Hi ho, Hi ho, it's off to work I go.

Have just re-read my last post to see where I was when I last wrote. It is just a little over 20days ago and from where I am it seems more like 20 weeks. My cup so to speak is not merely full, it certainly overfloweth and I feel like a juggler balancing on one of those large balls, on top of a high wire, lol.


Somewhere after I last posted, I got home from work around 11.30pm to hear the TV going strong in the lounge and the WMH dozing on the couch. I went in quietly and asked if he wanted the telly off, whereupon, he decided to wake up properly and after we debriefed on work, which had been hectic, we then decided to have a hot drink. While we were making the drink and eating lamington cake left over from a do at "school" that day, I got offered a job. The job is to help out at the flexible learning centre (the what next after Tardun "school") for 20 hours a week which averages out from 9am - 1pm each day. I was offered a 13 week contract with the possibility it may or may not parlay into something more after that. The role offered was to be in the mode of social worker/help in the classroom. So by the time I went to sleep somewhere around 2am, my head was spinning with all sorts of possibilities and several omg's at being able to get back into the school system, woohoo. I took a nano second to think about the offer before saying yes of course, lol. From memory it was Thursday night/Friday morning when the offer occurred. On the Monday when I got in from work, there was a message to ring a number which I did, only to be offered a full time position with Child Protection. My first reaction was that they were joking me - which I said out loud, lol. But no, they were not. I told them I had just accepted a 13 week contract with the learning centre but would still be interested in being a casual with them as they had two positions going. Long story short, I have been to look the residential home over, and have signed a contract with them too, and am now just waiting to hear when they want me to work as I will shadow someone for between five and eight shifts before I work solo. When I visited, they only had two children in residence so it will be a good time to start. The woman who showed me around was the same one who did the original job seminar, was one of the interviewing panel, and was also the person who offered me the job on the phone, so that was all good. Most of the staff were to be involved in a conference last weekend so have not heard anymore from them but will ring tomorrow and let them know my availability.

Because the job at the school started on the Wednesday after I was offered the job, I was already locked into that week plus the next two weeks at the fast food job, so for the last 14 days I have been juggling 50+ hours a week with that and school. I had been given full day shifts, but luckily, I was able to swap the whole of last week for a week of nights, except I had two midnight finishes and a 2am finish on Saturday morning, so have been having naps here and there between the two jobs so I could manage.

If this was not enough, Phil from Tardun (ex neighbour) has not been well, and decided to go back to Sydney two weeks before the holidays and asked me to house sit. So, in between everything else, two Saturdays ago, I loaded up my suitcase and have been staying at his place, or rather passing through between jobs and sleep. I have to say, it could not have been better timing for me as working two jobs, and sleeping odd hours here and there, working in with the family would have been that much more difficult with all their comings and goings. I actually had last Sunday off but did not get out of bed until nearly 2pm, when I dashed round and finally unpacked and tidied before Janet came round for a coffee and a catch up, and then we went and got some groceries and had a hastily put together dinner before she headed home.

So, work at the school - my contract came through with the official title of Youth Worker, so a new one to add to the CV. I have a very loose job description as the situation with the learning centre is quite unique. The kids who come are picked up every morning from their homes by the WM who drives the school van, and then on arrival there is toast and milo available, or we had bacon and eggs one day this week. We start the day sitting in a circle for a catch up and information session or reflection and then usually break into groups after that for spelling, comprehension, writing etc and maths. By mid morning, there is morning tea passed around - biscuits or fruit, if everyone is working well, though if folk are restless we will go out onto the oval and kick a football around for some fresh air before settling to a bit more work and then lunch, which we make. We have had barbequed sausages, pizza, pies, toasted sandwhiches , spaghetti bolognaise - again the WM tends to do a lot of the food prep inbetween her office duties and helping in the classroom. Claire from Tardun - a trained teacher, is also giving a hand for the next 13 weeks. On Tuesdays and Thursdays in the afternoons the kids go to a gym, the other afternoons it may be sandboarding in the dunes, watching a movie, going fishing, doing some art, playing card games etc as the school finishes at 2.30pm and then they are dropped home again. There are about 17 kids on the books with an average of 10 - 12 turning up each day. All of the kids who attend have been kicked out of other schools or have not been attending at all with most involved with youth justice in some way or other. Although the ages range from 12 yrs - 16yrs, their school age level is around 7 and 8yrs for most of them. There is a lot of one to one work in the classroom, as the WMH has gone back to basics so we are doing primary school work, in short bursts to keep plugging away at the basics but also so that the work can be achieved while building confidence at the same time. Some of these kids can avoid for Africa, lol and the tactics they employ for not doing work are many and varied, but even in the nearly three weeks that I have been there, I can see some positive changes in some of them. Most of the kids are indigenous so it is very like Tardun in that respect. There are four principles that the school runs on - safe and legal, respect, honesty, and participation, and any behaviour that falls short of those principles is dealt with (a few in the last weeks, ending up with "the talk" from me, which can be much worse than a number of other consequences that could be put in place). Some of the background stories on these kids would make your hair curl so in the main, the last weeks for me have been an exercise in building relationships with my main focus being help in the classroom. The WMH gives me grief about my age and being a Kiwi and he gets as good as he gives, which the kids enjoy and as participation is one of the principles, they have seen me out of the field, kicking a football (I know, and I kid you not, who would have thought, laughing lots), NOT being able to do suduko, struggling to explain fractions but being ok, mostly at English. It is a salutory experience to work with kids who do not know what sounds various animals or birds make (an exercise in English yesterday), who are learning to spell words they have no idea of what they mean or how to use them, and virtually nil general knowledge. Many of them have not been out of Geraldton or those that have, have not been far. I am using primmer readers (year 1 and 2) with a couple of the boys and they stumble on some very basic words. The good thing is that there is improvement but how or if they ever catch up to regular schooling, is yet to be tested. I do not think one of them reads or has read a book for pleasure. In the last two weeks we have got kids to stop ripping up work or throwing it away because it is several pages long, and to concentrate on doing just the first question, or the first sum. One of the comprehensions was about Pompeii with the two or three higher level kids and you realise how hard it is for them when they have no idea what AD means (Pompeii was buried in 79 AD), that a flotilla is a group of boats, what archaeology is, where Italy, Naples and Pompeii are, etc etc, so to answer questions on the piece of reading, I had to decode it before we began. I took my laptop in the next day as I had photos from when I visited Pompeii four years ago, and that interested a few of them. On a positive note, we have a couple of girls who are eating their work up, complaining all the way, but there is a group who have turned up nearly every day since the term began so are starting to get some basic concepts under their belts so to speak.

Back at the fast food job, things are moving apace there too. I seldom need help anymore with the till, which has almost become my friend. My biggest stumbling block at the moment is that people ask for sundaes and my ears hear shake as in milk shake and that is what they get. At the worst, it happened three times in the one shift, and even when I checked (I thought) twice, the other night, I still got it wrong. Am now watching lips when they speak, lol and being VERY careful to check what I am hearing, lol. We have had numerous challenges with running out of product several times in the last few weeks which makes for interesting shifts, trying to get out large quantities of food etc when things are missing. Several nights, I have spent hours on the fryer moving at eye watering speed, we have been so busy. Usually, it takes me around 20 - 30 mins to go from no fries bagged or ready, to enough to cover any order with fries already cooked and waiting, while dropping baskets of fries constantly, salting them and bagging them to replace those being taken. The other night, it was 3 hours before I could get to that state and that was with other staff helping to drop baskets, and keeping the chiller filled with chips. I have been doing the odd twirl in drive through, both as cashier and presenter - handing the completed orders through the final window. That is frenetic work which is good when product is ready to go but a nightmare when you run out of fries or product is slow from the kitchen.

Two weeks ago our big Shrek promotion started in conjunction with the release of Shrek 4 at the movies. There is an ogre burger (with pesto mayonaise), an ogre wrap (ditto) and an ogre freeze - which is an apple slushy and is divine. It has the taste of apple sour which was a cocktail mix we used to put together with vodka and lemonade for a summer drink, lol - without the alcohol of course. I have become very partial to the drink and have a wrap most days I work as I love the pesto sauce with the chicken. As part of the promotion, I was given a pair of Shrek ears - which are green ears on a band to wear over my hat - a sight to behold indeed. I am amazed at how many people want them, I have been offered money even to give them up. While cashiering a guy came through in a taxi (very common in this town) and called me Mrs Shrek, - I told him it was Princess Mrs Shrek to him, thank you very much, which left him in fits of laughter. I get waves from little kids and they get a buzz from seeing them and happy meals with the Shrek toys in are walking out the door. On top of that, Malteaser sundaes came out last week, and go figure, in the middle of winter, the frozen drinks and sundaes are also walking out the door. The other interesting thing I have noted whilst being a cashier, is how many people come through drive through in their pyjamas, and even into the the shop later in the evenings. Some have begun to wear dressing gowns in the colder weather, but oh my gosh, did their mother's never tell them about the correct attire to wear while out in case they ended up in an accident, laughing lots.

Tomorrow is the last day of school for this term so it will be bliss to have just the one job for a few days. Co-incidentally, my hours have finally dropped at the FF place as I was not thinking that far forward re the rosters, so will take the shorter hours and enjoy them though will do extra if called in to cover other shifts I guess. This week the kids got to go out on a sailing boat in the harbour and that may become a regular thing next term as the chap who runs the enterprise is keen to get these kids knowing how to sail, do knots etc, so may adjust my hours to go out on that which would be fun. Today we spent the morning at the library as most of these kids have never been inside one, so we are thinking of getting them all joined for next term so we can get reading books out and keep them at school to increase their word skills.

Amongst all the craziness of work," Australia's got Talent" finished up with my favourite group Justice Crew winning $250,000. I urge you to You tube them as I think they are wonderful. " Dancing with the Stars" started on Sunday night and "Packed to the Rafters" on Tuesday night (it is taped and have yet to see the 2 hour special to start the new season). I sat up last night and watched Wimbledon tennis semi finals I think it was, where Serena Williams beat the Chinese player - missed her first name but second name Li I think, and tonight Federer is playing someone called Berdych. As Federer usually plays marathon games, I will not be staying up to see the end. I am backing him, as I like him as a sportsman. And while speaking of sport - go the NZ All Whites - I have seen fleeting mentions here and there that they drew one game and were to play Italy was the last I heard. The other exciting part of the World Cup is that NZ"s Fifa referee grew up for a period of time down the road from us at Kariaotahi, and there he is on the world stage - an amazing achievement indeed.

Interesting things about house sitting - rubbish days - I realise it is probably 15 yrs since I had to put a rubbish bin out on the road - while at both boarding schools, our bins were outside the door and magically seemed to empty on a regular basis with no effort to put out and get back in. Mowing lawns - it is probably three years since I last mowed a lawn, thankfully the lawn mower here is fairly basic so all good there. Feeding myself is interesting - I went to buy something for dinner and nearly keeled over at the price of meat - it seems to have significantly risen in the nearly 9 months since I last bought any. Vegetables and fruit remain seasonal and go up and down depending on the weather etc where it is grown. Biggest excitement was finding tamarillos or tree tomatoes at Coles - $1.99 each!!!!!!! I checked and the last one (I have bought three over the past three weeks) said product of Australia but no one over here knows what they are, so imagine they are coming in from the East. I dropped the last one in a cup of boiling water so the skin basically fell off it when I peeled it, not wasting any flesh, lol, then on the freshest of bread, I made a tamarillo sandwhich woohooo, with a sprinkling of sugar on the fruit and straight away was whisked back to childhood when Mum's mother, Nana Dot, used to make them for us. There is nothing quite like it and I can still picture eating these sandwhiches on the train as we made the trip from Papatoetoe to Auckland, where we caught the ferry to Devonport to visit Nana Dot's sister, Aunty Marg. As they fruit in NZ in the autumn/winter, they are also linked for me to the May holidays of old when our tree would be covered in them and we would be hanging out for them to ripen. One last thing I have noticed this week once again, - there are no birds over here like sparrows or anything that eats bread or scraps thrown out. I thew a loaf of bread out on the lawn last week, and three days later, it was still all there, not a bird in sight - very wierd after being at home where you almost have to check your hand if you have bread in it, there are so many birds to eat it up. And though we are on the coast, sea gulls seem to stick to the foreshore only. In the end, I mowed over it all when I did the lawn, and now will leave it to the ants, to dispose of the crumbs, lol. Anyway I am up far too late again and need to get some sleep, school and work tomorrow, ouch, though maybe able to get an hour's nap in the afternoon. Catch you later.