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Showing posts with label School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label School. Show all posts
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Friday, October 31, 2008
Last night was the high school's big Presentation Night when awards are bestowed upon the worthy; class leaders, house captains, and the dux are announced for next year; and the outgoing Year 12s say their official goodbyes. It's a sort of graduation without the pomp and circumstance.
Sarabelle played electric bass first with the orchestra band and later with the jazz band.
Somewhere in between those performances she was due to receive a merit award, but because Grice mentioned not hearing Sarabelle's name called during the practice (even though Grice is notoriously unobservant on occasion), Sarabelle incorrectly assumed maybe some error in her grades had been detected and the award rescinded, so she didn't get in line to go up and receive her certificate. Boy did I feel silly with a camera stuck to my face waiting for her to appear in my viewfinder.
Grice (on the far right below) received an even higher honor, a distinction award, for her efforts. Light was low and my shutter speed slow; I missed the shot of her stage walk and congratulatory handshake.
But I did get plenty of decent photos of other people's kids! These are from my favorite part of the evening, the cultural performances by the Kuku Yalanji doing their rainforest animal dances and then a Torres Straight Island dance. While they are recognized formally at such gatherings as the traditional custodians of the land, they are not always the traditionally dressed custodians.
Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.
-- Abraham Lincoln
Sarabelle played electric bass first with the orchestra band and later with the jazz band.
Somewhere in between those performances she was due to receive a merit award, but because Grice mentioned not hearing Sarabelle's name called during the practice (even though Grice is notoriously unobservant on occasion), Sarabelle incorrectly assumed maybe some error in her grades had been detected and the award rescinded, so she didn't get in line to go up and receive her certificate. Boy did I feel silly with a camera stuck to my face waiting for her to appear in my viewfinder.
Grice (on the far right below) received an even higher honor, a distinction award, for her efforts. Light was low and my shutter speed slow; I missed the shot of her stage walk and congratulatory handshake.
But I did get plenty of decent photos of other people's kids! These are from my favorite part of the evening, the cultural performances by the Kuku Yalanji doing their rainforest animal dances and then a Torres Straight Island dance. While they are recognized formally at such gatherings as the traditional custodians of the land, they are not always the traditionally dressed custodians.
Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.
-- Abraham Lincoln
Monday, August 11, 2008
Winter
The weather has been cool and clear, so gorgeous you forget for a moment the monsoonal rains and plentiful mold of the other nine months. We decided to take our school work outside. Elle dragged out the swag, which needed a good scrub and airing to eliminate the powdery mildew build-up. We also took our morning tea out in an effort to stay warm.
After the lessons were done and the day warmed, the clothes came off and there was some brief unprotected high-ozone exposure. Lulu was even allowed to briefly share the towel...
...and when she thought no one was looking, she continued her sunbathing.
I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.
-- Diogenes
After the lessons were done and the day warmed, the clothes came off and there was some brief unprotected high-ozone exposure. Lulu was even allowed to briefly share the towel...
...and when she thought no one was looking, she continued her sunbathing.
I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.
-- Diogenes
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Home School
No, we don't stand up and salute any flags saying the Pledge of Allegiance or singing Advance Australia Fair before beginning our school work. We don't have designated times for specific subjects or breaks either. Come to think of it, not much we do resembles a formal educational institution, but when I saw this at a neighbor's garage sale for a bargain price, I could not pass it up. The fact that it came from a local state school that recently celebrated its centenary makes it not only a true antique but a pretty cool souvenir.
Bear in mind that the wonderful things you learn in your schools are the work of many generations. All this is put in your hands as your inheritance in order that you may receive it, honor it, add to it, and one day faithfully hand it on to your children.
-- Albert Einstein
Bear in mind that the wonderful things you learn in your schools are the work of many generations. All this is put in your hands as your inheritance in order that you may receive it, honor it, add to it, and one day faithfully hand it on to your children.
-- Albert Einstein
Monday, February 18, 2008
Little Johnny wants to play.
I remember when I was in high school how exciting it was to listen to the radio early in the morning waiting for the snow report.
...blah, blah, blah... (newscaster starts listing outlying areas, the ones people always name when you recognize that accent and ask where they're from and they say "Boston" and then you dig a little deeper and ask whereabouts, and they mention their town's name and then you both know that's most definitely not Boston, just some wussy, wannabe suburb) Boston... quiet now, here it comes... All Schools, No School! (newscaster continues listing insignificant bedroom communities as you either head back to bed or over to the cousins' to hang out)...
Well it was not exactly like that today. Except for the exciting part.
We were up, washed, dressed, fed, brushed, in the car and on our way to the bus. Wow! Look how high the water is! Oh my God! Spear [Creek] is right up the bridge! It's on the road! I wonder how high Rifle [Creek] is? Whoa! Amazing! What about Bushy...?
A few more twists and turns before a line of stopped cars with hazard lights flashing alerted us to the fact that Bushy had most assuredly "gone ovah." There was one loud groan from Sarabelle, who can't bear to miss school, two loud cheers from Grice and Bee (who had slept over), and a "Cool!" from Elle. We were 99% of the way there, we could see the principal's house at the elementary school where the bus stop is, but it was not meant to be. We watched someone tow a car off the bridge that had attempted a crossing and had been swept sideways; chatted with another high schooler about to enjoy a day off, caught up with his mother and debated whether or not our vehicles could make it through the .5 meter water and the accuracy of that roadside depth gauge; and took a wade a little way out onto the flooded bridge before turning the truck around and heading back toward the house.
If this had been South Florida, people would have been cursing out the Army Corps of Engineers or the water management district honchos or their local municipality's water and sewer crews or the DOT, wild because they can't get to where they have to go and wondering who is responsible for this fiasco?! But here? If you can't make it across you either sit tight and wait it out there, or turn around and wait it out somewhere else, preferably at the nearest pub.
After a day of errands in Cairns, accessible by another very wet but more navigable route, the water receded enough to get Bee across Bushy and back home. With more heavy rain expected this evening -- we're sitting beneath a huge monsoonal trough -- Sarabelle opted to stay overnight at Bee's house guaranteeing she does not miss another day of school tomorrow. Grice preferred to return home with me and Elle and take her chances.
Nature, time, and patience are the three great physicians.
-- H. G. Bohn
...blah, blah, blah... (newscaster starts listing outlying areas, the ones people always name when you recognize that accent and ask where they're from and they say "Boston" and then you dig a little deeper and ask whereabouts, and they mention their town's name and then you both know that's most definitely not Boston, just some wussy, wannabe suburb) Boston... quiet now, here it comes... All Schools, No School! (newscaster continues listing insignificant bedroom communities as you either head back to bed or over to the cousins' to hang out)...
Well it was not exactly like that today. Except for the exciting part.
We were up, washed, dressed, fed, brushed, in the car and on our way to the bus. Wow! Look how high the water is! Oh my God! Spear [Creek] is right up the bridge! It's on the road! I wonder how high Rifle [Creek] is? Whoa! Amazing! What about Bushy...?
A few more twists and turns before a line of stopped cars with hazard lights flashing alerted us to the fact that Bushy had most assuredly "gone ovah." There was one loud groan from Sarabelle, who can't bear to miss school, two loud cheers from Grice and Bee (who had slept over), and a "Cool!" from Elle. We were 99% of the way there, we could see the principal's house at the elementary school where the bus stop is, but it was not meant to be. We watched someone tow a car off the bridge that had attempted a crossing and had been swept sideways; chatted with another high schooler about to enjoy a day off, caught up with his mother and debated whether or not our vehicles could make it through the .5 meter water and the accuracy of that roadside depth gauge; and took a wade a little way out onto the flooded bridge before turning the truck around and heading back toward the house.
If this had been South Florida, people would have been cursing out the Army Corps of Engineers or the water management district honchos or their local municipality's water and sewer crews or the DOT, wild because they can't get to where they have to go and wondering who is responsible for this fiasco?! But here? If you can't make it across you either sit tight and wait it out there, or turn around and wait it out somewhere else, preferably at the nearest pub.
After a day of errands in Cairns, accessible by another very wet but more navigable route, the water receded enough to get Bee across Bushy and back home. With more heavy rain expected this evening -- we're sitting beneath a huge monsoonal trough -- Sarabelle opted to stay overnight at Bee's house guaranteeing she does not miss another day of school tomorrow. Grice preferred to return home with me and Elle and take her chances.
Nature, time, and patience are the three great physicians.
-- H. G. Bohn
Friday, December 07, 2007
Pomp and Circumstance
"Miss," the principal, hands Grice her diploma.
Bee receives her diploma and "Sir," the teacher, calls Grice back for the flowers he forgot to give her.
"...and the winner of the $200 bursary from the Returned and Services League for top female student is..."
Grice with Mr. H, head of the local RSL and our former landlord.
A mother's pride, a father's joy.
-- Sir Walter Scott (Rokeby)
Bee receives her diploma and "Sir," the teacher, calls Grice back for the flowers he forgot to give her.
"...and the winner of the $200 bursary from the Returned and Services League for top female student is..."
Grice with Mr. H, head of the local RSL and our former landlord.
A mother's pride, a father's joy.
-- Sir Walter Scott (Rokeby)
Monday, May 21, 2007
That's Entertainment
A few weeks ago Sarabelle, Grice, and I joined up with Grice's friend and her stepdad (both Aussies) and mom (a Kiwi) to compete in the P & C's fundraising trivia night competition. I was a little concerned that the questions would be heavy on the Australiana, like the incomprehensible crossword puzzle book I once picked up, and so we covered our bases by establishing an international team with a vast array of knowledge. Various members specialized in literature, Eastern medicine, history, and Star Wars. Two are teachers, one even gets paid. The girls and I were pleasantly surprised to find quite a few "American" questions and not so pleasantly surprised when we missed nearly every one of them. (Okay, smarties, where does the U.S. flag always fly at full staff? And where is the only official palace in the U.S.?) In spite of a few forehead-slapping errors, we held a respectable tie for first place through every round and then dropped in the final round to a not-too-terribly-embarrassing third place. I assumed having a man on the team would help us in the Sports category, our last and lowest scoring, though to his credit he would have scored us an extra point in General Knowledge, our specially selected bonus category, for the answer "testicles" -- Question: What did men swear on before they swore on the Bible? -- if all the female team members hadn't been too squeamish to actually commit it to paper. (The Story of the World Volume 1: Ancient Times neglected to include that interesting tidbit and I'm certain Sr. Anne failed to mentioned it as well.)
Speaking of sports, not really, but whatever, Evonne Goolagong Cawley dropped by Grice's elementary school to meet and speak with the students. She told the children amusing stories about her early years as a young naive girl being taken off the farm traveling to the big city, Sydney, to train at tennis camp. Her husband of 37 years, British pro Roger Cawley, accompanied her and they were a lot of fun, answering questions from the kids:
Student to Evonne: What was your biggest trophy?
Mr. Cawley: That would be me.
I was invited by our coach, a friend of the Cawleys, as the secretary of the tennis club to photograph Evonne with all our junior club members.
And speaking of fish out of water stories, and in another near-brush with celebrity, or a brush with near-celebrity, Sarabelle was sent home from school with a media release last week. The Australian Broadcasting Company's television series Seachange, a reality show about city slickers making the move to tiny rural coastal communities, is being revived and filming episodes featuring two high school-aged Melbourne girls whose family has relocated to our little part of the world. One of the daughters is in Sarabelle's class.
And finally, no bad segues here, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks's joint venture The Pacific, a ten-part miniseries about WWII's Japanese theatre, is set up and planning to be in town for about the next year filming the companion piece to their other war series, Band of Brothers. One of our local beaches is doubling for several little Pacific island beaches. A notice appeared in the local paper and high school newsletter advising residents not to be alarmed if they heard bombs and machine gun fire, those would just be sound checks.
Trifles make the sum of life.
-- Charles Dickens
Speaking of sports, not really, but whatever, Evonne Goolagong Cawley dropped by Grice's elementary school to meet and speak with the students. She told the children amusing stories about her early years as a young naive girl being taken off the farm traveling to the big city, Sydney, to train at tennis camp. Her husband of 37 years, British pro Roger Cawley, accompanied her and they were a lot of fun, answering questions from the kids:
Student to Evonne: What was your biggest trophy?
Mr. Cawley: That would be me.
I was invited by our coach, a friend of the Cawleys, as the secretary of the tennis club to photograph Evonne with all our junior club members.
And speaking of fish out of water stories, and in another near-brush with celebrity, or a brush with near-celebrity, Sarabelle was sent home from school with a media release last week. The Australian Broadcasting Company's television series Seachange, a reality show about city slickers making the move to tiny rural coastal communities, is being revived and filming episodes featuring two high school-aged Melbourne girls whose family has relocated to our little part of the world. One of the daughters is in Sarabelle's class.
And finally, no bad segues here, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks's joint venture The Pacific, a ten-part miniseries about WWII's Japanese theatre, is set up and planning to be in town for about the next year filming the companion piece to their other war series, Band of Brothers. One of our local beaches is doubling for several little Pacific island beaches. A notice appeared in the local paper and high school newsletter advising residents not to be alarmed if they heard bombs and machine gun fire, those would just be sound checks.
Trifles make the sum of life.
-- Charles Dickens
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Totally Australian, Mate!
This is a close-up of part of Sarabelle's English assignment to create an ad campaign for an established product. Her team took its inspiration from the controversy over a private consortium's bid to take over QANTAS, Australia's iconic airline.
See how many other Australian icons you can identify.
Ah, well, I suppose it has come to this. Such is life.
-- Edward "Ned" Kelly
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Blind-sided
After I wrote a very pleasant, "Thanks, but no thanks" response for the position of the primary school's P&C (Parent and Citizen) President, Jorge and I attended the annual general meeting to participate in the election of a new board. My heart was light. I was off the hook.
Until sealed written nominations for the position of Vice-President were opened.
Me.
Speechless, someone suggested I take a moment to review the Help! I've Been Elected P&C Vice-President booklet listing the responsibilities of VP, which I eagerly grabbed, not truly considering, stalling, and finding a convenient hiding place for my burning red face.
They proceeded to open sealed nominations for Secretary.
Me, again.
By now my face was magenta.
Repeating the mantra in my head: I'm-homeschooling-my-daughter-I'm-already-secretary-of-the-tennis-club-I'm-homeschooling-my-daughter... I politely declined to the large group of people around the table staring at me, and stuck to my guns even after a very awkward, painfully prolonged period where other nominations were sought and finally extracted from the gathered masses.
If they had opened the nomination for Treasurer and read my name, I'm sure I would have either burst into hysterical laughter or keeled over.
Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
-- Winston Churchill
Until sealed written nominations for the position of Vice-President were opened.
Me.
Speechless, someone suggested I take a moment to review the Help! I've Been Elected P&C Vice-President booklet listing the responsibilities of VP, which I eagerly grabbed, not truly considering, stalling, and finding a convenient hiding place for my burning red face.
They proceeded to open sealed nominations for Secretary.
Me, again.
By now my face was magenta.
Repeating the mantra in my head: I'm-homeschooling-my-daughter-I'm-already-secretary-of-the-tennis-club-I'm-homeschooling-my-daughter... I politely declined to the large group of people around the table staring at me, and stuck to my guns even after a very awkward, painfully prolonged period where other nominations were sought and finally extracted from the gathered masses.
If they had opened the nomination for Treasurer and read my name, I'm sure I would have either burst into hysterical laughter or keeled over.
Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
-- Winston Churchill
Saturday, March 03, 2007
What passes for fun...
This is an 11 x 14 " sketch pad Sarabelle decided to practice her Japanese hiragana on. Not an assignment, not extra credit, just for fun.
Sarabelle signed up for school-sponsored music lessons, choosing the very-difficult-to-lug-home-on-the-bus-and-up-the-mountain double bass. Not a core class, not an elective, just for fun.
It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse-races.
-- Mark Twain
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Let The World Stand
Not having any luck getting the audio file linked here, but if you want to listen I can send you the file as a giant inbox clogging email attachment.
Just drop me a note: marlynnemail-roadschola (at) yahoo (dot) com (Substitute the usual "@" and "." symbols.)
With your whole body, with your whole heart, with your whole conscience, listen to the Revolution.... This is the music everyone who has ears should hear.
-- Alexander Blok (The Intelligentsia and the Revolution)
Just drop me a note: marlynnemail-roadschola (at) yahoo (dot) com (Substitute the usual "@" and "." symbols.)
With your whole body, with your whole heart, with your whole conscience, listen to the Revolution.... This is the music everyone who has ears should hear.
-- Alexander Blok (The Intelligentsia and the Revolution)
Monday, February 19, 2007
Busy Girl
This morning was a very special parade. After she announced the week's merit award winners, Grice was recognized along with a classmate for celebrating a birthday this week with a traditional rendition of "Happy Birthday" followed by the Aussie, "Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, HOORAY!"
Then she was called back up and recognized for her participation in the Muso Magic program. At the end of last year several students from the area schools were invited to join in a two-day workshop hosted by Adam Thompson of the Australian rock band Chocolate Starfish. In two days the kids brainstormed a melody, lyrics, and a name for their band (Tropical Rock), recorded a song and video, and presented a fully produced single to the public. Here Grice is receiving a certificate and a CD of their song from her principal.
(As soon as somebody explains to me how to link to an MP4a file you can hear it...)
Finally, she was called up yet again to receive her School Captain pin from the state representative for our area.
Wednesday she is off to Leadership Camp, a three-day, two-night seminar for area schools' School Captains and their Student Council associates at a nearby environmental center. She gets back Friday and Saturday/Sunday we are celebrating her birthday at the five-star resort her dad works at with a few of her friends in a room adjoining ours. The following Tuesday she returns to the same camp for a four-day, three-night extravaganza with her entire seventh grade class where she gets to go hiking, swimming, canoeing, and abseiling.
Not a bad way to kick off the new school year, eh?
So far away
Yet so close
Just be yourself
Like no other
When we are strong
Show no fear
Some lines are blurred
Make them clear
Sometimes a dream
Is all you need
Come take my hand now
Chorus:
We'll stand united
'Til the end of time
No one can stop us
Life is yours and mine
We can be anything
One perfect day
We stood up
Now the whole world's
Standing with us
We won't forget
How we were
Now it's all clear
Not a blur
Sometimes a dream
Is all you need
Come take my hand now
(Chorus)
When you just can't do this
On your own
You need us!
Take my hand by your side
You are not alone
We're with you!
(Chorus)
-- Let the World Stand (Tropical Rock)
Then she was called back up and recognized for her participation in the Muso Magic program. At the end of last year several students from the area schools were invited to join in a two-day workshop hosted by Adam Thompson of the Australian rock band Chocolate Starfish. In two days the kids brainstormed a melody, lyrics, and a name for their band (Tropical Rock), recorded a song and video, and presented a fully produced single to the public. Here Grice is receiving a certificate and a CD of their song from her principal.
(As soon as somebody explains to me how to link to an MP4a file you can hear it...)
Finally, she was called up yet again to receive her School Captain pin from the state representative for our area.
Wednesday she is off to Leadership Camp, a three-day, two-night seminar for area schools' School Captains and their Student Council associates at a nearby environmental center. She gets back Friday and Saturday/Sunday we are celebrating her birthday at the five-star resort her dad works at with a few of her friends in a room adjoining ours. The following Tuesday she returns to the same camp for a four-day, three-night extravaganza with her entire seventh grade class where she gets to go hiking, swimming, canoeing, and abseiling.
Not a bad way to kick off the new school year, eh?
So far away
Yet so close
Just be yourself
Like no other
When we are strong
Show no fear
Some lines are blurred
Make them clear
Sometimes a dream
Is all you need
Come take my hand now
Chorus:
We'll stand united
'Til the end of time
No one can stop us
Life is yours and mine
We can be anything
One perfect day
We stood up
Now the whole world's
Standing with us
We won't forget
How we were
Now it's all clear
Not a blur
Sometimes a dream
Is all you need
Come take my hand now
(Chorus)
When you just can't do this
On your own
You need us!
Take my hand by your side
You are not alone
We're with you!
(Chorus)
-- Let the World Stand (Tropical Rock)
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
The Kids Are Alright
Everyone wants to know, how are they doing, really?
For your consideration:
Exhibit A
The big crack you heard, that was Grice coming out of her shell. She nominated herself as a candidate for School Captain (a move which surprised us all), spent three weeks agonizing over the content of her speech, presented it Monday along with ten others vying for the position, and Tuesday was declared the winner in a landslide election. Next year she and her male counterpart will announce and present the weekly award certificates at the student assemblies Monday mornings, and perform the duties of Student Council member: organizing fundraising efforts and dances, and representing the school at formal events.
Exhibit B
Elle voted for someone else.
Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix.
-- Harry S. Truman
For your consideration:
Exhibit A
The big crack you heard, that was Grice coming out of her shell. She nominated herself as a candidate for School Captain (a move which surprised us all), spent three weeks agonizing over the content of her speech, presented it Monday along with ten others vying for the position, and Tuesday was declared the winner in a landslide election. Next year she and her male counterpart will announce and present the weekly award certificates at the student assemblies Monday mornings, and perform the duties of Student Council member: organizing fundraising efforts and dances, and representing the school at formal events.
Exhibit B
Elle voted for someone else.
Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix.
-- Harry S. Truman
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Yee Haw 2
The search for used cowboy shirts proved fruitless (thank you, Becky, for your offer), but I did manage to pick up some cheapo bandanas and the costume above (purely for its shock value.) My kids, besides being discriminating, are also apparently unflappable. Instead of being horrified that I would suggest wearing such a ridiculous outfit, my desired reaction -- I only planned on maybe getting some use out of the hat and vest -- they actually argued about who would put it on first.
Sarabelle won.
Here are (clockwise from top left) our friend, K.; Sarabelle; Khan the Kelpie; and Sheriff Elle, on K's ranch, wearing their actual party clothes, heading out to the dance.
The dance was great fun, and yes, there was quite a large turnout. The corrugated metal hall had been decorated to perfection by Grade 6 and 7 students with hay bales, cattle horns, and a wide variety of native foliage. The Stumbling Mountain Goats took over after all the classes had performed their various reels and had everybody on their feet, including this reluctant dancer (but only when we were treated to a cover of The Soggy Bottom Boys' big hit, from one of our all-time favorite movies and soundtrack.)
And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Yee Haw
Who knew my children were so discriminating?
Tomorrow night is the primary school's Bush Dance (which, by the way, does not mean we will be circling a fire holding spears and wearing grass skirts), a licensed function (which, by the way, does mean there will be alcohol served and pretty much guarantees a good turn out) with a live band and a cowboy theme.
My kids, used to the large trunk full of odd clothing and accessories that has enabled us to never (to the best of my short-term impaired memory) purchase a single Halloween costume or any outfit for their countless theatrical presentations, are coming undone with the simple request to dress like a cowboy, seeing as how the Costume Box was one of the items we deemed necessary to leave behind.
Apparently authenticity is the key.
---
No, I will not buy you a pair cowboy boots. No, I will not buy you an Akubra hat either. We live in an area of cattle ranches. These people are cowboys. Do you see what they wear? They're barefoot and they have on regular clothes. How about you wear your overalls?
That's a farmer, Mom.
Okay, how about you wear your camouflage shirt underneath your overalls?
That's a redneck, Mom!
What if we black out one of your teeth?
That's a hillbilly, Mom!!
Well, The Stumbling Mountain Goats are a hillbilly band...
MOM!
Okay, I got it. Think Brokeback Mountain, right?
Forget it. I'm not going.
---
So today's challenge, find a thrift shop and a couple of cheap, second-hand, plaid, button-down, long-sleeved cowboy shirts. The kinds Elle insists have "handcuffs" (which means, I think, pearly, snap fasteners at the end of the sleeves.) Come to think of it, handcuffs might be a fun accessory. We could do Frank and Jesse James...
Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.
-- Abbie Hoffman
Tomorrow night is the primary school's Bush Dance (which, by the way, does not mean we will be circling a fire holding spears and wearing grass skirts), a licensed function (which, by the way, does mean there will be alcohol served and pretty much guarantees a good turn out) with a live band and a cowboy theme.
My kids, used to the large trunk full of odd clothing and accessories that has enabled us to never (to the best of my short-term impaired memory) purchase a single Halloween costume or any outfit for their countless theatrical presentations, are coming undone with the simple request to dress like a cowboy, seeing as how the Costume Box was one of the items we deemed necessary to leave behind.
Apparently authenticity is the key.
---
No, I will not buy you a pair cowboy boots. No, I will not buy you an Akubra hat either. We live in an area of cattle ranches. These people are cowboys. Do you see what they wear? They're barefoot and they have on regular clothes. How about you wear your overalls?
That's a farmer, Mom.
Okay, how about you wear your camouflage shirt underneath your overalls?
That's a redneck, Mom!
What if we black out one of your teeth?
That's a hillbilly, Mom!!
Well, The Stumbling Mountain Goats are a hillbilly band...
MOM!
Okay, I got it. Think Brokeback Mountain, right?
Forget it. I'm not going.
---
So today's challenge, find a thrift shop and a couple of cheap, second-hand, plaid, button-down, long-sleeved cowboy shirts. The kinds Elle insists have "handcuffs" (which means, I think, pearly, snap fasteners at the end of the sleeves.) Come to think of it, handcuffs might be a fun accessory. We could do Frank and Jesse James...
Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.
-- Abbie Hoffman
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Bringing you up to (really slow dial-up) speed
Why, hello again! Let’s see, what has been going on since iWeb imploded…
HEALTH AND SAFETY
Jorge had a head-on in Mrs. Troopie. A “smash-up” they call it. He’s okay, the other driver was okay, but Mrs. Troopie, well, we’ll be keeping her for spare parts. Jorge has decided that she is the Best Vehicle Ever and one day we’ll get another one. For now, he’s got the 4 Runner and I’m home playing the role of farm wife, modern farm wife with her MacBook Pro, keeping myself warm cooking up huge meals for the family’s tea time. (Your main early evening meal, or dinner, is “tea,” which may or may not include that particular beverage; a light bite later in the evening is “supper.” Tea may be had anytime but is referred to as “a cuppa.” On the job Jorge gets a 30-minute “smoko,” a midmorning break originally named in the old days for a cigarette break but smoking is not permitted anywhere these days, and not lunch but a 15-minute “sit down.” Got it?)
I thought we were living in Australia, but apparently we’ve made a wrong turn and ended up in Scotland or Ireland or the Pacific Northwest or some other lovely, green, wet, cold place. The locals are freaked out by the weather. The paper has already run their special pull-out pictorial supplement titled, “The Big Wet,” chronicling the unusually high rain falls, flooding, and ferocious cyclones. I suppose everyone thought that meant it should be over by now, like Bush’s, “Mission Accomplished,” but, no, it continues to drizzle and I am forced to cook to justify turning on the gas stove, our only source of heat. We are all adapting, resigning ourselves to constant sogginess and bad hair lives, but I am wondering what the lack of sunshine will eventually do me. Will I need a sunlamp? Vitamin D supplements? Antidepressants?
Hornblower…?!
PROPERTY
For nearly the same price (check currency conversion rates here) we can choose one of the following, all in the same neighborhood – the same super wet, green neighborhood henceforth known as Green Acres -- all available as lease/purchases or with extended closings:
A) The house we are in now – 6.5 acres, seasonal creek, concrete block house in need of major renovations, too close to highway. $360,000 AUD
B) Beautiful custom built house, 3.5 acres, small but enlargeable pond, well back off road. ASKING $360,000 AUD
C) 40 acres, two clean permanent creeks, liveable stable for use during construction of a house or easily convertible to a house, well off the road. Owner has maintained old logging and mining trails through this and his adjoining 160+ acres for fabulous walking/horseback riding. ASKING $360,000 AUD
Do I even need to tell you which one has us most excited?
Another really tempting one is:
-- 119 acres with a five bedroom house, granny flat (2 bedroom apartment downstairs), inground pool, great raised bed vegetable gardens, pastures, ranch hand quarters, numerous other outbuildings (barns and such) four dams (ponds), one kilometer of river frontage bordering the property with a side branch of the river running through the property, and all the necessary equipment, fences and squeezers etc., for running a few head of cattle. Just outside the rainforest, much drier with more sun and less rainfall. One end of the property is located at a major crossroads (some highway noise) which makes for good development potential (ability to subdivide a few riverfront acres that would essentially pay for the place), and the other end is "downtown," referring to the center of a village with 225 people in it. This one is $550,000 AUD and would pretty much take all we’ve got but is a bargain for the price.
I think I’ve seen every inch of property in the Green Acres surrounds; I should be a real estate agent. Oh, wait, I am, though I only seem to spend money.
SCOOL
The girls started their first full week today (Monday, July 17). Grice and Elle go off barefoot (though I make them carry their Crocs in their backpacks because the thought of using the school toilets without shoes on makes me gag) and Elle wears her uniform hat from the moment she goes out the door until she comes home, looking like Corporal Agarn on F-Troop.
Sarabelle went off to her first day of high school last week adamantly refusing to make any friends because that would make it that much easier to return to her old friends in the States, and because we’ve seen Mean Girls, and came home that afternoon excitedly telling tales of all the nice girls she had met. She’s already volunteered to be a buddy to the Japanese students coming in a few weeks and has asked her Japanese teacher for all the lessons she missed from the first half of the year so she can communicate better with the visitors. Sarabelle ended up in Grade 8, a recommendation by the Deputy Principal, so that she will be with same aged peers –- something she assured me is “quite important at this age” -- and because Grade 8 students sample all the electives before choosing their classes in Grade 9. Sarabelle thinks school is pathetically easy, for example her homework assignment was six pages of coloring in fractions, so is certain she will have straight A’s on her first report card. For an assignment to write twenty historic events – we used our Greek timeline and threw in major events in American history i.e. the Declaration of Independence, creation of the Constitution, Civil War – the teacher commented, “We don’t care much about American history, we’ve got our own.” Sara and I had a laugh about it, because we know ours is so much more exciting and interesting being based on revolution and rebellion… What have they got? Convict settlements. Take that Mrs. Stick-up-yer-arse. You can despise American culture all you want, I do, just don’t disrespect my Founding Fathers, got it? She’s also been penalized (penalised?) by another teacher for her American spelling. It’s “artefact” not “artifact” and “civilisation” not “civilization,” but again we had a laugh because Sarabelle, Miss Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee Participant, had one whole week to study and learn the new, correct Australian spelling. She’s got Hippocratic Writings and Archimedes and the Door of Science tucked under her bed, and both she and Grace eagerly agreed to work on at least one lesson from their Saxon Math every weekend. I’m not worried.
Grice is now halfway through Grade 6 and Elle halfway through Grade 1 though they just finished Grade 5 and Kindergarten, respectively, back in Florida. Grice received the sweetest card her second day from a little girl, a classmate, who lives across the street, stating that she would like to be Grice’s friend and eventually have her over after school. Elle received a journal to record her nightly reading and in the space reserved for comments on her very first assignment wrote, “I liked it but next time I need a harder book.”
So, they’re doing just fine, thank you.
A relatively new development in Queensland education has been the inclusion of religious lessons in the curriculum. In order to please everybody, or most anyway, families are given a choice of Catholic, general Christian (Protestant), Baha'i, or Non-religious training for their once-a-week class. I speculated the Non-religious class may be basically a free period and was told, oh, no, the children may silently read or work on their homework. Yeah, that's what I thought. I initially chose the Baha'i instruction, which teaches there is one god that all major religions worship and that all prophets of various beliefs are mouthpieces for this one being, though there are differences in the interpretations. The class examines the commonalities between all religions and focuses on values, specifically living The Golden Rule. My kids nearly had a stroke (as I’m sure my mother will when she reads this) and insisted they go for the Non-religious (free period) class, which also happens to be the class that 95% of the other students are in. Whatever.
WILDLIFE
We’ve got a pair of Little Kingfishers, brilliant blue and white birds, which according to our identification book are not often seen. These two are very visible here, perching on our garden fence and divebombing the minnows in the fishpond. The one we assume to be the male, the bigger of the two, crashes into our living room window at least 20 times a day. At first we thought he was attacking his reflection. We think he must be braindamaged. If he wasn’t before, he sure is now. We’ve got to find a way to scare him away from that window.
CURRENT EVENTS
What in the world is going on out there? Without cable television, a high-speed home internet connection*, NPR, or any factual, unbiased newspaper to read, I am in the dark about the goings-on in the rest of the world. Australian news is mostly national and then mostly sports related. Sunday evening dinner at a local pub gave us our first glimpse of the situation in Israel. As one patron said watching the cable broadcast of launching missiles, “Five minutes of the evening news can ruin your whole day.”
We sure hope Grice and Elle’s former Florida teachers have postponed their trip to Israel and that all their family is safe and sound.
* Two-year contracts with hefty penalties and expensive disconnect and reconnection fees are the norm here, so until we find our final destination we are still using the internet café in town. Now that we only have the one vehicle, trips into to town are few and far between.
The sun did not shine,
it was too wet to play,
so we sat in the house
all that cold, wet, wet day.
-- Theodore Geisel (Dr. Suess)
HEALTH AND SAFETY
Jorge had a head-on in Mrs. Troopie. A “smash-up” they call it. He’s okay, the other driver was okay, but Mrs. Troopie, well, we’ll be keeping her for spare parts. Jorge has decided that she is the Best Vehicle Ever and one day we’ll get another one. For now, he’s got the 4 Runner and I’m home playing the role of farm wife, modern farm wife with her MacBook Pro, keeping myself warm cooking up huge meals for the family’s tea time. (Your main early evening meal, or dinner, is “tea,” which may or may not include that particular beverage; a light bite later in the evening is “supper.” Tea may be had anytime but is referred to as “a cuppa.” On the job Jorge gets a 30-minute “smoko,” a midmorning break originally named in the old days for a cigarette break but smoking is not permitted anywhere these days, and not lunch but a 15-minute “sit down.” Got it?)
I thought we were living in Australia, but apparently we’ve made a wrong turn and ended up in Scotland or Ireland or the Pacific Northwest or some other lovely, green, wet, cold place. The locals are freaked out by the weather. The paper has already run their special pull-out pictorial supplement titled, “The Big Wet,” chronicling the unusually high rain falls, flooding, and ferocious cyclones. I suppose everyone thought that meant it should be over by now, like Bush’s, “Mission Accomplished,” but, no, it continues to drizzle and I am forced to cook to justify turning on the gas stove, our only source of heat. We are all adapting, resigning ourselves to constant sogginess and bad hair lives, but I am wondering what the lack of sunshine will eventually do me. Will I need a sunlamp? Vitamin D supplements? Antidepressants?
Hornblower…?!
PROPERTY
For nearly the same price (check currency conversion rates here) we can choose one of the following, all in the same neighborhood – the same super wet, green neighborhood henceforth known as Green Acres -- all available as lease/purchases or with extended closings:
A) The house we are in now – 6.5 acres, seasonal creek, concrete block house in need of major renovations, too close to highway. $360,000 AUD
B) Beautiful custom built house, 3.5 acres, small but enlargeable pond, well back off road. ASKING $360,000 AUD
C) 40 acres, two clean permanent creeks, liveable stable for use during construction of a house or easily convertible to a house, well off the road. Owner has maintained old logging and mining trails through this and his adjoining 160+ acres for fabulous walking/horseback riding. ASKING $360,000 AUD
Do I even need to tell you which one has us most excited?
Another really tempting one is:
-- 119 acres with a five bedroom house, granny flat (2 bedroom apartment downstairs), inground pool, great raised bed vegetable gardens, pastures, ranch hand quarters, numerous other outbuildings (barns and such) four dams (ponds), one kilometer of river frontage bordering the property with a side branch of the river running through the property, and all the necessary equipment, fences and squeezers etc., for running a few head of cattle. Just outside the rainforest, much drier with more sun and less rainfall. One end of the property is located at a major crossroads (some highway noise) which makes for good development potential (ability to subdivide a few riverfront acres that would essentially pay for the place), and the other end is "downtown," referring to the center of a village with 225 people in it. This one is $550,000 AUD and would pretty much take all we’ve got but is a bargain for the price.
I think I’ve seen every inch of property in the Green Acres surrounds; I should be a real estate agent. Oh, wait, I am, though I only seem to spend money.
SCOOL
The girls started their first full week today (Monday, July 17). Grice and Elle go off barefoot (though I make them carry their Crocs in their backpacks because the thought of using the school toilets without shoes on makes me gag) and Elle wears her uniform hat from the moment she goes out the door until she comes home, looking like Corporal Agarn on F-Troop.
Sarabelle went off to her first day of high school last week adamantly refusing to make any friends because that would make it that much easier to return to her old friends in the States, and because we’ve seen Mean Girls, and came home that afternoon excitedly telling tales of all the nice girls she had met. She’s already volunteered to be a buddy to the Japanese students coming in a few weeks and has asked her Japanese teacher for all the lessons she missed from the first half of the year so she can communicate better with the visitors. Sarabelle ended up in Grade 8, a recommendation by the Deputy Principal, so that she will be with same aged peers –- something she assured me is “quite important at this age” -- and because Grade 8 students sample all the electives before choosing their classes in Grade 9. Sarabelle thinks school is pathetically easy, for example her homework assignment was six pages of coloring in fractions, so is certain she will have straight A’s on her first report card. For an assignment to write twenty historic events – we used our Greek timeline and threw in major events in American history i.e. the Declaration of Independence, creation of the Constitution, Civil War – the teacher commented, “We don’t care much about American history, we’ve got our own.” Sara and I had a laugh about it, because we know ours is so much more exciting and interesting being based on revolution and rebellion… What have they got? Convict settlements. Take that Mrs. Stick-up-yer-arse. You can despise American culture all you want, I do, just don’t disrespect my Founding Fathers, got it? She’s also been penalized (penalised?) by another teacher for her American spelling. It’s “artefact” not “artifact” and “civilisation” not “civilization,” but again we had a laugh because Sarabelle, Miss Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee Participant, had one whole week to study and learn the new, correct Australian spelling. She’s got Hippocratic Writings and Archimedes and the Door of Science tucked under her bed, and both she and Grace eagerly agreed to work on at least one lesson from their Saxon Math every weekend. I’m not worried.
Grice is now halfway through Grade 6 and Elle halfway through Grade 1 though they just finished Grade 5 and Kindergarten, respectively, back in Florida. Grice received the sweetest card her second day from a little girl, a classmate, who lives across the street, stating that she would like to be Grice’s friend and eventually have her over after school. Elle received a journal to record her nightly reading and in the space reserved for comments on her very first assignment wrote, “I liked it but next time I need a harder book.”
So, they’re doing just fine, thank you.
A relatively new development in Queensland education has been the inclusion of religious lessons in the curriculum. In order to please everybody, or most anyway, families are given a choice of Catholic, general Christian (Protestant), Baha'i, or Non-religious training for their once-a-week class. I speculated the Non-religious class may be basically a free period and was told, oh, no, the children may silently read or work on their homework. Yeah, that's what I thought. I initially chose the Baha'i instruction, which teaches there is one god that all major religions worship and that all prophets of various beliefs are mouthpieces for this one being, though there are differences in the interpretations. The class examines the commonalities between all religions and focuses on values, specifically living The Golden Rule. My kids nearly had a stroke (as I’m sure my mother will when she reads this) and insisted they go for the Non-religious (free period) class, which also happens to be the class that 95% of the other students are in. Whatever.
WILDLIFE
We’ve got a pair of Little Kingfishers, brilliant blue and white birds, which according to our identification book are not often seen. These two are very visible here, perching on our garden fence and divebombing the minnows in the fishpond. The one we assume to be the male, the bigger of the two, crashes into our living room window at least 20 times a day. At first we thought he was attacking his reflection. We think he must be braindamaged. If he wasn’t before, he sure is now. We’ve got to find a way to scare him away from that window.
CURRENT EVENTS
What in the world is going on out there? Without cable television, a high-speed home internet connection*, NPR, or any factual, unbiased newspaper to read, I am in the dark about the goings-on in the rest of the world. Australian news is mostly national and then mostly sports related. Sunday evening dinner at a local pub gave us our first glimpse of the situation in Israel. As one patron said watching the cable broadcast of launching missiles, “Five minutes of the evening news can ruin your whole day.”
We sure hope Grice and Elle’s former Florida teachers have postponed their trip to Israel and that all their family is safe and sound.
* Two-year contracts with hefty penalties and expensive disconnect and reconnection fees are the norm here, so until we find our final destination we are still using the internet café in town. Now that we only have the one vehicle, trips into to town are few and far between.
The sun did not shine,
it was too wet to play,
so we sat in the house
all that cold, wet, wet day.
-- Theodore Geisel (Dr. Suess)
Thursday, June 22, 2006
I rest my case.
No wonder an acquaintance of ours scoffs at the quality of the Australian school system. In his entire career as a mining executive he never had one secretary that could spell properly.
To the uneducated, an A is just three sticks.
-- A. A. Milne
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Open for Business
What happens when there’s no TV and the trampoline is no longer such a novelty and the one tennis ball you found in the yard is now stuck in the bushes where you can’t crawl in and get it because there are things in there and you are afraid to go down and play in the creek until Dad buys you a pair of galoshes to keep the leeches off your legs?
Ask, no, beg Mom to let you open The Trunk and do some schoolwork. Get excited when you discover Mom has packed three copies of Harvey’s English Grammar so that everyone has their own copy just like in a real class. Have fun organizing all the books by subject on the little built-in shelves in the living room. Try to decide which you should read first, The Iliad or The Odyssey. Do your math and then play school with your littlest sister, teaching her a few math lessons of her own. Get your sisters together for an afternoon of sketching with all your new art supplies. Then shock your parents a second day in a row by pulling the books out again and competing to see who gets to do math with Mom first.
Nothing is stronger than habit.
-- Ovid
Ask, no, beg Mom to let you open The Trunk and do some schoolwork. Get excited when you discover Mom has packed three copies of Harvey’s English Grammar so that everyone has their own copy just like in a real class. Have fun organizing all the books by subject on the little built-in shelves in the living room. Try to decide which you should read first, The Iliad or The Odyssey. Do your math and then play school with your littlest sister, teaching her a few math lessons of her own. Get your sisters together for an afternoon of sketching with all your new art supplies. Then shock your parents a second day in a row by pulling the books out again and competing to see who gets to do math with Mom first.
Nothing is stronger than habit.
-- Ovid
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