Musings

1) Do not sit down to watch Australian Idol with drunk Thao. He muses on concepts such as "Instead of using a microphone all contestants should have to hold a live rainbow trout and the real challenge would be to sing while maintaining your grip on the trout." Funny yes, but then the problem is you can't hear the contestants sing coz you're all so busy laughing and then you miss out on the fun of critiquing their abilities.

2) Me, Jarrod, Jords and Thao chilled out on the floor of the Northcote Social Club bandroom to watch a chick called Pikelet use a repeater to fuck around with instruments. The highlight of that act was Thao loudly whispering "Yes!" when she brought out the piano accordian because I quote "I love chicks with an accordian!" I enjoyed the main act of Ned Collette with his folk music as did Jords but Jarrod and Thao found t not to their culinary pleasing.

3) I've decided to go to the Symphony Orchestra next time a good one pops up that I can afford. I'm forcing Jarrod to come but Thao says he's up for it. Anyone keen? We can get all dressed up and pretend to be snooty!

Crikey

Poor bastard. I always liked Steve Irwin and i'm genuinely sad to hear he died.

What I don't get are the people saying at least he died doing what he loved. Sure, he was filming a documentary encouraging humans to care more about the environment and species non-sapiens but i'm thinking being gored by a stingray can't be a pleasant way to go.

Naja. Es geht.

RIP Croc Man

Snoochie boochies!

Football. Such a noble sport.

On Friday I decided to play in the Staff versus Student football game. My ankle felt sore in the morning and I was going to strap it but ran out of time as I had to deal with a crying Year 10 girl. So stupid me thinks 'I'll just tie my shoelaces tighter - that'll help' I lack brains at the best of times! So sure enough I rolled my ankle and heard it go 'Crunch crunch' and dropped to the ground. A teacher who wasn't present later asked a student if I was crying when it happened. The student replied honestly by saying "Nah miss, but she was swearing." My ankle was wrapped and I was given crutches and I went and taught my Year 12 class, who noted I weas pale and sickly looking. After the class I burst into tears (in private) when a teacher said "Your night's now ruined - you can't see that director guy"

You see Kevin Smith was in town on Friday and I idolise him. There isn't a movie of his I don't like (Yes I did enjoy Jersey Girl!). I tried to get tickets to the Premiere but it sold out so fast and I couldn't afford the $200 per ticket price tag they were selling for on Ebay. I had decided (along with a friend) to go along to the Premiere anyway and see if I could catch a glimpse.

What a night! Not only did we get our photo taken with him (which only 3 of us did) but we found out we could also get tickets to the Q and A session afterwards, advertised to go for 90 minutes but he ended up speaking for 3 hours!

Ben Affleck, Jason Mewes rehab, Jason Lee and My Name is Earl, Donkey porn, Brazilian Fart Porn, leading ladies...no topic went untouched.

A wicked night!

Junkie cupcakes

Well Jords, Quick and Thao came over to watch the Socceroos beat Kuwait 2-0 last night. Although soccer on the big screen was lots of fun, more fun was the icing of the white chocolate cupcakes I had made.
Quick made a fully masonic cupcake
Kate was right in ont he Pro Hart theme.
Jordan made a nice alien
I iced the back end of an elephant
But the cake (pun intended) went to Quick who created an image of a needle going into a junkie's arm and the words 'SMACK'. Innocence and perversion united...

The staff at work loved their cupcakes...although I carefully selected who got which ones!

Spoilt brats and chocolate pringles

I once went to a conference shortly before I finished Uni where one of the speakers threw in as a sidenote that the children of the future will be highly spoilt and how this would create great difficulties for teachers.

As a teacher I can say that isn't a premonition of the future. It is the now.

Today I had a Year 10 boy blubber his eyes out to me because he feels his art teacher doesn't care about him enough. He's also blubbered to me in the past that I don't care enough. His justification for our caring stems from the fact that we either failed him or nearly failed him. Not coz we didn't care. But because he did NO FUCKING WORK. We did everything in our power to help this kid with his work and he didn't take the help.

and truth be told the more he blubbers the less we care. Coz we think he oughta deal with it. How many of you grew up with the expectation that everyone you would meet would automatically love you? So manay kids these days grow up with mummy and daddy rushing to quell their childs sadness by rushing to attack whoever wronged their little baby. Its bullshit.

I always loved the idea of teaching having a side of social work. Helping kids through troubled times. Yet you can only be stretched so far. I teach kids who have been the victims of sexual assault by their parents. I teach kids who repeatedly punch walls just to feel. There is a spate of kids who self harm so obviously that blood seeps through their school dresses during class.

So I have little time for kids who are used to being the centre of mummy's universe and thus enter my office demanding that they be moved into another art class because they dont feel enough love from their art teacher. Because their art teacher told them off for not handing in their folio on time.

The kids (and their parents) kick and scream if they dont feel loved enough, if they aren't told at all times that they are brilliant creative individuals who will go far. Even if they're lazy little useless gits. And then there's those who go too far, and love their students a little too much if you get my gist.

There is no happy medium. At least on days like today it feels there aren't.

And thats my rant.

PS - I just watched that show on Melbourne with a shop called Chocolate Fire where they dip all kinds of food into chocolate - including pringles - anyone else want to find it with me?

Fun Times

The night of the FA cup Jordan called to say "Hey Mel we don't want a big one - just drinks and board games - and we're thinking about coming to your house for this night of frivolity"
I obliged and we played Simpsons Cluedo (ordinary); monopoly money poker (great) and this Uno Jenga game which was AWESOME. The soccer was good too.
Everyone thought i'd be a no hoper being the rough around the edges kinda person I am. But I won!
Here are some pics of Jenga Jordan, Jenga Kate, and Jenga Thao. Enjoy!.

House Warming

Here are some belated photos from our Housewarming in March. I am unsure if thhis works because I can't actually see the images at work?

I think this one is of me, Danielle, Tania and a friend fo Tania's

This one is possibly Jarrod, Emmett, Kate, Mav and Jordo
Rick and Drake
Bec and Thao Chris, Grug, Brooke and Ruysy

Cheers, Melby

Should we colour coordinate our friends?

I had a small Year 7 student approach me the other day:

"Ms. Bus, are you and Ms. H best friends coz you both have pink hair?"

I explained that Ms H and I were good friends but that that had nothing to do with our hair colour choices. We both just wanted (individually and completely separately) to have pink hair.

But I thought: What if we selected our friends based on our favourite colours? Those who enjoy aquamarine hues can bandy together and when out on the town it would be easy to find members of your group coz you would all be dressed in a uniform of such.

But what if you have more than one favourite colour? Do you become known as the colour whore who skips between groups? Or you don't have a favourite colour - do you become the scotty with no friends?

I was contemplating the idea of people only hanging out with the same hairstyles and then I realised as soon as a group of young, blonde, hair tizzed to the ceiling perfecting that "I spent hours making my hair look like I just got out of bed" look that we already have those groups!

Cheers, Mel