Vacation

You know when you go on a vacation and you come back and you're exhausted from your vacation? I need a vacation from my vacation. Other than that, things are busy. It's like I jumped into the deep-end of a frenzied pool of lesson plans, marking, rampaging students, and the like. I swear, if I knew how much work teaching is I would have been scared off of following this career path long ago. I'm here know though and I'm sticking with it. It's surprising how these students grow on you after a while.

I had my Year 9 class for the first time on my own today. I planned the lesson wrong and what should have been sixty minutes long turned into thirty-seven minutes and me humming and hawing over what to do next. Thank goodness for smart kids. One of them piped up "Charades is miming too! Can we do that?"

I haven't rejoiced inside so much since... well, since I can't remember. Anyways, I nodded and on we went. The boys enjoyed it, it fit with their miming lesson, and it got me out of scrambelling for twenty minutes. So, moral of this... plan extra in case plans fall through and... listen to your students!

In other news you should all check out my Facebook page for new photos from my trip. I have so many stories from our trip to Stewart Island alone! Doobie smoking islanders, paua diving fourteen-year-old racists, creepy old men hitting who own their own planes hitting on me, drunk girls falling down sand dunes, and the best damn fish and chips in the world!

Yeah... I was hit on by an old, creepy man. He was a contracter on the island for a couple of months running a tourist fishing/diving boat. He has his own boat and his own house "that gets lonely sometime because I live there by myself". After a half hour of this with no one helping me get out of the situation, I excused myself and went to the toilet. I came back and he had gone off to talk to his friends, so I moved my seat and sat beside one of the guys I went down there with. He got the hint and backed off, but not before Richard (the girl I went down with's fiancee) peed in his gumboots! Anyways, the next day it turns out we were the talk of the town. Karen (Carla's islander friend, and mother of the 14 year old) told me I should definitely go for the old dude, as he apparently owns his own plane. Yup. A plane. What a wild, wild weekend.

It's getting freaking cold here. I'm headed back into winter while you guys are all going into summer. It's a wet cold too which is worse... and they don't have INDOOR HEATING! We must rely on space heaters, but electricity is so expensive that I hate using it. I think I just need to go out and buy a warm duvet or something. Urgh.

Anyways, that's it for now. Back to lesson planning! Whoo...