Scribo Ergo Cogito (I think therefore I write)

Hallelujah or really? I have started to write again, it has been a long slow progress, getting my writing mojo going again. Lots of reasons why such a lengthy hiatus they can be … oh I know blog posts. Highly personal, sometimes offensive, potty-mouthed at times however authentic, a reflection of me if you wish, so lets start at the very beginning of the decline as it were, (as good as any place) I think, it all started with a door (that’s another subject as well, doors).

I was trying to crack the nod as it were as a provisional teacher, I did some relief at a school and they offered me a short-term reliving contract (two terms). It was a hospital pass that I didn’t see coming. I was to be the 5th teacher in two terms to tackle a class of year nine pupils teaching English. These young people were at the bottom of the learning ratings with behavioural issues and learning difficulties at all sorts of levels, from coming to school high on meth, through to being bone tired because they were working to help support their families. I didn’t ask the right questions so essentially it was my own fault, I went ahead and did it. One of the teachers had been on extensive time off because of a concussion issue, the others had bailed in varying states of distress or thankfulness that they had escaped.

The night before I was due to start I was horsing around with one of my sons, pretending to chase him with a fairly large hammer (just under 2 kgs). I chased him into the bedroom and he shut the door on me knocking me out. Needless to say, I didn’t feel the best! However, I soldiered on anyway as I didn’t;’t want to ring the school and say I had concussion. (I clearly did). (Strike 1) The first day there one of my more polite students when asked to engage enquired of me “Would you like me to knock you the fuck out…., sir?) I had to add the polite bit really. At that point I should have bailed and just gone heck no I won’t go, however, permanent jobs were few and far between, with many very experienced teachers selling their Auckland homes and moving to the Waikato cashed up and able to buy freehold and in some instances even a place at the beach as well.

I had earlier applied for a one-term relieving position and the Principal let me know that they had 45 applicants for the job and that I shouldn’t feel bad as the person who took it was fully registered and had 15+ years of experience. I had trained on the basis of English Teachers being in hot demand however found that was not so in the Waikato, I desperately wanted to be working rather than the alternatives so I was prepared to commute to Auckland daily (strike 2).

I persevered, throwing everything in the book that I had from freestyling rap lessons to refusing to allow some students in the class to attend due to their ongoing behavioral issues. The school in question straddled a divide between some fairly affluent suburbs through to what some might say were effluent. The culture of the school seemed to be rather insular (partly I guess because of its size) and partly due to the way it structured its learning, add a new Principal in and it was not a cohesive place.

Back to strike 1, tiredness and fatigue dogged me, apart from the 4-hour commute there and back and being a full-time sole parent to 4 I was clearly out of my depth. Having just come from a dysfunctional school where a senior staff member had been committing sexual crimes against pupils I wanted to work it out and hopefully that would help crack the nod for a permanent position.

Concussion injuries manifest in a myriad of ways I have found out. I was simply dumb in continuing in the job. To be frank I was out of my depth, I was struggling, didn’t really know where to turn to, I didn’t fit in the highly urban environment, it was foreign to me and I didn’t fit in with the staff. I don’t point any fingers around that, I was a very small cog in a very big clock, and in the end, if I had stopped working the clock may have skipped a second but then with a step like a rugby winger bursting through his opponents, it would have kept on ticking.

The end came when a student (without malice or intent) crept up to a door I was holding and pulled it out of my grasp in the process blowing my shoulder apart, it wasn’t helped when an eager newly qualified physiotherapist thought traction would sort it after all it was merely bursitis (a misdiagnosis). I finished my term at the school. I guess it probably looked cloudy however I was unable to drive for 4 hours a day and cope with the shoulder injury as well as coping with concussion. I had been going to apply for a permanent position however I was told not to bother as it was already earmarked for another beginning teacher.

To say I was disappointed was true, I constructed my own narrative of my time at the school instead of just accepting that I am not a round peg. This narrative when I look back is embarrassing, frankly stupid, and unnecessary, there is nothing wrong with admitting you cannot cope or you do not fit. In the end, it was pretty irrelevant as my shoulder injury was somewhat more extensive than what was first diagnosed with my hands turning different colours, a huge loss of strength and mobility, and add the ongoing concussion issues I didn’t continue teaching.

I had stepped away from statutory social work, burnt out from all the assaults and threats, retrained, and found myself in a place where actually on a numerical basis the assaults threats and pure antagonism were worse than working at Child Youth and Family, (the only difference was that the assaults were much more minor). I had not understood when I left the Department that I needed to carry my registration through so without another two possibly three years of study I was not able to be a registered social worker, essentially consigning me to working as under valued, underpaid, overworked resource worker.

I guess that is really enough for today, my shoulder is certainly telling me that, and brain fog is slowly descending again. So I will leave it there to continue.

Paul

I’m Tired (its the human condition)

Conflict wears me out. It grinds me down and dries my spirit, soul and body. Sometimes there is no ethical choice apart from engaging with an issue and that often leads to conflict. As much as I will still engage in issues I have learnt to pick my battles, know when to yield, know when to stand and know when to walk away. I should have learnt it a long time ago but there it is.

I walked away from a group recently, theier mysygony, racism, ableism and every other ism in the book you could think of just became too much. As individuals they are nice enough people, they mean well and are generous with their time and money often. They are however dinosaurs who are stuck in times past and cannot break free from their thought patterns, you can throw a dice and take your pick why people choose to remain with beliefs that at the best are immoral. Religion, politics, personality, hurts fear they are all there to choose from. The biggest of these in my humble opinion, (a wee pause whilst you all laugh at my use of the word humble… ) ok that’s enough people.

Fear is based on the unknown and an unwillingness to grapple with that. What if someone looked at their racist attitudes and saw they were wrong, what then? Change, redress, possibilities of vulnerability, relationships at danger? All real fears. I am happy to go out on a limb and say it takes real intyegrity and bravery to admit you were wrong, the older you are the harder it gets. We that is in the communal we actually reinforce the notion of not admitting our failings. From Kings and Queens to Politicians, Prime Ministers, Presidents through to the completely average person have grown up in a world where being wrong is hard wired to feelings of fear of the consequences.

Much is said of restorative justice, however in a world where injustice prevails everyday, enabled by society, the state the church, clubs, individuals, political parties justice is a a very rare beast, almpost as hard to find as rocking horse scat. Martin Luther King said “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals”. This is why I still engage because not to do so is unjust. The key to surviving is to detirmine what you can do and when, how much can you care, surely one would go mad if one was to rail at every injustice in the world (externally). It is fine and healthy to be aware of injustice, doing so makes sure your reflective lens is in place and it keeps one honest.

I have realised that my limits are somewhat smaller than what I thought them to be which is a nice segue back into the title of my blog. As you may or perhaps may not know I have had cardiac rythym issues, they seem to be well managed however one of the medications just knocks me I can wake up tired and continue in that for the rest of the day. The post concussion syndrome doesnt help either. The good news is that eventually I will be able to stop that medication and very very slowly my concussion symptoms are abating, (hence the writing). The bad news, well it could be 6 months to a year before I can change medications. The problem with the medication is that my pulse rate sits at around 54 and doesn’t increase to much above 70 when under load, which doesn’t allow enough oxygyn to power the exertion.

Small steps towards more cardiac fitness will help as will weight loss. As to my brain fog well being hit on the head witha 900 gm stone doesnt help, nor some subsequent falls however re-engaging the left side of my brain does help, so trying to instill discipline back into my writing will eventuall help that it does tire me as does conflict however that which doesn’t kill me, postpones the inevitable but it does help climb above the walls, swim the moats and walk the fields.

Paul

Auckland Part 1

I remember the sense of wonder that I used to feel as I crested the divide that marked the entry into the wonderland that I knew as Auckland.  Auckland was a place of magic, I remember a  song from Calamity Jane, “they’ve got shacks up to seven stories” springs to mind.  The magic started for me with the big wide roads that then led onto the motorway.  This winding piece of black that wound its way closer and closer to what for me was just the most amazing place, downtown! One place in particular.

We moved from the booming metropolis of Gisborne, somewhere around 1970, in Gisborne we did have one lift, ( I was terrified of lifts but that’s another story)and a magical vacuum tube system (A Lamson tube system to be precise)in a department store, The Melbourne Cash Department Store.  The store was devastated by fire, I can still remember to this day the smell of the wool that had been burnt http://tinyurl.com/pe9v5eo.  Downtown Gisborne seemed so huge, I had visited another big city, Christchurch but apart from memories of Tinytown I think in Christchurch or Lyttleton and a Magic shop in an arcade in Christchurch perhaps a function of my age.

Hamilton had DIC department store and a sprawling Farmers but two stories was as big as it got, Auckland however, well Auckland had neon lights, a cowboy, no less, twirling his magic rope,and drawing on a cigarette, that was exciting enough to an 8 or nine year old from small town New Zealand but wait there’s more.  Auckland had a Farmers store, it was this amazing cornucopia of everything that you could imagine a household needed, it had escalators, escalators, my lord, I could not believe it, freedom to travel up at speed without the terrifying, Tardis like lift.  This sprawling mini metropolis was an explosion of sights and sounds.  Its crowning glory was however the tea rooms, “Harbour View Tearooms” with attendant magical playground  and Hector the Sulphur crested Cockatoo.  Farmers and Auckland were synonymous to me, no visit was complete without a ride on the Farmers Free Bus and a trip to the top of the world.

The magic lasted till my early teens and then I started to notice some of the things in Auckland that were not so magical.  The first of these were the Iron Giants, the power pylons that I saw.  These pylons followed the Motorway but in places they were in peoples back yard, I asked my dad about it and he said that’s Otara, it wasn’t till later till my political awakenings that I understood what exactly that meant.  I remember thinking to myself I never wanted to live near one of those monstrosities, I knew nothing of EMF, links to Leukaemia, interference with TV  and Radio signals, I just thought they were ugly, sinister, things.  Grey sentinels, guarding just what I didn’t know, they were dark, scary portents of doom to me.  The other overwhelming negative experience was experiencing the brown fields of Mangere, a brand new suburb of houses and overwhelming nothingness, I was 15 at the time and had read about suburban neurosis and after a week in Mangere thought I understood just a little of the despair that the women of Mangere may have felt trapped in their homes without cars or public transport and vast tracts of red brown sticky clay.

These memories came back to me as I travelled through East Tamaki today, driving past the artefacts of civilisation, huge chimneys, huge pylons and greyness, as I reflected (hmm does curse equal reflection) on the traffic and my conflicted relationship with Auckland.  My relationship with Auckland reflects my life at the moment, I have an ongoing every workday relationship with Auckland at the moment,  I love the vibrancy, cultural diversity and opportunity that Auckland has to offer, I don’t like, actually I despise the vast disparities that I see in Auckland, the broken people and the so called elite.  They are all there.   Auckland is where the jobs are but not where I live… to be continued

Candy Crush , really? No thanks I am on a diet!

 

Here it is open permission (with a small caveat).  I, Paul Cronin, being of reasonably sound mind and slightly broken down body, officially give permission for any of my friends to hold a pillow over my face till I expire.  Now here are the caveats, firstly it will have to wait for a month or so until my ulcer has healed as I will expect to have been provided with a quality bottle of single malt Irish whiskey, You know something that is faintly reminiscent of a peat fire, on the smoky side, rough enough to be expensive and with a kick of an Irish punter who has one too many. Back up the horse buddy I can hear you say, your last post was a didactic rant about the evils of alcohol addiction and here you are arguing for euthanasia, assited by alcohol, perhaps I better explain.

I am a bit grumpy at the moment. I will hold my hand up and confess to that.  I can’t really talk about it in a public forum right now, suffice to say if anyone is interested drop me a line, broken dreams  haunting me like a groundhog day.  So if you detect cynicism, sarcasm, derision, and a general ill-humour, arohamai my friends. If I personally offend you then please contact me and perhaps we can work it out.

I read a status the other day that expressed a frustration around not being able to graduate to another level on candy bleep bleep crush At some primeval level a darkly malevolent  epithet formed on my lips.Now I have played video games and computer games, albeit many years ago. I was quite a fan of Sims, Solitaire, and for a while Command and Conquer, oh and that stupid archer shoot the balloons game.  Somewhere some how in the last few years I have lost all desire to play those games in fact over all I am pretty adverse to game playing. I do play cards every week which is good as it forces me to be social and reminds me of the benefits of friends and family.  So face to face games that involve human interaction I do enjoy as long as they do not get too competitive.  Competition is ok but it can bring out the worst in some people and the only thing worse than a poor loser is a less than gracious winner.  I don’t need that in my life and am happy to walk away from that or just refuse to play with people like that.

Not withstanding any of that narrative I don’t play games for a couple of reasons.  I would much rather write or read than sit at a computer screen punching at buttons in some meaningless quest.  I find the stimulation of having to think when I write (no cracks about that please  ) suits me much better and I am in much more danger of learning something when I read or write.  I learn about myself when I write, and about myself and others when I read.  I also learn about others when I get feedback about my writing which by the way I enjoy.  I would hope that at some level I am pushing buttons and getting people to engage with my thoughts and hopefully themselves.

I certainly hope not to be in that place of a careless provocateur and sometimes I do equivocate before I write because I know that I will push buttons for some people and some of my writing may be hurtful.  Never deliberately I hope but the role of a poet and I do call myself that is to engage, to influence and to inspire readers with mastery of language as intertwined with ideas and emotions.  I try to bring that into my blogging.The mastery of language well I do not say that I have that at all but I hope within my blogging I certainly meet the other criteria especially emotion and ideas, as I reflected on my last post it felt a bit dry in the emotions department, however it worked for some people and that is enough for me. Enough of that n ow, back to the whiskey.

If you ever find me sitting on the computer mindlessly playing games it will be because I have most likely lost the plot, kindly offer me a bottle of single malt and you can borrow one of my pillows, gently put me out of my misery.  You see if I find myself blobbing out with games then I will know that my adversary, mediocrity, has struck a mortal blow.

Paul