I’m feeling inexplicably down in the dumps lately. I shouldn’t be, I mean what have I got to complain about? I’m fortunate enough to have parents who can (and will) support me, at the age of 31, while I re-train so I can get a ‘proper’ job. I’ve got a lovely flat, that I own and can afford to live in. I’ve got lots of friends – admittedly I’ve not seen many of my ‘3D’ friends for a while and I spend a lot of time socialising with my virtual Twitter friends, but I see them in real life too. I’ve only got 8 teaching days left in school until the Christmas holidays when I’m going to London for a week to stay with my brother and his wife and see loads of great comedy, and it’s Christmas soon and I get to see my Mum & Dad and I like Christmas….

And yet, still I’m miserable.

It’s probably something to do with being ill last week – I had quite a mild cold but just felt unbelievably tired (and I still do). So much so that I had three days off school, and then sat at home feeling guilty about it and not doing anything. I only left my flat twice between coming home from school on Tuesday afternoon and going back this morning, and both of those were to go to the supermarket. I felt like I was turning into my Grandma, who always used to say she ‘never saw a soul’ between my Mum’s visits. I’m grateful for all my Twitter friends because without them I really wouldn’t have spoken to anyone – well, apart from the man from E-on who came knocking on the door to try and make me change electricity suppliers.

The other thing is that I’ve got loads of university work hanging over my head. I’ve got a 3500 word assignment due in the first week of January that I’ve not even started. I need to do some ‘reading’ for it which means trying to squeeze in a trip to the uni library in Glasgow and I’m just not really sure where to start. I had my assessed lesson at school last week (where my university tutor came to observe me teaching and grade me) which I passed fine. All my placement up to that point had really been gearing up to that one lesson, and once it was done I let my body give in to the illness I’d been fighting, and also just seemed to lose motivation. And because I’ve generally been feeling a bit rubbish I’ve been having another small crisis of confidence in my decision to do this teaching thing in the first place.

Maybe this is ‘stress’ – that seemingly middle-class affliction that I’ve always mocked people for having.

Anyway, I just wish I felt a bit more normal again and could get my mojo back – whatever that may be. I must be feeling down because I even let Michael Legge’s teasing get to me in the Precious Little podcast tonight. I had recorded a couple of stupid jingle things on my ukulele – and I know they were rubbish because I’m not very good at it and I can’t sing – but I actually started crying when Michael made fun of them on the podcast. Mostly, just in that ‘I’m embarrassed and annoyed at you, and because I’m feeling a bit down anyway I’m going to cry’ kind of way, but there’s no need for that really. I should have expected it, and I shouldn’t have sent them in if I didn’t want them to play them (and it was pretty much a given that they would take the piss) but it still really upset me.

So, this has been a really uplifting post hasn’t it? Sorry about that. It’s really not like me. Writing this has helped a bit though. And now I just need to get through the next 10 days then I’ve got a week of fun ahead when I’m going to forget about school for a week (even though I should clearly be working on my assignment) and with a bit of luck I might run into Michael Legge and I can punch him really hard.


Normal service will resume shortly (I hope).