Cheers, m'dears!

Today is my last day with my year 12s.

Sad face.

Disclaimer: this is just a random sad face and not a self portrait.

As a teacher, most years I gladly wish my life away – in the sense that I can’t wait for holidays (not literally wishing my life away!!) – and am constantly looking out for the end of term.  Especially in those winter terms that never end and just go on and on my friend (sometimes you started singing it not knowing what it was ...)

Got it in your head now?

SUCKED IN!

This time last year I could have chucked in teaching and become a secretary.
Or a secret agent.
Well, ok, maybe not a secretary because I possibly don’t have enough working knowledge of anything technological beyond Microsoft word and Facebook (also tenuous at best). And I hate talking on the phone.
But as for being a secret agent, I've always thought that would be the way to go except for the following issues:

•  The application forms for ASIO are like, eleventy-billion pages long and the questions they ask are stupid and do not at all pertain to my vision of being Jayne Bond 007 with a super hot Astin Martin.
•  I'm not yet fluent in any other language than English and, let's be honest, sometimes even that's just gibberish!
•  You are required to pledge allegiance to living in Canberra, something I find so abominable it should be classified as in violation of my human rights. Seriously! 
•  Canberra is possibly the most boring city in eleven solar systems. Maybe even twelve. And they make lumpy gravy on their chicken schnitzels, so it deserves it's own bullet point. Amen.

But I definitely could have chucked it in.

We were told at uni that teachers can actually become anything in “life after teaching;” they have such diverse skills. And whilst I think our skills are indeed undeniable (also unrecognised and underpaid) what the hell else DO they actually qualify me for?? It is a something I’m yet to discover.

Luckily, this year, my quest to discover the answer to this question became moot: in 2011 I have really, really, REALLY loved teaching. It is the most exciting part of my working day.
(Obviously getting coffee rates pretty highly, too.)
This is not to suggest that I only like teaching in comparison to everything else I do, either; I genuinely get so much energy from going to class and sharing my enthusiasm for how spot on Hannie Rayson's views on asylum seekers are, and waxing lyrical about how marriageable Mr Knightley is. ("Marriageable," though not exactly relating my true feelings, is my attempt at embodying Austen's diplomacy. I want to marry him a lot.)

Yeah. I know he's not real. Shut up.

Let it be known to all and sundry that I have only taken one day off this year, because I want to go to class!

Also because I haven’t been sick. Lol.

So, on the day “my girls” finish, I want to say a silent thank you. You’ve been a real treat, and I feel that someone must be looking out for me in the karmic universe for things to have turned out the way they did! We worked, we laughed, and you’ve never once made me raise my voice, so I can still sing in the shower as well as ever!!!!

This is what you’ve made me do on a daily basis:

(This is my real self-portrait. You will note the likeness. Or I will punch you.)

(And I do love my year 10s too – naughty little munchkins!)