I love it so much that I have had to start putting it on my schedule to “leave work.” Otherwise I’d happily stay there all night. Or come home and work more and not do anything else and that’s just weird. So I’ve started leaving everything at work too so I’m not tempted.

That doesn’t stop me. I just have too many ideas. I can’t stop working. I’ll just browse math sites or grab tiny pieces of paper that are meant to be for the shopping list and make up more math problems for tomorrow. I can’t just let good ideas go to waste, can I? No. I can’t.

I’m pretty busy. This week got a bit crazy, can you tell? I am still getting the hang of things and sometimes I plan poorly and have to move everything around. I have learned to leave it there instead of printing a new sheet out so or writing in pencil so that I learn from my mistakes. And sure, I have got a lot of free spaces there but being I’m still in my first few years teaching, I’ve got heaps to do. I think it’s great that New Zealand give teachers in their first two years of teaching one less class. Thanks, New Zealand. I still get a House Class though which I love. (That’s homeroom plus I get to have them after assemblies on Monday.)

Most teachers I know, including my own mother, have uttered the following phrase at some point in their career:

I could write a book.

The things we see and hear on a daily basis can induce bouts of hilarity. Plus, teachers love to talk and share stories. If we didn’t love to talk, then we would certainly be in trouble because the majority of our job entails standing up in front of a room of people and talking. Some subjects require more talking than others and some teaching styles require more talking than others but there is still a lot of talking required.

I recently taught the Statistical Inquiry Cycle to my Level 3 Statistics class. I don’t normally have to check their books like I do my other classes. By their last year in high school they don’t have to be told things like “take notes and stop drawing penises in your books” because these are the students who have actually elected to take math but once in a while I’ll peek just to see what they are up to.

Here are the notes that I gave:
The Statistical Inquiry Cycle
Problem
Plan
Data
Analysis
Conclusion

and here is what we see:

Maybe there was just no conclusion since that step 4 seems to have been a bit rough.

I think I’ll follow suit with this blog. I have a lot of work to do.

My friends spoiled me first. I invited everyone out celebrate with me for dinner on Friday night since I wouldn’t be around on Saturday. A whole heap of people came out and we had a huge table full of people making me feel super special for the evening.

That would have been enough – celebrating an epic meal with friends – but some of my friends decided to get me super epic presents as well!

My Canadian friends Hugh and Peggy (and Jasmine and Rowan) gave me a beautiful songbook. I couldn’t believe they were giving me such a treasure and my mouth hung open as they gave me their own songbook. I leafed through the pages as I found songs that I knew and loved and looked at songs I have never heard before. I was mesmerized. I completely ignored everyone else. (PS – you should check out Peggy’s awesome blog, floraandwhanau.com)

My friend, and boss although I don’t treat her like it, also made me this completely incredible shawl. No matter how many times I photograph it, I can’t take a picture that does it justice. Perhaps I will get a better picture of it soon but I needed to put one here this weekend. She used the most beautiful, soft, wool and the intricacy of the pattern just intrigues me so much. I wore it all day on Friday and I received so many compliments. Probably because it was the nicest piece of clothing I was wearing.

Josh and I went away to Maruia Springs for my actual birthday – both the NZ day and the America day. I decided that since I live here now, I deserve two birthdays – the one here and my actual USA birthday since I was born in America. One day a year, I should have two days all to myself. So Josh gave in this year and gave me my birthday weekend at the Japanese hot springs and treated me like a princess.

I came down with a pretty horrific head cold once we got there. Perhaps it was my punishment for being too greedy or maybe it was just the world’s way of testing me for being too optimistic on every single birthday ever but I still had such an incredible day. At one point I started to feel a little bit sad because it was the first birthday that nobody actually sung Happy Birthday to me on my birthday but then my parents sent me a video of them singing Happy Birthday to me without me even saying anything and Josh ended up singing Happy Birthday as we were going to bed at night and all was right with the world. My family is incredible and I am just the luckiest girl in the universe.

I don’t know how I really feel about turning 30 next year. My younger sister Corinne keeps calling me an old fart which I think is quite ironic being that she’s only a year and a half younger than I am. My students found out that it was going to be my birthday and guessed that I was turning 24. I was flattered, of course. They are high schoolers so I decided that they should know better especially if they are guessing so close to my age. Next year my dad and I turn 30 and 60 exactly 1 month from each other. I am thinking that we will need to plan something big. Events like this don’t just go under the radar, don’t they?

I will miss being 28 only because it was my lucky number. It was a lucky year and I will always remember it fondly. I am optimistic about what is to come.

Dear Mom,

For all my blood-curdling years of my adolescence that you had to endure, I promise to always keep your electronics functional even though I live on the other side of the world. And I promise I will let you know when my plane lands even though we both know that information is readily available to everyone. Thanks for being a wonderful mother and always supporting every decision that you ever made for me. You’re one of my favourite parents! Thanks for providing me with love that is as never ending as your voicemails!! Also, thank you so much for bringing me into a world where love can be expressed electronically! I love you!

Your favourite daughter, (I love how neither of us have to even say that I’m your favourite. We both just totally know it!)
Caitlin Ann

PS: I hope my mediocre attempts of gratitude that I express at your birthday, Christmas, and Mothers Day make up for the 362 other days of my smug ingratitude! Thanks for not putting me back up for adoption!

PPS: I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living, my mommy you’ll be. <3

Blogging is my friend and I forgot to call it.
And now it’s totally awkward.

I guess I have to start somewhere. I’m on school holidays right now. We are on our first 2 week break of the year already – it is going very fast this year. Josh’s nan (pictured above) and his mom are both visiting us for a few days. We are having a really nice time. Yesterday I took them to Punakaiki which are more commonly known as the Pancake rocks. I took my parents and sister there last April and it was one of their favourite places in New Zealand. Josh’s mom and nan also loved it.

I really have to stop taking iPhone pictures and start bringing my camera with me again. Every January I make the same weight loss and photography goal and it hasn’t gone well this year so far.

I want to make an effort to continue to blog now that I have started up again. Blogging has always been a passion of mine and it has kept me sane in many different times in my life. Plus, it is always good to look back and reflect. It’s why I have a blog in the first place.

Just a quick aside, what are all of the rest of you internet savvy people doing for feed readers these days? I am personally a bit devastated by the news of Google Reader being discontinued next month and I’m looking for suggestions sooner rather than later.

More very soon! Especially once my company leaves!
I’ll leave you with an adorable face you probably haven’t seen in a while.
(Well, unless you stalk me on other social media.)

Sometimes I wish I taught English
So I could read poems to my class
I could read them a story of far away places
Instead of just teaching them Maths

Today I taught classes to graph things
And they didn’t seem overly thrilled
Inquiring when they’d ever use it in life
Who would want them to have all these skills?

In English, I’d teach them rhetoric
To inform and persuade and give speeches
Hyperboles instead of hyperbolas
There is so much that English class teaches!

I would teach them the classics of Shakespeare
And, of course, we would put on a play
Othello, Macbeth, and then Hamlet
They will be all their favourites someday

I’d make sure they didn’t use txt spk
Cuz i dnt wanna c english die LOL
Grammar and punctuation is essential
And vocabulary is a must, as well

But what do I LOVE more than English?
More than Faulkner, Bronte, and Thoreau?
Statistics, Geometry, and Algebra!
So really, I’d have to teach both!

Things I planned to do on my summer break:
• Read 10 books! Or more! There are so many books I want to read!
• Make lots of hemp jewelry.
• Take lots of pictures and work on my (nonexistant) photography skills.
• Get lots of schoolwork done. What else do teachers do on summer break?
• Spring cleaning! Clean my whole house!
• Do lots of exercise and eat healthy.
• Go on some nature walks and take pictures.
• Bike rides.
• Probably heaps of other productive things that I’ve forgotten about.

Things I actually did on my summer break:
• Read 2 books.
• Do a little bit of school work.
• Play lots of games on my iPhone.
• Discover and become addicted to Spotify.
• Refresh Facebook and Reddit.
• Exercise a bit. The healthy eating is going alright, though.

So besides kickstart my healthy habits (which I suppose I should give myself a bit of credit for – I’ve even lost 4 pounds) I really didn’t do anything. I’m starting to go a bit stir crazy here. I still have until the 30th of January until I go back into work (but luckily I have a parent meeting that Monday so I can pretend it starts before then).

Granted, I could solve all my problems by just stopping the complaining and just looking up to my first list, picking something, and doing it.

If you want, you can solve some of my problems by playing smartphone games with me. You can find me on most games under the username caitysparkles.

The first day we left on our North Island journey, we didn’t get very far. Just a few minutes out of town we encountered a big slip. We were the first ones on the scene. We didn’t see it slip but it was super recent and was still actively slipping.

It went across the entire road. There was no way to fit a car through. It looked like we would have to take the long way around which would add hours onto our already long journey. The next car came and decided that he and Josh should clear a little bit to the side and then they could get their cars through on the side bit on the very side of the road that wasn’t really the road but the shoulder that was just dirt. I wasn’t really comfortable with this because it was just dirt and then, you know, a cliff about 30 feet down into the river. Oh, and because I didn’t want my husband to be crushed by a falling boulder. There were a few that I saw fall down that I know would have totalled my car. Long story short, a third guy shows up and the two of those crazy guys cleared a tiny bit and ask Josh if he wants to go through (his car was first). Josh told them that he’d gladly follow them but he’d not going first if they don’t die. (I laughed but they didn’t.) Well, they didn’t die and Josh followed directly in their tire tracks and I screamed for my life. Apparently if the car got stuck Josh was ready to scream for me to just abandon the car and just get out because our lives were not worth our car. Also, right after we crossed, a big boulder fell. I tried to take a video of it for you but I freaked out and filmed my feet. Sorry.

The next day since we were alive we went fishing with Josh’s Dad (who we also stayed with that night)! I even caught some snapper all by myself. I was too excited to take pictures. Sorry. I’ve really been slacking on the pictures.

Then Christmas and Boxing Day happened and I didn’t take any pictures besides one really blurry group shot that is so horrible I refuse to share it. I blame the cider.

The day after that, Josh and I went for a nice walk with Josh’s brother Luke and his girlfriend Briar. I get along really well with Briar so I was really glad that they stayed for almost the entire week that we were there, too.

We sit around for a few more days. Josh decides that we need to eat as much fast food as possible since our tiny little town only has a Subway and nothing else. I cave and eat it all too since, you know, it’s not January 1st yet. YOLO.

We finally decided that we should probably do SOMETHING else. So we head over to Castle Point to hang out on the rocks while the boys do some fishing. Mostly Luke and their Dad. Josh didn’t want to get up early enough (okay, neither did I) so we came later and Briar came with us.

They didn’t catch anything. But the rock fishing is a pretty neat concept, I guess. Okay, I lied. It’s stupid and boring as hell. Why do people do this?

Luke is a pretty funny guy. Here he is pretending that the fishing pole is a penis while Josh takes a picture. Aren’t they hilaaaaarious? I know.

The view was amazing, though.

We climbed down the side of the rocks to get some isolation and a better view. Cue me freaking out because I have to climb on things.

This is the best picture of the trip, in my opinion. Snapped by the one and only Josh.

Another Joshterpiece. See what I did there? Josh Masterpiece. Then it was one word. Magic.

Josh and I finally got some alone time. We decided to head over to Matikona, a beach not far from Castle Point but a bit more isolated. The rock formations on the shore are like something I’ve never seen in my life.

They are pretty hard to walk on, though. Here it is from the front.

Josh decided we should take a walk and venture even further.

He found something and did something pretty amazing. But I have to save something for another post, I guess.

I wish I took more pictures. That should be a goal for 2013. Don’t you think?