Cars, interviews and Toowoomba...

This past week has been very busy and full of interesting experiences. On Wednesday afternoon, I had my WIMBA conference with some of the other interns placed outside of Brisbane. It was great to hear from everyone and see what others have been up to in their teaching. It's a pretty novel experience using WIMBA...

The kids weren't too bad for the second half of the week. My lessons are going well and Joel seems happy to leave the room fairly regularly and leave them to me. I dealt with a fair amount of fighting over money... some kids have up to $15 at school with them each day! They lend it to each other and then get upset when they can't have the money back again! They continue to amuse me... I'm afraid I laughed at the wrong time on Thursday as I was trying to discipline one boy... I was sitting with the kids on the carpet, teaching something or other, and all of a sudden, one of the kids yells out, "Miss, Tyler's licking your chair!" I look down in annoyance to see that he was in fact licking and chewing on the wooden arm of my chair. I tried so hard to keep a straight face... but I laughed as I told him how revolting it was to put yucky things in your mouth. Then I tried to tell the kids to settle and stop laughing, but they just said, "You're laughing Miss!" Haha...

On Thursday afternoon, I packed my suit and headed off to Toowoomba for my Ed QLD interview on Friday morning. I barely made it out of Tara when my car started misbehaving. I feel like I've had every possible problem with my car over the last couple years; I've blown up the radiator, had the alternator fixed numerous times, had flat batteries... but this time, it was a new problem. YAY. This time something was going wrong with the overdrive function. I won't pretend to know anything about it, for fear of sounding very silly with my very inexpert description of the problem. All I know is that if I drove with my hand on the gearstick, then the car worked properly.

So I drove all the way to Dalby with one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding the gearstick still. If I went over a bump in the road, the overdrive would turn itself off and the car would rev really hard until I wiggled the gearstick again. Haha. It's kind of funny now... but it wasn't at the time. When I arrived in Dalby I drove straight to a mechanic. He took my car for a drive and then told me that he didn't have time to fix it, but that if I gave the stick a bit of a tap everytime it played up, I should get to Toowoomba ok. He didn't exactly boost my confidence, but he gave me the number of a mechanic in Toowoomba to call. So I kept going and made it to Toowoomba. I pretty much leapt from the car when I arrived at Ruth Louden's house. Haha. I was so glad to be with people and escape the silly car. :)

I spent Thursday night with the Louden's. It was so lovely to be in a home again, with people who I knew! It felt like an incredible luxury to sit down to dinner at a dinner table and eat food that I didn't have to cook. To walk on carpet and shower in a nice clean bathroom, and to sleep in a bed that didn't sag in the middle, and to feel warm and comfortable and at home. :) I really enjoyed my time with Ruthie. In the morning, I got dressed for my interview... and had lots and lots of nervous energy. Haha. But I think I did look very cute for the interview... with my heels and stockings and cute shirt and little business skirt!! :)

So my interview was at Aubingy House... the regional office for Ed QLD in the Darling Downs region. It was a huge, imposing old looking building on a very busy street. Everything was very formal. I went inside and I was asked to sit down and wait until exactly 10:15am. At 10:15am, a lady came out and took me to a small room with a table and a chair. She gave me a clipboard folder with a sheet of questions on it and left the room. I had 15 mins to think about the questions they would ask me. The questions couldn't have been better if I had written them myself!!! God really provided for me in that! I was asked 5 questions:
1. Explain the process you would go through to plan a unit of work.
2. Imagine you are planning a SOSE unit, describe how you would incorporate literacy and numeracy.
3. How will you deal with different needs in the classroom.
4. How will you create a safe a supportive learning environment.
5. Imagine you are posted somewhere unfamiliar. Explain how you would get to know the students, staff and community.

I have just written a SOSE unit that integrates many Literacy concepts, and I am already in an unfamiliar location. My children certainly present the full variety of needs that can come up in a classroom, and I've never seen a school more in need of a SAFE learning environment. I felt really confident once I saw those questions!!! :) At exactly 10:30am, another lady came to the room and escorted me through a maze of offices to the interview room. I had two interviewers on my panel. They were both lovely and seemed very impressed with my work and responses. Normally the interview lasts for half an hour.... mine went for 45 mins. :) So I feel pretty happy that I had so much to talk about! I left Aubingy House walking on air!!

Lauren and Emily met me then and we went out for lunch and took my car to the mechanic. They weren't quite sure what was wrong and were very busy... but they decided to work on my car anyway... sometimes being young and female and looking cute and helpless is a great way of getting help! We visited a beautiful garden after lunch to wait for my car to finish. I haven't seem such a lovely garden in a very long time.. it was a very peaceful way to spend the afternoon.

Lauren, Em and I after lunch!!

Ruthie and Ruthie :)

Very happy-to-be-finished-interview me in the garden... Haha...

Soooo pretty! I would love a garden like this!

I wanted to pick a yellow rose, but Em and Lauren wouldn't let me... I just wanted one!!

The cool hedge clipping...

Laying in the sun... :)

Finally, they finished with my car and $170.00 later, I was on the road again. Apparently they replaced some wiring that was faulty and the bushes... whatever that means...
I got back to Tara at about 7:30 Friday night, exhausted, but happy to have the interview and car ordeal over. :)