Home of Slightly Cracked Dreams

I always knew it would be tough coming back to my Dip Ed after a 6 year break. In Queensland the syllabus documents work on a 7 year cycle, which means everything I learned 6 and 7 years ago has changed.

The degree I’m doing has changed 5 times since then.

The teaching staff at university have all changed.

The requirements for teacher registration and employment with the state have VASTLY changed.

And I knew nothing about any of it.

So it’s no wonder really I’ve felt like I’ve been playing catch up all the time.

One of the new requirements is that pre-service teachers, in order to be provisionally registered and allowed to accept employment in a registered school, is that you have completed a certain number of days of “wider professional experience”. Similar to teachers’ professional development, demonstrating basically that you’re committed to teaching and willing to give up extra time to do stuff. As an example of some of my wider professional experience, I have used things such as:

• Assistant coaching U6 soccer team
• Austswim training course
• Hosting Lions exchange students
• Organising Lions Youth of the Year
• Assisting with Lions youth camps
• Helping out in my daughters Prep classroom

Still, all these new requirements and changes have left me feeling majorly uninformed. Because of this, I’ve also attended two conferences this semester, the first was the annual conference of the Business Educators Association of Queensland (BEAQ) and just this weekend gone the Beginning and Establishing Teachers Association (BETA) pre-service teachers conference. Both were so vastly different, yet at the same time very informative. I met some wonderful teachers who were only too happy to share their knowledge and wisdom, and even got some free accounting advice from an accountant with his own practice who teaches in a country school on his “day off”. I picked up some job leads, some tips for getting a job, a better understanding of new system changes, of curriculum issues. I caught up with perhaps my most influentual lecturer of my uni career - who is now a principal in a school near where we’ve moved from - in case we were considering moving back he offered me a job LOL.

Now, I would probably have considered attending these conferences anyway, particularly the BEAQ one, but these new requirements kind of forced my hand and I’m glad they did.

If nothing else, the freebies at these kinds of things are awesome.

Assignments assignments everywhere.

Well, that’s how it feels anyway. I have handed in two already this semester, and even recieved one back. I’m not entirely sure of my mark, what with using high school criteria sheets for a university assignment (ie 5 levels of achievement vs 7 levels of achievement) but since I had 4/5 ticks in the highest column, and one int he second highest column, I’m claiming that as a high distinction. Hooray for me.

Pity it is worth just 10% of the final grade for the subject. I mean, it is a plan for the other assessment for that subject, which is worth…. 90% of the final grade. Oh, and that’s due in exactly 11 days.

Why yes, I am procrastinating, are you really surprised?

Following that I have one other major piece of assessment, but it isn’t due for a month after this one, so I can take my time with it a bit more.

Of course I have a million other things to do. Like my prac, which starts single days the day of this great big assignments due date. Of course I don’t have a school yet, so I can’t plan anything. And you all know how much I hate not being able to plan. I have to organise child care, depending on the school before and after school care, transport arrangements etc etc etc, not to mention the actual organising of work to teach etc etc.

No, I’m not stressed at all. Although my shoulder/back problem is reappearing. You know the one my osteo said was “study back”. Yeah. Drugs are high on my list of priorities first thing in the morning. Actually most of the day at the moment, which isn’t great, but my doctor assures me is normal with my problems.

Still, that’s where I’m up to with my assignments. I’m fairly happy with how I’m doing - I’m not terribly behind in everything. There’s just so much to do and think about - and I need to start applying for jobs.

But one thing at a time.

For the last three weeks we’ve had two very special visitors - two more Lions youth exchange students. I really had a ball with them this year, I spent heaps of time taking them places and visiting a few places I hadn’t been to for a while. If you’re thinking of visiting the Sunshine Coast here is what we got up to with them:

Mooloolaba Beach
Noosa Beach
The Big Pineapple
The Ginger Factory
Malany & Montville
Eumundi Markets
Australia Zoo
Brisbane Ekka
DFO at Brisbane Airport
Ettamogah Pub
Fraser Island

In addition to all that we dragged them to soccer games, ballet practice, family dinners, lions meetings and generally integrated them into our lives. By the time they left I was well and truly attached and even begged one to stay and take care of my kids (she wants to be a kindy teacher - perfect!). Both very much became part of our family and I can’t wait to catch up with them again when we (finally) make it over to Europe.

Here’s some pictures I shamelessly stole from them.

I’ll just do a mad catch up. It seems this blog really is my procrastination, and when I’m not studying I ignore it.

For the first weekend of school holidays we went camping at Inskip Point. It’s gorgeous up there, and the kids had such a great time we’re going back in the September school holidays and taking an extra one with us.

Here’s just a couple of pictures:

The campsite from the beach

Hubby and Kiki fishing

Miss Moo, my Dad and uncle having fun on the beach

The weather was pretty ordinary while we were there. In fact the first night there was a storm and our tent was at nearly 45 degrees and I swear the waves were hitting the outside of our tent. We had a few leaks, but nothing major and the kids all slept through it.

But after that it fined up and we had a pretty good time.

As for the recipe, I have been experimenting with making my own pasta/bolognaise sauce and it’s been a big hit. I generally start with 2-2.5kg of tomato’s, and dice them up finely (because my kids don’t like tomato).

Bung it all in a pot with some salt, pepper, basil, oregano if you’re feeling adventurous, and mixed spice.

Simmering in the pot

Simmer in a pot until it reduces to the consistency you like.

Then let it cool for half an hour on the bench, and in the fridge overnight (or use it straight away) before packing into meal sized portions. I worked on about 400g given the size of a tin of diced tomato’s or a jar of sauce.

Packed for the freezer

I packed them in zip lock bags however when defrosting you need to be careful they don’t burst.

You can, as always, add to this basic recipe. Onion, garlic, capsicum spring to mind as options. My kids being the fussy eaters they are wouldn’t touch that, but they do eat this just plain on pasta, which was quite a shock, but very VERY handy when I’m in a rush.