Sneezing For Australia

I have what you might kindly call a propensity for sneezing or what you might unkindly call a head full of snot. I think the grand sneezing fits and surgical attachment of my nose to tissues began sometime around the age of 10.

As a child I was quite healthy, so naturally I was jealous of all the kids with really cool and dramatic illnesses and injuries. I cursed my healthiness whilst I daydreamed of breaking my leg. Yes, I actually wanted to break a bone. I also thought asthma was exciting and my Mum's hay fever was just fabulous. I think I was slightly spotlight crazy. Mind you, I also thought that tubular metal park benches were the pinnacle of design. They featured greatly in my dream house. It's pretty amazing that I turned out reasonably normal when you look at that

For all my dreams of gruesome injuries my most dramatic ailment was a lazy eye, which doesn't really garner all that much attention aside from people looking over their shoulders to see if you’re talking to someone behind them. That does have it's benefits, though, because I can stare at odd looking people on trains and they think I'm looking at the poor sod trapped between them and the window. It is endlessly entertaining.

My best friend's family bought a hobby farm when I was about 10 or 11, which was just about the best thing ever. Aside from all the cavorting about in paddocks and being terrified of getting on the motorbike, this was also the start of my ongoing tussle with nature. Of course, at first I thought my newly developed hay fever was totally 'rad', until I discovered that my particular brand of hay fever never dies. I had pretty much the same reaction when I was diagnosed with asthma at 13, although I was relieved to finally be rid of my 'smoker's cough' as my stepbrother called it.

My allergies were never just your ordinary run of the mill allergies, however. Seasonal hay fever? Ha! If by seasonal you mean all four seasons, then yes, I do have seasonal allergies. In high school I was the go to girl for tissues which may have had a little to do with the box of tissues I carried in my bag. My mother began making jokes about how she should have bought shares in Kleenex. She still does. And I still hate it. Yes Mum, I'm using the internet to call you out on your hideous sneezing jokes. It's been 20 years, I've had enough already!

Slowness must run I our family, because whilst it has been 20 years for my mother still hasn't got the hint about how much I hate the sneezing jokes, it also took me 20 years to get an allergy test. There's a lot of faffing about in my family. I really have only one piece of advice for those thinking of getting an allergy test- do not get it the day after a long weekend. 72 hours without an antihistamine was never going to be great for a person whose main pastime is nose blowing, but try it over Easter. I apologise to all the people at our Easter dinner and hope that I did not sneeze on anyone's food.

It turns out I am allergic to the world. Which is bad. On the upside, I now have hypoallergenic bedding so I can breathe in bed. This makes me a happy little chicken.

On To Friday...

I am often asked why in the name of all that is good and holy I would ever want to be a high school teacher. I am mostly asked this by my students and then, it is mostly the ones who would turn you right off teaching who ask. I'm guessing that they have difficulty working out why anyone would voluntarily try to wrangle them into writing poetry.

My general response to the quizzical looks and blunt questions is that, for some odd reason, I actually enjoy working with teenagers. I'm not sure, but this may be one of the first warning signs of dementia. It's not so much the poetry wrangling I enjoy (because I don't), rather it's the bit about helping greasy, snarky, vile teenagers turn into real human beings that gets me in. Although that is rather a long process

For all the screaming, spitting and swearing (me, sometimes the kids) I generally like what I do. Except for the times when what I do is relief teaching. Remember what you were like with a relief teacher? Yeah. At least once you get on the other side of it, you are smart enough to realise how stupid you were. The old answer to the wrong name on the role trick? I don't really care. First, I'm lucky if can remember the names I just called out, let alone which person they belong to. Second, I really couldn't care less who answers to what name as long as I've marked all the people who are here as here and all the people who are absent as absent so I don't get my arse sued off if someone robs a bank while they're meant to be in my class. Third, your trick is stupid anyway. Your teacher is smart enough to work out that the white kid responding to Than Nuoc Tran and the Asian kid responding to Habib Habibi might just be lying.

On Monday I start a contract. One that lasts for the rest of the year. Where I get to be a real teacher with my own classes and students whose names I know and everything. I'm looking forward to having Year 7s who worship the ground I walk on (because that's just what Year 7s do) and students who actually think that I KNOW something. Only two days left of being asked "are you a real teacher". Of course not, I'm an imposter, your real teacher is tied up in the bookroom and stuffed between ancient copies of Macbeth and Catcher In the Rye. This week, I am especially looking forward to Friday

I'm Not So Sure About This Dog Thing...

I will begin by reminding/informing you that we live in defence housing. It is vital that you understand the way this works ie we take whatever house we can get our mitts on and are then stuck with it regardless of how we feel on the matter. Generally this hasn't been a huge problem, we have lucky enough to have some very nice houses with no gaping holes appearing in the bedroom floor. Actually, that's something they will move you for. Even defence don't want people getting out of bed in the morning and dropping through to the carport.
So, our houses have all been quite good, and we've considered ourselves quite lucky. Our current house is lovely, mostly. We have a nice, big, kitchen, which, despite is size, suffers from a great dearth of storage. This means that we have lots of bench space but no pantry to speak of. I just kind of throw food into the cupboard and cross my fingers that it doesn't all fall on my head the next time I open it.
Our yard is also lovely and big which is remarkable when you consider that we live in one of those horrid estate suburbs with 18 bedroom homes on blocks of land the size of a small car. I think the developers may have been a little bit stunned at having so much yard space as they seemed to have no idea what to do with it. Apparently they decided to just thrown down some turf and runaway to deal with more manageable yards that they could simply concrete over. I don't imagine this to be very entertaining space for a dog to spend all day in. The canine equivalent of watching Senate Question Time all day.
Our neighbours do not have a lovely big yard like us. They have one of the aforementioned concrete yards the size of a Barina. Ordinarily the state of the neighbours yard is suitably low on the list of "things I give a shit about" unless, of course when there are an awfully large amount of power lines running into their back shed or there is an odd odour emanating from behind said shed. In addition to owning a yard the size of a loaf of bread, the neighbours also run a child care centre out of their house.
Some of you may be starting to see where our problem lies. A small echoey yard, screaming kids and a colourbond fence do little to create a calm dog. Steffi does not like the noise. At all. She hates it so much that she has developed a new sport, a sport which involves throwing herself at the fence as hard as she can to STOP THE DAMNED NOISE!!!!!
The small children didn't seem to appreciate this. Nor did the neighbour who we like very much, but who is also absolutely shitscared of dogs. A bad situation for all became worse at about the moment that Steffi managed to pop one of the fence panels out with her acrobatics. Sure, there was not a big enough gap for her to get through, but that doesn't matter when your outrageous dog phobia has you convinced that the dog is about to burst through the fence and eat you.
Council rangers were called. DHA were called. I had a small heart attack. Then the astounding thing happened, our property manager suggested we ask for a move. I would never have thought of this as the only time I have seen anyone actually receive a move was in the earlier instance of the gaping hole in the bedroom floor. Spurred on by the giddiness of having a government worker on our side, we applied. And. We. Got. It. We have to move ourselves, but WE GOT IT.
Note: You may be propositioned in the nest few months with requests for help and offers of booze and pizza if you acquiesce.

A Bad Case of the Broken Mirrors

I think I may have broken a few of the buggers. That, or majorly pissed off Thor, Dionysius and that Earth mother goddess thing from Avatar. I'll only offer a selection of the circus we have been living of late, any more and I'm afraid you, my dear reader, may come down with a case of the vapours.

1. We had a lovely little bit of online credit card fraud. A blessing reallly, as I like to stay on top of the trends and cyber crime is alll the buzz in the media of late.
2. Our gorgeous little Digger died. A disc in his back collapsed, crushing his spine. Poor little guy didn't even make it to five. I'm still not over it. I may become one of those odd people who keeps a shrine of their pet's ashes as I cannot bear to scatter them anywhere.
3. My grandmother passed out at Yum Cha. As this was only a few days after Digger died, I may have panicked slightly, or a lot. Turned out she just ate too much and over heated as she wore a jumper fit for an Arctic explorer.
4. Steffi crashed through the colourbond fence. Ahem. They are not cheap to fix.

I'm expecting better things. Soon.

Not at my finest

I am none too happy with the big blue dot today:

• The doctor says the Amazing Abdominal Pains™are signs that my body is doing a great job of fighting off a virus. rally? Is that the best you can come up with?
• Steffi is barking at anything that moves today. That not only includes bugs and leaves, but also me and Digger for having the gall to sit on the lounge rather than play the "chasing around the house and crashing into furniture" game.
• The allergy test was right- I AM allergic to yeast. I am currently paying the price for eating that pizza last night and have used the best part of a box of tissues today. Not happy about the lack of toast and pizza in my future (although Gray does find it very entertaining).
  
• The aforementioned pizza also resulted in the anchovy bone that was lodged in my throat all day.

Ooh, here comes Gray with a nice big glass of red wine. I'd call it psychic, but it's a pretty good bet that I'll want some wine when my face bears an expression last seen on Derryn Hinch during the Shame Files.
Tomorrow, consider yourself on notice, you'd better be better than today.

Grand Re-Opening: Now With Added Soy

Welcome to the official re-naming ceremony for the blog. I use the the word 'official' loosely. Actually, I use the words 're-naming' and ceremony loosely too, as I am not about to smash a bottle of champagne against my computer. The poor thing doesn't really need any more reasons to run slowly. I decided to stick with the "tropical" theme because of the branding *Snort* and I the fact that I am entirely unoriginal, however, I was deposed from my position as Queen when I left Darwin, oh, last March. Don't go accusing me of making rash decisions here.
I would therefore like to welcome you to my revamped home in balmy sub-tropical Sydney. The blog is also wildly sub-par, as is my intelligence, so the name really works on many levels.

Who Wants To Step Up?

One of my favourite daily interweb activities is reading the NT News. I have never seen another newspaper with so much entertainment value. Who else has the journalistic integrity required to write those hard-hitting stories about crocs, car crashes and the bloke who only had one cheezel in his fun-size bag? That last one was not meant to be dirty. Honest.

The greatest section, by far, is Txt The Editor. It has that unique combination of public opinion and people who are unable to spell real words. Today I stumbled across this little gem:

I am a student at Taminmin high school, we are not allowed mobile phones at school yet with out bells we don't know when to go back to our classes and who is the snorkel who came up with this? jack, humpty doo

Are there any volunteers to explain the wonderful invention called the "wristwatch" to the young lad?

Is It Still Holidays?

Does it still class as being on holidays when you simply don't have a job? I'm figuring that as of tomorrow I need to start calling myself an unemployed bum.
See, during school holidays I feel completely justified in claiming that I'm on holidays. I'm just on holidays from a non-existent job. I can't work when the schools are closed right? So, by default, I must be on holidays. It is flawless logic.
Short of one of those flukey calls from the department at 8:30 tomorrow morning miraculously offering me the perfect job, I think I may be waiting a few weeks for some relief gigs (come-oooooonn second wave of swine flu). On the plus side, I'm sure my joblessness makes me a prime candidate for a Today Tonight exposé. Finally, my dreams will be fulfilled!

De-jammied

I like to tell myself that the reason I stayed in said jammies till midday was that I'm on holidays. But, you see, it's not really holidays when you don't actually have a job. What do I put as my employment status on surveys? Was I lying on the last census when I called myself unemployed even though I had literally moved interstate two days prior? How entitled am I to spend all day in my jammies? These are very important questions. Especially when you are "on holidays" and have loads of time to ponder crap.

Resumption of Normal Service

Shall I return to regular posting? Yes, I think I shall. Stay tuned for more (when I get out of my jammys).