I'm going to be a teacher when I grow up!

I just received a letter from the Gradute School. I got in!!!

Excellent.

So happy.

That is all.

Update

Everyone has been asking me if I have heard from Grad school. I haven't and was getting more and more frustrated, as what I do with the rest of my year depends on this outcome.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands, and wrote them an email last night. I edited it for about half an hour, determined to make sure the tone didn't sounds snarky. This is what I wrote:


Please forward this message to Lois (or someone else involved in the application process).

I had an interview on Friday 26th February for Primary Teacher Training. At the end of my interview, I was told that the last possible date that I could hear back was the 14th June (almost 4 months after my interview). I thought it seemed a long time to have to wait, as your website indicates that the processing of applications would be done as they are received rather than waiting, and that normally, the student would know approximately 2 weeks after their interview. I applied early because I will be travelling through North America (leaving 17th May), and won't be back in NZ again until 2 weeks before the start date of the course.

Two weeks ago I rang the office, and left a message requesting an update. As I have not heard back, this is the reason that I am following up with this email. If my application is successful, I will need to organise Student Allowance and Loan options soon as this takes time.

I very much want to do this course, and I hope that I showed my capabilities and enthusiasm in my interview, so if you could let me know the outcome before I leave, that would be a huge help to me.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon

Theresa

And it seems to have worked. Here is their very quick response:


Dear Theresa

Thanks for your e-mail. I quite understand your issue. We have been on leave so your message of two weeks ago has missed us.

Our plan is to let you know the outcome of your application by the end of the first week of May….hopefully earlier.

If you havent had a letter by Friday 7 May please phone me.

With kind regards



Maybe I will hear before I go after all.

Published Authors

I found out today that my old flatmate Karen, has published her first novel. This is very cool. I used to live with her and so it's awesome that someone I know has published a book. It seems to be on most people's (including mine) lists of things to do with their life, but rarely do people achieve it so congratulations Karen (not that she'll probably read this anyway). Her book is a young adult novel and has had great reviews. I'm thinking of buying a copy for myself and perhaps one for Tiki's older daughter for Christmas (what do you think Tiki?).

Anyway, a bit of info about the book can be found here:

Guardian of the Dead



I actually also have another friend who has published a kid's book:

Wonkey Donkey.

Although I have never published a book, I have done some stuff with writing. When I was 8 years old, I wrote a story on bicycle safety and got into highly commended category in the Road Safety Magazine in the same section as the 12 year olds.

I won a (pink) skateboard for an essay writing competition when I was 13. The look on my face when I went up the front of the assembly to collect my "prize" was fairly priceless.

I won an Ipod (which I duly sold cos I hate Ipods) for a story that I wrote when I worked for www.hostelbookers.com and through that became for a short time a freelance writer of travel articles for their website. Nothing was credited but I did get paid so that was cool.

But to write a novel, now that would be cool. Also on my to do list is to write and record an album. That seems more likely than the former option, but since my vocal chords were damaged a few years back, my voice has never been quite the same since.

I imagine writing a novel in a little cottage overlooking the beach or a lake, but that's more of a lovely daydream than anything else.

I don't know what the book would be about. When I was a kid I wrote a lot of stories and I was for a short time, obssessed with things that were silver, as they held a certain magical quality to them. My favourite books at about 10 years were "The Silver Crown", "The Silver Sword" and "The girl with the Silver eyes" and so it only followed suit to write a story called "The Silver Horse" about a magical horse that Laura a bored twin sees wink at her in the museum one day. The same horse comes to visit her that night and asks her to save their silver world, and so the adventure begins.

I miss that creativity that you possess so much as kids. At the moment, I am self-publishing my travel journal with photos from my two year trip to Europe and I am loving the feeling of creating something. I think as adults we get so used to living in the "real world", we forget all about the pure enjoyment that creating gives us.

The Sun has set

This will be a very NZ centric post. Although I don't think that I have any readers that are not kiwis.

So apparently in NZ not many people watch Sunrise, which is a news magazine show and TV3's version of TVNZ's Breakfast. I don't watch a lot of TV, but this show was great. I didn't watch it (or any morning news show) until Oliver Driver and his dog Jack came on the scene as co-host, but I soon grew to love the other presenters as well. I thought that this was a much more fun, and interesting way to hear about the news, and I thought that it was great!

However yesterday, I (and everyone else) found out that yesterday after their show, they were all called in to the board room, and told that that was their last show. They announced that they would do one last farewell show today, so I got up early, and watched the whole 1 hour tribute. And I found myself getting strangely teary (weird I know). I found myself really feeling sad that I would know longer have these guys to watch in the morning. They have replaced it with reruns of 80's shows like Magnum PI and it's just going to be crap. Will I swap? Hmm I don't know. I may just read a book. Apparently the show was axed because of lack of ratings, but I always thought that everybody watched it. All my friends did anyway.

So I know that it was only a show, and I'll definitely get over it without needing therapy.

However, Hitler was fairly upset...


Hitler Finds out TV3 Cancelled Sunrise - The funniest home videos are here


Speaking of watching things very kiwi-centric, I went to see "Boy" the other day. It was absolutely fantastic, and although I'm not sure that an international audience will appreciate all the nostalgic goodness, because it wasn't their childhood, it was just wonderful!



Suddenly the world of side pony tails, using the word faaaaaaar and egg as swear words, and boys wearing quite short shorts came back. This was my childhood, and it would have been good just for those cultural references, but the film is a great little gem in it's own right. I would hope that international audiences could appreciate that, but it's cool that there's a few "in jokes" that just us kiwis will get.

Whatever you do. GO. SEE. THIS. FILM