Halloween

Day 31 –  October 31 – Halloween

Weather – Very warm and muggy – 85f

So the big day had finally arrived – Halloween in the USA. Unfortunately there had been a bit of an accident on the Saturday night on the way home. I hadn’t driven in the hire car since that night, so none of us had gone inside. Lucy had wet herself while sleeping when returning from Camp Winona – it was a very late night and it didn’t appear to be a big accident. However, when we went to get into the car to drive over to Deland – it smelled like an overused kitty litter try. Wow did that smell assault the nostrils. It was windows down the whole drive to Deland, Katie and Lucy were off to see Jessica at her place and I was tasked with the clean up job. Kathy and I attempted to find a detailer to help out, but as it was late in the afternoon, the only one open wasn’t taking walk in’s and was fully booked until next Tuesday. Damn. So it was too the internet that I turned for help – google so often the saviour. This time it was a combination of water, vinegar and soap. I tried that, didn’t seem to do a lot. We tried Febreze, and some other upholstery cleaning sprays – Kathy had a whole host of options under her sink. I sprayed, I scrubbed, I set up a fan in the car to dry it out. I felt somewhat covered in the pee smell – so maybe it transferred?

Anyway, after an hour or so I had to meet Katie and Lucy at one of Katie’s friends houses in downtown Deland. The plan was to trick or treat around their neighbourhood and then go back to hang out. Most of Katie’s friends here have girls around the same age – so Lucy was part of a troop of little girls all dressed up, running frantically from house to house, filling their buckets with sweets, while the parents strolled along with beers in hand. Not a bad way to spend an evening. Then it was back to one of Katie’s friend’s house, where the children engaged in what could only be described as some sort of financial derivatives market, complete with exchange floor – where they swapped and traded various candies. The market for lollipops was pretty strong, but there were highs and lows, and some quite shrewd trading strategies. Judging by Lucy’s bucket – she traded pretty well. It was cool to see all the kids hanging out and having fun, and it was great for Katie to spend time with her friends. 

I spent a bit of time chatting with one of the husbands, who is an 11^th Grade American History teacher. Fascinating to listen to the differences and similarities between the two educations systems. Apparently graduate teachers here have recently received a pay rise to $47k USD which at the average exchange rate of 75c AUD to the USD is about 10KAUD less than our graduate teachers, although at the current crappy exchange rate it’s only a little less, so that's good to hear. However, the disappointing thing is that experienced teachers didn’t receive the pay increase and are now not paid much more than graduates. It was interesting to hear about how he felt there is a lack of support for both schools and teacher’s here in Florida – at least from his perspective. While at times I feel like teachers back home are undervalued, our pay rates do reflect our level of expertise and our education system as a whole is reasonably funded and supported. Given that the class sizes here we much larger – he was telling me about classes of 35 students – I think we have it a lot better and a lot easier back home. 

Sorry for the lack of photos here - Katie took the best ones and I need to get her to upload them or do another blog post.