serenade

Golden glow
Originally uploaded by catmadogma.

New world forming
Picturesque in its stance
Midnight calling
Moonlight shadows start to dance

For the dark finds ways of being
Engraved in the light
And the heart bears indentations
Of yesterdays hurting child
The now we will run with smiles
The morrow will heal the night so
Morning comes
Midnight make fast with the sun
I can hear my name be reborn
On the cloud within the sky beneath the dawn

Oh I
Serenade the dawn
Serenade the dawn
Serenade the dawn

Serenade - Emiliana Torrini

aftermath

Well, its all over... Christmas 2006 over already!
Flew by too fast for my liking. It seemed like I arrived, and had to leave again... Ah, I need a holiday!
Thanks everyone for all your gifts! (And for looking after Y's sister so well, she really enjoyed it up there..)
So, on with the news. Y is coming out next week!! He finally booked, and like I said, he would decide at the last minute if he was going to come out for mango season or not... So, booked a flight arriving next Thursday, and staying for around 10 days all up. I know its not long, but its better than nothing. The only slight complication, is he may have an allergy to bees/wasps... which is not exactly the best thing you could have when you want to pick mangoes!!! We don't know for sure, but will try and get some sort of medication just in case.
Work is still busy, even though its Christmas/New Year. A little annoying. Never seem to get a break here.. but I wouldn't really have it any other way... *shrug* And geez it will be hard to leave this place. Its hard to imagine not working here to be honest....

Anyway, onto more jovial things. :) Y sent through this picture today, a look-a-like (apparently):

What do you think?? (I think it could be just the fact that she has glasses..) She is Italian/American/Japanese... I tracked her down, her name is Angela Aki. I checked out her music, its quite good... Going to have to remember her name.
;)

awwwwww

My boss, Ian, rang me on Monday, to ask if he could forward a resume through to a school in Japan for me... He used to work there as a teacher, and actually they are our sister school. (Well, sister/enemy. When we first opened we were Shane Global Village, and then we dropped the Shane part, Shane got ditched, and now we are just Global Village, which is actually a lot better. Because who the heck is Shane??) Anyway, he wanted to send my resume through to them for me, to help out. Very sweet...
But wait until you read what he wrote. Managed to make me feel incredibly good about my work, and incredibly guilty at the same time... :/ I will miss these guys....

Now, out of the 100 or so staff we have between Noosa and Brisbane, Liz is about as good as I've ever seen. She is sharp as a tack, completely proficient in all areas of her position and puts more into her job than anyone else I know. I think the world of her and am very, very disappointed that she's leaving. If we ever manage to wrestle her away from Japan, we'd have her back in a second.
I think she'd be an exceptional teacher and I think she'd be a real asset for Shane in Chugoku. As an aside, I also think she'd be superb in any admin roles you have floating around - perhaps something to think about for the future.
I've attached her resume with this, and while I know she falls a little outside the normal recruitment requirements I think she's too good to miss. Let me know if you're interested in her and I can help out from this end. I'd be very happy if this were the first teacher we found for you, though I make no claims that the next one will be as good!

miss liz

Well, my in-class component of my Certificate IV in TESOL is complete!! Woo hoo!!
It was pretty full-on; I had classes from 6pm til 10pm last Wednesday to Friday, and then classes all day Saturday and Sunday, 9am til 6pm... So, you can imagine, I am pretty relieved to have that finished.
The course itself though was actually pretty fun. It was very involved and interactive, there was never really a dull moment. I didn't find myself clock-watching at all.. which I was really surprised at. I think all the other students were surprised about that too.
Even got to prepare a sample lesson, we had an adult beginner class, learning Present Simple for habits... ie. Every morning I drive to work.
It went well, I got some pretty good feedback, (apparently I'm a very smiley teacher.. hahahahahahaha). And yeah... I'm actually pretty surprised, there were a couple of things I could have done better, nerves get the better of you sometimes... but I was not BRIGHT RED or dripping buckets... which i was quite pleased about, and yeah, felt quite confident. I think it will be easier to teach a group of people that are actually learning English, rather than learning how to be a teacher.
So, now, the rest of the course. I have to complete 8 elective courses, which are all online, so I can do them whenever I want. And the other major part is my practical teaching... *ominous music*
The practical teaching part is 20 hours, but only 3 hours of actual lessons, the rest of those hours are spent doing observations and lesson planning... So I guess its not so bad... but still. Work has already lined me up doing all the prac here, which is handy, I know all the students and its a comfortable environment...
I will think about that later, when I actually have to do it. For now, I am taking a little break from TESOL, at least for a day or so...
I've asked to take Tuesday off work, so that I can get some of my Christmas shopping done and catch up on sleep, cleaning etc. etc. So, looking forward to tomorrow!

zoom zoom

Well:

PRODUCTS PURCHASED:

FLIGHT DETAILS
------------------------------------------------
Galileo Booking Reference : XXXXXX

Flight : Qantas Airways QF798 (Economy Class)

Departing : Brisbane at 7:00 AM on Wednesday
: Brisbane Airport 28/02/2007
Arriving : Cairns at 9:20 AM on Wednesday
: Cairns Airport 28/02/2007

Flight : Qantas Airways QF113 (Economy Class)

Departing : Cairns at 12:35 PM on Wednesday
: Cairns Airport 28/02/2007
Arriving : Osaka at 7:10 PM on Wednesday
: Kansai International Airport 28/02/2007

------------------------------------------------

It's all booked... I'm off to Japan, 28 February 2007. Write that down in your diaries!
:)

coming together

From a whirlwind, things are settling into place...

- started on the visa application
- will be booking a flight soon
- studying TESOL
- will do prac teaching, and classes soon
- still saving money
- still studying Japanese

Still whirling around, but getting everything together...
Need to get some more stability, but getting there.

advent

Its the first day of December, I hope you have all got your advent calendars out! I went out and bought a little wooden Christmas Tree, that has all these tiny sweet decorations that hang off it. It isn't an advent calendar, but I am going to use it as one... Everyday I will hang a new decoration on the tree. The decorations are tiny, and they look German and just like the decorations we hang on our Christmas Tree. I would upload a picture of it, but my photographic skills are just not quite good enough to take a picture of it... Want to take a closeup shot of the decorations...
What about everyone else? Do we all have advent calendars up?? :)