One week and 420 out of 1736 squats done! My knees are protesting but at the suggestion of The Unicorn I did my squats with a leg band yesterday. Doing exercise like that with a restrictive band around your thighs makes the target muscles work harder and puts less strain on the joints. Not that you guys are interested in exercise mechanics! Side note comment to Kdaddy’s comment earlier in the week. Squatting with a straight back is harder for women because their centre of gravity is different. Not that you guys are interested in exercise mechanics! What is important is that I am now targeting the butt more effectively. Let me know what you think of today’s pic. My plan is to [...]

It is a wet start to Friday of Week 6. Many things are flitting through my head as I eat my beans on toast and contemplate the weekend ahead. At the top of the list is my timetable. At school it is week B. Which means my Friday is full of double lessons with no planning time. Friday of week A, by contrast, features a double planning session after lunch. The holy grail so to speak. The uptick of this is that I will only have one more Friday B in this contract. A few things have settled in my brain this week. Now that I am over the hump of the term I am looking at the few short weeks in which [...]

This set of TMI questions was posted on 1 March in 2016. I hope you enjoy the re-hash 1. Tell us your top 3 flaws and shortcomings. Hypercritical of myself, forever saying sorry, very bad at not telling people what their Christmas present is. 2. Who do you look up to the most:– Professionally?– Sexually? I have a couple of “Teacher Heroes” who I was privileged to work with when I was a beginning teacher. They supported and encouraged me and modelled how to be an awesome teacher. Sexually I can’t think of one person in particular. I usually admire women who don’t let the opinion of others shape who they are. I can think of a few, and I am glad they [...]

The Australian National Breast Cancer Association is a not-for-profit that raises funds for research into this disease. In Australia, the pink branding is widely recognised and there are many corporate sponsors. But there are grass-roots movements as well. This year The Unicorn and I are participating in the “Squat Challenge” A month-long challenge that involves doing 56 squats every day. As an added challenge, one of our pole fitness instructors has suggested that we do 9 squat jumps for the 9 people who die from this cancer in Australia every day. Yesterday being March 1 we started. I am proud that my current total is 90 (yesterday and half of today’s quota). I am not sure if I will be doing 9 squat [...]