The Final Countdown

I hope that from reading the title of this post you are envisioning a certain Arrested Development magician doing his tricks – no, illusions, perhaps on a boat. If you weren’t picturing it before, you are now.

Okay. That’s out of my system.

As of today there remains TWO WEEKS before I leave for Montreal. There are THREE DAYS left before I am a qualified English teacher. It’s crazy.

I had my final evaluation by my university coordinator today. It went really well I think – even though I’ve taught tons of lessons I always get nervous when it’s time to be seen by the coordinator. She gave me a couple of tips, but told me she was really happy with what she saw, and that I was “Highly Competent” to "Outstanding"! After today I have only two more classes left to teach this week. I suppose this week at school I’ll get my papers organised, make photocopies and observe some classes. Wednesday night there is a year 11 river cruise I might go to. Thursday night Dave is playing a solo gig in West Leederville, it should be a good night. Sometime this weekend, either Friday or Saturday, the girls from the English department, myself and the other prac student, Nicola, are going out for some drinks, yay!

I have next week off. My plan is to keep on top of all the cleaning, shopping and cooking, since Dave will be at work full time. Other than that, I’m looking forward to a week of reading, playing piano, doing a little Christmas shopping and taking in a bit of season three of Desperate Housewives!

Weekend in November

It has been a great weekend.

To officially celebrate our visa coming through, Dave and I went to Cantina for dinner on Friday night. Cantina is a small cafe restaurant with a limited menu, mostly home made, that they change pretty regularly. I had a gnocci that was the best I have ever tasted.

After dinner we both felt like dome DVDs at home - and not any serious, 'film festival' type DVDs. We wanted something silly. My half kidding attempts to rent Mama Mia! or Made of Honour were not successful, but we agreed on Y.P.F. and both pretended we didn't want to watch You Don't Mess With the Zohan but rented it as well. Y.P.F. (Young People Fucking) was quite entertaining. It was silly, with lots of nudity. Perfect, haha! Zohan was perhaps the dumbest movie I have ever seen (and I have seen a lot of stupid movies: Elephant? Good Burger? Destricted? May? Date Movie? Okay, okay. It wasn't as bad as Date Movie.) Some of it was fun, but the accents drove me up the wall, the jokes were either toilet humour or pointless, and the casting, particularly of the "Arab" girl was awful. Oh well. It actually made me want to watch some of Sandler's older, more fun movies like Billy Madison or The Wedding Singer. We had a fun DVD night. And Dave has not seen Billy Madison. I think he's in trouble.

Saturday night was heaps of fun. And there will be more to come soon.

The Girl With the Most Cake

That's me.

So many good things have been happening, and I feel like I might be the luckiest girl in the world.

After a long wait, Dave and I were approved for our de facto visa today - I have Australian residency rights!

More big news - Last Thursday I had my first job interview, to teach English next year at La Salle Catholic College, a private school near the Swan Valley...I was told would know by Monday or Tuesday of the next week. The day after, on Friday night I got a call - and was offered the job! So I have a real teaching job (at a private school as well!) for next year!

And these things aren't even the things I am most happy about. Every day I think about how lucky I am to have a partner like Dave. I just think it's so great that we love each other so much, and that we truly bring out the best in one another.

I feel so fortunate to have family members who are close to me and so, so supportive. I just can't wait to see them, and the friends I miss so much. It's only about a month away now!

I really think I must be one of the luckiest girls in the world.

October - Second Half (and maybe just a little bit into November).

October 13 (the day after Spring in the Valley - EEK!) marked the first day of my final teaching practicum. I was posted at Mercy College, a Coed Catholic school (not a state school, but not exactly private) in Mirrabooka. I'm sure I wasn't alone going into the final prac feeling pretty nervous; I thought about others in the dip ed program and wondered how they were doing on their first day. I had already met my mentor teacher, Rebecca, who is around my age and really great, so at least I knew that part was good.

But what about the other teachers? What about the students? I only have my own short pracs at Greenwood Sr. High and my experiences as a high school student at BHS and FACE to draw on. My nervousness faded quickly with every teacher I met, and every class I went to. The English department is full of great people, and three female English teachers about my age, Rebecca, Natalie and Ashton. The other prac student, Nicola, is really sweet (she offers to drive me to the bus stop almost every day!)

I have two year 10 classes and one year 11 class. It's been really great and Rebecca always gives me thoughtful, concise and useful feedback. Every day I feel more confident as an English teacher (and with cracking down on those misbehaving students!), and the time is absolutely FLYING. A I write this, I have less than three weeks to go. I think I'm really going to miss the girls in the English room, and the kids (I would start writing about them, but there are just so many I could talk about!)

I have been pretty exhausted a lot of the time, especially since I was also working part time at Caffissimo on top of teaching full time. It was fine, I was working Friday and Saturday nights. Those shifts helped me save money too, since I couldn't have a proper life, haha. But then Barry, my boss changed my hours to 6:30 AM on Sundays without notice. I found it very difficult, and since I was waking up quite early every Monday-Friday plus doing lesson plans and marking, I was burning out. The second week I did it I felt like I was going to vomit I was so tired. So I quit the cafe job.

Life hasn't been all business, there has been lots of fun to be had. Pat was in town for a little while, and we had a great time going for drinks, dinner, going for walks and celebrating Halloween. We went to the opening of the upstairs of the Flying Scotsman, and Dave had a deejay shift there. It was awesome, there's a great terrace overlooking Mount Lawley, our wonderful neighborhood. There were free drinks for people at Dave's work, RTR, and their significant others. Which is great, because "free" is pretty much the price I can afford right now!!! Pat and I went out for a couple of drinks at the Brisbane on a hot Saturday, and we all went to the Sparrow for dinner. The Pangbourne crew hosted the Halloween party, and that was a blast, as always - Dave went as Dexter and won best male

costume! I was....a bunny! (surprise!). As always, there were some great costumes. November - another month has started to fly by, and I'm still kind of in
a state of bewilderment that I only have a few weeks of prac left and then I'm an English teacher! I'm going to sign off now - play a bit of piano and resist the temptation of watching a "Desperate Housewives" episode.



Kerry - a very cute police officer. And me - a bunny!









Dexter claims another victim!