"PAC Day"!

Today I ventured out into the world at the frighteningly early hour of 8.00am... okay, so it was more like 8.15am but anyway... you may ask yourself why. I certainly do sometimes!
Today was "PAC Day", and PAC starts at 8.30am.


I'm going to share some of the things I love about PAC Day...

Abbey, a Year 2 student, seeing me at recess one particularly wet weathered day and saying "I thought today was gonna be a bad day cos it was all stormy, but now you're here and it's turned into a good day!"

Allarna, a Year 5 student, flying at me at full speed whenever she sees me and enveloping me in a massive bear hug.

Karis, a kindergarten student, teling her teacher "My mum's teaching Miss Parata the violin!" like it was her proudest achievement.

Any number of Kindergarten students commenting "I like your hair/shoes/dress Miss Parata!"

The smiles and hello's I get whenever I'm in the playground

I even like having to tie up, on average, 20 shoelaces a day because seeing the smiles on their little faces as I do so makes me smile back and feel just a little happier about being in this world.


The funny- or beautiful, whichever way you choose to look at it- thing about this is, I have never met these kids before I started volunteering at PAC, yet they embrace me and love on me like nobody's business. I don't know who's more excited for PAC Day every week- me or them! But it makes me so much more impatient for the day I can finally teach my own class, where I can only hope I'm blessed with the kind of kids that make me laugh and love life then as much as I do now.

First Day of Blogging... Last Day of Uni Holidays

So I had a dilemma... how to keep up with all my relatives when they all live in different parts of the world (mainly New Zealand... but some choose to live 8 hours away **ahem, Dad**) and at a time when there's just no time to individually email everyone in my extended family?

I had heard of blogging before, being a Gen X-er (well not really, apparently Wikipedia defines Generation X as those born between 1965-79, so I just miss out by a few years! Must mean I'm Gen-Y then...), but I kinda thought it was weird and not really for me. By the way, did you know that the word blog originates from the term web log, so really it's kind of like keeping a diary? Cool, huh!

If this post doesn't make much sense, it's because it's past midnight here in Sydney-town and I'm tired but not ready to sleep yet. Getting back to the point...

This blog will serve as a way of letting all you family folk in on the craziness that is my life. To start off, I'll give you a rundown of a week in the life of Alicia Mary Parata....

Monday...
8.30- 9.30am: violin lesson
11.00am- 1.00pm: work at Penrith Anglican College as a teacher's aide
1.00pm: usually trek off to Penrith Plaza for lunch (although I'm trying to cut back on this in an effort to save $$$)
1.00- 3.00pm: Experimental Design & Analysis (fancy name for Psychology unit) tutorial
4.30- 6:30pm: ballet lesson
7.00- 9.00pm: bible study


Tuesday...
Get to sleep in- yay!
11.00am- 1.00pm: teacher's aide-ing
Then either some free time or work at JeansWest until...
5.30- 7.30pm: teach tap, jazz and modern dance to about 15 10-12 year olds


Wednesday...
9.00- 11.00am: Social & Developmental Psychology lecture
2.00- 3.00pm: American Foreign Policy Towards 1945 (fancy name for History unit) lecture
3.00- 4.30pm: " " tutorial
4.00- 5.00pm: Introduction to the Psychology of Health tutorial (yes I'm aware I have a timetable clash here, which I'm going to have to get fixed)
7.00- 9.00pm: Jazz, Modern & Contemporary dance lesson


Thursday...
It's PAC Day! I magically morph into "Miss Parata"!
8.30am- 3.15pm: I volunteer at my old school PAC in the primary school. I started doing this last year when I learnt that because I'm enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts program (as opposed to the Bachelor of Education, which UWS stupidly got rid of for political/economical reasons), I wouldn't get to go on "prac" until my 4th year. I was not willing to wait 3 years to get to experience working in a school, so I paid a visit to PAC and asked if I could volunteer once a week to get experience. (I should note that taking such an initiative is very unlike me, and was only the result of a lot of support, encouragement and prodding from certain people.) The headmaster of course said yes (although I had my doubts!) and I've been doing it ever since.

3.30-7.00pm: Each fortnight I babysit my dance teacher's 2 daughters Emi (7) & Jordan (6). They're very intelligent kids who keep me on my toes, but I love them dearly and we have lots of fun together.

4.00-5.00pm: Social & Developmental Psychology tutorial (going to see if I can change this one too!)


Friday...
My only real day off... but I might end up working a few shifts at JeansWest if my manager asks.


Saturday...
11.00am- 12.00pm: Dance rehearsals for our trip to America in April 2009 (we're dancing at Disneyland!)

Then... usually working at JeansWest, or occasionally at another Dance thing. If not, Mum & I usually go out for lunch and do some shopping, or I might babysit either Emi or Jordan or my godson Ryan (5) and his sister Tegan (7).


Sunday...
The day of rest... not!
9.30-11.00am: Morning church where I run the Kindergarten- Year 2 Kids' Church Sunday School program.
12.00-4.00pm: off to work at JeansWest
6.00-7.00pm: Night church... followed by Sundaes on Sundays (the older Night Church crew head off to cause havoc at the local McDonalds...)



And then it all starts all over again! Of course there's always other stuff to be fit in around this schedule... for instance, practicing my violin, meeting up with friends, running random errands etc etc... Everyone asks me how I have time to breathe, but the truth is I thrive under pressure and I love being busy :)


So that's it... the first post on Alicia Mary's World is complete! I hope reading this brings a smile to your face, and make sure to leave a comment so I know you're reading.
I'll be writing new posts whenever I get a spare moment; just random things I feel compelled to share with you. :)
I hope you have a nice weekend... see you somewhere in cyberspace!


Love,
Alicia