What to Expect as a Relief Teacher

    

My eyes have been opened after working as a relief teacher for the last 6 months...

These are the things I've discovered.

1. The kids will think it’s a free-for-all day. They’ll greet the relief teacher with all the exuberance of an audience at the Colosseum, cheering an impoverished, starving Christian into the arena who’s about to face an annoyed lion that’s been starved for two days. That’s the nicest the kids will be to you all day.

2. The ‘real teachers’ will always have an elaborate plan in place for the relief teacher involving a reading and spelling rotation group system that necessitates a code breaker from the CIA to decipher. This will confuse the relief teacher to the point where they will want to rip their eyes from their sockets and fall to their knees in submission.

3. There will always be parents standing at the door at the first bell when the relief teacher is struggling to mark the roll online without a code and at the same time attempting to puzzle out the rotating reading group schedule which is due to start at that precise next second.

4. The parent/parents will stare at the relief teacher as if to say, “Where did they dig her up from?” which will undermine the relief teacher’s confidence for the remainder of the day.

5. The relief teacher will then spend the rest of the day worrying that the ‘helper parents’ have reported her to administration for incompetence.

6. The real teacher will often leave a loose plan for a science or maths lesson, involving dirt/mud/water experiments that they’ve been putting off doing all term because of all the dirt/mud/water.

7. These lessons will never go well for the relief teacher as there will always be a serious accident regarding mud/water/dirt on the classroom carpet.

8. The kids will be a combination of ‘extra helpful’ assistant teacher types and utter arseholes.

9. The relief teacher will have no ability to keep naughty kids in at lunch time because they will naturally have duty when they will wander around the playground asking every adult they see, “Is this area ‘C’ or ‘A’” whilst squinting at a tea-splattered mud map and being largely ignored.

10. The relief teacher will not go into the staffroom at lunchtime because they know that nobody will want to talk to them because they are virtual strangers/pariahs and they will be afraid they might accidentally use another teacher’s cup/milk/teabag and even if they didn’t perform this faux pas they’d still have to sit at the janitor’s table because they are the untouchables.

11. The only person who is ever nice to a relief teacher is the office lady and that’s only because they hate the real teachers because they perceive that the real teachers take them for granted. (I must amend this. Most teachers are very nice but awkward introverts like Pinky always feel left out in the company of strangers.)

12. Relief teachers get called in twenty minutes before the first bell so they often arrive at school with dirty hair and crap makeup which gives them a “Caravan-Living” ambience which might be one of the reasons they are so looked down on.



13. Relief teachers get to go home when the bell rings but usually the car park doesn’t clear for forty-five minutes so they have to spend the time twiddling their thumbs and picking up tiny pieces of paper from the classroom floor so the room is spotless and the teacher might ask for them to come back again.

P.S. I have NOTHING against people who live in caravans. I think it would be a lovely lifestyle.

Making a Meal of Meal Worms.

Real Live Meal Worm

For the past week, I’ve had a few days working at a small country school. When I call the roll at the beginning of each day, I get the kids to answer by telling me something about themselves. One thing I KNOW about country kids is that they LOVE animals.

All animals.

When I ask these country kids to reply to their name with the name of one of their pets, I’ve been getting responses like, Star, Blaze, Flicka and Gypsy. I’m assuming most of these kids have ponies.

I haven’t spotted anyone riding a horse to school but it wouldn’t surprise me if I did

The first thing I do when I walk into the classroom is to outline my classroom expectations. 

With the little kids I use a clapping routine to get their attention. They have to stop what they’re doing and repeat the clapping pattern back to me. 

Of course this doesn’t work as well with older kids who just ignore the teacher and turn disdainful noses up at baby things, but the Preps to Grade Threes always respond immediately and enthusiastically, as if it's a highly exulted ritual which MUST be obeyed. 

They freeze instantly, turn to face me like robots and slap their hands together like they’re in a full on Gospel choir.

I love their dedication.

The last lesson in my littlies class today was a science oriented lesson, where the kids had to inspect a colony  (crèche… meatball… ?) of Meal Worms. They’ve been nurturing these creatures for months and had to do a write up regarding the worms’ growth and activity level. 

The only thing I know about meal worms is that you can put them in Tequila.

Let me tell you right now, from what I observed, meal worms don’t lead very exciting lives. Although they are considered to be agricultural pests so it’s strange that the presumed children of farmers are currently nurturing them in virtual nurseries at the school. What if they escaped?

I could see sinister undulating movement under the sawdust in the container and I was nervous because it was my job to extract about ten meal worms for observation from a container with a pair of tweezers.

“Don’t squeeze too hard, Mrs Poinker,” instructed one little girl. “We wouldn’t want any of them to be hurt. We love them.”

“Do they bite?” I asked in trepidation, eyeing the rising and falling of the sawdust. “Just how big are these things?”

Meal Worm Enclosure

Snap.

I’d accidentally chopped one in half. I quickly buried it under a desiccated apple core before anyone saw it and started crying.

They were wiggly little buggers... with a death wish it seemed. Every time I picked one up it would struggle vehemently necessitating me to tighten my grip on the tweezers.

The kids were putting the slimy, oversized maggots on their hands and scrutinising them under magnifying glasses.

It was getting close to bell time and I need the kids' attention attention to pack up their belongings for home time.

“Clap, clap. Clap-clap-clap,” I pounded hard with my hands.

Twenty-five hands mimicked me.

I won’t say any more about the blood bath that ensued.

It wasn’t pretty.

Thankfully meal worms can miraculously regenerate their bodies after death in the same way that jellyfish can grow back from one tentacle..



That’s what I told the kids as they scraped the squished remains from their palms anyway.

How Often Does Your Doctor Think You Have Intercourse?

Grand Dog

I went to the doctor yesterday to get a referral for the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist. There was a man in his high nineties at the counter, yelling his head off at an extraordinary volume at the receptionist when I walked in. 

He wasn’t yelling abuse; he was just deaf and couldn’t hear himself.

As he began to lurch away from the counter on his walking stick, I leaped from my seat and rounded the corner to open the heavy door for him. The hall leading to the door was quite long and I had to stand holding the door for an inordinately awkward amount of time as he shuffled towards me chuckling to himself and shouting, “Goody goody girly! Goody goody girly!”

I wasn't sure if he was making fun of me or praising me.

I was the only person in the waiting room who was capable of opening the door because everyone else there was at least a hundred and ten and on a walking frame.

It’s the mountain vibe.

I saw my life flash before me.

When I finally got in to see the very young doctor he read my report from the audiologist and said in a matter of fact tone, “Well, the hearing in your right ear is rubbish. You’ll probably need a hearing aid.”

“Oh well,” I said in an optimistic manner but feeling quite deflated. “There’re worse things that could happen.”
“Yes,” he said staring at me intently. “You could be dead.”

I had actually been thinking about loss of sight but yes, death would be worse… wtf.



Then he wrote a referral to the specialist and in the letter he described me as a fifty-five year old, high functioning female.

I adopted quite a youthful spring in my step after I read it.

I went straight home to Scotto bragging loudly that the doctor thinks I’m ‘high functioning’ and how awesome and high functioning I was.

But the more I thought about it the more I became concerned that ‘high functioning’ was ‘doctor code’ for ‘high functioning alcoholic’.

Remember how the previous doctor had noted on my records that I drink three glasses of wine a day and had given me a stern and shameful lecture?

I should have told that doctor to bloody go and bloody well high function himself.

(If you’re a doctor and you’re reading this please confirm my suspicions.)

Also in the letter, it stated at the bottom that I take an antibiotic after intercourse.
I’m not quite sure of the relevance this has to being deaf in the right ear.

Unless the intercourse actually occurs in the ear how can this information be significant?

Besides, if it’s a medication related issue, how often do they assume I take the antibiotic? 

Couldn't the doctor have written, "Only takes antibiotic when the Cowboys win the NRL fixtures? Or only when Scotto beats Pinky at The Chaser? Or only every second Sunday when Pinky wakes up in a particularly good mood and has had one of those dreams about the Bondi Vet"? 

My son Hagar, his girlfriend, Meggles and my baby granddog, Diego came and stayed with us for a few days this week. 

I was so excited on the morning they were to arrive I went and sat in the driveway with the cat, waiting for them to pull into my street. I sat on a rock beside the letterbox for hours, like a kid waiting for the ice-cream truck. The neighbour, Anne, drove past me and waved with a puzzled look on her face.

But I loved having them stay so much. I adore all of them and can’t wait until Christmas when I’ll see all of the kids again.

Grand Dog and his parents at Elephant Rock

I babysat Diego for a day.

I didn’t work this week but I don’t care because I actually hate work and who needs money anyway? (Except to buy hearing aids and pay for specialist appointments).



I’d like a job where I can sleep in and I just have to babysit Chihuahuas all day.

Grandad Scotto and Grand Dog Diego

Suing the Government for Wasting my Time!

I tried the Pokemon Go thing and ran out of balls in 15 minutes.

I lost interest pretty much ten seconds after that and deleted the app before the bastards could find out stuff about me. 

I don’t want the FBI to know which pharmacies I go to buy my Nicorettes and hormone replacement therapy ointment from, thank you very much.

Frankly, I had more fun chasing the cat which appeared on my screen while I was chasing Shitapoo or whatever it’s called. I almost caught the cat mind you. Not that it was a challenge as she’s as fat as a butter ball lately.

But don’t get me wrong, I don’t think people who are playing this game are stupid...

But I do think if the players of Pokemon Go want to get paid for having lots of spare time for doing fudge all, they should spend their energy on getting a job at the Australian Electoral Commission so they can sit on their sweet heinie all day and play Pokemon Go to their heart’s incontinence* because that’s clearly what the people in the aforementioned public service department do there all day long in that silly, silly place.

I say this because despite sending the bloody updated information in February that we had MOVED RESIDENCE, we still received a notice of prosecution today for not voting in the recent elections from the STUPID idiots that run our previous electorate… even though we VOTED in the Tamborine (2000 kms away) electorate in MARCH and JULY and that is precisely our EXACT address where the FUDGEWITS sent the painfully knobbish infringement.

How hard is it to do your bloody job, twits?

I HATE the STUPID BUREAUCRATS who runs this dumb country! Now we have to waste our time telling them THEY'RE IDIOTS.

I hate that. I have far better things to do with my time.

It takes a lot of energy being angry and I think I’ll sue. I know people. In fact I know at least seven Sues who can be real bitches when they want to be. You should NEVER mess with a Sue. I say this from bitter experience.

I mean… how difficult is it to see you are sending a ‘failure to vote’ notice to someone who DOESN’T EVEN HAVE AN ADDRESS IN YOUR ELECTORATE? Surely that would ring a dingly dangly fudging bell? Even if the imbecile belfry was empty or filled to the brim with Gloria Jean’s cappuccinos and Krazy Kreme donuts (or whatever they’re called)… surely something would twig?

Who pays the postage for these ludicrously inane notices?

We do, that’s who pays my friend.

Who pays the incompetent public servants who have wasted their time publishing and sending these silly missives?

Us, the tax payer pays, that’s who.

Gah!

On another note, does anyone know of any public servant vacancies because I reckon I’d be really good at it.

* I know.

Five Months a Mountain Girl

Alpaca Farm 

Well, we’ve been mountain dwellers for five months today.

Since arriving here in God’s own country, I’ve gone deaf in one ear, had an elderly person’s disease and lost two teeth.

Ah… healthy mountain air, eh!

I have a flannelette checked shirt and a pair of Ugg boots so all l I need is one of those ear trumpets and I’ll look like a dead set hillbilly.

I had my hearing checked the other day and not only am I very bloody deaf in my right ear, it seems my left ear is well below the normal range as well.

I thought my hearing was pretty standard so it makes me wonder if I’ve just had bad hearing all my life and didn’t know it.

It would explain my off key, hideously abhorrent singing, my ability to sleep through a category four cyclone, and the way Scotto energetically recoils every time he gets in my car and the loud radio blasts his ears off.

The ear-tester lady asked me if I'd ever been near a violent explosion in my past. "Not that I recall," I replied hesitantly. I mean... I could have. Who'd remember that?

I did have a burst ear drum when I was little, and I also had a serious, untreated case of Scarlet Fever as a child… (which is known to cause hearing damage and which did stuff up me kidneys, hello neglectful parents) and a few weeks ago I had Shingles of the FRICKIN EAR… and yet this is the first hearing test I’ve ever had in my life.

I must add, my parents are pretty deaf too these days. Maybe we were all in a violent explosion and none of us remembers?

This is a typical conversation overheard when we go over for afternoon tea on Sundays.

Dad: Have you taken the scones out of the oven, Dorrie?
Mum: What?

Dad: Have you taken the scones out of the oven?”

Mum: Have I shaken the stones out of what coven?
Dad: I SAID, HAVE YOU TAKEN THE SCONES OUT OF THE BLOODY OVEN YOU SILLY WOMAN?



Mum: “THERE’S NO NEED TO SHOUT AT ME YOU CRANKY OLD COOT!”

Five minutes later.

Dad: “THE SCONES ARE BURNING, DORRIE!”

MUM: “WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT ME YOU DODDERING OLD GIT???”

At this point, Scotto and I usually say we don't really feel like scones anyway and just a cup of tea will be fine thanks very much.

We all used to laugh at my ninety year old Granddad behind his back because he was deaf as a bloody pole. Poor Granddad.

Clearly the deafness is hereditary.

But I’m only in my fifties!

What’s the next thing to go?

God… I beg you, please don’t take my liver.

Take my ability to speak if you must. That would be a relief to many.

But PLEASE not my liver.

I need it for livery activities… like drinking wine and eating fatty cheese.

Aside from my body literally (not in a non-teenage manner of speaking but ACTUALLY) falling apart, Scotto and I have thoroughly enjoyed our time on the Gold Coast so far.

From the Lamington Mountain plateau to the ten surf clubs we’ve lunched at, it’s been a delight. I must say that the Gold Coast and its hinterland is the best part in the world I’ve ever been to.

Freezing one day...

Last weekend up at O'Reilly's 

Bikini weather the next weekend...

Rainbow Bay on Saturday

Aside from the scenery there are different exclusive shops here too, like IKEA and Aldi and Christian Louboutin and Domayne and Calvin Klein Underwear and Tiffany’s and other stuff I never go to (mainly because they’re too posh for deaf, toothless, flannelette-wearing hillbilly people).

I’ve travelled to the east and west coast of the United States, been to the Netherlands, Belgium, France and all over the United Kingdom. I’ve visited various places in Asia, but nothing compares to the Gold Coast and its hinterland.

I think we’ll be staying here.

And I can always get a hearing aid. I wonder if Aldi sells them in the middle aisle?



What’s the best place you’ve ever lived?

Who Are You According to Facebook?

So I just did a Facebook quiz which promised to tell me who I really am. I really wanted to know because I’ve always wondered who I am so I did it and I was very happy with the result. I know which Friends character/Game of Thrones character/Colour/Punctuation Mark I am… but I wasn’t sure who I really am. You know, who I REALLY am.

I knew when I was answering the questions… (particularly the one asking me if I self-tan or not) that it was just a trick to find out more about me so that ‘someone’ could target their advertising more accurately, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to know who I am.

I’m a thirtyish female.

Blonde, apparently.

I wonder why idiots such as myself have an irresistible urge to even click on these rubbish things.

Is it because we are looking for answers to the relentless and tedious journey that is our lives? Or is it because we get drunk and silly and just want a release from watching Border Patrol?

All I know is that I really wish I looked like that chick.

Anyway, three things happened this week that were quite dramatic;

1. My daughter, Lulu dropped in for a few days. The tall, skinny, filly of a girl managed to eat her way through quite a lot of food in three days, shocking and delighting my parents at the same time what with her Viking-type appetite and Amazonian presence. She’s a tooth girl that’s for sure.

2. Speaking of teeth, I visited my periodontist who said, “Relax, don’t be nervous, I won’t be doing anything today.” And then ten minutes later said, “So we’ll be pulling three of your teeth out today.” And then I lay back in the chair and sort of thought about it, and then I sat bolt upright and said, “Yeah… no. That won’t actually be happening, buddy.”

And it DIDN’T. I thought dentists were supposed to save teeth????

3. I got a proper job for a bit. Teaching a real class normal stuff. I start tomorrow so I’m sure I’ll have lots to say about it later. I put a Harmony Auburn rinse in my hair this arvo in anticipation.

I’m still deaf in one ear (which I neglected to mention in the job interview) but I bought a corporate style type of pants thing and a jacket, two new tops and a felt hat from Portmans in Harbour Town to make me appear more professional and to make up for my hearing impairment.

I’ve also been investigating a few dodgy websites on how to be a fairly good teacher.



Wish me luck for my first day tomorrow. Bleeaarrrrghhhh.

Medical History of a Wine Drinker

I finally went to a doctor on the mountain the other day because over the last few weeks I've lived with an ear that’s pretty much one hundred per cent deaf… plus I’ve had an itchy, brown spot which rudely appeared near my eye six months ago which I’ve been watching with suspicion, plus a red spot on my nose emerged which I assumed was a skin cancery thing and my nose would have to be unceremoniously removed toot sweet. 

Not that I'd miss my nose on an aesthetic basis.

But after some frantic, medico-google-research I eventually deducted I had a severe case of filthy ear wax, plus a life threatening melanoma, so I booked in for a skin check and an ear syringe job. 

No biggy...

What I didn’t know was that this doctor was one of those annoyingly ‘thorough’ types. You know, the ones who do their jobs properly and take your blood pressure and insist on blood tests and stuff.

Plus he asked me some highly personal questions about how much ‘akahol’ I drink.

I tried to remain resolute. “Three drinks a day!” I declared with a certain doe-eyed innocence.

“Every day?” his eye brow was raised as he typed the information into the manifesto. “You know that’s too much for a woman. Sometimes men drink that much because they’re… not feeling good about their life…”

“I love my life,” I retorted indignantly. “I’m not depressed. I just love the taste.”

All this time I was strongly suspecting he was doing what most doctors do and tripling the amount I admitted to drinking in his head.

I know they do that.

Good news: no skin cancer. 

Apparently my brown spot is merely a barnacle (his words).

It seems I’m growing barnacles now.

What next?

He looked in both my ear holes. No wax. My eardrums were all out there, shining like dew-encrusted mushrooms.

That’s not very good because… why am I deaf in the ear hole?

So now I have to go for hearing tests.

The deafness could indicate glue ear, nerve damage from the recent shingles attack, or maybe a brain tumour.

Surprisingly, I’m suspecting nerve damage. I feel a brain tumour is very unlikely because I haven’t had a headache for years.

I told the lovely doctor I most probably wouldn’t go for the blood tests he wanted to prescribe because I’m afraid of medical tests and doctors.

He looked a bit pissed off. “We aren’t here to hurt you, you know,” he said.

“I know,” I nodded with expert contrariness. "You doctors are all lovely." 

“Why are you afraid, then?” he asked, his face a picture of befuzzlement.

“I’m just scared of the results,” I mouthed silently.

“But that’s just silly. We can’t make you do anything,” he cajoled. “Even if your liver is shot to pieces you could still have one drink a day.”
“I know,” I agreed. “Print out the tests and we’ll see… maybe I’ll go.”

Maybe I will.


Or maybe I FUDGING WON’T.

It's a Myth Sex Keeps You Warm, Jon Snow!

Jon Snow looking very pissed off.

"It’s a myth that sex keeps you warm, you know nothing, Jon Snow."

That's what I said to Scotto this morning.

Since moving to the mountain the cat has doubled in size. I think the cold weather agrees with her. Even though we’ve been accidentally feeding her twice as much as normal she still seems insatiably hungry.

Murdered in the Battle of the Bastards

Three of the dogs have gained kilos of extra weight… as have Scotto and I. I tried to use the excuse that I was just fluffy because my winter coat had come in but you can’t lie to yourself forever.

My daughter, Lulu, is coming to visit next week and I’m sure she’ll notice our double chins and pudgy cheeks. She won’t notice the fat anywhere else because it’s swaddled in tracksuits, large coats, Ugg boots and beanies.

As Jon Snow said on the telly last night, winter is bluddy here.

I’ve been putting a hot water bottle in the dogs’ bed before I call them in at night.

Willy the Silky Terrier goes straight out into the yard and sunbathes for hours in the morning.

I’m sleeping with undesirably pilled, matted with dirt encrusted soles, bed socks on.

What I wonder is how anyone procreates in this sort of weather. I know people joke about having a nooky to keep themselves warm but how does one have a nooky without taking one’s snugly tracksuit bottom off?

Even when Scotto gets up to go to the loo in the middle of the night, I swear viciously at him under my breath for allowing freezing air to get under the covers. How people could think about rubbing their shrivelled, frigid feet together (let alone other bodily parts) is beyond me.

How did Iceland ever become populated?

I suppose if there was a fire and a bearskin rug and maybe some Vicks Vaporub involved…

Mum and Dad have a fire place. We turn up on Sunday afternoons like a pair of Dickensian urchins rubbing our fingerless mittens together and staring in at the window at the hot scones and jam and cream Dad bakes.

Sometimes they let us in for a crumb or two. Sometimes they just pretend to be bumbling, old, deaf folk and ignore the doorbell. Bastards.

I always thought cold weather would entice me to dress up in romantic flowing scarves and knee-length, sensual leather jackets but instead it’s turned me into a dirty old bat who’s too shivery to wash her greasy hair and get out of her three day old tracky dacks.

If I shaved the hair on my legs I could collect the remnants and create a convincing toupee for Donald Trump they’re so long. He’d be a brunette but that might be an improvement anyway. You can’t trust blonde politicians.

Anyway, back to the bonking thing. Does anyone have any tips about cold weather and sexual relations? Are there special under garments with strategically placed holes and flaps us Northern Queenslanders don’t know about? 

Can you purchase onesies with poop holes while we’re at it? 

If so where do I buy them? Breast and Less? David Mones? Blowes? KTart?
Otherwise, I’m sorry to say the Poinker family tree stops here. It’s a no nooky zone until winter is gone.

Teacher's Magical Last Day of Term

I was miraculously asked to work a relief day on the last day of term yesterday. Teachers are rarely away on the last day of term.

The schools down here, all do a thing called Munch and Crunch.

Munch and Crunch is a mid-morning, ten minute break where the kids are allowed to bring a piece of fruit into the classroom and eat it in order to refresh their lagging brain cells. 

Whist the concept has some merit; I find the fermenting stench of mandarin peel and apple cores festering in the bin for the remainder of the day to be appalling. The fruit-ingestion after effects involving heavy, silent farts don’t help improve the general classroom atmosphere much either.

I watched a little girl eating her banana as if she was eating corn on the cob. She took little nibbles around the circumference until there was just a long, greasy, brown banana core left. I can’t tell you if she eventually ate it or not because I had to turn away and gag in the corner.

We ran a show and tell session while they were munching and crunching.

Someone had brought their magician kit in.

I’ve always hated magicians ever since I was a kid and discovered they weren’t really magic AT ALL.

At the age of ten I was gifted a magician’s kit for Christmas, read the ‘magician’s manual’ and quickly realised that there was no authentic magic involved and it was all trickery. My faith and adoration of the world of magic was sullied in a most grubby and corrupt manner.

Since then, whenever a fraud in the guise of a magical person such as David Copperfield, appears on the screen, I spew out abuse at the telly, much to the annoyance of everyone else in the lounge room. I rant incessantly at the duplicitous and deceptive tricksters and how disappointing the entire magic bullshit thing is until someone finally changes the channel.

So when a seven year old wanted to deliver a magic show with his brand new magic kit yesterday, I was understandably contemptuous and cynical.

“I hope he pulls a rabbit out of a hat!” enthused one of the audience of seven year olds in the classroom.

“I hope he doesn’t,” I snarled. “There’s an $80000 fine for having a rabbit in Queensland.”
Harry Potter flaunted his magician’s hat around the class for inspection. There was much oohing and ahing.

There was nothing in the hat, I swear, but the next minute, after a wave of his plastic wand… out comes a bloody rabbit.

Don’t worry it was a stuffed rabbit. Nothing the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries would get their knickers in a twist about I can assure you.

It was a bit impressive for a seven year old though I must admit even though I knew it was indeed, chicanery.

Or was it?

Then little Harry put on his cape and did something deceptive behind his back for a few (uncomfortable) minutes and transformed a red and yellow scarf into a blue and orange scarf. WOWSER!

“Say, abracadabra,” he instructed a bug-eyed seven year old in the audience.

“Abracadabra zoo-la-moolooty-tooty-frooty-schmooty!” screamed the over-excited class member who was perhaps attempting to steal the limelight.

And guess what? The trick still worked. Even though the incantation was altered, the scarf STILL CHANGED COLOURS!

I was beginning to doubt my sceptical view. Perhaps this child really did possess some true magical powers.

But just as I began to succumb to the mysticism of the supernatural, Harry Potter began showing everyone in the class the false bottom in his magician’s hat and the spot where the squished, stuffed rabbit resided. This so called magician was flagrantly revealing to all and sundry how the scarves turned inside out and basically giving away all his bloody secrets.

Just as I thought.

Another faker. A very honest faker, but still a faker.

I still detest magicians.


And circuses. I hate circuses. Filthy things they are. They smell of cabbage.

What's the Worst Job You Can Imagine?

When I was a kid the worst job I could imagine doing was working as a garbage man. Back then the garbage men were up before dawn, had to run from the truck and pick up the stinky, overflowing bins from the gutter before manually tipping the rubbish into the truck. I completely understood why Dad left them a six pack of beer at Christmas.

These days the garbos work pretty much normal hours and sit in the cab of an air-conditioned, fully mechanical garbage truck which does all the work for them.

Now I’m older, I think the worst job in the world would be a portable toilet cleaner, a roadkill collector or one of those traffic controllers who holds up stop signs in front of you when you’ve spent too much time faffing your hair in the morning and you’re already running late for work.

Traffic Controllers: the people we swear at under our breath for making us wait impatiently on the side of the road whilst a tractor does a pointless reverse pirouette in the dust.

Firstly, I couldn’t bear all the standing, especially standing in the sweltering sun or the freezing cold wind for hours on end. Secondly, I couldn’t bear the tedious boredom of it all.

Over the last six weeks I’ve had to drive to work passing through some roadworks and bizarrely, the traffic controller guy and I struck up an unanticipated rapport.

For some reason Mr Traffic Controller thought my canary yellow Suzuki with the PINKY P number plates was hysterically amusing. Every time my car, Golden Boy, rolled past him at forty kilometres an hour, he’d start performing a royal flourish as he ushered me past, waving flamboyantly and doing a little jig.

Whenever he spotted Golden Boy waiting in the queue of cars his face would invariably break into a huge grin of recognition and a few times he even yelled something out to me as I crawled past. I’d just laugh in an over exaggerated manner, wave back flirtatiously and give him the thumbs up in a cheeky Pinky P style.

I began to really look forward to seeing Mr Traffic Controller; he was part of my morning routine for six weeks.

On Friday, Scotto and I both had the day off so we drove through the roadworks in his Bat Car on the way to do some errands. As we drove past Mr Traffic Controller, I rolled down the window and Scotto stopped the car.

“Hello!” I beamed. “I’m Pinky P!”

“PINKY! One of me regulars!” he shouted with gusto. “I wondered where you were today!”

We had a little chat and he told us his name was Paul. He told us he recognised Scotto’s car too.

Paul is the kind of person I’d like to be, someone who embraces life and finds the positives in a every situation, a human who makes an effort to connect with other humans.


I suppose it’s not the job that matters… it’s what you do with it.

Golden Boy

The Dab

My four week contract teaching year six finished at the school last Friday but I was called back for two days this week for some relief teaching. That meant me scooting from grade to grade in my highly inappropriate high heels and dragging my Mary Poppins-like bag everywhere.

On Tuesday, the words, “You have to teach grade twos sport in the afternoon session” struck fear into my inner soul and I felt my loins shudder (not sure what loins are but something deep inside me shuddered anyway).

Teaching sport is not my forte. Especially teaching sport to people who are less than three feet in height.

As it turned out, I serendipitously (made word up) happened to be in possession of a pool noodle at that exact moment (what sort of teacher doesn’t travel with a fudging pool noodle) so I was able to adapt my drama game of ‘Fruit Salad’ into a game where everyone ran around hysterically whilst being chased by a ‘pineapple’ with a pool noodle… thus getting exercise.

Exercise= sport.

The grade twos bloody loved it too. There were accolades all round from the minions.

“We LOVE you Mrs Polinkish!” they screamed.

The parents picking up the preps probably weren't all that impressed with all the screaming and violent activity but you can't please everyone.

I turned up today expecting to be in charge of a year five class but was told that my morning was to be spent in year one.

OR MOR GORD. I bloody love grade ones. There was this one little flitterby gibbet with no teeth and freckles and I just wanted to hoik him on my shoulders and take him home. So cute!

I don’t know how grade one teachers ever get cranky with them they’re so adorable those little fudgers.

Lol.

I have a fan base at the school now. When I’m on duty all these small critters come sidling up to me and whisper in secretive tones, “Hello. Are you Mrs. Poinker? I’ve heard you dab. Can you do it for us?”

Apparently I’m a hero because I ‘dabbed’ in class one day for the grade sixes.

It’s a rumour that’s been circulating throughout the school, perpetuated through older siblings and cousins and now I’ve been labelled as ‘the teacher who dabbed’. I’m a veritable legend.

Either they think I’m cool or an idiot. I still haven’t figured it out. I won't do it for them of course. Got to keep the mystery alive.


But that’s the end of my booked work at present. I’m in limbo which is a weird feeling. I wonder if I’ll ever work again?

Pinky and Mr Stiffy

You know how I had a month’s contract at a school and part of that contract involved taking sixteen, eleven year old, rabid boys to an interschool football match every Friday, right?

Remember how I was justifiably freaking out about it?

Well I thought I’d use my nous and employ one of the dads who I’d seen coming along to support the team. This particular dad was helping the teacher with drills and stuff so, being the opportunistic lush that I am, I used my radar skills and honed straight in on the unsuspecting victim's son.

“So, will your lovely dad be coming to every match?” I needled Horatio, the son of the man in question the next week.

“Yep,” Horatio piped back, his head cocked winsomely to one side.

“What’s your Dad’s name?” I wheedled. “I’m thinking of getting him a thank you present, you know, like some beers, for all the work he’s been doing.”

“Mr Stiffy,” Horatio replied. “That’s his name.”

I gulped. “Mr Stiiffy? Did you say Mr St-i-ff-y?”

“Yep, and he likes Lowennbrau.” Little Horatio responded without missing a beat.

Anyway, despite the name, I still hoped Mr Stiffy would turn up to each of the four football games this fool of a woman was left in charge of and the six pack of Lowenbrau would be totally worth the financial outlay.

The first week, Mr Stiffy turned up and coached the team and was bloody awesome… but the second week he was a no show... which was monumentally disappointing and I failed as a footy coach and we lost the damn game.

The third week, the match was cancelled due to inclement weather and by the fourth and final week I began to doubt the value of my promised investment.

“Dad’s coming tomorrow! Don’t forget the Lowenbrau!” shouted Horatio on the Thursday of week four.

So I bought the bloody Lownbrau and made the boys make a card of gratitude (from themselves).

God forbid Mr Stiffy would think I was trying to crack on to him or something. I mean to say, he’d only actually helped me with one fudging game when you think about it. Why was I even giving him a fudging present?

And then I had to check his name was really what it was

“How do you spell Stiffy?” I asked the team captain as I did the bubble writing on the card.

“S-T-Y-F-F-E-Y,” the captain pronounced carefully.

I suppose that’s a bit of an improvement on STIFFY, I thought despondently.

Whatever.

Anyway after the presentation of the Lowenbrau (when I sort of coughed as I said his name), Mr Styffey was super keen to put extra effort into his coaching in that last game and our team won the match and now they're in the finals.

My work is done.

Again.



I’m a fudging footy legend.

What's the worst name you've had to deal with?

The Power of Valuing People

Scotto and I have been down here on the Gold Coast for three (and a bit) months and although I was worried about securing a job, I’ve actually managed to work for almost the entire of second term. 

The first school, where I spent a month teaching drama, was lovely (albeit stressful), but the second school where I’ve been teaching a grade 6 class for the last month has been positively amazing.

Despite having to hide the fact I was suffering the agony of shingles in the neck and head (of which I think I’m finally at the end of that dark tunnel of hell by the way), the entire experience has been absolutely wonderful.

The school had me sitting in professional development training workshops for twelve hours (during school time) while a relief teacher relieved the relief teacher (me).

How amazing is that? They were paying me to learn.

The teachers are friendly, the students are intelligent, capable and caring and the tuckshop food is indisputably the best I’ve encountered.

There’s a coffee shop in the carpark that sells real cappuccinos. I could get a take-away if I wanted for my drive back up the mountain. 

I have a multi-million dollar view from my classroom. 

Instead of a dusty old car park which I would previously have stared wistfully at, seeking out my car, wishing I was in it driving home at high speed, I now look out at a lake with swans and pelicans and other water loving birdies gliding over its pristine surface. I feel like I’m in a fairy tale princess palace set on a verdant and majestic hillock (whatever a hillock is).

There’s something VERY different about this school.

Not only do they seem to have a strong sense of value and respect for their students’ mental, physical and academic welfare, they also seem to deeply care about their teachers, even the scabby old relief teacher who’s staggered in from North Queensland with her piece of paper from Yokel's 'R Us University* and a handful of dodgy references**.

It was because I felt so appreciated right from the very first day at this school that I suffered through the torture of errant, shooting nerve pain and turned up every day with a twisted, agonised smile on my face. 

It was because I felt respected as a professional that I didn’t just call in sick and be done with it. It was because of the faith my employer had put in me that I didn’t let them down.

I believe this school follows the philosophy that if you value people, they will live up to your expectations.

It makes me wonder what else I can do for my students to show them how much they’re respected and what results it might produce.

Thoughts?

*Actually a normal university I was just being silly.

** References are not at all dodgy except for maybe one.

Mingling with Shingles

Whenever I’d thought about shingles (the illness, not the chalet-style roof tiles), I’d picture Albert Steptoe and his raggedy, grubby, fingerless gloves. I thought it was an older person’s disease; the type of older person who was a rag and bone man and lived in festering filth and had various, named rats as pets.

The nurse from the medical practice just rang and said that according to the results of the swab, that excruciating pain in my neck, head and ear and the itchy rash across the right side my chest, neck and back is most definitely the result of the shingles virus.

Enter… filthy, old, festering woman.

I cried when the nurse told me on the phone because my head was hurting so badly at the time. I cried when I walked in the door yesterday after work because I’d been barely surviving a living hell, all day. I’d take some painkillers and they’d dull the unbearably vicious stabbing for an hour, but then I have to wait for three more hours before I could take any more.

I cried again last night because even three glasses of red wine and two Mersyndols couldn’t completely settle the rogue ganglion of nerves on my right upper torso.

I’m actually conversing with the pain… abusing it in fact. “Fudge off!” I yell at it every time I get a particularly brutal spasm. “Fudge off, ashmole! Nobody asked you to chime in!”

Scotto just came home with some ointment.

I’m spreading ointment on my shingles. How attractive does that sound, Harold?

The ointment contains capsaicin which works by burning the nerve endings and somehow tricking them into not hurting. The trouble is I can’t put it on my scalp because of that stuff on my scalp called hair. Oh bugger it. I’m rubbing it in anyway. But the label says it will take four weeks to work anyway. I’ll be in the nut house by then for sure.

It could be worse, I know. I could have a tummy bug. There’s nothing worse than feeling nauseous. Or I could have the flu. I hate having a fever and that feeling of not being able to breathe. Or I could have something terminal.

What’s a bit of vice-like agony between friends, eh?

You can get a needle to prevent shingles.

If I’d only known about it.

Anyone who’s had chicken pox can develop shingles and it’s especially likely if you’re over 50 years of age. My advice is to go and have the vaccine because it’s a bloody horrible thing.

Plus, I just found a new red lump on my chin. Soon it will creep insidiously onto my face and people will think I have leprosy or just plain old school sores.

Things ain’t cooking in my kitchen, a strange affliction has come over me (told you I was going nuts).

Feel free to send flowers.



Have you ever had shingles or do you know someone who had them and survived?

In the Neck of Timing.

The neck.

Since Friday morning until now, I’ve been in excruciating pain.

It’s felt as if I have a knife, gleefully twisting in my jugular region, every ten seconds, just for the spite of it.

Via Google I self-diagnosed shingles after a bubbly, red rash appeared on my collar bone… but then I realised that the rash was where I’d burned myself after over-exuberance with the heating pad I’d had permanently attached to me all weekend.

By Tuesday (this morning), the pain had crept up to the back of my head and behind my ear. It was unrelenting. Every ten seconds I’d get a savage stab of pain that would cause me to twitch in an unattractive fashion akin to a convulsing, box jelly fish victim.

“Are you alright, Mrs Poinker?” my grade six students kept asking when I repeatedly jerked and winked at them like an unco-ordinated drunken pirate.

It’s been a nightmare. Even driving to school with a painful pulsating throb in my neck was a trial. I was yelling at myself in the rear vision mirror I was so cranky.

So today I went to a proper physiotherapist and now the acute, intense and piercing sensations are only occurring every half hour and easing. It’s such a relief. I bloody love physios.

One thing I was really looking forward to when I arrived home today at 6 o'clock, was a hot shower and the sensation of scalding water beating down hard on the compacted muscular constriction that is the isthmus between my shivering torso and my pin-sized head.

Imagine my horror when Scotto (who’d had a day working from home), informed me that he’d lovingly replaced my shower faucet in order to bring me into the twenty-first century. 

He’d installed a fudging fancy one.

It takes me at least three weeks to acclimatise to a new shower faucet. 

It takes me at least three weeks to work out how to stand in exactly the correct position to maximise the benefit of the stream, how to adjust the taps to achieve the ultimate temperature and at least three weeks to get to know how the balance of temperature control and pressure works in order to be able to have a shower that makes me feel like a fudging Mother of Dragons, not a cold, bedraggled rat chasing around the intermittent drips endeavouring to get a bit wet.

If I have a bung neck, the last thing I want is a new shower faucet that looks like a model of an alien spaceship from the movie set of Independence Day.

But, I had to be nice because it’s the thought that counts.

It was sweet of him to think of me but… TIMING!!!

Hot showers and baths are a religious experience when you’re in pain.

How about you? Do you get to know your shower faucet intimately?

No rude comments, thank you very much.

What the Fortune Teller Said...

As it was Scotto’s birthday, we’ve spent the entire weekend celebrating. Yesterday Mum and Dad took us to the Fox and Hound, a pub which was transported (like the convicts) all the way from England to Australia because some fella missed his local pub in England. 

I’m not even fibbing. Read about it here.

Outside the Fox and Hound

Half the pub is done up in the English tradition and the other half is Irish. There was a wedding happening in the Irish half so we dined with the Queen. I had beer-battered cod and chips served on newspaper.

The fox must have suffered a bit on the journey over I think because it barely moved the entire time.

Poor little sick fox.

Today, Scotto and I went to a winery on the mountain for lunch which was lovely, and then we went meandering down the street to seek out an adventure.

Tamborine Mountain Winery

 

Because I’ve had a vicious spasm in my neck for the last three days, I suggested we stop at a massage place I’d spotted on the way. Normally I buck up about strange people touching me, but my neck has been soooo painful, I was desperate.

We entered the establishment but there was no-one about, except that we could hear someone giving a Tarot card reading in a curtained off room just past the door. 

We waited patiently, scanning the books about angel visitations, chakras and admiring the dream catchers whilst eavesdropping on the boring love prospects of the person having the reading behind the curtain.

I noticed a trashy detective novel, a pack of ciggies and a lighter on the counter and hoped they belonged to the massage person who might have slipped off to the loo or something. My neck was killing me.

Finally the curtain drew back and a frightened looking person scuttled out, paid their bill and suddenly we were left facing the fortune teller.

“Any chance of a massage?” I asked hopefully.

“No. The massage guy didn’t turn up today. Would you like a Tarot card reading instead?” the lady rasped.

I looked at Scotto who just shrugged non-committedly. He always leaves the big decisions to me.

“Okay,” I sighed. “But feel free to have a ciggie first.” 

I’m nice like that.

She looked at me with a knowing smile and a wink.

After her ciggie break, we sat opposite her in the small room and she asked me to shuffle the cards.

Naturally I dropped them all over the floor.

“Did you get them all?” Scotto asked in an urgent tone, worried I could initiate an entirely bogus reading by accidentally missing a card under our feet which could possibly reveal a potential billion dollar windfall from Lotto.

The Tarot card reader laid the cards out in neat piles.

“Is there anything you don’t want me to tell you?” she asked, cocking her milky, glass eye at me in a diabolical fashion. (That’s made up.)

“Yes,” I said. “Please don’t tell me when I’m going to die.”

She picked up THE FIRST TWO CARDS, looked at them closely. “Okay,” she said and then hurriedly threw the cards aside.

What the actual fudge? It seemed this whole reading was a farce. If I’m about to die so soon then why was I spending twenty-five bucks to have my bloody fortune read?

Then she said that either Scotto or I have a psychic ability. She said that one of us is the type who answers all the questions on quiz shows and doesn’t know where they get the answers from.

Well that would be Scotto, but that’s only because when we watch The Chase, he shouts out the answers before I have a chance, he’s often wrong, and the answers he does get correct are from pop culture knowledge he’s acquired from watching the bloody Simpsons.

I reckon she really meant that I was the psychic one because I suggested she go have a smoke and how did I know that she smoked? (I could smell it on her as well actually).

Anyway, then she started telling me some very strange things.

1. One of my son’s girlfriends is about to have a white-haired baby. (Not entirely impossible.)

2. A middle-aged freeloading man is going to come and live with us soon. (Who? Please don't, whoever you are. I don't like freeloaders or random middle-aged men.)

3. I’m soon to be awarded with glory and recognition for all my hard work over the last thirty years. (About bloody time.)

4. And then she told us something else is going to happen that is really terrible and it made me cry and Scotto had to hold my hand and pass me the tissues.

She made us tape the whole session and gave us her phone number and said if all the stuff doesn’t come true we’re to ring her and get a full refund.


I don’t like fortune tellers anymore. And my neck still hurts.

Do you believe in fortune tellers?

Ice Ice Baby

Sometimes, before I make my way up the mountain after work, I call in to the local Coles. It’s a colourful locale, full of a diverse cross section of the general society.

That’s code for, I think it’s full of people on ice.

I’m not a snob, you know that. I’m as rough as guts. I wear Ugg boots for God's sake.

But some of the people who frequent the shopping centre frighten even me. I don’t know if it’s the seventy year old ladies with full body tattoos, the men dressed in weeny shorts and nothing else except a pink, fluorescent beanie or maybe it’s the nine months pregnant teenagers walking around with no shoes on and a ciggie hanging out their mouths, swearing obscenities as they push the eight month old toddler in its stroller… but something unnerves me about the place.

Today, as I was buying my four dogs their three thousand dollars’ worth of weekly dog food, I saw a lady swaggering around the dog food aisle wearing a t-shirt with “ALL PEDOFILES SHOULD BE TORTURED” printed on it, right across her alarmingly swinging, massive boozookas.

I stood behind her later at the checkout, quietly pondering on whether I should politely inform her that ‘pedophiles’ was spelt incorrectly, but I thought better of it. She could have felled me with one vicious thrust of her upper torso.

Besides, maybe she actually meant ‘pedofiles’, as in, people who keep files on feet, or something.

Why she would want them to be tortured is a puzzle though.

Last week, after I’d just packed my groceries in the back of my car and had slithered into my seat, relieved I’d survived another shopping expedition in downtown Scaryville and was starting to back out of the park, I noticed there was a car which had pulled up behind me and parked, rudely blocking my exit.

“Here we go,” I thought in disappointment, “This is my first experience with road rage. This person is getting out of the car and will punch me through the window and I’ll be a vegetable for the rest of my life. I hope it’s quick and painless. I hope they’re not actually on ice and try to eat my face because that would definitely hurt.”

But the lady getting out of the car and coming towards me looked normal. Very normal actually, and she was smiling.

“Hello!” she grinned. “I thought I’d introduce myself. I’m Linda!”

It took me about five seconds of idiotic blinking with my mouth open before I realised who it was.

Linda!

I’ve been in contact via blogging and social media with Linda for about three years but we’d never met in real life. She’d spotted my car, Golden Boy!

Wow. How miraculous!

She’s gorgeous. Just like I thought she’d be.

I knew we’d meet one day.

This is why I love blogging. I have friends all over the world and that world is getting smaller every day.

But tell me, are you frightened by the ice epidemic? I see weird, unpredictable people around a lot more. Or am I just being an old lady?

The Footy Files

I took the grade six boys to the school boy’s footy fixtures, last Friday.

I’m sure my colleagues at my previous school would be rocked off their socks to hear this little fact, me being such a precious pernickety poof about standing in the sun for extended periods and all.

As a drama teacher (not a fudging footy coach) it was paramount I wear the correct costume on the day, so naturally I wore my one and only Cowboy’s supporter’s shirt in order to underline the fact that I am, in fact, a solid footy chick. It was the same shirt I purchased six months ago to bullshit to my former colleagues that I follow the footy. I’ve worn it twice now.

Me and the lads got on fine on the bus. I adopted the footy macho vernacular very well I thought.

I promised them if they won their game, I’d perform a ‘dab’.

I didn’t know what the fudge they were talking about but they promised me that a ‘dab’ wasn’t rude or humiliating, so I reluctantly agreed.

Before we left on the bus trip, I showed them a photo of me with the NRL grand final trophy the North Queensland Cowboys won last year and took on a progressive tour of local schools. 

Me and the NRL trophy.

One young man peered at the photograph and cautiously commented, “Noice one, Mrs Poinker. Is that a dancing trophy or something?”

“Look again, buddy boy,” I drawled. “That ain’t no fancy dancin’ schmancin’ trophy. What do ya think I am? A pansy or something?”

“Coooor!” he exclaimed when he finally realised. “It’s the NRL trophy!”

Why he thought I’d be showing him a dancing trophy is anyone’s guess.

When we arrived at the footy field I was relieved to see one of the Dads had turned up to do the warm ups because I would have had to demonstrate yoga or interpretive dance as a warm up and I don’t think it would have gelled with the young guns.

I was also extremely pleased to see that the other team we were playing were half the size of our boys. “Get on there and slaughter ‘em,” I hissed. “Throttle the little sooks.”

Anyway, our team won 46 to 10.

Their team was comprised of about 40 tiny ingénues whereas we only had 13 kids (albeit huge), so it wasn’t entirely unfair.

I did the ‘dab’ (in front of all the parents as well) since they’d won the game but I still don’t know what it bloody means. The boys all laughed their heads off so I’m a bit worried.


Any enlightenment? Will I be struck off the teacher’s registration board?