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28 Minutes

1 March 2015 by shartley   

I was keen when I started #28daysof writing, meaning I was to write for 28 minutes each of the 28 days of February.   I managed 16 posts during the month.  I plan to do the final 12 over this month but we will see how that goes.  The lack of daily posts was partly because I was genuinely too busy on some days but on other days it was just tiredness and exhaustion of, well, work and life.  Sometimes I can be obsessive about things and I wanted to be about #28daysofwriting but sanity prevailed.

I was thinking about which 28 minutes of my particularly busy days would or could I give up.  It takes approximately 28 minutes for me to shower, dress and generally make myself presentable each morning.  I think that is necessary.

I take about 28 minutes to drive to and from school each day (around 33 mins to school and 23 minutes to home).  I could try to obtain a job at a closer school.  My daughter goes to the closest school to my house and takes, yep, about 28 minutes to walk there.  I wouldn’t drive it.

I generally arrive at school with about 28 minutes before the first class of the day to give myself time to gather my thoughts and equipment.  I’m on first period every day except Fridays.  I want to keep this time to ground myself each day.

At the moment I spend approximately 28 minutes a day attempting to de-flea the dog with a fine-tooth comb.  That I would like to sacrifice for the greater good of blog posting., if only it didn’t leave my dog in discomfort and my house flooded with fleas.

I also thought about all the other ambitions I have that could be covered with 28 minutes each day.  I want to read for pleasure, something I don’t do during term.  Is that more important than blogging?  Probably.  Possibly.

I’d like to exercise each day, but currently that can’t involve being upright for long since I wrecked my feet at the start of the summer holidays with an overly enthusiastic start to an exercise regime.  Swimming involves a drive so that requires a commitment of over an hour, too much on a weekday during uni semester.

I would like 28 minutes each day to sit down and do homework with my 15 year old son.  We have committed an hour to this on Tuesdays so the pressure isn’t too much on either of us.

I’d like to cook more healthy food for dinner each night but while I’m at uni I leave the cooking to my husband which while is quite good, would benefit from more vegetables.

I’d like to be more in touch with family and friends.  I haven’t talked to my Mum for a few weeks now and yesterday my nephew turned 8 years old and I haven’t sent him anything or even called.

If I was a lady of leisure I would play the piano regularly and perhaps go back to do the 4th grade exam I should have done when I was about 13 years old.

I used to be able to survive on 4-5 hours sleep regularly.  In my first year of teaching this was extremely common.  I sometimes do it now but it only lasts a few days.  I average about 6 hours sleep but probably should have 7.  I resent sleep because of the time it sucks away.

I watch a lot of TV.  It plays two distinctly different roles for my obsessive nature.  In simple terms it can be an obsession in itself.  I have stayed up late this weekend to catch-up on American Idol which I didn’t know was on until Friday evening when I scanned Apple TV (through 10Play).  I like American Idol because of the driven nature and talent of the contestants and the current judges.  I have been a fan of Harry Connick Jnr for a long time too.  The other role TV serves for me is as a distractor from being obsessive about my work.  I often become overly wrought about planning the perfect lesson or finding the right resources or putting together an awesome program and finessing the uploading to Weebly, Google Classroom or whatever electronic tool(s) I’m using.  TV distracts me from the stress of it all so I plod away instead of engrossing myself in it, tying my stomach into knots.

Well, there we go, the end of 28 minutes and I end with a confession to obsession.  The confession to liking American Idol is probably a bigger concern though.  I want a lot of things in life and I can’t have them all.  I better live a long time though so I can at least try.

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2 Comments »

  1. Markeeta Roe-Phillips says:

    I LOVE this. Fantastic post!
    I’m glad I’m not the only one who works in front of the ‘idiot box’ to keep me from tying myself in knots. My secret TV ‘helpers’ are Escape to the Country and anything cooking related. (If I’m home during the day I’m quite partial to Judging Amy… Eeeek! Don’t tell anyone!)
    How do you find Weebly as a platform?

    • shartley says:

      Thanks for your kind comment. Good to know I’m not alone in the mad use of TV.
      I quite like Weebly but we’ve gone Google at school and this year, Google Classroom crazy. It’s rather limiting in comparison to Weebly.

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