Part-Time Teacher, Full-Time Potato Enthusiast

23 Sep, 2025

For the past week or so since I signed up, I have been hunting through the discovery pages, meeting lovely new friends through the guestbook, and feeling my heart quicken at the little traces of human contact being left here and there. Thank you for helping me feel so welcome, this place really has a gentle spark of magic about it which I feel very cosy within.

I thought I should spend a little time sharing some parts of myself to give my future posts context, understanding, and perhaps some meaning. I have seen aptly titled about me’s, which have been most helpful, and so I wanted to create a small repository which might explain me for any future visitors.

I prefer to go by Lav (short for Miss Lavender which is my gaming handle) in online spaces. I’m 30 something, and I am currently studying for a masters degree to be a secondary music (and english, but that’s coincidental) teacher. I live in regional South Australia, and I travel a lot for uni. Currently I am an instrumental teacher, and I teach singing and piano (mostly to high school kids).

Being a full-time uni student and a part time instrumental teacher doesn’t afford me a lot of spare time, but should I ever find some in my pockets or behind the couch I would like to spend it crafting, gaming, cooking, or reading. The nature of being a sentient squishy being means I get to do the cooking part quite a lot, and I enjoy it! I often like to take photos of my food - cooked by either myself or someone much more skilled - so I can look back and remember how delicious a meal was. I feel grateful to be able to eat deliciously a lot of the time, even if my doctor isn’t pleased about it. Everything in moderation including moderation, eh?

As for the others, I love to craft but it’s a hobby that I’m not particularly skilled at, and I want to keep it that way. Being a professional in music has given somewhat of a sharp edge to any time I try and enjoy it as a creative outlet; it’s easy to be critical of one's own art when one has studied the greats. Not to say that I don’t enjoy music as a hobby, I most certainly do, but having hobbies that I am allowed to be crap at and haven’t had to monetise is both refreshing and stress relieving. Long live stick figures and half finished crochet projects!

I haven’t always been a big reader, but in the last few years I have grown to really enjoy it, and I especially enjoy a cosy-wosy book-shop. The smell! The arrogant and slightly aloof staff! The way the sanctity of the space is respected in whispers and wonder! A bookshop is a lovely place. A second hand bookshop? Even lovelier. Currently I am reading The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki which I purchased from a pretentious bookshop in an equally pretentious shopping village (gag), and felt like a rat stealing away with stolen cheese as I scurried out of there with my goods. It’s a charming book, though, please don’t let its origins dissuade you from checking it out. If you like magical pop-up cafe’s, planets animorphised as cats, and heavy-handed astrological narrative then you’ll like this book.

This is getting long in the tooth, so let’s do a lightning round of 10 fast facts (and if you feel like sharing your answers with me I would love that so much!)

1. Pineapple belongs on pizza (fight me) (actually don’t I’m very fragile and will cry)

2. My favourite colour is periwinkle (but close second is sage green)

3. I have fibromyalgia (boo and equal measures of hiss)

4. I don’t have a favourite food, but if I did it would be potato

5. I have played minecraft since the release of beta, and I really enjoy it

6. I have ADHD and it’s a constant source of both joy and anguish

7. I like both cats and dogs, but if pressed I prefer cats as a pet (the aforementioned fibromyalgia makes it hard to walk a dog every day, and I wouldn’t want to deprive them of physical care simply because I’m incapacitated) (plus cats tend to match my energy capacity, aka: none at all)

8. I like most music, but my preferences are: (non AI) lofi and jazzy beats (to relax and study to), contemporary jazzy/soul/funk (singer lead), brain-rot thott beats, this playlist, romantic classical piano and strings songs, and acoustic guitar music with no words

9. I take my tea with cream and 2 sugars

10. I can’t wait to go completely gray so I can dye my hair periwinkle without having to bleach it first. My mum said that it would happen by 25 because it did for her, but I’m still impatiently waiting. (｡•̀ ⤙ •́ ｡ꐦ)

Thanks for reading and getting to know me. I am really enjoying connecting with others and getting to know you all as well! (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶) ‹𝟹