Summer Days, Drifting Away

It's not often (like never) that my birthday signals the beginning of the end of summer. Unfortunately for me, I did not get my birthday on the beach as the weather in Canberra was cool and overcast. A relief to my parents after multiple 35 degree days.  Dad was even missing the snow. Wierdo! I also, unfortunately, had to go to work. Happy Birthday, to me.

Mom and Dad gave me my gifts, including Australiana cookie cutters, a gift certificate for a pedicure and some cold hard cash.

It was then off to work. My seriously cool co-workers had a miniature birthday for me, including a cake baked by Miriam. A pretty good start to my 33rd year on this earth.

In the evening, we met up with Nat's family for my birthday/mom and dad's farewell dinner at Tongue & Groove. For my birthday they even had 2 for 1 pizzas. Ok, it wasn't for my birthday, they do that every Tuesday, I'm just trying to make it sound special. I got to hang out with some of my favorite people in Canberra. I got flowers from Rob, Nicole and Kyra, and a scarf and a necklace from Shirley. Bill and Chris just made sure I didn't get feeling too good about myself. It was a great evening, but also bittersweet because I knew that Mom and Dad would be back to Canada the next day.












The next morning, all three of us were up early and off to work. Mom and Dad were coming to opening mass and then we would go to the airport. Mass was lovely, including the Healing portion of it. Yup, that's right, it was a Healing Mass for our school's opening mass. Anyways.... we headed to the airport where I procrastinated for as long as I could before having to say good-bye to Mom and Dad. We drank coffee/tea, ate savouries and talked. Unfortunately, I had to get back to work and the 'rents had to get back to the freezer that is Canada. After tears and hugs, they were off to catch their plane and I was off to get my RE accreditation. Whoo-hoo!

Thankfully I have some of the best co-workers in the country and they took me out for my Canada Birthday drinks after school (Yay for the international dateline) and by the time I got home, I was ok with it being empty. It was back to my normal Australian life.

The next couple of days at work were a little chaotic as all of a sudden I had to get 'qualified' to teach in the ACT. This was supposed to involve a criminal record check, a look at my transcripts and various other things that are all filed very safely away (read: I have no idea where they are right now) in Canada. After multiple phone calls and a ridiculously long application process minus the documents mentioned above and drive to the far north side of Canberra, I was qualified to teach in the ACT, or so I thought.

That Monday, I found out that my qualification hadn't come through yet, so my Assistant Principal had to sit outside my classroom for 3/4 of the day because for all technical purposes I was just a 'volunteer'. I asked if I could volunteer to go home. That was a no go. For the rest of the day, I was of course made fun of endlessly. Thankfully the kids behaved and I got to show of my excellent volunteer teacher skills to the AP. By recess I was fully qualified and able to teach without supervision. The qualification service was calling the CEO to ask about me, but called payroll. I don't get paid by the CEO, so they didn't know who I was. Ridiculous!

My class this year is pretty fantastic. They are a very energetic bunch and definitely have a lot to talk about. We've had lots of fun so far and I plan on even more. They've also tested my patience a time or two, but some comment will make me laugh and we're good to go again. The parents have also been very welcoming and are excited to have the Canadian teacher teaching their child. It's been difficult to program for this term as I don't know the curriculum very well and I'm trying some ideas out that I would like to transfer from Australia to my Canadian classroom. It is sort of starting to come together, but it's hard to believe that I only have 14 more weeks of teaching here and only 16 more weeks until I'm headed back east. The staff is pretty adament that I am not leaving. In fact, there are great plans to marry me off before I leave. It's nice to feel wanted.

It was a busy first couple of weeks of school. Though outside of school was even busier. Miriam and I went to Sydney to see the Harry Potter Exhibit at the Powerhouse Museum the first weekend of school. It was a gallery of props  from the movies. It was really cool to see the textbooks and clothing they wore. Then it was time to meet the new exchangees in Canberra.

There is a family from Ireland living in Kaleen, a lady from Ontario living in Gordon and a girl from Colorodo in Gungalin. There is also a lady from Colorodo in Jindabyne which is a couple hours up the road in the mountains. There is also a family from Halifax in Curtin, though I haven't had much to do with them. We had a welcome BBQ at Kathryn's (a teacher here in Canberra who has been on exchange to BC) and got to know each other a bit. We also had a Teaching Exchange Convention in Sydney on the 2nd weekend of February.

The conference part wasn't really that pertinent for me as I had already had to deal with all of that 6 months ago, and never really had any problems with it. I only went for the networking and that was fantastic. I drove up with a couple of the girls from Canberra and we met up with Lois from Jindabyne. I got to play tour guide and I took them to the Bridge and Opera House at night. It was fun watching them discover this wonder for the first time.

The next day, after the conference, a few of us went shopping where we found a vending machine selling thongs (flip-flops to the uninitiated). I, of course, had to buy some. Later, we all met to have dinner at Foote Pub in the Rocks and had a great time getting to know each other. The next day, many of us did a Harbour Cruise with a picnic lunch halfway through. I even went swimming in the Harbour, for all of 30 seconds. The water was disgustingly garbage ridden and there were also shark warnings.  All I could think as I jumped off the pier was "get me outta here, I just made a big splash and that attracts sharks!" I was also wondering what diseases I would get from getting water in my mouth (nothing yet).

Stephanie and Janice

whose that Bikini Babe?

The best part of the entire weekend was that I finally got to meet Janice. Janice is a friend of my aunt's and I had heard so much about her, before I left and during my trip here. She is with her family in Griffith, which is 4 hours north west of me here in Canberra. They've had an interesting trip so far as they were caught up in all the flooding a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully I will make it that direction before I leave.

I also got to meet Stephanie, the other teacher from Red Deer Catholic. She teaches in Sylvan Lake,but is now in Dubbo, about 4 hours north of Canberra. She's coming down to Canberra with her Year 6s to see the Parliament House, so we will hopefully get together again at that point. I also hope to get up to Dubbo to visit.

In the Harbour. If you look closely you can see the garbage.

Jumping off the pier. The shark net is between the posts.

Posing with the shark warning after jumping in

After a day in the sun in the harbour (and getting a massive sunburn on my very white tummy and back), I was exhausted. I went back to the hostel for a bit of a rest before going to Love Never Dies, the sequel to the Phantom of the Opera. I was very excited to see it and was a little disappointed. It was a little trite and got really corny at the the end. The music wasn't as good. It was definitely interesting to see, but was no Phantom.

On Sunday, I was up bright and early to catch the train and the ferry to Manly Beach. There was a surfing competition and I was determined to watch it. It was well worth the early morning. The surfing was fantastic and I even got to use a Sony camera for free for an hour. I took hundreds of photos and got to try out a great camera. Unfortunately none of them made it into the video they were promoting, but I still had fun. I also bought a t-shirt that I got to personalize. It started with 'Life is Better in" and I got to add whatever I wanted. I really, really wanted to add 'thongs', but figured I would only be able to wear that shirt in  Australia. After a couple weeks of not being able to wear flip-flops everyday, I was definitely ready to say that life is better wearing them.

The next weekend was an Exchange Excursion and we made a full weekend of it. I went to Susan and John's (the Irish couple) for dinner that night and we went to a Brumbies game (Rugby Union). I have now officially seen all of the footy here in Australia. The next morning, John, Patrick (their son) and I were up early for the 2 hour drive to Jindabyne. We were meeting some other exchangees to climb Mount Kosciuszko, the highest mountain in Australia. John, Patrick and I met Lois at her house in Jindabyne and continued to Thredbo and the chairlift that would take us to the trailhead. We met Elizabeth and Robert (ex-exchangees) he 4 hour hike to the summit. It was a beautiful day for a walk and I got to know my new friends quite well. At the summit  we had our photos taken on the cairn with our various flags (Robert and Elizabeth had them all except for Ireland), John dropped his pants to show off his Aussie flag underwear since there was no Irish flag, then we had a picnic with champagne. We made our way back down and headed to the schnapps distillery down the road. We had a couple drinks and met up with Susan and Mollie and celebrated Susan's birthday. Back in Jindabyne we went down to the lake for a little bit of a swim and then had a BBQ and cake. I then went downstairs to sleep with the spiders and ski equipment in the basement. On Sunday we went for a BBQ in Cooma at Lois' exchangee's boyfriend's place. Man is that a mouthful. We met some more friendly Australians and had a fantastic meal. It was finally back home after an adventure packed weekend, and back to the reality of school on Monday.

The start of the trek

Beautiful wildflowers

Lois and I

"I know the one on the right is Canadian, but what's the other one?"
That's ok, I don't know what the Western Australia flag looks like either.

The Great Adventurers - Lois, Patrick, John, Elizabeth, Robert

A little champagne to celebrate the great summit attempt

Emu crossing

The view from Lois' apartment over Lake Jindabyne. I want an exchange within my exchange.
P.S. The original Jindabyne is underneath the lake

It was a very busy first month back at work and as of March 1st, it was officially Autumn here in Australia. Summer ended, but what a summer. I don't think that I have recovered yet.y first two weeks off a very awesome Autumn. Stay tuned. There are more fireworks, more swimming, cows and ATVs and a leprechaun attack.