It’s the little things..

That make life so wonderful.

Now you know me. I’m hardly the worlds most cheerful person, although I can be on the rare occassion. But it really is all about the little things that people do to make you feel good. Today was a really, really awesome birthday.

Earrings you adore, but would never buy yourself? Amazing.
Stationary that you completely adore? Amazing.
Window-tinting for your new car? Amazing.
Having kindergarten serenade you for your birthday? Amazing.
Having the WHOLE SCHOOL sing to you at assembly? Amazing.
Having a friend at school buy you a card herself? Amazing.
People spoiling you rotten on Neopets. Amazing.
The random emails I got from birthday remember-ers. Amazing.
The random texts I got from birthday remember-ers. Amazing.

This birthday has been awesome. And I’m truly blessed to have such an amazing family, some beautiful friends (on and offline) and a job that is so darned gorgeous. Love and warm fuzzies to all.

My gorgeous, gorgeous boy. I love you.

Musings

It feels like it’s my birthday already.

We are going out for dinner tonight (Sunday) since it fits in with everyone’s timetable, I’ve gotten a couple of presents early and on Neopets, I’ve also been spoiled early. Maybe because the actual birthday itself is on a Monday and I’ll be working, it’s sort of lost a bit of interest this year.

Okay. I’m ending the whole "world revolves around me" thing right now!

After the dismal day on Friday, he brought the presents around early to cheer me up. His parents gave me some gorgeous Body Shop products all wrapped up. My favourite smells too; Mango and Papaya. Mmm. It came with Mango Body Butter, some Papaya and Mango soaps, these neat exfoliating gloves, and my favourite body wash smells; Papaya and more Mango!

Anyone who knows me, knows that the Body Shop is a weakness of mine. If I could, I’d get all of their stuff. I’ve always wanted to try their skincare things too, except it’s a wee bit out of my price range.

Jason bought me a beautiful pair of earrings. I love how well he knows me. They are white gold, and sort of long – with flecks of diamond sparkles mixed in (no, not diamond solitaire bits or anything, rofl, but just flashes.) They are unusual, and not something I would buy for myself; that in itself is a good birthday present,  it’s what a present should be. Something that suits the person, but is something that they would not buy themselves. I love them.

And tomorrow, I’ll be a year old. Wiser? I don’t know, you will have to be the judge of that. I certainly don’t feel any different. Who knows. Maybe this time next year, I will have moved out of home, moved overseas…? Only time will tell!

Another Big Milestone. (100!)

Can you believe I have finally hit 100 posts? How amazing!

When I first started this blogging gig, I did it for myself. I’ve always written in online journals, but I’ve been pretty blase about them. My scatterbrain always forgets to update, or leaves it abandoned for long periods at a time – but I always find my way back eventually.

This blog is different though. From the moment I created it, I made myself a promise to use it wisely. (Now I have that Simpsons/Star Wars line in my head: "Use the Fork.. Use the Fork!") I felt that updating it daily was a goal I wanted to maintain. I felt that my teaching career was something worthwhile to blog about, and possibly even something that is interesting to others.

But mainly? I wanted this blog to be something I looked back on in a year, five years, whenever, to read about me. My sarcasm. My peeves. My loves. And all that jazz.

Throw in finding amazing websites like Sunday Scribblings, with prompts that I spend my week looking forward to writing, and there is a blog that I truly do enjoy updating and sharing with the big, bad internet.

Not wanting to sound like an Academy Award winner or anything (cue the cheese!) thankyou to those people who read my ramblings. Thankyou to those wonderful friends who I visit every day, and who in turn visit me too. Thankyou for everyone who has ever done a search for "Black Fingernails, Red Wine!" (alas, still no comments!) and ended up here. Thankyou to every Sunday Scribblings participant, whose stories have made me want to share my own. Thankyou to every random commentor, who has shared their thoughts with me.

THANKYOU.

(Now pretend that this was actually the 100th post, seeing as I got over-excited last night and ended up posting my 2 cents entry instead. Hoorah!)

Sunday Scribblings: My 2 Cents

I’ve never been one to jump right in and share my opinions freely with others.

With friends, yes, absolutely, possibly too much, but with strangers? I tend to passively observe rather than submit my thoughts to them. Alternatively, I find it strange when individuals provide me with their own 2 cents worth – especially those people who don’t know me.

It has always amazed me watching those people who are comfortable getting close to other new acquaintances. The sort who can offer advice and words of wisdom, without even giving it a thought. Whose nature is just to throw themselves heart and soul into this other persons life, come what may.

I sometimes wish I could be like that.

Although on the other hand, sometimes I am glad I am not.

My personality is different. I prefer to watch people first. To look, to observe, to try and puzzle out their quirks, their backgrounds, what makes them tick. To attempt to at least know them, before I offer my own suggestions.

I’d like to think I’m a fix-er.
I’ve always wanted to be a fix-er.
And I get quite miserable when I’m faced with a problem that I can’t fix.

Sometimes, my 2 cents do not even matter. Sometimes, I can learn as much as I possibly can about a person, but it still doesn’t help me. Sometimes, people simply do not want my 2 cents. And that is fine.

This year, I’ve been privileged to be in a position of power. It may not seem like a powerful career in the grand scheme of business and the like, but teaching is one heck of a power trip.

I am seen as the power figure of twenty-six children. These are children that could change the world one day. Scratch that. These are children that WILL change the world one day.

I need to make sure that my 2 cents are not all that they hear. They need to create their own 2 cents. They need to develop their own ideas, their own opinions, their own selves.

And you know what?

Twenty-six x 2c = Half a dollar. Just imagine the possibilities.

More Sunday Scribblings can be found here.

Lockdown.

Some days at school are just plain scary. Really, they are.

Today saw our school in lockdown, again. This time it was because of one girl deciding to play hide and seek (deliberately) with teachers running in and out of buildings. After refusing to go back to her classroom, she then scurried outside to frolic around in the quad – and as soon as she left the building, we were put on lockdown.

It sounds quite scary, but basically it’s just locking our wings. The school is shaped with long corridors, with about five classrooms stretched down one wing. My classroom this year is on the closest end of the wing to the door, so I generally have to be the wing unlocker, if we go into lockdown.

After we had all locked up? The charming student then went and found herself a big tree branch and proceeded to whack our back doors. (The rear of every classroom is three giant glass sliding doors, no curtains.) Each classroom had a good ten minutes of whacking, until she got bored and moved along to the next one.

I thought our glass was going to be cracked, or shattered.

Do you know how hard it is to keep twenty kids pretending not to see the antics going on right next to them? The kids all did so well though (bar one, grr, just does not listen). Practically all of them understood me when I said we weren’t to watch her, she was being very silly. So on we went with our cutting and weaving, blissfully ignorant of the drama outside.

Things like this never happened when I was in primary school.

But on a lighter note, today some things happened that made me truly appreciate where I was. Firstly, D. wrote me a letter. This itself is an amazing thing, seeing as he has the attention span of a flea, but in it he wrote how much he liked to learn with me. -insert swoons here-

And secondly, E. told me she was going to be away on Monday, so she brought me a present early because she’d miss my birthday. Looked like things from her home too, a cute toy flower and a slightly old (and well-loved) little jewelery holder.

How much do I adore these kids?

Multi-tasking.

What does one look like when they combine a fluro yellow vest, a walkie-talkie, a writing book, a pen and a whole flock of kindergarten students trailing around them?

A complete and utter dork, that’s what!

Teachers should totally be given a little golf buggy to zoom around on while they’re doing playground duty. On the oval, anyway. One with plenty of shelves. And extra hands, to carry things.

Perhaps the golf buggy could be equipped with high-tech binoculars that have special, inbuilt mechanisms that do all sorts of amazing things.

Like the one that "seeks out fights", another that "searches for renegade youngsters brandishing sticks", and not to mention the "finding tackling footballers that should be playing touch only" device. Impressive.

Today was also a special day, it seems. It was the first day in years that I have been attacked by those creepy flying ant insects.

I seriously have not seen one of these for I don’t know how long — Maybe it was the fluro vest, or my deoderant smell, I don’t know, but I was being completely dive-bombed. Blech. I’m shuddering even now as I write this.

One more thing to add to that golf buggy.

Mosquito nets. Or "creepy-flying-ant-insect" nets. Whatever works.
 

Bad Typepad

Typepad is NOT allowed to go changing on me like that!

I just got completely lost when I opened the Typepad homepage. Took me four months to get used to it, and then Boom! Changed! Gah! Now I can’t stalk the "Recently Updated Weblogs" page as well as I used to be able to. I still find it amazing that I can waste hours upon hours searching from one random blog, to their links, to their mate’s blog, who links to this other great blog and .. yes, I could go on.

So. I found out yesterday when I got my pay slip that I had not been paid for the first fortnight of the current term. Of course I freaked out, so emailed the "pay people" (for lack of a better term) and they told me that I was currently not registered as having any temporary work anymore. They also informed me that I have to get my principal to re-send them information, about when I started and when my next end date is.

That meant, I had to find out when my actual next end date is.

Because I have no idea.

I just sort of turned up on the first day back hoping I still had a job there. And no-one shot me confused looks or asked what I was doing, so all seemed well.

Caught up with the principal today, who told me that he had basically completely forgot about me (ha!) and that he’d fix it all up. He also still didn’t give me an end date! I just want to be there until the end of year (longer if all goes well, I am so comfortable there now) because if I work for Term 4, I think I’ll get paid over the Christmas holidays – which is five weeks or something!

So. That is being fixed up sometime soon I hope. I don’t mind when, seeing as the next pay fortnight is not for another fortnight anyway, so I can live until then. Luckily I have some money stashed, I’ll just have to pay board late. (Sorry, momma!)

In other news.

I held my first Neucombeball practice today and I survived! There are a couple of "handful" kids in there, but most are great. They were pretty patient with me too, so I’ll tag along on Friday and hopefully I’ll be set to take over by next week. Scary but fun. Alyndabear taking sport? My, My, My!

Not much else to say, so on that note.. adieu!

Right, those other 50 things.

… Nothing to say here, folks.

Continued from the day before yesterday …

51. I totally forgot all about doing this list yesterday.
52. And I’m only doing it now because I have nothing else to talk about.
53. I ate hot chips today and a cupcake.
54. The cupcake was only 3-4 points, but the hot chips were worth about 6.
55. I don’t feel guilty.
56. Because I’ve been really good with this lifestyle thing for the last 3.5 weeks.
57. I’ll just be extra wonderful tomorrow.
58. Today my boobs looked bigger than normal.
59. That probably grossed you out.
60. Why would they look bigger?
61. Now I’m looking at my boobs.
62. I got an extra hour of RFF (relief from face to face) teaching today. It was grand.
63. I wish we had an hour off class every day.
64. We are going to be growing seedlings this term.
65. I have absolutely no idea how to grow seedlings in a classroom.
66. I vaguely remember using egg cartons, cotton wool and water?
67. I’m embarrassed I have forgotten how to grow seedlings.
68. I got cranky when I drove home today.
69. Because someone parked in my car space at home.
70. And because parents were letting their small children run around in the street.
71. I hate it when small children run around in the street.
72. With noone watching them.
73. Kicking balls near my car.
74. I am paranoid that a ball will hit my car.
75. My car needs a wash.
76. I am taking Seniors Neucomball tomorrow (and for the rest of the year) and I am petrified.
77. It will be fun though.
78. J. left a jumper here a few weeks ago and I haven’t remembered to give it back to him yet.
79. I occassionally sniff it, because it smells like him.
80. Does that make me totally disgusting?
81. I love J.
82. I think I should just get over using letters for his name, because everyone already knows his name anyway.
83. His name is Jason.
84. I finally finished watching Dawson’s Creek Season 4.
85. Now I’m watching Dawson’s Creek Season 5.
86. I put up an Amazon Wishlist even though I live in Australia and noone will ever use it.
87. But it’s fun making wishlists.
88. I have a baby shower to go to in August but I don’t really want to go.
89. I probably will anyway.
90. I spent $40 yesterday on two stamps and lots of stickers.
91. And then found out that they stuffed up my pay this fortnight and I have no money.
92. Did I mention next week is August?
93. And I have board to pay?
94. Oh dear.
95. I’m running out of interesting (!!) things to write.
96. I am worried that my friend Hana is still in Lebanon.
97. I haven’t emailed her yet.
98. I’m going to email her now.
99. Yikes, I almost mis-clicked and wiped this whole post!

100 !!!

Bye-Bye. Wow, is it sad that I just figured out how to change the font size? Hoorah!

Eaten by a what..?

An excerpt from the journal of E. from my class.

Once upon a time there was a little girl called Miss S. One day she went out walking in the woods and she liked to walk in the woods. She had pet mice but they were at home. She only brang the pet mice to people who were good. She was picking flowers and then she saw a lion. The lion ate her and she was never saw again.

*gulps*

I’m flattered she likes me enough to write a story about me.

I’m amused that she listens to me about the pet mice (I have told them that I will take them home again if they are too noisy.)

I’m liking the idea of walking through the woods picking flowers.

But I’m rather alarmed that I was eaten by a lion.

I’m not THAT horrible a teacher.

Am I?

100 Things – Or Not.

This entry draws from the inspiration of every other blog I’ve ever read (practically, anyway) where I have seen this done. And because I have absolutely nothing to say.

100 Things About Me You May (Or May Not) Already Know.
Updated; Er. Got tired. Amending title now.

50 Things About Me You May (Or May Not ) Already Know, With The Rest Coming Tomorrow.

1. I am turning 22 in just over a week.
2. I sometimes feel like I am 22 going on 30.
3. I hate soft pillows, and love firm pillows.
4. I am terrified of the dentist.
5. I drive past cows every morning and afternoon on my way to work.
6. I love driving at night.
7. I have really neat handwriting. Or at least, I think so.
8. I am right handed.
9. But I can also write with my left hand, especially on chalkboards.
10. I really like playing pool.
11. Except I can’t really play pool.
12. I do worse in pool when people try to help me.
13. My favourite article of clothing is my dressing gown.
14. My dad hates me wearing my dressing gown!
15. Sometimes I’ll put my dressing gown on even after I have my shower and get dressed.
16. I do this because it’s warm and smooshy.
17. I could sit and watch my mice run around, or sleep, or do nothing, for hours.
18. I wish my chubby mouse was actually pregnant.
19. I still spend at least 30mins a day visiting Neopets.
20. I have been on Neopets for over five years.
21. If I could go anywhere right now, I would go back to France.
22. And Scotland.
23. And all of Europe, basically.
24. My favourite perfume is from Fragonard, in France.
24. It is called Eau Fantasque and you can see it here. Mmm.
25. Jason gave me my first French perfume from Fragonard.
26. It is called Lune de Miel.
27. My favourite normal perfume is DKNY: Be Delicious. It’s very yummy.
28. I usually forget to wear perfume.
29. Unless I’m going out. Then I wear it.
30. I like having a perfume that not many people own.
31. My favourite concert would have to be Taxiride, in 2002.
32. I am still in love with their Garage Mahal album.
33. I went with a friend who hated them, but I didn’t care and still loved it.
34. I saw them again a few months later with J. and Jen, and they weren’t as good.
35. I’d love to see them again one day.
36. I also adored Matchbox 20, and we had the most amazing seats.
37. M-One was good, too.
38. I have given up on ever seeing Lifehouse live.
39. I would give both of my legs and one arm, to see the Counting Crows and Goo Goo Dolls concert that is touring America right now.
40. Now I am in the mood to go to a concert.
41. I prefer to write with blue pens than black pens.
42. If I had the funds, I would buy lots and lots of stationary.
43. My stomach feels like death this morning.
44. And this list is taking an awfully long time.
45. I’m going to cheat on it.
46. I think I’ll make it only fifty today – and fifty tomorrow.
47. I feel much better now that I’ve said that.
48. It’s really quite cold in my room.
49. I wish my dressing gown wasn’t in the wash.
50. More to come tomorrow. I bet you’re thrilled!