One Week To Go

This sentiment will be echoed in the minds of secondary school teachers throughout the country. No matter how long the term is (it varies between 9-11 weeks usually) the last two are always a drag. That seems to be when reports are due, plus about a million other little things. And when you're trying to do one of thsoe million little things, someone else comes in to talk to you about a new thing - or one of their things that they want some help with. Sometimes a cloak of invisibility would be good :) I think that's what i-pods are for.

I have got echzma on my chin, which only ever happens when I'm stressed (and the weather is like it is).

I am not teaching three days out of five this week, because we are trying to get the website up and running. That might sound like a good thing, but it's actually more of a hassle than teaching. So that makes my week even trickier. Bleh.

Must eat more veges. Me and Reidun ventured to the markets today, in the wind and the rain, so I am stocked. Good old Levin produce from the heart of the Horowhenua.

Nothing exciting.

No Tiime

(Not even time to go back and fix that typo)

Marking to do then reports to write. And netball to play.

To focus on the good things, I am looking forward to Dave's 31st with an Olympic theme and Rumpus vs Episode, with a medical theme.

And bagels on Wednesday.

* * *

Evidentally my dad is kinda stalking Yvette Williams (the long jump gold medalist from yeeeears ago). She was apparently dropped off at the airport on the way to the Olympics by a relative of mine (great-great-great something) as someone in her family was married to someone in the Judges.

So my dad's a family tree geek at the moment, and is ringing and emailing people literally all over the world..... so he rang Yvette's son, who put him onto the lady himself. My dad has talked to an Olympic legend on the phone! Go Dad!

I think he is quite chuffed that he is one degree of separation closer to Halberg and Snell and Lovelock and that crew. They were his idols growing up.

Look!

I actually grew something. I have finally found a plant that agrees with me - the mighty succulent! Usually I buy plants that are flowering, and kill them. This time I bought a plant without flowers and have actually grown some. It's lovely!

I like how this plant sits on my windowsill and the flower kinda bends its head towards the glass as if it's peering over the Hataitai valley. Possibly it's really silently pleading, 'Let me out! Before she kills me like she did the others!' But nobody's listening, sucker :)

My herbs are doing well too. My parsley is flourishing. I like this low-maintenance gardening. Just leave the herbs outside and the rain takes care of them... and leave the succulents on the windowsill where it's sunny, and squirt them with the waterbottle every few days......

I am a nurturer.

* * *

Went on a course today. It was for middle-management. I did a Bachelor of Business Studies. I dropped my Management major after second year. I think I'd had my fill of management styles and culture analysis and whatnot. It's all coming back to haunt me...... I guess it's all useful on some level, but Management as an academic course always struck me as rather intuitive stuff. And I don't really like those moments where I see people consciously using 'techniques' they have read about - it's kinda patronising. I guess I am cynical about such things.

Thursday.

Thursdays are always busy. I have either no non-contacts at work, or just one (depeding on the week). Then there are often either department or HOD meetings after school. Then I either have basketball or quiz (or both).

Today was a no-meeting day, thank goodness.

Went to the beginning of the quiz. We started with guns ablazing! 40 points after two rounds - that is the perfect start. I earned my place by guessing that Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas were the parents of two named children and that kedgerie was a breakfast dish and that the ponderous puzzle was 'the cell phone' (on the first clue!).

After that we stalled a little bit, but still came in a solid second place.

The trouble was that we had an $80 tab to spend from the previous quiz win. So I had nachos, chips, pizza, coffee and an oreo-sundae...... THEN went and played basketball. Not smart, Kate! My tummy is still unnaturally protruding right now.

Basketball was lumbering and painful (mostly emotionally). We played a Chinese team who were mostly small and quick and could all dribble and shoot well. Then they also had a few big girls whose Chinese heritage I would like DNA tested. Anyhow, they were pretty solid and killed us with a full court press (aided by having about four subs to our one) and good outside shooting. They train!

I think we actually had the measure of their half-court offence and I managed to plug up the middle and stop a lot of their drives. But we gave them the ball back a lot of times with sloppy passing. Oh well. We'll get em next time!

I had one of those satisfying teacher moments today when one of my girls said, 'Miss, I think Macbeth would be really easy to write about in the exam! There's lots of metaphors and stuff that had deep meaning.' My class were looking fairly blankly at me for the most part while we read the play and giving me the old ,'I actually don't understand a word of what he just said!' reaction. Seems to have sunk in a bit since then. Repetition and using OJ Simpson, Tonya Harding and Mugabe as real life examples hammered it in (though I warned them not to mention any of them by name in their essays - I hear it's a marker's pet-hate when those 'real life' examples are tagged on in the conclusion).

Not sure how I feel about Obama finally (officially) getting the nomination. Was talking about it with Sam tonight and he likes Obama better and thinks Hilary is a bit shifty and untrustworthy. Good point. I'd like to see her and Helen having an argument. I don't think either of them would give an inch. That'd be a good celebrity death match. I do like that when Obama did a speech for the WCW crowd he said, 'Can you smeeeeell what Barrack is cooking?' (ala The Rock styles). Politicians with cheesy pop culture catch phrases are fun!

Yum. Winter tastes good and warm and hearty.

Reidun is feeding us steak and kidney stew and baked apples for pudding.

Good for the soul!

(Not to mention the date-loaf I had with my cup of tea.)

* * *

I have been listening to the sound-track to Juno for about a month now. I tend to put a CD on in my car and leave it playing for a good few weeks before I move on. I now know every song intimately and subconsciously and will anticipate the next song correctly. Perhaps time to move on.

I am a vampire, I am a vampire, I am a vampire, I am a vampire and I have lost my fangs again.

And now it's time to go back.

Yesterday I made a small child cry. That's not a nice feeling.

I had been sharing my Grain Waves (most generously) with my nieces and nephews. They'd come over, get a handful and then go back to their play. Ruby, the 2 year old, had got a tiny little plate off her mum and had come back for a plateful. I poured them in (accidentally giving her almost all that was left). The toddled away happy. Then, by the time she got back, they were all gone. She held her plate up to me with expectant eyes, but I said to her, 'No more!' in a rather expressive voice.

She misinterpreted that as some kind of scolding and ran away. She actually hid behind the curtain, she was so upset. Oops.

We made up later on and played a game where I pointed at pictures and she told me who was in them (I think she did, couldn't really understand her). Then she walked around with a Sponge Bob poster that had come out of the magazine I'd given her sister, and kept trying to press it against the wall.... She looked most perturbed that it would not stay there. I tried to explain she needed 'sticky stuff' but I think it was lost on her.

* * *

I observed her sister, who was turning 10, being a typical older-sibling. She'd gotten a hand-held game of some sort for her birthday. She sat happily playing it most of the time I was there. Her cousin joined in every now and then.... Meanwhile her younger brother sat forlornly on the other side of the room, every now and then saying, 'Can I have a turn?' He got the whole raft of excuses and put-offs from her, most of which started with 'I just have to.....' (insert an aspect of the game, which seemed to change every time he asked).

The adults didn't want to tell her off on her birthday, but they tried every angle in the book to try to get her to share with her little brother, who as they pointed out had been waiting 'very patiently'. She defended herself with '... but he had a turn this morning!' (it now being 3pm).

Eventually I, being a more impatient secondary-teacher, sat watching her and ensured that once she had 'just' done the level she said she wanted to finish, she handed it over. None of this PC crap of waiting until she realises it's the right thing to do on her own.... I'm a younger sibling too! I felt Finn's pain.

* * *

Then it was night-flying. If you drove past Lyall Bay and saw a few crazy people running around the beach at 8pm last night flying a kite..... it was us. We had flasks of hot chocolate. It was fun. I am now good enough to mock and laugh at the new flyers who nose-dive poor bumble into the ground seconds after takeoff. I am most unkind and mocking. Last night it was Kyle and Marty, neither of whom (being athletic men) liked not being experts straight away (and having mere girls show them up).

* * *

Have had lots of cups of tea and coffee and hot chocolate this weekend.

1. Coffee at a cafe in Plimmerton to wake me up on the way to Saturday morning kite-flying (my eyelids were very heavy)

2. Coffee at Raumati en route to the beach to kite-fly (the other coffee had almost worn off)

3. Cup of tea at Hannah's birthday

4. Hot chocolate on the beach in a flask

5. Cup of Jarrah's coffee for lunch (with a Whittaker's bar dipped in)

6. Cup of tea after dinner (with sugar)

I have missed a few.