September?

Where'd August go? Shoot. Tunes' marathon seems like yesterday, but it was almost 2 months ago! FRIG MAN! Time is flying by TOOOOOO fast! I was told it would go fast, but sheesh. 2/3 DONE, OVER, 67%... I can't believe it. Where'd the time go? I can't believe the experiences I've had, I must admit. It's amazing to sit and actually think of some of the cool stuff we've been able to do and see this year. From Bali, to Port Mac, Canberra, Gold Coast, Blue Mountains, to our own backyard in Wollongong. This place is incredible. I'm trying as much as I can to appreciate it, and take every opportunity to get down to the water, because I know it'll be over in no time.

I had an AMAZING workout today. I really wanted to push myself. I planned to do 60k on the bike, immediately followed by a 10k run, kinda like an Olympic distance, but an extra 20k on the bike. I KILLED IT. The bike ride I did on the trainer (which is tougher than outdoors, but at least I don't have to deal like traffic, like in a race) in 1:36, then 41:30 for 10k run all over town and down at the water! WOOOO! It felt AWESOME. Great to feel that stomach/cardio stress without actual leg/foot pain injury type feeling in pushing that hard. I trie to tell myself it was a race, but I dunno, I don't hurt right now!!!

Anyways, back to school work.

KINDERGARTENS AT GWYNNEVILLE! found out yesterday! :) AWESOME! Close and a great school apparently. YIPPPPERS!

OK, that is all.

Gotta keep these short for a while. But all is well, I'm kickin' ass and takin' names all over the place... as is Tunes. :) My wee suga mama.

PPS - I got her free Mug in the mail today "Mighty Tiny Tuna" from Continental soup... haha, mine hasn't come. :(

Quick game of catch up

A whole WEEK!

Wow. These weeks DO fly by. Man. It's been two weeks already since our epic 100k adventure. 2 WEEKS! frig man these days are just zooooomin' by.

This past week was incredibly busy though.

Had a major assignment due in Maths, that took a while to finish. Worth 50% of my final mark so I wanted o do well. For the record, every assignment is worth 50%, and we have two per class, and I have 6 classes. Last Friday I also had a presentation. I was dressed like the queen of England. Pictures will be available shortly. Since then I've been working on an interactive tutorial to be run NEXT Wednesday (9th), a Maths presentation, a creative arts project and the written component of that quality teaching thing.

I've also had some great training this week! 13 hours on the trainer! and some running as well. I was back in the pool today as my shoulder is feeling better now. Yesterday I had a sweet workout, 3 hours on the trainer followed by a FAST 5.5k run immediately after. I wasn't intending on running until about 5 minutes from finishing the bike.

Friday night we went to a graffiti party. Basically, you wear a white t-shirt and people write whatever they want on it. Yes I drank. Yes I was drunk. It was fun, no regrets. :)

Today I bought a new computer! The one I'm on now is moments from death so it was a great time to pick it up. I got a good deal on a floor model computer. Julia is responsible for setting it all up though as I don't have time and she wants to do it! :)

Today (Sunday) is Ironman Canada. One of the most incredible experiences of my life. I'm going to follow it online for as much as I can tonight and tomorrow morning. WHILE DOING HOMEWORK. IT JUST DON'T STOP!

Back to it!

Communcation. It's Essential.

Duh.

So my school work has been a little stagnant. Dont get me wrong, I'm still uber pumped about it all and loving it, but not loving group work. I have amazing ideas and these weiners I have to work with want to take a different, easier route. Whatever. They've both made me questions myself. So with maths I emailed (communication) the tutorial leader lady and asked her what she thought of my idea, AND SHE LOVED IT! Bonus marks.

Then with my other one, the Quality Teaching one, I wanted to integrate impossible2possible into it, to show how it adds quality to the learning experiences of the kids. Well apparently that was far too hard for Ben to comprehend how it would materialize and work, so we've gone with something pretty lame and safe. People need to think outside the box a little, put a little more thought into shit. I can't get through to these knobs. So I emailed THAT tutorial leader as well and asked about my idea. Really laid it out there, a nice long email. Not necessary, but I just want to know if MY mind, that my idea has merit, and could/would/WILL work.

THEN, I've been readig a lot about ADD lately. Not only that but I'm in deep conversation with both the prof and my tutorial leader for Learners with Special Needs. Both are also super impressed with the initiative I've been taking and the interest I've been showing. BONUS! I'll be asking for a letter of reference at the end of the term for sure, from both of them. :)

OK. Time to turn my brain off for the evening.

LOVE!

Brian

Stroke of Genius!

I'm pretty excited about a number of assignments this term and feel as though I'm gettin' great ideas and can really get some good marks out of 'em!

1) Maths - Patterns and Algebra - 4 lessons -Grade 6
I came up with the idea of using music. Beats and percussion are all about rhythm (patterns) and it would be a great way to teach the concept of patterns. Using different pieces of percussion to make patterns and such. GENIUS! Teachers are all about these tactile learning resources so that should be awesome. Due Thursday, lots of work to do yet.

2) Quality Teaching - Lesson plans - Utilize NSW Quality Teaching Model and Queensland New Basics Model - We have to make three typical lessons and then redo them using concepts from these models.
I came up with the idea of making 3 simple lesson plans around a theme of the environment. So a Literacy lesson, an HSIE and a science or maths lesson around it too. THEN I will use www.impossible2possible.com and implement using this website (Ray) as ateaching resource. I believe it's an amazing tool that teachers can use to provide a more genuine/exciting learning experience for their students.

3) Learners with Special Needs - Interactive Tutorial on (for me) ADHD
Learning tons about this and thus myself. Getting great resources and info and am in discussion with both my professor and tutorial leader about it. Not to mention the fact that they both love the idea that I'm putting so much effort in and am this interested/engaged in it. Kissing ass is essential, as a reference letter from a Special Needs teacher / prof apparently is huge back home when applying.

School is Cool!

Swimming is also awesome right now! If swim most of the final 10 days in August I will eclipse ALL of last years swimming... IN JUST ONE MONTH! Sad how much swimming I did last year, but awesome how much I'm doing now! Getting faster too! Super pumped!

BAD NEWS ALERT:

My comp is on the way out. He's dyin' a slow death. I've been trying to get Kenny to help me out and he has, but he seems to think there's not a lot he can do. I think he's trying to get in contact with ACER to see if there's anything they can do but I think my warranty is conveniently cooked. I'm backing everything up and keeping my fingers crossed that it lasts a little longer, but who knows. Not sure what I'll do when it officially dies. We'll see what happens. ESTI!

Chin-Up! Homework time!

Always looking ahead...

I took Monday off training, almost went insane. I just feel dirty when I don't get a good workout in. Yesterday I went on the trainer for an hour. Easier than normal, but no wussy workout by any means. Got the blood flowin' in the legs again and got a good sweat on. Today I was at the pool in the morning for a swim. I was concerned about my hand 'cause it's kinda gross. It doesn't hurt perse, but it's like a dime shaped flap of skin over the wound (which is healing nicely) which "flaps down" so every time my hand goes in the water it flaps back kinda thing. Thought that would be a major pain so I put a bandaid on it and some duct tape around my hand. Didn't really work that well, tried something else with what they had at the pool and that didn't work either. Oh well, time to harden the F up and go at it. It felt weird/stingy for a few laps but I just said screw it and kept rockin', eventually it was fine. I managed to get in 2500M in the 62 minutes of swimming. Jubers and I are already thinking of another little thing. SHHH don't tell anyone. These little adventures are a heck of a lot cheaper than race entries and they're also cooler! We were thinking of doing a similar trek, but south up this time AND we'd be splitting everything 50/50. Again, I'll hafta look into the route a little more and see for sure, but looking at maps, it's mostly through little towns along the way down and we can do mostly paths and sidewalks. I'll definitely look into the route more, but just a consideration. :) Oh... we were thinking something like 120 or so KM, taking 5k intervals each back and forth. :) JUST THOUGHTS PEOPLE, JUST THOUGHTS. It's my impulsive behaviour... ADD. :) It's a true fact, I learnt that in school.

ALSO looking forward. And I know ya'll will over-react like crazy, so just chilllllll out, because if we were REALLY considering it for like soon I probably wouldn't put it down here for fear of backlash. :) BUT... There was a job fair at school today for Education students. There were many booths about teaching in the UK. How cool would that be? NO, not anytime soon, as we miss everyone so much and realize that we need to come home and work to pay off debts and such, but maybe in a year or two, and only for a year. They kept telling me that as a male in primary I'd walk into a job no problem. Also, for casual teaching, they GUARANTEE 4 days per week of pay, so even if you don't work the 4 days, like if they don't find you places to go work, they still pay you! That's pretty decent job security. AND I was thinking that it would be the ideal way to see Europe, as to travel there is otherwise ridiculously expensive. So I know this whole thing started in a very similar fashion, but fret not, this one is not in the so immediate future. BUT IT'S STILL A CONSIDERATION! I still don't know what my path is, but someone who was educated in Australia and spent a year teaching in the UK can gain some serious experiences that can benefit long term. And it's not all about me! I know. Jubes of course though is right on with the idea. THE DISTANT NOT ANYTIME SOON IDEA.

Looking ahead to tomorrow. I have 3 separate group meetings to attend. Two for two different assignments in Maths (one with Ali, a white half leb / muslim, interesting character) and (one with Clint, from Thunder Bay), and one for a presentation in Quality Teaching (with Ben from North Bay) Tomorrow I will also swim in the early morning. I tell ya, it's an amazing feeling. Every time I breathe I get a beautiful view of Mt. Keira and the sun is still rising. Shit. I'm gonna come home to running in suburbia and swimming in indoor pools. :(

PS - People think I'm insane. It's fantastic. I want more.

One foot in front of the other...

My mantra from yesterday, but it's the sort of thought process that can be applied to many things. One step in front of the other. Yesterday I knew that every step I took was a step closer to home, whether walking, wodging, jogging or running, it was all forward progress. Life is all about forward progress. Chronologically we have no choice, do we? We're gonna get old, everyone's got a time limit and we're making forward progress towards it. One foot in front of the other means forward progress in continually challenging myself academically, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Learn something new, you're better for it and you've made forward progress. Sometimes it doesn't always seem like forward progress, a la Canberra and Gold Coast, but I looked at those as learning experiences, and I was better for it. So I guess when things seem overwhelming in anything in life, you just gotta focus on getting yourself to that next telephone pole and not concern yourself with running 100k.

Operation Opera House to My House

I normally write race reports as a means of looking back the following year when i go to tackle the same race, so as to avoid the same mistakes or to remember what went well, and lets be honest, I just like being able to look back and remember the special ones. I can rest assure that I’ll never be running from Sydney’s Opera House to Wollongong again, so this one is purely to remember some of the details and great memories of stuff along the way.

I can’t remember where the idea came from, or why it came, but for a while I was considering this run. I just thought it would be cool to be able to do it. So I started looking around and seeing if it was feasible, posting on an Aussie running forum. Well it turns out that a group of guys did this back in 2003 (I think 5 or 6 started, some bailed some bailed in Otford and a couple went the distance.) In any event, there was a website set up for it with directions, so I grabbed those and looked at ‘em online and started to think maybe it WAS a possibility. So I told Julia, she’s not surprised with this sort of crap from me anymore. Then I started to think of it in terms of planning to actually do it. Then I just sort of accepted the fact that I was doing it and started to get excited.

Yesterday morning I got up at 2:15AM to start gettin’ myself ready for the day. Had a feed and treated the morning like any other race morning. Julia and i met Jerry down at the train station for 4:15 and the three of us were on our way up to Sydney. Thankfully it was a new train because toilet facilities were used 3-4 times. We got to Sydney just before 6 and hopped another train to get down to Circular Quay. Once there we each had one more bathroom break and then headed over to the opera house. Something was going on as there were tons of these weird cars pulling in and people dressed in banana suits and all sorts of stuff. Anyways, we got a quick photo taken by a lady who was down there and then we were off. Shit, I gotta run for a while!

See, at Canberra I had hoped to get a half marathon PB of under 1:27, preferably 1:25, training leading up to it dictated I could. Something happened to my quad (I think caused by ITband tightness) and I had to run walk the last 17k of 21! Then at Gold Coast, I had hoped to PB and qualify for Boston, again, training dictated I could. On the Thursday before the race I went out for a quick tempo run and a couple K in, boom, same thing. Tried to run again on Sat, no go. I was cheerleader on the day for Julia’s first marathon! That was fun too, but my past two races were somewhat failures. Anyways, about 2k into this BOOM. YOU’RE F*%&ING KIDDING! Why am I fine in training and then it happens when it’s important?! So I’m uberly depressed and just about convinced that this is gonna be over even before it starts. I’m quickly reduced to a walk and just try to stretch it out. Julia and Jared are there for emotional support telling me to just take my time and that we literally have all day. So I run/jog/walk for a while. What seemed like a damn long while. We got ‘lost’ first around Eve street, right after the airport and ended up with a minor detour, not a big deal, what’s an extra half kilometre? We slowly made our way down to the ocean at the end of Bestic, not sure what that coast area is called, but it was really nice! Kinda like ours in Wollongong, but takes you all the way to the Captain Cook bridge and into Miranda. Along this section (I think because it’s flat and predictable) my leg started to feel good. We stopped for a quick bite to eat here and I put my SKINS shorts back on and started walking ahead a bit and told them they could catch up, as the route was pretty straightforward. I started to jog, it felt ok, I started to run a bit harder and it felt good. Jared caught up and said Julia was right behind so I started to push it and see just how good I was feeling, I got up to around 4:00/km! Hahaha, ok easy. Before we knew it we were at the Captain Cook Bridge and stopped for a quick photo op. Across into I THINK Miranda and through some more residential until we hit the park at Gray’s Point. Not much exciting here other than finding the cover for a XXX DVD on the sidewalk... we saved it to use as a belated b-day card for Michelle..hahaha. So we get to the end of Forest street and are faced with a path that ended up being these massive rocks to get down to the next area, which ain’t easy to navigate with bikes! We got a little confused, I asked a guy at a traffic light for directions and then we FINALLY made it to Gray’s Point and the first part of our trek through HELL. The Royal National park is beautiful, second oldest National Park in the world to Yellowstone in the US. COOOOOL. We got to Audley with no problems and then started to head down into the park towards Lady Carrington. This is about 40ish k now. Sir Bertram Drive is highway-esque with not a lot of shoulder (ok, NO shoulder) and with a runner and a couple of people on K-Mart mountain bikes, not too easy to navigate with traffic. We were on and off the road for a while, as we had to squeeze off onto the shoulder when a car would come and this meant stopping. We finally made our way to Lady Carrington, a nice flattish path that was closed to cars. WOOO HOOOO! Time to cruise for about 10k. 250M onto the path I tripped over a big rocked and cut up my hand pretty good, super. After a first aid treatment I just started to run as much as I could. I knew the turn-off to the Walumarra Track (which I was supposed to take but the bikes couldn’t so we needed an alternate route) was at 51.5k so I just looked forward to that so I could tell the troops we were over half-way. We finally made it there and then to the end of Lady Carrington where we stopped for a bit before tackling more of this damn highway type road. Here I started to feel light headed, and just awful. I called Lee to give her an update but almost passed out. I got worried about not finishing and was convinced I might not, but Jared told me to just keep truckin’, and besides, we’re in the middle of the park with no car so we gotta go at least another 15k til we’re out! I sat down and get some food and Gatorade in me and started to come around. We started out slow and just made our way down the road... or up as it was mostly uphill all the way. This took forever because we kept having to get off the road. Julia was a bit terrified of the traffic whizzing by and I felt bad that I put in her that situation. We got a few yells and head shaking along the way, but whatever, we were making it out. Finally we were at Otford lookout, 65km and an amazing view! Took a couple photos, a quick break, put the garmin back on and started out again. 35k to go and that amazing coastal highway to look forward to. One more terrifying road to come DOWN this time, but then we had sidewalk the rest of the way. That highway was unbelievable. Right out over the edge of the mountain with amazing views all around. It was starting to become night-time now and I knew I had to get as far as possible before it got dark, so we would at least be somewhere familiar (Thirroul). We just kept truckin’ along, looking forward to the 82k mark at Thirroul, where we’d take out last food break and then head home our familiar cycleway path. From here it was all gravy, other than a drunk couple yelling at us as we came by. From Fairy Meadow I thought it would be about 30 minutes to home as I had been averaging 7:30/km, but I just got this rush of adrenaline, and ran hard the whole way. At the finish were Erin and Erin, Michelle, Kym and BINGY, Michelle and Aaron Majovsky and Katrina! They had made a finish line tape out of streamers for us and were cheering us in, that was great! I sat on the curb a while and then came in and tried to eat this amazing meal that Lee spent all day making but my stomach was a mess. I started gettin’ the sweats at the dinner table and had to go lie down with an ice pack on my head. I slowly came around but couldn’t stomach the food, so it was breakfast. DELICIOUS.

So that’s it! 100k run on the resume! It won’t be my longest, I assure you that, but I think next time I’ll do an organized race so I don’t have to worry about all that BS we had to deal with in the park with traffic and such.

I’ll hafta get Jared and Julia to give me more details about the finer points of the day, as I’m sure I missed a ton.

I can’t thank those two enough for all the support along the way, and for Julia to put up with this shit. It’ll be one more adventure that the three of us will certainly remember about our time in Australia! Huge thanks to Lee for putting those updates up on facebook, mostly for my mom who was back home worried to shit about here little boy. J AND for the amazing meal she had ready for us when we got home. Thanks to everyone at the finish line who was there at 8:15 when we finally got home, sorry I was almost 4 hours late!

Huge thanks to Michelle Majovsky who took the train out to Bulli to meet me for my last 15 or so Kilometres, and I’m so sorry I wasn’t there on time to meet you, I feel terrible but I’m glad you still got the run in!

Thanks to anyone who fed the ego over the past few weeks and put the extra pressure on me to finish.

No title

Don't want to invest the time or mental fortitude in thinking for a creative title for this blog entry, both are too precious at the moment.

Random updates and thoughts:

- School is going well, really busy, but I'm totally on top of things, just barely being able to balance everything, but at least I don't feel as though I SHOULD be or COULD be doing more.

- I'm gaining more and more of a passion for wanting to do something like Ray or Paul, THAT'S the way to inspire kids, not rhough random run of the mill classroom stuff.

- My swimming is going AWESOME! I swam 4 times this week! About 4:10 total! And today I did the same workout on Monday, though it took me 3 minutes less time to complete! That's progress right? Maybe after this Sunday I won't be able to do much BUT swim... might as well keep a godo thing goin'. I'm startin' to feel real confident about Ironman this year, should be fast!

- My run this weekend. It's growing. I'm not sure what from, but people are talking about it. Kinda weird, kinda neat. People I dont' know are asking Jared about it, and more people want to somehow be a part of it. Michelle Mjovsky and Katrina are going to meet me in Bulli and run the last 14 - 15k with me, and Derek will meet us somewhere along the way as well. We'll hafta see about logistics. Then last night we were over at the Erins' place for Michelle (Ellis') birthday dinner and they were saying they're gonna get like a finish line tape thing and call the local media and all this jazz. Not sure if I want that kind of attention. I do think it's kinda neat that people are interested in and think it's nuts, THAT'S the reaction I'm looking for :) but I don't need any attention on that scale. I really hope there's not much there at the "finish line" as I probably won't be in a terribly social kinda mood. :) Anyways, I'm REALLY excited about all of this! Can't wait to get out there and test myself, haven't had an opportunity in a while to really see what I'm made of. Almost one year since Ironman Canada. I'm also going to see if I can get Lee to post some updates of my progress as I truck along. Maybe get Julia to call or text her and she can post on facebook every 10k or so. We'll see.

OK, back to school work!

LOVE!

Engaged

How often are we TRULY 100% ENGAGED in what we're doing?
The goal of the teacher is to get their students ENGAGED in the lesson and in their learning.
Having ADD makes it difficult for me to focus, unless I'm 100% ENGAGED in what I'm doing.
I see Julia and I getting ENGAGED sometime in the future. :)
I think I'm only 100% ENGAGED in what I'm doing when I'm training, running more specifically, swimming too I guess, hard not to be.
In order to get kids ENGAGED in your lesson, you need to provide opportunities for them to take control of their learning, EGAGING them with actual people, places and issues.

Frig I'm loving this stuff. I've found my THING, 100%, and it feels great. I think being a teacher will be the perfect marriage between the reality of paying bills and being responsible to myself, my family and society, and allow me to work towards achieving some of my bigger picture dreams of large scale positive change and impact. I want to inspire kids, but I also want to inspire other teachers, parents, carers, like Ray Zahab and Paul Staso have inspired me. Kids really are the future, DUH. The kids that are growing up now are going to face MAJOR issues when they reach the age where they are the ones in control of this world. I think HSIE will be a favourite of mine. It's Human Society and it's Environment. Politics, war, poverty, cultures, geography, history, THE ENVIRONMENT and so forth.

On a side note, we're full-on into planning for "Operation Opera House to My House". Official date is Sunday, August 16th. Now I'm planning the packing list. Nutrition, some extra clothing, first aid, maps, that sorta stuff. I've googled some trails that I'll be on through the park, JUST BEAUTIFUL! I can't wait for this epic adventure!

Check this out: http://www.trailflix.com.au/tfx_new/trails.php?id=ladycarr

Yaaaaaaa!

I'm REALLY into school right now. It feels good. I figure as long as I don't have a job, I'm putting 100% of myself into school. Working does take away from it, no matter what, but I realize I'm going to have to find something, it's just nice right now to be attending 100% of lectures and doing MOST of the readings, up to date with assignments, have a multi-email convo going with my prof for Learners with Special Needs, etc etc etc.

Jubes is cooking with Curry, I can smell it.

It's evolving

Lots going on right now. I think when I look back on it, this year will shape who I become, in the long haul. I mean it's obvious in a sense because I'm here for school, for a career job, and we're living on the opposite side of the world and are experiencing all these new things. So in a sense, DUH.

This year however, I've become MORE and MORE passionate about my athletics, and taking it further and further, and taking it further and further with a purpose. I've learnt more about Ray and what he does with www.impossible2possible.com and I've recently learnt about another guy in the US (a former grade 5 teacher) who does long runs/adventures as a means to get kids active, through a variety of challenges. His thing is called P.A.C.E. (Promoting Active Children Everywhere). www.pacetrek.com These men are examples of how I will be able to combine my two greatest passions into something that goes beyond either in terms of meaningfulness. Children love to learn in that way, using interactive means such as Ray to educate about global warming and climate/environment issues with kids, or to be challenged and have a goal to work towards, like Paul did with his daughter's class. I know kids learn with books and paper and pens, but these are the sort of learning experiences that I believe they will benefit from the most. When you think back to your own schooling, it's not the spelling lists and book reports and math pages you had to do that you remember, it's the hands-on "adventures" or quality learning experiences/journeys you took part in that really fueled your curiousity and desire to learn.

Anyways, these two guys are certainly examples of what I'd love to become, in one way shape or form. I want to make a difference in this world before I leave, and moreso than the difference I can make in a classroom of 20. Don't get me wrong, I'll certainly start there, but by no means can that be the end.