Just spoke to the principal of the school. At least I assume it was the principal. Apparently there's been a combination of someone being promoted to a non-teaching position, someone leaving... or something or other that caused there to be three vacant positions, so what classes I take will be a matter of negotiation and playing timetable Tetris.

Before that is sorted out, there is something else I must ponder:

Mungindi (and I guess Moree, since the two towns are only about 90 minutes apart) - On the New South Wales/Queensland border

Queanbeyan - On the New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory border

Broken Hill - On the New South Wales/South Australia border

The DET really does like to send me to my limits. How many people have wanted a reason to say THAT. I guess there's a teaching gig in Albury for me next year, just to have a complete set of borders.

So now, a very tentative plan of action will be something like:

23 July (Thursday) - head to Canberra in the evening
25 July (Saturday) - spaciireth's birthday party, crash reasonably early to be awake enough for...
26 July (Sunday) - spaciireth's birthday, taking her on her sunrise hot air balloon ride
27 July (Monday) - the first day of the school term, but will be time for me to depart Canberra
28 July (Tuesday) - head to Broken Hill
29 July (Wednesday) - start teaching in Broken Hill
31 July (Friday) - possibly heading back to Sydney for the weekend to collect supplies, once I know the details about my accommodation/teaching plan

The job in Dubbo was filled, but I just got a job in Broken Hill for the rest of the year. Everything's coming up cherry_pizza.

Ladies and gentlemen, cherry_pizza has just received his $6,609.37 tax refund.

So I realise that it's about 1pm...

I remember that the teach.nsw website has its weekly update of job listings this afternoon, and it may happen some time around now...

I go to the page, and find that it has been updated, and there's an English teaching job in Dubbo for one school term...

It's with the Temporary Teacher folk, so the job goes to the first person to accept it...

I send an e-mail enquiring about it...

Usually these people show annoying efficiency by calling you even when you send simple e-mail enquiries without even including a phone number...

Now, when you actually WANT them to call, you notice the silence from your phone...

Stay tuned

Isn't that a pretty number from ireth?

And yay to jeskya_maree_87 for having an even 100 and being at lucky 13.

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Top Commenters on cherry_pizza's LiveJournal

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I need to get back to the gym...

But not knowing where the hell my next job will be = not being able to commit to a gym in a particular location...

How dirty will I be if I get a week-long starter membership at Fitness First?

All sneering comments about the company have been well and truly made, but can the need to do some exercise overpower this?

Welcome to my waking nightmare.

It all starts when I decide it's time to try getting some shut-eye, and my body gives its usual resistance to all things related to sleep. On top of that, my insides feel a sense of coldness, even though the body outside doesn't feel cold at all.

My past-its-prime mattress, which I can't afford to replace until I get my tax refund, seems to have gained some moisture and some ruthlessly charging springs during my absence from Sydney, and the mould trap that is that building was the mouse that had one hell of an orgy when my cat self was out of town.

After getting the customary short doze that often occurs during Letterman, I found myself wide awake in the small hours, and so began a night of constant debates about whether I should remain comfortable in the bedly rut in which I was curled, continuing to be intimate with the fading-to-luke-warm hot water bottle, or taking the trouble to get up, boil more water and refill it. 3am rolls round, no progress in the sleep department, my system finds an overwhelming need to vomit, but nothing comes out but the occasional thimbleful of bile.

I gave myself a shower, had a drink of water (which soon came back up and made the first significant contribution to the vomit bowl) and, after hours of debating whether I should clutch on to the dream of the quiet settling me, or putting on a familiar DVD to which I would doze, I decided that the NBC Today show was due to have a tour of duty in my television. There may have been the occasional comatose moment during the show, but it wasn't until Sunrise aired that something actually resembling sleep, but since I was up and about by 9am, it couldn't have come close to what any regular body needs.

Tasks for today: trying to disinfect the house, avoiding swallowing solid foods, and trying to keep some water down in my belly.

Greetings from the Jolimont Centre in Canberra. I have flown into the world outside Queanbeyan High School, having finished my final day there, and am waiting for the 6pm bus that'll whisk me back to Sydney. For those keeping score, the doctor's diagnosis was that the foreskin 'issue' is some sort of skin infection that happens to be on that area, rather than an actual genital problem, and she believes/hopes that my prescribed three-times-a-day ointment will be enough to settle it. That said, going into the pharmacy with a prescription for ointment to put on your dick, can be ever-so-slightly awkward when one of your students is working behind the prescription counter.

To ensure the term ended with some fun and games, the woman I replaced in this job reappeared at the school today. Apparently she was quite keen to get the hell out of the job, which is why I was appointed to the school for six weeks while the school advertised and interviewed for someone to take the job permanently. Now, the day after people had been interviewed for the position, she comes back with tales of woe about her new job, saying that she wants to return to the school. My humble understanding of the situation is that someone has been chosen to fill that job (pending that person accepting the position, being released from zir current school, etc). There is another English teacher who left the school today among teary tributes. Someone has transferred into her position, but can't start at the school until the start of next year. A woman who's been doing day-to-day relief at the school has been offered this job, and she unofficially accepted it, but then discovered that she has a good chance of getting an overseas job for which she's applied, which may leave the job open... or may not.

Fast forward to the prodigal daughter coming back to the English staff room later in the day, in tears because "the school doesn't want me", moaning and ranting about how she should be the school's first choice because she's the proven entity, she's the one with the Drama training, and basically ranting that the world owes her a living, with another member of the English staff giving inarticulate, blabbered endorsement that the school SHOULD be welcoming her back with open arms. Throughout all of this, I was just thinking that I could sympathise with her situation (her new job wasn't what she thought it would be, she had the "yes, I should be a teacher" epiphany), but I was just wishing she'd shut the hell up and stop thinking that the world owes her a living. She made the choice to leave, the school has staffing procedures it needs to follow, and it's a fact of life that we have to accept the consequences of her choices.

Sure, there was the slight possibility that should Jo be unable to accept the job teaching the vacated English classes, I may have been next on the pecking order to be offered the job. I am not expecting to be offered the job, I am not particularly hoping for it, and have no idea if I'd accept it if I were offered it, but this was contributing to my cringing at someone expecting to be able to jump straight back into something she left of her own volition. Kate the Drama teacher was surprised that I decided to take refuge in the chaos of the hall where she was running rehearsals for the school show, and made some comment along the lines of, "It must be crazy in the staff room if this is where you retreat!"

When the aforementioned blabbering endorser was later trying to quiz Marg the Head Teacher on what the situation was for staffing next term, she was trying in vain to get across that, a) It's not definite what's happening, and b) unconfirmed staffing is confidential. After the blabberer left the room, I whispered to Marg, "I get the impression that one person didn't want to be having that conversation", which she was quick to confirm, and also endorsed my belief that her personal opinion of the prodigal daughter also influenced her lack of enthusiasm to have that discussion. She was quite quick to advise me of the wonders of enjoying staff room drama from a distance, and she is quite keen to share my "Eyes open, ears open, mouth shut" philosophy. I made sure she knew that if there is a hole in the staff room next year, I won't say no to it straight away... and if the most I get from the experience is walking away with a Head Teacher's enthusiastic endorsement of me, I will be more than content.

One hour to kill til I head Sydneywards.

During a session helping a student write her essay…



Me: So, this paragraph is going to be about the next point you want to make, how are you going to say this?

Student: I don’t know

Me: Well you want to talk about how ______________________________, how are you going to say this

Student: *repeats what I said*

Me: Now you need your explanation, you need to say why this point is part of the issue you’re discussing

Student: Right…

Me: How are you going to say this?

Student: I don’t know

Me: Well, you want to talk about _____________________________, what words are you going to use for that?

Student: The ones you just said

Me: So you’re just going to let me keep talking until I say the words that you like?

Student: Yeah

Me: Well, you need to use some of your own words, I know there are words in your head

Student: No there aren’t

Me: OK, complete this sentence for me. Mr Syquer is a _____________________

Student: Mad cunt

Me: See, there are words of your own! They may not be true, but they're words of your own!

cherry_pizza has jumped on a bandwagon. The excessive purchasing of Michael Jackson paraphernalia in the days following his death, was a trend from which I thought I would be exempt. However, there is that one pop culture icon which has captured me and given me the most blissfully overwhelming case of Stockholm Syndrome. With today being a pay day, I finally took myself down to the Target in Queanbeyan to slightly embarrass myself by taking a display box and all of its contents to the checkout. Dammit, I want a complete complete set of the Simpsons 20th anniversary figurines.

Thankfully, calling the box mine was actually quite easy, but the box in question (for the season 1-5 figures) lacked any Leon Kompowsky figures. I dashed to eBay, saw that someone had four of them for sale. For those Simpsons virgins among my readers, Leon was a character on an episode in which a series of misunderstandings see Homer thrown into a mental hospital. His roomie claims to be Michael Jackson (and was in fact voiced by MJ, but credited to the pseudonym John Jay Smith), and he helps Bart to write a birthday song for the rather neglected Lisa.

Now the countdown to my return home begins, with only two days remaining until the end of the school term. Today's special adventure was the 'lock down, lock out' drill, in which we all took part in the rather fruitless process of practising for a security threat to the school. My rowdy-at-the-best-of-times year 10 class was with me at the time of the sirens sounding, and of course they acknowledged this by dancing around singing, "Lockdown! Lockdown!", and showing little acknowledgment for the "stay out of the line of view from the windows" instruction. I was trapped between wanting to be full of amusement and admiration for these folk who wanted to display the futility of the whole process, and needing to fulfil the teacher-ly obligation of keeping them in line and following the vital procedure. I maintained teacher-ness, but smirks did escape from my mouth.

Year 8s continue to float back and forth between mistaken notions that I am 'cool' and that I am 'scary'. Apparently I was 'cool' today because, when supervising yet another Music class, I advised them that the Music teacher had not left any details for what they were meant to do that lesson, and my instruction was, "Keep yourself busy, amuse yourself, don't kill anyone". Oh and the guy totally rocking on his drum solo performance was pretty damn awe-inspiring.

I really need to see a doctor about my foreskin.

bizwac comma will you marry me question mark

Call me Ishmael.

It worked as Herman Melville's first words.

Hello, world. All good intentions to record the fleeting visions of teaching experience have remained good intentions, and who dares to kill them by forcing them to materialise in the real world? I am back at the pub in Queanbeyan, after having spent a week in spaciireth's university accommodation. The last several days were spent jealously guarding the "Don't touch me, I'm for paying for two weeks' worth of rent in that dingy pub room, so my presence is going to make you feel uneasy about pub life even when you've escaped from there" money. The last minute despearation, that special realisation that you and your cash have to go your separate ways for 'proper' purposes, brings out your toughest negotiator. So the logic went something like:

1. I won't be staying for the full two weeks I'll be leaving on the Friday at the end of next week, so I guess I don't actually need to pay for Friday and Saturday night. Sure, the weekly rate is better value, but I'll still be a bit better off if I don't book the full second week

2. Woo hoo! An extra fifteen bucks

3. Hey, if I get paid next Wednesday, and I have no real need to make use of the second 'weekly rate', why not just pay til Wednesday, and pay for the next few weeks out of next week's pay?

4. Woo hoo! An extra seventy bucks

I remembered that when I left there was talk that nothing after today (30 June) could be guaranteed since the pub was changing hands, but that the folk there were sure that there wouldn't be too many problems with continuing to rent the room. Therefore I was only charged for three nights (weekly rate divided by seven. multiplied by three, as opposed to nightly rate x 3), and the mystery of what happens next should be solved tomorrow.

One of the few perks of being employed in blocks, with breaks between them, is that I am taxed on the assumption that I will be earning *that* much money for a full year. Even though this financial year I'm not in last year's earning-less-than-the-bracket-at-which-I'm-taxed situation, I have earned just under the amount at which I need to be paying back things like HECS and the Financial Supplement Loan... and not claiming the tax-free threshhold always means a bonus come tax time. So, while I moped about not being able to get last year's $2000+ tax return, it seems that I will in fact be getting somewhere in the region of $6000.

Time on this computer is running out, and recording teaching reflections always seems too daunting when there's a time limit, so I'll simply give my review of last night's episode of Good News Week. It's going to be under a cut, so any fangirls who feel the need to defend the show as though any criticism is a personal attack, can feel free to just piss off.

( Read more... )

So, there he is last night, amusing himself and spaciireth's self with the fast food premium gimmick version of that old classic search for identity and closure:



While we were easily able to slip back into our childhoods, and play the game with minimal disturbance, it struck us that 'Sophie', with dark skin and beads in her hair, was definitely not one of the 'mystery people' from our days of playing that game. This only leads to inevitable visions of life on the Guess Who casting couch, and some questions just must be asked:

• What exactly is the life/career expectancy of someone whose entire life story is equal to his or her appearance on that game?
  
• How often do characters get phased out, and do they have any chance of making a comeback in classic editions, or as mentors to the new generation?
  
• How is the news broken to the folk who are being phased out?
  
• What other career prospects do these characters have after being given the boot from the Guess Who board?
  
• If there is no retirement home, refuge or pension plan for these folk, could this make-you-rely-on-us/use-you-for-our-own-purposes/spit-you-and-and-leave-you-in-a-world-to-fend-for-yourself process be the most inhumane act since Nestle's 'donating' of milk formula to African hospitals?
  
• Is the casting of a dark-skinned, beaded-hair character a step forward to including all types of people, or is it just reinforcing cultural stereotypes and being condescending to those who are featured?
  
• While the game may well help us develop the reasoning and deduction skills that will make us into more productive adults, is it ever possible for the game to thrive without repressed groups squirming? Yes, many options can be removed by asking a simple "Is the mystery person male/female?", but is this too simple to be a productive step towards enlightenment of the cross-gender/transgendered/transsexual/non-gendered folk who are simply reduced to male/female status in Guess Who?
  
• What are the stories behind the names, and what sort of antics do these folk get up to when the game is not being played? Would it be egotistical to assume that they only exist when we choose to give them life as game chracters?
  
• Why could spaciireth not answer my "Has the mystery person committed any acts of terrorism for which incarceration is imminent?

And now, I release some more endorphins into my system, as some sorry attempt at combating the realisation that today I must return to both Queanbeyan and pub accommodation to face another week of work tomorrow.

So, it was the usual early-morning pitter-patter: alarm goes off, I slowly motivate myself to follow the good intentions to rise, shower, pull on clothes, compose breakfast, get myself on to the street, on to the bus in the heart of Canberra, on to the next bus to Queanbeyan, then begin the uphill walk to work. The obligations of waking up, together with the eternal-but-potentially-undetectable urge to cause the least possible disruption to spaciireth's slumbers, means that there is very little exposure to the media or to the events of the world other than those in front of my nose.

Today I declared that the process of tying back hair, would be ignored, mainly due to the fact that I am only teaching one session today, with senior students. There was little reaction to hearing the words "Michael Jackson" being emitted from the mouths of students from other schools hanging out at the bus interchange. Since those words were closely followed by the words "Get a haircut", I gathered that the MJ words were simply a reference to my appearance of the day. After all, it's not the first time such a reference has been made, and in our subconciousness, the term 'Michael Jackson' has seemingly become an instant punchline for the past couple of decades.

It was when I arrived at the school gate, at the same time as a student who greeted her friend with the words "Michael Jackson died" that hearing those words took on some significance. Unsure if this was standard MJ-related talk or an actual reporting of the news, I did not know, so I made sure to head to the staff room computers, to get my regualar early serve of news from the internet. And yes, the headlines did confirm it. Well, they confirmed that there were unconfirmed reports.

So much runs through your head at simply seeing the headline. So many flashbacks to times when the rags to riches to ruins-type stories were presented with whatever emphasis would suit the story-teller's agenda, the numbers of times his quirks have caused confusion, and his explanations of them have it more and more of a challenge for his supporters to be able to praise him for being true to his individual way of life. Who can ever forget the Martin Bashir interview/documentary, which first gained cringes for Michael's explanation that, "the most loving thing you can do is to share your bed with somebody", but later gaining just as much scorn for having apparently been edited to deliberately portray him in a bad light. That was the epitome of a life lived in the media, which nobody seemed to do more thoroughly or more painfully. Then you remember the moments when you struggled to still see him as a media 'victim' when you remember the face masks, the baby dangling and the botched surgery. And so the cycle continued. What really said it all was the fact that all of these details of his life would be predominant in my mind before I start having memories of his music. For me, 'classic' MJ will always be the young Jackson Five-era music, but there have been plenty of songs through the years which have had their moments of significance for me, without me ever consciously elevating myself to 'fan' level.

With a roll to mark and lessons to plan, I didn't get much of a chance to take in the world going crazy through the media and internet. I haven't heard the 'tributes' from folks in the public eye who've suddenly turned into lovers because he's died, or seen the tributes which have been written, or witnessed the cases of people being scorned for daring to point out unflattering truths as their sort of counter-hype. However, the glum declarations of students, and the reactions of "He's gay, he was good when he was black", and the fact that you can hear the words 'weirdo', 'sicko' or 'plastic surgery' so soon after hearing the name that warrants the glum announcements, really seems to say it all. I'll leave the declarations of woe and the heartfelt tributes to the people who truly knew the man, or were openly-declared fans, and simply say that his passing surely strikes a chord of significance.

It was when I was taking myself to the internet to see the news for myself that I noticed that, while the huge headlines were Jackson-related, there were smaller links to stories about the death of Farrah Fawcett. When Doug came into the staff room and greeted me, and I gave a, "That's pretty heavy; Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson in the same morning" reply, he pointed out that in the brief conversation in which he had learned about both stories, there were declarations that Michael would be the one who is the topic of discussion. While this is true, there's no denying that Farrah deserves whatever accolades any departed icon does. Being the sensual-but-cheesy cast member of a sensual-but-cheesy program from years past, may give someone questionable status. But you can never deny the way that Farrah's passion brought her characters to life, and her bravery in sharing the struggles of her cancer battle with the world in her dying days.

May they both rest in peace.

Hello from the end of the second week of my adventures as a temporary teacher at Queanbeyan High School. Getting a sense of the school's culture, and the folk in authority who will blame you for having disruptive kids because "you're not engaging them enough", I have had to make certain discoveries. One such epiphany is that, at more important points in a lesson, you can politely request that a student turn down zir iPod, but God forbid you have some sort of "put your fucking toys away and listen to me" policy. That's really a trivial matter, though. My main issue is that I am trapped between loving the novelty of being fairly literally paid to do nothing, and having reservations about not actually mattering... and, y'know, daring to have a desire to actually make some sort of relevant input to lessons.

A run-down of my classes is something like:

Year 8 English - I am sharing this class with another teacher, and have only taken it once in the two weeks I've been at the school. Apparently the next time I have the class I'll be having them trying to identify examples of poetic techniques that the other teacher could barely get them to understand... or possibly reading through more of the novel.

Year 10 English - The one class I actually teach full-time, and this makes it almost romantic that it has the rowdy shits that actually make the whole thing feel like a real teaching experience. Melanie, the teacher who read the class the riot act last week and initiated moving the class to the room upstairs in between the two other year 10 English classes, isn't the Head Teacher of English, but she may as well be. In one lesson this week, she gave a sample presentation to all three classes, demonstrating how students should approach their research into an issue they have chosen. So passionate, well-prepared, and encouraging students to empower themselves with independent thinking and learning. The next lesson I had with my class, I wanted students to get their heads around the ideas of identifying issues, divining information and arguing points based on information available to them. After trying numerous times to explain that the students would need to read the articles about the Tracy Grimshaw/Gordon Ramsay feud and then answer the questions attached to them, two students persisted in being shits, refusing instructions to settle down and start working, ignored several polite requests from me, and cries of the "stop giving the teacher attitude, just shut up and listen" type from other students, it was time to kick them out of the room. Of course they refused. Of course I would have to be more forceful. Of course other students saw that I was driven to shout at them. Of course other teachers claimed that I was 'scaring the students and running the risk of having evaluation people investigate me'. Anyway, Melanie came to bail me out of the situation, one student told her to fuck off and was subsequently suspended, the other has been apparently removed from the class and will be in Melanie's. I asked her if that would set some sort of "He can't handle students, he's palming them off onto other teachers" vibe, she simply told me that avoiding scream-fests and their consequences was more important than reputation. I must admit that the conversation felt like a bit of a dig, and I did find myself avoiding contact for a while, but she initiated all positive contact over the next couple of days, so I'm not getting hung up over it.

The attempt at getting them motivated to initiate their own research in the library was... not the most successful thing in the world, and I'm going to have to prepare information, step-by-step guides and very patronising instructions which will probably still only lead to the best students in the class scraping a pass. Head teacher seems content to put the kibosh on the plans to relocate the class to the conveniently-located room, but has vowed to be my support if and when the class starts to play up again. She's perfectly lovely, knows her stuff and has given me no reason to question her, but Melanie has already given so much greater support that I'm so tempted to gravitate towards her for any of that sort of thing.

Year 10 Drama - Nice class of three, with two male students who have barely appeared in the room, but have been clearly identified as troublemakers. One of said troublemakers is one of the two guys mentioned above. I had been given instructions to develop a unit on Children's Theatre. We had been permanently on the brink of starting this, but it's now more or less official that I will simply be supervising the students preparing for the upcoming school production, which is well and truly devised and directed. They're nice enough kids, they're committed enough and understanding enough, it seems like an interesting enough production. However, when I was talking to the Drama teacher who is also organising the show, our 'making plans' pretty much revolved around the show, with some sort of vow that maybe I'll be able to work Children's Theatre into the lessons. I'm not sure how likely this is. Kate, the Drama teacher, is very sympathetic to my desire to matter, but we've had to jointly concede defeat.

Year 11 Drama - This class was removed from me before I began teaching it. I assume it has something to do with the students needing some consistency after having a string of teachers already. The Music teacher is taking this class, and some of my lessons have turned into free sessions, others have turned into me supervising the junior Music classes that she needs to palm off to me. I've already described the students' mistaken idea that I might be 'mad' (to use the current young people lexicon for 'cool'), and the lessons being such a casual affair, may be adding to this foolish belief thriving. However, there was one memorable exchange that must be recorded here:

Me (to students to whom I had been relatively relaxed thus far in the lesson): OK, guys. You're getting a bit out of hand now, can you settle down and get some work done?
Student: Why?
Me: Oh, I dunno... maybe because you're meant to learn something in the lesson.
Student: You don't get paid unless we learn something, right?
Me: No, I get paid whether you learn or not.
Student: Then why do you care if we're working.
Me: Believe it or not, I haven't been corrupted yet, and I still give a damn about whether you learn something
Applause from student on other side of the room

Year 11 English - Team teaching Run Lola Run, so far the lessons I have taken solo have all been continuing on with activities left by Justin (the other year 11 English teacher). I have pitched a couple of ideas for lessons to him, and he is keen for me to actually start teaching them next week (although he encourages me not to complain about having so little to do). Must start preparing this.

Yesterday was beyond a joke. I was scheduled to have two lessons for the day. One was the Year 11 Drama lesson which had turned into a free, the other was the year 11 English lesson that Justin was running, so I was literally paid to do nothing all day. After spending the first couple of hours of the day doing lesson preparations, admin tasks and trying to amuse myself, I decided enough was enough, signed out of the school at 1pm, and headed to Canberra for another weekend bumming around at spaciireth's uni home. I am now half way through said weekend. We made chick pea and potato curry, as part of my vain attempt to convert her to the land of non-meat eating.

Closing this entry while the going is still good. However, someone ask me about the scooter thing.

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick six of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.

Yoinked from ryttu3k, to whom I may propose now that I have been paid today:


A scene from Jim Henson's short film Time Piece, depicting various images of the effects of being ruled by time. Jim played a man running from time, and pieced together a work of utter genius. This is the icon used when I talk of things that make me want to break free from the world's boundaries, or I just feel like unleashing creativity.


Fuckyfuckfuck, or beckybecbec according to her LJ account. This droning moron is a slave to all tacky, boganistic, no-brains-required aspects of television, and often unapologetically expresses this in moronic posts on tv_australia. She also dares to criticise me for daring to have a personality and a set of standards by which to judge the pixelised sludge that TV spoonfeeds people. This icon has become the standard one for expressing things that shit me.


Our former Prime Minister in his younger days, and a mute children's TV character. Some have 'blonde moment' icons, some have Dan Quayle icons, I simply use this icon when reporting on idiocy (my own or other people's).


Depicting Mr Burns' Ketchup/Catsup dilemma when shopping. Other than expressing my fixation with all things Simpsonly, it's a useful pic to use when discussing wordplay, or fruitless decision-making.

Apparently I have too few icons for ryttu3k to choose six.

G'day hardcore Australians, good afternoon everyone else. This is cherry_pizza, retreating from Queanbeyan, celebrating the fact that my first week on the job was rewarded with a pointless, antiquated long weekend... but I'm not complaining about getting a day's pay for doing fuck-all. Actually, if the truth be known, I've collected about two days' worth of this throughout the week. However, I cast your mind back to the days in the crib when the dated-yet-timeless rhymes of wisdom seemed to have a wonderful ability to say it all. Somehow I think that the whole thing can be summarised with, 'When it was good it was very very good, and when it was bad it was horrid'.

After an intense baptism of fire, it is natural that so much of the last week will be a blur, and some things may be out of order, or edited for dramatic content by my sleazy Hollywood executive of a psyche. Anyway, the week, liquified in a nutshell that sits on the dashboard of a formula one racing car went something like:

• Extra-perky head teacher seemed to be encouraging and supportive. Alas, there are times when this can be taken to extremes, such as when she is oh-so-encouraging with things like, "You know, you are allowed to sit over here with us", and her "Don't be shy, help yourself, you don't have to take only one loaf" cheerleading when the Chaplain had garbagebagsful of Baker's Delight non-sells to distribute.
  
• Year 10 English class = absolute shits. Adding to the fact that the school seems to have no concept of the classroom not being a place for eating, mobile phones or MP3 players, these kids seemed to take any teacher instruction as a challenge, one female student decided not only to listen to said song in class but to loudly declare on numerous occasions "I'm a tits and ass man". Oh and then there were the students who would respond to my "you're wasting time" allegations with, "I'm reading, I'm just a slow reader (yeah, turning around and having lowbrow conversations with other students does kinda limit one's reading speed). When I would hover over students to check that they started work, one would try telling me that she promised to start working as soon as I moved away (um, no, darling. I shall continue to remove your personal space empowerment until I see that you are working; you are in no position to bargain). And the highlight would have to be the girl who honestly thought she was being amusing by pointing a finger at me and saying "Uh-uh, you can't speak to us like that" every time I gave a very justified reaction to their rabble.
  
• Another English teacher decided that the best strategy against this would be to move them to a classroom in between the two other year ten classes, so that any attempts at harassing the new teacher, would be quickly picked up by other teachers. She totally ripped into them at the start of the lesson, pointed out that the school didn't have to take their crap after they had reached the age of compulsion, that their behaviour really pissed her off (gotta love the fact that casual swearing from the teachers doesn't even cause an eyebrow to raise at this place), and very clearly telling them that the lesson that was to follow, was going to be under exam conditions. Of course, some still chose to play games with this, but it wasn't too much trouble to tell them to settle down, to send them out of the room, or to confiscate their MP3 players.
  
• After spending a handful of lessons cutting out the shapes of leaves, my task for the year 10 Drama class is to "take them to the hall" for rehearsals for the school's anniversary show. Apparently I am meant to "help out" with the show, but when there are enough kids who are both unmotivated and think they are already running the shows like the stars they are (strange combination of characteristics, I know), and the music teacher tells me that there's enough drama in getting the thing up and running, I resist feeling the need to prove myself by initiating any sort of role for myself.
  
• My understanding is that there are two senior English classes, but one is so small, and my classes have gone through such a string of teachers, that the two classes have been combining. Justin, the teacher of the other class, had offered to keep running the classes combined until I found my feet, and since they were in the middle of studying a unit, and I had only seen the movie in question for the first time on my first day with them, I was quite happy to continue with this plan. He has told me that, after an uneasy start, the senior class is by far his favourite. The students may not be the most driven, or the most independent thinkers, and apparently open questioning won't work too well for them. However, I am told that if you take them step by step through a thought process, explain how you reached the conclusion that you did, and then present them with your findings, then they can almost discuss whether they agree with your conclusion. Justin has developed a reasonable amount of rapport with the class, and his approach is similar to mine with the interactive nature and the casual joking. When I've taken the class, I've found myself needing to have my own identity lest I seem an attempted imitation of his style, so for the time being I have to appear to be the pseudo-intellectual while he maintains the "the way that cherry_pizza runs a class when he finds his feet"-like persona.
  
• The music teacher is taking the senior Drama class that has been assigned to me, apparently to give the students some stability from the string of teachers who have already come and gone. While I was looking forward to the challenge of a senior Drama class, I'm not really complaining that the replacement for this is supervising her junior Music classes which run at the same time as said Drama class. My immediate response to this was, "I don't know anything about music". She immediately reassured me with, "Neither do they". Therefore, one of the lessons on my timetable for senior Drama was a free, one was for supervising year 7 students playing Love Me Tender, one was supervising year 8 students watching Oklahoma, one was meant to be the same, but the lesson was doomed from the start. Firstly, the knob had been taken from the locked Music room door, and when I had arrived, the Music teacher was already ranting about the "utter idiots" who did this. After some time was spent trying to get inside, with students making their anti-Music teacher comments which I didn't condemn, we finally get in to find that the video had been damaged. The teacher suggests (it being the last lesson on a Friday with an non-functioning video tape) that I take the kids out to play some basketball (which means at most four students at a time half-heartedly throw the ball around while everyone else sits on the benches and chats", and the kids' remarks about the teacher escalated slightly, and I simply replied with smirks and "I noticed"s. When the day is almost up and I had pretty much given up trying to matter in this particular lesson, two students asked if they could go for a walk. Apparently my approval rating raised when my laconic response was, "Don't get caught". After I had to fuss about with paperwork before leaving on Friday afternoon, I left when the area was all but completely cleared of students, and obviously my reputation had spread when three of the few remaining students greeted me with, "Hey, Sir... do you like INSERT MUSIC TEACHER'S NAME HERE?" My "no comment" was really me being evasive, but they decided it was me being funny, so I won't object to them momentarily thinking I might be the 'cool' teacher that I'm not.

And now, living through the first week on the job, has been rewarded with a long weekend. The deluxe motel room is, alas, no more, and next week I must begin five weeks of roughing it in a pub. For now, I'm keeping myself occupied in spaciireth's room in Canberra... and I must now perform my noble duty of being her alarm clock before she dozes the entire "I have to get some uni work done" day away.

Hello, world. Here I sit, finally having found a computer at the end of my second day of this six-week teaching gig. Whenever I am travelling somewhere, it's not until that I am in the transporation device, and it's moving, that it fully sinks in that I am going there. Sitting in the bus on Saturday afternoon, it sunk in that I was going to Canberra, and would be seeing spaciireth, but the thoughts of connecting to Queanbeyan, or that I would be teaching when the week was new, were still well and truly repressed.

Relishing the combination of spaciireth, a night in Canberra and denial of the upcoming teaching gig, Saturday night was spent immersing myself in the combination of hot chips, a double-movie session (although I'd seen both movies before) and clarifying the contents of rissoles. For those keeping score, they contain 'mince' and not 'mints'. Sunday morning had the usual Sunday morning blessings of laziness and oblivion to the world outside, but the matter I was trying to repress, made the day go even slower. Breakfast, shopping for essentials, showering, doing laundry, snacks which probably resembled lunch after the general slow start to the day, and the aura of Sunday-ness meant that it was after 4pm when I had phoned the principal of the school to let him know that I was heading Queanbeyanwards. I was perked up when I discovered that my accommodation for the first week will be a motel (a deluxe room, none the less) and that the school will be subsidising me so that I am only paying the room-in-a-pub rate. After making myself comfortable and tracking down some dinner, I gave myself a joint feeling of denial and anticipation of the day that would follow.

All is a blur, and piecing the day together may take the greatest forensic scientists, but the fragments of the day that live on are:

• Arriving early, and being slightly spooked by sitting in an empty staffroom, waiting for its regular inhabitants
  
• Taking a year 11 English class with students who didn't seem to be big on shutting the hell up or taking part in discussions about the significance of their notes, but the lesson was mainly filled by viewing Run Lola Run, and there was mutual satisfaction that the credits rolled when only five minutes of the lesson remained
  
• Taking a rowdy year 8 English class, the members of which replied to my "so give me some idea about what you've been doing in class" bonding activity by trying to tell me that they were meant to be watching Finding Nemo, even though I had been given a box full of copies of the novel the class was meant to read. Constant stopping to tell the students they need to be settled and reading along. Wishing I could have implemented a discipline policy, but knowing that this is impossible until I kinda sorta know their names
  
• Having a year 10 drama class. A class of three, with two trouble making guys making brief appearances. The head drama teacher told me that, since they are in the lurch after the other teacher's departure, and since there is much preparation to do for the school's 50th anniversary show, the students would spend the lesson cutting out leaf shapes for some Autumn-themed Lion King performance. All three kids were good, friendly, devoted to the painful and monotonous task, so that when I was taken to the supermarket at lunch time to stock up on supplies, I made sure I had plenty of lollies to keep them motivated (they had a second Drama lesson after lunch)

Got through the first day unscathed, but the staff meeting at the end of the school day really bored the crap out of me. Much as I love enthusiasm, people contributing enthusiastically to something that is doomed to be boring, are natural opponents. Alas, this status must be given to the guy who firstly contributed his very keen "we think teachers on duty should wear high-visibility vests" idea, and then later blabbered a report back about his professional development session (another activity that by its nature is always boring) with more enthusiasm that I wished I could have admired. Today has come and gone, and I'll have to compose an entry properly before I share it here.

Til then, over and out and shake it all about. See ya round like a cherry pizza.

*waves bye bye to Sydney*