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Tonight's my last night of cat sitting here in Avondale. Went home this afternoon with some of my stuff and was a bit horrified by the state of things. My mum has been moving stuff home from her classroom at H.I.S. and there are now boxes and boxes everywhere. There isn't even space at the kitchen table for me to work at. Well I don't know how much work I am going to be able to do at home at this point anyway as we don't have an alternative for electricity and we don't get power at home like most places apart from between 11 pm and 4 am. Either my sleeping patterns are going to have to drastically change or I will have to learn to do without. I am wanting to try get a friend to put in an inverter for lights and internet. Just got to persuade my mum to let the friend in to the house with the state it is currently in. I need to take a big gulp when I move back home and try survive. The mess and clutter my mum lives in is not good for my head space and I do get dragged down by it. Have told her this but she still hoards.

There are two more weeks of school. I have luckily finished my NILD online component while I have been house sitting and not had power cuts. It would have been very stressful trying to have done it otherwise. I have the residency week from the 19th to the 24th at Hellenic and we have a short workshop next Saturday on syllabification. Tomorrow and next weekend I have farewells for people leaving the country. It is a little unsettling as you wonder why you are still here and if you should be leaving too. As my mum is no longer at H.I.S. we are having to review our medical aid scheme. We can't afford to be on BUPA any longer but need to have a medical aid that accepts pre-existing conditions. There is a supposedly good medical aid from South Africa we might move to but it is something to think about seriously as from my mum's scare earlier this year, you don't want to be caught without insurance as hospitals here won't start offering medical care unless you are covered.

Emotionally I am beginning to just feel numb and the pain which is still there is no longer acute but rather a dull ache of a broken heart. I don't know if I will ever get completely over it but life just goes on any way. Whilst I am looking forward to a break from school, I need to keep busy as when I have too much time on my hands I have way too much time to think and that drags me down. So yah, it will be a balance between having a break but not letting my mind wander off. My Chinese student will at least be back for two weeks so he will keep me busy.

Zim euphoria

Finally home after sitting in a petrol queue for three hours. At one point it looked like they had run out but thankfully I managed to get a full tank. It is such a relief and tides you over to the next week, when you queue all over again. Was listening the local radio in between studying phonemes for NILD (National Institute for Learning Development) and they were spouting why it is such a good thing we are back on the Zim dollar. Hmmm. The price of fuel has gone up even more and our salaries just don't.

I've had a minor scrape in the car I am borrowing while house sitting and the first quote I got was over 6,000 RTGS. Nearly keeled over and died of heart failure. The second quote was much more within budget. The electric gate of my medical aid closed on me when I went to try claim back for my visit to the dentist. Looks like I will be house sitting for the parents of the author of the book "Girl on the Train" in August.

Have started NILD again and so far am on top of things and slightly ahead with hand ins. Need to remember to be online on Sunday. Trying to get on with the second big written assignment if I can now, before reports and exam marking are all due at school. Printing things with no electricity from ZESA is proving a nightmare.

My grade 7's write their high school entrance exams tomorrow. Hoping they do OK. My one student wrote on why tv is bad for you and likened it to be bad for the brain like coffee! Oh dear, that means I am causing severe brain damage to mine.

Have a meet up for the Unquiet Minds depression support group tomorrow morning and an occupational therapist from UCT is joining us. Will then tackle more NILD - tonight I need to just go to bed, I can't think any more. Petrol queueing takes it out of you. Even if you can learn some phonemes while you wait.