yes, I know that a lot of people talk about fights etc at Christmas, and that roll-the-eyes stereotype of people hating their relatives at Christmas but having to spend time with them. I am fortunate in having a small and fairly close family – and living 3000km away from most of the extended family for my growing up may have helped this.

Anyway, the tears were because of my mother, today – and she was 800km away. Impressive, eh?

She gave me a set of my Dad’s military medals, in miniature. For those of you with no experience in this – anyone who gets a medal gets the full-size one, and a miniature. Not sure of the original reason for this. You can get extra miniature ones, too, it turns out. So my brother and I, no longer living at home, have got a full set of Dad’s medals (for service – nothing extraordinary – in Vietnam), all attached properly on a ribbon, with a pin at the back, so we can wear them if ever we want to on ANZAC Day etc. I’m never likely to do that, but my bro might.

Dad died June 2000. It’s a really special, unexpected present.

Ha ha; at least, that’s one of the quips we made about ourselves on Wednesday. Cos we were striking, and I’m sure a lot of people thought that was either wrong of us (be thankful you have a job, shut up about the crappy pay and conditions), or that we would tear down our darling Premier’s office in a re-enactment of Russia, 1917.

Anyway, I striked (struck? maybe just went on strike). I’ve done this once before, but that was a whole union ‘we hate the new IR laws’ thing. This time, it was me and several thousand teachers, all sitting together in Vodafone Arena, most wearing red (I cringe a bit to think why the AEU chose red…). It was a mostly interesting meeting – our president is not the world’s greatest speaker, although apparently she has improved! Some people decided to use it for some public political grandstanding – and before you start laughing, and pointing out that union meeting for heaven’s sake, this grandstanding was completely irrelevant to the topic of discussion and so was not appreciated by many people at all (someone told me the dude was actually standing for election for one of the very minor parties).

Eventually, we managed to vote almost unanimously in favour of striking again next Feb if the govt doesn’t hurry up and negotiate properly (we’ve been at this since March), and then rolling 4 hour strikes after that, if necessary… I really don’t want to do that, so I hope both sides compromise with regard to pay and we can get on with, you know, developing the leaders of the next 10 to 20 years.

The one thing that’s got me riled about the whole thing is the government’s attitude that, like the police and nurses, we have to create some sort of productivity outcomes, or something like that. And from us, they seem (at least, as the union portrays it, and of course it might be skewed) to expect $$ savings. Since when was education meant to be profitable?? Or even cheap?? Education should be massively expensive – for the government. Victoria already has the best Yr12 retention rates, and on average we meet or exceed national benchmarks for readin’ & writin’ & numberin’, so what more can they ask??  Anyway… is annoying. When we’re the lowest paid teachers in the country….

My friends, I have found the most wonderful, nerdy, and actually-almost-useful time waster.

Free Rice

You get the word’s meaning correct, they donate 10 grains of rice to the UN. Don’t ask me how it works – haven’t read the FAQ – and I choose not to think about the ins and outs of this. Because they’re words, man! And they want me to define them!!

I donated 1520 grains tonight. What I particularly like – and this is where my competitive side comes out – is that it records your vocab level, and if you get a word wrong you go down. The highest I got tonight was level 47.

Free rice love!

I love Threadless. I also love RedBubble, but I have to say that cos of, you know, the conjugal connections and all. Anyway… I had an issue a while back where a shirt I ordered had a mark on it, so I sent it back. Sadly, by the time it got back to them it had sold out (it was a ButterflyFish). So instead they refunded my money and gave me a voucher as well – woohoo! So I promptly went back to the website and promptly spent my money. I bought the Viking Bird and Playground Joust. They just arrived today, and I am terribly pleased. What I am now trying to figure out is whether I can tax deduct them. I teach the Vikings and knights at Yr 8… isn’t that legitimate? Plus, I bought a Communist Party shirt, simply because I taught the Russian and Chinese revolutions this year. What do you think?

I was informed by a Year 10 boy today that defending the rights of refugees to enter Australia because, like, they’re afraid to live in their own country is both a sign of weakness and Zionist propaganda.

This was the same boy who informed me that if the boongs ran this country, there’d be nothing but empty beer cans lying about the place.

Ah, the joys of teaching in a mono-cultural area.