Blog Action Day - The Environment

I am a day late for Blog Action Day. So what? I'm a busy woman and the internet waits for no-one, but records for eternity, so I'm going to post anyway.

It has been a pretty crappy day - and I blame Climate Change. I feel guilty every day that I am not doing enough, and despondent that our leaders are not managing very well at all on this one.

At the risk of venting my spleen I am going to try to stay focused on the issue by giving some links to cool stuff Climate Change related.

1. National Ride to Work Day is tomorrow, Wed 17th. Bikes are fun, make you look hot, and are good for the environment. I try to make every day a ride to work day - it helps make sure I don't take home too much marking too.

2. Cate Blanchett cares
and so do I.

3. The Luntz Factor helps explain our preferential voting system



4.



5.



6. And lastly, if your heart isn't broken yet...




My guilt is baby polar bear. Every time I turn on a light, drive my car, or use my hairdryer a little, gruff voice reminds me that it is a long swim between icebergs and I am not helping...

Dirty jobs

Teaching teenagers sometimes involves unpleasantness. It's true.

Today I had to suspend a boy who told me, in no uncertain terms, to, "fuck off, Miss."

But I think the worst job I had to do today was type "John Howard" and "Peter Costello" into google images.
(I'm starting my Year 7s on a unit on Government tomorrow and need some visual aides...)

How is a left-leaning young teacher supposed to create non-biased posters for her classroom when Peter Costello manages to look like a complete jerk in every photo?






















Julia Gillard and Bob Brown however, are a dream...









Meh. What's a girl to do? Bob and Julia are cool. I'm proud they are involved in running my country. And they give good face.

I'll just have to choose one of the many dumbass photos of Peter Costello and let my students make up their own mind...

Success...

Today one of my friends came to speak to my Legal Studies class. She is three months away from completing her articles and agreed to talk to my students about her career, and also give them a run down on the court structure in Victoria and Australia.

I hope I didn't embarrass her; I introduced her as one of my friends who was 'very successful.' She spoke, and taught, like a complete natural and the kids loved her. At one point I caught myself looking up at her so admiringly I worried that my students might think we were lovers.

I'm not sure I have any answers today, but I guess success is something I think a lot about. I am very proud to have such clever friends, and I think I am still concerned about doing the right things with my career (and with every minute of my time in general - but this could be a 'youth' thing). There are people my age who have spent most of their free minutes studying and becoming very good at what they do. Teaching feels like a constant battle to be on top of fifty-seven different things at once, often in little or no depth, while being constantly conscious of being a role model and wanting to give the best opportunities to one's students.

So while I know nothing more about law than what I have gleaned from old textbooks and some quick internet research, I was proud today to be able to offer my students an interesting experience. This is success enough for me today.

So yes, it's the second day back and my alter-Nana is already kicking in. The 'chainsaw gypsy' gig I had planned to go to tonight turned out to be on far too late for a woman of my immense professionalism, and thus, I am going to bed at 9:30. So? What of it?!

School holidays slide show

When people ask what made me decide to be a teacher I often recount the story of having glandular fever in my third year of Uni. I lay in bed for three weeks, too tired and in pain to do anything, but bored out of my brain, so I had a bit of time to think. I knew that I would fail my Psychology statistics subject and didn't really mind as Psychology had started to all sound a bit iffy to me anyway. Too many of our 'normalcy' benchmarks seemed to have involved experiments on animals and prisoners...
Subsequently, I started to rethink my career-trajectory-life-direction-path.... and found myself leaning towards the idea of having lots of time off.

These holidays I attended the National Young Writers' and This is Not Art festivals in Newcastle.

This is what I did:


Swam at Newcastle Beach


Took lots of photos of rocks





and seaweed.



Attended panel discussions:




and performances at the Festival Club:


I did some writing:


and some busking:


and took my life into my own hands by riding the worst piece of dangerous, rusty crap on the streets of Newcastle:



Not sure if it is clear here the degree to which this derailer is not only rusty, but also bent. Makes it hard to keep a chain in the right spot, like on the cogs, for example.

Cursing at a bike in front of strangers aside, Newcastle was generally a pretty inspiring experience. I really enjoyed the anonymity of a new town, staying in a youth hostel again, and meeting some interesting people.
Busking was good fun too - I love playing outdoors, but I wouldn't ever feel comfortable sitting in a park and singing my heart out. Somehow having a few coins on your guitar bag legitimises what, for me, is otherwise overt people watching and being a self-involved outdoor nuisance.

I participated in a morning writing 'playgroup,' which was just five of us sharing some writing exercises and doing some timed freeflow-type writing around dumb topics. I suggested shoes. It was really liberating to introduce myself as a singersongwriter, rather than a teacher. I divulged to these clever strangers something that I have never really articulated to anyone else, that writing songs is so enjoyable for me because I feel like I can get away with a lot, intellectually. My writing is not very high-brow, but is unique, because only I get to sing it. I guess it's just unique to me; in reality it's pretty similar to the masses of folky-acousticos out there, although, in Newcastle there didn't seem to be many of these. From my 3-day-stay-snobby-Melbourne perspective the best approximation of live music seemed to be Kareoke at the pub on Friday night.

From Newcastle I caught the train to Sydney. Sydney offered much less chance for creative contemplation and writing, and much more opportunities for partying and shopping. However, I did get to do some guitar practice in the flat about the shop, and have begun to foster a more amicable relationship with my cheap nylon string Martinez Slim Jim. It is still a piece of shit with annoyingly high action though.

In Sydney I...

played a lot of backgammon:



hung out at Circe:


went to the beach:


found pretty things:







and went for walks on cliffs:



I also bought a new digicamera and think I am very smart... may or may not have been obvious from this very labour intensive post.

Back to school on Monday = lots of rushed marking to do, but a sunny holiday has done the world of good.