Happy Birthday to Me!

 Well my birthday has snuck upon me again. Well, it didn't really sneak because I having been looking forward to it for a while now. Yay for pressies and cake and whatnot. I guess it is more like my birthday has been doing a loud conga-line towards me and it seemed to be moving slowly when in the distance but frantically rushed up towards the end.

O Birth-day birth-day Con-ga!

However, despite the orgy of fun, attention and presents leading up to now, today was actually kind of dull and unexciting. The course I was on wasn't hugely fun or interesting. This is unusual for me because generally I enjoy Professional Development. I seem to prefer the theory of teaching to the actual real-life experiences. The ideals of teaching are great and I often get really enthusiastic but then the realities of the classroom and adolescent students are frequently stressful and depressing.

However, back to the actual course itself. Unfortunately I had to watch the Te Mana video again! I think I ended up seeing it at least three times at TCOL. It is a good video with some great points but I don't think I gained much from a fourth viewing (except that now I know some of the teachers and students in it).

The behavioural management and effective planning bits also had a lot of material I had already covered in our English Department holiday PD. This did, however, give my team an advantage in the 'Positive Strategies' mix and match. We finished first with 100% correct. Our efforts were rewarded with a mini-moro so the day wasn't entirely wasted. Actually maybe it was the 'Curriculum Terms' mix and match we won? I'm not sure now. We were named the Extension table anyway. Woot.

It is now my intention to wander off, eat delicious dinner prepared by wunderhusband and play Singstar for several hours! Yay!