Fortunately I am Busy!

For those of you who have not been following the news here in BC, this is the time of year we in schools and in school libraries realize the full budgetary impact of provincial underfunding and experience the gut-wrenching fear of consequent cuts to public education, read, fear of cuts to school library programs. Living "on the edge of new things" as I am, I am hoping this might account for my tendency to miss important details in day-to-day transactions and sometimes to be terribly saddened by what I am seeing and experiencing.

• Like this week leaving my purse on top of my car and driving off from co-facilitating a 3-hour Teacher Inquiry to the Board to catch up on stakeholder and public presentations to our Trustees.


• Like kicking myself for forgetting to tell people how much work I have done and where I have done it.


• Like wondering powerlessly who speaks for people with jobs like mine where the work isn't always visible and now in particular when there is no argument that we all need to be worried about how cuts will hit classrooms.


• Like wondering if the work I've done speaks for itself and whether the work I've started can all be finished on this new hurry-up timeline of June 30 simply because you fall into that state of thinking from time to time when you are on the edge.


• Like worrying as we all do about the effect of cuts in public education on the children of British Columbia and wondering as we here in the thick of things do if the real agenda isn't to render it to the second-tier anyway.

It's powerful and upending and compelling stuff, this life on the edge of new things. This week, some of us in Learning Services are extending the notion of the monthly meeting by going on a "field trip" to the West End to meet with students from King George and see their work with the Biennale Installation called A-maze-ing Laughter. This will help us get perspective and remember what it's really all about. Yes, just right for these times. Fortunately I am too busy to think about the times and plan to be that way until the end of June.

Thanks for listening! The next posting is long but, for me, along with a quick trip to Cranbrook, a much-needed way of re-calibrating. Blog-therapy and taking a bumpy ride on a very small (18-seater) plane across BC to a small town with beautiful air, sunshine, and mountains like teeth on either side of the Trench, are opportunities not to be lost; they lift you out of the realities of work and provide just enough time to work out things and see them a little differently.

PS: Please note adjustment to use of FunnyorDie film clip in posting for April 12. It's worth scrolling or reading down to! Hope you are having or have had a great weekend.