Happy Halloween!

Hi everybody. Happy Halloween from Australia! A special thank you to my little buddies Liam & Rowan for sending us a Halloween card - and one that even arrived all the way over here on just the right day! (Nice work, Anastasia :)
I took candy along today for all of my fellow Department of Education Refresher Course mates and I just saw 2 young kiddos dressed up walking down our block, but other than that there wasn't much around to signify that it was Halloween. It was kind of weird.

Your basic update on what we've been up to:
Andy spent last Monday - Thursday in Townsville on a work-related trip. Maybe he'll add some detail at a later date about this.
I had a brief interview with a Casual Relief (aka: substitute) Teaching agency last Tuesday morning, which went very well, and I actually ended up surviving my first day of subbing in both a Grade 6 and a Kindergarten classroom last Friday! It was fairly intimidating, but overall I think it went well, and it was great to get out and working and back in the midst of the energy of a school setting.
I volunteered at a school on Wednesday morning, then made my way to that musical that I wrote about earlier - it was superb! The music, the costumes, the stage props, and the actors were all amazing, and I was lucky to sit by some really friendly women that almost made me feel like my Portland theater girls were right there next to me. I was really struggling for a while that day with the mixed emotions of, "I can't believe I'm here for such an amazing event with nobody that I love" / "If we hadn't made this decision to come, I wouldn't even be experiencing this amazing event." Whew! Good thing I had scheduled a massage for that night to help me feel better :)

We attended our first 'Via WebCam' Party back in Portland on Saturday afternoon for us/ Friday night Portland time. It was marvellous to see so many familiar faces (amongst other things- he he) and to hear so many familiar voices. I was crying when we first got it up and running, but I regained control of my emotions fairly quickly and went on to really enjoy being able to still be a part of the Portland Old Man Frat scene. A big thanks to Jason Brabec for ensuring that it happened, and to everybody that hung in there while the technological difficulities were worked out! Cheers!

I've been attending a 3-day class sponsored by the Department of Education this week, I interviewed at a private girls' school for an assistant teacher position, and I have an interview tomorrow at a camp/outdoor store (similar to REI) that I had applied for in desperation a few weeks back. I've pretty much decided to hold off on applying for any Lead Teacher positions for the 2008 school year - I just do not want to commit to the amount of time I know I would spend in striving to be an excellent teacher my first year here, nor do I want the stress that would come along with it. But we'll see what happens - sometimes you never know where you were meant to be until you're there.

Think I'll end on that thought. Hope you enjoyed all of the pictures and video clips on the previous entry. Have a frightful Halloween! Love and miss you all.

BOO!
Christy