It's nothing to you, but it keeps me alive

I've recently found myself suddenly struck down by term 4-itis, leaving me stranded in the middle of last week with an urgent need to not be at work. I've wondered about the cause - the weather, things currently being in a state of flux, costume anxiety... but perhaps the best explanation is that I've been at work without a break since August and still have 8 uninterrupted weeks to go. 8 weeks is both a crushingly long time and a mere blink before we head home - I'm Shröedinger's exchange teacher, simultaneously wishing it away and cherishing every minute. Until you open my box, at least.

Fortunately last week was test week, which meant that I could temporarily run screaming from the building for half of Tuesday and all of Wednesday. We used this time generally doing things as unlike work as possible - we ate lots of meals out, had inane conversations and met Mel in Harbourland to continue our costume shopping for Friday's party. After several unsuccessful attempts at finding a grey jumper ("It shouldn't be this bloody hard," as I said), we finally managed to pick one up, then moved on to finding robes. Our original plan to buy them from the costume section of the hundred yen shop was scuttled when we realised how shit they were, so Lis suggested we head to the fabric/craft shop and have a look for something a bit less plasticky. Not 2 minutes in the door, we hit paydirt - $5 black yukata tops long enough for the girls and $10 long black robes for the boys. Two problems - they were all women's and the long ones were for funerals. Lisa and I swapped looks and I asked whether we would upset anyone wearing them as Halloween costumes. "No, no," said the woman, shooing on an old dear who had stopped at the top of the stairs to gawk at me wearing ladies' funeral robes. "People cut these up for fabric and use them for all kinds of stuff." If I get roundly beaten up, I'll go back and get my money back.

Last but definitely not least was the glasses, most of which either gave me a crippling headache or made me look like Groucho Marx. Eventually we gave up on costume shops and started hitting proper glasses shops, which all had a surprising number of really convincing Harry Potter glasses; unfortunately, they were all approximately a bajillion dollars. Eventually, I managed to find a still-quite-expensive half price pair, got a third opinion from the group's costume guru and took the plunge. They'll go in the costume box and get good use, I figure - now I just need to organise a Where's Wally party. As promised, Len has acquired sticks on his travels - he may well be coming over tonight to get some good wand whittlin' going. Along with sewing the Hogwarts patches on to the robes, I'll earn all my scout badges in no time. If he doesn't show up, I'll be tuning in to the news tomorrow to see if police apprehended someone with a backpack full of knives, sticks, needles and funeral robes.

Speaking of costumes, I stuck on my moustache and had one last hurrah as Mario on the weekend, accompanied by Mel in Lisa's old Toad costume and Lisa in a remarkably convincing witch outfit. In much the same way as last time, we walked down to the station being stared at all the way and headed to the cafe for the kids' Halloween party. It started off excruciatingly awkward but then everybody started to relax and have fun, finishing off with a monster version of Celebrity Head and sweeping up fistfuls of lollies. We judged a reading competition between mouthfuls of gorgeous cake and coffee and ended up sweeping the prize pool for costumes as well. Lisa took out top prize to muffled protests from the boys who said "Mario was way cooler", but I think she deserved it; she looked like the girl from Wicked, sans green paint. Her ex-$600 dress was picked up for $3 and the fake nose and hat were probably about the same, so the prize was all profit from there. I took second place and Mel got the booby prize, outrageously being beaten by a woman who was only wearing a cat mask. We took some photos (which are on Flickr) and said our goodbyes, then braved the lashing rain with our loot. All up it was a nice day and I think the PTA of the school really appreciated having us there.

On Saturday night we ran into Mel again and helped her pick out new curtains ("anything but pink"), then rode her enthusiasm up the escalator to the appliances section and bought a microwave. Our old one allowed a maximum of three uses before it crossly turned itself off for several hours, which was definitely going to be an issue for our dinner party on Saturday night. The new one doubles as an oven, as in an actual pie baking, roasting, baking oven - this excites me beyond measure. Already I can feel some of the anxiety melting away, safe in the knowledge that we will be able to cook things on the night without having the microwave decide that the still-raw pasta is quite done enough, thank you. Now all we need is a few more forks and bowls and we may well have a dinner party on our hands.