End of the holidays

Yesterday I got on my bike and rode 62km as part of the Tour Down Under Challenge Tour. W00T! Today I feel surprisingly un-sore, which I am feeling very pleased about! My aim for next year is to be fit enough to ride the 95km section... definitely achievable, especially as I have done it in the past!

I guess I've worked pretty hard on fitness these holidays - been going to the gym 3-4 times a week for the last 6 wks! It'll be a challenge to keep that up once school is back, but it's something I'm committed to! I have to if I want to drop 20kg!

So, as I named this post, the holidays are drawing to a close... after this weekend I will have only 3 more days of freedom. I don't know if I'm looking forward to going back to school this year, I always have a bit of back to work anxiety. The first couple of weeks back as a teacher are tough I think - you have a whole bunch of new faces and names to learn, plus standing up in front of all those new kids and doing the song and dance that is teaching. Especially language teaching! Trying to engage students in learning another language, when they have often had a negative experience of language learning in primary school and generally don't see why they should learn a foreign language because they already speak English, and doesn't everyone in the world speak English??? Plus, teaching Indonesian adds a whole new element to justifying your subject! At least I have one senior class of Indonesian and a senior humanities class to keep me sane!

To sum up how I feel about going back to work (in the words of Shakespeare's Henry V) "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!"