7 weeks to go…

Seven weeks of formal work to go.

I’ve begun returning text books to the library and soon I’ll begin either taking home things from my desk or binning them. I had a partial clean-out at the end of last year when I went part-time and had to share a desk this year, but I still have a lot of travel photos, cards from kids and other memorabilia that will have to come down before I go.

You can see the hand sanitiser on my desk in the bottom right of the photo. The school has issued a mask, a face shield and heaps of hand sanitiser to every teacher. It’s become second nature to sanitise after every class. I have a feeling this will be around for a long time.

I didn’t feel safe at work when the pandemic started and I was furious whenever pollies banged on about opening up schools. Now, with numbers of new cases in the zeros or single digits, with every single person wearing masks and bucketfuls of sanitiser everywhere, I feel safer at school. The kids don’t socially distance, but honestly, that was never going to happen. When everyone in sight is wearing a mask, it’s very reassuring, especially when paired with such low numbers.

Word has started to filter down to the students that I’m retiring. One of my best friends at work is teaching kids this year that I had last year for year 7 English. She told me that she mentioned to the class that I was retiring at the end of the year and one little boy, Nick, was very upset. He said, “Oh noooo! I wanted my brother and sister to have her for English when they got here!”

She replied, “Well, that’s too bad. Tell them they should have been born earlier if they didn’t want to miss out!”

I’m very fond of this. We used to make every kid go into an English competition and they all got a participation certificate – not that most of them cared. Those of you who have read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ will appreciate the humour in this – imagine Boo Radley leaving the house to go and sit this test? So proud of him.

I popped into an art class to talk to the teacher about fixing up a couple of minor dings on the paintings from the UK of the dogs. While I was there a girl called me over. I taught her 3 years ago in year 7 English, and every now and then I’d sneak the class into the theatre to do some drama. So many kids from my junior English classes go on to select Drama as a subject. 🙂

“I’m taking year 11 drama next year Miss, so I’ll be having you again!” she said, beaming. When I told her that no, she definitely would NOT be having me, her face fell. “But we all know that you’re taking year 11 Theatre so Ms OtherDramaTeacher can take year 12!” she said.

First time I’ve heard that rumour…

It appears I’ll have a travel buddy for Antarctica. LateStarterFire messaged me and she wants to come too! My timeline of roughly 2 – 3 years suits her and so it could be a thing. My thinking at the moment is that if COVID is still a thing, we’ll leave from New Zealand. If COVID’s gone, then South America (and Easter Island) will be the way to go.

My New Challenge:

I decided to set a challenge for myself. Either way, it’s going to be a hellishly expensive trip, so I’m going to see if I can earn 20K in 2 years to help with the costs. Even though I didn’t want to set foot in a classroom next year, I decided that penguins, icebergs and whales were enough of an incentive to pick up some CRT (Emergency) teaching next year, as well as anything else I can pick up, such as online surveys, exam invigilation etc.

I talked to the Daily Organiser at work and I now have paperwork to fill in. I’ll look at schools closer to home too, because it’s the commute to the school I’m in now which is a huge time-suck. I didn’t retire just to go straight back into sitting in a car for an hour and a half each day! There’s a tutoring program that is starting next year to make sure kids who struggled with remote learning this year won’t be disadvantaged. I’ve put my name down for that as well, but seeing there’s apparently over double the amount of applicants for spaces available, I’m not holding my breath.

I hear about a group of people called ‘The Retirement Police” from other blogs, who point the finger at anyone who earns money after they retire and say that it means they’re not REALLY retired. Fair enough, I guess, but I plan for every penny I earn to be popped in the bank for this holiday. Besides, if you’ve read this blog for more than 5 minutes you’ll know I like a challenge. Imagine when I get a thousand dollars? Ten thousand? It’ll be very satisfying.

(Besides, after all those years of living hand-to-mouth when the boys were young, it feels odd to not hustle, even a little bit, for some extra cash. I think the memory of those years will take a long time to fade.)

I’m knitting some beautifully warm, soft, thick cowls for David27 and Evan24’s girlfriends Izzy and Jenna – both November babies – and I thought of maybe knitting some of these to sell. I use kettle-dyed wool from South America, probably spun by virgins, and the cowls are fabulous to wear in the middle of winter. The wool costs just under $40, so I thought that asking $100 plus postage would be reasonable.

But then I went onto Etsy and saw what people are charging for hand-knitted items. Nothing has changed since I used to have an Etsy shop for baby hats and quilts about a decade ago. People are barely getting more than the cost of the yarn for the things they spend hours knitting – it’s just not worth spending 6 or 7 hours knitting to earn $5 or $10 profit. It’s a shame because I like knitting, but if I’m going to reach my challenge target I need to do things that give me more bang for my buck time.

I know Izzy will like her cowl. I got her to choose the wool I used, holding out 2 skins of red wool and asking her which one she thought Jenna would prefer. Heh heh. Little did she know she was choosing the wool for herself.

I asked Jenna’s Mum which colours Jenna likes, so hopefully Jenna will be pleased too. They’re both brunettes with olive skin so they can wear the bright, bold colours that I can’t. It’s been fun making these.

Today is Melbourne Cup Day, a public holiday for a horse race. Tuesdays are normally one of my days off, but it still feels like a holiday regardless.

Today I’ll be making all of the Christmas presents for my friends at work and doing a bit more painting on the verandah and gardening. Later, I’ll be keeping a slightly nervous look at how things are panning out in the US with their election. Crazy times when shopfronts are being boarded up because people are scared of the possible fallout from an election. Usually, elections are the staidest things on earth…

Happy Melbourne Cup day, everyone!