long time no see...

this interweb thing is truly amazing. via message boards i have found out things about family members that i didn't know about and i have known them my whole life, even lived in the same house as them on and off for about 25 years! and since this information has been published on the internet it must be true. who'd a thunk it!

musings upon the comm games

who is sick of advance australia fair?...i know the tune is way better than our national anthem but guys…too many golds already…

we have at least four tin medals. i think tin should be a legitimate medal…we won enough at the last games (19 from memory).

we so need a new flag. when one is peering at the telly it needs to be more clearer and less subtle than a slightly different blue that it is not in fact ‘those bloody aussies’

gymnastics…boys..great muscles…girls…way too much glitter

aussie cycling uniforms…sweat has been unfriendly to you..or at least the illusion of sweat… it looks like you have rampant and out of control pubes…just an observation

and wrestling…how homoerotic is it?...’nuff said me thinks

john macbeth (mcbeth…unsure of spelling and who really cares apart from him)…commentating on the swumming…new zild accunt rules…and i quote…it’s the swum team…really, past tense?

my bro had it right…cyclists are mormons in lycra…i like it

dear paul henry…there are two members of the gymnastics team who may not be ‘real’ new zealanders. one has a slavic sounding name and the other looks a bit asian…and the coach doesn’t look like a new zealander either

still on gymnastics…a japanese handstand?...seems to be flavour of the month. back in my days of being a gymnast it was a handstand…none of this wide arms nonsense…we were just straight up and down…whether we liked it or not. bring back the punch front
and on another note…the asian looking kiwi mentioned above did a proper handstand…i like him already!

and we are at 5 silver, 3 bronze and 4 tin…for those who are counting…

you have spoiled me

the best coffee ever...no argument...i will spread your message far and wide (context...i have barely survived the last four days with bad coffee...bad bad coffee...rotovegas...you need to sort out your coffee, and everywhere else i've visited, and this includes foreign climes)

last night I considered building an ark

we were in the grips of a fierce storm which decided to schedule itself when i had to drive up-country. i was staying at a place i haven’t been before and should have been fairly easy to spot due to the fucking big sign posted. but i missed it. i drove a couple of clicks up the road to the lake alice turn off. then had to double back in sideways rain. not pleasant.

i had a moment of nostalgia though cos my paternal great-grandfather was confined to the lake alice psychiatric institution (now closed down) when it was decided that he and my great-grandmother needed to be separated because she had some sort of medical condition (which at under 10 i was not privy to and was possibly just old age). he was mentally normal but there was nowhere to put him in the late 70s/early 80s nz that could cope with someone separated from the love of their life and not brought up to cook and clean for themself as the men of the time weren’t. they went from their mother’s care to their wife’s care..it was just how it was.

anyway. finally found my way to marton and my bed for the night despite the sideways rain. when i eventually got to said bed i was confused. now, i live in ‘windy’ wellington and palmerston north, which was where i was staying by day, is actually far windier than wellington but welly always gets the bad rap. the reason why i was confused was due to arriving in the dark and not actually being able to visualise my surroundings as i had never seen them in the clear light of day. there was a stand of trees outside my boudoir. the wind whistling through them sounded like the rain i hear on my roof back home so i was confused as to which sound was only wind and which was wind AND rain.

the first night was loud. the second was also so. on the first night i knew i must of slept cos i dreamed. i dreamed of flooding. the second night i also must of slept cos i dreamed about building an ark…in between being aware of maybe actually building one. i know i was awake cos the budgie in the next room screamed the whole night. it (i never asked its name or gender cos it was only being baby sat) seemed to be distressed by the storm and then rarked up the cockatoo which also began screaming for attention. in my experience it has learned to scream at approximately 7am and is a good alarm clock (on a weekday…no weekend sleep in allowed it seems). i also never knew its name or gender. in between that and the yelling lambs (i’m pretty sure I’m a true blue townie despite having visited a farm in hawera (or hara according to the locals) cos i was awoken by that too) many times in my formative years (my first ciggie was inhaled in the hay shed on said farm, not the most appropriate place i know).

on the second night there was much rain. in fact there was rain then nothing then more rain. this makes me think it was a hurricane. i made note of this between ‘sleeping’. i was woken by rain. then i was woken by not rain. and then again by rain. so. storm (build an ark). not storm (everything’s alright…JCSS reference). storm (build an ark).

on the journey home I was tailed by a police officer. i love driving but this was the most stressful piece of driving i’ve ever done. (bucket required for the next part). i have never received a fine for anything. i anally stick to the speed limit and the road rules much to the chagrin of people i know and the other drivers who like to break the law. so to be tailed by a cop for at least half an hour was not a thing i enjoyed even though i was very careful to not put a foot wrong. i was very pleased when he decided to break the speed limit and overtake me. however, approximately five minutes after tailing him (slightly less stressful cos he could now dictate the speed at which we travelled) he pulled over suddenly and i had to overtake him again. then to add insult to injury he turned on his lights as another two cars passed him. i hadn’t done anything wrong so i was ok. but now i wanted to know who he had pinged. since it occurred at the top of a rise and i was now at the bottom i never saw.

lastly. the storm first made its appearance at school on friday afternoon . i was in the gym with 60 students. they screamed at the flashes and bangs. i love thunderstorms so i was ok. it was loud and i wanted to preserve my hearing (family history of deafness and all) so with five minutes until lunch and a break in the weather i decided to take all the children back to their classrooms. when we were walking back to said classrooms there was more lightning. in nz we usually get sheet lightning. therefore i was blown away by the forked lightning bolt that descended from on high and hit the ground about 150 metres away from me (well that’s what it looked like). one of my students said he was going to come back over the weekend and see if there was a burned patch. i’ll ask him about that tomorrow. that was the best piece of lightning i’ve ever seen in nz. the production dress rehearsal was cancelled so we watched billy t and then played games. a good friday all round.

this has been a long post so laters.

random thoughts and yeah

not very exciting i'm afraid (unless i get told otherwise).

i have my own back up singer...i am really enjoying one of my year 8 boys...i break into song (which i do at every opportunity) and he joins in...he rocks and improves my street cred.

what is it with saying like every second word...it's not like we're all like valley girls...like get over it already.

christchurch has an earthquake that destroys a lot of stuff...huh?...it wasn't meant to happen there...and the only fatality was a lemur...my thoughts go out to the lemur's keepers. still not sure i believe it. and i've seen the all days news broadcast and all.

i saw at least two dead seagulls on the motorway today in the same area. one was still anatomically correct so was probably fresh...it was less so when i drove past it 6 hours later. but i thought (the first time through)...if seagulls eat their own when they are roadkill...does that make them cannibals? which links in to my most favourite outrageous fortune sequence from last week's episode...ted's missis (whose name i forget)...i love a good piece of lamb; loretta...if you're mutton, does that make you a cannibal?...a great line from an unusually disappointing episode.

i like my students

i think they may actually understand me and some weird shit i do.

here is my evidence. they loved the original 'under the mountain' and i doubted they would. they watched it and enjoyed it and picked up some of the culture. and are now making some connections.

today we watched some billy t james and fred dagg stuff on youtube (cos i very carefully left the dvds i'd borrowed off my dad at home). one of my boys was putting in requests. he's seen all the billy t stuff and loved it and was asking for it. we're studying nz and nz icons. i told the boss we were looking at fred dagg and billy t today. she said i hope you're looking at more than the humour. well to you...of course...cos i know how to baffle you on that stuff...but really, just the entertainment value with a bit of social commentary for added value.

i'm sure they didn't get the same out of it that i did, having lived through that nz era. i will be asking them whether they liked it and what they like and 'get' about it. that comedy is simple and subtle and does not employ any foul language. i hope they recognise and appreciate that.

and on a side note. i've had a kid dumped on me that has been kicked out of two other classes. someone told me to put him to the side and forget about him (but i expect no more from this dinosaur). another refuses to believe that he can change and be 'normal'. he may prove them right in the end but i'm prepared to give him a chance and have seen changes. what is really scary is the two that doubt him are in positions of power. now i know that they've had to deal with his bad behaviour and are probably a bit sick of him. what irks is one writes most of the naughty brown students off (and blames their families for it and will not try to find out why or empathise) and the other knows all the stuff (having nearly completed a masters in leadership) and doesn't practise it...grrr...

green jello (jelly) doesn't really suck

i'm thinking they really were ahead of their time and i was too young to appreciate them. and if anyone has the album (and i know plunge has it, not that he's likely to read this) i'd like a copy for my ipod...little pig little pig is on you tube if you want to check it out...i like it...but then i'm a bogan metal fan...not the smartest of music i know...but a strong guitar and bass line gets me very time.

and metal versions of common nursery rhymes, that the parentals read to us (if they were literate) can't be all bad surely.