Of Grand Things

Our upper primary classes adventured off yesterday morning for a trip to the city.  It was a culmination of an education program we'd participated in with the Victorian Opera.   But really, it was so much more.  Every time I head into the city I feel like I walk around with my awed jaw on the ground ~ Melbourne is such a beautiful, amazing place (though I'm always glad to head home to the bush at the end of the trip!).  Before making our way to visit the Opera we stopped and had morning tea outside the museum, which incidentally is behind the Melbourne Exhibition Building (as oppossed to the Exhibition Centre, otherwise known as Jeff's Shed).  This building and surrounding garden epitomises Melbourne ~ stunning, beautiful archetiture and beautiful, lush gardens....even in winter when the trees are all bare.  So above (thanks to Google Images) is the view I took in as we ate ~ all 59 of us.

And then we went to see the strings, woodwind and operatic voices put all the work together in a short taste of Hansel & Gretel.  It was beautiful, amazing.  It made me wonder what programs the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has.  Once upon a long time ago I believe they used to do performances for free here and there throughout summer.

I came home tired....all that bus noise with 51 exuberant children will do that.  But it was a magnificent day.  And best of all, I shared it with Mr Busy.  Not that he was always close by, but it was still rather special.  As was seeing the school I did placement at, during our morning tea stop!

My final 'grand thing' ~ I think I've finished my society & environment assignment, with just a little polishing remaining.  YAY!

Messed Up Menu Plans

I intended to post yesterday, really I did.  It seems like quite some time since I've posted a proper menu plan and on a Monday.  We're eating, I promise you.  I have the kind of children who just don't let you get away without feeding them because in their words "it's illegal not to feed your kids, Mum".  No one ever said how often you had to feed them!!

Tonight I have an online short-answer test worth 30% of my semester's mark for my Arts subject.  I'm quietly panicking.  I'm as prepared as I can be, but this test seems to be not so much about what I know, but about what reference I can use to support it.  And that makes me cross.  I'm not at Uni to learn how to reference, I'm there to learn the stuff.  So I've spent days, it seems, writing down references for all manner of things in relation to the assessment criteria.  That's a bit of a 'moment' for this pre-service teacher ~ the assessment needs to make sense to me and the student!

Thankfully in the flurry of books, lecture notes and readings saved onto my computer, I've had wonderful children who have pretty much left me to my insanity and cooked for me.  I did warn them yesterday  that "today and tomorrow I'm off-limits".  I am so blessed to have such amazing kids. 

Throughout this week we'll be eating things like baked chicken pieces, chicken stir fry, steak/sausages, the mandatory Thursday night pasta, Nigella's quick chilli with corn chip/cheese stacks....see, we're eating well.  I've just not been posting about it.  And don't get excited about us having steak....we have a freezer full of beef we got at under $10/kg, otherwise we'd not be eating it!

I can't wait until this test is over.  In the midst of it though, I've managed to get my head around 'analysing' a history-based excursion.  Something good has come out of it all.

Being a Real Student

I do all my studying in a comfy lounge chair with my feet up on the coffee table, a cuppa on another table at my elbow and my computer on my lap.  None of that dashing about some enormously overwhelming campus from lectures to tutes, nor fitting in to timetables set by those who must juggle and balance the needs of all those requiring spaces.  And generally I like my version of University.  There is the rare moment when I ponder how much easier some things would be if I were able to engage in a real-time, live discussion in a regular tute group.  But this works better for me, much of the time, though I often don't feel like a 'real' student.

Tomorrow I'm going to take the opportunity to meet with some lecturers and other Victorian based students in a real-time, live, face-to-face way.  These things don't happen often, so I take the opportunities when I can.  I am hoping that some of the students' names will be familiar to me now, in a way they weren't when we attended a Melbourne-based Orientation day at the beginning of the year.  And tomorrow we'll get to have some vital input into some assignment work.

And then I'm going straight to an evening at the movies with some other ladies from church.  Busy?  Yes.  Worthwhile?  Definitely!!

I'm looking forward to an afternoon nap on Sunday.

Seasonally Confused

Photo from Google Images

I have jonquils flowering in my front garden.  In winter.  In the part of winter that is usually the very coldest, we've had spring-like days this week, and today I finally noticed this splash of colour in the front corner of the yard.  

Astounding.

I need to remember all that sunshiny happiness happening in my front yard while I'm descending into my version of....well....unpleasantness.  Shopping.  I've spent much of today feeling quite tense and exhausted.  Not a good way to start the weekly shopping!

Would You?

I was in Aldi the other night, ignorantly minding my own business.  That's what I do when I'm grocery shopping.  I do it at the end of the day and I just kind of go into my own brain and, whilst I know other people are around, I tend to ignore the fact that they are there.  Getting the shopping done does me in without crowd-watching or sticky-nosing into other people's trollies.

So I had all my shopping on that conveyer belt thing at the cash register and was waiting my turn behind the person being served when this man comes along behind me saying "excuse me can I get through".  Now people do this in Aldi, if they've nothing to buy.  There is no other way out and if you're not buying anything you don't want to wait.  I get that.  I let them through.  This guy, however, had two items in his hand.  So as I am authomatically moving my trolley thinking he was someone without anything to buy, I noticed he has two things in his hands.  And as I notice he says "Oh, I've only got two things so can I just squeeze in here?".

I was stunned.  What I wanted to say was "NO!  You may not, you rude, arrogant man.  What makes you think your time is more valuable than mine?".  What really happened was that I let him through because by the time I'd noticed he needed to pay for something I'd already let him past me.  And I was cross because I felt like he had put me in a position where I would have appeared to be the rude one if I'd said no.

So I have two questions:
1.  Would you have pushed past two other people because you only had two items to put through, or would you have waited your turn like everyone else was doing?
2.  Would you have let him through.....or not?

The Secret Life of Pillows

Either I've been watching too much Cosby Show or I have a weird sense of humour all by myself.

This morning when I went to wake the children for school Miss Sunshine and Mr Busy both had me laughing.  Miss Sunshine had two pillow sitting on her head, with her face smooshed into the mattress.  In the midst of waking her I insisted she needed to get out from under the pillows which seemed to be holding her down.  "It's a hold-up" she said.  She has a funny sense of humour too.  Meanwhile, Mr Busy's pillow had dropped off the bed when he was waking.  There I am, between two bedrooms....one child with pillows holding her down, one with pillows running away.

Miss Sunshine came out after having dressed rather quickly.  "Had to get away from those pillows," she commented.

Yep.  Too my Cosby Show

Just Quickly

Sorry I've been so absent.  As I suspected, I needed that deep breath before diving in to the term.  I'm still struggling to overcome feeling a tiny bit overwhelmed at the time required for Uni this semester.  Everything just seems to require more than reading and thinking....which is the kind of learning I seem to prefer.  The hands-on stuff has always been a little more challenging to me and I am being reminded of that at the moment.  Perhaps it's just the different formats some units are taking.  In any case, my brain is on the settling-in overload....as opposed to the overload associated with writing four assignments at once!

So....I'm off to papier mache a flower mask.  In front of the TV.  Surely there must be an upside to all that goey, disgusting mess.  I suspect my learning through art is going to be to get comfortable with being icky.  And I'm not.  Comfortable, that is.  I hated finger painting as a preschooler (yes, I do remember finger painting incidents as a 4yo!) so you can imagine that 36 years of being uncomfortable with goo is going to be quite a hurdle!