On unreasonable demands and finishing up the TEFL

Because self-restraint is overrated.

I can get so ridiculously provoked by some things my sister K does, but mostly I can't stand her all-or-nothing kind of attitude that she shares with her husband, or rather, I would be able to stand it if they would stick to anything longer than after the initial thrill wears off. They decided one day that they didn't like IKEA anymore. Instead of doing the reasonable thing of going "Hey, IKEA is probably good for some stuff, but let's not buy any more IKEA furniture", they went full-on purge-it-with-fire mode. "We're never shopping from IKEA ever again!" which of course only lasted a few months, and then they got mad when I called them on it. Same thing with every time they try to go on a diet. Instead of changing their lifestyle gradually, they go crazy with fad diets or unreasonable demands. "We're never having candy again!" And then a month later, there they are having broken their promise to themselves because they set themselves up for failure by just not being realistic. It's incredibly frustrating. K's new idea is that their family should no longer buy bread, but instead rely on K baking fresh bread whenever it's needed. "We're never buying bread from the store again!" Is this sounding familiar to anyone but me? I'm just waiting to see how long it'll take before that crashes and burns due to K's absolute inability to handle stressful situations. One day, in what I predict to be a not too far off future, they'll be out of bread, she'll throw a tantrum, and they'll never bake bread again.

Google Analytics is also completely impossible to use. I don't know if it's just my hormonal lack of patience going on, but I've been poking around with the code forever and I still haven't figured out how to set up tracking properly. I'm curious as to how many of you silent readers read regularly, versus just the ones who stop by for a quick look. I hated how my old blog worked, but for some reason it was much easier to handle Google Analytics on that one than it is to handle Google Analytics on the actual Google platform. Fancy that.

I finally handed in the last of my TEFL work today, a full day before the deadline. Actually, I wasn't sure if it all had to be in before the 16th or at the end of the 16th, so I just blasted through to be on the safe side. I have no idea if my  'research paper' (I use quotation marks because 500-700 words hardly makes the cut for research papers in my world) would hold up as valid in any other circumstance, but right now time was the most important factor, and I'm the queen of writing half-assed stuff in a serious context so that it looks good. I'm proud I managed to finish it on time, but I'm at the same time pissed at myself for letting it take that long. It shouldn't take six months to do a 120 hour course, but what are going to do when you're burned out and can hardly get out of bed? That being said, I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I'm going to high five myself for getting that much closer to my goal.

Can't wait to get a good night's sleep now, or I don't know, some free time that isn't guilt ridden. Now all I need is to get both my Bachelor's degree and my TEFL certificate in writing and I'm good to go, and I'm actually kinda looking forward to the whole teaching thing. I think I'd be pretty good at it. I'm pretty good at lesson planning anyway, and as my tutor Matt so gallantly said, I produced 'an excellent final unit /.../ You have of course, achieved a passing grade! /.../ If there's anything I can do for you at any stage in the future, please feel free to drop me a line. It has been a real pleasure working with you, and I wish you all the best for the future.' Aww yeah.