Get a move on

It's often difficult to leave a job. No matter how shitty/ draining/ underpaid/ boring your job was, or how exciting your future prospects are, you;re bound to feel some sting of nostalgia at moving on. At the very least, we tend to feel a camaraderie with our work colleagues; a friendship born of a shared misery.

What's weird about teaching is that that feeling of kinship relates not just to your work fellows, but to your students. The responsibility you have for them; the extensive effort you devote over a period of time; the potential you're privy to; the moment you realise you've cracked the shell of one of the toughest nuts in the classroom. Teaching means you are REALLY invested in your work, in a way it is hard to be with accounts, or insurance, or stocks.

I'm leaving my school at the end of the week, and I'm finding this quite hard to cope with. I teach VCAL, which means I teach kids who are on the outer within the school community. Non VCAL teachers reject them because they can be damned hard work; fellow students dismiss them as 'dumb'. As a result, the VCAL boys are a tight knit group, and as a teacher it is incredibly rewarding to crack them, and feel you've made it 'in' with them.

In my school, I am very much on the VCAL team. I am defensive of VCAL to other students, I am protective of my boys to other teachers, I am proud as punch when they achieve success, and I am damn pissed off that VCAL is not represented at a Student Leadership level. This only makes it harder to be leaving. It seems a lot harder than when I left Kew, which is odd, as I taught there for a year, and here for not even a term.

The boys have been saying they want me to stay, and that they'll go on strike to demand my reinstatement. They also asked what I wanted as a present (which may well never ACTUALLY eventuate, but nice thought) and want to have a farewell lunch for me (which the cynic in me scoffs at as time out of class!). There's a very good chance that the boys will have forgotten me in a few weeks, after their regular teacher comes back. But right now, it's pretty saddening to be moving on.

P.S. I had an utterly shitful day at school today. All of my classes were absolute brats, and my yard duty was rotten. And I am STILL sentimental about leaving. Imagine the gush if I'd actually had a GOOD day!

My various guises

There's a version of this on facebook, called "Hello, my name is..." but I think this is more fun. Considering I am trying to come up with my 'Bond name' for Nick's birthday, I consider this to be a perfectly cromulent procrastinatory exercise!

1. My rock star name (first pet and current car)
Tasha Pulsar

2. My gangsta name (ice cream flavour plus cookie, or biscuit)
Macadamia Mania Monte Carlo (I am CLEARLY a Mafia Gangsta)

3. My fly girl name (first letter of first name, first three letters of last name)
N Mae

4. My detective name (favourite colour, favourite animal)
Pink Tiger (sounds like a stripped name to me...)

5. My soap opera name (middle name, city of birth)
Rana Murwillumbah (Bollywood soap starlet)

6. My Star Wars name (first three letters of your last name, first two of your first name)
Mae-Na

7. My superhero name (second favourite colour, favourite drink, add “the”)
The Black Tea (I think this is more villainous. It's probably the 'Black' part... but I see a very 'proper' middle aged villain who poisons people mid cucumber sandwich at high tea...)

8. My Nascar name (first two names of my two grandfathers)
Robert James (or James Robert, I guess. Or Bob Jim, as both used abbreviations more than their full names. Or Jim Bob! Hee hee, having fun with this one...)

9. My stripper name (favourite perfume, favourite sweet)
Stella Valrhona- oh YEAH. Hott.

10. My witness protection name (mother’s and father’s middle names)
Shirley Donaldson

11. My weather anchor name (fifth grade teacher’s name, a major city beginning with the same letter)
Hutchins Hobart

12. My spy name (favourite season/flower)
Autumn Lily (aw, pretty)

13. Cartoon name (favourite fruit plus garment you’re wearing, with an “ie” or “y” added)
Nectarine Cardie (Cardy-ie or Cardigan-y just sounds SILLY!)

14 Hippie name (what you ate for breakfast plus favourite tree)
Muffin Flame Tree

15. Your rockstar tour name (favourite hobby plus weather element, with “the”)The Dancing Thunder (sounds like another hippie name)

Well that was fun :) I expect a whole stack of these in my comments field, so I know the best way to address you at Nick's party. I'll either be my rock star name, stripper name, or spy name. Oh hang on. Bond name may = spy name. I guess you can call me Autumn Lily.

Apathetically hip

I marvel at the way people in dreary jobs funk themselves up; as though having a wacky hairstyle (an odd angle here, a splash of outrageous colour there), or super groovy accessories (BRIGHT glasses frames, jewellery made exclusively of buttons and the skulls of small animals) or a slightly offbeat dress sense will make up for the drudgery of their workaday life. This phenomenon seems to be especially present in government jobs. If you don't have to suit it up, it seems, the dress code is instead to go a bit visually kooky.

Now I probably sound like a mega bitch right now. With an asymmetrical haircut, I also sound a bit like a hypocrite. And many of my friends reading this may well be looking at their outfits and thinking, shocked, 'Does she mean me?' No. I don't. I swear! I LOVE your outfits, and you. I'm not actually sniping at the way these people look; often I am in fact coveting various items.

I am temping at the moment (oh bane of my life), and have once again found myself recept-ing for a Minister's office. Now it seems that some of the most achingly quirky people I have seen work in senior government; they are also bitingly rude and dismissive. I guess my problem is seeing these outfits that scream 'Personality' on people who won't even look me in the eye as I do something for them, let alone smile or throw me a stray word. I can't help but suspect they may wear exciting clothes to make up for their lack of character, or to desperately inject some colour into their lacklustre worlds.

Of course, I may be completely wrong. If one of them would speak to me, they could well prove how fascinating they are in their own right. But until then, I shall sit alone at my boring reception desk, imagining how I too can make my work life a little more exciting. Maybe pink streaks in my hair?

Presenting ME! In all my lameness

This is Lisa's fault.

List five things that other people may consider to be 'totally lame,' but you are, despite the possible stigma, totally proud of. Own it. Tag five others.

1. I find brushing my teeth therapeutic.
Yeah, this is weird, I know. I can't exactly explain it. Maybe the vigorous motion helps to expel my frustration. Maybe it's the shiny clean feeling of my molars afterwards. Maybe it's the promise of a clean start to the day (or the pretense of restarting a day, if I am brushing my teeth mid-day). I hate to leave the house without brushing, and I am such a vigorous brusher that my dentist has banned me from having an electric toothbrush or even a hard bristled brush, for fear of the damage I may do.

2. I have an ongoing obsession with Safeway roast chickens.
Any time I go past the roast chickens at the deli, or the newfangled hot chicken counters, I feel a compulsion to buy a chicken. It's my main impulse buy (well, except for chocolate). I think it's because the other tempters don't have a scent... And it's got to be Safeway chickens. Coles chickens are too dry. Leo's do very yummy organic chickens, but that's only for days I feel rich.

3. I lo-o-o-o-ve tea.
At the height of my tea collection, I had over 70 different types of tea. This is more than some tea stores exhibit! I'm quite finicky about tea and its preparation; for example, you must use water off the boil to prepare green tea (Boiling water burns the delicate green leaves). I have different tea pots for different purposes, and different cups for different types of beverage. I have to avoid the tea aisle in the supermarket, I cross the road away from specialty tea stores to avoid spending all my money on an absolute glut of tea. I have no shame in driving all the way to the Dandenongs just to visit my favourite tea store, Tea Leaves.

4. I am a word nerd.
I am an English teacher, a spelling pedant, a grammar Nazi. I read blogs by book people. I watch Book Club tv shows. I am fascinated by word origins, and loved studying Old English, as it taught me the roots of our language. I am intrigued by linguistics and base languages; while I'd love to learn Portuguese and Spanish, and improve my Indonesian, my real desire is to learn Latin. And yet, for all my word-nerdiness, I am shocking at Scrabble...

5. I secretly want to be on Idol.
I know that Idol is not cool. I know that the contracts you have to sign suppress any musical independence. I know that being on Idol doesn't guarantee you a career (I'm not even sure I want a music career). But damn it, it looks like fun, and I am sure I could do it. Then again, that's probably what all the tragics humiliated on those embarrassing grabs thought before they went on and screeched, I mean sang their little hearts out. But I doubt I'll ever get around to auditioning- Years of music lessons simply don't equip you with the skills to stand in line all day, trying to stand out from the crowd of other desperate hopefuls.

I don't actually know many people who blog, so I'll be tagging people through email. Hayley, Jackie, Dom, Paul, Nick.