heat addled...

Warning, whiny emo post coming up. {via}

I feel flat, demotivated...

I went to school this morning until 11 when I bailed. I'm sick of telling people that I still don't have a job, still hoping, 50 rejections to my 52 applications, yes, hopefully I'll hear from the school I volunteer at, yes, I'm keeping my phone close at hand, no, they haven't called.
But you'll be right, you'll be right.
And anyway, isn't there a teacher shortage?
Yes, unless you're a graduate.

There's a job I should apply for today but I can't bring myself to do it. I haven't had so much as a look-in, so a general sense of apathy has settled, and I've adopted a 'why should I bother?' mantra. Which is terrible, I know, but that's how I'm feeling.

And I feel worse, still, for digging myself into a kind of hole. I didn't apply for summer jobs when I finished Uni because I had relied on doing emergency relief teaching, which now, thanks to bureaucracy, won't happen... still, I booked a trip to visit Dad in January which, if I hadn't done, I might have been working the last couple of weeks, taken the trip to NZ in December, come home and worked somewhere all throughout January. As it stands,  I have such a mishmash of time before February (when school starts) that certainly nobody will hire me.

I went to lunch with my step-mother & step-grandma and ordered calamari & a pot of green tea. My part of the bill came to $28 and I just about cried in the damn cafe thinking I should have gone with the cheap salad instead.

And it's hot today, muggy. I came home, read a book, and went to sleep for an hour. I only got out of bed because I knew that if I kept napping, I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight.

It's seriously getting to a point where I want to write this as my cover letter:
To whom it may concern,

I'll be short and sweet. I love kids. I love teaching kids and watching them learn. It lights up my life. I become friends with all the kids I teach and I help them do well. I want to be the very best teacher that I can be, so that the kids I teach grow into amazing people.
If this doesn't sound like the kind of teacher you want, that's ok. If you want someone passionate and absolutely committed to teaching and learning, give me a call, I'd love to hear from you.
Kind regards,

Emily.

Think that'd go down well?
Maybe I should do it, just to see what happens...? ha.

(might need a little refinement first, not sure it's getting my message across 100% yet (eg. I'm frustrated because I'm awesome and no one will give me a job and I really just want to hang out with a bunch of kids next year and do some really cool stuff so please give me a job sir, thanks)... but it'll get there)

Sorry for being such a downer, y'all!

jobs, dresses, spiky-things.

That's an ECHIDNA. He was at the zoo. I like them- they're one of my favourite Australian animals.

Things are coming together around here, despite the fact that I still don't post as much as I'd like to. I suppose I feel a bit like I don't know what I'm writing for, and have a bit of the 'who cares what I write?' hat on at the moment. Blogs, like lessons, need purpose (gag). So. Riddle me this: Should I write more about teaching and kids, about wedding planning (which is finally starting to kick off), or a combination of the both with some gardening and cooking thrown in? I think I still prefer the latter. This feels like some kind of ongoing conversation with myself. The blog, that is. Maybe that's ok.
But it feels rather self-absorbed.
OH WELL.

new car, caviar, four star daydream, think i'll buy me a football team...

10 points to anybody who knows the song that the title has come from.

I have such great memories associated with that song, but I think that they might be inappropriate to write here/might get me in trouble/might change people's opinions of me. So I'll leave it at that and you can wonder.

I've been wondering about extra ways to make some dough once I'm not at work. Aside from berry picking, i could tutor, though that will be dependent on my uni schedule as well, because kids are only home to get tutored in the afternoon/evenings, or on weekends. Since I'm finally getting some evening time, since I won't be working till 6.30pm, I'm loath to give them up. So I'm trying to think if I have any super mad creative skillz that I can put to use.

Nic says: "You're creative! You have great ideas!"
Which is lovely, but not so helpful, because selling creative ideas is a difficult business. I can also write, if I really want to, but again, I don't know how to sell that (maybe I need to look into freelance writing? Problem is, I don't feel strongly enough about things, I don't think, to write good articles, or whatever. I don't even know how it works. Maybe if I could write for some online...places... hmmm...). Then I thought maybe I could learn how to do something that wouldn't take very much effort/time/equipment, and then sell stuff on Etsty.
"You could just make some random crap out of pegs and then say they're magnets and then people could put them on their fridge and peg stuff!" Was Nic's suggestion. I love that he tries. But I think I would need more than pegs. I wish I could sew. Or had a sewing machine- that'd be a good first step. If I had a sewing machine I could teach myself how to sew and maybe I could become awesome and like, make dresses or wedding dresses that are different and funky and sell them. Or something. But that requires a sewing machine.
To be fair on Nic, who's taken a bit of a beating in this post, he did suggest I could do something with photoshop.
I used to play a game and on the game I used to do a lot of photoshop stuff, particularly of people's dogs, their dogs' names, etc. So I could do some sort of photoshop thing- I photoshopped my banner, and I think it's pretty nice (for those of you reading through a reader, you miss out). But what can I do for people? And do I trust my skillz enough to do it (nope)? And what sort of things would I design for them?? And would doing all this interfere with doing Uni? Eg: Any sort of writing activity? Probably going to make me less inclined to write 6,000 words for an assignment.
Does anybody who does freelance writing know how pays work? I mean, I'm in Australia... might have to do some research on this.

 

PS. The song is 'Money' by Pink Floyd.

hit the pause button.

In a lot of ways I feel as though my life is on hold at the moment.

Plenty of discussions with Nic begin with me saying:
"Next year, when I have a teaching job..."
And up until that point it's like I'm in limbo.

This photo has nothing to do with anything, I just like to see my kids loving on one another.

A lot of that has to do with the fact that I have no money. So it's like:
"Em, do you think we should replace my old car with a different one that'll cost $8k? Or should we wait until we run this one into the ground?"
And I think about it, and I know my ex had an old car which he planned to run into the ground, and it ended up costing a ridiculous amount to fix the car because problems would just keep popping up, again and again. In the end he spent a couple of grand to fix the problems, then sold the car to the scrap heap for about $250. So not worth it. But at the same time, I'm not going to be working, so Nic unnecessarily taking out a car lone while trying to support both of us on $20 an hour isn't so hot. So I say:
"Well, next year, when I have a teaching job, you won't have to pay for so much. So we can save up, and we can get another car. And if problems come up with your car in the meantime, we'll deal with them now."