I took my spider plants home from the school library for the holidays, and the parlour palm. Tomorrow I'm taking the snake plant and the hoya, even though they are succulents and would possibly survive the 6 weeks break, but I'm not taking any chances.
I know people want plant sitters and house sitters and pet sitters when they take THEIR holidays, but I'm not going to be paid a cent so I can't afford to be looking after their ones as well. Maybe if they leave out icecream and jelly and chocolate for me, but honestly that's not enough to live on.
And so ends my school year. I survived. I will graduate next year. I graduate every year, and I'm still stuck in Primary School. It is like an eternal childhood for me, when I even get children asking me how old I am, just to make sure I'm not the overgrown child who somehow got kept back every year, to work in the library as my punishment for reading too much. Some children think I even SLEEP in the library. They can be forgiven for thinking I stay overnight as I had set up pillows and blankets, just in case I somehow get kicked out of home and have nowhere to go. There's gardens at school, with veges, so, I probably won't starve.
Maybe I missed my calling to a boarding school. I can just imagine, living at school forever, writing my seven part series of school yarns featuring snarky children who talk back to you and swear in another language, thinking it's funny, children who's parents split them up between aunty, uncle, grandma, stepmum, step dad, cousin, and the women's refuge, children who's parents don't let them go to the library and stop them from reading books, children who are unvaccinated, children's who's daddies are burglars and mummies are drinkers, and children who don't even know where they are going to live next year. It's enough to make me want to play a mindless video game all day too.
Sometimes I walk home and the children see me and wonder why I don't have a car. But I just like to use my legs. One child asked me how much I got paid, was it $200? I said, I don't know, I will have to check my payslip. Why did she want to know? As of next week, I won't be earning anything so, it will be a grand total of zero, and not much help over Christmas.
I tell some of my Bible study ladies that I'm looking forward to the break, but don't quite know how I will survive over the summer. One suggested I do some gardening work, but I am not going to touch another lawnmower. (See previous entries over dramas with lawnmowers and paid gardening jobs) The others said why not be casual at the public library. But they don't know the Auckland Council cut staff already. The last thing they want is an out of work school librarian trying to take over their summer reading program.
I'm just going to stay home and eat as little as possible, and not go out because every time you go out, it costs $$. My plants though, will love all attention I am going to give them now, and I could possibly go dumpster diving if worse comes to worse. I can get creative with scraps. I'm a gardener, just give me fish heads, potato peelings, old newspaper, vaccum bag dust, lawn clippings and chicken poo.
