The halfway mark

Well, we are halfway through our adventure. I was thinking, Mark and I spent about 4 months planning to get married and then we got married and we are still married. We spent 18 months planning to have children and then we had children and we still have those children. We spent 5 years planning this exchange to Australia and then we went to Australia and in 5 months, it is going to be over.

So where are we with it all? I’ll start with the whole reason we are here: Mark. He is having a very polarized experience, to the point that I can never tell who is going to walk in the door at 3:45 every avo (afternoon). Some days he comes home aggravated, telling me about the two or three kids who make it virtually impossible for him to teach the remaining 20 who seem to want to learn. He lists the ways he thinks administration should be dealing with these situations. He tells me about the holes and gaps in the system that make him feel ineffective.

Other days or sometimes even an hour later, he tells me about the connections he’s making with kids. My recent favorite story is about how the P.E. teacher asked him to bring a few golf clubs to school so he could give her gym class some golf lessons. He noticed one boy who seemed to have a natural swing. He recruited six kids, including this one, to sign up to do golf on Sport Day. So this term, he is taking this group of kids to the golf course for an hour on Wednesdays. He thinks this one boy, who never picked up a club before, might become a golfer. Who knows where it might lead him. And there are other stories like this. Students here, just like in CO, tell him that they like maths for the first time because of him; that they like to come to his class even though they hate maths; that they are learning more than they’ve ever learned in maths. And his lowest functioning class is doing more work in his class than other teachers would ever dare to expect out of them. He’s brought his gift here and has found ways to connect with kids just like he has always done in Thornton.

I’m not passing this blog by Mark for his approval this time. It is important to me to write this down because watching his progress at Cardiff High School has been one of the biggest parts of this Australian experience for me. I am in awe of his perseverance but, then again, anyone can do anything for a year. What is more impressive is that he is able to shine like he can shine, like few teachers in the schools across the world can shine, even on days when he feels powerless, clueless, frustrated, aggravated, angry, resentful, whiney and jealous. He can still walk into the classroom and connect with every single student in ways that matter to those kids. He is still teaching.

I don’t know if he’ll be able to leave this country knowing that he did more than most could do while he was here but I know it. And even though I have to muddle through his whinging and self-pity that sometimes oozes through our house for hours on end, I find myself in awe of the teacher that he is. So who knows what the second half of this teaching experience will bring him. And who knows if he’ll ever find peace in this foreign system for himself. But I am pretty sure that his ability to connect with and teach students will continue to rise above any of his personal opinions and complaints about the way they run things around here. I know you would all be very proud of him.

Other than his job, Mark is enjoying bike riding and has an eye on a 170 km bike ride along The Great Ocean Road in October. We’ll see if we can make that happen. He continues to enjoy the family time that he has in the mornings and all afternoon and evening. And he’s eagerly awaiting spring when it warms up enough to get back in the water. He’s ready to get back on the boogie board.

In other news, Lisa, Mark’s stepsister, and Josh, her son just left us tonight after spending 5 wonderful days here visiting. Their trip began with a Disney tour to Cairns, Uluru and Sydney and ended with a stint here in Newcastle. We loved having them here to share a bit of our life with. I realized, as we tried to think of things to do during the day that Josh might enjoy while Gabe and Jordan were in school, that Newcastle is not a tourist spot. It is a home for people who live and work, not a tourist attraction with amusement parks or museums or zoos. In the winters here, if it is not sunny, people stay home. If it is sunny, it is still cold and often windy so people stay home then too. The beaches are like ghost towns and, when it is windy, the whirling sand makes that seem even more so. We like being here this year. It has given us the opportunity to just be home and be together. But it occurred to me this week, while trying to entertain guests, that this is not a tourist spot. I have lived in touristy towns ever since I was 15 years old. This is the first time since living in the suburbs of Detroit that my town is not a destination for anyone. It’s odd.

We were sad to see them leave tonight. Like they are going back home and we can’t come yet. Not that I want to. I would be devastated if our time here was over right now. But when people come and then they go back, I feel the teensiest bit abandoned. Just the slightest bit.

The kids are doing well. Jordan took a week to get over her feverish sickness, whatever it was. But now that she’s well again, she’s well again and we’re all happy about that. They are both enjoying their friends, their teachers and their school life. Gabe continues to go across the street everyday after school to play with the neighbor kids. We have playdates and go to birthday parties and I feel like I keep writing the same thing about them on every update. They truly are having a great time. They haven’t said they are missing anything about home in quite a while. Jordan says she is struggling to remember what her bedroom in Lakewood looks like.

Here we are celebrating Jordan and Josh's birthdays...

Gabe and Jordan both talk Australian far better and more often than Mark or I, even though Mark and I try much harder than they do. I was trying, just today, to say the word ‘fire’ the way I heard a man say it as I passed him on the street. I contorted my mouth, lowered my voice, and hung my head just so and I still sounded like I was from Texas rather than Oz. Gabe nailed it on his first try.

And then there’s me. I finally, after six long months of working almost daily on my book, have a plot! It is amazing how hard novel-writing is for this unschooled, unguided, aspiring writer. But I think I might finally have something I can really wrap my pen around so we’ll see what happens next. I’ve been reading a lot, trying to educate myself on the craft of writing and many authors have reported that it takes them about 2-3 years to write a novel and that the first one or two or sometimes three finished manuscripts never saw the light of day. It was their fourth attempt that finally had enough merit to be bound and sold. Some days that is encouraging and other days very discouraging. I will be sure not to quit my day job, after, of course, this year of not having one.

Other than writing, I am happy to report an increasingly active social life. I have a few friends now with whom I think I’ll stay in touch after we go and who might even come visit us in CO. I am enjoying getting to know these people and having people to turn to right here when I need help or commiseration or guidance or companionship. I was hoping to have people here I’d miss and I think now I will.

The weather is always something people in America ask about so I’ll tell you that it is winter, winter, winter. Time-wise, it is the equivalent of February here which is when I tend to get the most sick of winter in CO. So it is not surprising that I’m pretty much over winter here as well. The trees seem more bare than they have the last few months. The air seems crisper, the sun seems weaker, its yellow, more muted. The wind cuts deeper and the rain feels more terminal. The sun just doesn’t impress me as much as I know that its efforts will be easily overrun by the gray, the rain and the wind. Nice try, I tell it. Call me when you’ve really got something to show. The temperatures are in the 50s and 60s most days and drop into the 40s at night so it isn’t awful but it never quite gets warm. And then we read online that Denver has had a record 3 weeks of 90+ degree days and was slotted to see triple digits this past week. Frankly, I’d prefer this so I am done complaining.

We are about to enter our longest stretch without visitors since the first three months we were here. We won’t see anyone until November now. And we won’t have any big trips until the end of September so we are nestled into normal life for 2 months. There are a few restaurants I want to try nearby and I hope to get in the ocean in September for the first time in months. I am going to take an online writing class and I’d like to get together with my new friends some more. I hope Mark gets himself out on the golf course a bit more often and I will try to set up many playdates for the kids during the week. I also want to see the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney and am hoping to sneak away to Melbourne with a friend of mine for an overnight sometime soon. But other than those kinds of things, I am thrilled to have the time to write, to be home with my husband and kids, to turn my face to the sun on the days that it shines unimpeded and to run along the ocean’s threshold as often as I can. I am in no hurry to come home but I miss you all very much.