Hey all. Little while since I've posted. Well, one week exactly I guess. I was teaching again today - preschool this time. I'm not actually qualified for that but they said it's OK for doing a one off type of thing. I showed them a little footbag and they enjoyed that. I think things went a bit better than expected. It was "book week" this week so there were a lot of dress ups and I read a bunch of stories.
Nico dressed up as this bloke called Tashi -
http://tashibooks.com/ - I hadn't actually heard of these books until they started reading them in class, but it's a pretty good series. I recently came across a book with seven of the stories in one at one of these street libraries. I'm sure you guys have them around, but there's been an explosion in them lately - people set up an old fridge or dishwasher or something as a mini library and you can swap books or just take a book, put in a book etc etc. Our neighbours have one that's done up as The Hulk Library. Tashi is of course not to be confused with Taishi - but even that similarity is kind of cool.
I've started trying alpine food processor again recently. In my Joulu video from last year I came really close, but I haven't really gone past that point.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B1aM3iSFX7U/
I also came close to spinning ducking swirl the other day. Actually, had both those tricks come off my foot. Haven't hit either of them, maybe they will come soon enough.
So on teaching, my goal for this term was to get 20 days of teaching work. Which is 2 days a week. After tomorrow I'll be on 9, so that's just 1 below the target so far.
I'm still working in the hostel so days like these are pretty long. I'll do the same again tomorrow. Unfortunately we'll probably head to Sydney some time in the near future for a funeral. My Grandpa has been really ill for years with dementia, but it sounds like he's on his last days. We went to visit him just over a week ago, he didn't look well, but it was good to make a final visit.
We already have a planned trip to Sydney next week, so it might work out we just extend that or go up earlier, depending on what happens.
Anyway, back to the teaching - there is some potential of a job offer for term 4. I've told them we will travel to New Zealand already, so if that's not going to block things, that could really work out well. So if they offer that, I will take it. If not, nice that they are thinking of me, and that probably means there could be something for next year. Although I am actually kind of keen to leave next year just the same way it is at the moment, and that would lead to me going to Worlds, having a longer trip overseas, etc, etc.
Some good discussion in Derek's blog - good to see him posting again, it's always great to see some of these footblogs pop back up every now and then. And the idea that seems to have a whole lot of credit is to have some kind of "footbag gathering" - not competition, just hang out and shred, drink some beers, see the sights of somewhere.
I guess they did something similar with these training camps long ago in Europe. Although that was probably more serious training. Actually it's basically just an extended idea of what we have done at times here in Aus at Narooma. We have had some good names join us for those ones, though we haven't done it for a long time. Maybe this coming summer is time to revive that idea.
This little clip has a few drifters for TJ -
https://www.instagram.com/p/B1XYkYHl2cW/ - I played in the garage last night. Dad spent a few days with us over the weekend and he's built a shelving cabinet. That is going to help clear some space for shred. It's still not really comparable to the old garage, though I think this is going to make a big difference. I was playing in Quantums also. I have a few pairs but I don't use them often because they will probably break soon enough. Well one the sole has already fallen off, so that's probably past the point of no return.
This post is already pretty long, but something Derek posted about getting voted out of BAP gave me a little idea - it would be good to have some kind of "power ranking". Maybe like a monthly thing, could be like a top 5/10 and takes in recent results, videos etc. So you have to keep producing the goods to keep in that ranking. That could be a fun project, and of course everyone would debate it and tell you you are completely wrong.
And I guess that's the whole point of that kind of thing, isn't it?