The purple flowers are starting to fall off the jacaranda trees. I stroll through their fallen petals on my walk to work sometime pretending that I'm in a far away magical land. I've been joined on my walks to work by friends and family over the last couple weeks. Dad came with me just about every morning that he and my mom were here. I showed him my new route, but he still preferred the old one through the woods and would go that way on his walk home alone. Our friend Matt has joined me a couple of times, and he's been able to see the characters that have become important parts of my morning walking ritual. He has met the tall, lean, old man who walks with a cane in one hand and his other hand on his hip. His face is lined with wrinkles and reminds me a bit of an Ent from Lord of the Rings. Then there is the little lady with her greyhounds. I think she has six now, and has to take two walks every morning so that she can take them three at a time. "Six was too many to walk all at once," she told me. She also has a little mix breed dog that she lets off the leash and stops sometimes to toss it a ball. The docile greyhounds always wait patiently for the little dog to run back with the ball so that they can resume their walk.
"Are you looking forward to being done?" I'm getting this question at school a lot now that the school year is drawing to a close. I have no idea how to answer. And I have no idea how to begin explaining it here. "Yes. Sometimes," I want to say. Those days when the students are being rude I think of my Seward students and miss home. The days when I feel like hiking a mountain or when I have a sudden urge to smell dried spruce needles (because, you know, those urges just hit people sometimes) I go to the calendar and count how much longer I have to wait. And, no. No, I don't want to go home. Many of my students here I dearly enjoy and will truly miss. There's the group of Year 8 girls that sit by the corner of my staff room and chirp "Morning Miss! Do we have you today?" I'll miss that. I'll miss the nod of the head my Year 10 boys give me from across the room when I see them in the library or while they are testing in the Hall. Each acknowledging me in their own way. I'll miss the staff here that have supported me so much: the lovely ladies from the land of literacy, the TAL and HSIE staff, and all the other individuals who have smiled my way, offered suggestions, lent me an ear, and puffed wind in my sail when I felt like I couldn't go on. I just finished my End-of-Year reports, really my last paperwork hurdle before I'm done teaching here. Oddly, I thought I'd be overjoyed when I finished my reports, but my walk home today was a melancholy one. I don't want to be done yet. While walking to school today with our friend Julie, I showed her the part of the trail where I got lost on my first walk home from school. "See how the trail splits and one path leads to the right? Well at the beginning of the school year I used to always just gravitate to the right side of sidewalks and paths because that was what I was used to. When I was walking home on my first day, I was so busy thinking that I just followed the path to the right and got a bit lost." But now I don't walk on the right anymore. Now, I naturally gravitate to the left of the sidewalks and paths, even the ones covered by fallen jacaranda petals. You know...maybe it's not my imagination. Maybe I am in a far away magical land. The land of Oz - and Dorothy didn't really want to leave either.
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So I had grand plans of posting every week of Term 4 as a countdown to our departure. It wasn't really because I'm looking forward to leaving as much as a way to try to get myself to be a little better about posting more frequently. Well, clearly that hasn't worked and I have just finished week 5 with clear omissions of week 6 and 7.
The last two weeks have been really full. My parents arrived on a Friday and met Olin and Alta at their bus stop - a surprise as neither of them knew my parents were going to stop back through on their round-the-world trip. It was so fun to see their faces through the bus window and to watch them leap off once it had come to a full stop (and they had scanned their Opal cards) and race across the grass to Oma and Opa. My dad's response sums up the feeling of the moment. "That was fun! Let's do it again tomorrow!" That weekend the kids and I took mom and dad on an 8km hike along the Bouddi Coastal Walk. It was a beautiful day and we even saw whales - our first in Australia. Tom met us at the end, fishing on the beach. After a quick snack we threw our hot bodies into the surf. That week at school Olin had an Oz Tag gala, so we pulled Alta out of school and Tom took everyone (except me - I had to work) to watch. Oz Tag is like rugby league but is played by pulling flags from a waist band - like flag football - not with contact the way traditional rugby is played. Olin scored three Tries (not exactly sure what that means) and my parents said he played well. That next weekend I took Friday and Monday off and we all piled into the car for a 7 hour road trip to the Snowy Mountains. The top thing on my 'list of things to do in Australia' was to climb Mt. Kosciusko, the highest peak in Australia. So we did! My dad, the kids, and I hiked together (a total of 13 km from the chair lift) and Tom and mom walked together as they both have knee injuries. We all made it! After Dad, the kids and I made it back to the chair lift, I decided I had time to take it all the way down to the bottom of the mountain and hike up to the chairlift to them while we waited for Tom and my mom. So off I went on a quick and steep 4 km hike. It was a grand trip. Alright - Time for some soundbites 1. Aussies celebrate Halloween, but not even close to the degree that it is celebrated in the states. Olin and Alta went to a Halloween party at the end of our street and then all the kids went from house to house on our street. Our little dead-end street had a lot of houses with candy, which isn't normal I've heard. 2. A lorikeet flew into the library after school on Tuesday. If I ever write a book about my adventures exchanging in Australia (which is unlikely), I thought that'd be a good title. 3. We were treated to our first 'authentic Aussie meal' with our Polish friends. One of our Polish friends is married to an Aussie chef, so they invited us over! During the conversation about foods that are 'truly Aussie' they all agreed that beet root was definitely on the list. 4. My dad has been walking to work with me nearly every morning which I'm going to miss when they leave on Monday. 5. My Year 8 class is going to be Skyping with my exchange teacher's 8th grade class next week. They are going to teach each other about how colonisation impacted Australia (my kids) and North America (Seward kids) and then will ask each other questions about living in Oz and AK! 6. This month we have a whole lot of friends coming to visit from the States. Julie and Matt are flying in from Washington, Justin and Jenelle are visiting from Juneau, and Mel and Drew will be here from Anchorage. Mel and Drew arrived for just a night this week and then took off to go to the Great Barrier Reef. We are really looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with them in a couple weeks when they all show up! 7. The magpies have stopped attacking me on my walk to work. Thank goodness! 8. The cat birds have returned to our area. Now if only the fruit bats would hurry back! 9. Anyone want to buy a car? We'll be selling our 2003 Pajero (236,000 km) next month. It has been super reliable and has taken us around NSW and Victoria without a single problem - well we had a flat tire, but that isn't the car's fault! 10. Today is November 12. On December 17 our Adventures in Oz will end. We have only about a month left, and the feeling we have inside is hard to explain. I'm trying to cherish the passion fruit on my morning yogurt and granola, appreciate every banana tree I walk past in the morning, and cherish the good moments I have with my students - my students, who have taught me so much about life in Australia and about myself. |
AuthorThe Liljemark's enjoy exploring the world. This blog chronicles our adventures. Archives
December 2017
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