Life lessons from the greats.

Do you adore sameness and predictability? I’m a sucker for tradition.

I am comforted by the knowledge that no matter  the disasters that have occured throughout the year, my Mum will ensure that Santa still leaves pressies and Lotto scratchies fly out of the Christmas Bon Bons when they are ripped apart (even though nobody ever wins more than $5).

It feels good knowing that Christmas day is a small family affair, with the day sliding past in a slippery blur of chocolate for breakfast, lunch with all the trimmings, Macadamia Mango crunch for dessert, wine and sunshine all afternoon. Channel 9’s ‘Carols By Candlelight’ will buzz in the background, I will munch on cherries til I’m ill and will walk on the beach all afternoon.

I get a little lump of excitement in my throat, countered by reassurance, with the expectation that Boxing Day will be better than Christmas, that I will wear a new dress, shower my little cousins with tickles and glow on the inside when they brag to me about their VCE scores, performances in dancing contests and hopes of moving to the city. I will be forced to sit on the knee of a distant cousin in a tacky Santa costume, participate in Irish dancing competitions and sing ‘Fame’ with my many female cousins, even though I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.

I like these Christmas events because I understand them, I know how they work. As I get older, I begin to wonder if it’s merely the familiarity that makes them good or whether it’s the way that they remind me of past memories. I often think about the episode of ‘Sex and the City’ (‘cos this is where I get my life lessons) when Charlotte decides to give up Christmas for Harry, but is spurred on by the thought that the new memories they can create may be better then those she ever had.

Do you like to do the same thing every year? Or are you brave, do you try something new with the hope of a new tradition in the midst?

Do tell…. I wanna know.

Not really about Christmas, but…

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, holidays have arrived, Christmas is on its merry way and I spent last night dancing til my feet were bruised after slapping a random hot boy’s bum. Life is good.

I awoke this morning in a panicked state after dreaming that I hadn’t planned any lessons for the week, couldn’t teach anything normal I had thrown out all writing materials and my Preps had turned into 16 year olds. I need a plough to get past all the teacherish gifts of mugs, hand lotions, make-up bags and chocolates, yet it doesn’t feel like the end of the year. Evidently, the fact that work is over hasn’t quite seeped into my brain yet.

I watched my work life get packed away, carried by a train of tiny children and dumped into the boot of my car this week. I won’t miss the meetings or the writing of reports, however I know that while I’m off on my own adventure, my heart will yearn for some things.

I’ll miss walking around on yard duty in the playground while children probe me about my love life and gush about their aspirations, providing me with more entertainment than I could beg for.
“Miss, when I grow up, I want to be a teacher, just like you….hair in a bun, Chinese eyes…”

I’ll miss teaching my kids the ‘Nutbush’, ‘Macarena’ and ‘Timewarp’ during Sport lessons. That’s what happens when I’m asked to teach Sport. And, if you ask me, these dances are essential life lessons.

I’ll miss watching 23 children yelling “T-SHIRTS! T-SHIRTS!!” when asked which music they would like to listen to while they munch their lunch. My kids are addicted to Taylor Swift. Their mothers must curse me as their children sing the lyrics of ‘Love Story’ while in the bath. But I know for a fact that four of my girls are receiving tickets to Swifty’s concert from Santa. Because Santa’s cool like that.

I’ll miss complements that make my mornings easier. Being greeted with “Good morning Butterfly!” or “Good morning Optimus Prime!” is a pretty big complement from a 5 year old. Or implies that I look like a Transformer. I’m not sure.

I’ll miss doing a happy dance and high five-ing everyone in the immediate vicinity upon witnessing that after 10 months at school, a little girl has figured out letters signify sounds and can write a sentence phonetically. HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ll miss getting teary watching children dressed as angels sing carols. I’ll miss giggling about inside jokes regarding fruit cheese with my fabulous colleagues. I’ll miss Friday night “debriefs” (read: gossip). Sticky fingers. Crowning kids with sparkling birthday hats and eating cupcakes made my mums. Sticker bribery. Dress-up days.
How much do you want to bet I’ll be back?

What do you miss?

My Christmas brain and me.

The difference between what my brain plans for Christmas and what actually happens.

• Decide that I am going to be the Martha Stewart Prep teacher master crazy person and bombard my class with easy but attractive craft projects on a daily basis. Have a mental breakdown and threaten to axe Christmas craft altogether after glitter stars infect my carpet in a classroom version of herpes.
• Appease friends, save money and display my creativity by making homemade Christmas cards. Note to self- felt, glitter, craft glue and cardboard= $20. A box of ten purchased cards, which don’t look like they were made by a blind person wielding a glue gun= $3.
  
• Make a Gingerbread House. I went through a massive gingerbread phase this year. The house could still happen. Or, if I get lazy, it really could not.
• Become the person who has their Christmas shopping done and dusted by October. I started last week.
• Aim to expand my Christmas carol addiction. Become hooked on Hi5’s ‘Jingle Jangle Christmas’ CD. This wasn’t what I intended.
• Brainwash my Preps with magical Christmas memories, urging them to write letters to Santa. Take the letters home and write 23 individual replies. Spray them with water and stick in the school freezer. Interrupt class by running outside after hearing a ’strange noise’ and return with frozen letters, direct from the North Pole. Giggle myself silly when the kids pretty much hyperventilating with excitement. Tick that box, baby. If I do nothing else my Christmas brain demands, I’m happy.

Pic from We Heart It.

Sir, I have an addiction…

Five year olds speak the truth. It’s a cold hard fact, in the same way that Britney is terrible at lip synching and Oprah is a god. This morning when my class sat down in front of me  one little girl gasped “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOUR FACE?”

You know what was wrong? Today, fair ladies and gents, I went sans make up. This wasn’t due to laziness or a social experiment to see how people would react to my fresh skin, I just went to school early to do a bi-weekly fitness session with the other teachers and forgot my make up bag.

I know I am a princess, as I am frequently reminded by my brother. I do wear light make up daily (the usual combo consists of foundation, blush, mascara and lip gloss). However I do not apply said make up with a trowel and like to think my face is somewhat visible underneath it.

I was a little startled when I remembered my make up bag was sitting at home on my bathroom counter. My face felt naked and I spent the day feeling like I hadn’t woken up properly. It was all very “Stars Without Make-Up” edition of Who magazine. I wondered if I would get any other horrified reactions, but I only had a few of my colleagues ask if I was ok or comment that I looked tired (which I kinda am… but only 3 weeks til holidays!)

So maybe I do have a make-up addiction. Yet I’m not really keen to spend anymore work days looking exhausted and feeling that something is “wrong with my face” to find out.

How frequently do you wear make-up? Do you feel lost without out it? Tell, tell..

Me all made up on the weekend… I can’t help my ongoing lipstick/gloss infatuation.

Heading towards the (Green) Light.

If one of my five year old students howls their lungs out while curled in the foetal position because their shoelaces are tied together, have a mosquito bite or they have jam in their sandwich instead of Vegemite, their cries are met with a chorus of “Ricky Resilience, not Cathy Crumble!”

Their peers advise that they adopt ‘Green Light Thinking’, a term that our school system uses to encourage positive thinking. Most of the time the Green Light Thinking words, although sometimes the only thing that can make a kid smile during this type of dilemma is a big sparkly sticker of a ladybird.

I like to think that I’m positive. I’m smiley. I see the bright side. I still hang on to the dire hope that Hamish Blake marry me.

Despite this, for no apparent reason, I sometimes tend to go a bit five year old foetal position tantrum myself. (Normally in the privacy of my own home, not in a classroom, you’ll be glad to know).

What’s my Green Light Thinking?

I’m thankful that it wasn’t my two year old who I witnessed licking the floor at ‘Bed, Bath & Table’ this afternoon.

I’m wrapped that on Friday I got given a free ticket to the Britney concert. I’m doubly wrapped that I shared the experience with one of the most amazing people I know, who chuckled with me about poor old Brit’s woeful lip synching attempts and danced her little hips off with me when ‘Hit Me Baby, One More Time’ was performed.

I have a secret giggle remembering how one of my friends told a lady that while her baby was cute, he preferred his iPhone. He has a point, you can’t hold a baby up to the radio to tell you which song is playing.

The knowledge that one of my colleagues didn’t know what fruit cheese was. I had to explain that it was just cheese with fruit in it.

I think about planes and how I will be on one in 2 months.

The fact that mangoes, cherries, houses decorated in Christmas lights, children wearing elf hats and 30*C days are currently in abundance.

Two words: Taylor Lautner.

The thought of freshly laundered sheets, late night DVDs and no alarm clock.

Knowing that there are so many people I know who put the happiness of other people (and the introduction of quality literature to children) above everything else.

What’s your Green Light thinking?

Too much time in treehouses

On paper, I’m not a risk taker.

On paper, I’m the girl who lived in the rural town for 20 years, who spent her childhood building  treehouses, leaning against the warm expanse of a old gelding’s round stomach, laying on  pinewood floors reading piles of library books.

On paper, I’m the teenager who went to the same school as all the other girls. Who did the homework, who showed up, who laughed at the same in jokes as you.

On paper, I graduated from high school. I went to uni, made friends with people who would change my life. I partied. I danced. I kissed the right boys (most of the time). I did what I was supposed to. What was expected of me. And I liked it.

On paper, I’m about to do something that so many others have done. I am travelling a path well travelled by others. On paper, my impending adventure  may seem generic. But to me, everything I have ever done has been leading to this. It explains the hot cold rush I feel whenever I gaze at a plane in the morning sky. It’s the edge of the unknown.

It feels like a risk. But not doing it feels like a bigger one.

When I get to Italy, I’m eating 20 canoli.

It’s less than 3 months to go until I take the step off the diving board, take the leap and become insanely unique by doing the same thing as all those before me. I am heading overseas to work and play and I can hardly wait.

While sifting my way through piles dictionaries and conjugating Italian verbs for four years, the thought of devouring gelati in Rome, instead of on Lygon Street kept me going. I would sit on the train on the way home from lectures listening to my ‘Travel’ playlist on my ipod and envy every Facebook album of friends on foreign beaches that popped up when I logged in, reminding me of all the things I wasn’t doing.

So in 2 months and 28 days, I will be setting off, through Hong Kong, Western Europe, to the U.S. with a sprinkle of Canada … with less clothes in my bag than I would normally wear in a week, without the homely comforts of Mint Slices, the Sunday Herald Sun magazine and ‘Packed to the Rafters’ showing up on my TV every Tuesday. Without the physical presence of the people who rotate my world, but with the knowledge that they are always a phone call away. But secure with the knowledge that not risking it would be the biggest risk of all.

Any advice? Any recommendations? I need your help, you gorgeous people…

(Really happy about going here again…)       

Yep, I’m feeling deep today.

It can set you up to bring you down. It  can become a way of thinking. To protect yourself, you can choose to guard yourself with sarcasm, with humour, with self depreciation that veers away from the rawness. Lock the gate so no one comes in and no one gets hurt. Remember the negative to prevent the opening up of old wounds, but in the process block out the positive and opportunity to fix yourself up with a soothing balm.

You have the choice though. In the same way you almost choose to be enchanted by the secret smiles, the rush of complements, the sound of a text message ringing in your ears with the treacly words from the mouth of a new adventure. In the same method that you can let liking a boy wash over you like a wave and be excited about meeting someone who seems excited about meeting you.

You can throw down the walls around you and let the new one in. Because you might possibly get hurt again or you might just get healed and let your awesomeness shine through.

The Race that stops a nation and gives us a day off work.

Unlike many other ladies out there today, I made it. You did not see Little Miss Me scampering down the pavement in bare feet at Flinders Street station, heels in hand. I kept me curls in place and my shoes on my feet. Lipgloss intact, fascinator feathers unfrayed, sun-screened and unburnt. Advantage me.

Today was one of my favourite days of the year (apart from Christmas and Easter… and I mainly love them because they give me a justification for eating chocolate for breakfast…)

I pity you guys on the other side of the sea, who have no idea about the glory of Fashions on the Field. Being upstanding so that we can sing only one verse of ‘Advance Australia Fair’- purely because no one is quite sure what’s going on in the second verse (although I secretly think it’s superior to the first verse). The legend of trashbags limping home- a little boozed and with heels in hand.

Melbourne Cup Day. I love this day because no one else in the world cares about it. I adore the whole notion that the city closes down for a horse race, although most girls spend the day focussed on the fashion, fascinators and hatinators, rather then horses. I also cherish the way my mother packs a picnic and ensures that the Club sandwiches will never get confused.

Despite previous love letters to Sydney…Melbourne, I do love you. Although only when you play nice and give me sunshine.

My life on paper.

I should be fine. On paper, life looks perfect. I’m anticipating thrilling adventures, a (fingers crossed) big win on the Melbourne Cup and tonight I’m getting dressed up as a hippie. See? What’s not to like?

But I’m feeling kind of overwhelmed. Cue dialogue from ‘10 Things I Hate About You’…

Not “I woke up and just realised I have Lindsey Lohan’s lips” kind of overwhelmed, but enough to make me ancy. Enough for me to wake up in a bath of sweat after having nightmares each night. Enough for me to make me want to eat more chocolate then should really be allowed. Enough for everyday to feel like a bad hair day, for none of my clothes to feel like they’re matching, to feel like I’m floundering when I should be in control. I know I’m sooking, that I really have no problems. That I have friends who buy me pale purple nail polish. I have a steady job. I live in an amazing place. I have dual citizenship, which means I get shorter queues at airports.  Which makes me feel guilty AND ancy. Do you ever feel that way too?

I’m blaming the report writing season. I’m blaming the amount of things I need to get done. I’m hoping that a good does of sunshine, fake tan and tonight’s fancy dress party will cheer me up (How can I be sad about the prospect of my best friend’s backyard transformed into a hippy harem?  Especially when their will be lollies and canoli???’)

So I plan to go to the hairdresser, eat fruit, match up my outfits the night before and put on a happy face. Here’s to hoping.