OMG I just had the best idea! Cold Rock, but for yoghurt. Like the Yoghurt Shop, but with mix-ins!

The main part of why this is such a good idea is that it can be DIYed at home, unlike the ice cream version which just turns into sludge unless you have an actual cold rock (or a frozen chopping board).

I need to get some Violet Crumble and chocolate sauce!

Anyway, I am on holiday. I am having a nice holiday. (Perhaps especially because) this is the first time in a long time that I have been on a holiday with a job on both sides of it! I just finished up a term’s contract at a very lovely school with very lovely students who I was sad to leave. I am afraid that I have been a bit spoilt by it! Next week, I am starting at another school where I’ve got a contract for the rest of the year. If it is as nice as my last school, I will be a very happy girl! But either way, it’s a load off my mind to have work lined up.

Josh and I are off to Clare tomorrow for a minibreak. We are going to start off exploring historic mines and gaols, and will finish up sipping wine by an open fire, and it will be cosy and nice :)

Last night, I found that a volunteer position I had applied for had been re-advertised. It seems like I can’t even give it away :(

I think I’ve been keeping up morale for a really long time, but all I can really think about is that all my money is disappearing, it’s really unlikely that I’ll ever own a house, it’s so long since I did anything I was good at that I’m not really sure if I’m good at anything or ever was, and everybody else is able to get a job so clearly the problem is me. If you’d told me ten years ago that I’d be in this position at 26, I wouldn’t have believed you.

I’m so ashamed that I got to be such a stuff up, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.

Edit: Oh, never mind. I got a job.

In order to hold myself accountable, here is what I would like to get done today (roughly in this order):

- shower
- buy some grout
- buy a hammer
- browse Kmart for some cheap clothes that don’t look cheap
- perhaps browse Kmart for a doormat
- buy a new goldfish
- mop the kitchen and bathroom
- clean up the big stack of papers on my shelf
- clean up generally
- do exercise
- go to my parents’ place to borrow a reasonably-sized suitcase*
- work out an appropriate art-and-degrees configuration and put some picture hooks in the walls in the study and lounge room*
- go to the doctor for a minor procedure this afternoon (that hopefully won’t leave my arm looking bruised for a fortnight?)
- apply for at least one, preferably two advertised jobs (probably SA Health medical administration ones)
- try to work out what Act I am actually employed under as a Relief Teacher so I know if I can apply for internal government positions or not?
- send some letters to various TAFEs telling them I want to be in their availability pool

*if time permits

Pretty much this is the same as my to-do list for yesterday, except all I achieved yesterday was:
- play Tropico 3
- read
- nap
- look at pictures of funny bags on the internet

Earlier this year, Josh bought me a cactus as a present. The little plastic card said that it was a blossoming variety, so Josh was like, Score! When the flowers come out, it’ll count as if I had bought you flowers!

I was skeptical that the flowers would ever happen, because those little plastic cards promise all kinds of wacky hijinks. So I told him, no, I am not waiting for my cactus, you must buy me real flowers! (N.B. he did good.)

Then on Sunday night, I came home a bit crankily after the beach to this:

!! Surprise!

So pretty!! Thank you, hot weather and Josh!

Tomorrow is a day of promise. Not only is my cactus pretty, but also I get to do the (relatively fun task of) doctors’-letters-typing at work, my internet is supposedly getting connected at last, it’s late night shopping so I get to go and buy some flowers to plant in my flowerpots, there are turkey burgers for dinner and Beauty and the Geek is on TV!

Stuff is looking up a bit. Teaching is hard but it hasn’t all gone to hell in a handbasket yet and I seem to be getting a bit better at behaviour management, maybe. I gave four detentions today :-/ Also, I am confirmed for moving out of my parents’ house into a unit in October. (So hopefully I will have a job next term?). Gradually growing more excited about that.

Also excited by this 30-second sample from Brand New’s new album up on Amazon.com. I don’t hate it, and it’s Brand New so I’ll probably grow to love it. New Brand New!

Here is a picture of some justice.

Having a bit of a nobody-loves-me kind of week :(

Mope mope mope.

My plan, one way or another, is to move out of my parents’ house in October, and they’ve been nagging me to make up a budget to see if I can afford it. Hi mum and dad, I only have employment until the end of September, of course I can’t afford it!!! I am going to just cross my fingers and hope I can get another job in term 4, and otherwise live off the “Centrelink and my savings” (i.e. “don’t spend any money”) budget, supplemented perhaps by tutoring but mainly by the overwhelming determination not to still live with my parents when I turn twenty-seven in 2010.

I am still pretty bitter. I did six years of university; I’m not asking for a million dollar salary, but surely a little financial stability isn’t too much to wish for :(

Also my sister seems to be making an effort to be nice to me (because my mum asked her to), and I do not actually know how to react :-/

I do not know if this kind of mood arises from the stress of preparing for teaching, or if I actually am just particularly unlikeable to everyone except my dog lately.

Mope.

My dog and I are getting along great, at least.

Blogging is hard lately. Do me a favour and imagine that I blogged every day for the last 6 months, with a randomly selected entry from the following options:

A. Today I went to work and then played the Sims
B. Today I hung out with Josh
C. Today I went to work and then hung out with Josh

I think that the picture this gives of my life would be fairly accurate.

But! News! Last week I got a teaching job for term three! Full time, teaching ESL at a high school. It’s exciting and also I am a bit terrified! So tomorrow is my last day of my old job, and then I have next week off for preparation. And then EEEEK.

Bad work on blogging :( Don’t really have any material sorry. Still working easy comfort-zoney week-by-week job. I haven’t been exactly proactive in searching for something more purposeful. Not feeling particularly empowered.

I’ve been doing a bit of tutoring. If anyone’s looking for a tutor in Italian, Spanish, ESL, or general essay-writing et cetera let me know?

My head isn’t in a particularly great place at the moment. Problems I don’t know how to fix. Nothing okay to blog about.

Well. My DECS stuff is in.

- Playing NationStates2 (poorly)
- Getting fat from being at home too much :(
- Resisting the urge to bake for fear of compounding that problem
- Taking antibiotics AGAIN wah
- Waiting to hear back about jobs? At all?? But getting offered some possible highly reputable hourly work via my old mentor teacher which will be great if it happens, and hopefully some casual stuff at my mum’s clinic
- Hoping that my teacher’s registration goes through by Wednesday so I don’t have to do another Mandatory Notification course, laaame
- Cleaning up massively! All my stuff is SO ORGANISED.
- Upgrading to a queen-size bed… with bargains! 50% off on my quilt, two complete sheet sets for $30, 60% off on my quilt cover, 35% off my mattress and free delivery… and $99 bed frame from Ikea to be acquired on Saturday! So many bargains.
- Praising modern medicine. Antibiotics are wonderful!
- Knitting
- WISHING I HAD A JOB