Where Has the Semester Gone?

It never fails to amaze me how fast time flies. We're onto the last week of labs this week, and not too long ago I recall freaking out over teaching my first lab. Needless to say, my class has settled down since to stop talking over me. Plus after lecturing to a class of 19 to 20+ year olds every week, presentations are no longer quite so scary...even if they're worth 30% of your entire course grade like the one I had today. Probably the worst part of the job now is marking. It's amazing how 2nd year University students for whom English is a first language can have such terrible grammar and punctuation. I've found that most of my students love to replace full-stops and commas with a semi-colon. And English is only gonna get worse here in NZ now that they've actually allowed text lingo to be used during the national exams!!! Ok I should refrain from going on and on about it (which I can do). Although marking would be hell for teachers in future...boy am I glad I'm only teaching as a part-time job.

So where has the semester gone? Assignments, readings, teaching and marking, dance classes and skating lessons and practices...that's where. It's fortunate my boyfriend lives with me and so we see each other a lot, otherwise considering everything I have on my plate I wouldn't have time for him!

Speaking of my boyfriend, I suppose some might be wondering where he came from, considering that I wrote that I was single again back in Jan. Ok I confess to committing the crime of dating my flatmate, Garth (honestly we both tried to fight it...but hey there's only so much struggle you can put up when you get on really really well and are both single!). Surprisingly we're getting on really well living with each other and seeing each other so much. It's really good to be able to come home to him for a hug after a long day. The best thing about him is that my sister actually likes and approves of him. Good reason to hold on to him, considering that my sister has never liked or approved of any of my previous boyfriends. She was ok with them but didn't explicitly like them. 8)

We went home with him up to Golden Bay over the mid-sem break, which was wonderful...we had sun and his parents rented a house by the beach (Dunedin on the other hand had crappy rainy cold-as-usual weather the whole week). His parents are great and have kinda adopted my sister and I as family (and so have all his relatives...). They own a "small" hill (which is pretty darn big for a city girl) and run a farm. Garth usually lives in a bach at the top of the hill when he's home, which is pretty cool but has no electricity. Anyway we learnt to shoot coz he's got a gun license and 3 rifles. It was fun shooting at paper targets and learning to load the rifle. I've still got my bullet casings from the shots I made with the .22. Gonna see this break if I can get away to go back up with him again, otherwise a month apart would feel rather strange 8(. That's what happens when you get used to seeing someone first thing in the morning and last thing at night...