Monday, September 15, 2014

Letter to Richard - 15 September 2014

15 September 2014

Dear Richard

Last week I finally managed to start getting my life back in order :) I got my office sorted out, and I got lots of things ticked off on my to do list, even if quite a few of them were later than my original deadline. But at least they got done, and I’m happy with how they turned out. One of the things was creating a brand new module for my course, which is always difficult to do, but I think I put something together that will work well. My students also wrote their third term test on Wednesday, so it was a really long day for me, because I was at work until 20:30, but things went fine for me, and  things were also fine with Andrew at home with the kids, so all good :) And then it was on to the marking, but I’m doing well with getting through it so far. I also got my application in for my sabbatical, or study and research leave, for the first semester next year. It’s not an automatic thing that you’ll get the sabbatical, but I’m really needing to get my Masters done, so hopefully it will get approved!

What was really great last week though was that I got lots of unsolicited positive affirmation from a number of different people! I’ve been feeling quite down about how I was missing all of my deadlines etc, but on Wednesday 2 different people at work who I was talking to about my sabbatical for next year told me that I’m someone who can really get going on a project and work hard and produce results, and they’re both very confident that I’ll be able to do a lot on my Masters next year during those 6 months. I really needed that! And then the other thing was that yesterday at church I got a lot of separate positive feedback on my teaching too! We’re getting to the end of the Old Testament, and these lessons are much more difficult to teach than the earlier books which have familiar stories etc. But it’s good to know that I’m being appreciated :) Heavenly Father obviously recognised that I needed to have some building up!

I also had some stress because we hadn’t heard back from the lady that we were wanting Josh to go to for aftercare next year about the forms that we needed to fill in to get him registered. We went to her 3 months ago, and then when I sms’ed her about the forms she didn’t get back to me. I eventually phoned her nearly a week later, and she wasn’t in, and wasn’t in, and wasn’t in… But I eventually spoke to her assistant and she said I should come over the next morning. And Carol then told me when I was there that Josh is definitely on the list and everything is fine. Stressful! But at least it’s all fine now :) We were hoping that Josh’s friend Dane was also going to go to Carol, but that’s not going to work out, but Josh is very positive about it, saying that he’ll make new friends. Previously he would have fallen apart! And when I took the kids to the park by their school last week Josh realised that he’d forgotten something inside, and he was willing to go back inside without me and get it. Also big progress! My boy is getting all grown up…

We got to try out our new braai this weekend, and it works nicely :) We had Andrew’s parents and Alan, and his son, Luke, over for a braai. The kids all played together so nicely! It’s so great to see how our kids are getting so good socially :)

So a busy week, but things are at least coming under control now!

Love you lots :)

Shelly

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