IT'S HERE!

After the long, long wait, I finally got my contract and letter from the Education Department today. WHEEE!

I'm going to be teaching in the Midlands region of Western Australia. I won't find out which school I'm going to be teaching at until October-ish, but for the time being it’s plenty enough to know that the school will be in Midlands.

Here’s a map: I currently live near the yellow star in the bright blue section, and the driving distance between Perth and Southern Cross is about 372 kilometres.



I’m so delighted that I’ve finally found out – I was running around screaming earlier! And today was the first day when I actually forgot to wonder whether the letter would be here when I got home lol.

Aww, I love my sister . . .

Sis (11.5 years old) has recently started reading all of the adult-level fantasy I was reading at her age - Raymond E. Feist, David Eddings, Anne McCaffrey etc. She’s currently reading Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series – and coincidentally so am I, since old favourites are just about the only think my overworked brain can take at the moment. I was getting the next book out for her this evening, and we were talking about the books, when she said, laughing: “I wish fire lizards were real. It’s not fair!” I couldn’t help laughing with her, and we both got the giggles. I felt exactly the same way about fire lizards when I was her age – I used to pretend that our cat was a fire lizard when she curled up next to me while I was reading those books. Sis is growing into such a fascinating and delightful young lady, and so, so fast. It’s wonderful that she’s getting to the age where we can share things like that. I’m going to miss being around her all the time, when I go to the country next year. Mum doesn’t realise it yet but I’m going to steal Sis on school holidays rather a lot! 

Interesting analogy

This is a paraphrased version of an analogy we were presented with in our Special Needs lecture today.

Think of your class as a bag of mixed lollies. Most of them are lollies you'll like, some are lollies you'll really love. But some will be a bit hard to chew, perhaps, or they'll be a flavour you don't like. Does that mean you're going to chuck them in the bin? They didn't choose to be that tooth-cracking caramel or the black jellybean you can't stand to taste.  And they didn't choose to be in your bag of lollies, but it's the only bag available. Whether you like them or not, you have to eat them up. And you may be surprised . . . you may just find that you like liquorice jelly beans after all.

I can't decide whether that's a stroke of inspired genius, or a bit creepy and weird, or both. But the message behind it is very important. Special Needs kids (whether their need is physical, developmental or emotional) didn't choose to be that way, and you're the only teacher they've got, so no matter how difficult it is, you have to make the best of it.

Apologies . . .

. . . for the severe lack of bloggage lately.

I'm only updating quickly as I want to go to bed, but I promise a full thingy will be forthcoming, eventually.

- I survived, and passed, the two-week prac - my voice came back and I managed alright from then on despite a heavy cold.

- I'm still sick with the latest progression of the virus, which paranoia would suggest is looking more and more like whooping cough. It can't be, I don't have time. But the fact that I'm having long spasms of uncontrollable coughing is undeniable, so whether it's WC or not is largely academic.

- I went for another walk last week and took more nice nature photos. The creek is much higher, I've got some cool before-and-after shots from the two walks.

- Jemima is fine and I can't quite believe how big she is these days, I need to take more pictures of her.

That's all for now, I need to take cough medicine and go to bed. I hope Sunday will be update day!

Well, great.

I've lost my voice. 

It's not completely gone, I can still communicate in this sort of strangled-sounding half whisper, but it's certainly not a normal voice.

All I can say is, thank God it went today (Saturday) and not during the week. I've called in sick to work – I could hardly go around selling spectacles when I sound like a crone from a fairy tale – and I’ll try to stay in bed (or rugged up in front of the computer, heh) and hopefully it’ll be alright by Monday. Not that I don’t have a lot of work to do tomorrow, but I can do that while all rugged up too.

Not that I can really afford not to go to work, but I don't have a choice. No voice = no sale!

“Blech” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

End of Week 1

Well, whaddaya know. I'm sick.

On Thursday morning I woke up with a slight sore throat, and despite deep misgivings, I dismissed it as dehydration and set out to drink as much water as possible to make it go away. Ha, yeah right. It got worse all day yesterday, and has now (Friday afternoon) developed into a full-on cold - sneezing, sniffling, coughing, and a raging burning sore throat of the sort that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Yeesh.

On top of that, prac has started so I'm flat out. And . . . my Monday-Wednesday co-operating teacher has had to have a knee reconstruction and the Thursday-Friday one is on leave briefly, so I have this idiot of a relief teacher for the first two weeks. She’s really old-school so I don’t like her style at all, and despite being told repeatedly by me and the supervisor, she seems to have no idea what the prac is for. She wants me to have beautifully presented lesson plans which I carry out exactly to plan with no deviations (we’re supposed to use our plans as our own personal working documents with as many scribbles as we like, and we’re supposed to change our lesson plans on the spot if needs be, because flexibility is the reality of teaching). She keeps moaning that we prac students can’t possibly learn to be teachers if we’re not strictly required to do everything perfectly.

Um, maybe we’ll learn to be real teachers, and perhaps we won’t kill ourselves with overwork in the process?

My supervisor from uni knows what’s going on and she’s been very supportive, so at least I know I won’t be unfairly treated by the woman without having anyone step in and tell her where to get off. And the prac is only pass/borderline/fail, so I’m fine – no matter how much she whinges about this irrelevant stuff, I’m a damn good teacher and she knows it already, so she cannot legitimately do anything other than pass me, even if she only gives me satisfactories on the informal report.

By the time I start my six-week *real* prac, which is graded, the two normal teachers will be back. I get along with both of them excellently and I like their styles, so I’ll do fine. Eventually.

My lessons so far have gone brilliantly, though – it’s stupid niggly things that this teacher is determined to make me feel small about (she has that stupid tone of voice that some adults use when they’ve spent most of their career talking to children, and can no longer imagine that anyone younger than about 40 is not a child – I feel like a disappointing high school student every time she opens her mouth). I have a great rapport with the kids, my lesson planning is flawless from a pedagogical perspective, and I know what I’m doing. I just wish she’d let me get on with doing it, rather than subjecting me to a ten-minute lecture about why I shouldn’t cross out and change the title of my lesson plan!

I feel bloody awful. I probably won’t get much chance to blog during the week for the time being, but I’ll try to update on the weekend as much as possible.

Photos

I went for another nature ramble on Wednesday, along a former railway line near where I live (it's now a well-maintained bridle trail). Unfortunately I forgot to check the camera's batteries, and thus I only have photos from the first 10 minutes of my walk. But I got some nice ones nonetheless, and here they are.


A tree near the bus stop.


Part of the old railway trail (it was a one-track steam railway).


Some wattle flowers, although not the ones truly native to the area. The place was simply alive with the scents I associate with home in winter - the honey-sweet scent of wattle flowers, wet clay, running water, crushed grass, sprouting lilies, damp earth.


A little waterfall in the winter creek that runs alongside the railway line.


More of the rocky creekbed. The creek is about half a metre lower now than it was in my childhood, but it's still beautiful.


Another stretch of the trail, showing one of the railway cuttings.

I'll have to do the walk again in two weeks' time, I think - it's supposed to rain all this week and into next week, so the creek will be higher when I go again. And this time I'll remember to take spare batteries, so that I can capture some of the things I missed, such as the vivid purple hovea growing from the granite outcrops, and the funny miniature swamps that are full of tadpoles.

I love my suburb :-)

PS: Amie: I'm very careful about not revealing where this actually *is* on this blog, as I don't want to be locatable. But I'm sure you'll recognise it!