Emily: Can I have another coffee please?

Caleb: Another double ristretto flat white?

Emily: Yep.

Caleb: Is that your third?

Emily (sheepishly): Yes.  Is that bad?

Caleb: No way.  That's awesome!!

Some of the boys from Wudi shot a female kangaroo in the holidays and so brought the orphaned joey back to school, to be cared for by the Tiger Lily House girls.  Rachel and Chloe brought it over to visit me the other day: this tiny, cute creature called Josie.  I loved it.  The girls amused themselves with my phone and laptop, as usual, and we listened to Akon and Belinda Carlisle on my new ipod speakers.  I had one of those moments where I'm like, this is so cool.  I'm just hanging out, in my room, with two Aborigines and a kangaroo.

I saw two thought provoking signs in Sydney.  The first was outside a church in Leichhardt.  Instead of advertising the upcoming sermon, the notice board read:

Return Stolen Bibles Here.  No Penalty.

Hmmm.  What did that mean?  Were people really stealing bibles from the church - and was the church really asking for their return?  Isn't the whole point of church to get the Word of God into people's homes?  And here people - members of the general public presumably - are taking those very Bibles home, only to have the church ask for them back.  Why did people feel the need to steal them in the first place?  Can't you just ask your friendly minister for a copy of the Scriptures now days?  Or was the sign some sort of clever, ironic joke that I just didn't get?  Possibly.  It felt more like a notice about overdue library books to me.

The second sign was outside the Marrickville Community Centre, on Addison Road.  Among the advertisements for food co-ops, recycling and Sunday markets was a notice about yoga, detailing class times and the like.  Underneath this had been painted, in neat letters -

Now is the 2nd best time to start yoga.

The first time I drove past this, I thought it said Nov 2nd is the best time to start yoga.  I was prepared to accept that.  I don't know why the second of November would be so auspicious, but you know ... maybe that's how it works in the yoga world.  But now is the second best time?  Of course, the question is - when is the best time?  And why don't we all start then?

Wednesday nights Liz and I organise a soccer game on the oval for the students.  When we started it - originally for the girls only - a few kids would drift over, maybe four or five, and grace us with their presence.  Liz and I amused ourselves with kicking the ball back and forth inbetween times.  But now that it's an established practice, we have a big mob of kids, from the girls' and boys' houses, eager to play.  We divide ourselves up into teams in some vague fashion and begin the game.  Sometimes we try to enforce the rules, but other times, when we call out "handball!" the kids yell back, "keep playing miss, blackfella way!"  We play till the sun drops behind the horizon, a brilliant orange circle that you can look straight into.  We play till the red-tail black cockatoos wing their way above us, through the darkening sky and you can no longer see the rusty brown termite mounds on the oval's edge.  We play till the "teams" are hopelessly confused and people have sitting down on the field, or riding bikes through it, or perhaps introducing a second ball into the mix.  We play until Liz says, I feel like we've stumbled into a postcard.

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What I love about Woolaning is that we - the staff - can hang out ALL term, all six long weeks of it, get to the holiday period, go into town and ... all hang out together.  It's great.  Last night Liz, Tom, Bethany, BJ and I sat on the grass down near the Esplanade, under the stars, and talked and laughed and there was honestly no where I would rather have been.

Working here is like being in this ongoing game where you are not allowed, ever, to show that a student has 'got' to you. 

If someone swears at you, don't react.

If they threaten to punch you, or hit you, or throw a chair at you, don't react.

If they lock you in your caravan, so that you have to wait 45 minutes until Mum comes to call you for dinner, don't react.

If they yell 'Snake! Snake!' while you're swimming, don't react.

But today, when we had gardening and one of the students came at me with a live cane toad wiggling in his hand, I did react.  I couldn't help it.

I hate cane toads.

I think that Territorians like to mess with your head, really.  They have weird signs around the place.

For example, on arriving at Kakadu, we pay for a camp site and are directed to a grassy area, on which are many trees, most of them adorned with a neat sign that says 'No Camping'.  Okay ...

Or the swimming hole with the notice about crocodiles inhabiting the water and causing death, followed by a another sign advising caution - beware of hidden rocks! - when swimming.

Or the sign, conveniently located at the boat ramp, which prohibits vessels, announcing a $1400 fine, right next to the information about which fish may be legally caught and kept.

Or Mum's conversation at the furniture store yesterday:
'Hi, I'm after a flat pack book case.'
'Sorry, we don't do flat packs.'
(Confused) - 'But I called yesterday ... '
(Without blinking an eyelid) - 'Oh right.  Over there by the far wall then.'

Or when I called the doctor clinic this morning, after noting from their add in the Yellow Pages that appointments were necessary, only to be told that they didn't do appointments, it was a walk-in clinic only.

My favourite, though, was a little sign in Kakadu showing a picture of a tap, with a line through it, thoughtfully placed on a small pole with - yes- a tap on it.  We stopped and stared and laughed at that one.

Holidays began yesterday at Woolaning and now the school is quiet and empty.  I have devoted today to pottering and odd jobs, before heading into town tomorrow to pick up Tim (HURRAH!).

I must say, school is full of surprises.  Monday morning at staff meeting, someone says, 'We need to drive the students to the Student Centre for music lessons today.'  (The Student Centre is only 500 metres down the road, but whatever.)  'Liz, you can take the bus for the Level Ones, Emily you can drive the Level Twos.  Okay then, that's sorted.'

Liz and I look at each other - neither of us have ever driven a bus before - so it's out to do a couple of laps of the school before classes begin. Yep, that should cover it.  School policy does not allow a Teacher Aide to be in a classroom with the students by herself - a qualified teacher MUST be present at all times - but apparently driving a bus full of kids, alone, in a vehicle you don't have a licence for, is not a problem.

I must say, it was quite fun, despite the overwhelming vote of no confidence from my passengers: 'You got licence Miss?  You gonna crash us!  We gonna die - leave that door open Miss ...' - and so on.  I was looking forward to going for my Light Rigid licence on Wednesday, but the police officer/driving tester was a no show.

Another unexpected event in my life this week was a quick trip to Darwin, on Thursday night, to drop the town kids off.  Lucas, Reg and I left at 4pm, with a full bus, to drive to town, drive all around town, and then drive home again.  This took almost five and a half hours of straight travel - no stops, breaks, refreshments or other conveniences.  It was interesting to see where all the kids lived (or at least, were staying for the break).  Our first drop off was to 15 Mile, an indigenous community in Palmerston, which is a satellite city to Darwin.  I have spent many a happy hour in Palmerston's Target store, with side-trips to Gloria Jean's, completely unaware of the little village so near by.  Down an unmarked dirt red road is a collection of derelict buildings, whose condition is echoed by the people sitting on their verandahs.  I have been to slums in India and Cambodia, and orphanages in China, but I have never before felt such poverty and hopelessness.  It was so bleak.  It felt strange to let "our" kids off there, to send them to that home.  And so close to the rest of Palmerston's pleasant suburbs!

In other news, I had a fantastic swim at Florence Falls yesterday after school.  Tom, Richard and I dived under the water again and again to see the fish swimming about, pushing against the current to reach rocks, balancing upon them before throwing ourselves back into the depths.  We saw little rock wallabies on the way down to the Falls and crossed flooded creeks on the way back.  Burgers and beer at Monsoon ... so good.

Well I'm here in the sunny Northern Territory, where you can drive fast and the news is big. 

Headline news, from Friday's paper:

Woman finds Snake Skin in Chip Packet (apparently a big deal, it put her off potato chips completely).

And from yesterday:

Flying Car UFO over Darwin - they even had a photo. 

Other than that, I'm at the school, I'll be starting to help out in the classroom as of tomorrow.  Went swimming today.  Good to see Mum again, can only hear about 60% of what she says, but that's okay.  We manage.

Sitting at Island, writing studies for Mayfield in a last-minute-ish kind of way ...  Marina is back from Melbourne, as is Will, Andy comes in for his flat white, Scott drops in to chat with Dane, David-who-wears-no-shoes walks past ...

Ah, so familiar.

I'm not saying that gift giving is my primary love language, but I do like a good Christmas and I can't help feeling sorry for those people who describe their holiday as 'low-key'.  Especially when it comes to presents.

I asked Tim what he got for Christmas.  'A cookbook,' he said.  'What else?' I asked.  Nothing else, apparently.  I was so surprised that Tim later wrote me a entire email to clarify how contented he was with that one gift.  I still side with Mum, who asked innocently, 'Doesn't he have a family?'

My work mate Kat told me happily how her Christmas presents consisted of fifty dollars, five boxes of chocolate and a pair of socks.  I felt a bit sad.

Dave Jolly only got one present this year.  It was a labeller.