Snowy Holiday Part 1

I have so many things to tell you:

The big news this week is the upcoming Formal (Prom) and the BA's 16th birthday!!!!!!

SIXTEEN
*deep breaths*
I suppose that would account for why I am feeling so old!

Meanwhile:
We had a wonderful holiday in the Snowy Mountains, but there was too much driving and not enough stopping.

Here's a whistle stop of the 'highlights'...or at least...memorable occurrences:

Good Friday

Left late due to a wonderful night of carousing with my good friend Ms Drama Teacher and her Beau. We played something called 'Nitty Gritty', yes, amazingly I say 'we'!! Himself actually indulged me by playing along. It turned out to be extremely entertaining and, although the young couple 'whupped our a***es' in the winning stakes, we had a good laugh and many interesting conversations ensued. Perhaps we should play it weekly? I mean....conversation????!!!!

But anyway, we left late because of this rare socialising.

After a long day of driving, we were facing the prospect of sleeping the car. The first town we pulled into at sunset boasted 5 motels...not one of which had a vacancy. Fortunately we were in my old stamping grounds near my first teaching post and I was able to reassure Himself that the next town, Balranald was, in fact, big enough to have motels. We pulled in at about 7pm and were delighted to jag a -1 star motel: no room service, a bathroom which required significant manoeuvrings to close the door, and resident mice.

Significant stretches of South Australia, Victoria and new South wales are currently afflicted by a mouse plague. Interestingly, the 10 Plagues of Egypt did not include mice! Boy, the Lord sure missed out on an opportunity there. As we sat in our room watching TV a very well fed mouse scurried across the room, stopped by the wall to survey us and then disappeared into the wall cavity. Now, I am not particularly phased by a 'mouse'; it is the copious quantities of them that disturb me. Having lived through the hideous mouse plagues of Booligal back in 1990, my radar was on high alert as we switched off the light and tried for sleep. Himself, after a long day's drive was out like a light in no time. I, on the other hand lay awake for hours listening to the scurries and scuffles within the walls. On occasion the noises would change and I was sure the Mickeys had re-emerged through the gaps in skirting boards to rummage about in our luggage. I would sit bolt upright, turn the light on and get up to patter around looking for evidence of the little b******* , my mind full of plans for home made traps. Sadly the motel room was lacking in any of the essential materials for these traps so my night continued in broken fashion.

Onward the next day: a brief but wonderful stop in Hay to see my Dear Colleague and her family.
As I said to her, why are all our daughters towering over us? Was it something we fed them???????
Over morning coffee we calculated that it was 22 years since we had taught together in Booligal. I must have mentioned it before but this lady and I were so blessed. Out in the middle of nowhere I was assigned a second teacher and I could have got anybody; but in fact I got Dear Colleague and she was the best thing since sliced bread. Additionally, we had to share a house which could have been a disaster; but which of course was wonderful. Twenty two years later we looked at each other with dazed and bewildered eyes and wondered where the years had gone. Then we looked at the children and thought, "yeah...that's where they went."

Later that day I fell asleep at the wheel and Himself put us back onto the right side of the road and was then very reluctant to let me drive ever again.

That night we made it into Canberra as the BA flew in from Sydney. Himself's insistence on navigating with nothing more than his iphone, is the subject of another blog post all on its own; however the good news is that, despite being unable to contact her on mobile as we approached the airport and having no idea of where we were, the BA materialised, standing on a corner, looking more and more bemused as Himself went round and round and round the roundabout looking for an 'appropriate place' to pullover!





That night was spent in a nice motel and the Easter Bunny came.







We found a church the following morning


and left Himself cleaning the car (locusts...mice...etc) whilst we celebrated Easter.


It was a lovely service with sparklers, bells, flowers, an easter egg hunt and a sermon on
Les Miserables. We felt totally at home.


Onwards, toward Tumut and Himself decided we needed to take the high road through a place called Wee Jasper. He said his motivation was to find a nice picnic spot and to travel on a road he had not driven on before. You can imagine the conversation:
Me: How about we stop here for lunch?
Him: Naaah, I think there'll be a better spot around the corner.
Me: Here?
Him: Nah.
me: Here?
Hi: Nahhhhh.
Me: It's going to be 4pm before we eat at this rate!!!!
(Gourmet Picnic to keep everyone happy)


And then it was on to the purpose for the trip, my bridesmaid's 50th birthday.

That's her on the left.

She was having a 'Sex and The City' cocktail party. More stress. I spent a great deal of time trying to watch the BA through the corner of my eye to see that she was not being fed illicit cocktails :-(
Apart from that it was a lovely evening. The next day we experienced autumn in Tumut and took in the Adelong Falls and Gold workings.
Can you see Himself reflected in the water?
These last three pictures are for my dad.
Standing on a rock I noticed this: and then turned 180 degrees to see this:
and then looked up and across to see the full picture.I think its a dyke isn't it dad?
(edited to add: Dad says 'yes' it is...and it bifurcates! Never say this blog is not educational)
Next day, up and over the mountains:







image credit: plague

Team Up Thursday: Speed

In stark contrast to our theme, JoLyn and I have been anything but speedy getting this diptych to you! We had planned to do it last week but life caught up with both of us.

JoLyn took this sensational picture of the wheels of a 4WD as it speeds down the highway. I personally LOVE this shot. When I first thought about 'speed' I saw, in my mindseye, the blur of motion but wondered how to balance that with clarity of subject? Well, JoLyn has absolutely nailed it as far as I am concerned. That soft focus that gives you the sense of motion suspended in time, coupled with the diagonal lines of the road, suggest speed perfectly in my humble opinion.

My shot, on the right, is an ancient one; pre-digital in fact. It actually came straight to mind when we chose 'Speed' but I had wanted to try and capture something different. I took my camera to work last week to try and shoot some of the action on the indoor soccer courts but in typical fashion, I had left the memory card in the computer at home:-( It was a darn shame too as I had a phalanx of willing 'models' :-D

So it was back to the ancient pre-digi shot.

Taken in 1989, it's a shot of one of my pupils at the local Sports Day. She was a complete natural. Notice how she's running in bare feet? I think she went on to run at a State level once she'd gone to boarding school in the city. I'm not sure if you can tell but she's in mid-stride, about 6" off the ground!

************************************************************************************

Report Mountain is retreating in the rear view mirror and Exam Canyon is fast approaching. I always query the value of end of semester exams for the lower ability pupils. I know it is supposed to prepare them for exams in the future but really, it just takes 3 weeks out of my teaching time. There is the pressure to 'revise' and so lessons are spent doing 'revision booklets' which most of my kids don't bother doing properly or do hastily with no attempt to retain anything. If I try and do it differently the kids are resistant, accusing me of 'not preparing them properly', and yes, I do mean accuse! It's a real bugbear of mine.

Still, no point complaining, no one listens. :-)

For your weekly diet of diptychs, click over to Team Up Thursday and perhaps contribute something yourself?

Stand Aside: Low Quality Verbal Flushing Imminent

I don't know where I first heard the term 'brain dump'. It may have been my first husband's army reserve jargon or one of those cynical 'in joke' expressions people working in the same department use. It certainly emerged around the time that IT was becoming a major part of the education coalface, back in the days of Dinosaur Discovery and Granny's Garden when we all used real floppy discs, discs that were floppy, and had to back up systems nightly. I think it was related to the dumping of unneccessary data in order to increase speed and efficiency. Perhaps nowadays a defrag would be the most useful parallel.

A brain dump most frequently occured on Friday nights after school, at the local pub . When we worked in the bush, the local pub was the meeting place and the one across the road from the school offered all teachers their first beer free on a Friday. Thus followed many more far from free beers and a brain dump. These could be painful, and messy.

I actually met my first husband during a brain dump at the local pub. He worked at the primary school in the regional centre and I drove in, like a bat out of hell, on Friday afternoons to get away from the tiny hamlet some 80km out in the donga where I spent the week rubbing shoulders with people like this.

Not that they were all like that of course but there were enough products of overly friendly inter-family relations to make it essential to vacate the area on a Friday afternoon.

But back to brain dumps.

Today I feel a bit like the chap here. My head is being pulled in a number of directions by a number of issues.

There's the general aggro of working in Support Classrooms compounded with the lack of continuity and resulting chaos that is afforded by my having days 'off' to attend courses. This has happened twice in the last two weeks and renders the following two lessons alopaecia inducing as pupils wallow in the luxuries of misdirection and missing work.

Today one of them brazenly announced,

"Well, you can't expect us to do work when a relief teacher's here! "

Strangely, I also can't expect them to

* arrive on time

* bring a pen, pencil or ruler

* bring a book

* visit the bathroom prior to class

* speak to me or any of their classmates in a civil manner.

Then there is the business of arranging assessments for pupils within the school: phonecalls, schedules, distribution of information and collection of same. Fill in this form please. How often does the pupil pick his nose or attack other pupils in the course of an afternoon. Record the frequency of interactions with other class members.

Then there is E. For any of you who remember her from the post I did before I deleted it for anonymity purposes, you may remember that she is hard work. High maintenance would not cover it. Today she holed herself up in a classroom where I was giving pupils homework support at lunchtime (yes, lunchtime...I have no need for relaxation.....didn't you know that?) and refused to leave when the bell went. Wouldn't go to class, wouldn't go and discuss it with anyone else.....Ended up I had to go up to the office and fetch someone to coax her out as I had a lesson to babysit oops I mean teach. *sheesh*

Now I have to document all this. >:-( Just what I need.

So I guess this little blogging sojourn is a bit of a brain dump for me at the moment. I guess it's better for me than gin.

Don't mind me folks. I'll be fine in the morning.

Ultra Sounds and X Rays

I used to work in a path lab many years ago and to this day aspects of the medical world enthrall me. Perhaps I should have applied for Medicine as my father so dearly wished? Seriously though, who can make career decisions at 17? At the time I thought I didn't like blood so I didn't want to be a doctor. Little did I know that a short 6 years later I would be up to my elbows in blood, faeces, urine, pieces of flesh and the dreaded sputum (I never have got over my revulsion when it comes to phlegm).

Anyway, the point is I am fascinated by the workings of the body and the ease with which technology can take a peek inside nowadays. In fact, I was slightly horrified to learn recently that part of the middle class pregnancy experience nowadays involves having 3D ultra sound portraits of your unborn child taken by a company which specialises in this sort of thing. I found the idea slightly offensive, don't know why. However, I digress. My interest in me ensures that I always ask to see my X rays once they're taken; in fact, I remember diagnosing my own injury or at least being involved in the diagnosis way back in Booligal days.

The radiographer only came to town (Hay) once a month and there was no real provision made for those of us who re-broke our kneecaps on a Thursday morning. After being driven down to Hay by the local district nurse, who just happened to be going 'on shift' when the break occurred, I was seen by the local GP who read the instruction manual on the X Ray machine in the hospital and then shuffled off to look at his handiwork.

"Did you see your X rays in Sydney?" he asked after a few moments.
"Sure," I replied, ever interested in the medical minutiae, especially if it related to me.
"Well, you'd better come and take a look at these then."

And so I was able to tell him that the floating piece of wire in my knee had once been a whole loop and that the break he could see was not the original break (I could point that bit out) after which we determined I had broken the kneecap in yet another spot. Fascinating.

So what has all this to do with today's ultra sound and X rays? Nothing much except that I asked to see them as usual and chatted to the pathologist when he came in to look at my shoulder at the radiologist's request. There is a little bit of something floating around there in the joint. And I have inflamed tendons. But no tear I am happy to report.

Sooooooo...........no excuse for slacking off now.

But first I'm off to a funeral. *sigh*. That's another story.