Morning Tea is the highlight of my day

In breaking news, Matt ate a delicious morning tea today. This constitutes the highlight of his working day. Of course, the delicious saveloy in a baked piece of bread with cheese and mustard was complemented by a delicious Milo, so it would be hard for a class of students or detention monkeys to compete. Detention was actually quite pleasant today - I only had 2 customers, and they were both very polite. Just because a student forgets their homework or doesn't feel like working when asked to in class, doesn't make them a bad person. I was going to go into more detail about the exciting events of the day, but there aren't really that many to report on. I am watching Apocalypse Now Redux with a class, and it's quite good. Unfortunately some of the stuff that's been added in (there's about 50 minutes of extra stuff) is less than exciting, or is quite dodgy. The sequences we saw today both had women in them (breaking the otherwise extreme maleness of the film a little). One featured traumatised playboy bunnies becoming prostitutes, the other was a very boring dinner conversation. I'd say the film was better off without them. Of course, from a curiosity point of view I'm glad to have seen them, but given that it's a long damn film to start with, I would have been happier to have the original to show my class. Lastly, I have been ruminating on the teaching of boys, inspired by a visit from an excellent speaker. I have no real conclusions to draw, except to say that I wonder whether my start-of-the-year hard-ass-ness has actually made it difficult for some of the boys to accept my leadership. I wonder this as several of my students have begun to say hi and offer funky-incomprehensible handshakes this week, outside of class. I guess I'm currently somewhere in the no-mans-land of being a not-young-not-old guy, and they hadn't figured out where I stand in relation to other teachers. I think they've started to realise that I'm not actually old and grumpy, and while I may not be cool, there could be worse options. I think teenage boys are disinclined to accept rigorous discipline from someone younger than their fathers. Leadership and guidance and role modeling yes, full on you-will-obey-my-every-word discipline? Not so easy. That's not to say it can't be won from them, but it's a lot of work. Or maybe I'm just making this all up. That's fine - whatever keeps me entertained, I suppose.