Currently Reading Anna Karenina (Penguin Classics) By Leo Tolstoy see related

Ahhh housesitting. I housesat three different houses one summer if i remember it right. But the last time would have been...hmmm maybe four years ago yeah i think it must have been the Inghams or the Mitchells.

Anyway the house i'm sitting right now is five minutes walk from my parents place. When i first moved in last week (wow it seems ages longer) i was a bit frustrated with the comparative chaos it threw me into. I would expect calls to teach early in the morning and then need to leave the house earlier to walk to the parents place to get suitable teaching stuff and then walk to catch a bus. Then i would just remember stuff that i wanted to use but it was at home and did i have a long enough list to warrant walking in the cold back to get it and should i take my teaching stuff back now? Anyway i don't know what i did those other times, maybe i've just become more of a user of stuff these days, needing more stuff around me to keep my life going. I hope not.

I've chilled out a bit since the holidays started. 1. because i don't need to be professionally decked out each day and 2. because i got sick and didn't think walking in the cold was a good idea. Wow i'm sounding really old aren't I?!!

Note to self and fellow suffer-ers of nasty colds: if you are sick for longer than a day, don't just think it will go away by breathing in chest rub in hot water. Do yourself a favour and get some proper cold and flu medicine especially if you aren't sleeping.

It's been nice cooking and cleaning again and sleeping in a double bed. I've had some people over for dinner and had some good quiet times at the kitchen table. DVDs have been watched at a great rate and the book that will be the biggest i've ever read (other than the Bible) is more than half read.

The majority of a dear family is back in town waiting to move again far away. They are exhausted from such a time of sacrifice for a dying family member. When i compare my own 'across the world' decisions, i feel quite petty but like maybe my regrets could have been bigger? It's been good just talking in wonder of how God has put these decisions in our lives and worked with what we consider choices we wouldn't make if we had the moment again. Wondering... what is He up to?

Currently Listening Bitter Sweet Symphony By The Verve see related

sunsets

I have always been a suset lover and i'm sure i found out what makes sunsets the colour they are back in primary school and i had a pretty good idea why but i went on a mission to find out for sure.

Dust does not cause brilliant sunsets. If it did, certain cities like New York and Mexico City would be on top of the list, and they are not. Actually, clean air is best for the best sunsets. (this explains why Canberra is such a sunset sensation).

Sunlight is composed of a spectrum of colors that ranges from violet and blue at one end to orange and red on the other. At sunrise or sunset, sunlight takes a much longer path through the atmosphere than during the middle part of the day. More violet and blue light is scattered out of the beam along the way, and so the light which reaches the human eye early or late in the day is reddened. So the conclusion is that sunsets are red because the daytime sky is blue. (Please don't ask me why the sky is blue.)

Pollution softens the sky's colors, because the particles of dust and dirt are scattered and are of varying sizes, so the wavelengths sunlight of light passing through the particles are mixed. This lets us see muted tones, more middle of the spectrum.

The best sunsets occur when there are at least a few high clouds. Higher clouds are hit by the sun's rays before they pass through the lower atmosphere, where the air has more particles. So the bright reds and oranges are filtered through at the high cloud's level.

There you go

Currently Listening The Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek By Relient K see related

the other weblog

So it's been a longer than usual gap between entries here. i thought i would just fess up... there's another weblog (insert scandalised gasp here). It must have been about a month no two months ago when Mark said 'i will have paid off the debt by next week so lets go to phase 2 of the plan and start planning our wedding' (my paraphrase - don't think we have ever had 'phases' to our plan. we're not that organised) You can imagine how excited we were and how i proceeded to scour the earth for venues and a dress. Anyway all this scouring and some organised-ness has come together in the other weblog and hence the longer than usual gap.

Lydia has been driving me places like to Jeremy's for soup on Saturday. We had a Randall recipe from back in the day - tomato soup with canned corn kernels mixed in. Soo good. Lydia also drove me 'the scenic route to and from civic a couple of times because of the fantastic rally car track of a road the glen loch interchange has become.

I'm liking parts of my life right now... my work: i'm getting quite regular work at good schools and my cleaning job is still good listening- to- my- ipod- and- chatting- with- the- nice- office- people time

...my friends: mostly away from Canberra but just had a lovely dress shopping trip with some near and dear girls.

...my family: Dad is getting plenty of teaching work and loving on the kids big time so good. I'm trying to give mum some slack but still regularly not clamping my hand over my mouth in time. Lydia and i don't see eye-to-eye a whole lot but i think we are more ok with that then we have been before. Jeremy such a sparkle in Canberra - particularly boganville and various church circles. Peter just came up to visit and makes the world seem right again. inspiring guy that one.

...winter is finally here and i'm getting into the thick pants and skirts, the tights, the scarfs, the coats, the hat. Also loving cuppa soups (crazy i know but i just realised they are worth the wait that means you don't get a mouthful of stock powder and hard vegie bits) and wheat bags. The car however is not loving the cold and two mornings has left me no option but to throw my money away on a taxi!

...church: Growing Kids God's Way classes are finished and although i enjoyed taking care of the two families of kids and feel i know them better and have a special connection with them, (breathe) I am very glad to have Sunday arvo's to myself again and to have everyone back together for... separate (!) women's and men's classes. Penny kick started the women's classes on sunday Yay!

...my Mark (although he's not really mine yet). He has such good clear thoughts about God and us and family and the future. He works hard at a job he'd prefer not to be doing and is getting his visa together like a pro.

Oh the other reason why i have not been on here so much either is because of a cool new preoccupation called facebook!! I can spend ages reading all my friends' walls and tagging photos and updating my status... I hope more of my friends will join but i also hope i get a sweet full time job soon that will mean i won't have such time to kill.

Oh (last 'Oh') so our wedding is on November 17th 2007 at poacher's pantry. Tell me if you want to and are able to come.

Currently Reading Eleven on Top (A Stephanie Plum Novel) By Janet Evanovich see related

A full bookshelf is a beautiful thing

It was school holidays, a Friday, Dad and i drove across the city to a little place called EPIC (Exhibition Park In Canberra) to join a line of people in the Autumn sun for an hour. We thought we were quite hard core coming an hour early but the people at the start of the line arrived 3 hours early, Dad found out. We sat on our woolies cloth bags and read/ listened to books. What was this great event we were sitting in anticipation for? The Lifeline Bookfair!

When they opened the doors we walked along following the queue around the bushes paid more than the gold coin donation and headed straight for the 'Teaching resources' Section.

A few hours later i had a very full Woolies bag of precious words and pictures. Some things i had on my list of books to get i didn't get but i was excited to find a No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, an Incredible Cross-sections book (a winner with kids), a MILK photo book, two Roald Dahl classics, a Nick Hornby, a Barbara Kingsolver and a stack of Ahlberg books.

We have been going to this fabulous bookfair since we were little. It used to be in a hall closer to the centre of town. We would get a cardboard box to put our books in and kick them along the polished wood floor. I remember the sausage sandwich caravan out the front, the smell always got our mouths watering and the big fir trees, good for playing in.

Such a different thing now but still great for teachers and book-addicts.

Currently Reading Persuasion (Penguin Classics) By Jane Austen see related

Waiting waiting waiting

My boxes that i had shipped from London have been in the country for about a month and a half but i still haven't seen them. It took time to fill out various forms and for the customs people to check it but still they have not arrived. And i thought these things only happened in England. Come on Australia you can do better than that! And a job i applied for three weeks ago i haven't heard from either even though i have called them thrice and emailed once. So i'm waiting waiting waiting.

While waiting i am cleaning a little IT office in civic which is great because it doesn't get very dirty so i don't get too worn out cleaning it and it's on an evening bus route so i can get there and home by myself.

Trisha - a fellow wait - er is good for a laugh and a night out now and then. She also doesn't want to spend a lot of money but we splurged on a game of badminton on sunday and an iceblock! It could have been the last of the warm days but no there were some more this week. Ahhhh Canberra!

Teaching has been pretty awsome. The schools that i have been working at have been lovely and familiar. One school i had a contract with pre UK has given me the most work including a two week block on a challenging but well supported Year 2 class. The other schools have asked me to teach lovely lower primary classes and two lovely upper primary classes. The benifits of team teaching approaches are clearer to me these last months. If the students see that one of the regular teachers is supporting and approving of the stand-in teacher it helps them be settled and have a more regular day i think.

The first 'unsettling' teaching experience i've had after the year 2 was a 5/6 class that was described on the phone at 7am as having 'a few hairy ones' in it. Then when i got to the school the intern who had worked with them for six weeks gave me a more detailed description of their hairiness and what a tough day i was in for. By nature i'm quite a roll with the punches person and this girl knew these kids and what would get them going so she pretty much kept the peace that day and i was shamefully along for the ride really. I was so grateful and i hoped she wasn't stretched to much by my inertia. While i was kind of in the back seat, taking my cues for her as to what behaviour to react to, i noticed the complexities of the social dynamics of a class of 25 pre-adolescents. There were a few romances being played out and bullies quietly throwing their weight around. There were loonies who shouldn't be pushed to do anything and instead given 'jobs' to distract and apease them and loners totally oblivious until they are knocked down or coralled to some cause of their more charismatic peers. There were some who just did what they were asked and even offered to help!!! 

I really want to be perceptive of these rhythms and make good judgments that will keep the classroom sound healthy and warm.