Feel the Space

I've had a strange feeling this week. Since I completed my massive tidy up I've been experiencing a feeling of space in my house.

When there were piles of papers in every room and carrier bags of stuff in the hallway and on the landing, the house felt claustrophobic. Now, after my reorganisation, I can once again see the dining room table, the sitting room cabinet, the hall carpet. My living space seems bigger and I feel less hemmed in.

When you think about it, most people like space. When people go to buy a house, they usually want it to feel spacious and they are often put off a particular property if it is cramped or cluttered.

It's the same when you're faced with a page of print. A sheet of paper covered edge to edge with words, with no white space, is not inviting to the reader. It's far more comfortable to read something that has a larger percentage of white space - in other words, emptiness.

Most of us will be familiar with the discomfort of having to squash ourselves into a bus or a train that is jam-packed with too many people. We endure it if we have to, but isn't it so much nicer to be on one where there is plenty of room, a choice of seats, a bit of space between you and the next person?

Having our lives too crowded with appointments and demands can be very stressful. That feeling of wall-to-wall activity makes us feel we have no breathing space, no time to sit back and take stock. No time to simply enjoy our life.

How are you at the moment? Take a look at the room you're sitting in. Is it a space that you can breathe in? Do you find it conducive to working in or relaxing in?

Get out your diary and have a look at how your week pans out. Do you have space to think or are you trying to cram in so many activities that you've no time to think?

Take a look out of your window. Is there space for you to relax and roam freely? If there isn't, maybe you'd benefit from a weekend in the country or by the sea.

Give yourself a mini Space Break right now. Stand up and let yourself spread out as much as you can. Lift up your arms, stand on your tiptoes, have a good stretch and a yawn. Feeling better?

Demob Happy!

Today's been a bit of a pottering-around-and-catching-up day. It's been the first day that I haven't had to do any marking or lesson preparation for my teaching job.

My creative writing class met on 5th June for the last time this academic year. Since then, I've been extremely busy marking their second assignments and portfolios for their qualification, ready for Internal Verification by my boss this week and moderation by someone from the Examining Board next week.

Given that my students are extremely keen and prolific writers, going through their massive portfolios has been time-consuming, exhausting and eye-boggling - at one point I was actually starting to see double!

But at the same time, it has been an entertaining, fascinating and exhilerating process. It's been a real joy to see how much my students have progressed since they started studying with me in September. And the quality of their work and the amount of time, thought, and effort they have put into getting their portfolios just right is astonishing!

Today I've enjoyed having the time to save some podcasts (Hay House Radio - their Listen Again archive is a treasure trove of programmes about self-development and spirituality), e-mail friends, and even wash the bath mat! There are still lots of things on my to-do list for the week - music practice, yoga, swimming, belly dancing, hairdresser, dentist, to name but a few.

And tomorrow I go along to the college clutching my own certificates in my sweaty hands. This time, I'm the one who'll be the student, as it's the induction morning for my two-year in-service PGCE course. I'm looking forward to studying again and finding out all the things I should have been doing this year! Perhaps I'll learn how to use the projector without having to rely on two of my technically-minded students!

So I definitely won't be bored over the next couple of months. I'll be glad to have a break and a bit of a rest. But there's part of me that will be thinking, 'Wouldn't be nice to have some writing to mark?' I think I may be having withdrawal symptoms by the time the summer vacation is over.

But, you never know, perhaps I'll get a few e-mails in my inbox before then saying, 'Gale, I've written another story - I wonder if you'd mind just having a look at it for me...'

There's hope for me yet!