Currently Watching

Outrageous Fortune, genius NZ comedy/drama. We borrowed the first season on DVD from a colleague, and were hooked after one episode (really hooked after two). He's bringing the second season in shortly for us. It's a very funny, compelling show with a range of characters who are really engaging. Top class work - and only $28 a season on DVD at the Warehouse! Teachers - genius Brit comedy about high school teachers. My brother picked up the DVDs on special from amazon.co.uk, and it's fantastic to rewatch (and in the case of episodes we missed on TV see for the first time). Very silly, sarcastic, biting, and filled with vicarious pleasures :-) We're also watching House on TV (even though that means we've skipped a season), and will probably get back into watching Lost, several episodes at a time (it's a bit unsatisfying to watch in a drip-fed week-by-week way, but save up 4 or 5 episodes and binge every now and then and it becomes (for us) quite an enjoyable show). On the shelf, ready to go are the Family Guy Star Wars special (Blue Harvest), and the first two episodes of the Sarah Connor Terminator TV show (not, I think, a sitcom, but we shall have to watch it to find out).

The terrifying tale of titty mouse and tatty mouse

A few days ago Debbie and I sat down to read Dominic a story from the quite respectable looking "The Classic Purnell Edition Great Children's Stories (1975)". The first story that caught Debbie's eye was the tale of Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse. We began to read it to Dominic, but didn't get past the first page.

We should have been warned. The story ought to have a disclaimer at the start.

The full text of this children's classic is available on the internet here. I shall give you a quick summary, allowing you to be forewarned about the horrors of the tale.

1. Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse live in a house together. They are hungry, so they go pick some corn.
2. They come back and each make a pudding on the stove, but when Titty Mouse puts her pudding into the pot "the pot tumbled over, and scalded her to death."
3. Tatty Mouse is sad, and the furniture asks her why. As each piece of furniture learns the sad news, it nuts out in some way.
4. The tree, bird, and little girl outside each find out about the death, and nut out (losing leaves, shedding feathers, spilling milk).
5. The old man next door who is thatching his roof finds out. “Oh!” said the old man, “then I’ll tumble off the ladder and break my neck,” so he tumbled off the ladder and broke his neck."
6. The tree falls over, destroying Tatty and Titty's house, and Tatty is buried under the rubble.

The end.

Seriously, what happened to Joseph Jacobs to make him lose it so badly that he wrote this 'children's tale'? What exactly is the message? Don't share bad news, or else people will randomly kill themselves and you'll be crushed under their corpses? Don't grieve in public or you'll upset the neighbours? Mice, even the pudding-making anthropomorphised ones, are all evil and bring nothing but trouble to the idyllic countryside?

What. the. hell?

Here's a cute photo as a palette cleanser:

Perfume, cute photos, clothes and such

Debbie and I watched Perfume last night (actually we watched most of it last night, then I fell asleep (we were watching it in bed), so we watched the end this morning). I found it to be quite an odd, but a very compelling film. I thought they did a great job of using a visual medium to show how powerful a character's response to smells were. The fact that the actor playing the main character was Pingu from Nathan Barley (a very funny, adult Brit comedy) made me feel sympathetic to the lead character, even when he was killing people.

I missioned out to Harvey Norman today to print off some photos, both for my office at school and for the photo album. I got a large copy of this photo, 'cos it's quite a cutey:



And for anyone who's interested, Dominic now fits some 3-6 month clothing rather well:



Coming soon: The terrifying tale of Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse - or what happens when children's book writers have nervous breakdowns.

War stories

First lesson with my Year 12 students. Course outline says typing up homework is good, but printer breaking down is no excuse. Teacher: Of course, if your printer breaks down you can always email me your work. Here is my school email address. Please don't email me for personal stuff, like 'Hey mister, how's it going.' Work stuff only. *pause* Teacher: Except when you leave school, then if you want to email me in a couple of years to tell me what you're doing, say hi, that's cool. You know, if you've joined the Air Force and you want to email me and say "Hey Mr, I'm in the airforce and I just shot a bunch of Iraqi's." That's cool. *pause, horrified looking students* Teacher: Well, that's not cool, y'know, not that particular thing. Hopefully nobody will be gunning down Iraqi's in a couple of years, but you get the idea.

Outdoors with Dominic

We took the little man outside after school today to check out some dandylions and stuff. It was neat. Debbie has already got him to feel the grass under his feet, and he quite enjoys it. Yesterday he weighed in at 5.53kg, which is a healthy gain (slightly slower than his previous weight gain, but pushing him one or two percentage points up from the national average).

I am very glad that it's the weekend.

Wanted

For a few weeks I've been in the interesting state of non-want. There weren't any consumer purchases other than food that I wanted to make. Usually there's some kind of gadget, or household item, or DVD, or book, or something that I'd idly like to pick up. For a while I wanted a plastic collander, but it seems less important now than it did in those heady days of the end of the holidays. Now there are at least two things I want to buy. Well, I'd be happy to pick them up for free by borrowing them, but failing that I'm getting ready to shell out some dosh. 1. A bike. I currently walk to school, and it's very pleasant and I get a lot of reading done. The reason I'm sorely tempted to get a bike is a simple one - I could get home faster, and thus be able to sneak home at lunchtime, or during non-contact time, and see my lovely family. I don't want to drive as it's unhealthy from both an exercise and polluting-my-environment POV, so a bike is a great speed/environment/$ compromise. 2. House season 3 (and 4). We borrowed the DVDs of seasons 1 and 2 from Luke and Sam, and it's an awesome show. We'd very much like to see the next season ASAP. Is the season that just started on TV here season 4? We watched the first episode of that just after finishing season 2, and it was neat, but there's clearly a lot we've missed out on. So, anyone got House to lend us, or a surplus bike? I'm thinking Trademe is a good place to look for a bike...

This is not a baby picture

I think the cat is getting a little sick of us paying so much attention to an entity which is not,at the end of the day, our cat. Worse, she has been evicted from our bedroom where she used to sleep. This photo represents the first in a series of civil unrest protests the cat has staged. We expect all manner of protest actions in the next few weeks and months, until we eventually cave in and let her back in with us (which will probably be when Dominic moves into his own room, and we can shift our focus to keeping the cat out of his room, rather than a whole wing of the house...).

Back to work

It had to happen eventually, but in about ten minutes I have to return to work. It's been a fantastic summer holidays, the best ever for obvious reasons, and it's a sad thing that I have to go spend time away from my family. On the up side, my work days aren't exactly long, and I'm not far from home, so I should be able to pop home for the odd lunch here and there :-)

Photos, again!



This is part of Dominic's daily workout, exercising away on his baby gym. That's right, it's not a play mat, it's a gym. For the buff babies.



And here's Dom working out with a personal trainer on his swiss ball. OK, it was Debbie's swiss ball, but Dom has more or less inherited it now. It's really good for encouraging him to lift his head and shoulders, and apparently good for developing his sense of balance.

The many faces of Dominic

Dominic is having a growth spurt at the moment, which basically means he's spending most of his waking hours feeding. In between feeds we managed to snap a couple of photos of him:









It's quite entertaining, the range of expression the little guy has. He's also on a continual learning curve, mastering such awesome skills as 'push with feet whilst parents make you dance the charleston by bouncing you around on the floor' and 'lie on a swiss ball and be really, really fascinated by household objects'. He managed to grip a rattle for a few seconds today (once I'd coaxed his fingers around it) and would have happily bashed himself in the head with it three times if I hadn't had my fingers in the way :-)

Why do I love dice so much?

I have a lot of dice. More dice than I need for just about any game (except Dogs in the Vineyard and Princes' Kingdom). So why do I see dice at Kapcon and think that I'd like more? I guess it might be a bit like many of the purchases I make. I tend to think about things and shop around, and even after I buy something like a TV, I still notice the prices and features of other TVs in the shops for a long time afterwards - sometimes months, sometimes longer. Dice have been a desirable commodity since I was about ten or so, and I haven't actually bought dice on many occasions. I have bought a pound'o'dice, and then a few individual die to fill in the gaps, so now I have all the dice I sensibly need, and more. But I still covet pounds'o'dice, and interesting sets of dice.

Moving through stages

It's really nice to see a variety of people who are at different stages of the whole starting a family thing. At kapcon today I talked to people with preschoolers, with babies, and those who are about to become parents. It's really nice to see where people who are ahead of us are, and also to be able to chat to someone who is getting close to starting a family. I like that our birth story is a positive one, and while there were things that were really difficult to deal with, we don't have and 'horror stories', just things that we found tough. One of the hardest things for us was the hospital stay, and the uncertainty of not knowing when we'd be able to take Dominic home (the comment about not being allowed to take him home in case he 'fell off the perch' overnight and us and Wellington Hospital ended up on the front page of the Dominion Post was not a great way to end our third day in hospital). The actual total number of days in hospital wasn't too bad, but the uncertainty and mixed messages were hard to deal with. But apart from that probably common experience, Debbie's pregnancy and labour, though tough, were relatively 'normal', and our first six weeks with Dominic have been the best 6 weeks of my life. So, it's great to see people with new babies, people with toddlers, people starting out on the whole pregnancy journey - it helps me to appreciate how far we've come, to look ahead to what's coming up, and hopefully to be able to talk encouragingly to those who are starting out. Every baby and every delivery is different, so I don't feel like I can offer anyone any advice, but I can honestly and happily talk about how cool the whole starting-a-family thing is, and all the awesome stuff that we've learned and done so far :-)

Busy Week

Whew! I know I'm still on holiday, but that was a busy week. It featured a quite pointless visit to the hospital, a Baby and You class, preparations for Kapcon, a Plunket visit and our last midwife visit, and then Kapcon itself. We also walked to a cafe on Friday, which was very nice, and probably did some other stuff too. Oh, we had a plumber come round and cut a hole in the deck to gain access to the 'gully', the kind of master drain for the house - it was blocked, and causing bad smells and minor flooding under the house. It's all good now, and the bathroom has gone back to smelling nice - especially so because of the delicious Lush soap that's in the shower at the moment. We're looking forward to seeing photos from Kapcon up on the web, and are already talking about the kinds of games we want to run for kids groups in five or six years. I think the idae of a roleplaying game which includes activities, like making paper hats so your characters can sneak onto a pirate ship, or doing a treasure hunt to get all the parts you need to build a machine would be cool. Gaming with movement and arts-and-crafts would be neat. I'm thinking about maybe writing and running such a game for adults in a couple of kapcons' time, as a way to practice for when the kids are old enough :-) I can think of a few gamers who'd be up for making newspaper costumes and completing physical challenges for sticker rewards to put on their character sheets...

A week of firsts

So, busy week this last week with Baby and You classes (follow-up to antenatal - with me as the only guy in a room full of mums and babies (though some of the babies were boys)), Dominic's first shower (he really enjoys showers, it turns out), our first time jogging with Dominic in the stroller (managed 25 minutes today), and his first visit back to hospital since being discharged 5 weeks ago.

The hospital visit was positive, though fairly pointless. We drove all the way down for a ten minute appointment, during which the specialist basically told us 'we need to get a CT scan, then see how he's doing'. Which we've known since we left hospital. The good part is that there was no bad news, but we really could have just talked on the phone for 5 minutes, since he didn't do more than glance at Dominic - no listening to his breathing, tapping his chest, nothing. At least the news was good. Oh, and the possible operation time could be as soon as 6 months - though we won't know for sure until after the CT.

Lastly, here's a cool imperius picture :-)

One Month Old Today

Not me, obviously, but the little man. We bought him a baby gym as a present :-)



We decided not to let him play with the plastic bag wrapping stuff it came in, for one because it's not as much fun as a box, and two there's a certain amount of choking hazard in little babies playing with plastic bags. Even if they are the most beautiful things in the world.

We were pleased to see that Dominic was at least mildly entertained by his new toy - and hopefully will become more so as he grows older.




Movies Seen on DVD
We've watched a few dvds in the past couple of days - Die Hard 4.0, Simpsons Movie, 28 Weeks Later and Blades of Glory. I enjoyed all of them to some extent. Here's my extent-o-metre ratings:

Die Hard 4.0 - a fun action movie with a pretty good cast. Not hugely Die Hardish, or particularly plot-clever, but a fun movie to watch with some impressive stunts. I liked the really dumb rock song about Die Hard that's on the DVD, and the interview with the band. 3/4 extent of enjoyment.

Simpsons Movie - just like watching a 2 part tv episode, but with some oddly unnecessary CG animation thrown in. No more (or better) jokes than most of the good TV episodes. So OK, but not really an 'event' movie. A mildly amusing 5/11.

Blades of Glory - exactly as stupid and fun as I was expecting. Perfectly pitched for the sleep deprived, with strong performances from all cast members (I'm getting to quite like Will Ferrel). 26/38.

28 Weeks Later - worth a post of its own, this was a great horror movie in my opinion. Tense, well put together, and with characters who didn't make a bunch of frustratingly silly decisions. Debbie and I particularly liked the selfish life-preserving actions of Robert Carlyle at the start, and the 'kill everyone' back-up plan that the military put into action. A pleasant exploration of the 'everyone does the right thing and they're still screwed' situation. Well scary. 12 corpses out of a bakers' dozen.

Yet more Dominic

There will be non-baby content here occasionally, though right now I am obviously quite baby-obsessed :-) I guess maybe I shouldn't have told him that milk comes from cows?

Head lifting

Debbie takes the credit for this rather awesome shot of what is, I think, Dominic's longest and most vertical head lift so far!

Also, British comedy series 'That Mitchell and Webb Look' is really, really cool. It's a fun sketch show in the tradition of Alas Smith and Jones, with some great recurring characters. Well recommended (though we only have 4 episodes so far (of 6) - damn data cap!).

4 weeks old

This was Dominic yesterday, at 4 weeks of age:


And this was the day before, with Dominic enjoying some time on his stomach.



He can now lift his head up for about 12 seconds, and if you give him something to push off (like your hand) he can 'commando crawl' a couple of feet. He tries to hook his toes in to the ground, but hasn't quite sorted that out yet. This is a good thing, since as soon as he does get his toes sorted he'll be able to propel himself all over the place if he's ever on his tummy. He can't roll over yet, so we're safe for a while, but we're already looking at the house and pondering how big a job baby-proofing it is going to be.

Full time parenting

The past 3 and a half weeks have been really, really cool. Being a new parent, whilst tiring, is fantastic. It's also pretty amazing that it's been the summer holidays for me, so I've been able to spend pretty much all my time with Dominic and Debbie (I did pop in to work on the Thursday after he was born for a few hours). It's a huge life change, and it is wonderful. For those interested, Dominic's weight gain since we got home has been a steady 40 - 45 grams a day, and though it's hard to get him to stretch out for measuring we think he's about 2-3cm longer now than he used to be. He's already started outgrowing some of his newborn clothes (he's in a 0-3 month outfit today (000), and the length is perfect).

3 weeks old

Well, that 3 weeks went by in a blur. On the one hand, it feels like it's gone by pretty quickly. On the other hand, it felt like we were in hospital for a really long time, and pre-Dom feels like a lifetime ago. Time is a strange thing. Dominic seems to like being sung rock power balladz as opposed to nursery rhymes and lullabyes. Every Rose Has Its Thorn and a bunch of Skid Row songs are the most popular so far (though Alice Cooper's Poison was appreciated also). Oddly he also seems to like the Christmas carol 'Good King Wenceslas'.

Grandparents awesome, medicine a mixed bag

My folks came to visit a couple of days ago, and it was fantastic to see them. There are many reasons why, but as my time is limited I will mention only a few:

- they went shopping at the supermarket and brought over lots of yummy food
- they are as excited about Dominic as we are, and share our opinion of his cuteness
- they showed us photos of our nephews
- they went out shopping for all manner of useful items and presents for us
- they went on walks with us (with Dominic in the stroller)
- they mowed our lawn and did some gardening!

Next week it's the return of the parents, plus brother! We are really looking forward to it.

On the not so great side, Dominic has been on anti-biotics for a rash on his thigh/neck. The rash is all gone now (yay!), and he only has 2 doses of medicine left (yay!), which is very good as it's a stressful process to get a little baby to swallow 4ml of yukky tasting medicine every 8 hours. It's also no fun having to wake him (and ourselves) up to give him his medicine - especially in the morning :-)

Lastly, here's a photo from today of Dominic with a cool present he got yesterday:

Cute photo

Not much sleep lately. Went for nice 40min walk with Dominic today in the morning. It is sunny.

Harry Potter'd

Debbie and I watched the DVDs of HP 4 and 5 last week - 5 broken between pre and post Dominic watching, I think. I enjoyed both of them, and would say that as a series of movies they are getting better. Debbie's midwife asked whether we'd read any of the books, and I confessed that I had not. More than that, I had made a conscious decision not to. I couldn't really explain why at the time. She suggested it might have been because they were 'too cool', which is a possibility. Certainly the wave of merchandise that accompanied the first film did place the series in the 'very commercial and popular' category. But then, I enjoyed the Pirates of the Carribean movies, so commercialism alone wouldn't put me off. I think, on reflection, it was the length and unfinished (at the time) nature of the series that put me off. I like books that are between 150 and 300 pages. I think my 'sweet spot' for books is around the 200 page mark. Kurt Vonnegut, John Brunner, William Burroughs, some of my favourite authors write shorter novels. Of course I also enjoy longer books - though I read few series of books these days. I used to read Dragonlance novels, and have read Lord of the Rings a few times, but I tend to avoid long series of books. I think the opportunity cost is a factor - if I'm going to read 7 books, I could read quite a variety of interesting authors and different set-ups, or I could read Harry Potter for 7 books. The HP may be excellent, but it currently struggles to win over the other books on the 'to read' pile.

Sunbathing

Dominic has been sunbathing each day to help reduce his low-level jaundice. It's pretty cute. There is a large inherent risk involved with naked sunbathing - he's done a little of that, but has urinated on his father in the process :-)

It's amazing the things you don't really care about when you're a parent.

True stories about Dominic

We were in hospital on day 3 of Dom's life (today is day 8). We took this photo:



Unfortunately, he's still very young, so if you ask him about it he may not tell you the story. From my point of view, it really did look like the dinosaur started it. But then, I'm definitely biased, so not the most reliable witness...

Dominic gains 100g in 2 days

Parents thrilled. He's back up to 3,725 grams. His birth weight was 3,900 I think, so he's still smaller than when he was born, but that's quite normal (up to 10% wieght loss in the first week is within the normal band, I think our midwife said). He is still very cute.

Blogging with Dom

Being home is great. We got home late on Wednesday(about 8pm?). We aren't sleeping a lot as the little man is a voracious feeder, but it is nice to be in our own peaceful home with our family. We managed a family trip to the supermarket yesterday, which was cool. Anyways, typing whilst holding Dom is hard, so I will sign off there.

Parenthood is Awesome

Labour wasn't so much fun (though it went well and only took 6 hours), but having a kid is fantastic. Dominic was born at 6.10am on Sunday, 9th December. He's a very cute wee chap, and is doing pretty well. We're hoping to be discharged from hospital tomorrow - they want to check out his breathing (a little fast) and the common heart *valve?* thingee that lots of babies have (the one where it closes either just before or just after birth). He's had some x-rays, and seems pretty healthy, but they're being thorough, which is good.



We think he's adorable, which is handy since we have to look after him for years to come :-)

No news

Debbie and I are still waiting for a new arrival. Somewhat impatiently, I hasten to add. It's unlikely that I'll be doing any live blogging from a delivery suite, so I shall send a few txt messages instead (when the big day finally comes - some time before Christmas). People should then feel free to pass on the news to all and sundry :-) Also, it's hot. And nearly the end of the school year. 4 more days with students (unless I'm able to take the generous 1 paid day of leave that's in my contract to attend the birth of a partner's child). Ah, 'tis nearly holidays time... I'm also glad I got a new cellphone. I got one with a camera (the cheapest one with a camera in the store), and it's snazzy and wee. And it lets Debbie ring me at school with important questions about midwife appointments, and txt me and so on. It's really quite neat to have caught up with 2000's latest technology :-) (they had camera-phones in Japan when we went over there in 2001, and they weren't super-brand-new. In fact, by the time we left in 2002 they were giving camera-phones away free if you signed up to a 12 month plan.

Beowulf - in 2D

Debbie and I had a busy weekend which included seeing the CG Beowulf movie on the big screen. Sadly we were about twenty minutes late for the 3D version - which is to say we arrived just as the slides would have been starting, but the queue was at least twenty minutes long. We decided to see it in 2D rather than wait around for a later session. I enjoyed watching it, although I was a littler nervous after the first couple of minutes, as the ratio of gimmicky shots that would look good in 3D to normal visual story-telling was not one which favoured the regular type cinema. It did calm down after that, and while there were a lot of shots which went on longer than they might otherwise have done to allow for cool 3D bits, and some obvious 3D-friendly shots, it was quite a watchable film in 2D. There was fighting, bragging, sleaze-which-failed-to-titilate, a cool dragon, and Angelina Jolie as an unconvincing CG barbie doll. There were odd changes to the storyline and characters, some with no pay-off. There were spiky things pointing straight out at the audience, presumably looking cool in 3D. Without going into detail, I'd say it was an enjoyable film, and if you don't know too much about the story of Beowulf you'll probably be happy to sit throught it, though there are a few moments where you might justifiably mutter *wtf!?!*, as characters make inexplicable decisions or villains act randomly. One of the oddest things was that the biggest changes looked like they had been made to give the story a theme or moral that modern audiences could connect with, but then the film failed to deliver any coherent pay-off to those changes. I wonder if bits were cut out?

Didn't choke

I just finished bowling with my form class (about half of them). High pressure situation, could have gone disastrously wrong! I'd told them that I like bowling, and that I usually bowl over 100 (though not always). Score = 147 Not my highest ever score for ten pin bowling, but up there in my top 10. I got three strikes and two spares, I think. I will make sure I tell my colleague about my score - he's taking his class on Tuesday, and it's nice to put a bit of pressure* on him :-) *I really hope 147 isn't too far below his average game - that could be an embarrassing challenge

New Curriculum: The Treaty of Waitangi

It was an interesting process to critique the draft NZ Curriculum last year with my department, and write some feedback on it. We were somewhat cynical about the extent to which the draft was really open to negotiation, but we proceeded anyway in good faith. A colleague of mine reports that she is pleasantly surprised at how many changes were made between draft and final version, and how many of our concerns were addressed. I can't say that I've studied the new curriculum in enough detail to know, but there was one hugely obvious change which was nice to see. The draft did not once mention the Treaty of Waitangi. It was entirely omitted from the document. There was a single sentence about NZ's bicultural heritage and multicultural society, and that was it. The new curriculum not only mentions the treaty, it places quite a lot of emphasis on it in the Purpose and Scope section (at the start of the curriculum document):

"...give effect to the partnership that is at the core of our nation's founding document, Te Tiriri o Waitangi / the Treaty of Waitangi."

The section on Principles has also been modified. The draft had the following areas as the foundations of curriculum decision making:

Excellence, Learning to Learn, Cultural Heritage, Equity, Connections, Coherence

This was where the reference to NZ's makeup came in:

Cultural Heritage All students experience a curriculum that reflects New Zealand’s bicultural heritage and its multicultural society. Students who identify as Màori have the opportunity to experience a curriculum that reflects and values te ao Màori.

The final document has slightly different principles:

High Expectations (replaces Excellence, but still talks about personal excellence in the explanation), Learning to Learn, Treaty of Waitangi, Community Engagement, Cultural Diversity, Coherence, Inclusion, Future Focus.

It's been really interesting to be part of the criticism, and see the changes in the final document. It's quite a difference, separating the Treaty and Multiculturalism, rather than lumping them together under Cultural Heritage. I'm not convinced that I wouldn't have had a knee-jerk reaction to such a change when I was a racist teenager, but as a (somewhat) more grown up individual, I am now very pleased that one of the things that makes NZ special, part of our unique character of having a founding document that recognises the importance of indigenous culture, is recognised in the document which underpins our education system.

New Curriculum PD

3.30pm - 5pm yesterday:

Where's all the sucking?

For some reason I was expecting Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer to be bad. I wasn't overly impressed with the first movie - actually, I thought it was pretty weak overall. The trailer for Silver Surfer looked pretty cool, but you really can't judge a film by its trailer. Maybe I saw some bad reviews? Or maybe the terrible, mind-shattering banality of Ghost Rider had tainted my view of this season's superhero outings. Whatever the case, we watched the DVD this weekend, and I was very, very impressed. I actually really enjoyed the film on pretty much every level, and would rate it as one the better films of its genre, despite not being a huge Fantastic Four fan (though I do quite like the Silver Surfer). It had a good amount of intra-four drama, use of powers for silly and heroic things, epic scale end-of-the-world special effects, and a well done surfer. All in all, I thought it was a really good comic-book-on-screen film. And I thought it was going to suck...

Bumbling along...

School is much less busy this week. I even had time to pop home for a few minutes to visit Debbie - a nice walk in the sun. There's still work to do, all sorts of little things that will keep me occupied, but the relentless churn of deadlines and classes has slowed down considerably. Not long to the holidays, too! I'd better go rehydrate, and prep for my one class of the day :-)

Why cats shouldn't organise baby gifts

 Generally I think the cat has adjusted well to my maternity leave. She doesn't appear to mind my continued presence at home on the whole. She is content to let me sleep in along side her in the mornings, she begs tidbits from my lunch and has the added amusement of parading in front of the computer screen or walking across the keyboard whenever I am on the computer. However, some of her recent behaviour is either a cunningly calculated attempt to chase me out of the house during the day or cats really have a different idea of how to be nice and caring to pregnant women. Firstly, there is her 'assistance' with household tasks. Any sign of making beds or folding laundry and the cat is there. She purrs contentedly as she dives under sheets and towels, and bats you 'playfully' with her claws. It's a rather savage approach to playing tag or peek a boo that has resulted in several rather painful scratches. What's more is that she always knows if you try to sneak off with sheets or towels. You think you've made it into the bedroom without the cat and then no sooner than you've started to unfold said piece of linen, claws appear either through the fabric or around the sides, and sink into your fleshy fingers in the manner of a knife-wielding maniac in some B-grade horror film. Secondly, she has taken to presenting me with dead rodents. She times it well. Waits until I'm distracted or relaxed and not in the least expecting it, sneaks up behind me and lets out a loud "RRRoawww" and drops the mutilated mouse corpse at my feet. She then trots off to eat her cat biscuits in the kitchen while I have to scoop up rodent remains and then dispose of them in the garden. I dread to think of what she'll come up with next. Actually, I should be suspicious and on guard. I've been at computer for some time now and she is nowhere to be seen...

It lives!

This evening during the news, I was very distracted by the visible movements of our son. He was wriggling and kicking, and his kicks could be seen quite clearly through Debbie's t-shirt. He has some powerful kicking muscles. In unrelated news, I have discovered that I quite like the Tommy cologne. Debbie had a bottle of cologne accidentally bought for her (she likes the girl version), and I gave it a try. It's quite a nice, fresh sort of a fragrance. Work is kuh-razy busy, what with the prizegivings and all. Will calm down a whole bunch after Friday, when the senior students go on study leave. I will only have 2 classes and 2 junior prizegivings to arrange, unlike the 4 ceremonies the seniors have...

You know you have too much time when...

 Well, I’m on week 4 or 5 of my maternity leave and so far I’ve been pretty busy. In fact this is the first week where I haven’t been back in at school for one thing or another (although I am going to a post-production meeting on Monday next week). On the whole I haven’t suffered too much from the ‘I’m bored when I’m not working’ syndrome that others have claimed to have felt. I’m actually OK with whirlwind days of reading, walks in the sunshine, preggie yoga routines, cleaning, laundry*, cooking, eating, making organised little spreadsheet inventories of baby items, all interspersed with a healthy dose of napping. It may not be exciting but it is preferable to work in many ways. However, too much domesticity and loss of the ability to intimidate teenagers seems to have unhinged my psyche somewhat. I have had a couple of experience that have been a little distressing and have made me regret my no-longer-teaching status. On two separate occasions this week I have been out at the shops innocently picking up supplies when I have spotted students blithely out during class time! Normally, when a teacher spies a wagging student, you have two options. One: chase them down and confront them. Two: watch with a smug sense of amusement as they run away or try lamely to hide, and you know you can just write it up when you return to school. However, the no-longer-a-teacher has only option one. On the first occasion, I boldly strolled up to a pair of truant youngsters and sternly asked them why they weren’t in school. Instead of making up an excuse or having the decency to look a little nervous, they smiled and started gushing at me in a disconcertingly friendly manner. Truant miscreant 1: Oh hi miss, how are you? (Squeal) Oh, you must be going to have the baby soon. Truant miscreant 2: (Gabbling excitedly) Oh, so exciting. What are you going to name him? Me: (Sternly) Shouldn’t you both be in class now? Exams are coming up soon. Truant miscreant 1: (Offhandedly) Oh, we’ve only got Tourism. Will you come and see us with the baby? Truant miscreant 2: Will you text us when you’ve had him? Chilling stuff. Former students not even remotely trying to hide their wicked wagging and worse they attempted to give me their cell phone numbers so they could come and see the baby! This was even more frightening when on the previous week I had been in at school and the worst-behaved kid in my Year 10 English class came running up to me excitedly. Trouble-making lad: Hi Miss. Are you going to come in and see us? Me: No, I’m only here for a rehearsal. Trouble-making lad: You should come and see us… My sister had a baby last year. She had to have steroids. Me: Uh, OK. Trouble-making lad: You should have your baby soon then you might get to have steroids…. Bye. (Runs off) The day before yesterday, I was at Pak’n’save, again during school hours, and another pair of senior truants became even more brazen in their friendliness. I was about to pull out of the car-park when two students jumped in front of my car smiling and waving manically. Rather than run them over, I was forced to wind the window down and have a conversation disturbingly similar to the one I had had with the previous pair of truant miscreants. It was pretty upsetting to realise that pregnant belly had in fact robbed me of all my former intimidating status. I was now nothing more than a source of curiosity to these overly clucky teens. Possibly it was this, as well as watching too much of The Shield, that led to today’s aggressive laundry-protecting plans. You see, on two of the last three days a bird has taken to pooping on my nice, clean washing as it dries on the line. The birds had taken out an otherwise clean towel on Tuesday and one of my T-shirts yesterday. Nothing fills the mind with unrelenting rage like discovering bird poo on your clean washing. I decided something had to be done. The cat and I were going to take out this dirty defecator. The influence of ‘The Shield’ was probably responsible for my first plan. Austen and I were to form a Strike team. We would knock down doors on every local crib, er nest I guess if you want to be technical, cuff and threaten the birds using a ridiculous number of expletives until one of them rolled on whichever avian was responsible, probably a starling called Dielle or Tyrone or similar. However, I realised that access to all the local nests was probably going to be difficult in my condition – it is not considered advisable to climb trees when you're 8 months pregnant. No, we would have to employ patience and go undercover. So I dressed in vaguely camouflaging green, grabbed the cat off the bed from her morning nap and headed out to the back garden to set up. I found a water-pistol, locked and loaded. Austen and I started waiting on a picnic blanket on the lawn with a full view of the washing line, baiting the bird with a fresh load of washing. It was a little dreary so I went inside to fetch a water-bottle and book to help pass the time as we waited to ambush the bird. I was confident that Austen, a fierce hunter, would be able to get the bird if it landed on the ground, but it was up to me to deal with any birds higher than ground level. I wondered about the range of the water pistol. What if the bird was using an aerial attack from a high distance on the washing? We had no way of dealing with a high-altitude bombardment of poo. Anyway, waiting for birds in the warm sun is a good way to put a cat to sleep. It also is quite effective at putting me to sleep. I woke up about an hour later and realised that neither I nor the cat had the mental fortitude to resist the sleep-inducing powers of the sun. However, our efforts were not entirely in vain as the washing was still there pristine and poo-free. We went inside to have a snack after our hard work. Maybe I’ll have to make a scarecrow to stick on top of the washing line. Neither Austen or myself are really up to this undercover business. * OK, laundry is my least favourite of all household duties. I think it is due to the stop-start nature. I like to do something and then have it finished. Laundry is high maintenance – it has to be sorted, stuck in the washing machine, washed, taken out, hung up to dry, ironed/folded and then put away. While none of these stages are particularly arduous or time-consuming, there are just too many of them. I eagerly await the design of some quasi-futuristic, self-cleaning silver jumpsuits that just require a wipe down every now and again to prevent stains.

Promoted again :-)

So, I applied for two promotions this year, and I didn't get either of them. One was HoD English, and the other was Assistant HoD English. I did, however, get a pay rise to the same level as Assistant HoD, and was given the title 'Associate HoD'. What does that mean? Well, it means that the school didn't want to have to choose between the top 3 candidates for a job, so they found a way to give the job to one person, but give recognition to the other 2 top applicants. Of course, the other 2 applicants (me and a friend of mine at school) are both taking on other non-English responsibilities (deaning and prizegiving), and may well have been eligible for the pay rises anyway, but it's nice that they've given us each a new title and told us very explicitly that they want us to be part of the management structure. I'm particularly happy that my responsibilities next year look like they'll be bigger without being overwhelming. Commensurate with the extra pay, most likely. Of course, teaching's not a career that is hugely highly paid anyway, and management roles are pretty tough and time-consuming, but I'm pretty positive about next year. And I'm thinking about making myself an 'Associate HoD' badge, to flash in department meetings when I say "Check the badge, buddy. I'm pullin' rank. You don't like it? Take it up with the HoD."

Weekend, how I love you!

Stressful week last week - lots of school deadlines, interview for 2IC English (on Friday afternoon, after lunch), moderation of speeches, and a show in the evening. Yikes! Now it is the weekend, just one more show to go, the back lawn has been attacked and subdued with a lawn-mower, and we're about to go out and get rid of a bunch of recyclables. I think we're also picking up some groceries while we're out, although time is ticking away and we may end up doing only a quick shop. Fascinating, huh? The show continues to be awesome, but crowds are smaller than was hoped. Of particular note to me was the total lack of kids from my school, despite my hard out pimpage of the show in daily notices, with posters, and through personally bugging a large number of my students. Hopefully all the kids who said they were coming (about 10 or so were for-sure keen) will show up tonight, with others in tow. It has lead to some speculation about what the best methods are for getting students motivated enough to come along to a show. Typical methods include: - have a big cast so the pool of friends and family is large (there are about 17 kids on stage in this show?) - contact local newspapers and radio stations - daily notices in school - posters - announcements/skits in assemblies - competitions to give away free tickets - have your show in the middle of the year when people aren't so tired It's very hard to know which of these scattergun methods is most effective.

Exhausticated

I am now taking a micro-break from marking a whole bunch of Year 13 work. The deadline for getting results onto the system for internally assessed work is fast looming (a week and a half or so away), and my Y13 class have decided to swamp me with all the work they didn't do earlier in the year. It's much the same as last year, something I was aware was coming, but it's still a hell of a shift in gears as their output more than trebles as their time draws to a close. The exhaustion is exacerbated by the play that is on at the moment, which I will be filming tonight (and tomorrow if there's a problem with tonight's run). The show is hilarious - I had to take my glasses off at one point to wipe away the tears of laughter. Of course, I felt a little self-conscious laughing so uproariously at what were, in some cases, my own jokes. But that's OK, just because I helped write it doesn't make it any less funny, and the performances have taken some of the material to levels of goodness beyond what I'd hoped for. The Te Reo teacher especially rocked the house in his guest role, though it was a close-run thing with some of the students as to who was the funniest.