the realities of boys, school and the hall...
my name is kate clarke, and i'm a livejournal-un-aholic. it's been 21 weeks since my last post, aka faaaaaaaaaar too long. very much has happened indeed, and the good stuff i do intend to share in a mass email soon. this includes visiting a marae and attending the all blacks world rugby game vs france, which are unique new zealand experiences
I had a wee fling with an american boy at the first of june. I'd met him in early May, at 10bar when julia and i went to see Smashproof play. it was definitely random, we hung out for 2 nights before he continued on travelling through nz, and we texted excessively. then he went to aus, and i figured that was that.... but he texted me when he came a week and a half later. and he bought a ticket from auckland to dunedin, to come visit me for the weekend before he went back to the states. we had a real good weekend together. our chemistry was just ridiculous. we got along real well, but we could disagree too. he's a pharmacist gone winemaker at the age of 23, and gives fantastic massages. just my luck that he'd live in oregon lol. i was pretty gutted... i mean i'm over it, but still. i'm back to being very anti-boy or relationship again, and all about making me happy.
i've also caught up wiht an old friend over msn. the time difference is kind of a bitch, but we chat all the time, so it's nice to have a constant link to home. jon and i had worked at canadian tire years ago, like when i was in highschool, and then we talked while i was at uni in first yaer... and the summer that i came home, apparently he had a huge crush on me,and we even made out at the bar that first night i was hammered.... it was real funny him telling me the story, of us ready to go home together, and then, wait for it, i had to call my parents to ask if it was okay (coz i had just moved back in with them) needless to say, i don't think daddio was keen. i dont think jon and i talked too much after i told him i wasnt interested in him as anythign more than a friend.
but then i started messaging him once i got here, mainly because he was online around the same times i was. and you'd never know we hadnt talked in 4 years, coz we pretty much just picked up where we left off, only as new people instead..
i want to move out of my room in the hall. as warm as it is, i'm far too lonely, and spend too much time by myself in my room. there's a room that i can move into, flatting with 2 girls in my class, which is what i planned to do, but then i encountered the problem of finding someone to take over my contract of my room... which sucks. so i've been stressing over that more than a wee bit. i want to be able to cook my own food again, and have the company of my canadian girls.
i've decided that i'm going to run a half marathon in sept, and thus, mel and i have been trying to start training. we reckon if we live together, we'd be better at motivating each other.
but the reality of living here has kind of hit this month, and the fact that it's not a vacation of any kind, but real hard work. i've had assignments out the ass all june. i'd asked to teach intermediate, which is year 7 and 8 here, the kids are like 11 12 13 years old, so i reckon thats about the same as like grade 6ish. i knew i didnt like the age group based on camp experiences, but thought i'd be a better person for trying it. but i got the worst class in the school, by far. i did 5 days of "full control" where i was the teacher, and i swear it nearly killed me. turned me right off, and i wanted to quit. i cried 3 days a row, at school.
thus, i wasnt keen to go to school today anyways and thought about calling in sick... but since my associate teacher had called in sick and had a reliever, who expected me to just do his job for hiim, and i was not prepared to deal with those kids without mrs. toa..... so i opted to go home before school started. my first really day of hookie.... but i prefer to call it a 'mental health day'.
i sent all this, and a wee bit more, to helen, the course coordinator for my program. helen is amazing. she definitely goes out of her way to look out for us. she drove me to student health the morning after i got dropped on my head at the bar, and said that she'd be my emergency contact number. she's pretty much my mother figure
I had one hell of a week though. Some of the kids were rough, although i am trying to keep the good ones at the forefront of my memories, rather than the one that flipped me off first thing in the morning while we sung happy birthday to him the day after his birthday (conviniently he says it was not at me but the boy making faces at him in front of me). That got dealt with right away though, and he wasnt in the class the rest of the day... that same day, the lense also got popped out of my glasses mysteriously. We don't know who did it or how and assumed it was just an accident and they got dropped. Mr Hutton had them fixed the
same day, but it was little things like that led to a mild breakdown at lunch on thursday before i was observed.
but one of my biggest problems was that i just wasnt comfortable being in front of that class. like i just did not, and do not, want to stand up in front of them, and i just wanted the whole thing to be over. and it was
even more obvious than i realized, because mrs toa noted that i approached the matariki lesson really cold, rather than having a conversation with the class, but i found that hard because i was uncomfortable. i did try to work on it though
this posting really shattered my confidence. last term, i was so onto it, willing to take every lesson that i could and this time, i just wasn't and felt like I was a million steps behind. mrs. toa was really supportive
though, and got me through it. and yvonne said i was too hard on myself. which is probably true, but i dont like sucking at this. and i want to want to do it, instead of having a giant knot in my stomach over having to
do it.
this week was hard too, just because it was my little sister's high school graduation and i wasnt there, and you know, that whole june homesickness thing isn't a myth. i really want to move out of the hall and in with mel and julia, because i find that i spend waaaay too much time alone in my room here... there were 2 people keen to take my room, but now they've both opted to not, so i'm not sure how i can get out of my contract, but bruce is going to ring the accomodation office in the am, to see if they have any other applicants. but i kind of want/need to have it sorted, I leave for the north island on saturday
yup, saturday july 4th i leave for auckland. i'm staying the night there in a pretty flashpacker hostel (i ibelieve it has a spa and free meals at night...) and then going to bus north to baihia for a few days, then back down to see Tauranga, Rotorua, Taupo and then Wellington, where I have an uncle that I've never met, but am going to stay with. i'm excited for backpacking, because i definitely need an escape. wee bit nervous to be doing it alone... although based on last time, i wasnt really ever alone. i'll just make some friends....
I had a wee fling with an american boy at the first of june. I'd met him in early May, at 10bar when julia and i went to see Smashproof play. it was definitely random, we hung out for 2 nights before he continued on travelling through nz, and we texted excessively. then he went to aus, and i figured that was that.... but he texted me when he came a week and a half later. and he bought a ticket from auckland to dunedin, to come visit me for the weekend before he went back to the states. we had a real good weekend together. our chemistry was just ridiculous. we got along real well, but we could disagree too. he's a pharmacist gone winemaker at the age of 23, and gives fantastic massages. just my luck that he'd live in oregon lol. i was pretty gutted... i mean i'm over it, but still. i'm back to being very anti-boy or relationship again, and all about making me happy.
i've also caught up wiht an old friend over msn. the time difference is kind of a bitch, but we chat all the time, so it's nice to have a constant link to home. jon and i had worked at canadian tire years ago, like when i was in highschool, and then we talked while i was at uni in first yaer... and the summer that i came home, apparently he had a huge crush on me,and we even made out at the bar that first night i was hammered.... it was real funny him telling me the story, of us ready to go home together, and then, wait for it, i had to call my parents to ask if it was okay (coz i had just moved back in with them) needless to say, i don't think daddio was keen. i dont think jon and i talked too much after i told him i wasnt interested in him as anythign more than a friend.
but then i started messaging him once i got here, mainly because he was online around the same times i was. and you'd never know we hadnt talked in 4 years, coz we pretty much just picked up where we left off, only as new people instead..
i want to move out of my room in the hall. as warm as it is, i'm far too lonely, and spend too much time by myself in my room. there's a room that i can move into, flatting with 2 girls in my class, which is what i planned to do, but then i encountered the problem of finding someone to take over my contract of my room... which sucks. so i've been stressing over that more than a wee bit. i want to be able to cook my own food again, and have the company of my canadian girls.
i've decided that i'm going to run a half marathon in sept, and thus, mel and i have been trying to start training. we reckon if we live together, we'd be better at motivating each other.
but the reality of living here has kind of hit this month, and the fact that it's not a vacation of any kind, but real hard work. i've had assignments out the ass all june. i'd asked to teach intermediate, which is year 7 and 8 here, the kids are like 11 12 13 years old, so i reckon thats about the same as like grade 6ish. i knew i didnt like the age group based on camp experiences, but thought i'd be a better person for trying it. but i got the worst class in the school, by far. i did 5 days of "full control" where i was the teacher, and i swear it nearly killed me. turned me right off, and i wanted to quit. i cried 3 days a row, at school.
thus, i wasnt keen to go to school today anyways and thought about calling in sick... but since my associate teacher had called in sick and had a reliever, who expected me to just do his job for hiim, and i was not prepared to deal with those kids without mrs. toa..... so i opted to go home before school started. my first really day of hookie.... but i prefer to call it a 'mental health day'.
i sent all this, and a wee bit more, to helen, the course coordinator for my program. helen is amazing. she definitely goes out of her way to look out for us. she drove me to student health the morning after i got dropped on my head at the bar, and said that she'd be my emergency contact number. she's pretty much my mother figure
I had one hell of a week though. Some of the kids were rough, although i am trying to keep the good ones at the forefront of my memories, rather than the one that flipped me off first thing in the morning while we sung happy birthday to him the day after his birthday (conviniently he says it was not at me but the boy making faces at him in front of me). That got dealt with right away though, and he wasnt in the class the rest of the day... that same day, the lense also got popped out of my glasses mysteriously. We don't know who did it or how and assumed it was just an accident and they got dropped. Mr Hutton had them fixed the
same day, but it was little things like that led to a mild breakdown at lunch on thursday before i was observed.
but one of my biggest problems was that i just wasnt comfortable being in front of that class. like i just did not, and do not, want to stand up in front of them, and i just wanted the whole thing to be over. and it was
even more obvious than i realized, because mrs toa noted that i approached the matariki lesson really cold, rather than having a conversation with the class, but i found that hard because i was uncomfortable. i did try to work on it though
this posting really shattered my confidence. last term, i was so onto it, willing to take every lesson that i could and this time, i just wasn't and felt like I was a million steps behind. mrs. toa was really supportive
though, and got me through it. and yvonne said i was too hard on myself. which is probably true, but i dont like sucking at this. and i want to want to do it, instead of having a giant knot in my stomach over having to
do it.
this week was hard too, just because it was my little sister's high school graduation and i wasnt there, and you know, that whole june homesickness thing isn't a myth. i really want to move out of the hall and in with mel and julia, because i find that i spend waaaay too much time alone in my room here... there were 2 people keen to take my room, but now they've both opted to not, so i'm not sure how i can get out of my contract, but bruce is going to ring the accomodation office in the am, to see if they have any other applicants. but i kind of want/need to have it sorted, I leave for the north island on saturday
yup, saturday july 4th i leave for auckland. i'm staying the night there in a pretty flashpacker hostel (i ibelieve it has a spa and free meals at night...) and then going to bus north to baihia for a few days, then back down to see Tauranga, Rotorua, Taupo and then Wellington, where I have an uncle that I've never met, but am going to stay with. i'm excited for backpacking, because i definitely need an escape. wee bit nervous to be doing it alone... although based on last time, i wasnt really ever alone. i'll just make some friends....