Send us Your Country Swap Partners

Hello everyone,


I have been having a whale of a time with my freedom - the husband thinks I am like an energizer bunny on steroids, flicking from here to there and doing this and that! Anyway -


Here are your swap partners. Please get in touch with them and find out each others likes/dislikes.




(if there are anymore international bloggers wishing to take part, tell them to get in touch with me pronto - two more would be perfect for Kerrie and I...)




See this post for the details of the swap if you have forgotten ;)




Enjoy and if there are any queries, please do not hesitate to get in contact with me.


EDITED Sunday at 10.30pm - Kerrie I have an international for you - Linny happy to do 2 swaps!


Kimberley and Anna (no blog)


Linny and Kerrie  (contact Linny on lyn.robyn.smith@gmail.com)


Glenda and Grammy Braxton (Glenda - no blog - e-mail - geemchung@gmail.com)


Sue and Tracy


Elaina and Fat Dormouse


Michell and Linny (no blog - contact Linny on lyn.robyn.smith@gmail.com )






Kimberley xo

freedom

I finished my university exam 2 hours ago. I am never happy at how these things go and this one was not great - two full essays and the other two are a whole lot of notes..
I was a wreck even before arriving - I happened to be two cars behind the one which hit 3 school children this morning and had a police car zoom in front of me and park sideways across the roundabout that i needed to go through get to my exam venue (only 150 metres from where I was). The accident location is really busy and there were no options open to just park and walk  and i had to think very fast how to get around the incident to get to the exam. (Turned right and learnt about a few new roads!)
So by the time i managed to get my brain engaged fast, in a suburb I do not know well, I walked into the exam room just on time, but panicking and a bundle of nerves.
Not good. Shaking and tears afterwards too - the stress was huge and not helped by the above. I hope the children are okay and it is just an exam - if i pass, yay, if i fail, oh well.

Now I have this pile of letters to attack... it is not surprising my mail box has been rather sad lately!

Burning money

Don't you find this time of the year is a money burner?

$963 university fees for next paper
$500 "voluntary" school fees for state school including subject breakdown (I have issues with that as a school can not legally charge for something that is curriculum based...)
$500 for state high school uniform
$300 for another school uniform
$120 for 3 lots of school stationery
$3-600 for the so called have to have i-pad for school(do not have and will take laptop and see how we go...)
And then weekly public transport for two to get to school...

Isn't it horrific for a "free" education?! We had no idea that the state school fees were that high... i bought both uniforms just before Christmas thankfully, but with Christmas, where i don't buy stuff throughout the year as, you know, teenagers, they change their minds, all the time, and long school hols, which just eat money anyhow, how on earth do people in this country afford everything on our lowish wages???
The only thing that can get claimed back on taxes is the $300 "voluntary" fees NOT subject fees , which is outrageous to me.

So I've taken the attitude that the husband can sort all of this out... he can pay what he wants or not. Schools are in such a hard place in NZ - so under funded, but the things that students are asked to take now, funded by the parents, is getting quite crazy to me. Schools have choices and choose what they want to do with that money... sometimes i think they need to rethink. It is not always the parents putting pressure on schools. And a big hello to the one who has broken the copyright act with a resource this afternoon - the principal will be hearing from this librarian!

We have ditched all after school activties/ extra curriular bar scouts - scouts is cool and we have done it for 10 years now in this family. One is starting to learn the double bass and we will shortly have one to keep at home for the year, provided for free, by the school.

I do finally feel like a free women, driving straight home from my school and having all this free time and no school drop offs/pick ups!

Six and a Half.....

Um. Yes. Well. I have been quite the knitting machine. This has all been done since December 23, 2014..... six and a half cardigans! And another 3 orders for them too. The top two are an 18 month size and a 3 year old size. And the best thing is that the wool is all from the stash ... yes it IS quite the stash! And a few more dishcloths for a school gala and a sock knitted over the past day.

Studywise - I am a WRECK. There have been tears the past 3 days and it is not good.... Exams kill me. Roll on Thursday at 12.30pm, when it is over. (unless I walk out earlier....)

Any other crafting machines out there? It is supposedly good for stress... hence the volume!

action station and a *winner*

Phew! The end of the first week of a new school year and a 3 day weekend coming up. Perfect timing! Such a good sort out of the library today - 900 plus new books on the system (readers included) - I am seriously running out of shelf space!! And we are up to 63 new students - mostly walk-ins !!

We have impulse bought a builder in - ripping out an entire bedroom to the outside walls and insulating, re-gibbing and ripping up a carpet and polishing the original floorboards. The big waredrobe in the room will alos be ripped out.The heatpump is being moved from that bedroom to the 2nd lounge too. Hoepfully the work will start in 3 weeks or so.

I also impulse took 2 couches to 2 classrooms at school last week - I got sick of them! They look so cute in classroom corner libraries. So the blue couches have gone and we have put two of our chairs in the main lounge, until we get around to buying another couch. (won't replace one which was in a bedroom).

And THIS made my day ! I am soooo stressed with the exam next week and still have a topic to write/learn an essay...

and lots of baking has been done - banana loaf, more weetbix slice and sweetcorn muffins. (teens still complain that there is nothing to eat....)

And everyone is finally back at their perspective schools - two new schools for us this year. Still stalling on the compolsory i-pad thing...
So happy it is the weekend and a long one. Only thing that is happening for me is cramming, cramming.

Lastly - the winner of the  "Sweet Treats" cross stitch book is   *** Miriam ***. E-mail me your address my dear and I will post it out - might be a while till after exam is over.

Have a great long weekend kiwis and a good Friday everyone else!

I need another holiday

 Our backyard. We had rain overnight a few nights ago, but very little over all in a month. The hot, humid temperatures continue. The cucumbers have gone lopy and are even growing along the side of the house now! The heat is hideous in classrooms.

I have been back at school a week and i am plain EXHAUSTED.  A week. And I am coming home and falling asleep. It is crazy. We have had 40-60 students just turn up (I'm a bit behind the current count i think!) as that is what just happens in my area. (if you are in zone for a school in NZ, you just turn up. The school HAS to take you! We are not governed by numbers/ a local council etc.) Class sizes are getting crazy. This will go on for the next 2-3 weeks.
I've been doing my job, opening gates for the dental van to be towed away, helping the external IT guy, sorting out new teachers, making on the spot library cards and adding many new names to the database (can barely get through a class before the next one is lining up).
I have already put around 100 new library books on the database and 300 or so new resources.

I've already worked over my paid hours in 2 days. (also did 2 un-paid days during hols - welcome to the "support-staff-don't-get-paid-for-all-the-hours-you-do" crew).

I have two days off next week - one for study, one for exam. Not happy as things currently stand. You can't study when you fall asleep...

In my tiredness haze, I wandered to the supermarket after school and bought a top dinner of a bag of oven fries, a pre-cooked chicken, and pre-made coleslaw. We usually make out own fries from scratch, cook the chicken and make own salad etc from scratch. Not tonight... can not be bothered. Not good food.

Then I kinda wandered past Kikki K and these gorgeous things fell into a bag (I owe 15 letters....!)... tiredness makes me wander aimlessly sometimes! :) All cute though, huh?

Random - my life!

Random photos. My life seems to be totally random at the moment, which is normal for the beginning for a school year!

Backyard tui (native bird)/romans/ year 7 doing homework - a totally new experience! / hydrangea love in Opotiki/ old church love in Opotiki / year 8 books from last year being culled - huge amount of work! /  and Elaina's jam - divine.

I'm at a school which has been flipped upside down. All good. Trying new things - major new things to boost results. My head is a whirl. I have processed 350 new books (80 for library; rest resources) in 3 days; I have covering for Africa. I am wiping dozens of student and teacher overdue records and starting again... I have transferred class lists and spnet 90 minutes scanning 500 cards and putting in new class piles (that is a JOB).
I've been in PD; relayed my own experience of a DP telling me that children like one of mine fail as the NZ education system is  not set up for them - I was told this when he was 6. A strong kinesthetic
learner. He is in a new school now (next level and should be okay. They are a bit more non-conforming.) We've had many, many discusssions around maths at school and between schools. One school is saying few of the new pupils (flying in from all over the city) are at the level of maths that they should be (students have already been at school a week) and they are ditching the NZ material and introducing NSW maths. And writing. Huge issues around it under National Standards. Many discussions around different expectations and levels in different schools.  I've listened to a principal say we are in a major crisis with our Pasifika students.
Watch this - this guy rocks. Right up my alley and so damn true every single word he says.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEDrBYnNsR8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEDrBYnNsR8

It is long. It is confronting and might be a bit out of a lot of kiwis comfort zones. And knowledge zones. I'm quite over low decile schools being bagged. I am involved at both ends of the scale in NZ and know that low deciles deal with different issues. I also know that either end also has no idea with what each other deals with. I want every New Zealander to be aware of the difference and the struggle that goes on particularly at the other end - the other end that most NZers are in denial about. All our students deserve the same opportunities - it does not happen under the current governement.

Anyway, I'm exhausted and not even any students! It is till crazy hot with 88% humidity and 28-30 deg every single day. The hottest summer I can ever remember. Our backyard does not look good.

Uni study awaits.
Ps - the older kid flew through his exams. A*/ 3x A grades/a B/ a C grades. Things do work when families are supported and helped by schools. And children actually get the help they need with schools just doing their job and parents not begging. :)