Christine, Wondering

Random Musings of a Human Becoming

Friday, November 30, 2007

I have a house!

I went up to Little Wheatbelt Town today to meet the principal and the other teachers, and to see a house that the principal had found as a possibility for me.

It's the most precious place!

It's about a hundred years old (definitely pre-WWI). The exterior photo is below - isn't it cute? It's classic Federation Australian style. Internally, it has three large bedrooms with high ceilings and jarrah panelling on the walls. There’s an aircon unit and a pot-belly stove in the living room, and the kitchen is being fully refurbished before I move in (they’re also fixing up the carpets and repainting several rooms). It’s set on a huge block, nearly half an acre I think, and they’ve said that if I decide to get a dog they’ll fix up the fencing so that it’s dog-proof. The garden is dry but has quite a few nice hardy plants growing in it. There’s a shed for storage in the backyard, too.

I’m totally in love with the place and I can’t wait to move in!

This is the street-front:



I'm so excited, I can't wait to move in! I'm going to start working out where my furniture will go as soon as possible. So much fun!

If I have to move, at least I'm moving somewhere interesting :-D

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Freedom

Sorry for the three-day hiatus in posting - I worked Saturday and Monday, and stayed at S's house in the meantime, so I haven't been near a computer.

Various news from the weekend . . .

For the first time since I was sixteen years old, Australia has a new prime minister. THANK THE LORD! Racist, sexist, bigoted, megalomaniac, money-is-everything John Howard is gone, and Labor are back in power. There's going to be changes, and no doubt some of them will be a bit scary. But our new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, has already said that he will say sorry to victims of the Stolen Generation in his first term. It's that kind of thing that makes me incredibly proud to be a Labor Party member and voter.

Not only did John Howard's Liberals (who are really conservatives) lose the election, but John Howard himself failed to retain his electorate, Bennelong - losing to a former television presenter who was the Labor candidate. That is most satisfactory ownage  I loathe what Howard has done to my beloved Australia and I'm ever so glad he's gone.

*

On Saturday night I went to the reunion for the second of my three high schools. At this high school I was very unpopular – not disliked exactly, just generally ignored – and I was very unhappy there for most of the time. I went to the reunion with some trepidation, expecting to struggle to find anyone to talk to, or even who remembered me. Because I’d felt so disconnected from the rest of the cohort, I felt that the others of that year might even feel that I had no right to be at the reunion since there was no one I would be expected to want to reunite with.

As usual, my fears were totally ungrounded. I was welcomed, interrogated, included, and even found myself getting along extremely well with some very unlikely people. It was a very special evening and an incredibly powerful healing process. What I discovered was that they didn’t remember that I’d been unpopular. They remembered that I’d been there with them through three very important years in our lives. They’d mostly forgotten that I was shy, quiet, awkward and depressive at the time, and instead remembered me as a witness to their own formative years. A few even remembered that I’d been passionate about archaeology and were thoroughly delighted to hear that I’d made it to being one, even if it was only for a while.

I can thoroughly recommend 10-year high school reunions as a form of therapy, folks. Going to that reunion has empowered me to put so many little anxieties and insecurities to rest. It feels good

I think that's all for now. Today is devoted to slacking off and doing nothing except things that I want to do, before getting into some serious tidying and errand-running tomorrow (I can't go anywhere today anyway, I woke up to discover that 9yo brother had been casually left with me as he's coughing too much to go to school!). I intend to write a bit, play the flute a bit, and talk to my cat a lot. Nothing that I don't want to do!

Friday, November 23, 2007

So . . . I made it

I had my last two exams today - sailed through them both - and, um, I'm done. It's finished. My Grad Dip Ed is over. I actually did it.

I'm a bit in shock about this lol.

It's been such a tough, long, intense, fraught year that I can't quite get my head around the fact that that's it. No more assignments. No more exams. Provided that I haven't stuffed anything up . . . I'm a teacher.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Weird dreams

I've been sleeping badly this week, due to exam stress, missing S, and large temperature variations between day and night. If I get overheated I get nightmares, and for the last few nights I've had a recurring theme in these nightmares. I dream that I wake up, overheated and gasping for breath (which indicates that I'm overheated when I'm dreaming lol). It's daytime, and later than it should be. I discover that the power is off, stumble out of bed and out into the living area, where I find that the rest of the family are out (as usual!) but they've left me asleep without letting me know that workmen were coming to do something electrical. So I stumble out in my pyjamas then get a massive shock when I find unexpected people in the house.

What the hell is my subconscious trying to tell me?!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

"Contemplating thinking about thinking"

Heh, the title isn't all that relevant, except that I'm listening to the song it comes from right now (Robbie Williams' "Come Undone") and it seemed appropriate.

I've been writing an essay about Aspergers / High Functioning Autism kids, and also studying the subject in general, for both of my exams this semester, and I'm finding more and more things I do that really are Autistic traits. Take this quote from this website :

"One of the key symptoms common between boys and girls is a hyper-focused interest one particular thing or topic. For boys, the special interests are often in areas of science or transportation (trains or airplanes). In girls, the focus is often on animals or classic literature. The interest in and of itself isn't unusual, but a child with Asperger's will have an unusually intimate knowledge of his or her topic of interest. Young girls may play with dolls and have imaginary friends, which doesn't seem at all unusual. However, her interest in these things will continue even when she's a teenager and they should have been outgrown."

ZOMG. I was still playing with dolls at 14, and only stopped because I moved house and never got to unpack them again. And classic literature . . . before I discovered fantasy, I flatly refused to read anything that was not set in the 1800s. The only exception I made was for certain novels that fitted in with my other obsessions (such as first names - the "Babysitters Club" books fed this obsession rather well). Even today I'm pretty damn obsessed with 1800s literature, and I occasionally start writing stories about characters that are actually my childhood dolls o_O Set, of course, in the 1800s.

I also stim. I had never, ever realised this before, but I do. I scratch lightly at my hands, arms and legs - not enough to leave more than a slight red mark, but enough to counteract the sensory overload from things like breezes and goosebumps, which I've always hated feeling. Eeep!

And another completely unrelated topic in this grab-bag post: a slight rofl. As I was walking down the library steps, I heard two guys behind me having the following conversation:

1: Seen Mary-Jane lately?
2: Yeah, a few days ago.
1: Uhuh
2: I was gonna go see her this morning, but you know . . . exams and all that
1: Didn't we agree that Mary-Jane was a distraction when it comes to studying?
2 (laughing): Yeah, well.

The two guys were both quite young - I'd say first or second year, so 20 or younger - and I just can't help wondering whether they really thought they were having a subtly disguised conversation about marijuana. Because it was pretty blatantly obvious to me lol. They sounded like they thought they were being so clever and devious :-D

That's all for now, I think, lol

Monday, November 12, 2007

o_O (random)

I will never understand why it is that criminals think it's okay to talk about their crimes - past or future - in loud voices, while on public transport.

Today on the train  - a reasonably crowded 9am train - I stood there listening to one crook proudly telling another about how he was on bail for having fired a gun right next to a fellow crook's ear, busting the other guy's eardrum, because the other guy didnt believe he was being threatened with a real gun.

Seriously, should the whole damn train be hearing this? 

In the past I've listened to guys casually threatening to kill people for snitching, conducting drug deals, and all manner of weird stuff. The police ought to have a dozen plain-clothes officers on every train, they'd clean up so much petty crime that way.

It just blows my mind. Don't these people even wonder whether someone might dob them in?

Thursday, November 8, 2007

At last!

With my phone functioning normally today, the Ed Dept managed to get through to me, and finally I know where I'm going next year.

I'm not going to post the name of the town here since that'd be giving away my exact location during school hours next year! But I can say that it's a small town in the inner wheatbelt east of Perth. It's about 1.5-2 hours from anywhere significant in Perth. It was my second choice when I ranked the schools in my placement request, and it's only half an hour's drive from my first choice, which is a larger town with lots of community facilities, hence the attraction. The town I'm going to is convenient and close to the city, and it's a quiet, pleasant town that I think will be thoroughly manageable as a home for the next year or two. I'll be moving out there sometime in mid to late January next year, ready for the start of the teachers' term on the 31st of January.

All up, I'm very happy!

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Aieee . . .

Today, while I was out and about, my phone battery died. So, of course, THE ED DEPT HAVE BEEN TRYING TO REACH ME ALL DAY REGARDING MY PLACEMENT!

AAAAAAARGH!

*breathes*

They got through to Mum at home, who said that I'd be available tomorrow, so with any luck they'll manage to call me tomorrow. But . . . zomg, of all the worst luck! Nyak!

The Michelle Phenomenon

Would someone, anyone please explain to me why it is that, when someone forgets my real name, they invariably substitute Michelle?

It's bizarre. It happened back when I used to work at Coles, it happened at uni, it happened in Sydney, it happened in my secretarial job, and it happened again yesterday when I was filling in at another store as part of my current junk-job.

W.T.F.?

Do I look like a Michelle? What does a Michelle look like? Why does that particular name jump into peoples' heads, and not any other? I just don't get it!

And I don't even particularly like the name Michelle!

Friday, November 2, 2007

*sigh*

Don't worry, nothing's wrong, I'm just feeling all roiled up this evening. I'm tired of having to deal with personalities all the time - some people bring out the Aspergers worse than others, and I just get so fed up and cranky with the way I can't understand them and they can't understand me. I'm sick of dealing with so many people for so much of my time. I want a little family and pets and chickens and a big block and some space to think and grow without so many people hammering on my skull all the time wanting me to come out and be like them. Ugh. Why can't I just hide?