It Has Been Awhile

Hello everyone,

For those of you I caught up with over Christmas, I promised you that I’d do a better job of keeping in touch with you… well I lied, but that doesn’t mean I can start trying now.

Things are fine. The school year didn’t get off to a cracking start as I was under the impression I was going to be teaching P.E., but such is not the case. I was welcomed back to school with 3 Society and Environment classes, a Personal Learning Plan class and one grade 9 P.E. class. I’m pretty sure that my face was beat red with rage for the first week of school. The fact that most of the people I work with were continuously asking how I was doing only added to my rage. However, I’ve dealt with it and moved on. The first term has come and gone and it was pretty good I guess. I helped run the schools year 8 camps, went on an Outdoor Ed. Camp and also went with the schools Athletics Team down to Adelaide (I live in Mt. Gambier for those of you who are unsure). Those were all enjoyable and as for the rest of the term… it was fine and more importantly nobody got hurt in the process. I guess the only other point of interest for my first term is that irony reared its ugle head and the one P.E. class is the worst class that I’ve taught in my short and tenuous teaching career. Another good example of how you should be careful what you wish for.

As for my extracurricular activities, Baseball and Touch Footy seasons have both some to an unsuccessful end. Our baseball team had to amalgamate with another team because of a lack of players. The skill level of the guys we joined… not so good and to add insult to injury, most of them weren’t the type of people you wanted to spend your Saturday afternoons with. As for Touch Footy, well we had an okay season, but lost in the semi-finals.

Now up and coming is soccer season mixed with a heavy dose of running. We’ve lost quite a few players from our soccer club and I think we are going to stink, but hopefully we’ll have fun in the process. I’m hoping to run a half-marathon and two full marathons this year (this is being very wishful with soccer) and have started training hard over the last month or so. I’m running about 40-50Kms a week with my longest run being a 19km run. Running is looking good, but I’m going to need some luck to not get the banged up over the course of the soccer season.

I’m sure most of you know, but for those of you who don’t know Brad and Lisa got engaged. I am very, very happy for them despite the fact they or anyone else did not tell me and I found out via Facebook. Facebook is one of life’s great tragedies. Text messaging, Facebook and Tweeter have made it possible to pretty much not have to talk to anyone anymore.

As for what is on the horizon. Well I have the next two weeks off and will hang around Mount Gambier for most of it. Possibly a camping trip in the area and a trip to Adelaide to meet up with friends from University. Next term will be business as usual except for an 8 day hiking trip with about 10 of the naughty kids from school. The hike is about 100km up and down hills. It’s the equivalent of boot camp, but thankfully I enjoy hiking. Guess I need to decide whether or not I am going to apply for Permanent Residence, no idea what to do. I guess its easy to stay here and keep working , but the idea of moving back to Canada is very enticing.

Things I Like This week

Vacation
Writing a blog entry
My new John Butler CD

Things I Don’t Like This Week

Starting to feel an awful lot like winter