Adventures of the Lifting Librarian

The 2018 Flying Kiwi Cup

On Sunday 16th September, 2018, Michael Adams from Flying Kiwi Fitness hosted the first ever Special Olympics Powerlifting Competition, and we (VALHALLA Strength – South Brisbane) were asked to be involved. Please excuse my excitement but… IT WAS THE BEST DAY EVER! Michael, or Mick as we know him, is a good friend of ours and…

The Belles – Clayton

The Belles was rather popular on Instagram earlier this year; I suspect this was because of the beautiful cover. Due to its popularity, I was intrigued enough to give it a go and I’m really glad I did. Since then I have recommended it to a few students in year 9 and they too, have…

Drafting Checklists

I’ve always struggled with marking drafts. The fact that the feedback needs to happen quickly, be easily understood, and help students to know whether they’re on the right track makes it all a bit hard when you’ve got 80 + drafts to do in a week. I’ve tried: Hand written comments Verbal feedback = both…

Instagram Algorithm Troubles

I am pretty active on Instagram. I share: What I’m reading and loving My training progress The animals in my life My thoughts on mental wellbeing And so much more… It’s not my goal to grow my profile into the 10s of thousands of followers, but I do take a small amount of pride in…

Embedding Thinking Skills

I was recently assigned to teach a year 8 class called “Project of Innovation” (8PI). It’s a semester long subject designed to get students to develop their thinking skills, and then use those skills to design and build a toy for prep students. It’s a fantastic program, and I’m so excited to be on the…

Mount A: Book in a Day

Today I hosted a version of the The Kids Cancer Project Write a Book in a Day for some year 9 and 10 students of Mount Alvernia College. I asked the English teachers of year 9 and 10 to supply the names of students they thought might be interested in participating in the event. 40…

The value of a good network

Helen Stower (the Program Leader of the iCentre at Mount Alvernia, and my wonderful colleague) and I were recently invited to attend the inaugural Edmund Rice Education Australia (EREA) Library Network Conference, and I was so inspired and motivated by the things I heard and learnt, that I had to process them in the best way I…

Sometimes it just doesn’t work

I recently experienced failure at work for the first time ever. I had coordinated with a couple of my colleagues to run a Smashing Stereotypes event for the students at my school. Smashing Stereotypes events are what we run for our female members at VALHALLA Strength – South Brisbane. They are designed to educate and…

I sing because I’m happy

At the end of my blog post “Mental Health Reflection” I promised a follow up about the benefits of singing for depression. Well, here it is! My psychologist suggested to me that as I have a background in singing, that I might like to start singing once a day for at least 20mins. She didn’t…

Book Club Fun

The ladies at my gym, to whom we refer to as Valkyries, had been bugging me for weeks to start up a book club. I finally pulled my finger out and organised it. I chose three books for them to vote on, recorded myself talking about them (I’d only read one of the three so…