Taking Our Time

Another weekend has come and almost gone. It was made complete with some delicious Korean BBQ with friends, and some biking/birding/brunch in Centennial Park. 

We have been delinquent in calling our families regularly lately. When you live 14 hours away, there's just such a short window during the weekend that is a good time for everyone, and when we miss it, most other times we can call are usually a pain for either us or our parents. You'd think we'd be better at it, having lived hear 3 1/2 years now, but we're not. Anyway, sorry, moms and dads. We will call soon.

This week, Michael will be working in Melbourne, and I will be holding down the fort here and working at my practically regular school in Auburn. I've been working with the same 1st grade class last week and this week while the teacher is just away travelling for fun, and actually right now two 1st grade teachers are away for a few weeks (out of 5). When I taught in the states, if a teacher wanted two weeks off during the school year, it usually meant someone was having a baby, sick, or dying/dead. I used to think it was kind of weird when I first got here, that they let teachers just take so much leave in the middle of the school year. I thought it disrupted the continuity of the kids' learning. And, while it's nice for the person on leave, everyone else has to pick up the slack. I've come to really appreciate the fact that employers generally let their employees take their leave without guilt. There's just kind of an acceptance that when it's your turn, you get to enjoy yourself. When it's not your turn, you just pick up the slack because that's what other people do for you. In the end, the kids end up learning what they need to learn anyway, and one or two weeks doesn't make that big of a difference in the general scheme of things. Since I have one of the "pick up the slack" jobs, it ends up being good for me because I get blocks of consistent work. I think part of the understanding in giving large chunks of time off is that it takes so long to travel anywhere from our island in the Pacific, and literally almost everyone has at least some family that lives in another country on another continent. So, most bosses want to be able to take a few weeks just like their employees, and they understand.

Time to soak up the last of the weekend before we hit the ground running again!