Kid Torture

Hello Possums, children often delight you with the way they make sense of their world. Their interpretations are usually based within their prior experiences or perceptions, and the sophistication of their logic systems can be surprising, even if their conclusions are not correct per se. Whilst this is true, the example below is not really delightful. Rather, Sally’s interpretations miffed me completely. I was left amused but speechless.

I picked Sally up from her choir rehearsal recently and had the radio on in the car. As I swung out of the car park and onto the windy road that leads to our street a catchy modern song came on. I knew the words, turned up the volume, and drove a fair way down the road singing and ‘dancing’ to the song as I often do.

Glancing across to Sally in the passenger seat, I noticed that she had her little arms folded across her chest and was looking at me with a disapproving expression on her face.

What’s wrong with you? I asked her.

I wish you wouldn’t sing songs that don’t suit you. She replied matter-of-factly.

I laughed and said, What on earth do you mean?

Well, she said in a tone that indicated I was in for a lecture, that song is all about love! Here she stressed the word ‘love’ like ‘lourv’, with the vowel sounds accentuated and elongated, and you’re married! The ‘d’ in ‘married’ was stressed like Homer Simpson stresses the ‘d’ in ‘doh’. So you’re not allowed to fall in love with anyone else, otherwise that would be kid torture!

And, as if that wasn’t enough of a telling-off, she added, and you’re not cool enough to sing that song!

An alien’s perspective

Hello Possums, its been an unusually windy day here in Melbourne. I’ve been out videotaping classrooms in action for my work/study for the past three weeks. During the breaks I pop across the road to the only cafe within cooee of the school for lunch. It is a large cafe with hot food, delicious sandwiches, falafel and a passable coffee bar. The interesting thing about the cafe is that it serves a large hospital.

It was much more crowded in the cafe today. Doctors and nurses, old and young, patients, construction workers, management, visitors, students – all cafe patrons. A few of the patients particularly stood out to me. One held onto a pole with his drip attached, one supported a massive cranium brace that was circular and held onto his scalp by four large screw-like devices, one had deep gashes all over his face that had obviously healed significantly since he first injured himself. Many patients were surrounded by groups of relatives, all seated together at cafe tables. Despite the patient paraphernalia and often grotesque injuries, everyone sat around chatting and having lunch as though life was casual and normal.

There is a pleasant outdoor courtyard but like most people I sat inside because of the wind. Usually I head across to the cafe with a colleague but I was by myself today, so I chose a table facing outwards into the courtyard. Two young men dressed in suit pants and nice shirts took their hot lunches through the big glass sliding door to an outdoor table virtually in front of where I sat. I couldn’t help noticing and being entertained by them as they tried to eat their hot meals whilst the wind bothered and buffeted them. The outdoor umbrellas shut tightly all bent with the strain, the standard trees in pots all blustered over on an incline whilst their root balls and the stakes in the center of their pots strained to keep them upright, chairs were being blown over, dust blasted through the scene at odd intervals.

Beyond the courtyard was a walk way and beyond that, an ambulance parking bay. I watched an ambulance arrive. The drivers unloaded an empty bed and the sheets flapped violently, held down tightly by a thick black strap. They returned with an elderly man strapped into the bed, the sheets filled like sails and the pillow blew off the bed. I wasn’t close enough to see if the wind made it hard for the ambos to steer the bed. But I found myself almost straining and moving my body in sympathy, imagining steering the bed like an obstreperous supermarket trolley. The wind made everything they did look difficult.

Finally the patient was safely tucked into the ambulance and driven off somewhere. The young men noticed me looking at them and smiled at me. As they came through the doors to take a table behind me inside, one of them remarked on their experience to me as I simultaneously made a comment to them.

I said, Given up eh?

He said, stuff that! tossed his head and laughed.

The result of the exchange was a friendly greeting, it didn’t matter that we spoke over each other.

Despite this friendly exchange, I left the hospital feeling overwhelmed and a little alienated. The cafe was such a melting pot of humanity. I was touched briefly and wordlessly by the multiple stories that could have been told by the people there today. I went back to my work across the road reminded that hospitals are not places I feel overly comfortable in (but that’s another story).

Every morning

Hello Possums. I used to do a lot of thinking whilst pushing kids on swings. I pretty much wrote my Masters thesis this way. In the evenings I would sit at the computer and it would pour out of me, like water being released from a dam.

But they’re all old enough to push themselves now. A lot of my thinking these days is done in the kitchen. I quite like spending time in the kitchen, actually, even though its generally on my feet. For example every morning I stand here eating my breakfast whilst assembling four little piles of food like the ones pictured to the right. A similar ritual occurs in the evenings when I prepare six meals. This gives me lots of time to think. I generally have a pot of tea on the go as well.

Right now my thoughts are pretty well occupied with issues at work. I mentioned in conversation with Kate that I’m getting better at detecting work-place weirdness and learning to not put myself in the path of workplace monsters. I firmly believe that one should stay clear of colleagues who boast that they were up at five in the morning working on this or that thing for your current group project. Unfortunately, I am now in a position of having to work closely with one of these types for the next eighteen months. It worries me because I usually end up locking horns with the martyr at some point in time. Martyrs can become illogical or down right insulting, and they are usually very poor communicators. They seem to be so caught in their own bubbles that they don’t realize that there is a world outside of it, that other people have lives of their own, and that the martyr’s own life is not everyone else’s number one interest and nor are their problems everyone else’s number one priority. Martyrs also are prone to having tanties when people don’t see things their way.

OK, so now that I have had a little rant about things at work, perhaps the thinking in the kitchen and the writing will move on to lighter subjects…

… like my upcoming trip to Europe. Funny, my friends are more excited about this than me. One dear friend brought me a travel diary and gave it to me over the weekend. Your trip sound so exciting, she said. She is keen for me to fill in the travel details and share all with her over coffee. And you know what, she’s right! A little of her excitement is starting to rub off. I might just start filling in a few pages tonight to take my mind off work.

The count down begins

Well Possums, only a week to go before the big high school reunion. The hair appointment is booked for next week. I told Amy why I was coming in.

‘Oh OK, we’ll book you in for the works’, she replied, ‘because you haven’t aged a bit since then, have you hon’. Cheeky girl!

I’ve been texting old friends for the past couple of weeks to make sure they get their tickets in time. I’m pleased to report that at least six are going for sure. And of course, Mr Zhizou has promised to be my date. I’ll be posting photos of the occasion, so stay tuned!

Anyway I can’t sit around here, I’ve got serious training to do (aka working off the baklava).

I’m off for a jog, see ya.

Not so glam

Hello Possums. No singing in the kitchen last night. I was straight off the water after slalom training without time to change out of my paddling gear. My wetty boots were still soggy and a little grubby with mud off the river bank.

There are some days when all four of our daughters have activities after school. Emma, Rosie and Kathleen were paddling with me, but Sally had to go to choir that evening. She’s only seven and really needed to be fed before heading off for an hour and a half. Hence the rush.

Emma, Rosie and Kathleen all had showers when we got home from paddling. I would have had to wait for them to finish anyway before I got mine. At least on this particular night I had remembered to put the thermals on, and I hadn’t capsized or had to roll, so was quite dry and warm apart from the wet boots.

 

When TV is banned

Here is a picture of two little possums who have been banned from watching TV one rainy Saturday.

 

If you look closely, you will notice that they have found some empty boxes, pipe cleaners, pompoms and textas and have constructed – yes, you guessed it – a TV!

 

Parent-Teacher Interviews

Sorry I’m a couple of minutes late. There is a magnificent rainbow out there. It went the complete arc, from one point in the horizon to another. Beautiful. I just had to take a couple of photos of it.

Hello Possums. I couldn’t fit the entire rainbow into one shot. What you see above is a third of the rainbow that I saw on my way to parent-teacher interviews last night.

Being the parent in the duet was a strange thing for me at first, especially the secondary school parent-teacher interviews. Even though I now have two daughters in secondary school and have never missed their parent-teacher interviews, and despite the fact that I resigned from secondary teaching years ago to look after my own children, I still have had more experience as the teacher.

My first feelings and impressions of the situation are still salient. I felt them all over again last night.

When I was a secondary school teacher, I used to use parent-teacher interviews to get to know the child better. I find if you get to know the family and let them talk about their child, perhaps about their child’s interests and strengths, then you will develop a broader understanding of who the child is as a person and as a consequence, be a better teacher for that child.

So I get annoyed, Possums, when teachers who speak to me as parent of my children try to fill in our precious ten minutes of interview time with their own non-stop talk (often reading grades from their mark book that my child has received in this and that project) and telling me that my child is quiet in class, but fairly conscientious. I interrupt them as soon as they draw breath. For some of them this is a long time. Then I say (for example),

I’m not interested in going through all of her grades. Did you know that Kathleen has three sisters? She has been teaching her sisters how to say ‘oh look, flying mushrooms‘ in French just for fun. You know, she loves to perform and if you gave the students an opportunity to perform a play in French you would see that Kathleen is not so quiet after all.

Comments like this can occasionally turn a boring parent-teacher interview into an interesting conversation and give the teacher a chance to find out more about their student. Sometimes, the teacher will not engage in conversation and does not show an interest in learning more about who my daughter is and the family she comes from. This I do not understand!

Lets Get Loud!

Congo Line

Well Possums, here is the video of our famous Primary School Disco Congo line that I have been promising to show you.

The two dads towards the end of the line look like they’re really getting into the groove!

Blast from the past

Hello Possums, at my first slalom race on Sunday, there was a paddler there who I did an outdoor education course with in the early nineties, Rob. I hadn’t seen him since then, but recognized his face and voice, and even remembered his first name! He didn’t recognise me, but did remember me when I re-introduced myself.

We chatted on and off during the day and watched each other’s runs when we could. Both of us knew a lot of other paddlers there. I also knew quite a few parents-of-paddlers, so it was a social day as well as being great fun on the course – the river was at its best level for about ten years they reckoned!

He came up to me at one point in the day, and we ended up talking about recent paddling we’d been doing. He’d taken a group out from Warrandyte just the day before apparently and he said,

So I actually thought of you yesterday! I didn’t remember your name, but I remembered your face (we’ve both aged since then of course). But when I was at the start of the paddle I thought to myself, ‘yep, a good river level’, because you told me once that Warrandyte wasn’t worth it unless the river is at least over the first step (which it was). How amazing to now bump into you today!

Yes, Possums, how amazing. And for the life of me I don’t remember ever saying that to him! Isn’t it weird how people remember the oddest things! Your past has a habit of coming back to you randomly and by chance in forms molded by other people’s subjectivities; forms almost unrecognizable to you…

He had remembered my outdoors-focussed self and in so doing so conjured her into life again. These days, life is much more complex. The parenting and researching self get more of an airing. I had forgotten about that carefree self he had kept locked in the time-warp of his memory.

Congo Line

Possums, stay tuned. I have uploaded a youtube video of our famous congo line, and tried to get it posted here, but it hasn’t worked! Support is closed for the weekend so I’m at a loss as to why it isn’t uploading. It worked beautifully when I hoiked ‘bobfred on a skateboard’ over to epossums recently. Why? Why?  I have sent the congo video about six times now, where has it gone? Sucked into an ethereal black hole, perhaps? Ejected from cyberspace by an almighty video critic? Or just a chance happening – gone where all the odd socks go, perhaps, to a flotsam and jetsom zone somewhere? In the meantime, I feel compelled to not write about other things. I’m just waiting, waiting, powerlessly. Youtube, WordPress, anyone, help?