6. who can eat the littlest noodle in the world
Welcome back avid readers. It’s been many moons since I last wrote. Going through the motions doesn’t even come close lol. I have gone from being a little ball of anxiety, to coming back to Punmu feeling so happy, to becoming completely deflated and thinking of quitting, to feeling very content. So many big feelings all the time. Poor Grant gets an earfull everyday but he is keeping me grounded and sane. I am listening to ‘In Another Time’ by Sade with my candles burning and my bread rising. Life could be much worse.
Food diary
Please see below the in-transit egg massacre.
I have now spent my life savings making my own farmers market. Tinned tuna no more. Be gone. I rebuke it.
Had a minor incident where I decided to move my milk collection into the pantry. Unfortunately, even in the supermarket the milk is not kept in the fridge. Honestly God knows whats in there. Either way, I started putting the heating on in the pantry/spare room to dry my washing. Alas. Suspicious white liquid all over the wooden wardrobe (AKA Pantry) and 2 suspiciously burst cartons. Thankfully, the mysterious milky substance didn’t leave too much of smell. This is possibly very concerning also.
School update
We are now going into Week 3 of Term 2 and it’s definintely felt much quicker this term. I feel like I have my routine sorted out and my weekends are what I especially look forward to. I used to find them so boring and this is when I would spiral because I wasn’t being very productive at the beginning of last term. However, Saturday is my big clean day, I do about 5 washes and clean for the whole morning. I really look forward to it and I spend the rest of the weekend admiring my hard work.
At school we have some new faces in my class and a better attendance overall. However, the transition from having 2/3 high achivers coming regularly to have 10/11 students with a HUGELY varying ability has been a shock.
My classroom is also quite small so there are lots of things to juggle. The nice thing is that I have had a Martu teacher in the class with me the past week which has been really helpful. The behaviour was becoming unmanageable in my class and some community members came to support me in lesson. It really felt like we were a team and I made everyone thank you cards.
I was starting to get quite upset last week as I was having really hard days back to back. Usually I am very good at keeping my cool but I was starting to get angry and upset with the students. I was also being sworn at a lot and by the middle of the week I was feeling really broken. I have a really good support system here so I’ve been feeling much better, and the last few days of the week were significantly better. If the poor behaviour continues I think I’ll really struggle to stay out here for the whole year (which is a very sad thing to admit to myself), but I’m going to take it one day at a time and see how we. When school is nice I absolutely love being out here, but I’ve been losing sleep thinking about the students. So cringe. Can’t be having that. It’s definitely difficult to separate social, personal and work life out here but I think its something I can definitely work on.
This weekend I have had really good sleeps and have kept myself occupied at home. This morning (Sunday 10th May) I am trying some new techniques to try to make my sourdough rise better, so instead of feeding my starter last night I fed it this morning. This meant that I had an extra 4 hours to wait before I started making bread. I had a really lovely chat with Ruby on the phone which is always a great start to the day. I then sat outside and read my book in the sun. I don’t really spend too much time outside unless I’m smoking, and then I’m always feeling a bit anxious that someone will see me (I don’t want people to know I smoke out here). I pulled up a couple of chairs and basked in the sun. I spoke to a few people, mostly students, who walked past which was also a really lovely start to the day. I’m going to really try to do this more often, because it’s very easy to get quite lonely in the house. A bit of wholesome interaction is just what I needed!
miscellaneous image dump
Courgette muffins! Very tasty. Second round of muffins even better through the addition of Maggi, chilli and lemon zest. Spritely!
Loz’s Birthday Picnic!!
BUSH FIRES! Was very concerned waking up to the smell of smoke on day 1 but it was lovely. They raged on for about a week.
Martu get very excited for hunting when there are bush fires. Here is a Punmu delicacy, Bush Turkey.
Unfriendly Critters Update
I got what I thought was a spider bite on my leg a couple of weeks ago. I went to the clinic and she kind of brushed it off which was fine. But it’s actually got much more swollen and is quite sore now so I’ll probably go back this week. The nurse was a bit more worried about my eczema, she gave me some steroid cream which has really helped and I am currently mostly eczema free!
