Someone once told me, "If you want something bad enough, you'd get it. You have to envision it, picture it in your head."
Yesterday, I understood what that meant.
I had set out to jam pack my holidays this week with as many things to do as possible, among which was to do up all the lesson plans for the next few weeks so that when formal observations are scheduled, I wouldn't have to worry so much about them. I knew I'd be busy. I wanted to make full use of my holidays with constructive things to do. I pictured myself busy, but I didn't realise that the week would be filled up with other commitments so fast!
Yesterday, I saw myself back at HIHS at 8.30am. Met up with Jo and Suet Ferng to discuss on the scheme of work for the next six weeks for the Sec 3 Express kids in the school. I had set up an elaborate plan, alternating between the four skills to be taught, intertwining them into a tight schedule, and even incorporating a MicroLesson! And so, when we met, all we did was to split up the work, and within an hour, our meeting was over! Cool! Over the next few days, I'd see myself doing up the MicroLesson, worksheets, games, and yet more lesson plans.
Then, I went on to do marking of my students' journals, newspaper review and corrections for their compositions. Marking the journals was the best. I could read what was going on in my kids' heads. It saddened me to see them give up so easily. One girl gave up her dream of running competitively because she hated the teacher in charge of track and field! For each journal, I wrote in my comments, with words of encouragement, words of kindness, words of care. I hope it'll touch them in some way...
Done with marking, I did yet more research in school for the lessons.. Printed, printed, printed... Spoke with Jennifer Gala from Harvard over the phone, made a breakfast meeting with her on Friday, then packed my laptop home, braved the heavy downpour and was home by 4pm. Had a quick change of clothes as I was partially drenched, and headed for Sheraton Towers for dinner at 5.30pm with two friends from my Raffles Hotel days. One of the guys is the Front Office Manager there now. Had a nice big meal of sliced fish hor fun (which really was chunky fish hor fun!) whilst catching up on the latest news in the hotel industry.
I shared my day with Wendy over the phone. She too was on a high because she found the exact right colour paint she had wanted for her wall in her new home. She had envisioned how the colour should be, and she got it.
Spooky? Not really. It's all in your mind, and how you use it to drive you towards your goal.
The power of envisioning. I have begun to believe in it.