And the Madness ends!

Yesterday was our 13th wedding anniversary. We actually celebrated a couple of weeks ago when Mel's mum was visiting. We had a really nice staycation at the Shangri La. When I was explaining to Matilda that Mel and I would be staying away for the night to celebrate our wedding anniversary, her response was "I wanna come too! I've never been to a wedding before!" I explained that it wasn't an actual wedding but celebrating the day we were married. I suggested that we go out for lunch on the actual day to celebrate. And yesterday was that day and we had lunch at one of our favourite restaurants.

And so to the "Madness". This past 18 months has been the crazy busiest time I have known. It started just before we broke up for the Christmas holidays in 2015 when Mel said "I'm going out at lunchtime but I'll be back". I though "ok, whatever. You go out for lunch every Friday". I didn't think much more about it until I was walking to class after lunch. I ran into Mel on my way and she said "we need to talk". It sounded serious and I was immediately thinking about would could be wrong. We walked into Mel's classroom and she held out something in her hand. As I got closer, I could see it was a pregnancy tester. And it was pink! I looked up and said "fuck!" We had a quick chat but class was starting so I had to go. As I walked into class, all I could hear in my mind was "Fuck! What the fuck? Holy shit!" etc.. You get the general idea. I assume this was all in my mind because no-one said "oi, stop swearing!"

Anyhow, it took a while for us to get used to the idea of another baby. The last trimester was pretty difficult for Mel (and we would find out later that she developed hernia at this time). As usual, the last few weeks of term was manicly busy and this was compounded by having to pack our gear to move out of our apartment. We didn't want to move but our landlords (who live next door) wanted their parents to move in. They were very good about it and luckily we were to take over the lease on an apartment close to school from a colleague who was leaving Singapore . The building we moved to is literally a 5 minute walk to school and, as it was built in the 1980s, is very spacious. We have two great balconies; one looking over a forested area with loads of bird life and the other looking due west so we regularly see magnificent sunsets. And the moon as well:)

Once school finished, we had to finish packing before we headed to Bali for a week or so to recharge. The original plan was to go in early July to meet up with Mel's mum & dad and her sister & family. But with Flynn due for late July those plans had to be revised and we went as soon as we could. The timing wasn't fantastic as the day after we got back was moving day! It was a nice holiday though and it was cool to watch Matilda release a turtle hatchling back into the ocean.

After moving, we started to get ourselves unpacked and sorted. It was a slowish process as Mel was struggling a bit. And of course, by the end of July our little guy was ready to put in an appearance. Mel and I headed to the hospital on the evening of 31 July. After lots of hard work from Mel, Flynn showed up around 1:50am on 1 August. We were very lucky to have Mel's mum staying with us for a few weeks, which made the transition a little easier. Especially for Matilda. Flynn's arrival meant that I missed the first couple of days at school. In some ways it was good as I didn't have to sit through dry, boring stuff. It did mean that I was a little bit behind where I wanted to be in terms of preparation. Oh well.

This year at school was busy as usual, but different because of the broken sleep for first term. It was a bit of a struggle at times but once we were home from Bali after the October holidays, Flynn settled into a nice sleep routine and Mel and I started to catch up on our missed sleep. Our trip to Bali ended up being good after a rocky start. We had booked a villa on Air BnB. When we arrived we found the place not really matching the photos. The place was tired looking and there was mould on the curtains and underneath the wall paper. The bathroom basin drained straight on to the floor which was really dangerous. The place was generally not clean and there was a wasp nest in the kitchen area. The pool was nice though and if it had been Mel & I by ourselves, we might have stayed. But with two little kids it wasn't ok.

We got in touch with the owner with no success. We had to go through AirBnB's conflict resolution process and I have to say they were really helpful and we ended getting our money back less the one night we stayed at the place. Luckily there was a decent hotel across the road so we spent two nights there before we found another villa that was more honest. The last four days were reasonably relaxing which was cool.

Although not doing as much travelling for school this year, I still got to Saigon for a very cool conference on IT in education, Hong Kong for an IB workshop and of course my trip to Bali with the Year 10 Geographers. These were all cool, but it's always hard to be away from Mel, Matilda and Flynn. We managed some family trips too, getting to Bali in October, NZ for Christmas and Penang in March.

Adding to the 'madness' was my decision to start an MEd. programme through Waikato University. The course is offered through the uni's Centre for Global Studies in Education. The people in charge are former Geography teachers and the course, while not Geography focused, definitely has a geographic slant to it, which is what made it attractive to me. It started really well and I got an 'A' for my first assignment. The second half was more challenging in terms of trying to pay enough attention while still managing all the school stuff and spending time with Mel & the kids. I found it quite a struggle over the last few weeks. I got there in the end but I'm not sure about my grade:(

It was so cool to wake up this morning and not have to got to school. Both Flynn and Matilda slept well and it was around 8am when we woke up. Not a massive sleep in, but as anyone with young kids would agree, pretty nice:) We have about seven weeks off now. We'll be hitting Bali in early July to meet up with Mel's mum & dad and her sister's family. Towards the end of July we'll in Saigon for a couple nights before 6 days on the beach near Hoi An. Really looking forward to both trips, as well as just hanging out at home.

Ciao!

Christmas Holidays - actually it's March now! And now it's June!

16/6/13

Third time lucky:) I'm not going write much as I don't seem to be able to finish this post as it's been going for 6 months! I've just added dates to the bits I wrote at different times. There will be another soon.

24/3/13

I started writing this in Bangkok just before Christmas. Obviously, I never finished at that time. At the moment, we're in New Zealand at Mel's mum & dad's place after spending a couple nights in Hamilton. We needed to sort some stuff out and it was a good opportunity to catch up with some of friends & colleagues. We had lunch with some of Mel's former colleagues on Thursday which was nice. On Friday morning, I went into my old school (Fraser High). It was really cool to see the people I worked with for 5 years. It was awesome to sit in on 13Geo with Nicole. Most of the kids in the class had taught at some point in my time at Fraser. It was a very chilly 8 degrees when I drove into school. I don't miss the cold. At all!

22/12/12

I meant to write this a week ago but never quite got there. Mel & I have been on holidays for a week now. Although last term was only eight weeks it felt a lot longer and the last day of term was a very welcome sight. I was really looking forward to a few quite cold beers but both James & Shaun (my usual drinking mates) were off home for the holidays the next day. As luck would have it, as I was walking out the gate rather forlornly I ran into three of my colleagues who were heading to Holland Rd for some drinks.

It was really cool to dissect the year so far with people I don't usually have a lot to do with. The beer was cold and flowed freely! And expensively. Check out our bill.

The week end was a quiet one at home. We chilled out and got our gear ready for a short trip to Bangkok. It was great to go back to Bangkok after 3 years. We were last there before all the riots in 2010. It was good to see that the city was energetic as ever. As we drove in from Don Mueang (the old airport) we were surprised to see a lot of construction going, which I guess is a sign of prosperity to an extent.

We were staying at a hotel in Siam Square which is the centre of Bangkok. We didn't really have any major plans except to visit a couple of restaurants we like. The first place we went to was Le Buchon. This restaurant is down one of the seedy Soi's in Patpong and is full of girly bars. The staff looked somewhat bemused when we walked in with Tilda:) The food was as great as the last time we went. The next day we went to Gianni's, which isn't in such a seedy location. The food was brilliant and the staff were all taken with Tilda. One of the waiters was quite enthralled because he has a daughter about the same age.

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:)