USB flash drives are the new pens?

I have noticed a disturbing trend among youngsters to consider any usb flash drive they find plugged into a school computer to belong to the 'finders keepers' category, like pens and pencils and money. This irks me on a number of levels - it's very easy to see who last used a computer, as their name is on the login screen when you go to log yourself on to the network. A lot of flash drives have files on them with names like "if you find this flash drive" which have the contact details of the student. And, of course, you can take the flash drive to the office and leave it there for the kid to pick up. It's easy. More common, sadly, seems to be the desire of kids to see if there's any porn or good music on the drive, then promptly wipe it and consider it their own property. A student today bragged that he 'found' about 10 flash drives last year in the back of computers, but that he then lost them all. What a retard! He didn't even benefit from his irresponsible behaviour! I have decided to work on him over the course of the year and try to instill a small measure of morals into his probably drug-addled and certainly immature and selfish little brain. And get him to pass some unit standards too. Sometimes you have to prioritise, and teaching selfish little children to be responsible and not steal flash drives ranks pretty highly on my personal list :-)

Dominic's morning routine

 

Dino metal!

Dominic has a new favourite song, and a CD on its way from Amazon. It's these rockin' dinosaurs with their metal version of This Old Man:



He's even dressing in a dino t-shirt, and playing with his guitar shaped rattle to emulate them.

Family walks

This morning I was lucky enough to walk to school with Debbie and Dominic. There were very few students at school thanks to child-labour-day (students do odd jobs to fundraise for the school), and they are cutting down trees in our street at the moment so Debbie was keen to get out for a walk even earlier than usual (though the actual tree-cutting didn't start until after 9am today for some reason).

It was really nice taking Dom into school, and introducing him/showing him off to a bunch of people along the way. A short trip from my office to the staff room to get a drink of water turned into quite a meet-n-greet, with Dom smiling at all sorts of people, and being very charming.

One more day to Easter! Debbie blogged about poo! I have a new 4gb flash drive! ($30 from Ferrit)

Um, here's a picture that's cute :-)

Almost entirely about poo

 

Detention Artwork

Drawn on the whiteboard during detention, about two feet tall or so:



I like drawing on whiteboards :-)

Dominic practises modelling

He is a much photographed baby - the papparazi even hound him during a supposedly relaxing massage!

Dominic has a mighty kick!

As seen at the very end of this clip:



And here's how big he is, in a cute pair of overalls (there are some upsides to cold days after all!):



Tomorrow Dom gets his 3 month jabs, and I get a student teacher for a month!

Fun with Dom

This is a very nice way to get some looking-after-Dominic and some lying-down-on-the-sofa-after-a-long-day at the same time:



Also, Debbie has blogged about parenting courses, suburban mothers, and stuff.

I mow my lawn at 7:30am

Getting older is an odd process. Debbie and I now have a son (as long-time readers may have inferred), and I've been working full time for a while now (one year of full-time study, 7 years work in the past 8?). I'm also over 30 years of age, and I think I'm starting to notice some fairly substantial changes in my life: *I have a lawn of my own. This means I need to think about mowing it. I sometimes do this, and am even tempted to mow the lawn very early in the morning on a Saturday from time to time (though I think 8:30am is the earliest I've ever actually gone out and done it). *I don't sleep in often. Like, maybe one weekend day in four I'll sleep past 8:30. This morning I was up before 7am (though I probably wouldn't have been if Dominic hadn't decided he was done with sleep for the morning. He's asleep again now, but I'm all awake) *I rarely drink. I certainly don't drink heavily 2-3 weekends per month, nor do I go to parties frequently. *I have grey hairs. Quite a few of them, actually. I also have at least one or two awesome double-thickness crazy white Gandalf hairs. They came in first, well before the greys, and they hide in my hair and only occasionally pop out for my amusement. *I have money, but don't buy stuff sometimes. Like, there are loads of toys* I want to buy, and I probably could buy them, but I don't. Go figure. There are many other things, but now I must go mow my lawn. And shake my walking stick angrily at passing kids. * Toys like a 3ccd video camera with mic and headphones plugs for under $700, and a teeny tiny laptop, and wireless internet for the house to go with the teeny tiny laptop, and an LCD TV for the bedroom, and freeview...