Weekend Catch Up

Wow is hot here.  Only in the low 30's (celsius) really, but still so warm.  Especially when you head away from the hills and down to where the heat radiates of buildings and roads. 

Much has been going on around here.  I have officially finished up my summer semester of Uni by submitting my final assignment late this afternoon.  Oh the release!  I will get together for a second time with a fellow student who lives nearby.  We met a week or two back and spent a wonderful evening together working on this assignment and getting her up to speed with the ePortfolio we had to use.  She'll come back this week and we'll get hers submitted - and then we'll celebrate!  Tomorrow I'm off to a thing for Uni so I'm looking forward to seeing some familiar faces in real life again.

I begin my first block of teaching rounds on Monday.  I am SO looking forward to it.  I'll be with the Prep class so I know I'll have plenty of fun.  I love Prep's.  They're so little.  And cute.  And their problems match their size and are usually simple to solve.  Very unlike the 16yo problems I encounter at home that take far more negotiating and emotional investment to resolve.  The flipside of the excitement of teaching rounds is leaving my own students to the care of relief aides.  They are fantastic women and both the ladies coming in for me have done integration work elsewhere before now.  But I can't transfer my relationships with these students and so much of what I do is about that.  It's always when I'm away that I am most keenly aware of how much I love my students.  They'll all be fine but I will look forward to getting back to them....even if it means I can't be the one teaching!

Given the hot weather forecast for the coming week and my very different hours and extra travelling time I've planned lots of salads for our evening meals.  Salad with feta, mango and avocado in the mix is always popular here so there will be a little of that.  I made ice cream again the other day so we're having that tonight when it's a little softer.  The microwave died so we just have to wait a bit.  That no-churn coffee ice-cream of Nigella's is magnificent.  Works well as mousse too - DH and I had that for dessert on Valentine's Day.  600ml of cream, a tin of sweetened condensed milk and 5 tablespoons of cocoa power (for the chocolate version I make) whipped in a the mixer til soft peaks form.  Yuuuuuummmmm.  And so easy.