Friday’s here, Friday’s here! And even though the weekend promises to be full (and not long, as I had fooled myself into thinking: that’s next weekend) I can’t wait for a little bit of downtime – final few episodes of True Blood Season 1, it’s a date!
1) One good thing: my workplace runs a lunchtime session of WiiSports once a week: I managed to scrape 15 minutes together and get along yesterday, and it was such great fun! Only had time for a couple of games of table tennis (which I rock at) and basketball (which I quite clearly do not rock at) but I’d been in a bit of a grey cloud for most of the morning and that little bit of fun exercise pulled me out of it perfectly!
2) One bad thing: Joanne should have left Masterchef (because she’s a truly nasty piece of work) but didn’t. I have no great love for Jake, but thought for sure that the elimination challenge in question would have done for Joanne for sure… Also, anyone else think they’re making up the “Immunity Pin” rules on the spot?
3) One thing I have learned: I run a youth group on Thursday evenings. Okay, it’s Scouts – but I don’t know, for some reason saying ‘Scouts’ gets you the ‘weirdo’ label far quicker than saying ‘youth group’ does. Anyways, I have the little kids in my group – 6-8 years old, but the vast majority of mine are 6, and only just 6 by a few weeks in some cases. There are currently 11 of the little monsters, and they keep sending more and more my way. Ever since I started I’ve despaired a bit about discipline – 11 6-year olds cannot sit still, be quiet, refrain from tackling each other, listen to craft instructions, follow the rules for a simple game, and so on. Every week feel like it’s been run shoddily, and I finish up the hour stressed out and depressed that we didn’t get through all 8 planned activities.
Anyway, after the meeting, the mother of one new kid – let’s call him “Kid X” – comes up to see me, she asks how he’s doing in terms of behaviour etc (which I diplomatically lie about) and she says “Oh, X just lives for this. He has so much fun every week. I guess because he’s an only child, he looks forward to mucking around with the other kids, it’s the one activity I can get him to do willingly every week without fail.” She extricates Kid X from the game of “tag other kids and shriek” or whatever it is he’s playing, and takes him home.
After I thought about it, I guess what I learned is this: who cares if we don’t get through all 8 planned activities? Who cares if they can’t play “Fruit Salad” properly? Who cares if someone cuts through their paper snowflake wrong and wants to do another one? Certainly not those kids! And after all, who are we really running the group for? Not me. Them. So I learned that if I can lighten up, de-stress and worry less, just maybe I could start having just as much fun as those kids.
Maybe that’s something we need to think about in libraries too…
4) Today’s link: For the scientifically curious amongst you all – ever imagined what was under the surface of your favourite fictional characters?
LiberryDwarf 