Manic Monday...and Tuesday

Today was just another day of trying to trick my students into being educated. Unfortunately, my tricks were not so clever and they were having none of the learning I was trying to force upon them. However, I did have a rather interesting start to my morning. Big Day Out is what I would consider Australia's biggest music festival. It is held in celebration of Australia day and this year it is on January 22nd and 23rd in Sydney. Undoubtedly it has been sold out for some time now but, where there is a will there is the Internet, and where there is the Internet there is a way and it came in the form of a nice young man we will call Frank. Frank had a friend. Frank's friend was a flak. Frank now had an extra ticket for $140, making this lady very happy. It was part drug deal, part blind date; "meet me at 8:30 (am) at platform 23, I will be wearing grey trousers and a white business shirt. I have black hair. I'll call you when I'm close." I felt like a spaz as I roller out of bed, threw on the nearest thing (a bight melon shirt and a black linen skirt) threw my hair in a bun and slapped on some red lipstick to go meet this mystery man/saint. It was your usual rush hour hustle in the station with young professionals competing for walking space around students and street performers who couldn't be less inclined to make way. I never take the train, so ticket machine protocol is not my forte. As I pumped endless amounts of change into a machine for a ride I was never going to take the woman behind me approached in a bit of a fluster. "Do you need help?" she asked what she was really saying was "you are taking forever and I have someplace more important to be". Since I was taking forever and wasn't actually going anywhere I let her go ahead. After I bought my fake ticket I headed up to meet my mystery man. As soon as I got to platform 23 I saw him in the distance, wearing exactly what he had described and looking a little lost without me. He had a bit of a halo around him and I knew immediately he was my angel in disguise. I went up to him and introduced myself. Like any first date we made small talk about how lucky I was to have him in my life and what bands we both preferred, blah blah, blah. Then, like any drug deal there was the exchange of currency. I gave him several bits of brightly colored paper for one. After the bill was settled and we parted ways with a friendly smile, a firm handshake, and an open-ended suggestion of a rendezvous at the event. All in all it was the prefect first date. It only cost me $140 and I don't have to worry if he will call again.
Ciuman!