*Flop*

There's a million more things I could do around the house to be ready for the packers, but it is at least in a state where I won't be disgraced when they get here, and right now that's enough because I'm beat and HAVE to sit down for a while. I've had 5 hours' sleep three nights running and three very busy and stressful days (I didn't tell you about the car battery dying on Friday and Dad's valiant rescue of me, the car, and my need for bond money since the government sucks, but yeah, Friday was intense) . . . and I'm physically and mentally wiped. I have to have some down time or I'm going to wind up sobbing on the packing teams' shoulders.

Which, I'm sure, is not a novelty for them. They probably move many teachers in an even worse state of distress than I am in! It's still 10 days before state school teachers go back (9 days for me) so this is luxuriously early for a move. Many people haven't even got this years' school placements yet, let alone a moving day. So I should just chill the hell out. It could be worse!

(. . . "There could be snakes on here with us!" - thanks, Mr Pratchett)

The phone (and thus internet) at this house will be disconnected tomorrow and it'll take up to 5 working days for the phone, then another 5-10 for the internet after that, to be set up at the new house. So I'm going to be out of regular internet contact for a couple of weeks. I'll be online for sure - the local library has internet computers and so does the school, and I'll be at both frequently! - but I won't be sitting around on the internet a lot. I may go nuts. Or I may get a whole heap of writing and flute practise done. Who can say?

WAAAAAAH

So, the removalists phoned today (Saturday). They're packing me tomorrow afternoon and moving me on Monday.

HEEEEEEEEELP!

I completely discombobulated the house so that I could sort boxes and throw stuff away, thinking I would have at least a couple of days' warning before the packing team arrived - not 20 hours' notice and when I was 2 hours from home! There is SO much sorting and tidying to do, and it's already got to nearly 8pm and it's still over 30 C and as sticky and humid as a sauna and looking like it's going to storm, and I had a late night (stayed over at Dad's and nattered until nearly 2am) and an early start (up at 7:30 to get to the Montessori foundation course) and sat on hard chairs in the course all day so I'm stiff as a board, and both my hands ache for various reasons and my knee is acting up . . .

In a nutshell, BAWWWWW.

I don't know how on earth I'm going to be ready for a packing team who are turning up "tomorrow afternoon" when I don't know what time . . . I'm an Aspie, I need a deadline! *panics*

This is going to be a LONG night, and I only have four frozen cupcakes and no chocolate or diet coke. Maybe I should run up to the servo and remedy that before it closes in 10 minutes.

. . . yeah, I should.

But before I do that, because I won't have time to do a proper entry on it, I LOVED the Montessori course and found it inspiring and validating and brought me right back to my roots as a self-regulation raised child and a firm believer in self-directed education and respectful pedagogy. I am totally in the right place.

Oh, and it turns out that my new principal taught my brother during his time at a Montessori high school, the presenter of the course taught my cousins at another Montessori school, and one of the teacher aides is the mother of a boy who was in 10yo brother's class at the public school he started school at. LOL Perth.

I Hate Packing

Have I mentioned that? I've mentioned that. Yeah. I hate packing.

Today I'm starting on the task known as Working Out What Is In All Those Blasted Boxes. I have boxes of stuff - that's the only way to describe it. Papers I need. Papers I don't. Photo negatives from high school. Random items that have become jumbled together, like a small plastic bag containing three candles, an AA battery, a decorative teddy bear and a comb. Bags of untouched toiletries from some forgotten birthday. Bags of half-used toiletries that got lost in a move and turned up again years later. Six kinds of notepaper because it always goes missing. Broken coathangers. Lone socks. Scraps from notebooks. Scrappy notebooks. It's a MESS.

Some of the boxes are largely unchanged - apart from frantic I-can't-find-that-mathom rummaging - since my friend Jenna helped me turf things into boxes at the last minute when I left Sydney. There's good stuff in there that I bought, lost and forgot all about. And there's heaps of crap in there too because every time a friend helps me move house they do well-meant things like assuming that my paper recycling pile needs to be packed, so the same throw-away stuff ends up in boxes again, and again, and again.

It HAS to be sorted. I refuse to keep lugging the refuse of the last 5 years around with me. But oh man it's giving me a headache trying to get through it all! I have to look at every single item and every single piece of paper and decide whether it it's 'keep' or 'throw', and if it's keep, I have to work out where to put it.

I'll be so glad when it's done - it'll be awesome. But for the time being? GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

The most annoying day of the year

Well, the most annoying for *me*. Today is Melbourne Cup Day (non-Australians: the Melbourne Cup is a horse race). It's a big, big event - Victoria has a public holiday, and the rest of the states all stop everything at race time, watch or listen to the race, and then bunk off for a lunch or an afternoon party, depending on the time zone.

There aren't many things I say an outright "no way" to on ethical grounds, but horse racing (actually, any type of animal racing) is one of them. In this day and age it's horrendous that we still, as a society, allow people to whip horses to make them run . . . and enjoy watching it. It's disgusting and I refuse to have anything to do with it.

So, 99% of the people in my office are out in the courtyard enjoying a post-race BBQ lunch. The smell of fried onions and sausages is driving my poor stomach (which was diet-ish-ly fed on plain bread and tinned salmon) absolutely crazy, and they're making a real din. I'm steadfastly ignoring them, but it's aggravating to hear people having so much fun over something I find so abhorrent.

Bah, humbug!