Tuesday Ten - Man Up special

I have teh malaise. After finishing May on an enthusiastic high, I spent last week listlessly flitting around from project to project, my to do list mysteriously empty. I have concluded this is more to do with being bitten by teh malaise than having nothing to do. I also think I am feeling oppressed by certain things. I need to give myself a good talking to. Herein....

1. I have 12 people on my marking team this year - last year it was 7. Man up, and cancel everything next week.
2. My team is so big, because it is the only team for the paper. And I am in charge of it. I am partially stunned by the responsibility being afforded me. MAN UP. These things aren't assigned for no reason....this is your 7th year of examining.
3. Car still is not here. Man up. Get used to wearing flats.
4. I have to put in my application to Google Teaching Academy and I am dithering, trying to make it as perfect as possible. Man up, get over it, and put it in. (Update: I was so irritated by my incessant dithering, I stopped writing this blog post and went away and did it quick before I could dither anymore. Fingers crossed!)
5. I have to work with someone next year who I don't want to work with. I only found out last week and there is no appeal. Man up. This is called professionalism and you're always carping on about it to the kids.
6. We still don't have a speaker for the conference. It's two weeks away. MAN. UP. Ring that person you thought of in the first place - surely the worst they can do is say no?
7. My Y9 class are driving me mental. Man up: only 7 lessons left with them, and 2 of those are cover. And anyway, if you planned a little better they might (I stress the might) behave a little better.
8. I haven't done any knitting for nearly 2 whole weeks. Man up. How can you be whiney about something you have not made an effort to do?!
9. I keep losing at Facebook Scrabble and my stats have dropped below 70% win. Man up! People were getting bored with playing you because you won too much. AND IT'S ONLY A GAME.
10. My courgette plant has blackfly, boo hoo. I don't know how to man up about this (or how to get rid of it), but I will get back to you when I work it out. I suppose I could remind myself that I have a second courgette plant...plus 5 tomatoes, a cucumber, 4 runner beans, an aubergine, a squash, garlic, potatoes and about 7 billion basil plants. We have been busy this year.

I have a lot of manning up to do. Indeed, combined, I am going to have to proper WOman up this week. It should help with the procrastinatiness.
(Man up is our favourite advice on the ski trip, but we save WOman up for really tough things, like skiing one's first black or attempting a scary jump).


On the plus side, I LOVE my new phone. It is an HTC Desire. I waited months and months past upgrade time for the iPhone 4 and then changed my mind the day before it was announced. I have absolutely no regrets. I have already managed to set it up to push email notifications from my five different accounts, without even having to try. It is very easy to use. I have found a use for those 10 minutes in the morning when I usually hit snooze. Now, I hit snooze, and read emails from overnight. So this morning when the deputy head emailed me at 6.30am (this is a regular occurrence) I had emailed her back before 7.30. HA!