It’s one thing to write in one’s journals for a private audience of one. But when the Whole Wide World could read one’s utterings, that thought stops me in my tracks and I take a moment to decide whether I should write what’s REALLY on my mind.

I lift my hat off to those people who have no such pauses and just motor on, daring to speak their truth in the public domain. A question though. Is not writing what you’d really like to say, a lie? Would guaranteed anonymity lead to more truths? Au contraire, just like how when you meet someone for the first time, you may not tell them EVERY last thing that’s on your mind, so too could the choice of blog content be explained. So maybe one day I might just put it out there.

For me, it’s a vulnerability issue. I’ve lived most of my life under the radar. No one except my friends and a few others knew me at High School. I didn’t do sports. I wasn’t on the Student’s Council and perhaps because of those factors, I was not a Prefect.

But it’s interesting though. With the old dot com blog, when I had access to it and would read the archives, I’d sit there thinking “you wrote THAT Miss Foot?” From what I recall, in the early years, no one knew who I was in the real world. So with the initial blog, I was like a dog which had been let out of its pen. Anything which entered my thoughts when I signed in to the blog, would get published. Unlike now, where I write the drafts then read them over, I hardly read back what I wrote before I hit the Publish button. Again, it was the vulnerability factor…but on the other side of the coin. I thought that with anonymity, I would be shielded.

So what is the concern really Miss Foot? Well, one thing is that the thoughts come in to my mind in response to stimuli, which would include interactions with people. If I take a point discussed during an interaction and built a blog post around it, especially if my opinion was very different to the other person’s, would they feel that I was pointing fingers at them? [Now Miss Foot, you’re assuming that you are at the top of everyone else’s radar. How wrong a thought! They have their own lives containing more serious issues to be concerned about.] I believe at this point, some readers would ‘steups’ or ‘kiss dem teeth’.

Well this is a part of saying what’s on my mind. After all, isn’t that why Weblogs were invented?

I’m not a teacher in the traditional sense of the word. I don’t go to a school every day, write on the chalkboard or point my laser at the whiteboard. But I spend quite a bit of time showing people how to do things they didn’t know how to do before.

They say you must choose a job which is an extension of your true self. That’s teaching for me, and it sort of chose me. It was a circuitous route which started with Summer School and Ziggy Marley.

I can’t remember the year, but it was either 1978 or 1979. Patch can confirm. Mummy had this brilliant idea to send Sis and me to Patch’s prep school to help his Grade 6 teacher, Mrs Webb. We’d write lessons on the board, mark papers and so on. It was fun to write in red ink and put “wrong bangs” when they got things wrong!

Ziggy was in Patch’s class. He behaved like all the kids. No different. No “I’m Bob Marley’s son and really don’t need to be in school” behaviour.

One day, I’d given back the exercise books after a Math quiz. Ziggy said he didn’t understand something which he had got wrong. It was soon break time so I told him if he stayed behind, I would explain it to him. His seat was in the back of the class. After all the other kids had run off to eat and play, I went and sat with Ziggy. I can’t remember what the concept it was, but I took my time and explained it as best as I could.

You know they talk about the light bulb going off? It’s real. Once he understood it, and I made sure that he did, he burst into a smile with his slightly buck teeth and I saw the light bulb as he said “thanks”.

When it came to career choices, I never considered going to Mico or any other teacher’s colleges because teaching was just not something you did, unless you couldn’t get into university. Once I got into the hotel industry, my career path took a natural progression to training.

I’d worked closely with Linda on developing the training for a restaurant at the hotel which I had been assigned to manage after a refurb. All those classroom and practical sessions made me feel that that was where I belonged, so after 2 years managing the restaurant, I requested a transfer to be Linda’s assistant. I was happy doing that for a year, when the then GM insisted on moving me to boring HR. Although it was a promotion, I found it mundane and not a good use of my time. So I left, much to his surprise.

After working in operations on the other side of the Caribbean for four years, I decided that I didn’t want to reach age 60 and regret not having specialized in training and development. School in England came next and I’ve been able to concentrate mostly on training since 2003.

My most ideal job though would be teaching Primary School level in the 8 – 11 year old bracket. Imagine then my joy in 2010 when the Minister of Education asked for volunteers from the industry to go into schools and teach Tourism! I didn’t ask my boss IF I could do it. I told him 🙂

This is my third Grade 4 and it is the highlight of my week. I spend 40 minutes once per week doing anything I choose to, around the subject of Tourism. I had a class today and they are so inquisitive and expressive (and huggy too!). It’s not the same as teaching Math or English, but it’s teaching, and I love it!

As I have blogged before, I get that rock star feeling when the ones who I taught in the previous years mob me and demand hugs. And I have to thank a reggae star….and Mummy….for enabling me to have that feeling.

Just came back from watching the movie. Very funny. Hilarious. Drop down funny.

Now I didn’t have the urge to see it before, because somewhere, somehow, I had (incorrectly) heard that all four ladies had been killed off in the movie. How wrong was I!!!

I hope they make a sequel, and show us what they’ve been up to over say a five year period.

Seriously funny. You should see it. And to think, I was not a Sec & the City fan AT ALL!

….until yamfoot.com gets sorted out.

Spammers taking up space on the server…dats wot di administrator says. So until that is figured out, I have moved to his home.

I so busy to rahtid so probably won’t have to post anything new soon!

And I bloody tired. Dying for a good night’s sleep. I need to get a new mattress I think. I sleep wonderfully at the hotel, but at my flat, it’s a different story. Wonder what it is?

Come on everybody…..ride on over to the original Yamfoot