Sunday, 1 May, 2016

This week was busy, although not as busy as last week.

I tried tried two new classes at the Over 50s Centre this week: Weight Management and Yoga.  Again, I was the youngest in both classes and some of these oldies put me to shame, but I will keep on trying.  The Weight Management class is more of a social group with a little bit of talking about food.  The ladies were very welcoming and interesting - one of them even told us about some new pretty underwear she had bought and proceeded to show them to us (the ones she was wearing!  Oh my!).  I was hoping it would be more like a Weight Watcher's meeting - however, I will give it one more shot to see if it's going to be helpful or not.

The yoga class was fabulous - the woman leading it was so flexible - amazing!  She led us through a great yoga class for 45 minutes.  She then had us lay down on our mats with our eyes closed and led us through a 15 minute meditation - this was so much better than last week's meditation class - this woman talked calmly the whole time - I was focusing on her and trying to relax as she was asking us to do and I found it quite calming.  I will definitely make this class a part of my regular routine when I am in HB.

I thoroughly enjoyed my Aquafit classes again this week.  It was so funny on Thursday, though - I arrived at the pool with only a minute or two to spare.  When I walked in, there were five women (one was the instructor) there and they started cheering - what a nice welcome! :-)  It turned out that they were happy to get any body coming in - they need to have five woman showing up for class and I made the fifth - they were worried that the class was going to have to be cancelled.  I felt like a celebrity for a couple of seconds. :-)

I had another facial with Helen this week - this weekly routine is something I am totally enjoying - I would never have spent money on something like that up until now - I couldn't bring myself to spend that type of money on me prior to this - I like spoiling myself now! :-)  

I only had one lunch out this week (poor me ;-)  and it was with some more teacher friends - it's always nice to meet up with them and to find out how things are going at Kawungan S.S.  The teachers were saying that they are having to do more and more work outside the classroom these days and it's just annoying for them - they just want to be able to teach and not have to deal with more and more admin stuff.  It seems that there are more and more behaviour issues with the students, as well - sounds like a good time to get out of teaching here and that is what many of them are doing - the older ones are retiring as soon as they can (even if it's in the middle of the year) and many young ones are quitting before they have even been teaching for five years.

I got to babysit two little girls this week - Scarlett (4) and Indiana (3) - who are in our ward here.  Their parents, Lisa and Ben, don't have any parents here in HB so I told Lisa that I would be happy to look after the girls if they wanted to go out on a date.  Ben is in an entry level accounting job and Lisa is a stay-at-home mom, so they don't have a lot of money left over at the end of the month.  She was really happy when I offered to watch the girls for them.  She called me last Sunday and asked me if I would watch them on Tuesday - Ben had a church meeting and she wanted to go to her squash game - she said that she knew it wasn't a date, but would I be willing to babysit anyway.  I told her I would love to - I asked if the girls liked having books read to them and she said yes, but she didn't have many books.  So, before I went to babysit, I stopped at the library and picked up seven books.

When I got to the house, after Ben and Lisa left, the girls and I played with their new Lego creations.  Just before bed, they asked me to read the books - I had to read all seven and then one of them, I was asked to read twice.  Just before bed, I asked which one of them would like to say the prayer and Indiana said she would like me to say it.  They are such cute little girls and remind me a lot of when you girls were little.  I hope that I get to take care of them again - it's kind of like getting in my 'grandma fix', too. :-)

I started a four week free university course this week - I found it online and it sounded like it would be really interesting.  It's called 'Indigenous Studies: Australia and New Zealand' - it explores Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Maori history, society, culture, language and demography.  I have to watch ten videos (average 7 minutes in length) each week and answer a pop quiz (one question) after each video and then take a 10 question assessment at the end of every week.  It's been really interesting so far - the presenters are university professors - one is an aboriginal and one is a Maori.  I have had an interest in first nations peoples for many years and this is a great start to learning more about our Australian first nations peoples.  I love the learning, but I sure wouldn't want to start having to worry about taking exams again - I wonder if you can audit a full university online course.

Dad's teaching went well again this week - and everyone passed the exam with a higher score than last week - phew!  He has been going on the treadmill at the gym at the complex which he likes.  The trouble is the food - he was eating at the hotel restaurant for both breakfast and dinner, but he was finding the buffet at breakfast too much.  So, he bought some breakfast cereal and milk at the grocery store last week.  He has no bowls, etc. in his room so he is using a mug and spoon which is meant for drinking coffee/tea.  He also has not been able to eat any vegetables and the only fruit he can eat is imported apples and canned fruit.  He cannot wait to get home to HB and get back to eating his fruit and veg.  He is very happy that he only has one week to go there.