promised 52 challenges?! Surely finishing your course doesn't count? And updating your blog is a bit of a cop-out?!" 


Well my angry and confused friend.... 52 challenges you shall GET... although I'm gonna have to double them up during the summer (heck- maybe even triple those bad boys) because I'm finding it incredibly difficult to balance them with the rest of my life at the moment- so I'm EAGER to do them- but I want to do them justice! Worry not though- challenges will be undertaken down the line... with gusto (and possibly pesto... dunno why)... and 52 challenges will be COMPLETED... or so help me god- I'll kill somebody...


That's my cue to get some caffeine...


Cheers for reading. Thanks to people who've read so far and please keep sending me on challenges! Mucho gracious! 


Oh- this weeks challenge is to learn tai-chi... 


Steve out.

Eggcellent

Firstly... yes... I went there... and I'll be staying there for quite some time...

Challenge: To keep an egg alive for a week while keeping it on my person at all times.

Difficulty: 4/5

Skills developed: Responsibility of something extremely delicate.

Overview/Rant: So, was it all it was cracked up to be? You wanna hear about my eggcellent adventure with the egg? Tuesday last I was set the task of babysitting an egg for a week by a gentleman named Charles Beastley- I thought to myself: "What's this yoke on about?!" So without further eggistation I began the challenge of protecting the egg from the outside world.

In keeping with the Spanish concept- I decided to name my egg Senor Juevo (Mr. Egg). Senor Juevo was sophisticated, beautiful and delicate. He poached himself quite a few ladies in the past, but all ended up running in the end. He seemed hard on the outside, but underneath his shell was a gooey centre... as I discovered on day two...

Senor Juevo had an adventure in my coat pocket... I can't be sure of the details- all I know is he eggploded with joy... we did our best to save him but even my dear friend Benedict couldn't unscramble this mess...

A ceremony was held for Senor Juevo one hour later. There were candles, a prayer and a fry up...I resigned myself to failure... I was to be alone... but everything wasn't as it seemed...

Senor Juevo was back... how could this be?

Senor Juevo... was... a... Cylon*... there were many copies... each containing the memories and eggperiences of the previous models...

Unprepared for this, I inadvertently killed the second Senor Juevo only hours after his first death. Appalled at what I had done, I begged the gods to entrust me another Senor Juevo to protect... and the gods were obviously low on applicants that day because sure enough another Senor Juevo arrived on my doorstep.

Having moved on from my shell shock of seeing (and killing) two Juevos in two days, I promised to treat this Senor better than all the rest; I took him sightseeing in the city, shopping in St. Stephens Green and I cooked him a beautiful slap-up meal. TONIGHT I'm taking him to see the eggcellent production "HAIR" starring some of my amigos (Good Luck!). Senor Juevo recommended it after reading about it here.

Recommendation: Certainly a challenge. I'd give it a goo! Oh- an actual recommendation would be to wrap the egg in a plastic sealable bag- that way it won't destroy your clothes when it cracks.

Conclusion: So- this challenge would seem an EPIC fail... BUT- I've succeeded in keeping this egg alive for 5 days now and I'm going to CONTINUE to keep this Senor Juevo (numero 3) alive for as long as possible. Although, he may be so eggcited about the show tonight that he'll... f*&k it, I can't keeping using puns... you get the idea....

Next/Current Challenge: So- I still haven't written about the 'Spanish' challenge! Well the reason for that is I'm speaking with my Spanish speaking friend tomorrow/Thursday over the interweb. So I'll update when I get some external feedback. Also- my challenge this week is to write and record a song in a week. It can be whatever I want it to be, but it must be of some reasonable sound quality. So far I'm stumped for what to sing about so suggestions are always welcome!

* This is referring to Battlestar Galactica... if you haven't watched it then now would be a good time to punch yourself if the face as you've missed out on potentially the most amazing show ever... EVER! Actually on that note...

Finally something to moan about...

Challenge: To avoid 'moaning' for a week...

Difficulty: To avoid moaning - 3/5... to avoid complaining - 5/5...

Skills developed: An increased sense of self awareness... also- an increased ability at lying to myself...

Overview/Rant: Right- this may seem like a weird challenge to undertake... avoid 'moaning' for a week... BUT I ask you (the sexy reader) to consider the implications of this endeavor... to NOT moan, about anything, for an entire week... Sentences like: "God I'm tired," "Ugh, I have to go to work..." or "I feel real crappy" are exempt from your vocabulary.

Now- to say I epically failed this challenge would be the understatement of the century. (I actually moaned about how hard this challenge was... thus failing it drastically... then proceeded to moan about how I'd failed it by moaning.) You may ask yourself, "Well that sounds like a stupid challenge..." and you'd be perfectly entitled to your opinion (and a smack in the face) BUT the reasoning behind my undertaking of the challenge was to establish if I could AVOID moaning for a week. Could I become more self aware of how I portray myself to other people? Do I (we) moan at times when actually I (we) realistically have nothing to moan about? How does moaning affect my (our) friends and loved ones?

So in essence I decided that I would take a step towards being a positive person by avoiding to moan at all costs for the entire week... and like I said... I failed... miserably. BUT- I did keep track of how my moaning can really bug other people- and I think I've concluded that there is a very small, but VERY IMPORTANT (hence the capital letters) difference between 'moaning' and 'complaining.'

I feel, and I invite arguments here, that moaning and complaining are two very different things. Basically it comes down to 'why' you say something. The difference, I think,  between the two is that complaining 'should' be a constructive exercise- you vocalize your problem or issue in the hope of finding a resolution. The aim being that the other person can choose to assist in solving your problem or listening to you come up with possible solutions. The tone and manner in which it is spoken is highly relevant- it must be said with a positive outlook, i.e. that you know there is a solution to the thing that is troubling you... and so on and so forth... (what a great sentence for tying up an argument when you know you're running in circles...)

Moaning, on the other hand, is where you vocalize your problem with the hope of getting sympathy and/or attention. For example: "I'm exhausted..." Like- I'm sorry- but WHAT THE HELL is anybody supposed to do with that?! "Oh- you're tired... okay- here's an idea- GO TO SLEEP!" While this may seem a teeny bit insensitive... part of me says - well- is the insensitivity coming from the person who moaned or the person who had to listen to the moan? Moaning is in effect a negative thing- moaning begets moaning (so glad I finally got to use 'beget' in a sentence) While my definition for complaining may seem like a cop-out and a way of saying that "I wasn't moaning, I was complaining... it's constructive..." I do think its an important difference to note and I think its the crucial difference between portraying a negative or positive attitude. At the end of the day you have to ask yourself- am I moaning for the sake of moaning? Does my moaning actually make me feel better? Does my moaning 'effect' ('affect'- someone help me out there) the people around me?

So- that's my moaning about the issue... done.

May not seem like much of a challenge- but hey- you can moan about that in the comments section...

Fun Things: Through the week though- and the contemplation of moaning- I feel I've come up with the most common reoccurring types of moan...

DIRECT MOANING - this is where you directly moan to somebody about whatever is bothering you... examples include "I'm tired," "I'm hungry" and "My foot is killing me from kicking that kid in the crotch." It is the basic of all moans. 

SOLO MOANING - this is where you moan to yourself about something, realize that there's no one around to listen and immediately set out to find someone to listen to your moaning...

INDIRECT MOANING - this is where you moan about something unrelated to what's bothering you... like waiting at a bus stop and moaning about the weather, when really its the fact you have to get the bus that is bothering you.

ORGASMIC MOANING - obviously an acceptable type of moan...

THE "MAKING CONVERSATION" MOAN - a strange device used during awkward silences... examples include "Isn't the weather awful?" and "Don't you hate Mondays?"

THE TRYING TO GET OUT OF DOING SOMETHING MOAN - this is where you moan to try get out of doing something. This moan can actually turn into complaining as it sometimes is followed by a solution to said problem. For example: "I don't wanna go to lectures... let's go eat ice cream instead!" Now- this is a mix of moaning and complaining. I let it slide because there's ice cream involved.

THE "RHETORICAL QUESTION" MOAN - this is where the moaner hits the moanee (the person who is forced to listen to a moan) with a rhetorical moaning question to introduce the topic they're about to moan about... the moanee is left powerless to avoid the upcoming moan... "Don't you just hate it when the guy of your dreams asks you on a date and you say yes and then realize that you've got nothing sexy to wear and you haven't shaved your legs in days and then you're worried that he might already be eying up a younger fitter.... blah blah blah"

THE "SIGH" MOAN - this is a louder than usual 'sigh' followed by a large exhale of air... this moan says "No seriously- I'm not moaning, I'm just breathing out air... it can be tiring at times... I'm grand... don't worry about me... I'm just going to ride a tandem bike by myself now..."

THE "IT'S TOUGH BEING AWESOME" MOAN - this is where someone moans about how hard it is being the person 'their friends always rely on' or how they're exhausted from hours of charity work or how their legs hurt after running 15 miles in 7 minutes... they moan but secretly love having a one-up on you for being a much better human being. This moan says "Oh me- when I'm not busy saving someones life or doing a million sit-ups I'm usually teaching blind kids how to see... but you haven't commented on how awesome I am recently so I'm going to pretend to complain to remind you of how awesome I am. I am awesome... and humble... which only makes me that much more awesome"

THE 'MOANING ABOUT MOANING' MOAN - this is usually done by someone in blog format who has way too much time on his hands...

Recommendation: Try it- seriously try to avoid moaning for a week. I found that once I accepted the fact that it wasn't beneficial in any way I actually started to feel a lot better about the whole thing. If you're not going to try it then at least try keep count at the number of times you moan in a day. You may be surprised...

Conclusion: Definitely a challenge. 

Special Thanks: Rebecca who listened to me moan relentlessly while I was sick on Monday. To Mum and Dad for their support, and mocking, of my attempt at not moaning.

Next Challenge: It's still mystery March- so I can't divulge BUT I will tell you that the next challenge is going to involve everybody I meet so it should be quite interesting.  May the games begin...

Random Thoughts: Try google image searching "moaning" or youtube-ing it... seriously... it's ridiculous...

But aside from that- it lead me to this song... which I'm liking- it's also ANIME-tastic...

I don't know what I been told...

... running in frost is mighty cold...

But these guys are taking the...

Challenge: To train and complete the necessary fitness requirements for the Irish Army.

Difficulty: 4/5 to pass. 5/5 to ace it.

Skills Developed: Self loathing... if that's a skill...

Overview/Rant: Right, so this challenge is clearly explained here. (Also- just learned how to do that here thing... as opposed to that there thing...) But for those too lazy to click on the link(s)- here's a simple breakdown of what's involved...

* A one minute sit-up assessment

* A one minute push-up assessment

* A 3.2km run

* A 10km hike with a weighted rucksack

If you check the site- you'll see that each part of the assessment has gradings 1-6. You HAVE to complete the 10km hike in 1hr 33minutes and you must get an average grade of 4 to pass. So you add up your grades and divide by three to get your final grade.

So how did I do....

54 push-ups in a minute

42 sit-ups in a minute

17minutes 54 seconds to complete 3.2km run

1hr 28minutes to complete 10km hike

That translates to 1 + 1 + 6 = 8... which leave me with a grade 3 overall... so I'm ARMY FIT... apparently... 

Hardest Part: Getting up at 7am to go for a 10km hike through FROST... seriously ridiculous... also- my pack weighted 15kg which was a bit of a b**ch... and had I been found dead in the forest they would have opened my bag to find the following... 

Recommendation: Do this if you a.) want to work out what level of fitness you're at or b.) hate yourself.

Conclusion: Respect to the Irish Army- they have to do this test every year to ensure they keep high levels of fitness. I don't see why this isn't introduced into the Gardai force as it's a fairly simple test to arrange and it only takes about 2 hours... I don't know if you've ever seen the Gardai training fitness requirements but its fairly hilarious by comparison...

Special Thanks: Laura Rooney for her sound advice the day before: "Steve, shouldn't you like train for it before just going out and doing it?" Yes Laura, yes I probably should...

Next Challenge: Since I haven't had a great suggestion for fitness in a while I've decided to make learning my piano pieces for my grade 3 exam my next challenge. The 'judge' of my success shall be one Susan Bourke, who is known to her students as 'The Destroyer...' 

... I'm going to be in trouble for that... :-)

Random Thoughts: Watch this if you get the chance- it's brilliant.

V is for Vagitus*

Challenge: To learn violin and be able to play a popular tune by the end of the week.

Difficulty: 4/5

Skills developed: I learnt the basics of violin and violin upkeep. I also improved on my playing by 'ear' AND I learnt how to upload youtube videos... which take ages by the way... and I learned a new word- 'vagitus*'... 

Overview/Rant: This challenge was very enjoyable. I love the violin and learning to play it was really fun. The string layout of a violin is similar to that of a guitar, provided you strip it of its higher strings and leave only the G, D, A and E string. This makes learning the notes relatively quick and easy, although unlike the guitar you don't have the aid of frets to help identify where to place your fingers, thus making it quite challenging at times. Realistically you want to have a good ear to identify when you're hitting the correct note or whether you're a semi-tone off.

The hardest part of the violin, in my opinion, is the bow technique. Granted it looks simple when you watch someone else do it, but trying to keep the control and not allow your hand quiver over a note is extremely difficult to do. In the end I found I was concentrating completely on the bow and hoping my fingers would hold the correct notes at the correct times. 

A fantastic modern day violinst, that you should totally (like omg) try catch, is Nigel Kennedy. He is a stylist b**tard who has no airs about himself. I got the opportunity to see him perform several years ago and it was one of the best gigs I'd ever been too. During the performance he heckled an audience member who turned up late, "You just missed the whole f**king concerta!," and he played a mix of classical and popular pieces (you can find him doing Jimi Hendrix covers on youtube). A really brilliant showman who makes classical music interesting and fun to watch. He also succeeds in eliminating the pompous attitude often associated with classical music. Here's one of his classical covers of Vivaldi's "Spring." (Those who sat the Junior Cert music exam around 2003 should be pretty familiar with this one!)

Suffice to say- I did not achieve this standard of playing. The melody I attempted to learn was the opening credits to the Buffy spin-off show 'Angel.' Below is how it should sound. 

Take note that the 'Angel' theme is played on a viola which has a lower register than the violin. So everything I play will sound distinctly higher pitched... and shitter... here is what I came up with... we'll call this attempt number six thousand and two...

Okay- so it's far from perfect- but I'm pretty happy/exhausted with it...

Recommendation: Really enjoyable- if you're interested then it's easy enough to get started. There's tons of online tutorials which were helpful and its a very easy to learn the theory to violin. Practically it's as difficult as any musical instrument and will require tons of practice to get anyway decent. 

Conclusion: Awesome challenge- a good mix of enjoyment with difficulty. Seriously considering buying a violin now...  

Special Thanks: Susan Bourke for providing the violin and assistance! I did my best when taking care of the violin... it was touch and go there for a while though...

Next Challenge: Knitting- gotta learn to knit and knit me a scarf in a week! Anyone interested in joining me then let me know! Nothing like a good olde stitch and bitch! http://stitchnbitch.org/

Random Thoughts: The violin is a fantastic tool for demonstrating how the frequency of a stretched string is inversely proportional to its length... aaah physics... is there anything you can't do?

* Vagitus - a baby's cry or wail...