Christmas Plans

I'd just like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I hope you all have an amazing festive season. But yeah, I'd like to thank the people who do read this blog (there are a few of you out there).

I haven't been brilliant with this blog lately, but I'm going to endeavor to write more in advance and schedule them in the new year. In fact, I've already got one scheduled for New Years Day *shock-horror*

This year we're spending Christmas with my family in Tokomaru Bay on the East Cape. Mum and Dad have rented a bach there right by the beach. I hope it'll be nice weather so we can go swimming, kayaking, boogie-boarding and hang out with my family on the beach. We will take some board games just in case the weather is crap.

This is going to be my last post of the year, but in the New Year I'll do my best to keep the blog up to date (except the first few weeks - as I've got two weddings to go to and they're in different places in the country).

Anyways, hope you Northern Hemisphere people don't get too cold and hope fellow Southern Hemisphere people don't get too sunburnt (let's see if I can do it this summer).

Merry Christmas you guys and have an awesome New Year.

http://www.stockvault.net/photo/109800/pohutukawa-tree. By Murray Douglas

First day back teaching

So today I had my first day teaching in almost 3 years. And it went fantastically!

I got the call yesterday so the nerves got me a little bit at first. And yesterday I frantically looked through a pile of teaching stuff that had been stowed away in a wardrobe just in case the teacher hadn't left planning.

Turns out, I shouldn't have worried because the teacher was there when I started! And she had everything planned. Turns out that she was still in the classroom for the majority of the day but was doing testing. There were a few areas that I was unsure about but I think that's mainly because somebody else had planned them and I wasn't sure of how things were done. The kids were fantastic though and didn't have much to worry about in the behaviour area. The behaviour management came back to me almost immediately which was good. On days that I don't teach I've decided to read through some of my texts to refamiliarise myself with the curriculum again.

All in all a great day - the classroom teacher liked me and I have another day lined up next week with a different class. So excited and happy that I left my last job to follow my calling. I absolutely love teaching and hope that this will help me to find a full time position before 2016.

Me teaching a few years back

New Beginnings

I quit my job at Farmers. It just wasn't for me and I wasn't happy - physically and mentally. I just can't deal with idiotic customers and the being on my feet for 8 hours a day.

So I quit. I am now resuming the hunt for a teaching job. Starting Monday, I am going around a number of local schools to put my name down for relieving. I really really want to get my foot back in the door of teaching. After 3 years away it's now or never. I really hope that someone will see my potential as a teacher.

I've given myself until the beginning of 2016 to find a full time teaching job otherwise I'm going to change career - possibly to Human Resources. I only have one paper to complete in order to get a Diploma in Business endorsed in HR. So first semester next year, I plan on completing that by correspondence.

So here's to New Beginnings

http://drinkoid.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/champagne_glasses.jpg

Long haul flights - the only good bit

Long haul flights are generally horrible. You're cramped into seats with very little legroom for way too long and you don't get a lot of sleep. Oh, and you get told to put your window shade down when you don't want to (that seriously irritated me - I like looking out the window!)

The only good thing that I could find was the fact that there were heaps of free tv shows and movies to watch. Movies that I normally wouldn't consider watching but ended up enjoying.

Here's a list of ones that still linger in my mind almost two months after the flight:

The Book Thief - probably one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. The narrator is Death. And the story bases itself around a little girl in Germany in the Second World War who loves to read. An amazing story which made me bawl a bit (much to the astonishment of some surrounding passengers).

The Lego Movie - 'everything is awesome!' For a kids movie, I actually really enjoyed this. The storyline was weird but the animation was really good. It probably helped that I was overtired while watching this and found it hilarious.

The Darjeeling Express - another weird movie. Three American brothers with certain...vices...travel through India on a train. And get in trouble. A lot. Basically it's about their adventures but presented in a really funny way.

The Grand Budapest Hotel - yet another strange movie (maybe excessive tiredness contributed to my selections). The story of the owner of hotel and how he inherited it from it's previous (very strange) owner. Involved some really funny bits but also serious bits (Nazis etc).


I would love to see them again but this time not at altitude. I kept having to get up to let the old lady beside use the loo multiple times and also kept getting distracted by my swelling ankles and sleepiness.

Following my dreams

It took me quite a while to get over my jet-lag after our trip to Europe. I really should have taken more time off work. One day off after flying in on a Sunday morning was not a good idea. After zombieing (new word?) my way through my first few weeks back at work I decided that I'm sick of my job and have begun the hunt for a new one. A new adventure of sorts. My current job is in retail and I really want something else out of life rather than 'helping' some really stuck up women who are so far into debt you can see the nervousness on their faces as to whether or not their credit card will accept.

As some of you know, I trained as  Primary School Teacher and absolutely loved it. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control I was unable to find a position after I graduated at the end of 2011. It's now been almost 3 years since I graduated and I really want to get back into it. After our trip is paid off I'm thinking that I might try relieving. Especially since our government has decided to introduce a new rule that if you're not fully registered within 6 years you have to retrain. And it takes 2 years of full time teaching to get fully registered. So I've got the rest of this year and next year to try and get a full time position so I can do it in time. But now I'm really nervous. Will schools hire me for relief work? After being out of the profession for almost 3 years?

Maybe I need to get my old textbooks out and start doing a bit of studying. And then quit my current job once I feel I'm in the right head-space and try to follow my dreams. If it doesn't work out the way I planned, then so be it.

I'm back!

Hi guys,

So I'm back from the most amazing holiday of my life. We went to England, Ireland, Scotland and Paris.

I'm finally over my jet-lag (going to the opposite side of the world and back is tiring!) and I'm trying to get back in the routine of things. I do plan on doing some posts of my holiday but that will have to wait until after  1) AJ and I have gone through our pictures and 2) I get up to date on my travel diary.

So things might take a little while to get back to normal (not that it was ever normal to start with) but I fully intend to post about my trip. If I'm feeling it, I might even post something for the 2014 Blogger Challenge. It all depends really.

Back to reality :-(

Update and a promise

So late last year I decided to do the 2014 Blogger Challenge hosted by Gaby at http://anothergirlyblg.blogspot.co.uk .

I've been pretty on to it with posting topics etc. Some topics I like a lot more than others which is evident in my posting on them. Some are a lot more brief than others.

So I have decided that I will use the Blogger Challenge topics as a guideline for future blog posts. I will still try to get them up on time but life has a habit of getting in the way sometimes. Especially with a big holiday coming up with which my only access to the internet will be through my phone when there's free wifi. 

So this is my promise to the lovely people who actually look at this little piece of the internet:
I will continue to blog, but when I can. I will continue to do posts on the 2014 Blogger Challenge, but they might not be on time.

So don't panic if there's a big space of time when I'm not posting - chances are I'm off enjoying myself, adventuring around the world. I'm not going to post where I'm going or when (due to being burgled a few years back while away I'm very conscious about who I tell about these types of thing), but rest assured, there will be a lot of posts when I'm back again. My sister gave me a book to use as a travel diary and I fully intend to use it.