We were going to name the record Daisy, and then we weren’t going to name the record Daisy and after Vin decided to name a song “Daisy,” we re-decided to name the record Daisy again. [Laughs]

What?

“Holidays” in this case means that I’m going to uni tomorrow and working 9-5 for the rest of this week, and I also have to do the ten assignments that I have due throughout October.

But it doesn’t matter, cos I’m not on prac!! A retrospective? These five weeks were hard, but they also went pretty fast. I didn’t learn as much as I did on last prac, but my goal going into it was “get it over with”. Not particularly idealistic, but realistic and achievable. And achieved! I will miss some of the kids. As I did with last prac. It’s never the kids that stress me out during prac, it’s always just that I’m getting watched and marked. Even when the kids are naughty… they’re kind of okay. So I guess that’s hopeful.

Apparently I pissed people off last night by not following through on my promises to hit the town and get drunk as a celebration :( SORRY? Team Josh/Claire had some arse to kick at Trivial Persuit!! This Sat is possible?

I like Neutral Milk Hotel very much atm.

Teaching, as a job, seems fairly purposeful and challenging but the problem is that it is exhausting. Being a non-organised kind of person, I can see the next 40 years ahead of me as a long, long series of rushes towards deadlines followed by crashes that I recover from just in time for the next deadline to knock me down again? I know I found 9-to-5 office work absolutely soul-crushing, but… I hope the meaningfulness and the momentum are enough to make up for the fact that I am going to have homework every night of my life.

That said! This prac is looking better than last prac so far, although I don’t want to speak too soon. I have one class of about 10(?) international students who all seem like really sweet kids, and I also have a year 9 Italian class who are… year 9s. Insufficient observation so far to say what they’ll be like. And I’m still trying to pick up a mainstream ESL class.

There are seven other student teachers there, and we’re all camped out together at a table in the staff room, which is really nice. Having other-student-teacher Michael in the languages office to whinge to was one of my last prac’s few saving graces, and this time you can’t walk into the room without being pretty sure there’ll be someone there to bug. It’s nice.

Anyway, there is also life beyond prac!

For example, I turned 25 on Friday! It was good, I liked it. Then sister’s family 21st on Saturday afternoon (this means: talk to your grandparents for a couple of hours and have a quiche), and Chow’s(/Josh’s) housewarming on Saturday night (/well into Sunday morning). COLDEST HOUSEWARMING EVER. But also good. And then sleeping on Sunday (…well into afternoon).

And then last night, after prac, I went to the Cobra Starship/The Academy Is…/Panic at the Disco show. It was really good!! I had forgotten how much I am entertained by CS and TAI. Panic less so, to be honest. But definitely worth it. I need to go to more gigs. A+

The pact is to try and get there about 4 times a week, starting today. 100% success rate to date! It’s about 18 months since I ended my last gym membership, so it was good to get back there, shock. I ran on the treadmill, on purpose, and didn’t break a single bone.

Although then I came home and ate a kilo of chocolate :( But one step at a time.

My philosophy on exercise, grown over the last few years, is that you have to analogise it with your job. You work so that you can earn money; you exercise so that you can earn fitness. And sometimes, you can save up enough money/fitness that you can stop working/exercising for a while and it’s kind of okay? But it’s always going to be a downwards slide into poverty/squishiness until you start again.

I guess until you save up enough fitness that you can start exercising part-time, or something, I don’t know.

Stay tuned for updates on how superbuff I am very soon.

Unrelatedly… today marks exactly a year since Live Earth, which I went to in Sydney, the week after I handed up my Masters thesis. I still get a happy little pang just looking at the graphics for it. Best concert I’ve ever been to, just for the atmosphere alone (Big Day Out 2007 comes kind of close however), and that entire weekend is right up there in the global competition for Claire’s Best Weekends. It was lovely, why am I not in Sydney?

Also: it’s cold!!!

Anyway:

Oh last.fm. So unintentionally poignant!

When I wasn’t being intellectually stimulated by my shoes, today I learned the lesson of “don’t buy stuff online if you don’t have to”. I ordered one of the brand new iMacs on Tuesday from the Apple online store. 24-hour shipping blah blah. The reason I did it online was that I also wanted something cheapish from Apple that I couldn’t find in real shops, and if I bought it at the same time as an iMac I could save $9 shipping. I am tight!

Anyway I am very excited for my computer. Patience is a virtue I lack. I was so tempted to stay home from uni on Thursday in case it came, although guilt won out, and quite luckily because it didn’t come until today anyway. BUT TRAGICALLY, I had to be at work all day today and even though there were only about two hours when there was no one home, that was when it came :( DAMN YOUR POOR TIMING, TNT!! So now, I cannot get my iMac until Monday because it is locked up in a storeroom at Adelaide airport :’( And even then they don’t do deliveries until Tuesday so I have to drive over and get it myself. Sigh?

The moral of the story is: parking in town may be hard, but just go to freaking NextByte, Claire, geez.

Also today, I had a fairly solid panic attack over what to cook for dinner. I… think I have too many assignments :(