Saaga

I know I am jumping ahead at the moment, especially seeing as how we won’t be able to detect E.T.’s farts until 2020, but what does it mean for the World’s* religions when intelligent life is discovered elsewhere in the galaxy. I am referring to the news that a potentially life bearing planet has been discovered in our galactic backyard.
I suppose if Star-trek is anything to go by, then maybe E.T. will be humanoid in structure and speak English. This will allow the ‘in God’s image’ idea to remain intact and let’s face it, eventually after all the money that has been spent making it, we must at some point find some worth in Star-Trek.

*theirs and ours.

We’ve officially hit half time. Rather than 9 months, they say that a pregnancy normally lasts about 40 weeks (give or take a few) and as of Sunday we are officially in Week 21. So if you think a month is 4 weeks, I’m officially in the 6th month – but that also means the pregnancy lasts for 10 months… otherwise, I guess I’m still in the middle of the 5th calendar month, but no matter which way you look at it, it’s half way. So it’s onward and outward from here.

This picture shows me looking relatively ‘normal’, I hope. If I stand up straight and flex the tummy muscles it’s not really noticeable (i.e. half my students haven’t noticed yet).

Some of you will be pleased to hear that I’m getting a little rounder and I’ve put on about 4 kilos since becoming pregnant (but it’s hard to know exactly because I have no idea what I weighed before).

I’m getting to the stage where my waistbands are getting a little too tight for comfort and the old midriff tops are looking a bit too skimpy for my liking.

There are three main problem areas – boobs (can’t really complain about that one!), tummy and bum. Tummy and boobs are obvious, but my bum also seems a bit bigger. I tried on every single item of clothing in my wardrobe this afternoon to see what’s left to wear to work for the rest of the week and I had a hard time pulling some of my skirts up over the bum (of course they wouldn’t do up at the waist, but that was expected).

So now I’m facing the dreaded prospect of shopping for maternity clothes. Dreaded because, as you all know, I hate shopping. Doubly dreaded because maternity clothes are ridiculously expensive and there’s hardly anything decent to choose from.

I’ve got one pair of maternity trousers which basically look like black jeans. The only problem is that I’m not actually fat enough to keep them up at the moment! They come with this big band of stretchy fabric that should stretch over the bump and help the pants stay up. This doesn’t really work for me yet, so if I wear them (which I have done as a last resort on laundry day) I spend the entire day walking around hoiking my pants up to just under my armpits.

This photo, on the other hand, shows what I looks like when I let it ‘all hang out’.

The final interesting thing, is that I’m way slimmer and my tummy is almost flat in the mornings but by dinner time the bump is definitely showing and the trousers that seemed like a reasonable squeeze when I put them on have become so tight that I reckon they are pushing the baby up above the waistband where there is a bit more space. Poor little thing.

I could go around for another month or so, squeezing myself into too tight trousers and sucking the remaining tummy muscles in, but it just doesn’t seem fair on the bub. It’s going to feel squashed up enough when it’s older (both in the womb and out – e.g. whenever sitting in an aeroplane as an adult), it doesn’t seem fair for it to have to be too squashed now. So I think I’m going to relax the abdominal wall and let it all hang out. For the good of the baby! Well, that’s my excuse!

Grade five had their exhibition on Wednesday and Thursday this week and it was fantastic. The exhibition is essentially a show case of the skills the students have aquired during their time in the Primary Years Program and from the quality of most of the presentations, they have learned a lot. The students are grouped according to their area of interest and work for six weeks, researching a local issue that is important to them. It’s a lot of hard work, but the kids take a lot away from it, not the least being the ability to coordinate and work as part of a team toward a long term goal.

I am home sick today. I have been sick all week, but because of exhibition and a play I was working on with grade three, I couldn’t take a break. I hate being stuck at home sick. This is my first sick day since March last year. On the bright side, I suppose I will have some time to paint my miniatures.

On Sunday the Königsallee was transformed into a race track. We stuck around and watched them do box stops and burnouts and such. I have never been a proper race fan. When I was a kid I had a vague interest, but these days I just like to watch them smash. However while I was track side I became excited enough that if Jay was there he would have said,
“Don’t be such a Bogan.”

It really seems like we just worked out how to hook you tub into our blog doesn’t it.

Lisbon was my favourite part of our Iberian Jaunt. We wandered the winding streets of the old town, took a ferry across the tagus and went to the mall with Europe’s largest underground carpark. We also did many other things, such as ride the trams up hill and down dale. Here is a video of us doing so.

If you look closely you can see us reflected in the windscreens of one of the cars we pass.

I thought I would just go and check the average height of Spainiards online, because all my exoperiences with them have shown me that they must be the smallest people on Earth. It turns out however that they are only 1cm shorter than Australians and 10cm taller than the Chinese, so my own research was somehow flawed.
The flaw may have occured whilst travelling on the Madrid Metro, which I will say is fantastic. I got on and went to sit down next to Alex and was suddenly and painfully alerted to the low flying handrail that runs across the carriage. After my eyes were able to focus again, i stood up and tested out how low it actually was and discovered it was lucky i had started to bend when I hit it, otherwise it would have knocked my teeth out.
Anyway, we are enjoying our Madrid time. Loved Barcelona and head to Lisbon tomorrow.

I have included this ´ç´character because I press it on the damn Spanish keyboard so often.