A student said to me sheepishly this morning.... 'So, were you at the parade?'

And I said, 'The christmas parade in the Hutt? Yes, I was.' She lives in Wainui - it makes sense she was there.

And she smiled, knowlingly.

I said, 'Were you there too?' I could see it coming.....

She looked around at her friends and then said, 'Yes. I saw you with your booooy-friend.' At this point her friends perked up and there was a chorus of, 'Ooooh!'s.

I said, 'You saw us at the Ukuladies at Te Papa too.... Are you stalking me?'

'Yes.'

I walked away to go and growl some other kids.

Snapped eh. That'll ruin my spinster-cat-lady-teacher image - the one I have been so carefully fostering with them.

Birthday Done!

I had a great birthday. Thanks to lots of people!

I got fairly drunk by the end of the night, due to several mean people buys rounds of shots. I had a fantastic night's sleep and woke up at 9.30am wide awake and feely reasonably good (nice to know I can still drink and get away with it at 30).

Marty is older. He is suffering.

I wanna start practising my ukulele, but it is in the boot of Fishy's new car. That'll be fun.

Birthday Done!

I had a great birthday. Thanks to lots of people!

I got fairly drunk by the end of the night, due to several mean people buys rounds of shots.

It is my birthday now.

I am having a lovely day. Perhaps tomorrow I will feel old, but for now I am feeling good!

I have yet to come up with a suitable face to put on when people are singing happy birthday to me. I tend to just slump into my seat and and grimace. But I appreciate the sentiment......

It's My Birthday Soon

I am turning 30.

That's ok though, because I have a lovely dinner planned. With lots of my favouritest people. That is making my week fun, rather than ominous!

The guest list includes....

• My dad and 11 other relatives (he is keeping specific identities a mystery for now - he likes to do that - he inherited that off me - but I do know it includes my young neice and nephew who are VERY excited about coming to a grown-ups party)
• Possibly my brother if he remembers to ring up and get details off me
• Me
• Ange and her three flatties (Dave who is a competitive trampolinist, Darragh who used to flat with me, and Marty the Savoury Giver-away-er)
• My flattie Reidun
• Cassie, a fellow teacher and posse member, and her fiance, Ant
• Ryan the body-builder who flats with Ed and his girlfriend, Andrea
• Julie who used to teach at East
• Damon from Rumpus
• Justin from netball
• Girl Sam from netball and her husband, Scott
• Michelle from netball
• Svend who used to flat with me, and his partner, Celeste the librarian
• Mervyn from Levin who used to flat with me too
• Clint and Lulu from Levin who went to school with me and are engaged to each other
• Jono from netball
• Lauren, Ange's friend whose 30th we were at in the weekend
• Fish who us a teacher and plays netball with me (without Sam, though)

That's 37 people confirmed.

Two non-replies from Poppy and Ed and a maybe from Steve. That's 40 people max. Yay.

Netball Sam and Morgan can't come but might catch up with us afterwards, and Richard and Kirsten are in Australia.

I am going to make informative-conversation-starting name-tags. And it's my birthday, so you have to wear them!

Famous Peoples

It was a night of star-spotting in Wellington. First of all Ange and Cass spotted Giovani Ribissi (or 'the guy who plays Phoebe's brother in Friends') whilst they went to a money-machine. Lauren was not looking, but managed to catch a view of his back once alerted.

Apparently he is little. And weedy. And has a jaunty step. He was wearing a hoody and rather fitting trackies and was with a big buff guy (perhaps his 'minder').

Then, we went to Surf Aid at the Town Hall. There we saw Jason Fafoi - the guy from What Now. Turns out he was in one of the bands too.

Ed also spotted a guy from the news - Maori guy with a name that's fun to say (though I can't remember it).

Then Brett from Flight of the Conchords was playing with the Ukulele Orchestra. Sweet! He is my hero now. Cool looking guy.

Terms of Endearment

I was talking about this with Reidun today. She sometimes gets 'Reids' or 'Rei-Rei'.... All my name can go to is 'Katie'. I quite like Katie though, from most people. I noticed the other night at netball that Jon has taken to calling me Katie any time he wants me to pass him the ball.

I figured out that about the only term of endearment I use (other than shortened or lengthened forms of an actual name) is 'you'. Reidun thought that sounded ridiculous. But I gave the example of, 'Hey you' in the right tone and she came to understand.

I wonder why calling someone 'you' can come across as affectionate.

Birds

I got another bird top today. It is a fetish. Officially. I have a fetish for bird clothing and accessories. This one has a tucan on it.

Bed

That'll do. Bed time. I get the bed allllll to myself. That is good in that I have been accused of being a 'bed hogger' at times. It's funny that when I'm in a bed by myself, I am quite happy to sleep right on the edge. I prefer it, if anything. I am very compact. But if someone else is there, it becomes a challenge to drive them to the edge :) and I suddenly get the urge to stretch out in ways I usually don't. I think Matt cottoned on to this fairly quickly and used to pretty much pin me to the edge straight away, spooning me from behind and not moving all night. Clever.

And it's Sunday night already.

Hairtie

I found one lone hair-tie in my room. I am looking after it very carefully.

Knitting

Yeah...... and what? Knitting for me is very relaxing and I like to do it when I sit down sometimes. I don't care if that's on a bus, at a movie or at a party....... And once I start, I get in that zone and want to finish all in one go (which you never can - but it's a goal). I am very good at focussing like that. Makes me good at shifting house - I keep unpacking til I can unpack no more.

I have outed Ange as a knitter. The words 'I am going to kill you!' were texted in response.

Noggin

I am still in training for Noggin. I can't seem to get past the 45th best in the world status. I think I'd have to put in some serious time to get better than that. I'd have to play for 2 or 3 hours a day. That's commitment. I wish the scoring system wasn't just cumulative and they worked it out on some kind of average placing or score. I'm very consistent.

Movies

I have watched a lot of movies in the last week. What else are you gonna do when you have a pile of marking and schol work to do.....?

I watched Punch Drunk Love (very quirky, but I liked it), The Good German (good ending and enough film noir elements that I told my girls to watch it as light home-work if they felt the need to 'study'), 23 (Jim Carey just shouldn't try to do serious movies, seriously, and I do not want to see him having sex - that's just icky) and The Science of Sleep (very endearing, if in a slightly creepy way).

Reading books is for losers. I'm a Media Studies teacher......

Mr Hughes

Me and Ange have been amused to see the rise of Mr H in the Labour group as a result of the latest reshuffle. We went to high school with him and he is now the youngest minister. I find it funny that he's the Minister of Statistics when he failed fifth form maths (quite spectacularly, I believe). I think he took solice at the time in the fact that Jim Bulger fared similarly in School Cert Maths. I still take pride in the fact that I orchestrated his only political defeat to date in the fifth form school council rep electives. If need be, I shall start the smear campaign in future years if he does indeed become leader of the Labour Party (as is being tipped for the future). I am the only one who can stop the monster.......

Having said that, I think that his political beliefs are pretty decent and in line with my own. But my memory is long... and I still remember how he turned the 'James the Cat' theme-song into 'Kate the Fat' in third form science.

Dave is the Trampoline King

If you have never met anyone who is a trampolinist and has trained and competed in city champs... then you should meet Ange's flatmate, Dave. He used to be a trampolinist. That's cool. I may have never met anyone with as cool a high-school hobby as that.

And now he's a bouncer. That's just fantastic.

Does anyone know of any places in the Wellington region that have trampolines? We are trying to get him to do an exhibition for us. We know there are trampolines up in Levin, at the must-see Adventure Playground. A day trip may be in order.