They’ve been recovered!  Here is us in Abu Dhabi and Melbourne

I have to go for a walk to the gate in about 10 minutes and then I’ll be sat on a plane for over 14 hours as we jet off around the world to Melbourne.  It’s 35 degrees there. That’s about 10 higher then the dessert I’ve just spent a couple of days in!! lol. 

We land at 7:00 Melbourne time and then we’re booked into a lovely hotel we know very well where we can just collapse into bed and sleep until the morning! Yay! We managed to sleep for 14 hours straight last night in Abu Dhabi… We definitely needed it!

All in all we’re safe, very full of more free airport lounge food and ready to get going!  G’day Melbourne here we come! (again!)

I have 7 mins of Internet time left (eik!) and so I thought i’d write to say hello from Abu Dhabi! I have loads of pictures but for some reason this laptop (mine!) won’t recognise my SD card (swine!) so I can’t share them with you yet . Hopefully, I’ll get it all sorted when I get to Aus where life makes a little more sense to me!

We arrived safely after 7 hours of flying. Having only packed my Pj bottoms, pillows and blankets into my hand luggage (there wasn’t room for anything else) I was really snugly and warm; which was lovely! I’d recommend it! Having a 6 foot 6 husband who requires extra leg room is also handy!

The flight was at night which should have been great but we only got about 2 hours sleep because they kept serving us food! (rude! lol). We’re a little loopy today and as its now 6pm I’m looking forward to going to bed in a couple of hours! Sleeeeep.
We leave here at 10 ish tommorrow and arrive in Melbourne 14 hours later… I’ll try and keep you updated as we go (and get those piccies sorted!)

Happy Christmas!!!

 The time has come.  5 very surreal days later and I’ve finally finished school.  It’s been a very cool week.  Everything ran with clockwork precision ( It had to… planning distracts me from the reality of it all!) and now my classroom is ready to be inhabited by Mr MC M, my form is ready to be lead by their new leader and the English office has been set up with a webcam for the purpose of waving.

I’ve had loads of cards, emails and pressies and of course I had to give a speech this time.  (It’s about time i earnt the bubbly I keep collecting.

Email:

Still needs a bit of practice

I am telling you this as a friend miss woodward a.k.a selena please please please please dont go to australia or will be in deep sorrow.

please dont be angry at me calling you by your first name but in my defence i did put miss wodward first. 

BTW how bo you do the smiley faces? 

Very sadly,

P (Year 7)

Cards:

 
Created with flickr slideshow.

Gifts

Click to see!

Pressies were difficult things this time.  What with our 20kg allowance gifts need to be practically supernatural!  That’s why this gift was absolultly perfect!  Thank you

Thank you to all of you, for everything. Remember…. I’m just breaking up for Christmas…

We all know that I’ve run off before (and come back) but this time I promise I’m not leaving just so I can get a bottle of something fizzy for, I think, the third time? (Although, of course, it will be much appreciated.) Instead, I really am planning not to return. Today will be the last day where there’s more than one reason why someone is shouting “Mads” at me across a crowded corridor. My laptop has been harvested and transplanted to its new owner; the projector switched off. I’ve placed my slightly battered (sorry!) Promethean pen in its holder for Alistair to use and emptied the drawers in my desk of unclaimed, bright yellow, plastic rosary beads and packets of gum.
Since 2005, I’ve enjoyed every minute! I have learnt so much from all of you. There are so many excellent teachers here who are willing to share their good practice and, because of the ‘special circumstances’ we’ve shared, we’ve actually had time to learn from each other. That’s made such an enormous difference to me. I’ve been inspired by so many of you. You made it really easy to love every minute of teaching. This really is a place where some of the best teachers in the LA are pooled together and it’s been an absolute pleasure to be a part of that; to be a part of the “journey” of (As Kevin likes to say) “Team Shenley”. I’m really going to miss all of you.
Of course, the English department will have me on constant “virtual link up”. Patty is now fully Skype trained so that they can shove the webcam out of the window and show me the snow that I will be very jealous of. In fact, Jill commented on my blog that she wasn’t sure “why i think that I’m actually leaving. We’re planning on there being a virtual Selena on site all the time…” Good! I still want to hear about all the comings and goings around the school. I know that I’ll be left a little bit lost when I first arrive in the Land Down Under and having a link to my old routine will be great! I mean, I’ll need to make sure that Mr Mc Millan has his “emotions” in check; that Sarah continues to hear a sentence and reproduce it as a lyric in fine voice; laugh when Paula steals the cup of tea you haven’t quite finished because she’s looking for more washing up; hear about Sue’s latest exploits (they usually involve a bruise); wake Ann up at 4 O’clock and cheer Mel on when she starts a marathon race around Birmingham somewhere.

Then there’s Mummy Cow. A name that bemuses all those who aren’t aware of the history we share. It’s a long story, one that starts in around 1968… so I’ll let her tell you some time but let’s just say that Jilly has been a big part of my teaching career from the very start. She was my mentor when I was an NQT, putting up with me. She’s fab! A fab head of department. A fab EMT (Excellent management team as I call them) and a brilliant friend. One who is already planning her 50th B’day in Adelaide! (yay!) Thank you for everything you’ve all done for me.

Cookie and the gang will be sadly missed when I need a coffee and a chat. Look after them. (Beer usually works well) You’ll need them a lot more that you can imagine over the next few years. I can‘t imagine a school without at least 3 fab techies like these on site at all times! Even with their expertly implemented infrastructure
Carolyn, Jill and the rest of the TA team. Enjoy the new opportunities that Genette will bring. Thank you for all your support too.
The future is going to be brilliant for the Academy. I love that we have so many visitors now so they can all see what we all know is a fa
bulous school, with fabulous kids and teachers.
My future will be different now. I’m not going to be teaching when I get to Oz. Instead I’m going to be working for myself as a consultant. I’ll be training teachers to use IWBs, VLEs (and anything else that involved an acronym) and, just as before, everything that I have learnt from all of you will go with me. I will constantly talk about Shenley, its good practices and will try my best to continue to spread everything you have all taught me to the teachers in S. A. I’m also trying to link us up with a friends schools so you can Charge the Academy for a holiday.. ermm… I mean research project.

All that’s left to do is Thank each an every one of you. Thank you for smiling, for listening, for teaching me, for sharing with me, for being you.

So I’ve told the kids… well most of them anyway.  I  made special arrangements for two of my ‘special’ students to be told first and alone by me.  I was hoping they’d be ok. One said “Oh!” and the other said “Ok Madame… I’m fine”.  The razor drawing student I mentioned before said “Right… so your basically abandoning us then? Again! Well that’s just great… it’s all going alright and now you’re going to mess it up.  Thanks” I have assured him that he will be well looked after.  Another girl shouted “No! Don’t do this to me again.. you did that to me in Year 7! How could you!” My initial thought was ‘but you’re in Year 10 now! God that makes me feel old.’ I was also told by another girl that she just couldn’t speak to me anymore….

I’ve told ‘razor boy’ that he’s welcome to visit any time and that my husband will be waiting with a frying pan. ( he told me the other day that he’d had a fictional fight with LOF involving hitting him on the head with a frying pan – I asked him how he’d had to jump to reach his head…)

Inevitably though, time is running racing towards the 27th and I still have plenty to do. I’m supposed to be helping Matt sort out that massive box of  ‘personal documents’ and so I’m typing this in between scanning docs.

We’ve even started to say farewell and so long to a few lovelies including LOF’s dad.  We had a lovely day with him on Saturday and stuffed our faces with what will probably be my last cream tea in a while. Stratford is still lovely, even in the rain and cold.  It is strange saying goodbye knowing that you won’t see people for months.  I guess I have to remind myself that it’s not as if I’ll never see them again and then move the sadness into a box marked For when you’re looking at the sea and remembering why you’re here.  I’m off to see Collette again on Friday and she’s doing a fabulous job of making sure that I keep going in a managable manner!

We’re nearly completely organised so it’s not as if we need to be stressed.  We’ve been finalising all the packing this weekend.  I have discovered that I can still fit all of my clothes into one suitcase. Unfortunately though, it ways over 45KGs if I do ; as my allowance is only 20KG that means some work!  Three boxes.  That’s how many extra cartons we’re sending at the end of the week.  Two of them will be vacuum packed jumpers, coats and dressing gowns.  We’ll see it again in March time when we still won’t need them!

For now, I’ve been enjoying the fact that I have been allowed to escape to Fawkes and get annoyed with Bella, Edward and that weasel Jacob (J. I’ve decided I don’t like him now… no one tells someone that if they don’t want them to come back they’ll just go get killed by a vampire in order to black mail someone into loving them and gets my approval!) Reading, escaping, worrying about a fictional character.  I can handle that   bath bombs are also on my list for this weekend…   RELAX and then SLEEP in-between visiting more people to say goodbye

Wow this week has flown by leaving only 3 working weeks (4 normal ones) until I find myself “Leaving on a Jet Plane“.  At this rate I’ll blink and find myself on a beautiful beach with the sea lapping the shore.  (My pals have reminded me that this will probably occur around the time that you all have 3 inches of snow – at which point I will be the one that’s really jealous!)

What have I been up to? Well… not a lot really!  Working mostly, organising and making sure that the personal deadlines I have set myself are being met one by one.  This way I know that it’s all under control!  I need to know that it’s all under control… (lol) . 

I’ve tried to up hold my usual routine of making the Xmas cake, wrapping and buying Xmas presents (Some of which we’ve already delivered to their new owners) and getting in the Xmas spirit.  Unusually for me, I’m not really that bothered that it’s coming… very strange with my past history on these matters!  I’m usually searching the sky  for Santa and posting my Xmas cards with hidden Xmas confetti!  Ah well… i guess I suppose that I might have other even larger events on my mind which seem to make Xmas a small elf in comparison.

I’ve have managed to visit the house with the mouse and Brick lane; where I discovered that “Vintage” can mean I got bored with this 2 months ago… here you sell it for an extra £30 – someone will fall for it!   We’ve been to Derby to see the female contingent of the Woodward clan and I’ve begun to become totally addicted to the Twilight books. 

I’ve been avoiding Ms.  Meyer’s books like the plague.  I’ve heard mixed reviews and wasn’t sure I wanted to try.  I do have a rule though.  You can’t reject a text until you’ve read it and considered it properly.  New Moon came out at the cinema and I was amused at the number of Face book posts from friends who were so excited to see it… My other rule about books is that I have to read them before I can see them so I started.  Twilight… took me a week to read… a little dull to be honest…  New Moon?  Nearly read that one in 24hrs!  (and it’s bigger) as soon as that Vampire disappeared and I didn’t have to hear about how “He stood in my kitchen like a perfect Adonis” or deal with two teenagers discussing his “cold hard lips pressed against (hers)” I was in my element.  I also think that I get Bella a bit more now… She was appearing as a bit of a weak, empty headed idiot who just followed a man like a puppy because he was pretty and powerful…  Amusingly, I can sympathise with her in this new book and that always works for me   I’d have just lain the meadow myself… I’d probably have thrown up too.. I think it’s very easy to find yourself a Jacob to half fill the gap and I think that Meyer has made her point now…. this isn’t about a vampire controlling a weakling and it’s felt much less of a Mils and Boons this time around.  Only 50 pages to go… here’s hoping it isn’t all ruined as I keep turning the pages….

As of this sunday there will be 6 weeks until we fly back to Australia. (That’s 6 weeks today until boxing day by the way – Not too long!)
I like to dip into the “Local” news every now and then; keep up to date with events. I noticed a friend of mine was feeding ice-cubes to her dog…

hot hot HOT!

It had to be done really didn’t it? Bonfire night 2009; possibly the last time I’ll be around ol’ blighty at this time in a while. I had to make sure I celebrated the prevention of a cruel terrorist attack by the Catholics for one last time.

Last time I was in Adelaide I did enquire as to whether there would be a bonfire night celebration on November the 5th. Well, we imported most of our other customs over there (at the expense of the natives) so why not this? I was told that “No” there wouldn’t be any fireworks on November the 5th, they didn’t do that. When I pressed further (perhaps hoping to change his answer) my friend pointed out that November is Spring. Spring is sunny. The ground is dry. Lighting things up and letting the sparks explode over fields of dry grass and trees wouldn’t be the smartest thing we could do… Good point, well made I thought!

So, instead of fireworks on Novemer the 5th 2007 I probably went for a walk along the beach. The flashy buoys out at sea are a poor substitute for this though:

I love standing there, in the cold, with sparklers and happy children all going “OOOOh”; great fun!

There’s only 7 weeks to go until I fly away. Times running very quickly now and it gets harder every time I see a friend who asks “Will I see you again before you go?”. I don’t know… but I hope so….