Leaving The Tron Part 2

I felt quite sad as we drove out of Hamilton yesterday. After 6 & half years, I have become quite attached to The Tron and more particularly the people I have met & worked with.

My farewell from Fraser was short & sweet, which was how I wanted it. A few people spoke and said some really nice things about me. I felt slightly embarrassed but really stoked as it's always nice to be acknowledged in front of your peers. I will miss Fraser. A lot! I worked with some outstanding educators who care deeply about the students they teach. And that makes the National's anti-teacher campaign all the more frustrating as they don't have any clue about how hard (most) teachers work and the feeling they have for the job. I always felt frustrated at the noises people made about Fraser when they found out I worked there. The conversation usually went something like this:

Them: so where do you teach, Tony?
Me: Fraser High.
Them: Ohh. Right. Umm...how is that?
Me: really good. I work with some great teachers and fantastic students.
Them: Really?

I know Fraser has a reputation and it is deserved to an extent. But every school has problem students. Many of us tend to get caught up by the trouble makers, which is kind of understandable as those students do take up a lot of our time. But it's really easy to forget about the good kids. And I worked with some amazing students at Fraser. I have no doubt that they will go on to do great things in the community and I feel really privileged to have had the opportunity to work with them.

My last post was pretty much just a list. The last week has been pretty full on and we were all knackered last night. Today has been pretty lazy:)

Our "Empty the liquor cabinet/farewell party was a great night. We had about 30 or 40 people from Mel's work and Fraser. It was awesome to have so many people come and say goodbye and share some laughs. And drink our alcohol:) It was worth it if only because we arranged to sell our car on the night, which took a huge weight off our shoulders!

On Saturday I was feeling a little shabby and it took a little while to get fired up. Mel & I went to the shipping company to discuss prices and pick up times. We had until Monday to get everything we needed/wanted into the boxes and get them sealed up. No pressure! The rest of the day was spent trying to do that, as well empty the house for the property manager's visit on Monday and get everything organised for our garage sale on Sunday morning. And we had to do that by around 5:30-6, so we could meet some friends at Speight's Ale House before the rugby.

We managed to stop work and have a quick feed before we headed off. We were able to get a park reasonably close the pub and found our friends inside. They had the Wallabies vs. Wales game on tele. Lots of cheers when Wales scored and took the lead. When the Wallabies scored again soon after I cheered & yelled a bit. Everybody was looking at me. Mel looked horrified. Then the bloke next to me said "what's that all about?". I said "Umm...I'm Australian". He looked at me and rolled his eyes and made noise that sounded like "pffft". I smirked and said "winners are grinners".

We headed off to the stadium and found our seats. I love going to Waikato Stadium because you get a really view from any point in the stadium. It was cool to see a couple trys scored right in front of us and Mel was quite excited by seeing SBW in the flesh. I was disappointed to see Ireland getting spanked, as I was hoping for a close game. Most of the action was up the other end in the second half, so the it got a little boring. Not too worry though, I spent most of the time looking at the score from the Collingwood vs. West Coast game in Melbourne which turned into a very tight contest. The Pies regained the lead with about 10 minutes to go. The score wouldn't update so I had no idea what was going on. I was pretty stoked when the Pies held on to win by 3 points! Also during the game I started getting texts from a mate asking about our fridge. By the end of the first half we had agreed on a price and arranged a pick up time for Sunday. This meant that we had got rid of all our big stuff. Yay!

We were up early on Sunday to get ready for the garage sale. The weather was pretty rubbish and unfortunately we didn't heaps of people coming to look, or more importantly, buy. We got to talking with one couple that came and ended up talking about our house and what we were planning to do with it. They came around again in the afternoon to have a look and were interested in buying but needed to do some calculations. Although it would been hilarious to have had a garage sale and end up selling our house, in the end they never got back to us. After the garage sale we packed up what was left into Mel's mum's car to take to the Op Shop. Then it was on to getting the house empty, which we managed to get done by about 2:00 Monday afternoon. At 2:30 we were sitting at Mel's mum's place absolutely knackered but feeling reasonably happy, if somewhat claustrophobic due to all the stuff surrounding us. Now we just needed to get the boxes for Singapore taped up and reading to be picked up by the shipping guys. The guy arrived at 5pm and by 5:30 all the boxes were gone.

It was fantastic to see Singhy, Shika and their kids on Sunday afternoon. Their wee girl Shyla it a real cutie and Tilda loved playing with their boy Ishan. It was so funny to watch them running around in circles. I haven't heard Tilda squeal & giggle so much before. Or fall on her butt:)

On Monday I took Tilda to Little Feet for her last day. After I left her there, I went back to Fraser and caught up with a few people who hadn't made it on Friday. I also managed to fit in a last cuppa with the lads at interval which was cool. I think they were happy with that. While I didn't get to tease Gordy about the footy on Saturday, I really enjoyed being able to talk about sport in general with the lads one last time. Before I picked Tilda up from childcare I went to Browsers to try and sell some books which was hard as I hate giving up books. Especially as I watched they woman sort through them and in my mind I was going "bought that here, and that one, and that one" etc. etc.. The cheque at end kind of made up for it. A little. While I was off doing this, Mel was talking to the property manager who came to take pictures of our newly empty house and discuss a rental price.

Tuesday was Tilda's last day at Space. Mel and her mum went off to that and I went to get a massage to ease the aching muscles. It helped a bit, but I was still sore. Especially in the "squat muscle" area. We also got rid of our car. It was sad to do but the money will be helpful when we start setting up our apartment in Singapore. The rest of the day/evening was spent packing our packs and trying to leave Jill's house in some sort of decent state.

Although we planned to leave Hamilton on Tuesday, we all knew that it wasn't really going to happen. We spent the morning trying finish off the packing and sorting the stuff we're leaving behind into some kind of order so Jill's house wasn't a bomb site anymore. I took one last box of stuff to the Salvation Army and went to visit my former boss who'd recently had her first baby. It was awesome to see Nance and meet her little girl Makaia who's another real cutie! When I got back we packed up the cars with as much stuff as we could fit. Both cars were filled to the gunnels!

And then we headed off to Auckland with a quick stop in Mercer to drop off some stuff we'd sold on TradeMe. Unfortunately we'd left Hamilton a little later than we planned and we ran into the back of the afternoon traffic on the North Western Motorway. It took about 30 minutes to get from the on ramp at Point Chevalier to Lincoln Road. As we stopped and started I was looking at the traffic around us. I was amazed at how many vehicles only had one person it them. No wonder there's so much traffic on the roads!

So from here. We repack our bags so that we can make the most of our baggage allowance. We'll try to sell a few more things on TradeMe. Hopefully we can take Jill out for dinner to say "thanks" for helping us so much before we all leave. I guess that's it for a bit.

Ciao:)

Leaving the Tron!

So, now we're in Auckland. Well, actually were at Mel's mum & dad's place near Kumeu. It's been busy week this one!

Wednesday - Geo field trip to Rotorua; packing/cleaning.
Thursday - Farewells at Fraser; packing/cleaning.
Friday - Empty the liquor cabinet/farewell party; no packing cleaning.
Saturday - Hungover; visit moving company, organise stuff for garage sale, moving stuff out of our house, meet friends from Auckland at pub before rugby, get stared at by punters when I cheer for the Wallabies when they score a try, go to rugby & see the All Blacks spank Ireland 60-0 (I spent most of the second half keeping an eye on the Collingwood vs. West Coast score)
Sunday - Garage sale at 8am, finish moving stuff out of our house, cleaning the house, sell fridge (thanks Matty & Liv!), finish packing boxes for Singapore, Singhy & Shika visit - meet Shyla (cutie!)& watch Tilda & Ishan run around in circles for 20 minutes, giggling their heads off:)
Monday - Tilda's last day at Little Feet, goodbyes to Fraser people who couldn't make it on Friday night, last cuppa with the lads, drop books off at Browsers, old car seats to Plunket, boxes to Singapore taped up & picked up, property manager visits.
Tuesday - Tilda's last day at Space, sell car (thanks Angela & Peter), finish packing bags.
Wednesday - Last minute packing, one more box of stuff to the op shop, visit Nance & see wee Makaia (another cutie!), load cars & head up to Auckland, get ready to sell last few things on TradeMe.

I think we're going to take it easy tomorrow as we're all pretty knackered. I'll have some more to say in the next day or two.

Later:)

Two Weeks Left!

So here we are. Two weeks before we leave NZ. Oddly enough I'm writing this at Fraser, where I'm doing some relief! Starting to run lowish on funds - not helped by a recent speed camera fine:(

Mel has finished work now, which is great for her as that lessens the stress somewhat! Our house is in a strange situation. We have emptied all the rooms into the lounge room so we can finish off our packing. This was partly to make it easier to pack, but also to at least have some of the house empty to show property managers through without having them bombarded with boxes etc. in every room. We had 3 come through yesterday. It was very interesting to see the different styles of the various companies. I think we've narrowed it down to 2.

We still have some stuff to get rid of. We need to sell our car, fridge and washing machine. We've put them on TradeMe. Lots of looks but no bids yet. If anyone needs a car, washing machine or a fridge, let me know:)

The lounge is somewhat of a mess but we're getting there. Essentially we need to condense our lives into 10 boxes (5 small, 5 large) to keep the relocation costs manageable. It's probably going to be a little more than that but we'll see. I think we're learning a valuable lesson here - if you're not using something regularly (i.e. at least once every 2 or 3 weeks) then you probably don't need it. Obviously this doesn't extend to some things - photo albums, important mementos and books:) But clothes and other stuff that's not getting used? Get rid of it!

I've had a few people ask about taking the term off and how it's been going. If I'm honest, it's probably hurt financially, but it has been totally worthwhile. I can't believe the changes I've seen in Matilda over the last 3 months or so. Simply amazing! She's really mobile now. Walking very confidently and climbing anything she can. I suspect she's a little bit over confident, despite a couple of tumbles and crashes. Last night we set the fire alarm off when we were cooking dinner. I got a step ladder to push the button. After I got down, turned away for literally 5 seconds and turned back to see the wee girl at the top of the step ladder grinning like a mad thing!

Having not been in the classroom for nearly 3 months now, I'm actually looking forward to getting back into it. I'm really excited about starting at a new school. I'm going to miss Fraser heaps, but this is going to be a new challenge. There's a large group of new staff starting at Nexus in August and I suspect that will help create some solidarity and collegiality. I've been swapping emails with my new HoD over the last 2 weeks or so. We've been discussing textbooks etc., as well advice on house hunting. Really looking forward to it:)

That's it for now.

Today is 5 June. This time in 5 weeks we'll be in Singapore. Bloody hell! We actually leave NZ on 3 July. We're spending a week in Australia so Matilda can meet her grand-nana, aunts, uncles and her cousin Hudson who was born 3 months after her.

We still have a bit to do. This weekend we'll move next door to Mel's mum's place. We need to clean up our place so we can rent it. Moving out will make it a bit easier because we have stuff we want to take but we're still using. We've done quite a bit of packing but it's still not finished. Part of the package I get is a relocation allowance. But it won't be enough to pay for everything we want to take. Do we take less stuff or pay the extra? Tricky situation. We have to sell our car, as well as a bunch of other stuff. Time is of the essence!

Tonight we had dinner with the committee of the local branch of the New Zealand Geographical Society. I've been involved with the committee for 5 years. They presented me with a greenstone pendant. It's a fish hook which is supposed to give me protection when travelling over water, which is perfect. I was really stoked because I've wanted some greenstone ever since I first visited NZ in 2000. For some reason I've never bought anything. Mel told me tonight that you shouldn't buy it for yourself because it's bad luck and it won't have any meaning. I didn't know that but it fits nicely:)

Foggy morning near Kumeu.