Being forced to cancel my holiday by a sprained ankle last week made me so angry that I decided to un-cancel it to teach that ankle a lesson and give myself a reputation for decisiveness and courage. So I drove up to the Grampians (albeit a day late) and hobbled around for a couple of days getting some nature up me and clearing my mind. Bushwalking in mountains is truly good for the soul.

While tramping around I stalked an echidna;

admired the view;

saw some awesome Aboriginal rock art;

saw some woeful proofreading on government signs;

drove past the most craptastic of all of Australia’s “big” things;

and showed that ankle who was boss.

I’m in a filthy, filthy mood today. I’m world-hating and ready to glass anyone who comes near me with a freshly smashed beer bottle. It all started yesterday.

At 4:30pm I left home to head out into the wilds of Melbourne’s eastern suburbs for GroupThinkFC’s third match. I was aiming to get to Jeremy’s place a couple of hours early for a hardcore session of Guitar Hero before the soccer game at 7:40pm. But due to the terrible storms in Victoria yesterday afternoon the public transport system was in chaos. So instead of arriving at Jeremy’s at 5:45pm I arrived at the soccer match four minutes before kickoff and three hours after leaving home having walked through Camberwell in the rain with thousands of other stranded rail commuters, waiting for the 109 tram in the rain with thousands of other stranded rail commuters, and begging Ant to go far out of his way to come and pick me up.

Then with six minutes elapsed in first half of the game I rolled my ankle and had to leave the field with an icepack. The crunching and popping sound, along with the pain and instant swelling indicated that it was one of the nastier sprained ankles I’d ever suffered.

Then I had to sit on the sidelines and watch GroupThinkFC get annihilated 13-3.

Then I had to cancel my holiday that I was leaving on this morning since three days of hiking in the Grampians is not so much fun when I can barely hobble from the lounge to the dunny. I was really looking forward to this holiday.

So don’t mess with me, world. I’m not a happy camper right now.

That’s a sexy foot, right there

Tomorrow for the second time in my life I’ll be celebrating Easter. However, not for religious reasons like everyone else, but because Easter signals the start of school holidays. I challenge teacher-bashers who constantly shout “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE GREAT HOLIDAYS?” to spend a term in a classroom trying to make 28 screaming kids learn against their wills, trying to placate 28 sets of parents who think their child is the centre of the universe, trying to deal with divisive and soul-destroying workplace politics, and trying to find time to actually teach because you’re so utterly overloaded with administration and non-teaching tasks.

I’m going to go and put my head under a pillow for four days.