Work FUN Love PLAY

I have had those four words written on our white board for a few months now, so long I've stopped reading them so it's probably time to rub them off.  I wrote them up after reading something about how the teachers' role is to help those 'difficult' students experience a balance of work, fun, love, and play.  I read it close to an essay deadline that I had and I realised: I'm working and I'm trying to love but I'm not really experiencing fun or play.  I decided I needed to change some things in my life and wrote those words up on our whiteboard to remind me.  

It's been feeling a bit like that again recently.  I have three deadlines looming.  Kind of.  If the end of October is 'looming'.  I've taken to sitting at home at my computer, ignoring invites out, and trying to live with my head in my books.  In the weekends, I plan for 'spare time' to be work time.  I haven't even got any (fictional) library books out.  I've also realised that I have been taking my breaks at the computer - reading online newspapers, watching online T.V. shows, or playing an online game - which means that I find it hard to focus on my work on the computer for any length of time.   Poor Jbird, I'm a dull kind of person to live with at the moment, especially because this is a beautiful time of year to be outside.  We are having some great weather and the leaves are starting to look gorgeous again.

This weekend I got out and enjoyed the full glory of friends and the outdoors.  My contingency plan is to try and go outside every day for at least 30 minutes.  It doesn't sound like much but it will be 29 minutes longer than my lunch breaks have been on our garden stoop recently.  Maybe that will help me get through October. 

Crepes for brekkie

Jbird made me crepes for brekkie this morning.  I would say that is one of my very favourite ways to wake.  It could probably only be topped by the sound of waves hitting a stony beach outside my window.  We've been using Julia child's recipe.  It's not much different from the recipe I grew up with but it uses an extra egg, a little less milk (she uses water as well), and some melted butter.  Of course there's butter, this is Mrs. Child we're talking about.  I think the extra egg makes all the difference because you can still get them paper thin but they have a bit more substance to them.  Our favourite toppings at the moment are lemon and sugar, and nutella.  I've been trying to substitute sugar for honey but it doesn't quite taste right on crepes.  

Her recipe (makes 8 crepes):

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup milk

2 eggs

2 tablespoons melted butter (I only use 1 at the most)

1 cup sifted flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

I tend to mix the wet ingredients, then add the dry and mix again.  Leave to rest for up to an hour.  Add more water or milk to the desired consistency.  After pouring into frying pan, I use a spatula to help spread them really thinly.  I only learnt this tip very recently even though these are the first things I ever made alone in the kitchen.  In those days, there was butter everywhere and they were fried crepes.  I thought butter was the only way to keep them from sticking to the pan. 

Sometimes you can't have it

I'm feeling far away from home.  Do bad things come in threes?  Dad's in hospital, he had his appendix out and it doesn't sound like he's doing well.  Mum and my older sister went to Uncle Willy's funeral.  His sister (Aunty Mary) couldn't, she's in hospital with suspected heart attack or water on the lungs.   I know it's not nice being around those things but I would still choose to be there if I had the choice.  I want to drive between hospitals and a funeral, not sit here writing a paper about an imaginary naughty boy that needs interventions on his behaviour.  

Up to my elbows in chocolate

I ended up really enjoying preparing Jbird's birthday cake.  I used the recipe I said I would for the cake, filling it with chocolate mousse, and covering it in a dark chocolate ganache, with white chocolate ganache streaks for effect.  I loved the way it looked when I was finished, as though it could sit in a shop window drawing customers into a chocolatier/bakery.  

Assembly was very messy.  The cake had sunk a little bit in the middle when it was baking.  This could possibly have been because I opened the oven a few times after discovering a drip through the spring form sides of the cake tin which I need to put a tray under.  The reaction of the hot/cold air in the early stages of baking left the middle section of the top of the cake with brain type bumps in it.  So I sliced the top of the cake off to flatten it.  There were chocolate cake crumbs everywhere.  Of course, I had to try a few.  I managed to make the mousse thick enough that the heavy top layer didn't squish it all out, but there was mousse everywhere.  I have a weakness for chocolate mousse so I tried 'some' of that too.  I was also happy with my ganache consistency.  Although it didn't have the extremely smooth quality I was going for, it didn't drip and pool either, but sat comfortably as I spread it over the cake.  Afterwards, there was dark chocolate ganache everywhere.  Including in my tummy.  The white chocolate was runny enough that it made very dramatic streaks across the top.  I added some diagonal stripes too.  Only one bit of white chocolate ganache dripped over the side of my icing bag onto the top of the cake which cleaned up pretty nicely.  Still.  There was white chocolate ganache everywhere.  And yes, I tried some of that too.  I tasted so much during the afternoon that almost didn't think I would be able to stomach a piece when we cut it it later that night.  Almost.

Soph brought berries which were a lovely decoration and added something special to the flavour of the chocolate.  We served it with yoghurt on the side*.  

*I think having yoghurt with cake is part of the New Zealand cafe culture because my American friends have made other suggestions when I mentioned having yoghurt with cake.  Like cream cheese.  When I first had yoghurt I thought it was too tart. Now I think it tastes perfect as it tones down the richness of cake.

Accent-a-licious

I met the new kiwi at the music school.  He's from Wellington and his accent is heavenly.  Which is a silly thing for me to say because everybody I meet says to me: I just love your accent.  Literally everyone.  Just yesterday I spent half an hour listening to someone go on and on about the British accent, as she had decided mine was British.  And that I must be Australian.   These days I nod and smile.  I used to tell them I loved their accent too.  But they mostly didn't get it: after all, they don't have an accent.  I digress.  

His accent was heavenly and it actually made me homesick. Talking to people in NZ on skype no longer does this to me.  I'm used to being away from them, and they just sound like them, not like a Kiwi.  His was not a familiar voice but an ordinary voice.  I wanted to pack it up in box only to be opened on special occasions but the technology is not yet available and I suppose he has use for his voice. 

I didn't make a particularly good impression on the Kiwi, we barely talked.  I'll have to try again another time.  Maybe I'll get the chance to win him over with my Shepherd's Pie one day.  It should be a good one: the potatoes and beef grown here are supposed to be the best in the world.

An anniversary

Today is the first anniversary for aneverydaythought.  When I started writing in this space, we were new to town and I was happy to find something to challenge me as I tried to fill the void of friendships and activities that moving town brings.  I have been surprised that I haven't exactly run out of ideas, though some weeks are better than others.  I have to admit that I used to spend a lot more time editing my writing on here as I felt like it was one the most important things about publishing work.  Unfortunately my editing has slacked off a lot.  Or perhaps I got faster at it.  Whichever it is, I want to step up my game.  

Glasses raised to a year.  xx

He's getting old

It's Jbird's birthday and our schedules are so silly at the moment, we hardly even get to see each other today. I feel really boring, I can't think of a fun surprise or a better gift than the bits and pieces I've already found for him.  As for a birthday cake?  He'll have to wait until the weekend.  It'll be a goodie when it comes, I found this great looking recipe for chocolate mud cake.  Yum.

Bad wife.  But happy Happy Birthday to you, Jbird.  

Farewell Uncle Willy

My Uncle Willy passed away two days ago.  When there's a death and you live a thousand miles away, it's hard to believe that the person is really gone.  He was my Dad's Uncle, and was always loving and friendly.  Whenever I saw him he would want to know what I was doing and where I'd been.  Because he was always asking me about me, I don't really know much about him.  This might also be because I haven't seen much of him in the last decade.  I do remember him telling me shortly after his wife passed away from breast cancer that he missed receiving the type of physical touch that you take for granted when you share a life with someone for many years.  A gentle touch as you walk passed each other.  It's one of those things you remember someone telling you because it seems important, an observation to help you know what love is when you don't think you've experienced it yourself.  More recently, he had a lovely girlfriend who was always with him.  They were very sweet.  The two of them are sitting together in the Short family photo at our wedding.  I think that's the last time I saw them.  She will find his loss very hard.  He has also left my Great Aunty Mary - my sole living blood relation of that generation, and several children and grandchildren.  I suppose the new generation is being born and starting to grow up. 

Laptop efficiency

Soph came to ours for dinner recently and she had her laptop with her.  Jbird has tried to clean its hard drive many times to make it run smoother.  Soph and I had given it up for a loss.  It took forever to open any program and it would have meltdowns after an hour or so of use.  Skype wouldn't even open.  In the middle of a conversation about buying more ram and what it had done for our computers, Jbird decided he'd open her laptop's back and give it a little clean on the chance that it would help it.  When he got to the fan compartment, he found a 2cm by 1 cm by 1cm cubic mass of dust and stuff which had built up and was like a felted solid piece.  It was pretty gross.  So he threw that out, closed it up, and can you guess the good news?  The problem is solved, the computer runs like a new machine and she can have international skype conversations with no problem at all.  We tried to do the same to our laptops but the fans are impossible to get to.  I did manage to chip off a critical little piece of plastic in my attempt to get in there so I've had to tape down a little corner flap to keep it closed.  Luckily our laptops are running better than Soph's was. 

Small irritant

We live in close proximity to a lot of people in this apartment complex.  It's convenient, cheap, and we have more space than we've ever had, but sometimes we can't help noticing those people.  Our new upstairs neighbours seem to be very noisy.  Their every footstep reverberates as a stomp through our ceiling.  Most nights at midnight, somebody is walking around in circles above our heads, and then it's 6am and they're at it again.  That gives me 6 hours of sleep and I'm an eight hour girl!  The other night, the toilet had been left running and the water sounded like a waterfall above my head.  I have a plan to switch our bedrooms when I finish this degree - I'm sure the spare bedroom doesn't pick up as many of the sounds - but for now, we've just got to put up with it.  We're both too busy to orchestrate a bedroom move right now.  Jbird thinks we should contact management and let them know, but I don't think there's anything they could do about it.  Isn't it one of the joys of apartment living?  So today I built up some courage and went upstairs to very nicely let them know how loud it is for us.  I was surprised to find only two live there.  I thought there must be at least three or four.  They have promised that late at night they'll try their hardest not to move around too much and I promised I understood their need to move around.  Here's hoping for a slightly quieter sleep tonight.

Buying fish

Our first three fish: Fish, Chips, and Ketchup, have all gone to fishy heaven and are buried under the lemon tree - unless a critter has smelt them and dug them up for an unusual garden snack.  The poor things suffered shock because of poor water changes or a lack of a water change, though Fish himself lasted a good seven months.  We are a fish collector's night mare.  Our tank is a vase.  It doesn't have a filter or a heater.  And we have no plans to upgrade. 

After scrubbing out the vase, replacing its water, and leaving it to sit for twenty four hours in the hope that any added chemicals would dissipate, we went to the local pet store to buy a new fish.  Every time we go in there we see a different person and I know they have to refrain themselves from shuddering visibly when we describe our 'tank'.  This time the lady told us she couldn't guarantee our fish in such a set up, but she did give us some helpful advice on their individual characteristics.  They didn't have any more guppies like the ones we're accustomed too.  We like them because they are really active and have nice colours.  Instead we bought a shy little tiger barb, named Hobbs, who would prefer a school of at least three.  Unfortunately he's all along because our tank's not really big enough and we're not sure he'll survive the winter without a heater.  He's pretty cute but very sedate - I don't watch him swim round and round, I watch him chill.  He's not very interested in food so far.  Maybe one day we'll go for a proper tank and all the hook ups and they'll guarantee our fishes.

Theories of learning

In my studies, I have been surprised to find that while current teaching theory is based on socio-constructivist theory, where students are active in their learning and not passive, behaviourist theory still resides within the psychologist's world of bad behaviour.  My question is, how do we overcome this paradox?  We're told the students should plan, learn, and assess their classes together, but that we should treat the 'naughty' ones like Pavlov and his dogs.  That is, reinforce good behaviour with a smile and praise, and any bad behaviour by ignoring them.  I guess it's more complicated than that, but I was really hoping for a modern secret to dealing with naughty children in the classroom when I chose to take this behaviour management class.  I guess there isn't one.  

Experience has shown me that there are ways to tell a child they're not meeting your expectations that they'll be more likely to listen to.  Avoid shouting from across the classroom, or even from higher up than them.  Instead, proximity and being at their eye level work better as you're less intimidating and they're not getting the attention from the whole class.  Instructions on a more desired behaviour are helpful too.  I was such a shouter when I first started teaching.  Not just because I was at the end of my tether and had no other ideas, but also because teachers around me did the same and I was learning from them.  I hated it, the students hated it, it wasn't a very nice atmosphere.   

Pressure

So here's part of my issues: I have three huge assignments to do and they're due in...a little over a month.  Oh gosh.  I thought I had a bit longer.  My plan is to write and write and write.  But I've been really slow about getting started so it feels like the pressure is on.  Hopefully I have learned enough this year that it will be easy.  Unfortunately if I've learned anything this year, I've learned that writing takes me a lot of time, a lot of drafts, and a lot of rereading.  I am putting up heavy socialising boundaries until November as they are due between the 14th and the 24th of October.  So overwhelming.  I hope aneverydaythought.blogspot.com survives the crunch.

The rest of the crisis is unimaginable, I literally don't know how big it is myself, but I will know on Thursday when I hope it will all be done and dusted.  I will (probably) spill the beans about it then.  The thing is, on that side of things, it will either still need a lot of working out, or it will still be super uninteresting for all those not going through it.  Sorry to be so vague.  Just know that if you never find out, you can probably ask me in person and I'll tell you.

An un-post

You know what?  Life is on top of me and today I don't have any ideas.  To add to it all, our fish died yesterday.  Stink.  It's worse than that though.  Hopefully I'll be able to relay it all at a later date.  Or not.  Too be honest, it's not that interesting to you, just the dealings of a life that is sometimes private.  You must sometimes have things happen that overwhelm everything else so I'm sure you understand.  Don't worry, nobody's hurt.  I'm sure I'll be back tomorrow.  xx 

Jam and cream on your pikelet

I had two sweet little girls over with their mother to play the other day.  They are aged two and three and their mother and I bonded because we both like to talk.  Literally.  The day we met, we were told off for talking too much long after the meet and great had finished at church.  

As our house is lacking in toys, I thought we'd do some baking and eat it on a picnic blanket down at the playground on our apartment complex.  These girls are highly American in their tastes, I've never been able to successfully interest them in anything much other than Jbird's chocolate chip cookies as a snack.  In the past, this has presented itself as a dilemma but long gone are those days of my American-potluck-phobia.  I've got it all under control.  

They were visiting at morning tea time which I believe is traditionally just a light snack for most Americans, or a cup of coffee.  Not the bikkie and tea we have at home.  I decided that pikelets would be the perfect answer.  For you Americans reading, these are basically pancakes.  Except we add a little bit more sugar to the batter, they're only about the size of your palm, we have them for morning tea or afternoon - never breakfast or breakfast-for-dinner, and we like to eat them with butter, jam, and cream.  Or just jam and cream.  Or just jam.  Or sometimes golden syrup and butter.  Or just butter. You get the idea.*  And a cup of hot tea.  I surpassed the hot tea for the sake of wandering attention spans from the girls.  

It worked out really well.  I briefly considered adding banana to the mixture but decided that might be refused by the fussiest of the two.  I set up two chairs so the bench** was a good height.  They each had turns to add ingredients, mix, measure, pour, and flip.  Both mother and the youngest enjoyed them with jam and cream while Miss Three Year Old tried cream but decided plain suited her best.  The play ground was a hit, if only for the swings, and balancing on the low retaining wall around the edge.  The two hours zoomed by but I was pretty exhausted that afternoon.  It's nice to hand 'em back.

If anyone disagrees on either American or New Zealand cultural comments I have made today, please comment.  I won't be offended.

*Actually, I may have even enjoyed them with peanut butter.  But not really ever 'pancake syrup'.  It would be too runny and...well...wrong. 

**bench - counter top

I am courageous

I do not always love teaching.  In fact, I think I can safely say that there have been more moments where I have simply hated teaching than there have been the opposite, moments of pure joy in my profession.  Maybe it's just that those horrible moments are the ones I remember.  I have often wondered what was so wrong with me that I couldn't just get it right. Or when this 'hard phase' would pass and I would be able to teach with the ease of the experienced and wise.  

During my first, death defying year of teaching, I was told that it should take about six years to feel like I was in my own skin.  The idea of five more years of...what I can only describe as a visit to hell and back...was almost soul destroying.  Almost.  I cried a lot and then I got a new job, with some music responsibilities, and I carried on.  Into another hard year.  Then I had a six month music teaching job and felt almost cherished by the staff, and enjoyed some great musical moments, so things were a bit better.  But they weren't great.  I still felt like when it came to teaching, I was running backwards up a muddy hill.  Then I taught internationally.  It was during that time that I had my favourite class I have ever taught.  This class seemed inspired by myself and their peers and I finally felt like I was actually teaching more than I wasn't, that it was almost effortless.  Unfortunately, the thing that stands out the most about that class is that it didn't really have any children with major behaviour issues.  So then I attribute my success to that - not having to 'deal' with a naughty kid.  Having a dream class - one that every teacher dreams of.

I'm reading an amazing book about this at the moment.  It has outlined my problem as my own fear.  A fear of being fearful, a fear of inadequacy.  The author tells me I will always feel this fear, and that I should always feel it, because if I don't, I will probably no longer be trying to relate to my students.  And if I am able to embrace my fear, I will have integrity and know my own identity.  It's a beautiful book to read.  Even though it's called The Courage to Teach*, I think it's equally applicable for any profession.  Don't tell me you never feel afraid.  Or perhaps you are not aware of your fear.  

This book, and this Masters degree, and these years where I've only visited teaching for a few months at a time, have helped me know that I do want to be a teacher.  But also that it's a hard career and I'm glad for the break, for the time to study and think.  But I will be back in the classroom one day.

*By Parker J. Palmer

Raspberry lemon bars

We were asked to bring dessert for dinner at a friends in the weekend and I remembered this favourite I'd made several times last year.  I discovered this recipe around the time that I realised 'bars' are what we call a 'slice' at home.   I once substituted lime for the lemon.  It was too tart - I probably needed to put less in but I'd recommend sticking to lemon.  Be careful to bake it for long enough too, you want it to feel pretty firm in the middle.  I know you probably know this, but take the time to read the recipe before you want to bake it, I was caught out several times with timing issues! It. Is. Really. Delicious.

Preheat oven to 350F.  Line an 8" circular pie pan with parchment paper.  Set aside.

For the crust:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup flour

1/4 cup confectioners' sugar

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 tsp grated lemon zest

Preparing the crust:
Prepare the crust:  Combine all the crust ingredients in a medium bowl and stir with a wooden spoon until a soft dough forms.  Press evenly into the prepared pan.  Refrigerate for 10 minutes.  Bake the crust for 15 minutes, then let cool for 15 minutes.

For the lemon topping:

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1/2 zest of 1 lemon

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp flour

around 1/2 cup raspberries, fresh or frozen

Lemon topping:  Seive dry ingredients.  Combine all the topping ingredients, except the raspberries, in a medium bowl and whisk until well blended.  Spread the raspberries evenly over the baked crust.  Slowly pour the lemon topping mixture over the raspberries.  Bake for 22-24 minutes.  Lower the oven temperature to 325F and continue baking for 20-25 minutes longer or until topping is set.  Transfer the baking pan to a cooling rack and let cool completely.  Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before cutting.  Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

Strawberry Shortcake and its complimentary cocktail

We were invited to a friend's for strawberry shortcake on Sunday night.  We wanted to take a drink but you can't buy alcohol on Sundays in Indiana so I had me a little think about what we had at home, grabbed that, and concocted a delicious cocktail at his house.  

The items I found were: 12oz of some fancy gingerbeer*, 2 10 oz bottles of tonic water*, a lemon, 12 raspberries, a bottle of gin and a bottle of vodka.  There were four of us, and I had enough to make a pretty nice sized cocktail each.  I gave a squeeze of lemon and a half shot of each of the alcohols to each glass.  In that, I muddled (smashed) the raspberries and then distributed out the sodas to each glass.  They were arguably the best drink I'd had in a long time.  The raspberries made them look a little bit girlie but the three boys I was drinking with savoured them over the next hour.  A lovely compliment to strawberry shortcake.  The strawberry shortcake itself was a variation from mine which I will have to bake some day.  It had a sweet scone as the cake.  Also, it was made by a boy (kudos to him), and was absolutely delicious.  That combined with several round of Pit and some decent piano playing and conversation called for a very successful Sunday evening.  Well, I think it was successful, but I was little chatty Kathy...

* all of these drinks are from single serve bottles, if you don't measure in ounces

Community garden

I am volunteering at the church's community garden.  All the produce go to those who can't afford to buy groceries.  The garden has a fabulous amount of sun, a fence, and is set in several raised beds, so everything seems to grow much better than in my garden.  And to be of a regular size.  I was excited about my yummy handful of beans but they got a big, heavy bag full.  Their various squash is doing really well, their sage are small bushes.  Their tomatoes are falling over like mine.  It's the tomato plant falling over time of year.  I'm excited about this commitment.  Another excuse to be outdoors is good for my Vitamin D levels.

Stuffing peppers

The produce from our garden is at its best right now.  In the last few days we harvested a pound of lovely juicy green beans, the usual 10 or so tomatoes, and 10 bell boy peppers which are suddenly plentiful and growing larger than they have been.  Bell boy peppers are like miniature capsicum peppers.  I'm not particularly fond of eating them raw, and they seem to disappear into most things I cook them in.  Because we had so many this week, I realised I could make stuffed peppers, and I finally found a dish they could really shine in.  They're so cute, too.  I lopped off their spout, scooped out their seeds and they were a perfect little cup to stuff.  I cooked up some rice risotto, adding feta cheese and fresh herbs as an after thought, stuffed eight little peppers, placing a slice of tomato on top of each, and baked them until I could see the peppers were starting to brown in splotches.  They hold together better than half a capsicum and make a filling meal.  It's lovely having home grown produce to eat and enjoy every day.  It's a great time of the year.

The post-fall shakes

I fell off my bike earlier today and I still feel a little bit shaky.  It definitely took me by surprise.  In lieu of the tornado strong storms we've been expecting, it was drizzling lightly.  As it was the first rain in a while, the roads were extra slick.  I had stopped at a zebra crossing* to assess the situation.  I didn't think a truck saw me so I hesitated but then decided to bike cross anyway.  Feeling a bit sheepish, I never feel as though I have right of way, I was kind of turning in front of the truck when my bike slid out from under me.  I took a leaf out of Jbird's book and successfully rolled to catch my fall.  I wasn't really hurt - my thumb feels a bit tender, and my backside got really wet - but my pride was wounded.  It happened right in front of a crowd of people at the festival we were going to. I'm glad I wasn't wearing a skirt, that would've been worse.

*pedestrian crossing