BROADBAND!

Thank goodness!

School is still going well - I'm not quite getting my food and water right though so I'm coming home very hungry and often dehydrated. Need to figure that out.

I'm finding some contrasts between Montessori and state schools amusing, in a must-laugh-not-cry way. State schools, by and large, have as sterile and controlled an environment as possible, and a long list of "don'ts" aimed at avoiding any possible source of injury or dirt (don't run, don't climb, don't throw, don't play with sticks . . .). And then the classes devote considerable time to activities that develop children's gross motor skills - the running, skipping, hopping, jumping, turning, stopping, throwing, catching stuff. At the Montessori school there's as few "don'ts" as possible. The kids run on the bitumen, climb trees, pick fruit from them and eat it, play in the dirt, climb all over things . . . they even have a flying fox (not one of these tame playground ones, but one you sit on!) which they can use at lunchtime. They do everything kids have traditionally done for fun.

And the school doesn't need to run gross motor skills programmes. The kids don't need classes in it because they get that just by being kids in the playground. Funny that. Typical of the state system to ban everything that develops gross motor skills then insist on classes to develop them in a controlled environment!

Too headachey to blog properly, but all is well :)

Still on Dialup :(

Broadband should be connected soon, apparently. *sigh*

I'm really enjoying the new school. The kids are lovely, apart from a couple of somewhat cheeky and easily distracted boys, but they'll learn where the line is soon enough. The whole school has a very pleasant atmosphere and I'm just loving it. Even if I did get bitten by an ant while on lunch duty today!

I'm feeling very comfortable, like I've come home and never need to leave again. It's nice.

Well, I'm here.

I'm on horribly slow dialup, a temporary service provided by my ISP until my broadband gets connected. It's maddening - I can't believe the internet was ever this slow, let alone slower! - but at least I could clear the 50 emails and check a few sites lol.

I didn't end up getting packed on Sunday - an idiot at the removals office read the name of my town, associated it with the name of a very similar-sounding town 200km south, and sent them there instead. This was not discovered until I phoned mid-afternoon to see where they were and the guy asked which major town I was near, and was then like ". . . oh." So they came at the crack of dawn, 6:30am, on Monday, and packed and moved me all in one day.

Tuesday I went back to clean the old house, but it was hot and I was tired and my 12yo sister came with me to "help" but finding jobs for her to do turned out to be a nuisance, so I put off finishing the clean until Thursday. On Wednesday I unpacked, again with 12yo sister's help, rather more successful this time but I'm still only half unpacked. Thursday I finished cleaning the old house, handed over the keys and said goodbye to that town. It hasn't sunk in yet, no doubt it will!

And that brings me to Friday. I've got to unpack and sort enough boxes today so that my housemate can move in comfortably tomorrow. I've got a long day ahead of me and I'm still quite tired, and aching all over because my body is not used to this kind of exercise! It's probably doing me the world of good to do a week's hard physical labour, but my thigh muscles and calf muscles and back muscles think I'm an idiot.

I think I got bitten by a spider for the first time ever on Wednesday. I was unpacking kitchen stuff when my right big toe started to ache and itch and burn like crazy. Not quite get-me-to-a-hospital painful (which since I had no petrol and a twelve year old in tow is a good thing!) but very sore. Rubbing and massaging didn't help so I just sucked it up and got on with unpacking with a limp. Later I had another look and there was a dark red spot right where the centre of the pain had been. No lump or obvious puncture wounds, just discolouration. Later I did find a small garden spider of some sort in the kitchen, but I've no idea whether it was that or any other spider. It stopped hurting by that evening and the spot is gone now, so whatever it was that bit me, it clearly wasn't one of the dangerous ones!

I'm really liking the new house. It's a 1950s cream brick house with wooden window and door frames, fairly run down but with recently re-tiled floors which lift the whole thing. The neighbours have sheep, I'm getting used to the railway freight line right across the road, there's a tiny general store around the corner, and the house and its environs just have a nice feel to them. For the first time ever, I can imagine staying put in a rental house! I'd like to stay here until I'm ready to buy, if I can. I really like it and I feel at home at long last. In all areas of my life - accommodation, job, location, hobbies, I'm happy with my life and plans RIGHT NOW. Not the plans for later, the plans I'm working towards eventually, but the plans for the next few weeks and months. This is a new experience!

UK readers, a request?

My mother's cousin Phyllida is being buried in London today, and I'm finding it really upsetting that I can't find anything about it on the internet anywhere. Everything is on the internet, why isn't there a funeral notice or obituary or SOMETHING I can access?

So if you're reading this from the UK, I have a request - it would be wonderful if you could look in your newspaper and see if there's anything about her that you could scan in and email to me. I don't know why it's so important to me, but it is, somehow, and I would deeply appreciate any help.

Of course, you'll need to know her surname (well, probably . . . there may not be many Phyllidas anyway!), so if you're from the UK and willing to help, email me at Chrisell1980@gmail.com and I'll send you the particulars.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

LOL People

I found out a short while ago that some people I know online - people I respected online - have been publicly and complicitly bitching on their blogs about a whole lot of people on the website we frequent. I was amongst those being called names by these people.

I have done a huge amount of emotional growth this year, and changed a great deal, so it was interesting to observe the way I reacted to this. My first reaction resembled the old me, who was so riddled with insecurity that any external challenge to my self-belief had to be exterminated with extreme prejudice (misuse of phrase intentional! ). I wanted to go roaring in there and blast them.

But then the new me took over, and gently pointed out: "Why bother?".

And that's the end of it, really. Why bother? I can't control their reactions, their emotions, their beliefs. If they're so heavily invested that the naming tastes and interactions of internet acquaintances require such vitriol, that's their loss. I've been there and done that, and I know how bad it was for me, and what a negative headspace I was in until I kicked the habit of behaving like that. I occasionally slip up - as do we all! - but I no longer let fury at others define me. And I like it this way.

I am living healthily in mind, body and soul, and I do not let my past define, control or delude me. I know who I am, and I no longer have any need for this . . .



In other news, thank goodness it's the weekend. I'm EXHAUSTED. Four teaching days left . . .

ADDING: Lol again. I just found an entry by one of the above bloggers where this person bitched about a thread I'd started asking people what their favourite cat colouring was. This blogger compared my question to asking whether a boy or girl baby would be better (yeah because people totally choose that) and generally went on about how pathetic it was. I'm giggling madly over here. I haven't ever heard of anyone choosing a cat based on anything other than its appearance, whether they've gone for a particular breed or a particular colour of moggie. Honestly, if you're going to bitch about someone, at least choose something logical!

What would we do without nutty people to laugh at . . .