The ether choir's conductor

cherry_pizza @ 2008-08-28T16:17:00

2008-08-28T06:18:04Z

cherry_pizza just received his $2,700 tax return!

cherry_pizza @ 2008-08-27T05:59:00

2008-08-26T20:02:40Z

Arriving at school at 6am to get work done, one thing you DO NOT want to discover is that you teaching diary whatsit is not on your desk, and that the early arrival has been wasted.

Yay for re-tracing steps and finding it in a classroom, where you left it yesterday.

One of life's strongest temptations is to give the finger to year 9 male students of yours who are sitting at a table outside McDonald's when you are walking past in your gym clothes (including the pants that sarahfer has so eloquently nicknamed my 'vomit pants'), especially when they are displaying their potential to grow up into model yobbos.

I wish my tax return would hurry up and make an appearance.

cherry_pizza @ 2008-08-23T12:11:00

2008-08-23T02:09:28Z

After five weeks, Australia Post has FINALLY decided to redirect my mail from Sydney. Seventeen letters and two packages arrived yesterday, well and truly breaking the mail drought.

Of course, it's fun when this month's worth of correspondence isn't opened in chronological order, and you first read the letter from the tax office advising you that your application to have a fine revoked was successful, and later open a letter reminding you that said fine is overdue.

And there was yet another letter from that friggen recruitment company which I phoned ONCE at the start of the year to make a simple enquiry. Can't that woman just leave me alone, or at least spell my name correctly?

I had papaya for breakfast.

cherry_pizza @ 2008-08-21T15:23:00

2008-08-21T05:24:05Z

Time to face my first ever Parent-Teacher night

And a happy Thursday to you

2008-08-20T23:56:32Z

At the tail end of this week, it's most disturbing that I'm still recalling forgotten details to make the tale of last week complete, but the finer details keep creeping from the memory's sperm path and ejaculating over Livejournal.

My obsession with making tabouli (alias tabbouleh, toboli, tabole and numerous other variations) began to escalate last week. In my relentless quest to stock up on the ingredients, I was down at the supermarket to liberate as many spring onions (alias green onions, scallions and shallots) as I could from the goggling eyes in the 'fruits and vegetable' zoo. Alas, where they had been plentiful two days earlier, their exodus had become too successful and there was none left to save. The mixed feelings about their run for freedom and their "we'll make everyone cry" rebellion are the subject of another LJ post for another day. All I will say now is that I needed some onion-y zing for my staple salad. I decided to see what I could do with what one of the Moree supermarkets calls white globe onions, and the other calls salad onions. I don't doubt that they have a more official name somewhere out there. All that matters is that they have the same strip of green stuff at the top like the aforementioned spring onions, and, like one supermarket's name for them suggests, has a bit of onion shaped like a small globe. These new onions had quite the positive effect on me, and I was voluntarily selecting them when I went to re-stock my supplies yesterday.

I should stop this tale, lest I become so boring that I write entire LJ diatribes about salads, but just to add:

Yesterday I was also adding three bottles of fat-free Italian dressing to my trolley (alias 'shopping cart' for you North American readers of this journal). At least I thought it was three bottles of fat-free dressing. When making the tabouli dressing last night, the Italian dressing (yes, I use salad dressing as an ingredient in my salad dressing) was globulating out of the bottle in such a way that I quickly thought a) This is different, and b) This is NOT fat-free. Alas, a check of the bottle revealled I had bought the oil-laden version. Thankfully the other two bottles were of the fat-free persuasion
I think I have finally perfected my customisation of the recipe, and everything is well-portioned for my taste
I have resorted to using bottled lemon juice, rather than squeezing the same from fresh lemons
I remain determined to only use fresh mint when preparing it, though
I am wondering if I should take the brave step of supplying it to other people. It's the English department's (or I think they prefer the term 'faculty') turn to provide food for the staff lunch tomorrow, and we all have to bring something

Second session at the gym last night. Really, it was my first 'session', since Tuesday's was the induction where my program was worked out. All I can say is that after the more-gentle introduction the previous night, it was really time to enter the real world when I had to start sweating, pushing myself to complete the exercises, and getting off machines to feel like I need to stagger round like a drunkard. I mentioned this to Damian the PE teacher this morning (he too was at the gym last night), and he mentioned that I looked as though I was working hard at it and that I generally seemed to be on the right track. I figure that, considering his job, he's a fair authority on the matter. More out of curiosity than anything else, I stood on the scales (yay, the gym has Moree's one set of scales) in between doing the cardio work and the weights, and it seems that I'd dropped a kilo since the previous night. Nothing to get excited about yet, but I could sure as hell handle a kilo dropping off me every day. Wishful thinking, I know, but I need to clutch on to some blissful delusions if I'm going to convince myself to endure such pain.

cherry_pizza @ 2008-08-19T16:47:00

2008-08-19T06:47:53Z

It is the 19th day of August. The 19th day of each month is considered a milestone while I am attempting in vain to go through the motions at Moree Secondary College. I began work on 19 May, the school year ends on 19 December. Today I can now say, "Three down, four to go".

In my haste to get my report on last week written, I forgot to add the following important points:

Making the fatal error of writing on a whiteboard with a permanent marker. I was a few lines through the instructions before I realised, and found myself scrubbing as hard as it's possible to scrub with a paper towel before a student said, "Sir, why don't you just go over it in whiteboard marker then rub it off?" I had heard of this trick before, but only seen it attempted once (unsuccessfully). Lo and behold, it worked. The board was saved and the student was inducted into the hall of genius.
Killing yet another twenty-something-dollars heater from Crazy Clarks. This makes three I've been through since I've been out here, and am starting to think that maybe I get what I pay for
Catching sweet fuck-all of the Olympics on TV
Having my phone's battery life reduce to little more than half a day
Trying in vain to get information from Australia Post about why my mail from Sydney hasn't been redirected to Moree, like I've paid for it to be
Booking my accommodation in Fremantle at the end of the year. Strangely enough, despite openly despising Christmas, and having spent the last several years ignoring its existence, I was somehow excited by such remarks from the person at the hostel as, "Oh, you'll be able to come to our Christmas party" and "We'll see you at Christmas"

Today's adventures have included a year 8 class that seems to believe that helping them to do their assessment task = doing it for them. They are looking at Aboriginal stories, and need to make their own list of events/diary entry/comic strip retelling the story; needless to say, they all 'chose' the comic strip and when I had them searching for suitable pictures on Google (I had no hope if I expected them to draw their own), trying to get them to so much as suggest suitable search terms or say which pictures they wanted was like trying to draw nourishment out of a Happy Meal.

Then there was the class I take for rollcall, not-so-subtly hiding the efforts to look for something on the internet. Asking me how to spell my name told me not-so-subtly that they were trying to find that pic of me, but responded by saying "gross, why would we want to see that?" when I pointed out I knew what they were doing. Alas, the picture has been deleted for days, and there were responses of the "there's no pic of him" type...

Then, ten minutes into a lesson, I discovered that I was meant to be taking the same class for PE for a relief. Of course it would help if the version of the casual relief sheet I had TOLD ME I was meant to be taking this class. Oh, and it would also have helped if there was information on the usual teacher's desk about what I was meant to do with the class. The teacher babysitting the class until my arrival suggested to "Get a ball, take them outside to kick it around". Easy enough, right? Wish they thought so.

I sent one kid down to the PE office to see what equipment was available/would be given to him. When waiting on the oval, one loudmouthed troublemaking girl announced that she was going to the PE office for whatever excuse she could imagine. She ignored my several "stay here" and "come back" demands, and another girl decided to respond to each said command with "Go, NAME WITHHELD!". NAME WITHHELD had blabbered something about hockey, and was soon reappearing with a bag full of hockey equipment. I tell her to take it back, and to do what she's told; she rants that I said they could play whatever they like, and that the world generally revolves around her. The most entertaining part of her loud, rude rants were when she threatened to go the principal. I very quickly told her that it's not up to the principal what she plays in PE "Yes it is. She's the principal. She owns the school..." and threats about getting her to overpower me. Knowing full well that the principal would tell her to follow her teacher's instruction, she proceeded with calling me childish insults, swearing, screaming and refusing to play... until she got sick of this and decided that instead of ranting that she wasn't playing, she'd rant that she was the queen of the field and everyone must play her way.

Such are the adventures of the new teacher in the country town. Much more I could say, but my first session at the gym is fourteen minutes away.

The Week That Was

2008-08-16T01:09:54Z

Monday - A cherry_pizza simmering in spicy paranoia heads to work with two major issues on his mind. First there is the matter of the school keys being nowhere to be found at home. Trying to scour all corners of my brain for some recollection of the keys, I remembered that on Thursday of last week I had an "I won't need them tomorrow, we're spending the whole day in the hall on the other campus watching Lord of the Rings, and begging my rationalising impulses to make a connection between that and the possibility of the keys being on my desk in the English staff room. Then, the mind was occupied by the intense dreading of the meeting I was due to have that afternoon about initiating the thingy-whatsit that the Education Department terms the Teacher Improvement Program. I arrive at work and a) my keys are sitting right there on my desk, and b) I am advised that the principal is sick and that the meeting will be rescheduled for Tuesday.

Tuesday - Day passes, meeting happens, much paranoia is eased. I'm reassured once again that the program is not about punishment, discipline or reprimanding, and am fed platitudes about being very lucky that my supervisor is taking the time to initiate the program for me and that the school wouldn't go to the trouble of having it if it didn't see promise in me. Part of the meeting involved having my strengths as a teacher identified, and I must say I was pleased that my subject knowledge and my perseverance were identified as strengths. It was almost amusing that I was told that another strength was my ability to lead conversations in class, and to bring conversations back on topic when kids think they are being smartarsed and disruptive but I defeat their mission by telling them that they are making very valid points.

Wednesday - All prepared for a lesson with my year 8 English class, I had my DVD player in my bag, the cords attached and the DVDs ready for the taking on my desk. For the past two days, they'd been watching and describing Muppet sketches I'd shown them on the TV screen (they're studying the use of puppetry in films), and more than once I'd had the following conversation:

Student: Sir, why do we have to watch them on the TV? Why can't you just play the DVD on the SmartBoard?
Me: Because this is an American DVD. The SmartBoard is not multi-region, my DVD player is
Student: {conceding that although that sucks, he or she understands why}

And there I am, ready to take the DVD player to class, and somehow, in the act of sitting in my bag, the leads had broken and their pins were stuck in the output sockets. I really really wanted to show the documentary The Muppets on Puppets, and I could not pull a new lesson out of my arse at such short notice, so in desperation I went into the classroom before the lesson to see if there was some hope of playing it through the SmartBoard. As predicted, the version of WinDVD installed on it did allow the regions to be changed a limited number of times, and only had a few allowable changes left. Feeling guilty as fuck about doing so, I changed the setting to region 1, consoling myself with the knowledge that it can still be changed back. As far as that class goes, it was a fairly peaceful lesson, and the kids seemed engaged in watching the doco... and in the part half-way through in which Rowlf interrupts Jim to say that the kids have been sitting and watching for a long time, and maybe they should get up and stretch, a whole lot of the guys in the class did just that. Oh well, at least they show they can follow instructions.

However, Wednesday's big news was taking the plunge and finally joining the gym in Moree. My induction program is scheduled for Tuesday of next week, so I gave myself an amnesty. I have given myself permission to indulge in the fat-, sugar- or flour laden crap until that day, but I must conform to the diet plan properly when I start working out (which I'll be doing regularly). The best thing about it all is that re-visiting crappy food even after such a short sojourn from it shows you how disgusting and unappetising it really is, so good things shall happen soon :)

Thursday - One of the less settled sessions with the year 8 class has them randomly searching for teacher names on Google, which leads to the discovery of my shirtless Facebook pic. Cue paranoia, and rushes to Facebook-enabled computers to delete the pic.

Friday - Turns out that discovery of my existence on Facebook was more amusing than incriminating. I walk through that class' room to calls of "Sir, are you engaged?" (For some random reason, actsoflight and I have declared an engagement in the Facebook relationship status), and the rushed explanation was followed up with, "She's freaky". Oh and one guy was most disturbed that my profile contains "the f-word", but since he is quite a liberal user of it, I am close to certain his disdain was less-than-sincere.

And so the week ends with the school's 'Olympic' competition, and I am given the much more mellow job of supervising the non-sporty types and their chess games. With a combination of people in that year 8 class being quiet and focused, other students discovering I have a personality and can actually joke with them, and a couple of guys trying to prove something-or-other by repeatedly calling me by my first name, it was a peaceful end and a well-earned initiation to a weekend.

Last night's epiphany while walking from the supermarket to my home had me realising that I'm actually starting to enjoy the fact that going walking in Moree = constantly coming into contact with people who are going to know you, and will insist on saying hello.

Oh, and just a small "hmm" note from watching the television commercials for their trucks. Does anyone else find it amusing that a company would use a phallic symbol for its logo when its name sounds so much like a female body part?:

Over and out and shake it all about.

cherry_pizza @ 2008-08-13T16:23:00

2008-08-13T06:35:50Z

Dear sarahfer,

I must strongly request that you reconsider the sentiment behind your Vegemite policy. Being a vegan with a growing resistence to fat-laden foods, I am not a fan of butter in any of its forms. However, if butter is your accompanying spread of choice, I feel you must relax your "butter streaks in Vegemite is not on" policy.

Vegemite, forever vile in its raw form, and embarrassing to be considered a cultural icon in this country, can only ever be tolerable if it is spread on naked bread and then lightened by having the butter/margarine/non-dairy mock-up spread OVER it. This process is only ever successful if a somewhat too-thick lather is built up, which will always have excess Vegemite-lightened-by-the-yellow-spread on the knife. Surely this excess should be welcome to take refuge in the Vegemite jar, ready to be spread in a pre-lightened form on the next bread/biscuit item.

Please, for the sake of foodly welfare, consider the poverty that your elite attitude is promoting.

Yours salty-yeastily,

cherry_pizza

PS, everyone else I asked agrees with you that it belongs in the cupboard, and not the fridge.

And now, in the interests of avoiding making the now-overdue LJ post about the Improvement Program into which I have been initiated at work, I present you with a conversation fresh from my MSN Messenger account. My current MSN name should sum up the above correspondence perfectly:

16:16] Lynette: Hi
[16:16] If you like Vegemite, you're not my friend: who are you?
[16:16] Lynette: hey, A/S/L?
[16:17] If you like Vegemite, you're not my friend: So you're just a random who added me?
[16:17] Lynette: hey whats up babe, U got a webcam? finally someone adds me, I am soo fuckin horny today for some reason lol
[16:18] If you like Vegemite, you're not my friend: oh, so you're a porn spammer. Good luck with that
[16:18] Lynette: listen hun, I am just about to start my webcam show with jen, come chat me there in my chat room? We can cyber, I will get naked if u do..lol!
[16:19] If you like Vegemite, you're not my friend: Are you even remotely reading or responding to what I'm saying, or are you just spouting out your standard lines to reel in the perverts?
[16:19] Lynette: I can show u how to watch if u promise not to tell anyone else how to do it???PLEASE:-$
[16:19] If you like Vegemite, you're not my friend: no thank you
[16:20] Lynette: well since its the law that u gotta be 18 (nudity involved), u have to sign up with a credit card for age verification! BUT.. Once you are inside, just clikc on "Webcams" let me know what name you use to sign in with so I know it is you babe! http://www.lovelocalgirls.com/jane2hot fill out the bottom of the page then fill out the next page as well and u can see me live!
[16:21] If you like Vegemite, you're not my friend: fuck off
[16:21] Lynette: Please dont mention anything about that in the chatroom once u get in ok?:-$
[16:22] If you like Vegemite, you're not my friend: ...
[16:23] Lynette: OH SHIT.. k I am late to start my show, I gotta get off msn...I will see ya inside my chatroom babe.. remember not to mention that I am upgrading u... You can use your msn name to sign in so i know it is you..
[16:24] If you like Vegemite, you're not my friend: yeah, piss off into your cyber brothel. Hope you earn enough to pay for a new red light to stick out the front
[16:24] Lynette: AUTO-RESPONSE: hey just in the middle of my webcam show if you want to watch click the link http://www.lovelocalgirls.com/jane2hot
[16:24] If you like Vegemite, you're not my friend: AUTO-RESPONSE: Fuck off, you cheap whore

Voice Post

2008-08-10T02:33:29Z

Flawed of the Rings

2008-08-09T00:02:49Z

As I type this journal entry, in many timezones of the world it is still the mystical 8/8/08 date. I fulfilled my cultural obligations by watching the opening ceremony of the athletes being fed their goodness and wholesomeness by Coca Cola, and was admittedly succumbing to being awestruck by the theatricality, but any interest in the Olympics has now officially passed, and I now live in blissful ignorance of the sordid event.

Yesterday, when we were expected to be living in anticipation of the five rings, but the day was spent trying to get all of the school's year nine students focused on the one ring to rule them all. It always was going to be adventurous expecting a bunch of 14/15 year-olds to spend longer than a school day focusing on all three movies in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. After the first, rowdy session with them, the law was laid down and it seemed that it only took the first fifteen minutes of each session (i.e. after recesses) to have the majority of them focused and watching. That said, year nine kids are at times determined to be little shits when they can be, and it was no utopia, but there was a consensus among the teachers that the day was successful. Highlights had to include one student claiming that the movies were boring in response to the "settle the fuck down and behave or there'll be trouble" pep-talk, and he was told that "If you find them boring, you're just showing everyone where your tastebuds are", and he was sternly warned that teachers can find much more boring movies for him to watch, just to appreciate LotR. Oh, and one student, upon seeing Gandalf, claimed, "That's Mr cherry_pizza in about eight years time" (I think he said eight, but I hope like hell he said eighty). Whether that was meant as a compliment or insult, I'm still not sure.

Students were told that the day would last til 5:30pm, but they were welcome to leave at the end of the school day (at 3:30pm), so we were left with about seven students, seven good students, and an excess of the pizza that was purchased to feed the students. Seven students were so good that they were in fact more interested in helping us clean and re-organise the hall than to indulge in pizza, despite the excesses being heavily pimped.

Oh, another highlight of the teaching week that was left out in the excitement of the flying sparks incident: In that very lesson, students were given questions to answer about how Aboriginal Australians used the land, their migration patterns and their population distribution. One student, who happens to be Aboriginal, tells me that she's sick of learning about Aboriginals (I simply responded with an "I can only teach what I'm told to. I have a boss, and she has a boss, and she has a boss" to avoid confrontation). She later says she doesn't want to write the whole word out and asks, "Can I just write Abo's?" For the non-Australians who read this, 'Abo' has long been regarded as an offensive term for Aboriginal Australians, and I had no idea how a white Australian teacher was meant to tell an Aboriginal student that she can't use derogatory terms for Aboriginal people.

This one wasn't quite as good, but a male student in that class accused me of being uptight and unable to take a joke. How does one explain to HIM that a) when certain students test our patience, tolerance levels for their crap is barely above zero, and b) His 'joke' wasn't funny?

And since it is well and truly the 9th day of August here in Australia, I must conclude by saying happy birthday to iloveharryp

Dear God... NO!

2008-08-08T23:27:58Z

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7546975.stm

Bad spelling 'should be accepted'

Common spelling mistakes should be accepted into everyday use, not corrected, a lecturer has said.

Ken Smith of Bucks New University says the most common mistakes should be accepted as "variant spellings".

He lists the 10 most commonly misspelt words, which include "arguement" for "argument" and "twelth" for "twelfth".

Mr Smith says his proposal, outlined in an article in the Times Higher Education Supplement, follows years of correcting the same mistakes.

Mr Smith, a criminology lecturer, said: "Instead of complaining about the state of the education system as we correct the same mistakes year after year, I've got a better idea.

"University teachers should simply accept as variant spellings those words our students most commonly misspell.

"The spelling of the word 'judgement', for example, is now widely accepted as a variant of 'judgment', so why can't 'truely' be accepted as a variant spelling of 'truly'?"

Mr Smith also suggested adding the word "misspelt" to the list and all those that break the "i before e" rule - weird, seize, neighbour and foreign.

He said he was not asking people to learn to spell words differently.

"All I am suggesting is that we might well put 20 or so of the most commonly misspelt words in the English language on the same footing as those other words that have a widely accepted variant spelling," he added.

The ups and downs of teaching

2008-08-07T07:30:22Z

So it went something like...

Yesterday:

I fear my least-favourite class, the year 9 Geography class, which I'm not the least bit qualified to teach
I'm calmer than usual, and the class is more settled than usual, and people are actually on task, writing answers to questions in their books
Male students are still messing around, and have to be told numerous times to stop and to focus. Some of them playing with wires and crap dished out of cupboards (the class takes place in a Science room, much to non-Science teachers' fear)
Aforementioned wire-in-powerpoint incident occurs, with subsquent explosion
I again doubt my teaching prowess
One student has to see another teacher, I write him a note to visit said teacher, and attach a message asking teacher to call for a Head Teacher to come to the class
Since the English Head Teacher is busy acting as Deputy Principal, two English teachers arrive at the room. Two other Head Teachers also arrive. English Head Teacher makes an appearance too
I'm told afterwards that I did the right thing, and in the reflections afterwards I even get a "see ya later" from one of the English teachers who were on the scene... this teacher rarely, if ever, voluntarily talks to me
I'm writing incident reports on the students involved, and the teacher who's head of year 9 comes to see me
He tells me to give the class a talking-to this morning, about the disgusting state the room was left in, and the need to lift their game. He says that he could get stuck into them himself, but it's a perfect chance for me to assert my authority, and get them to take me seriously. He says he'll be there as back-up

Today:

I arrive at school at find in my pigeon hole a fat envelope advising me that I have to begin something called an Improvement Program (ouch)
Because students are heading over to the other campus for an assembly, the give-the-students-a-talking-to can't happen (fuck)
Since the English teachers are staying behind to supervise the students who are either in the discipline system or out of uniform, I get the joy of supervising what the English Head Teacher called 'the dregs of year 9'
Second session, with everyone returned, all year 9 students begin watching the first Lord of the Rings movie. They are watching it for their film study on heroes, and it's an important part of the whole term's work. I'm glad to not be teaching them, but there was so little focus, and vocal disinterest, that I don't know how tomorrow will go, when they are meant to spend the day watching the whole trilogy. A year level revolting against a day's worth of Tolkien (albeit the film versions of his work) would make actsoflight turn in her mortal grave, and I can not be responsible for such savage attacks on my LJ soulmate
Numerous people reassure me that the Improvement Program is for support, and isn't a euphemism for discipline, reprimanding or scorn... but one person assures me that I am justified in feeling fear or disappointment about the whole process. Since it involves meetings with the Principal, I am told that she is much more brutal and direct about telling the truth... but am also told not to worry about this and that it's "just her way", and on that note I left the school with the mixed feelings of the last two days being perfectly epitomised.

cherry_pizza @ 2008-08-06T17:01:00

2008-08-06T07:02:53Z

Year 9 guys + inability to listen to "do your work and stop playing with those wires" + powerpoint = sparks literally flying in classroom.

Yet another "cherry_pizza turns health freak" post

2008-08-05T01:29:28Z

Two supermarkets, one electrical goods shop, one humble department store wannabe, one bargain shop and (really clutching at straws) a hardware shop later, I must concede that maybe there is not a single set of scales to be found in Moree. OK, I must confess, there were the ones in both supermarkets for weighing your fruit and vegies, but I somehow think that it wouldn't be appreciated if I tried weighing myself on them.

I continue to walk for at least an hour a day, I start to actually crave the fresh-vegie laden concoctions I prepare at dinner, and I seem to have become very single-minded about this whole procedure. Every walk is punctuated with numerous pokes at my belly, checking to see how the walk has tightened it. Walking past greasy deep-fried crap shops, I can smell their perfumes from the other side of the road. I am actually enjoying the eating and walking plan (and will soon increase the exercise repetoire to include something else, what I'm not sure), and I am adopting what I assume is the right attitude of considering it a lifestyle and not a 'diet', but I wish that while doing it, I could think of something other than "God I hope this makes some roly-polly fall off me".

On this eve of pay day, nothing is exciting me more than the prospect of heading to the supermarket tomorrow to buy a trolleyload of fresh vegies. If nothing else, at least the whole venture gives me a reason to write about something other than woes of trying to control classes of teenagers.

cherry_pizza @ 2008-08-04T16:56:00

2008-08-04T06:57:36Z

Screw you, supermarket in Moree for having so many cans of Kirks Creaming Soda marked down to 20 cents... I so could have stocked up if I wasn't so intent on avoiding health-unfriendly delights!

Welcome to Saturday

2008-08-01T23:27:53Z

How do you force kids to pay attention and be interested in the "we are so lucky that the council is giving us the chance to visit the council chambers/water and waste centre/library/road works/other equally exciting places in Moree" excursion when at times all you want to do is sit down and yawn about the whole thing? Not that it was entirely boring, or wasteful. I've been advised, and now concur, that anything that gets you out of the classroom and allows kids to see you as a human being, can't be a bad thing.

Of course, that was on Thursday. I get the rowdy kids back in the classroom on Friday afternoon, and I have to try five times to get through the sentence, "When you've finished watching this scene, you're going to write down what the mood in the scene was, and how the mood was created". Shouting at students was resisted for as long as possible, encouraging them to shut the fuck up was attempted... and then one student gave the oh-so-worthwhile contribution, "IF YOU JUST PLAY THE FUCKING MOVIE, WE'LL SHUT UP AND WATCH!" Errrr... sorry, but... call me an idealist if you must, but I'd like to believe that if you're going to watch something in my class you have to be given enough instruction to, um... learn something!

It is now Saturday morning. I want, need and crave chips. I am still resisting. Fat, be nice and fall off me.

cherry_pizza @ 2008-08-01T09:58:00

2008-08-01T00:01:23Z

Dear New South Wales Department of Education and Training,

In your infinite wisdom, why have you again allowed Livejournal to be accessed from the school network, yet somehow blocked my Friends page? If you're going to abuse your pay by killing time on this site, you could at least give me the chance to share the experience with others. Forcing me to wait for people to comment on my journal is sad, lonely and akin to hardcore masturbation. Surely you don't want such a quality in your already-hard-to-appoint teaching staff.

With utmost tolerance,

cherry_pizza

They take it out of you

2008-07-29T06:47:43Z

Went in to year 8 lesson with the "shouting at them isn't getting anywhere, so try intimidating them by being quiet and doing nothing" philosophy of other teachers firmly in my mind...

Moderate moments of triumph, but students had no idea that there was philosophy in my head, so they just decided to be their rowdy selves...

Highlights of the lesson had to be one student claiming that I'm picking on her (excuse me, you're not working and refusing to follow all instructions... that's not the way to be left alone), and shouting various other pieces of abuse that resulted in the class applauding her...

They shut up in response to the Deputy Principal arriving to reprimand them, but the settling soon died down...

Tomorrow the Head Teacher is taking my class with them, to 'model teaching strategies' and see how controllable they are. I am secretly hoping they are the little shits they usually are, to give me some sort of "It's not me, it's them" validation...

Next year, I begin seeking a new career

Mirror, mirror, on the wall...

2008-07-28T01:26:32Z

There is a great sociological thesis waiting to be written on the bathroom being the great breeder of delusion. From those who sing in the shower, to those who treat the toilet as their throne... and not forgetting the millions of dollars in revenue generated by infomercials for creams and lotions which, when applied in the bathroom, will apparently chase away all of life’s problems.

Let us not forget the almighty bathroom mirror. Not only is it there to assist us in acting on human 'vanity' impulses such as shaving and applying make-up, but it’s also the mirror for which we can prepare ourselves. Knowing it is there, knowing we will be looking into it and looking back at ourselves, we can oh-so-subtly rearrange ourselves for our gaze into it so that the image flashed back at us is always more reassuring than we accidentally catch a glimpse of ourselves walking past large mirrors in shopping centres.

Then come my own early-morning bathroom mirror adventures of late. These occur when my shirtless self is preparing for purifying in the holy fountain of showerdom. I catch this de-clothed portion of myself in the almighty looking glass, and I can tell myself that I have begun to shrink, that the above-waist portion of me is getting smaller. This will, of course, be before I look down at the real, non-mirrored version of my chest/belly and see that all the loose, wobbly, flabby parts of me are still well and truly there, and I am trapped between resenting and craving the mirror’s distortion of truth.

But there were signs of (potentially unwarranted) hope from another source today. I had to take the plunge and wear my 'last resort' work-friendly shirt. Some may diagnose it as such because of its dark green/blue colour, but in actuality is a ‘last resort’ shirt because it is so tight on me and leaves my belly forever poking out, needing semi-frequent maintenance. At least, that was the case last term. Today there is room to move inside said shirt, and I can pull the front of it forward and have several centimetres of space between belly and shirt. So maybe the fresh vegie-heavy, fat-free eating plan and the developing fetish for repeatedly 'going for a walk' are in fact starting to pay off. As long as it's not a temporary result of when everything I ate was being vomited up for a week, I just might be in danger of believing the stories that the bathroom mirror tells me... even when I'm outside of the bathroom.

cherry_pizza @ 2008-07-25T11:00:00

2008-07-25T01:00:43Z

It's Friday... and today I had to endure the year 9 all-male class first up. I have survived said class, and am now free for the rest of the day.

How tragic is it that as early as Tuesday, I am linking myself to the upcoming weekend? Tuesday's thoughts are usually along the lines of, "Tomorrow is Wednesday, the middle of the week, and it's all a downhill slide from there"... weeks come and go, and now I'm simply counting down the weeks until I'm out of here (and, if all goes according to plan, until my holiday begins).

Holiday status, for those keeping score:

Flight to Perth - not paid for
Hostel accommodation in Perth - Paid for
Hostel accommodation in Fremantle - not paid for
Ferry to Rottnest Island - Paid for
Week's accommodation on Rottnest Island - Paid for
Ferry from Rottnest Island to Fremantle - Paid for
More accommodation around Perth - not paid for
Train ride on Indian Pacific - not paid for (that'll happen when my $1600 tax return arrives)
Potential accommodation in Adelaide, to break train journey - not decided upon

Oh, and ryttu3k, you must see this.

Remind me why I became a teacher

2008-07-24T07:29:58Z

Yesterday:
* Class full of rowdy year 9 turds in subject I'm not qualified to teach ends with one student asking me if I'm a hippie, and my refusal to acknowledge said question is met with, "Or are you just a poofter?"
* Bag full of fresh vegetables and fat-free recipes accompanies me on lengthy walk from supermarket to home. On said walk home, all I could think was how much I'd love some hot chips. I resisted temptation

Today:
* Conversationally mentioning the 'poofter' incident in meetings today, I'm told it needs to be reported
* I write said report, and am later told I need to find other students to make statements verifying what aforementioned student said
* No luck finding students willing to vouch for me (what a surprise), but one teacher offers to make said student confess. He partially confesses, and acknowledges that even the part to which he confessed (claiming he only said "your pants are for poofters") is inappropriate
* Year 9 English class has to be relocated because before my arrival a fart bomb was let off in the classroom
* Whoever let off said bomb repeated the deed in the two classrooms to which we attempted relocating
* Students had to stand outside in the cold until culprit either confessed or was named
* Encouragement from two other teachers caused confession
* Students relocated yet again to library
* One student, after repeatedly refusing instructions to wait in line, remove his hat, remove his earphones or settle down, claims I am picking on him and, amongst other things, calls me a 'motherfucker'. He is apparently now suspended. I have no idea what's becoming of the fart bomber
* One student can not follow the 'take your hat off' instruction for more than a few minutes, nor can he last that length of time without casually dropping a four-letter word, and seems to think that being sent to work away from everyone else is a challenge to be even more of a troublemaker
* I crave fattening junk food once again, but am hoping to once again resist

cherry_pizza @ 2008-07-21T16:37:00

2008-07-21T06:38:46Z

Hello from Moree

Staff Development Day was a tad pointless yet painless... now to face students again tomorrow morning.

And Big Brother is welcome to fuck off out of Australian TV tonight!

cherry_pizza @ 2008-07-20T08:54:00

2008-07-19T22:55:38Z

Despite being sick, dodging pilgrims and being convinced at times that I might actually have plans that will work in the classroom, right now nothing seems more painful than making this train trip back to Moree.

Well... see ya, Sydney. Don't go too far.

Love it...

2008-07-19T05:33:38Z

cherry_pizza @ 2008-07-19T12:17:00

2008-07-19T02:19:33Z

Today is the 19th day of July.

My job started on the 19th day of May.

The school year ends on the 19th day of December.

On this eve of returning to Moree for another term, I say: "Two down, five to go!"