This is for you KG

After receiving a very kind comment about my blog today, I'm remembering with fondness, my year at Tafe in 1991.

After my marriage break-up in the mid 80s, I received income support from, what was then, Dept of Social Security, for about 4 years.  I earned some extra pocket money with a bit of fruit picking, lettuce de-hearting, pumpkin chipping and carrot sorting.  I also did some domestic and commercial cleaning.

As you can imagine, these were not the most stimulating of jobs, but I did meet some interesting international travellers out in the farm fields!  After a couple of years cleaning other people's homes, I decided to change my life path, by learning a new skill.  I was 30 yrs of age with no work experience, no goals and not much hope.

By the time I'd found my way to the Tafe College for enrolment, the only course that had any available positions, was the Cert III in Office Administration.  I was not in the slightest bit interested in this, but I figured it was better than nothing, would help ease me into 'study mode' and would hopefully keep me motivated until I could get into something more interesting the following year.

I remember my first day as being one of the more frightening days of my life.  I could not attend on  day one of the course, as planned, because I'd had some minor (well, maybe halfway between minor and major) surgery done the week before and my recovery took longer than the doctor had predicted.  I can't even remember how far into the first week, my first day was, but I was absolutely terrified!

When I got into the classroom and saw all of those young people, I wondered what the hell I was doing there, and almost talked myself into withdrawing from the class.  They were all younger than 21, most of them just out of high school and they all knew each other before coming to the class.  I felt like such an outsider!

Luckily for me, the teachers had organised some group activities for that first week, where everybody got to meet and interact with each other, and that's how I was drawn in and became one of the girls.

My beautiful girls.  They were all at that awkward, uncertain age where they were having trouble with parents, or boys, or girlfriends or their casual job employers or somebody in their lives.  I don't remember offering any life changing advice, but I do remember listening, and I think that's all they needed.

They were all so good to me and made me feel special.  We shared some good times.  Had some girl's nights out.  Giggled often.  I did chant my mantra a lot 'All men are bastards!'. (Sorry Granma)  In our English lesson, we were given 10 words each week for which we had to find the definition and then put them into a sentence.  I made sure all of my sentences were directly about men and my strong dislike for them!

For example (and I still have all of those sheets at home with my sentences on them!) one of the words was 'voodoo', so I wrote 'Every night before I go to sleep, I twist the pins in my male voodoo doll, hoping to cause pain in males all over the world'.

Even the teachers looked forward to my sentences and passed the sheets around to each other before returning them to me!

Anyway, now all of those girls have grown up and are, or are heading towards 40.  They've been married and/or divorced and they have children of their own.  When I go back to visit that town,  sometimes, I'll bump into one of them in the street and it's always great to see them and relive memories and have a giggle.

That year turns out to be one of my favourite memories in my life.  I came first in the class and finished with Distinction!  That was another pleasant surprise!

So, KG, thank you for your lovely comments today and thank you for being a part of one of my best life experiences.  You've come a long way and grown into a lovely young woman (yeah well you are still younger than me!) and I will always remember you fondly.

Oh ... and not ALL men are bastards.  (But most are!)