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...

Lost in translation...

Right- so I succeeding in spending 10 whole minutes trying to learn Spanish last week... in my defense- I was working on my assignment... which I finished... although I've a second one to do... *sigh*  

BUT REGARDLESS - I'm going to do a double whammy of tasks this week to make up for a lack of epicness last week... so my TWO challenges to do this week are...

* Learn Spanish in a week ... and actually attempt it this time...

* Keep an egg alive

The task of keeping an egg alive requires the following... 

1.) An UNCOOKED/UNBOILED egg.

2.) Placed in a plastic zip-lock bag to protect my clothing should it crack.

3.) Must be on my person or next to me at all times.

May the challenge - actually -commence...