Too Cool

Well, what a pleasant way to end the week. I had another teacher pass on the comments of her students, that "Mr C is a cool teacher." It was a very nice thing to hear at the end of a long week, when I'm rather exhausted. They were evidently asking who'd be cross-marking their work, and whether it'd be me. This may of course just mean that I'm perceived as a soft marker, but I'll take the compliment quite happily.
I then had a student visit me during last period to sign her leaving form. She's signed up for a nannying course, which is very cool, and had been given the afternoon off to tidy up her school leaving stuff. As she was leaving she thanked me for teaching her for all of 5 lessons (she's in the class that I took over half way through the year), and said something like "you're a cool teacher mister, thanks for being so cool." Very loudly. Just outside the open door of the classroom. The class laughed when I walked back in. I felt somewhat sheepish, but also flattered.

So, now I take my cool self home.

Procrastination

I should really be doing some marking. I have piles of the stuff to get through. Sadly I lack the motivation to get the job done. I shall allow myself 5 more minutes of slacking, then get myself away from computers and installed at a desk, with nothing else to distract me. There's a significant chance that I might get 5 minutes work done if I can achieve this.
I have printed off all the resources I need for my final class of the day, so I haven't been entirely slack And I have sorted through all the work that my Y13 class handed in during the first half of the year - there isn't much of it - and marked off a few books that I collected in.

But the marking still looms, an oppressive weight of work that I'd rather ignore (or incinerate, frankly).

Well, the 5 minutes is now up. It's off to work I go!

Nibbled to Death by an Okapi

I have finally learned what an Okapi is. It is with no small sense of relief that I have added this piece of knowledge to my collection of random facts and dim memories. It is a question that has plagued me for some time, but it was one that only ever raised its head when I was far from any really useful source of information.
I heard the term in the radio show of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in the following quote:

"Meanwhile, the Earthman Arthur Dent, to whom all this can be of only academic interest, as his only brother was long ago nibbled to death by an okapi, is about to be plunged into a real intergalactic war. "

Of course, being a radio show, I had no idea of how to spell Okapi, and had previously thought that it started with an a. This made it impossible for me to look it up in a dictionary (I tried once). Happily my brain recalled this long-standing query today when I was at an internet ready computer, and a few searches later I have the answer. Huzzah!








From the website http://www.wildnet.org/okapi.htm . Neat! So an okapi is a cross between a giraffe and a zebra. Now whenever I hear that bit of the radio show, I can picture with moderate accuracy the image that Douglas Adams had in mind.



I feel much better now.

Back at the coal-face

Heh. That reminds me of certain naughty comments made at a recent birthday party. I still intend to make a t-shirt with a rooster wearing a mining helmet, and holding a pick-axe. That would be very silly, but cool.
Anyways, I'm back at school, with a five lesson day yesterday and a four lesson day today. Lots of work and mostly well behaved students, though my form class had gotten a little rowdy over the holidays.

I started watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with my Year 13 class yesterday. It was lots of fun, as they had no idea what it was about, and after seeing the first 20 minutes they still have no idea. It's actually pretty cool to see the reaction of an audience that hasn't been exposed to ads and previews and magazine articles and behind-the-scenes advertorials. Quite a pure form of communication, with the film entirely standing on the merits of its opening. It was fairly warmly received, which is good, though I doubt whether many of the class are terribly engaged by it. The story proper is about to kick off, so I hope tomorrow they'll get into it. I know that at least 1 girl in the class has already seen it, and loves it, so that helped sell the others somewhat.

I have marked like crazy in the past couple of days, and sadly I have a bunch more marking to do. Sigh. At least I managed a fast turnaround with the marking I picked up yesterday. It was another teacher's class set of static images (posters with essays), and I managed to mark all of them last night, after a 5 lesson day. Yay me. Now I just have to mark the 54 short stories for my Year 9 class, and the few straggling short story resubmissions from my Year 11s, plus an entire Y12 class set of research projects from another teacher, and I'll be done. It's great to be back from holiday :)

Lastly, I really enjoyed Jamie Oliver's School Dinners. It stressed me out like crazy while I was watching it, as the possibility of catastrophic failure was always present, and very real. Some of the minor triumphs were really heart-warming, and the larger triumph of getting the pilot scheme to work at all was incredibly impressive. A very well put together show about a fascinating initiative. Hopefully all is not over in the fight for healthier food in Britain, despite the setbacks the show ended with.

Making a List

Hmmm, the holidays are just about over, and there are one or two things I didn't quite manage to get done. I think it's about time I made a list of things I want to accomplish, so I can make sure I get through them all.

I'm not sure that I'm an organised person by nature, but out of habit and necessity I have developed some rudimentary organisational skills. There are times, however, when a vague plan is not enough, and circumstances call for a clear plan of attack. It hasn't reached crisis point yet (not by a long shot I hope), but if I can knock off a few of the things that are hanging over my head I will be a happy chap.

Things to do:
Finish Kapcon SDC entry (I suspect I shall be too busy later in the year)
Write LARP characters (made a start this holidays, but not quite the 20 characters a week I was hoping for)
Finish all Term 2 marking (about 54 stories and 16 research projects left to mark)
Tidy up around the house a little
Get through as much washing as possible
Register the car (it passed its warrant yesterday with only $5 of work - a new stop bulb and some cleaning of headlights)

The good thing is that I have done some tidying, some laundry, some marking, got a warrant for the car, written about 6 characters for the LARP, and done a little more work on one of my SDC entries. So progress has been made, but there's still work aplenty to be done.

Le sigh...

The Joy of Holidays

The past week has been a very good one, and the coming week should be equally enjoyable. It is a fine thing to be on holiday, and while it may not lead to much in the way of blogging, it has already gone a long way to rejuvenating my tired old bones.
Sadly Debbie has a cold at the moment, including a nasty cough. We tend to hold out until the holidays, then when we allow ourselves to relax all the stress and illness that we've been valiantly holding at arms' length crowds in on us. I have a cold too. Nonetheless, we've been enjoying both going-out style activities and staying-in-wrapped-up-warm type activities too.

Movies
We haven't made it to the cinema yet these holidays, but we've been watching quite a few DVDs. In My Father's Den was excellent, very engaging and sinister at times. It has lead to much talk of teabagging, which has been odd and at times disturbing, but fun. A Very Long Engagement was a nice film, an interesting mix between the quirky style of Amelie, a WW1 story, and a bit of a mystery. At times I found the style to be entirely separate to the content - not quite at odds, but not in support of the content either. It was nice that the style of the film settled into a more straightforward storytelling mode towards the end - this helped me to finish my viewing focusing on the unravelling of the story, rather than an analysis of the style. It was a sweet film with some moments of WW1 ickyness.

We saw a John Hannah version of Jekyll and Hyde, which was pretty good. It was visually lovely, and the take on the story of having no physical transformation was an interesting one. I'd still love to see a really faithful version of the story (especially as I read the short story a couple of weeks ago). The depiction of a Victorian Gentleman's descent into villainy was pretty cool.

Ummm, Princess Diaries was less funny than Princess Diaries 2, but way more storyful. I liked it quite a lot, and was pleasantly surprised by its superior contentiness.

I've been watching Last Exile as well, which is getting good. I'm about to start in on the 6th DVD, and the story feels like it has some momentum now. I've been wanting to enjoy the show for a while, and am getting there. I think that the main characters are not particularly engaging, but the setting and some of the other characters are very cool. I shall watch the last 8 episodes, and comment on the show as a whole later.

Wedding
Gavin and Penny's wedding was beautiful. I had a fantastic time, and everything about it was entirely lovely. There's a lot that could be said, but I'll keep it short:

*The ceremony was lovely. I mumbled along to the hymns as I didn't know them at all, but the declarations and the children's book and the vows and everything were beautiful.
*The kids' table at the church-reception had the best catering. It was awesome. The cake was great too.
*The reception venue was nice. I particularly like the floral decorations, and the fish on the tables was a cool idea.
*The speeches were nicely done - Gavin was very poised.
*Gavin and Penny had the mad dance skills for their first dance.
*Luke has retained some platinum dance moves from his high school days, but requires some encouragement to unleash them. It seems that Exponents music does the trick.
*Being a sober driver doesn't mean you have to miss out on the fun - both Luke and I broke out some classic dance manoeuvres despite our sobriety.
*Weddings are lovely.

Laters
I go now to hang up laundry, and maybe watch some anime. I may not blog again until Term 3 starts - it's not a lack of time, just a lack of being trapped near a computer. Take care all!

Judged!

And found wanting...
The judges' comments for the Game Chef Challenge are up, and though the winners have not yet been announced, I suspect that I shan't be among them :)

It was an interesting challenge, and I shall be keen again next year (provided it doesn't coincide with reports writing). There were two sets of judge comments for my game, plus another entrant was kind enough to review it. There are some pretty basic things missing from the game - like examples of play, and much in the way of flavour text. And some of the stuff that's in there needs editing and rearranging. These things have been noted, and may one day go into Invincible Hench v1.1, if I get around to revisiting it. Certainly the ideas and features will make it into any game stuff I write in the future, which is awesome.

So, a very positive experience, from which I hope I have learned some basics of game design. The second judge's comments were a lot more detailed and helpful than the first judge's rather brief (but accurate):

Too much GM authority, not enough GM support.

That was the whole comment. The second judge wrote about 200-400 words for each game (including mine). I'm not sure that an extra 192 words of criticism would make me feel any better, but I was a little stung by that comment. Entirely true, but ouch!

Next year I will write the most awesome entry ever, and all judges will quake and tremble in mighty appreciativeness!

Weekend of Goodness

Ah, 'twas fun, so 'twas. Friday featured much cocktail and Singstar goodness. Saturday had slight seediness, visiting, and a bachelor-do that was fun, and most interesting from an anthropological standpoint. Sunday had more visiting and shopping, and today is all filled with holiday goodness.
Ahhh....

Anthropological Study of the New Zealand Obsession
I saw an All-Blacks vs. Lions rugby game in a pub. There were lots and lots of people there. It was Phase One of a stag-do for a friend, with Phase Two being the consumption of lots of booze, and Phase Three being a visit to a strip club. I piked on Phases Two and Three (though I had a couple of beers during the game). I did find the watching of the game to be very interesting, with several points of note.

Firstly, it should be established that I don't often watch sport. I don't know the rules of rugby, and I don't much like loud noise. I have watched a game or two of rugby on television, when people I'm with have been keen. I even watched a game in a pub once, on a big screen. I think it might have been South Africa versus New Zealand in Dunedin, about 10 years ago. I quite enjoyed the experience.

So, this Saturday I arrived at the pub early, had a drink, and grabbed a seat. The pub filled up pretty quickly in the 20 minutes before kick-off. People were very attentive and watched happily for the duration of the game. People cheered when the ABs did well, and some people cheered for the Lions. There were one or two 'colourful' comments made by some viewers, mostly of a very profane nature. I shall add one or two to the comments for this entry - but be warned, they feature some very naughty language.

I also observed a phenomenon that seems common among the populace in general - it is culturally insensitive to sit on tables, as they are tapu. You shouldn't put your arse where people eat (or sleep - sitting on pillows is a no-no too). A fair number of people in Aotearoa know this. However, if sitting on a table will let you see an All-Blacks game, then it becomes OK. The first people I observed breaking this social taboo were a couple of Maori guys. Pretty soon there were arses on tables all over the place, pool tables, eating tables, any kind of table.

The reason this is so noteworthy to me is that I was fully indoctrinated at TCOL into table-respecting goodness. Neither I, nor any of my students, are allowed to sit on tables. That doesn't stop the kids trying, even the Maori kids in my class who've just come from Te Reo Maori class. They're just slackers about manners, I guess, in many different ways.

Anyways, enough culture - now for some swearing. COMMENTS SECTION CONTAINS RUGBY RELATED PROFANITY.

Glorious Revolutionary Five Years

Today's post is brought to you by the number 5, and the letter D. Yep, today's is the 5th anniversary of my marriage with Debbie. The past 5 years have been pretty action packed, with many ups and downs, and I am mega-happy that Debbie and I have been together through it all.
There have been some pretty substantial changes in our lives over the past 5 years, and it's nice to reflect on how much we've been able to do and cope with through the support, love and encouragement we provide for each other. Debbie and Matt is teh awesome.

In other news, the quiz that Debbie put together for her class went over well with my juniors. The movie quote round, where they have to listen to a CD and name the film that the quote comes from, was particularly popular. The picture round was a highlight too.

Last night I finally started playing with the editing software on Debbie's laptop, having purchased a 1394 DV cable to facilitate the process. It's a lot of fun to play with video editing - a lot nicer than my early efforts, which involved 2 VCRs, one of which had a 2 second roll-back on the record. I got pretty good at guessing how early I needed to hit record, but it was a bit of a hit-and-miss process. I also enjoyed the ease of adding music and messing with the sound - no more yanking a walkman plug in and out of the sound input of a VCR for me!

I will note that in the 2 hours I was playing with footage last night, I managed to edit together about 29 seconds of final film, with minimal tweakage of sound. I think I need a little more practice before I take on a role as a 48hour editor. That said, I do know how to do it now, and the DV cable should allow output back to the camera without too much trouble (though I haven't tried that yet). I think it's safe to say that I could definitely help with editing, maybe taking one short sequence or scene and putting it together, then outputting it to DV tape so that the chief editor could grab it.

I really like the automatic music function of the software (Studio 7). There are only about 10 or 15 songs to choose from, but each one has a little bit of customisation, and the software automatically times the music to fit the scene - including a little flourish at the start or end for some songs. It's neaty.

So, 2 more classes to go, then the term's over. I hope they go well. The coolest thing is that after school I get to have drinkees and Singstar with Debbie, then have a weekend to follow. We are planning a non-school-day anniversary date for some time in the holidays, which I am also looking forward to.

Ah, holidays. Please, please come soon. Debbie and I need you.

Shakespeare Looming?

I just saw a poster for a school production of The Merchant of Venice. It's in the second week of Term 3. Could be most interesting. I shall have to try not to forget about it, as I have seen woefully few Shakespearian plays, and am very curious about how well a high school group could put on a whole play.

I've Had Enough, Thanks

Man, this week is not an easy one. I feel that I am very much running on vapours, the tank long empty. Debbie was commenting that it has been a pretty good term, in that we've only reached the point of exhaustion now, in the last week. I suppose that's true - I dimly recall this washed out feeling starting a little earlier in each term last year.
So, classes have been going well this week, and there have been many positive moments. In fact, apart from the chore of report proofing and chasing up equally exhausted colleagues to correct their minor slips in punctuation and grammar, this week has been really good so far. I'm half way through, which is awesome. One more lesson today, four tomorrow and four on Friday. I might make it through after all.

Last night my energy levels were lower than they've been for a long time. Leaden limbs, slurred speech, much stumbling and broken sentence structure. Not good. Somehow Debbie was still able to understand what I was saying. Amazing. We went for a walk, which was quite refreshing (though a little cold, as it was about 8pm), and had fruit, and hot drinks and a cookie or two. We're both doing our best to look after each other for the next few days, with the massive relief of a weekend looming, and then the near-incomprehensible pleasure of a holiday after that.

Poor Debbie - she has Parent-Teacher Interview night tonight. Someone at her school is either a terrible planner or a complete sadist. Mufti day and PTIs in the last week of a 10 week Term? Adbject cruelty!

A whole lot of good stuff has happened this term, and I'm most grateful for all of it. I am a lucky, lucky man who just has to drag his carcass through to Friday, then can fall over. 2 and a half more days.

Ooooh! Yummy lunch cooked by former student today! I shall look forward to it, and report back on its deliciosity soonest.

Four and a half days to go...

The weekend was lovely. We went to Hell, we celebrated a birthday with delicious cocktails and yummy Mexican food, we spent a day at home relaxing. It was all very, very nice.
Now I'm back at school, counting down the lessons until the holidays. 17 lessons, 3 detentions and one Y12 lunch to go. Plus 4 form times and 4 lunch-eatings. And one English Department meeting?

This afternoon should be fun - my Year 11 class are starting on their Static Images. Poster making for 4 lessons. Huzzah. After that I'm going to get my Y9 class to do some silent reading and writing, all going well.

Looking Forward To
The holidays. The end of the day. Dinner. The Reduced Shakespeare Company (when it finally ships from DVDSoon).

This can't be real..?

As I sat down to get some work done, I spied a note on the desk. It is unmistakably in the handwriting of an adult, and it is well spelt and punctuated. It is an absence note for a student in a colleague's class, and it is without question the funniest absence note I have ever seen:
To Whom It May Concern

________ was absent from colllege on Thursday as he went to an 'all you can eat buffet breakfast' and did not finish until 3pm.

Regards,
______________

I was nearly paralysed with laughter. The student was a third former!

Now, it's possible that it's not genuine - maybe a sneaky teacher replaced a real absence note with a joke one to guage the reaction, but on the other hand crazy things do happen...