The July Ultimate Blog Challenge (UBC) is done and dusted for another year. August has arrived, and in my little corner of the world, August means windy weather. Cold and wet, windy weather. And this year, the August winds have brought with them a message of change.
UBC is designed to motivate bloggers to post a new blog on their website each day of the month. The July challenge was no different. Again, I fell short of the goal, but old habits die hard, and new habits are hard to establish. I tried. I failed. But I learned a lot in the process, and that’s what matters most.
Life Happens
My excuse is that life happens, and it is those life-happenings that are the canvas on which we create new blogs.
July came with no shortage of life-events, and now I have plenty of empty canvases, just waiting to be filled. But the winds of change are howling around me, screaming for me to abandon this site, for a while, in order to fill the blank spaces of my Family History blog site.
A domain name needs to reflect the theme of the website it belongs to. This website and blog, aptly named, is about me: my community, my travels, my thoughts, likes, dislikes, and my life in general. When I needed a more specific blog-site, I created Grandfather Berg.
My interest in family history centres predominantly around my paternal Grandfather, Alfred Berg, who started the Australian branch of the Berg Family, of which I am descended. Grandfather was born with a more Swedish name in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1877, than he died with in Bankstown, Australia, in 1959.
Because I like a challenge, my research is focussed on my Swedish side, and Grandfather deserves a website of his own because so little is known of his early life. I don’t speak Swedish, but I understand a few Swedish words that help isolate vital information from Swedish records.
When did Grandfather change his name? When and why did he leave Sweden? These questions remain unanswered but deserve my full attention.
My Ancestors
Grandfather isn’t my only ancestor worthy of a blog, so I created the Family History Vault to capture the stories of both sides of my family. And therein lies the change that the August winds are prompting.
I fell short of the required thirty-one blogs for the July Ultimate Blog Challenge, but I managed to increase the blog-width of this site in the process. Now it’s time to abandon these pages for a while, to add to the stories that are waiting to be told on my other sites.
When I am no longer a participant in the race we call ‘life’, future generations will hopefully find a foothold in their family history search, through the stories I have written. And maybe by researching my family in general, I might unearth vital information about Grandfather’s Swedish family.
I hope that future generations won’t have to work as hard to find their ancestor’s stories as the current generation has in finding theirs.
And that is why I will continue to research, write, and fill the pages of the Family History Vault with the stories of those who have gone before us.
Will I beat the deadline and squeeze another post in before the sun sets on another Ultimate Blog Challenge?
I may have listened more closely to the gentle guiding forces that suggested I rise from my bed a little earlier this morning, thereby avoiding a potential catastrophe. Not early-early, just 7.30ish, which is early for me. By a little after 8 o’clock I was showered, dressed, and had made my bed (that’s a safety procedure so I’m not tempted to jump back into it on a cold day).
With a large glass of water in hand, I perused emails and checked Facebook to see how much the world had changed while I slept. It seems nothing too drastic happened and I could confidently step out into that world later today.
Then came an unexpected knock at the door. It was a plumber, sent to check the temperature of my hot water (thank goodness I was dressed!). Comparing the ‘hotness’ of my shower here, to the ‘hotness’ of the shower in my previous unit, the water here is a little too far on the ‘cool’ side. Being someone who overstays their environmental welcome in a hot shower on a cold day, I felt a bit cheated by the lack of heat of the current situation.
According to the plumber, the temperature meets safety requirements (not too low), which leads me to think I may have overdone it with the hot tap before I moved here. The temperature could be tweaked a bit to deliver a warmer shower, but I figured the effort isn’t worth it.
I should explain about how the hot water works in my little retirement world.
My first winter in my last place didn’t end without a few tribulations. I discovered, after running out of hot water in the shower one frosty morning, that the hot-water container stored a mere fifty litres of water. I had long hair, and I liked a long hot shower. It didn’t end well. Yes, I know I’m supposed to use a three-minute timer but seriously, does anyone actually win that race?
So, I applied to our Strata Committee for permission to install a big hot water tank on my front porch. After a bit of argee-bargy, they finally consented, and I was quick to find a plumber to install the new tank.
As a bit of an aside, you’ve probably guessed that I live a fairly chaotic life. Installing a new hot water service was no exception.
The plumber asked how many taps needed to be turned off to secure the water. ‘Three’, I replied, having asked Dave, our maintenance person, a few days earlier. Either the plumber didn’t hear me, or, well, I don’t know what went wrong, but… at a crucial point in the process, water gushed out from under the sink. Before long I was squelching through the carpet in the living area while I phoned Dave to turn the water off at the mains, somewhere along my street. Dave wasn’t on site, but I reckon he flew back from town because the water stopped gushing not too much later. Not soon enough to save the living room carpet, but soon enough to stop the water making its way into the bedrooms.
If I’d had Valium in the house I reckon the plumber would have asked for it (I don’t even have aspirin so he was out of luck). I thought plumbers would be used to that sort of thing, but not him. I wasn’t overly phased by it, and quickly hatched a plan for the coming days while the floors dried. It was July, and I wasn’t fussed on sleeping with the doors and windows wide open, and heavy-duty fans blowing all night (not to mention the noise). I was actually looking forward to a couple of comfortable nights in a hotel; kind of a mini-vacation.
Before I could Google ‘comfy hotel with extra-hot water’, the village manager arrived. His first words were ‘you can’t stay here’, followed by, ‘I can’t believe how calm you are’, and then, ‘there’s a spare apartment in The Lodge you can use until the floors dry’. I gratefully accepted, but not before enquiring about the calibre of the hot water in The Lodge.
Today’s encounter with the plumber was uneventful, and I’ve even commissioned him to install a new shower filter, as soon as I buy it. He was such a nice young person and reminded me of my grandson, who is also a plumber, but sadly lives too far away to come to my water-related rescue. As for my not-too-hot showers? Apartment living is different. We don’t have a separate hot water supply all to ourselves, we share the communal supply, and I’m fine with that.
And now, I await a call from my friend, Stella. We’re going out for coffee, as soon as she gets back from picking up family at the airport.
And somewhere in the world the sun is setting (or maybe just rising), and I’m ahead of the game, for once. My final blog post for the UBC is done.
I have loved every minute of this one and will continue to read and be inspired by the fantastic bloggers that I’ve met along the way. From the great works of Lily Leung that I discovered in an earlier challenge, I’ve learned to relax my writing, and write from the heart.
I hope one day to be even half as good as my Challenge Buddies, and I look forward to meeting you again, in another UBC.
Some days just don’t end well. Not that today has ended yet, but I’ve certainly written off most of it already.
I was full of vim and vigour this morning so I washed the kitchen floor. Well, that led to discovering I needed a new cover for my swaffer-stick thing that I wash the floor with. Two microfibre cloths later, a bit of sewing, and I had a new cover made. It doesn’t look too professional, but it does the job, and let’s face it, nobody else is going to use it so it really doesn’t matter.
By the time I was done with the floor fiasco, it was too late for breakfast and too early for lunch; I settled for a large glass of water. Armed with my trusty laptop, I perched myself comfortably on the balcony, and figured I’d start my blog for the day.
I should have read it first!
Something strange happened, although I didn’t think it was strange to begin with. An alert popped up before I started writing. Without thinking, I hit the install button, assuming I was updating a plugin. But apparently not. I still don’t know what the alert said, but it obviously had nothing to do with plugins. Nope. It seems I changed the theme. Not that I could say what theme I had been using because I change them so often, but suddenly things looked very different. And that made me think, hmmm, I wonder which theme is best for a simple blog? AI to the rescue; I asked ChatGPT. The answer was Hemingway. Another button-pushing minute later, I’d installed Hemingway as the theme.
And I still hadn’t started writing.
Installing a new theme is one thing, but wondering how to make the font bigger universally, without manually changing each block, is something else. I know there is CSS that will do it, but I’m not up to that part of my coding course yet. So, good old YouTube and a wasted couple of hours later, I’ve added a new plugin that at least puts the Font Family and Font Size within easy reach, right up there with the Block Editor icons. I still have to select each block manually, and I’m still getting used to Hemingway again (I know I’ve used the theme before), but here I am, writing, at last.
The lessons learned today are:
Read alerts before pushing buttons
Stop procrastinating, and get on with the coding course
Just write the blog!
Worry about finer details like themes, later.
My website is still doing quirky things, but I’ll tackle that another day.
Before I retired, I taught students with disability for more years than I remember. The number of years isn’t as relevant as what I learned along the way, and the number of students whose lives I hopefully improved in the process. One of the most significant things I learned, and what got me out of trouble more than any other technique, was the gentle art of distraction in behaviour management.
My Teaching Journey
When I had the opportunity to gain my Special Education qualification, full-time and on my teacher salary, I felt like I was going to Academia Heaven. The course was gruelling, but I loved it, and during that year of intense study, I was introduced to Applied Behaviour Analysis.
Gary LaVigna and Tom Willis, who founded the Institute of Applied Behavior Analysis (IABA), came to Australia from Los Angeles every two years to present lectures and workshops. As a student in the Graduate Diploma of Special Education, I was able to attend a lecture by Tom Willis. The lecture changed my life. For the next decade of my career, I took every opportunity I could to be inspired by either of these two incredible educators, whenever they were in Brisbane.
And the one thing I learned that made my job so much easier was the gentle art of distraction. Tom Willis described how he used distraction to diffuse situations that might otherwise end badly.
After the Grad. Dip. in Spec. Ed., I enrolled in a Master’s degree, part-time (teaching all day, studying at night) to learn more about Applied Behaviour Analysis. A few years later, I changed schools and moved into an administration role. My focus was on behaviour management and offering support to parents.
Boat, What Boat?
One of my most memorable students was Jesse. Jesse was memorable for a lot of reasons that are worthy of a chapter or two in a future book. Actually, I could write a whole book about Jesse.
Jesse’s teacher called me during class time to report that Jesse had stormed out of the classroom. I checked his usual hiding spots, but he was not in any of them. I was about to call for reinforcement when I detected a movement at the back of a building. It was Jesse, and he was walking towards the back fence that divided the school campus from the housing estate on the other side.
When I caught up to Jesse, he had a hammer in his right hand, and when he saw me, his arm slowly moved upwards. With the hammer poised above his head, the next movement, I predicted, would be to deliver a blow to whatever his mind was set on destroying. I hoped it was the fence, but realistically figured that the soon-to-be ‘smashed’ object might be my head. In that split second of self-preservation I remembered Tom Willis’ example of distraction. I looked beyond the fence and exclaimed “Oh my gosh! Who put that boat there?”. Luckily, someone had parked a boat on the easement of land behind the fence, thus providing the perfect prop for testing my ‘art of distraction’ theory. Jesse stood there, hammer poised in the striking position, and asked ‘What?”.
“How did that boat get there? Was there a flood and when the water went down, the boat was left there”, I asked? With the hammer still poised, Jesse replied “No, it’s always been there”. I kept the momentum going with questions and comments, and noticed Jesse’s grip on the hammer relaxing, just a little. The more I questioned, the more relaxed he became, and his right arm slowly started moving towards the ground.
After a few minutes, I was convinced that the moment of anger had passed, but I kept the banter going a little longer, just to be sure. When I felt the moment was right, I suggested that Jesse and I go into my office for a chat. We had played out the ‘chat-in-the-office’ routine often enough for him to know that it was a positive, not negative experience.
As we walked, I casually asked Jesse what he was going to do with the hammer, and he just as casually said he might put it in the janitor’s work shed. I agreed, and we handed the hammer over to a very grateful janitor.
Rapport
There are a couple of things that enabled this situation to end well. Jesse knew he could trust me to treat him fairly. I might have to use disciplinary measures at times, but I never held a grudge. Each day was a new day. Transgressions were dealt with at the time of the incident, and we both moved on.
The most important element was rapport. I’m not sure if rapport can be taught, or learned, but it is essential, in my opinion, in any teacher’s toolkit. I had already established rapport with Jesse at the beginning of the school year.
I never took Jesse’s behaviour personally. Those quirky behaviours were his way of dealing with frustration and the world around him. It was my job to teach him a better way to handle stressful situations.
And I never launched into the ‘why’ questions until Jesse had completely calmed down – then we would talk. In the ‘eye of the storm,’ Jesse was not capable of listening or understanding. He needed to be in a calm state before we could discuss the issue, or any consequences.
By using the gentle art of distraction, the focus was shifted away from the anger, away from the frustration. It gave Jesse something else to focus on.
But what if there is no boat?
It happened! Not with Jesse, but in another school, and with another student. Tess had absconded from the classroom, and by the time I found her, she was close to the back fence of the school – on the wrong side of the back fence. My biggest fear was that Tess would run, and I would be no match for her.
There was no boat over the back fence, but luckily I knew Tess was interested in wildlife. Rather than rush towards her, I ambled along and started picking up pieces of rubbish. Tess watched from her safe vantage point. I edged closer but was still half-a-playground from her. If nothing else, Tess was intrigued with my apparent lack of interest in what she was doing. And then I stopped. As I picked up another piece of rubbish, I nonchalantly called out and asked Tess if there was any rubbish near her. ”Yes” she said, warily. Then came the question I was hoping for:
“Why?”.
I called out that I was concerned about birds picking up the rubbish. Tess started to move towards the gate – then through the gate – and finally towards me, as I continued the dialogue: “Why do kids throw rubbish around? Don’t they know it can kill birds and small animals?”.
AI generated image: ChatGPT
By the time we met in the middle, Tess was thinking about wildlife. We talked about what we could do to highlight the issue, and decided that posters around the school might help.
I didn’t have to put my running shoes on to chase her (which rarely ever works anyway), and we had averted a potentially dangerous situation.
And while we designed posters about rubbish and wildlife, we talked about the issue that had initially upset Tess. The catalyst was frustration over something she felt she had no control over. Again, my job was to teach her a better way of dealing with frustration. We worked on that – in the long term, but for now, I returned a calm student to her classroom.
The main thing that ensured the success of this approach was rapport. The students knew they could trust me to stay calm and treat them fairly. At the beginning of each school year, I listed each student’s interests, what motivated them, and what triggers could set them off. And I found something to love about each student.
How many times have I sat in front of my laptop wondering what to write?
Tonight is one of those times. I had a few ideas buzzing round my head as I warmed my fingers up to start pounding the keyboard, but none of them landed anywhere where they might actually be useful.
And then I noticed I had thirty-four drafts in the Draft Folder of my Posts page. That means thirty-four times I’ve sat here wondering what to write, then actually wrote something, then abandoned it.
Seriously?
If I had been a bit smarter, I would have blitzed the Ultimate Blog Challenge for July. All I had to do was take each of those drafts and finish them. That would have covered the ‘write a blog a day‘ commitment, and given me a few left over as an early start to the next UBC.
But no, those poor little drafts sit there, all alone, and incomplete, while I sit and wonder ‘what will I write today‘?
The Universe works in mysterious ways, and my encounter with the laws of the universe played out over the last four days.
While my daughter visited last week, she suggested I could gain more space in my living area by rearranging a few pieces of furniture.
As I sat in my usual spot on Monday morning, coffee in hand, my mind wandered to the possibilities of the rearrangement. I thought I’d tried every conceivable position for everything, but obviously not. My daughter’s suggestion had never occurred to me, but it made a lot of sense.
An hour later, I had furniture moved and in position, but there seemed to be a lot of ‘things’ that were now without a permanent home.
‘Right’, I thought, ‘time to sort out the half-filled containers that, with a bit more thought, could hold double the amount and minimise the number of containers needed’. For practicality, in a small apartment, I use 4X4 cubes, with basket inserts.
By Monday afternoon, I had a few neat little boxes stashed around the room in varying degrees of ‘organised’ (or lack thereof), ready to be sorted into baskets. What threw the spanner in the organising works was Alexa, the smart little Amazon gadget that turns my lamp on and off, tells me the time, and answers random questions about the weather. In short, Alexa was missing.
I had moved her to a safe place while I moved the television into its new position, intending to put Alexa back beside the TV when I finished. And I didn’t even realise she was missing until I wondered what the time was later that afternoon.
Monday night turned into a game of hide-and-seek; Alexa hid, and I sought, to no avail.
Tuesday was spent going through baskets and boxes, not once, but many times, just in case I missed seeing Alexa the first time. In the process, I completely overhauled my storage system in the living area, and in my bedroom as well. I was so proud of what I achieved, but I still hadn’t found Alexa.
On Wednesday, I drilled down even deeper. She had to be somewhere; somewhere I hadn’t looked yet. The bedroom got an even better overhaul, with empty boxes relegated to the garage, to be disposed of environmentally, later.
But still no Alexa.
This morning (Thursday), I luxuriated in the extra space in my living area, resigned myself to the fact I probably would never find Alexa, and prided myself on how great my bedroom, living, and sewing area looked after the thorough ‘organisation-spree’ of the last few days. It was time to get back to the tasks I should have been doing instead of turning every inch of my small apartment upside down to search for the elusive little blue dot called Alexa.
I sat down to write, but my eyes drifted to the vacant spot where Alexa should be, and a light bulb moment hit me right between the eyes. I wondered, could I have absentmindedly put her there, and could she have fallen behind the cupboard? I doubted it, but checked anyway.
Luckily, I had the foresight to put castors on that flatpack when I put it together. I rolled the cupboard forward a little, peered over the edge, and there she was. Obviously, I had sat her behind the TV, but a little too close to the edge, perhaps.
And that’s where the law of the Universe stepped in. If I hadn’t lost Alexa, I would have procrastinated (something I do particularly well) and not tackled the ultimate organisation that was so desperately needed.
So today, I’ve found my way back to the Ultimate Blog Challenge, with no hope of ever catching up. But that’s okay, because my living space and bedroom look fantastic, and Alexa is in her rightful place.
