Flying pigs down under

My daughter Em turned 16 a week ago, the next day she successfully passed her driver's knowledge test and got her driver learner's permit. In the last 6 days we've logged 8.5 hours in her log book of supervised driving hours and she's doing really well. So well, that I didn't feel alarm, well, at least not absolute terror, as she drove on the highway with semi-trailers whizzing past and tears streaming down her face as she related the latest drama with her boyfriend's mother to me.

Her boyfriend is 17 and has just been accepted into uni. He will leave in a few short weeks to live in a city 6 hours drive away. He's a lovely boy but he has the mother from hell and their 10 month relationship has been an emotional whirpool. I'm hoping that living away from his manipulative mother will allow him some emotional respite, and have a flow on effect to us.

Em will commence her final 2 years of high-school this week. She will attend a state school Senior College - one of the few in the State - for her Year 11 and Year 12 schooling. The Senior College only has students in Year 11 and 12 and has slightly different rules to normal state schools. For a start there is no uniform, a very rare thing in Australia, and I know I'm going to miss the certainty of what my daughter will wear each day.  Strange as it may sound, Em's looking forward to having more serious school work.  She likes learning and she says she likes studying.  I'd like to believe her, but so far in her school life she's not really encountered the need to study, so I don't think she really knows what she's talking about.  Study to her so far has meant reading through the relevant section of a text book on the morning of an exam.  Skim reading at that.  So, I'm a little skeptical of the study claim.

Em has been through a bit in the last few years. Her Dad died instantly from a heart attack while playing soccer 3 and half years ago (he had had no warning or underlying medical conditions) and while outwardly she coped amazingly well, it tore her up inside and she slid into depression and I walked a tightrope of treating her normally while worrying about her self-harming or suiciding. I thank God that she had just begun attending a private school for her high school education when her Dad died, as our fees paid for some excellent counselling that is not available in the state school system.

Anyway, I'm hoping for a cruisey year with Em.  I reckon we're about due.

My other child is a 13 year old boy, Davey.  He is about to start Year 8, his second year of high school and provides me with comic relief.  I'm relying on him not to get all hormonal, hairy and huffy for another couple of years yet.

I also believe that if pigs try hard enough they can fly.

I'm Ali, I'm sweltering in the heat of summer Down Under and I look forward to sharing what I hope is going to be a very boring time in my life because pigs can fly.  They can. They can.  They can.  (I have to believe that in order to retain the few shreds of sanity I'm tenaciously holding on to.)

Comments

[Ora]

Welcome, Ali. I spent 6 weeks, a zillion years ago, after I got my Master's degree in Oz and NZ, those are wonderful memories. Welcome to our crazy nuthouse.
Ora

[Daisy]

Welcome, Ali! I'm freezing in below zero wind chills (Fahrenheit) right now, so I'd take some of that heat off your hands. I'll take some of those flying pigs, too, if you can spare them.

[the planet of janet]

welcome, ali!

[Ilona]

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a "cruising" year with both your kids, and looking forward to some stories from down under. They'll help keep me warm up here in the frozen north.