I did it!

My first Meme

I've been tagged for a meme. Now, when I get these kinds of things through email I usually delete them, because they always ask the same questions, but this is the first time that I've been 'meme-tagged' on my blog, so I'm excited. Especially since I was tagged by a fellow Victorian early career teacher, Soulcradler, who popped up on the blogosphere quite recently.

So, here are five things about me that people may not know from reading my blog:

1. I love to cook. My most recent culinary triumphs are roasted nectarine tart (crispy pastry filled to the brim with vanilla bean custard, on which nestle roasted nectarines drizzled with a sweet toffee syrup), rum and raisin ice cream (delectable) and roast pork stuffed with rocket, toasted pine nuts, prosciutto, lemon zest and fresh basil. The pork was my contribution to Christmas dinner- I was so impressed with the crackling that I took a picture:

If this teaching gig ever goes sour I'd seriously consider opening a cafe. It would be a coffee lover's haven.

2. Meet Molly.

My dog. She is the most delightful creature you're ever likely to meet. Her tail wags so hard that her bum wiggles. She loves shaking hands and going for long walks. She loves playing ball (but only if you're prepared to do most of the fetching- she's above that sort of nonsense). She enjoys sitting at the table and chatting over coffee (well, I drink the coffee and she just sits there and pats my arm occasionally, but she understands every word I say). Everyone should have a Molly.

3. I will be submitting my Masters thesis this month. Yay! I can't believe I'm finally here. I have the latest full draft sitting on my desk. The lovely, large pile of crisp white pages motivates me. Seriously, I can't believe I'm actually going to make it and that it might actually, hopefully, be pretty good....

4. I love musical theatre. Seriously, I am a musical theatre geek. In my past life, BT (before teaching), I did a lot of shows, both on stage, and in the pit (band) but I haven't done any for a while. But I'm doing one this year with my local theatre company and it feels great to be rehearsing again, and singing harmonies again, which I love. I'm teaching music for the first time this year, too. Music is my other method, which I managed pretty well to keep under wraps because I fell in love with English teaching. But, finding out that my school had me down to teach Geography of all things because they were operating under some misguided understanding that SOSE was my other method area, forced me to remind them that music was actually my other method area. I mean, I have no sense of direction. So, now I'm teaching Year 8 Music next year. More on that later.

5. My favourite childhood memory is watching my world from the roof of the house that I grew up in. When my Dad was painting the gutters or doing some work on the roof my sister and I would climb the ladder and clambour up the tiled slope to straddle the very top. We would sit up there for quite some time and look out over the entire neighbourhood. I asked my Dad about it the other day and he can't believe now that he let us do it. It was so dangerous. I don't know what the neighbours would have thought. But it was fun (almost as much fun as the time we built a flying fox between two trees in our front yard).

So, there you go. Quite an eclectic list. Hmm... who should I tag?

Scott (I know that he has something quite miraculous that he can put on his list, and it might get him blogging again)
School Days (who I see has just started blogging again after a year long hiatus), and
Darce