Hi, team, sorry I'm not being very there for you all - I guess what I did last week, clearing out all the old past friends and their emails, hit me harder than I expected, and I couldn't sit here without feeling an awful sense of loss for the passing of things past. So I sat in the car while the team warmed up for Asher's soccer game on Saturday morning and thought long and hard about what it was that still ached so badly and I guess it's because each one of them won, leering triumphantly at the pathetic Takahe. And the key has to be that there was (to use a phrase from Phil Gulley) no bridge building, just wall building. I hoped I didn't care, but I never seem to stop caring. But I'm older and a whole lot wiser now. I'd do things differently now. So, that's what's been bubbling away at the back of my brain this weekend and keeping me off the net. I'm endeavouring to not care any more. And I think I can do it. Watch this space. I get better at it every year!

And enough of that. I got a fantastic postcard from moth1 *thank you* and I have one sitting here for her, and despite having 4896890438 copies of her address in odd places around the house, I can't find one. Help, Moth, when you're back from España, so I can send you the postcard I wrote in the bush in Taumaranui *g*

I am really enjoying teaching the girls at school, and I think I'll actually miss them when I go. I know most of their names now. I am enjoying the job itself, too. I don't think I love running a family and working full time, but it's going okay at the moment, if I don't expect any time to myself, any time to shop or any time to write. It's just so stimulating all the freaking time, every fifty minutes with a new class! And the Staff are really talking to me now *g*

I thought briefly I might not even ever get back here, then my dear friend Andrea (Hi there, Andrea!) sent me an email and amongst other things said she was popping by Nate's Mountain, and it was a bit of a kick up the backside for me to get over my insecurities and get on with more life. I am certainly doing fine during the day, when I'm busy busy busy with work. The last few Ethics lessons we've been grappling with a long powerpoint about art and sexual morality, and that's been amazing. I feel like I could be an art critic one day... not! One of the girls reads the notes aloud, I try to point out things, and the rest of the girls add their ideas while I manage the discussions! It's enlightening. Tomorrow I have to teach about Calvin to the Year Elevens. How on earth did people decide to be Calvinists? Then again, I'm doing cults with my Year Thirteens, and today we Googled a few - there's an incredibly biased and unprofessional site in NZ on cults that made the girls snort with derision at the author, we did a little analysis on the Exclusive Brethren, and we also looked at Heaven's Gate. Hmmmm. How do people get sucked into that little mind-numbing number!?!

The other night, our retired priest, Fr Brendan, completely buggered up our First Reconciliation meeting although we coped despite his interference, and on Sunday I was chatting to our visiting priest (JCjnr is on holiday) and he said that Fr Brendan once gave three consecutive Sunday sermons, twenty minutes apiece, on the evils of masturbation!

That topic arose in the powerpoint class today, too, and one girl said, in response to a comment on the screen, 'Is the church against masturbation?' I shrugged and said it was, and another girl cried out, 'Oh, but it's so nice!' before realising what she'd shared aloud!

I'll leave you with a quote from my Phil Gulley, and his address last week about religious tolerance, which was, incidentally, all about wall building and bridge building. Heh! *snort*
-I grew up Roman Catholic, but became a Quaker at the age of sixteen because I wanted to kick off the traces and live it up, take a lap around the track at full speed. So I became a Quaker. That is somewhat revealing of my theological ignorance at the time, that I would perceive Quakers to be the gateway to excess and riotous living. Hee!!