I fell into a pattern of going to bed late, all of this week and it has not been sitting well with me at all. I’ve been getting up tired and unable to experience that energy I need to get through the day. When I woke up this morning, or rather my body, I wasn’t ready to get up but I was already alert and I needed to pee on top of that. That definitely didn’t help. I went to o the bathroom without turning on any lights because I wanted to go back to bed to try and get another hour in. I didn’t make it to an hour, but got up at around 6:00. The room was semi-lit and so I opened the curtains to allow more light to come in. I had a beautiful devotion this morning. I woke up singing, “I will serve Thee, because I love Thee”. It is a good thing to give all praise to the maker of heaven and earth. I joined the psalmist in saying, “But I will sing of thy power; yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning: for thou hast been my defence and refuge in the day of my trouble. 17 Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing: for God is my defence, and the God of my mercy.” Psalm 59:16-17 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.59.16-17.KJV. The more I experience of God, the more my heart longs to worship Him. What is your response to a loving and caring God? One who delivers you in times of trouble?
I was making good time this morning. At least, it felt that way. That was, until I had to start hurrying to make it out of the house by 8:45. My room has been in a perpetuated state of mess since last Friday when I thought I was going camping. I had left everything on my room floor, in anticipation of this weekend. I had also been adding and rearranging things and so I had to get another bag, especially when I borrowed some things from a friend of mine. That included a set of camping pots, but I think it’s a bit much and so I have decided to leave the pot set. I might not end up using some things, but I prefer to have them and not use them than not have them at all. I took some time to make some mouth wash which I had been doing without for over a week. It has been two days since the dry powder inhaler (DPI) was exhausted. I wondered if it had helped and I wondered if I’d be able to tell the difference. After my devotion I did some leg stretches focusing specifically on the back of my legs and calves. I had decided that apples would be for breakfast again, because I had no greens for my smoothie. I can actually make the smoothie without the greens but it just wouldn’t be the same. I know it would taste delicious too. I really just need to get some greens so I can get some iron into my system. I decided to have only one and a half apples and carry the other one and a half with me to work. I also added the sweet bean mochi snack, again, in my bag. My body was tired and I could feel it as I simply could not push myself to move quickly this morning.
I barely managed to leave home at around 8:45 and I was on cruise control. It felt good not to be rushing, but I must admit it was difficult to keep an even pace when I wanted to move faster. But I was trying to listen to my body. I got my desk a few minutes before 9:10. I must admit my mind was already a bit overwhelmed from last night’s activities that had me up until 23:00 even though I had really wanted to go to bed from earlier. It was just a lot of little things that I’ve been wanting to do that just kept being delayed. And so I pushed to do some of them last night including registering to do the JLPT N5 test in December. The deadline is actually today September 16th, but I wanted to send in the application and make the payment before. There had been a couple things that I wasn’t able to do because I was just too exhausted and finally had to head to bed last night. And so while I was there at work, these things were on my mind, but I never got a chance to get to them at all. I spent most of the morning checking over students submission in Google docs and making notes of some of the common errors; I did a little printing and updated the lesson plan with more pertinent information for the Zoom lesson today. The teacher with whom I would team teach with came to work almost 11:00. A few minutes later she joined me to go over the lesson plan once more and to show me where we would conduct the class, which was not the usual room that I used for my classes. I managed to stuff my mouth with one of the sweet bean mochi snacks as I did not get the chance to eat my apples pieces at all. I should have had them when I realized some of the other teachers were eating just around 11:00. The original start time for the 4th period was 11:45 and would end at 12:35 which would be the actual lunch time. But with the new schedule, the fourth period started at 12:10 and finished up at 13:00.
This was my first time having these students on Zoom and in fact, my first time having high school students on Zoom. I’m used to working with university students and company employees on Zoom, but never high school students. And never this many. With over 30 students in the class, using an iPad was less than ideal for me. But this was the setup and I am not familiar with zoom on an iPad. And in fact, the teacher didn’t know Zoom much at all and told me she had learnt so much. I couldn’t see all the students on the screen. There were about three I had to scroll through and I didn’t know how to set it to speaker mode on the iPad and the teacher didn’t know either. There was a lot that I had to figure out while doing the class. But besides some technicalities and some students not turning on their cameras, the class went pretty well, albeit at a slower pace. The only other challenge for me was adjusting my voice down a couple notches as I was still talking as though the students were in the classroom with me. I guess I was just trying to be as clear as possible, because the other teacher was not so clear especially when we were doing the dialogue. The chime went off and it was time to say goodbye to everyone. I quickly did a few more things in the staff room before heading home.
I got home at around 14:00 which was kinda on the late side, since I had finished teaching at 13:00. But I didn’t leave work until 13:30 and I had made a stop at the drugstore on my way home. Listen to how God works in mysterious ways. I have stopped at the drugstore to purchase an organic insect repellent that had been recommended by my dear friend who is a herbalist. She knows that I prefer natural or as close to natural as possible and so she sent me a picture of a particular brand. This brand was however not in the drugstore and so I sent her pictures of what was available, after trying to use the translator to identify if they were organic or not. She didn’t respond right away and I was tempted to choose something. She responded after I had left the drugstore. But that was okay, because I told myself I could always go to the drugstore close to my house, which is the same chain. When I was near my house, I decided I should stop home first and catch my breath. Even though I didn’t ride hard to get home. So I planned to finish eating my apples and then make my way to the drugstore. I’m not sure why I haven’t thought about this before, but I decided to go on YouTube and see if there were any natural repellents. And of course there were, because this would not have been the first time that I was looking out for something like this. In my mind I was wondering what I would do with that entire can or bottle of repellent after the camping trip, because I don’t usually use repellents in my everyday life. There aren’t many pests that troubled me in my apartment at all. Not even mosquitoes. And on top of that, my friend had gotten her vaccination today and was told by the doctor that if she developed a fever that she should not go camping. And so those thoughts went through my mind and I just decided I was going to make my own repellent since I had most of the ingredients that were mentioned in the YouTube videos. So I did. And I smiled and told God that He is indeed the genius. He spared me from spending money on something that I wouldn’t necessarily be using again and something that might have had other additives included which might not be good for my skin. That is how much God cares for every aspect of our lives, when we listen to his voice. I sprayed some of the mixture on my skin and there was no adverse reaction and I smelled great. LOL.
The bags were going to be picked up today by my friend, though I’m not exactly sure why the decision to pick it up before hand was made. But I’m sure they had their reasons. As such I told them to come any time after 17:00. This meant I needed to ensure everything was ready and so I made my way to the supermarket after 15:00, for what felt like the umpteenth time, for this camping trip. Of course, I have been eating from earlier purchases. LOL. I took my time to go through the isles, but was still careful of what I bought to take on the trip. I couldn’t afford to give in to the temptation of bringing convenience food that I wouldn’t have, had I been staying home. I felt satisfied with my purchases, which included lots of fruits. I made my way back and observed the Indian store seemed opened, but I didn’t stop there. Once I got back home, I busied myself with concluding my packing. I wasn’t able to update my packing list, since I wanted to be ready for 17:00. They hadn’t said they would come at 17:00, but I wanted to be at least ready from that time. There was only one issue. I was so tired. Really more tired than I wanted to be, going into the weekend. But I still went ahead and vacuum the stair well from all the dirt I had piled into it. I was starving and had no idea what I’d have for dinner. I couldn’t believe it because I had been in the supermarket for so long. My friend advised that there was too much traffic on the road and so they went back home and advised they would come at a later time. I didn’t sit down to eat until 17:30. I was zapped, weak and tired. Dinner was a smoothie and snacks. Conflicting, I know. I didn’t have a clue what to have for dinner. I thought about going to the Indian restaurant which I saw was opened on my way back from the supermarket. As a matter of fact, the grocery store section seems to still be in operation. Looks like they were either on a holiday on Monday or had opened later. It’s a small business operated by 3 people, from what I’ve seen. Since I’d had some amount of bread, rice and walnuts this week, the Indian restaurant wasn’t an option, though I’d certainly enjoyed having the curry. The smoothie was the best decision for my body right now. It felt as though I was too tired to know if I was full or not, but the smoothie was quite tasty.
I sat at my work spot and had the smoothie. I wanted to write today’s entry, but didn’t have the strength and mental focus to get it done. I wrote bits and pieces in an effort not to forget and then I switched and watched a bit of Trevor Noah to get a few laughs. That helped me to relax a bit. I had moved all the bags downstairs in anticipation of the new ETA of 20:16 by my friend. The real weight felt lifted from my shoulders when all the bags were packed in the car. I could finally see my room floor and my steps were cleared.
Instead of meeting early tomorrow to head camping, we won’t get to the site until late in the night as my friend will be working late. I’ll meet at their home with my fruits and cold items which I didn’t send this evening. Anything I have missed will have to fit in my backpack and the cooler vox. Tonight will definitely be an early one to bed.
Thank you for journeying with me on today's entry. Please support by leaving a comment below or sharing this with someone who might enjoy the journey. Remember to follow my blog stacypersonallyapeaking.wordpress.com to get posts directly in your inbox. You can also watch me on my YouTube channel Stacy Personally Speaking to see me in person. 20:59