It's finally here. Ahhhh.

I have started my holidays the way I mean to finish them - sleeping in luxuriously.

I'm meeting up with Trace the Ace later in the day (my newly 30 friend from the army who I haven't seen in literally years). Should be cool! From the corny sense of humour in her emails she's just the same as ever.

The season of the 30ths seems to be upon me. I have another one next weekend I've been invited to (though I may pass it up in favour of Kirsten's dress-up affair, which to be fair got in first). Then Ed's is coming up at the beginning of August, once he's back from his student-paid European vacation.

Yesterday six staff members left - all of them nice people. Four of them were pretty much the only young males we had on staff. Mass exodus! All for their own reasons, just unfortunate timing. The poor girls have nobody left to have crushes on. Even the dashing English reliever who was here for a term last year and was back for a couple of weeks recenlty, finished up on Friday. That's seven people going. Four of them worthy of having crushes on (one of them a male model).

Ken's going to leave a gaping hole in the culture of the staff. He was the jokester and always got into social activities with gusto and took things with a smile. I told him on his last day we should've finally admitted to the girls that YES, just as you have always believed, we were in fact dating the first three years he was at the school.... Just for fun. Mess with 'em right til the end, I say.

We spent yesterday lunchtime taking on the Year 13s at basketball. Only ended up having four staff, but we kept up with them 4-on-4 full court. Valiant effort! We won by 25-20. Ken managed to fluke another 3-pointer. Not quite as dramatic as the hook-shot of the last game, but we needed it anyhow. Usually when you play with a bunch of randoms it's a bit painful on defence - running around like chickens. But me and Ken and the other two played quite a good intuitive zone, kinda unofficially taking the nearest playing, then switching. We must all have good instincts. GO THE TEACHERS!

* * *

In a geeky trend...... Several English teachers on staff are now proudly wearing 'Stay Gold Pony Boy' badges that we had specially ordered at the Year 10 Market Day. Yeah - we are book geeks. The kid whose idea it was is quite proud to have actually started a fashion trend.

I think it'll catch on all over the country. It'll be the new 'Vote For Pedro' fashion statement.

* * *

I have no great holiday plans in sight. I have to go home and haul as much of my stuff out of my dad's garage as possible before he down-sizes. Not sure what to do with it - but it's my mission, threatened on me every time I've been in the vicinity of home (hence I have not been in that vicinity in months). Who knows, I might find some real treasures.

I suspect spending hours fossicking in the garage is going to be bloody freezinig. Will have to pull out the old winter gloves and thermals. At the very least I expect to find a toasted sandwich maker.

* * *

I learnt how to cook something. Reidun saw me about to just fry up some mushrooms and chuck em on a bit of toast, and she intervened to stop my culinary madness. She added a bunch of other ingredients and made it a masterpiece.

I have repeated her much fancier yummier mushrooms on toast recipe two times since (on my own). I now have a reportoire of one specialty dish. I am quite proud.

Who-oooo-oooo-are-we? Whoo-ooo Whoo-ooo?

Any good ideas for next season's team name? Me, Michelle, Morgan and Jonoball were bandying around a few ideas. Most of them weren't any good. Some of them were unrepeatable. None were better than our present name.

Perhaps we could stay with an A-team theme, or an 80s TV thing...... 'Whatchua Talkin' Bout, Willis?'.......

'Vote for Pedro'.

'Narp.'

'Inconceivable!'

'Sweep The Leg.'

Or switch to something random. Maybe one of Sam's uber-scary-sounding-weapons names could finally have its day in the sun.

I still root for 'Holy Jihad'. But then, I had a fish called 'Sambo'. I lack discretion....... and taste.

* * *

I am in that just-last-another-week phase. I am down to eating too much junk food and wearing the last (hideously ugly nana-style) pairs of underwear in the drawer because I haven't done any washing. Need a hair-cut. Need to return some library books.

I rang a parent tonight and it sounds like her daughter has entangled herself in a web of lies that may just be about to ensnare her. Nothing quite as bad as the girl who told me her mother was dying so I wouldn't take her cell phone........ But some good stuff.

* * *

ER is good. It has hooked me in for several weeks in a row now.

* * *

Our free netball game is on Sunday afternoon - 1.30pm. Invites extended to anyone keen to come along. That includes the regular crew of fillers such as Rich, Kirsten, Damon.... Cassie. Haven't really checked it with many of the team members but it expires this weekend, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. Fish, Sam - can you fellas make it? Or is it church time?

Svend - I have always had fun envisioning you netballing. This could be your opportunity.

Righto. Updates.

• Wrote three sets of reports today (one during a test in a computer lab, a few at lunchtime and some after school)


• Need to mark some essays tonight (two sets if I'm ambitious)


• Have been booked in two weeks in advance to play for Michelle's netball team tonight - no excuses!

Am debating what to teach for the upcoming film unit. Might give 'Crash' a go. Haven't taught it before so that means more work for me, but I read somewhere that kids got good marks for it last year so there must be something in there that's good to teach.

I can not eat just a few rice crackers. I have to eat the whole packet. With hummas. I feel slightly ill now.

* * *

Gilmore Girls series 6 is proving problematic. Discs 2-5 don't work in my CD player. They work in the one in the lounge and on my computer..... Odd that. As a result I have had to watch discs 1 and 6 up in my room. So I know how it starts and ends. The middle seems somewhat irrelevant now. Stink!

Imbued.

It's funny how after living in a city for long enough, every little place in town comes to have at least one little memory attached to it. You mighta gone on a date there, or been terribly 'ill' in the bathroom, or run into an old friend.

For example, what memories do YOU have attached to:

1) The crossing by James Smith (that's where Ange broke her elbow)

2) The bathroom upstairs at JJ Murphy's (that's where I was violently ill at Ed's birthday one year)

3) The toilets at Pigeon Park (one of the few times where I have memory loss from drinking! New Years ages ago - I remember running towards them and it then being a few hours later all of a sudden)

4) Manners Mall, just outside the kebab place (where I hugged a hobbit)

5) Floor 2B at the Lombard Parking Building (where I first remember hearing the famous quote from Hamlet as my dad said it to me)

Blegh.

Woke up this morning.....

Not feeling very well. I have a sore throat and runny nose. I'm trying to think who I need to blame for my not being well. Morgan was sick last week. Sarah has had a yucky cold this weekend....... My nephew Finn has been off school for two weeks with a flu. Could be any of you blighters!

Reidun had made leek and potato* soup. That's a good cold-beating-food.

And I have a sore back. I am old and decrepit.

*note - spellcheck just picked up that as a 29 year old English teacher I still don't know how to spell 'potato' (no E, apparently).

* * *

I am going to do some school work. What with being away on sports exchange one day, I will only be in the classroom for three days this week. Bliss!

I even got to sleep in until 11am today before Angela started pestering me with texts wanting to come around for a cup of tea :) That's two hours longer than she usually allows me!

It's mainly because she went out to breakfast without me this morning, and as fate would have it she ran into the two girls we went to school with who are in town (who she had fairly intentionally declined an invitation to go out to lunch with yesterday). And she even had to sit with them, being as the restaurant was busy and they lost their table when they came over to say 'hi'. That's bloody karma. There is no avoiding Levin people. They will find you eventually.

Actually - one of those Levin girls' babies has a cold too. I coulda caught it off her. Bloody everybody is a suspect.

* * *

I will go back to snuffling and coughing my way around the house now.

I Saw Sarah

Fish and Sam and Ange know Sarah. She was a good friend of mine at school and flatted with me in Berhampore for a couple o' years before heading to England and the world beyond.

I have seen her several times this weekend and it's been jolly nice! We had lunch today with three other girls we went to college with (all of whom are blonde - odd that). It's kinda nice that people's core personality traits stay constant.

I have invited her to play netball with us tomorrow but she has a cold, so will play it by ear. That would be a fun reunion game!

* * *

Have bought Series 3 of the Gilmore Girls. It is Rory's last year at high school. Loralei is still bouncing between getting back with Chris and almost hooking up with Luke. Ah, it's like being home again!

* * *

I just ate some raw cereal (sans milk) as a snack. A free sample pouch from the food fair. It was good. Vogel