What I did on my Christmas Holidays

I had visitors, they rafted for 10 days in the wilderness, ate loads of chocolate and smeared litres of sunscreen on themselves... they returned, we saw art, Serious MONA art, With arty wine... I realised I missed Hive chats so am now reading Hive blogs.

Anna : Guy has a fuzzy head

Guy had his head shaved for charity. It looked pretty wrong for the first two weeks but now it has reached the lovely fuzzy stage and the poor man is submitting very gracefully to frequent head rubs.

Guy - Brain Dump

Erm, news eh? Gotta get into the mindset that my news is interesting.

Back at Burwood, they're keeping me busy. I'm now the Business Studies expert *nods*. But all the classes are pretty good, and I'm having fun.

I marched in Mardi Gras last weekend with a school group. It was well worth doing, but not as fun as watching the parade.

Friday night was drinks and karaoke with Dr. Lim. She's a doctor, a medical doctor. I think my best song this time would have been Minnie the Moocher. More spoken than sung you see. When you've got the impediments that I have you have to think of these things.

Currently looking after Anna, who's just had all four wisdom teeth out. She'll confirm, but I think she was in the chair for 75+mins. Ouch.

Guy - Sick Day

Being locked in a room with 30 teenagers is difficult, more so when you've got the lurgy.
I failed to talk a student out of dumping Studies in Religion because "it is boring" and switching to Business Studies. I don't feel that I'm making the subject very interesting. Oh well.
In Oscar tipping I got 8 out of 25, and for the record I work hard to be that wrong.
Took a sick day to recover, ended up doing piles of small jobs which had been building up. I'll sleep when I'm dead?

Guy - Aus. Day-ish

You know the kind of day where you watch one episode of Rome. Then, being hard to top, you watch another, then another, then it's midnight?

It's kind of Australian, isn't it?

Guy - Is it safe?

I'm all out of painkillers and the world is a scary place. If someone recommends having your wisdom teeth out as a good idea for a holiday, don't listen to them. 

Anna : Trying to forget the taste of chocolate ...

... apparently it can be done, if you don't have chocolate for long enough. Also trying not to be too jealous of Mr. McCulloch's extended summer holiday.

V-day!

I totally made it! The evil class gave me a round of applause at the end, a soft-of card and the comment "thank you for controlling us sometimes." I replied "it's been an education."

*sigh* Done!

And now two weeks of nice classes. Sweet!

Anna : Stress

Over the last 2 weeks I've noticed some skin problems that I get when put under prolonged physical/mental stress. What could be causing this? New job, Guy and the horror class, 3 weekends lost to filming, increased hours at the gym and more drinking? Nah. How many weeks until Christmas? Hmmm. Well maybe some dancing will help!

Two Weeks Until V-day

Highlights of the week?

1) We had a "global forum" to discuss the topic of whaling from a variety of perspectives on Monday. The pro-whalers kicked the ass of the anti-whalers. The "Australian school student" (someone playing the role of course, we wouldn't actually let one on the premises) was mocked for getting their anti-whaling propaganda from the Internet and from their Geography teacher. At the end she agreed that she wasn't really sure about the whole topic and perhaps she agreed with the pro-whalers.

Left wing bias in schools indeed.

2) Busy, angry meetings between teachers and the executive. Whenever I walk out of a meeting teachers keep telling me that I'm very brave. I'm so not getting a job.

3) When looking at the Black Sea oil spill story I was asked on multiple occasions "is this for real"? How many times do I have to say in Geography, "YES! THIS IS ALL FOR REAL!"? Damn it's a depressing subject to study.

The week's highlights;

1) I was informed by a student that Kate used to have a penis.

2) A student asked me where chickens come from, but not in the chicken and egg sense. She had no idea what evolution was. I don't think she really got what I was explaining, but when I also explained Creationism she thought that was complete rubbish.

Guy - They pay me to be mean to kids

Tired, tired. The weekend was spent sleeping/recovering. Today I got to do the lesson where you divide the class up to represent the rich and poor in the world. Most kids either didn't get a jelly bean, or only got one. But the four kids representing the 23 wealthiest nations in the world got 26 each! They objected that I was being slack, I told them they'd gotten the point of the lesson.

Guy - So tiired...

Spent the weekend recovering from last week, and after only a day I'm already wiped out again. If it's a bad day I'm stuffed, and if it's a good day I'm stuffed. I understand the drain gets less with time, but that's a long time away. Oh, today was a good day.

Good day, but exhausting. Being responsible for the autistic kid is a bit of a worry. However! Last night when we thought we were all going to die we fought a giant palm tree with big pointy teeth and whupped it. We have no idea how!

Lesson #194,975,046

A student who I thought of as... impish I just discovered that she reads very, very badly. Stuff like confusing "is" and "was". I have to reassess my attitude towards the idea that kids who can't do the work misbehave. I don't want to give them colouring in, but having only a few at this level in a full class with more advanced students is tricky.