Hello! to the Yr 12s who have found my blog today, because they decided to find out exactly what the deal with my email address was.

And thanks to the one student who said they thought it was Rando Male X. Lovely.

I wrote myself a list on Wednesday of all the things I had to do today, my day-away-from-students (not really a day off, I think…). And I’ve just completed it all! I’m not convinced that my prep for VCE is spectacular, but it will get me through Mon and Tues at least… and I got marking done during lunch and after school detentions yesterday… but still, I’ve polished off the entire list, and i am very proud of myself.

That even includes an hour or so of riding the bike, and an hour of practising le bass, which I’ve basically not picked up until this week for… oh, more than a year. I no longer feel like I will sound like a complete loser on Sunday at church.

Not a good way to make a living, but pretty good on the side.

For editing the entirety of Wishbone St, Kate is giving me ice cream from Jock’s ice cream palace in Albert Park.

My first installment was fig ripple – with a cinnamon base. I was a bit dubious, at first – haven’t had many figs in my life, not quite sure why. But it is delightful.

It’s a bit depressing that my 700th post was about Life Support, rather than something more meaningful, but it does rather reflect my life at the moment – hectic during the day, not allowing for all that much more!

But I promise there will be more on books and fish and history in the near future.

Maybe.

Today was great.

Wake up about 8.30am.

Go for a ride down to Docklands and up home through the city and Melbourne Uni – about 17km.

Go to church – I was on kids’ programme, so we talked about the rich young man and being Jesus’ friend.

Have eight friends back for lunch (mmm chicken).

Have two friends stay for most of the afternoon, watching the Grand Prox, Top Gear and the worst episode of Life Support yet, because their car was being used by the other people who came for lunch to move house.

Finish off with pasta and wine and… something on TV….

Lovely!

“Here’s what else is new and exciting (or terrible) in money: there is real poverty among the soldiers who fight our wars. There are fist fights to get children into $30,000 a year kindergartens and pre-schools in the right neighborhoods in Manhattan. There are 40 million Americans without health care insurance. There are almost 40 million baby boomers with no savings for retirement. There is a long waiting list for Bentleys at the dealership in Beverly Hills.

There are soldiers’ wives selling blood to buy toys for their kids. There is a man selling non-functioning body armor who threw a $10 million Bat Mitzvah for his daughter.”

From The American Spectator.

I just finished my Term 1 reports. I wish all reports were this easy… first and third term, we do tick box reports, basically: choose from a scale of 1 to 5 about students’ organisation, achievement, general conduct etc, as well as ‘specific concerns’ – lateness to class, deadlines not met, and so on. Doesn’t really tell parents much, but ever so much easier to complete. Then you have to figure out whose parents you really want to see at parent/teacher interviews – those you know won’t turn up anyway, and those for whom you have to look like you’re making the effort so that just in case, you can say you did your best…. And of course, I know there will be some parents who want to come and hear good things about their kids, and I’m fine with that – my parents were like that. In fact, I think by the time I finished school, the only reason they went to the interviews was to catch up with my teachers, and not to hear about me at all.

Reporting is probably the thing I hate about teaching. I don’t like having to make such qualitative and quantitative judgements, and actually commit them to paper for scrutiny by parental types. it’s way too much responsibility.