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I've already made the school year my bitch
Sometimes it's hard being on the other side of the planet. When it's the dead of winter in Australia, you Northern Hemisphere types are all holidaying in the Hamptons. And when it's hotter than the sun here and even my eyes are sweating, you're all off drinking schnapps and bobsledding. Yes, all of you.
But then I read on Facebook that your kids are about to start the school year. In September. Ha! Like *that* makes sense. And it's a bit like watching someone else's child have a tantrum in the supermarket. I regard the child writhing and screaming on the ground and I'm full of compassion and understanding for the poor parent because I've been there. By god, I've been there. And yet, I feel...superior.
You see, your back-to-school thing is not happening to me. For the record, I'm almost three-quarters of the way through our Southern Hemisphere school year. I own this year, my friends. I've made it my bitch. Why, my kids are so back to school that they've forgotten there was ever any alternative. My year has found a rhythm and fallen into a routine and now my household operates like a well-oiled machine - if someone bothered to oil a machine that didn't actually manage to do anything useful, that is, and certainly not any cleaning, washing, or tidying. I guess the point is that I have adjusted my expectations of myself and my year.
But not you Northern Hemisphere-types. Oh, no. Right now, you're all about the shiny shoes and the freshly sharpened pencils and the trousers carefully ironed with pleats down the front of them. You've got the whole school year ahead of you and all the fun that lies therein. You've yet to meet your kid's teacher and had to explain to them that your child wearing their pyjama pants to school is merely a quirk of personality and not a parental oversight. You've yet to meet the other children in your kid's class and work out which parents will laugh with you about the principal's unfortunate use of the word "flange" in school assembly and which ones will do your tax return for free and which ones will drop their kids off far too early at birthday parties. And you've yet to meet all the new friends your kid will bring home. You know the ones: the lice, the cooties, the stomach bugs, the inexplicable rash, the arse-itch and the blurty-bums.
Your year - although ostensibly nine months old by the Gregorian Calendar (just sayin') is fresh and full of hope. Cherish it. Embrace it. But don't come bitching to me when it shits in your shoes. I'll be on summer holidays.
Comments (11)
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Report Thu Sep 13, 2012 - 7:17 pmDazed and Creative says, You are hilarious! This made my morning;-) Thanks for ranting, so I don't have to! Read more of what Dazed and Creative says here: http://dazedandcreative.blogspot.com/Reply -
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Thu Sep 13, 2012 - 6:21 am
Well since I am an Aussie I also do not get the school year starting in September, for us we are approching another lot of school holidays but only for a couple of weeks I do not know how they deal with having kids home from school for months at a time the Christmas holidays seem so long at times.........lolReply -
Report Thu Sep 6, 2012 - 10:52 pmI hate it all! its my first time - she's 4. we had a crisis lookin for the local school we wanted, all my friends - ALL of them suddenly went from being uber cool, lets go local and take what we get quality-wise/we can MAKE it good, to: eff local i am a fulltime catholic guilt machine/ or, I suddenly GOT to drive my child 15miles to the fancy top grade school in the countryside..! So we are going local and no longer know anyone in the damn place. Met another mother there on settling in day the other day - the only woman not obese/with tattoos/ skinhead/ and she said her daighters uncle was in the year above.. Im still confused. we start next week, I have no uniform apart from a wrecked pair of Clarks offa eBay with the toys in the heels, they fully stink! Her teachers dont do any languages or music and laughed about the sport I asked about, they're morbidly obese too, like big dollies that cant get up.. but at least they're liking my kid! I am scared to death of the school 40minute walk 4 times a day with the baby too.. how the hell am I gonna get them outta the house??? I didnt have a baby for all this shit!Reply
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Thu Sep 6, 2012 - 5:50 pm
Yesterday, the first day of school, my kids both looked divine. Today my son wore a shirt that went through the wash with a sticker on it, so there's a massive patch of grey residue on the front. Then my daughter came downstairs in a pink glittery party dress with non-matching pink glittery leggings and tall socks striped bold yellow & black like bumblebees, plus rainbow sneakers. So she's already sporting the I Dress Myself So I Look Insane look. But at least we got one good day in, right?Reply -
Report Thu Sep 6, 2012 - 4:13 amI'm in the southern hemisphere and I own this year too. Trouble is, we're about to move to the US, so I get to own two years in one year. Damn. There is no sanity in our future.Reply
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Wed Sep 5, 2012 - 10:36 pm
lmao! Ok. Point made. Got any room in your house in Australia. You see, I'm totally not opposed to moving.Reply -
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Wed Sep 5, 2012 - 7:40 pm
I have often dealt with the blurty-bums. Not cool. So fun! Great piece!Reply -
1 reply, Last reply by Nicole Leigh Shaw on Wed Sep 5, 2012 at 7:41 pm
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Wed Sep 5, 2012 - 7:00 pm
So funny! I don't have any school age children so I just watch.:)Reply -
Report Wed Sep 5, 2012 - 4:55 pmAh well. We in the Southern Hemisphere are thinking about the dreaded spring cleaning and trying to make those scruffed up, outgrown school uniforms make it for the last term because it's madness to replace them now, given the growth spurt the long hot summer holidays produce.Reply -
Report Wed Sep 5, 2012 - 11:08 amNDM! It's yourself. You summon such evocative images of the contrasting school systems. I'm imagining this as Wes Anderson's Rushmore compared to an episode of Home & Away. Or is it Picnic at Hanging Rock against Season 4 of The Wire?Reply
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