12 - neither teen nor child

Some ways to identify your 12 year old is almost a teen:
1. Body odour is beginning to make its presence felt
2. Your child no longer does the naked dance when he gets out of the shower (phew)
3. Pimples start to appear overnight onto your child's once silky smooth skin.
4. Small hairs around the corner of your child's mouth start to turn a darker colour (please note this only happens if your child is a boy, at least I hope so)
5. You suddenly become the embodiment of embarrassment if you are within 12 meters of your child in public
6. Your child's friends opinions carry a lot more weight than your own, even if their opinions are downright farcical

Some ways to tell your 12 year old is still a child:
1. They still come in for a cuddle in the morning
2. They still talk to the cat in a baby voice
3. They are not smart enough yet to lie or deceive you with any conviction

Case in point - Bennett was banned from the computer this weekend. I thought he was being remarkably mature about it all as he had not complained once about having nothing to do (in fact his kind of annoyed me as I thought if he was not suffering it could not be a decent punishment) However, this morning when I got out of the shower I then went to the computer to have a little look at my facebook, and there in black and white was evidence that my son is not yet smart enough to trick me - he had been on the computer while I was in the shower and had "liked" a page on facebook, not thinking about how this would pop up on my newsfeed (now for people like Richard who do not understand facebook talk all this means is he was just not smart or deceitful enough yet to be a teen -for which I am truly thankful (and he is not because now he has a extra day of being banned)

The set up...

There may be something written across my forehead that says "please set me up with any single men" I have never seen it there when I look in the mirror, but it seems there is something about me that makes people want to set me up...is it the stench of desperation? I hope not. I have been on some remarkably bad set ups. One of my friends likes to set me up a lot - I have only taken her up on two suggestions and they were both awful. The first one was the set up where you go to a party and there amongst the real party goers is the set up....(please say dah dah dah dah dahhhhhhh in a scary way here)......lurking by the table of dips and other delights is the a tall, gangly, pimply, man that resembles a pencil to me and this is the amazing guy with the overwhelmingly awesome personality that your 'friend' wants to be your next bf. I use the quotation marks around friend here for obvious reasons - I am questioning her friendship here, not so much because she wants to set me up with the pencil but because what does she really know about me if that is what she wants to set me up with? Aren't friends meant to know you well? I didn't take a lot of time conversing with the pencil, I knew that I was not destined to date stationary. The next time my friend decided to set me she gave my phone number to her friend - these friends are always described as "he is such a nice guy, really caring etc etc...." the etc etc is where I tune out cause I know how to translate what she has said "he is ugly" I don't want to sound shallow here, but hell maybe I am. After he had sent me texts and emails I thought he sounded somewhat normal so I went on a date with him. I soon as I spotted him my gaydar started to blink, and by time I had seen his house (immacualte) tasted his wine, seen his clothes and heard him talk my gardar was beeping so loud I couldn't hear myself say "get out of here Fflur!"
I tell you about these bad set ups in the hope that the man Miss Charlie Lee is trying to set me up with is no where near as bad, and that he does not just become more blogging fodder...

That's a good guess but not quite what I was looking for

Today my student teacher sat at the back of the class reading something that was not related to the class I was teaching and didn't once get up and talk to the students or offer them any help, even though there were tons of girls with their hands waving in the air waiting for me - where is the initiative I ask you?! I won't be worrying a dot about what she writes about me now. Went to have a word with her after the lesson but she took off while I was talking to a student. Must have a word with her tomorrow.
Funniest teaching moment happened in my year 9 English class today. We are learning about debating for our year 9 debating competition. We did a brainstorm about what they knew already - it seemed they knew quite a bit so I asked them what the statement that the teams argue is called (the moot) They threw out some good guesses but no one seemed to know. Then one very sweet but not so smart girl, called out very earnestly "I know, I know...it's master-bating" The rest of the class depleted the classroom of oxygen as they took a collective intake of air before bursting into uncontrollable and raucous laughter, me included. I had tears coming out of my eyes as I tried to get the class back on task. I thanked the girl for not only the highlight of my day but one of the funniest teaching moments I have had in a long time.

The trainee

Today I got a trainee teacher. Oh joy! Today she sat in my year 12 English class taking notes as I told the class what we were doing today. I wondered what she wrote "asks class to be quiet" or was it something scathing, pulling apart my teaching style. Was she taking notes and then making points on what she wouldn't do. She is a lot older than me and on of the first questions she asked me was "how long have you been teaching?" I decoded this to mean "you are not old enough to teach, what could you possible teach me" I could be wrong of course maybe she was just making polite conversation. She asked me as we left my year 12 English class "how many of them will complete that homework overnight" to which I replied "maybe half" she wanted to know what I would do about that, I replied that if I didn't have them before interval or lunch tomorrow that there would be very little I would do about that except remind them that it was their chances of success that they were screwing up. She did not look impressed. I could see she wanted me to run a detention, then run aonther one the next day for the girls that didn't turn up to the first one, then run another one the next day for the girls that didn't turn up to either, then phone home and so on. (yes you still have these problems in an all girls so called good school) Turns out I do have them before interval tomorrow so I will be able to keep them in. What this will actually teach them I don't really know. I don't think it will make them do it next time. I don't think it will make them appreciate what we are learning. But at least I may have gained one small point with my student teacher. I am looking forward to her teaching my class, and me taking notes...

Perky

In my last picture I look very grumpy or serious or intelligent or cool or something. Here is one of me looking perky (in fact I look so perky someone may have just stuck something up my bottom and given me a fright)



This is at a friends 30th birthday party. Considering I will be turning 34 soon I am not sure why I look so perky (although it may have had something to do with the lovely punch or the sex on the beach cocktail)
Last birthday I felt really sad, and didn't even want to celebrate turning 33 because I felt like nothing had changed in my life for the past 3 years and taking that into consideration what did I have to celebrate? I am trying not to think this way this year but it is a challenge. There are many positive things to celebrate and I must try and remember that so I look this perky when I turn 34.
Like I can now make more than 5 different dishes for dinner - Last night I made Green Curry with fish in it. Wow! Now there is something to celebrate!

Look how serious I am

Amazing how getting glasses can make one look so much more intelligent and serious. We have obviously been told so often that geeks/nerds/brainy types wear glasses that when we see someone wearing them we think they seem smarter.
I tell you who does not seem all that smart to me, Jennifer Love Hewitt. This article about her made me laugh and then I have to say made me quite sad to be a woman. Why do woman feel the need to do this kind of stuff? I personally think Brazilians are going to far, this is sad and ridiculous.

Growing babies

Some people I know are growing babies in their tummys, and that is all well and good but its bloody easy to do! My baby is growing on the outside and it is a lot harder once they get out into the real world and start causing real problems. Soon my baby is going to reach an important milestone. Well two actually. I got to thinking about how big my baby has grown because this weekend one of my nephews turned 5. Five is a big milestone and I remember it well. When Bennett was five he still seemed little, cute, sweet and innocent. Today I took Bennett's applications in so he can enroll in high school! As I drove out of the school parking lot after dropping it off I felt all overcome with emotion, I felt a few tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. My baby will soon turn 13 and he will go to the big bad world of high school! These are BIG milestones. This is much harder to deal with than growing a baby in your tummy or taking your baby to school on the first day. I really feel like the umbilical cord is breaking now, and sometimes that is hard to deal with. He is however, wonderfully unique, weird, interesting, funny, engaging, caring, non communicative, messy, smelly, an amazing story teller and loving - maybe the progression away from small, cute and innocent isn't so bad.