Finding a kindred spirit

I feel like finding a kindred spirit is one of the most rare things in this world. More recently, I guess starting teaching, I’ve found more and more people who seem to enjoy the same things as me and see the world in a similar way to myself. I love this.

Discussions of foreign films, art house films, photography, art of all kinds, books, world issues have filled my life in recent years and I try to remember not to take this for granted.

I decided to bring this up today because I had an extended conversation with a year 12 student today about foreign film and how much she enjoys it. Not just any foreign films though, the screwed up kind. Like me, her father introduced her to horror films, or intense films when she was quite young and as result she has developed a love for the outcasts of the film world. Some of the favourites include Martyrs, 2:37, Hedgehog, and Salute.

Personally French film are my favourites and having a French background helped me to really understand the culture, talking to my Grandparents and Great Grandparents (when I was younger) about life in Calais, and Paris when they grew up there and lived there. I took to learning the language and finally got the chance to go over there last Christmas. So my love of all things French, in particular French film continues to grow.

There’s nothing better than discussing the things you are most passionate about with those who are also passionate about these things. I will post soon some new photography and such.

If you would like to check out and/or purchase some of my work it’s available at Redbubble:

Sezice- Redbubble

Feel free to share your passions, if you like, whatever they may be. We may be kindred spirits after all.

Speaking of kindred spirits head on over to check out one of my kindred spirit’s blogs

too wordy

Every year for the rest of my life

So my year 12s are currently gearing up to sit their HSC. I’ll be spending tomorrow and Thursday with them at school, during the school holidays, doing everything we possibly can to prepare them for these horrific exams.

Every time one of my year 12 groups/tutees sits the HSC it takes me back to what I thought was one of the most stressful times in my life. I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders as I prepared to sit my exams, while my dad was in hospital, my mum was expecting great things and my teachers were reminding me how important these exams were. What is so important to remember, if you’re a HSC student reading this, is that it is most definitely not the be all and end all of your life. If you screw it up, you’ll be ok, I promise.

It’s hard because I have to find the fine line of validating their emotions and stress during this time, while still trying to show them that I survived the HSC and looking back now, it was not a big deal at all. Since losing my mum and my grandma in the space of 7 months, the HSC looks like a walk in the park. Yet every time my kids sit it, I feel just as much pressure as they do, in some cases more which is kind of worrying.

Before their HSC though, comes a great day of celebration and photos, that is their graduation. It’s the time when you can tell them what you really think because lets face it, technically, you’re no longer their teacher. For me, it was a day to make sure they knew how proud I was of them, all of them, well most of them, for becoming awesome and mature young people.

It is a day when they too can tell you how they really feel about you, which isn’t always a good thing. This year though a student said something to me that I will never forget and while it may not be true in the next 6 months, it was true to them at that particular moment and I think that’s enough for me. This student, who had come a long way in the last 2 years that I had known her, we had grown close and been through a lot together, she turned to me and said, “You’re my hero Miss.”

Now to this I replied with “Find a better one.” She assured me “You’re the best one.” I couldn’t believe it. No one had ever said something like that to me, and as I said, even if now it’s not still the case, she felt that, at that moment, I was her hero.

That’s why I keep going to school. That’s why I keep giving 150% of myself to these kids. That’s why we teachers take the crap pay, and the societal beatings, and the media beatings. In the hope that one day, a student will turn to us and say “You’re my hero Miss.”