Karen's Crazy Adventures: A Great Week with a Weekend I'd Rather Forget

This past week has had its ups and downs. Monday evening I finally made contact with Barb, another retired teacher from my school back in Canada. She and her husband Dave were on my sister Judy's flight from Vancouver four weeks ago. They have been travelling around Australia and only just got to Melbourne. She and I talked for two hours and arranged to meet up on Wednesday. Nancy arrived back into Melbourne late Monday evening too so it was good to hear about her adventures.

At school this week the teachers found out about their grade placements for next year. It's done a lot differently than what I'm used to in Canada but in the end most teachers are in new assignments for next year. I am told this is done to put the teachers in positions that will best benefit the children. What it will actually look like next year is most teachers have shifts in assignments. I have heard that some of the upper grade teachers will be teaching lower grades, and some lower grade teachers will be teaching upper grades. Some of the specialists will be going into classrooms while some classroom teachers will be moving into specialist roles. Ultimately they are trying to make the best school they can for next year.

A couple other things that I found interesting as I watched the young teachers apply for new jobs for next year is that they apply for a school not an actual grade level. So when they accept their jobs they don't know what grade they will be teaching. Obviously they will find out sooner or later but it's just such a foreign concept to me. Back at home we usually have a pretty good idea of what we will be teaching the following year (with possible adjustments depending on the numbers in September). In addition job interviews took place in the middle of the day so the teachers left school for their interviews. At home this would never happen. Interviews take place before or after school but certainly not during school hours.

But that is enough about work for now. Wednesday evening I quickly rode home from work to greet Barb and Dave at my Melbourne "home". It was so nice to see them. The four of us (yes, Nancy is still with me) walked through my neighbourhood and over to Brunswick Street for a great Greek meal. Nancy and I walked home and after another poor sleep I was back at work on Thursday.

I'm pretty exhausted these days entertaining visitors while writing report cards and travelling on weekends. But I'm happy to have the visitors because it's been a long year for me and the company helps me remember how good I have it at home. My travel is also what I live for because quite frankly the teaching exchange part of this year is nothing that I signed up for. I realize I can't function on little sleep like this for much longer but I also know that my year of teaching here in Australia is just about over. I will get through it and I am very excited to return to my school back home.

This weekend, with reports due (and handed in) on Friday morning, Nancy and I had plans to head to Daylesford which is the spa capital of Victoria. We had talked about getting massages and pedicures, and all those wonderful things that can take some of the stress away. But instead of pampering ourselves I spent a lot of the weekend in our wonderful B&B rewriting my report cards. To make matters worse my laptop stopped working on Sunday morning and I may have lost everything. The re writing of reports is a whole other story but I won't share it on this blog. Needless to say I'm frustrated and angry.

Thankfully I didn't let it ruin my entire weekend. Nancy and I snooped around Daylesford which is a small town catering to tourists. There is a lot of history here and some really cute shops. We had some great food and stayed in a wonderful B&B. Nancy and I have had some pretty good chuckles about red wine, and whether or not the title of Red Wine Nancy really belongs to her. On Sunday we checked out the Convent Gallery and the local market. We were suppose to come home on the 5:55 pm bus/train combination but a wonderful couple from the B&B offered to drive us back to Melbourne mid day. I’m still worrying about my reports but I’m much more comfortable worrying about them in my own home. Professional I have dealt with far more than I ever signed up for. Thankfully the teaching part of the exchange is just about over.

Here are some pictures from the weekend.