Oh, Inverted World

I haven't written anything down here for so long; there was a period of a few months where I forgot about you, personal space; but now I'm back and I'm going to seriously limit my time to 10 mins per day or less to Facebook - which has been the source of distraction. I'm sure this facebooking fad of mine will subside in about 7 more days when I start school and am forced to shun it due to work pressures (marking essays on the couch while watching Extreme Makeover).  

Jared and I just returned from a fishing holiday in Venus Bay; sadly, there were no fish, just a stupid crab and an eel which I didn't want to touch because I thought it was a snake. It died. I felt something.

What I liked about this year...in no order.

1. Good friends who throw fabulous parties just when I need one!

2. The Cure, Peaches, The Shins, Parklife, Daft Punk, !!!, Gomez, Magic Dirt, Beasts of Bourbon and more.

3. Finishing another course which actually landed me my first career job. Fuck that 7 year career changes BS; a qualified Child Care worker (who completed 2 years of TAFE to become qualified), receiving $13.14 an hour is not a fucking career.

4. The Best Food Gallery, Box Hill!!! Gimme 15 pan fried pork and veg dumplings for $7.00 anyday!

5. Awesome new people at uni. Good for conversations, better with beers.

6. The Sopranos, Heroes, Twin Peaks season 2 DVD release - fucking finally - completing Buffy and Angel and Curb Your Enthusiasm season 5.

7. Natsuo Kirino. Best Japanese Crime novels ever!

8. The awesome new chicks at work: Emma and Louise! Finally someone else I can drink with!

9. French Electro!

10. Jared moving out (from his parents house) with Adam. To Box Hill! 2 minutes walk from BFG!

Hmmm, okay now I'm thinking a bit. Here's some things which I would liked to have improved at the time but didn't because I was too busy indulging myself with hedonistic pleasures (food) or just watching TV...

1. My fitness. I stopped bike riding this year but I did start running/treadmilling... running sucked so I just kinda plonked myself on the TV and didn't exercise consistently for...5 months.

2. More reading! I have about 15 books waiting to have the spines broke.

3. My relationships with parents - Jared's and mine. They were a bit awkward this year.

4. My fucking diet!

5. More experimental cooking. I love you Mexican At Home cookbook.

6. Seeing some of my closer lady friends more. There are a few I haven't seen for over 6 months - which is fucking appalling.

7. Improving my mushroom receipes. 

8. Painting on some canvasses for my new home.

9. Going out more in general. Missing events/chances to socialise.

10. Work dramas (which are still happening) with really unprofessional and fucking useless coworkers.

Still recovering from the HoS party shenaigans...Maybe shrooms and vodka in mass amounts don't mix....
I learned one very good and important thing that I will cherish and always value:  Gin makes Vodka and cola taste magical :)

The bands were fucking awesome; Emmy, I am a big fan of the Heimlich Manouvre!!!

I don't care what anyone says, Alister is still my favourite house party DJ...The music went shitty when Hunter S. Thompson ate too many party favours ala Fear and Loathing style.

Despite all the cute devils and awesome viking people I saw, my favourite 10 costumes were, in order of sheer originality and excellence:

1.   Crazed homicidal housewife - the rollers and crime scene were all about it
2.   Dodgy backyard abortionist with coathanger, face mask, shower cap, dishwashing gloves and cheap Russian vodka in pocket
3.   Tank Girl (especially on bass)
4.   Velma from Scooby Doon (I love you, Jean)
5.   Scantily clad 'provocative' woman of the evening (her words, not mine) /Midnight Woolf guitarist/vocalist
6.   Beautifully elegant lady with black dress, heels, nailpolish, jewelry and pigtails
7.   Pink waitress who's rollerskating to the cask of Coolabah every 10 minutes increased in difficulty as the night pressed on
8.   Hunter S. Thompson
9.   Raver with fluro clothes, beach ball, glow sticks and visor
10. The artist formally know as Mikeey 

Today I learnt, whilst teaching year 7 and 8 History, that there were female gladiators during the Roman Empire (80BCE). They were capable of killing men by intoxicating them with their 'powerful, but distinctive' scent before stabbing them with a delicate, but sturt dagger. Unlike many gladiators who, like a cat with a mouse, teased and roused their victims (with several animated weapons), female gladiators always aimed for the heart with one fatal jab.

Life is incredibly busy right now. I'm doing my second teaching rounds at Alia College in Hawthorn East, an alternative school for people who couldn't fit into mainstream schools due to being bullied, or having specific learning difficulties which, sadly, resulted in them being bullied. 

The school has 60 students and has no bells, no uniforms and no 'rules'. Students are allowed to leave the campus during breaks and have access to a fully equpiied kitchen. Everyone's on a first name basis and they believe that knomes will steal your lunch under the desk if you don't pray to the fairies every morning. Nope that last part was a lie.

There is no discipline and the students run 'meetings' which allows them to address appreciations, concerns and announcements. Concerns are usually about someone fucking around in class who needs to be addressed. Basically, they are embarrassed in class meetings which is the main way behaviour is controlled.

Surprisingly, it's going fantastically well. I like the system, the freedoms, the culture and the meetings are funny and interesting. The students are awesome and intelligent. There are some that aren't but fuck, they're really nice!

Year 9 & 10 English - I'm teaching Tomorrow, when the War Began by John Marsden and years 7 & 8 we're doing a book called Dreamcatcher. I dunno about this one, its got a lot of dragons, chinese slave girls and precious stones, so we'll see.

Year 7 & 8 SoSE -  I've devised this cool unit where the students will be studying the dawn of the dead/shawn of the dead films and are then going to do an assignment where they have to imagine that there is a Zombie Halocaust at their school (The school is in an old mansion on Tooronga Rd).  They have to run around in survival teams (chosen at random), with colour coded post-it notes and claim objects in the school that are useful to them for survival. If an object is claimed, then other groups will have to find something else. They also have to claim rooms and areas of safety. They then have to write a written account of how they survived with their choices and what working in their groups was like. They also should provide a clear connection to the films to support why each object or room was of significance to survival from 'zombies', and hence, why they chose it.

Fuck, that sounds like a criteria sheet.

In other news:

The Shins were amazing, as were The Cure who played for fucking 3.5 hours!

I have Parklife coming up on the last week of rounds so I'm pumped about that! Finally, I get to see JusTice!

95% of assessment for students studying to become secondary trained teachers at RMIT is group work, or PLT (Productive Learning Team). This involves a 2500 word (for each member) report to write and also a mock class to deliver where we devise an activity suitable for year 9's or 10's and put it to the test by acting it out in 'teacher' role with our classmates. It needs to last approximately 30 minutes and has to be connected with the relevant Victorian curriculum documents. 

This is fine with me. I met and worked with some awesome people and I got exceptionally good grades for all my subjects. I'm not a shy or nervous person, so acting in front of my peers was something I really enjoyed, especially when constructive critisism is offered at the end by a group of classmates assessing us, and also by the lecturer who's been teaching for 30+ years.

I was assigned my new PLT today. IThey are assigned at random by picking colours out of a hat. Immensely stupid. Why they backed down on their promise to let us choose is beyond me. Anyway, our first task was to read 2 stacks of year seven reports and correct them so they could be used for discussion at pretend parent/teacher interview nights. One stack was really bad, that is, it was written poorly, didn't have enough evidence of the students' strengths/weaknesses and was written in too personal a style. The second batch were a great example for way too many reasons. 

Here's what went down....

All I did was ask one habitually untalkative woman if she could proof read one stack with this other girl in our group when she went off the handle, threw the papers on the table and acused me of being controlling. I said that I didn't care so much about controlling people or not and because I was nominated to be group leader,I assumed that delegating tasks to group members was part of  - if not the whole deal. Especially when she was sitting there and not doing anything while the rest of us were trying to get ourselves organised.

She then went on a spiel about being a mother and having childcare issues and that she didn't need to take orders from someone half her age and that she was leaving our group because I was being insensitive and unreasonable and had an attitude problem 'from the whole start' (LOL). 

My response was, 'I really don't know what I did and now I don't care; I don't really want to work with someone who can't tell the difference between being delegated a task and being controlled. You were sitting there doing nothing. What's your problem!!?? Are you insane or something??.' I turned my back on her and started to talk to the other people in our group who were sitting there, wide-eyed. I pretended she didn't exist and she started crying! yes people, she fucking started to cry in the class of 38 people and not just sobbing, but howling! 

Really surprised, I turned around and other people were comforting her and hugging her. Apparently her schizophrenic-ass younger brother in Turkey suicided out of a window.....


SNAP!!!...again.



We got nothing done and this is why I hate group work.

1 x nasi goreng (200g)
2 x spring rolls (10cm long, 3cm thick)
1 x lobak (fried tofu, spring onion and pork delight) 100g
4 x california rolls
1 x honey chicken balls with special fried rice 100g
2 x curry puffs
4 x samosas
1/2 x sweet and sour fish with rice 100g
1/2 x BBQ pork ribs with rice 100g
10,000000 types of dim sims...

Man I'm so sick of asian food right now......

Well, I started back at uni today and I managed to say the worst  thing I think has ever been said.  

It went a little something like this:

New Girl: ...WAIT!! - I'll describe the new girl and the situation first. I think it will make more sense to understand the context.

She had long dark hair tied in an elegant, shiny ponytail, orangey face of makeup, a Geelong football team scarf, designer jeans and some boring top and jacket. Whatever. She's from Geelong. 

We were waiting in front of the door for the lecturer to arrive. She's a mid-year intake and it was her first day so she's completely confused classroom wise, but she's also an extroverted-annoying-footy-jock-type, so she's talking to the girls (my friends from last semester), about footy teams and other boring shit when she says: (note - I put in blanks where sir-names/places that I can't be assed remembering belong.)

New Girl:         Are you from Geelong too?
Lauren:           Yeah, I'm from ____ street down____off  ____ road.
New Girl:         Do you barrock for Geelong too? *annoyingly tosses scarf over shoulder*
Lauren:           Yeah *nods*
Marina:            I don't follow football, I prefer soccer, It's more interesting a game, I think.
Me:                   Yeah, if I had to choose, I'd rather watch Soccer as well, or tennis... I guess.
Marina:            Yeah me too, I only watch it because my boyfriend does *rolls eyes* I got no choice!!
Me:                   *rolls eyes* (for other reasons)
New Girl:         (To Lauren, ignoring us): I know some current Geelong footy players!
Lauren:            (Appears disinterested but too polite to change the subject): Oh yeah, who?
New Girl:         Matty ______ and Steve_____, I've been to a few parties with those guys, jeeessssus, the
                          fun they liked to have! *raises eyebrows and smiles a horrible, smug smile*
Me:                   What? did they rape some girls or something?? *looks around smugly waiting for the
                          laughs to come rolling in. They don't*

SNAP.



New Word Time!:  Dontopedalogy: The art of putting one's foot into one's mouth.

I just worked out on my parents awesome gym equipment for over 2 hours and I didn't faint or die. I still have smokers' lung residue coughing going on and walking up the revolver stairs the other week really tested me but it's slowly getting better.

10 of the best songs for treadmill/walking/running/high intensity exercise - not in any particular order:

1.   Megalomaniac - KMFDM
2.   Music is the Victim - Scissor Sisters
3.   Plug it In  - Basement Jaxx
4.   Mythtakes - !!!
5.   It's Like That - Run DMC (Jason Nevins remix)
6.   Fasten your Seatbelt - Pendulum
7.   Strict Machine - Goldfrapp
8.   Summer Smoke - Girl Talk
9.   Friday Night - Girl Talk
10. Another Excuse -  Soulwax

I could eat a horse right now...

I am in love with:

 - Slowdive
 - Rumskib
 - Pinback
 - Cocteau Twins
 - The Shins

Also, I'm pretty pissed at the smoking bans. Surprised that I'm not as much a reformed asshole as you thought? Initially, I was undecided because I quit nearly 2 years ago and really do hate the way it soaks into my skin/hair/face, however, I don't think it's fair for the Government to tell places of entertainment and leisure how to run their businesses, especially when their main clientelle are smokers. I guess I like the idea of free choice over smoke in the face.

I think free choice is really all that matters sometimes. I really do need to stop reading governmental party policies online. It's doing my head in.

I need ideas on how to save cash. Apart from snacky Asian Box Hill food and things*, all my money seems to disappear. It's weird because according to centrelink, I have been earning too much at the office and retail to get anything off them (I've been doing extra stuff whilst on holidays), so I don't know where it's all going!

Also, I spent the whole day cleaning out my room. It's amazing how much shit I have collected since the last major clean out. From memory, I donated to Savers:

 - 6 x extra large garbage bags of pre-loved clothes/shoes. I really hearted them, but they had to go *sob* :( I'm no fashionista but I don't think platform sneakers are... okay anymore. I won't mention what colour they were.

 - 4 smallish bags of 'papery' stuff - I threw out all my diaries. I was going to burn them, but I thought that would be too excessive (I still live with my parents, as you know), and I'm not really a fan of  D-I-Y fires in the outer suburbs. Cops are all upons - belee dat!

 - 10 Safeway green bags full of... junk. For example: a chipped ceramic oil burner + bottles of encrusted oils, some gold plated clip-on earrings, tin money boxes that have the actual note patterns printed on them - yes, you know which ones!, seashells in a jar + bonus mould!!, a shoebox full of plastic coloured paperclips bent into hearts, 10,000 assorted pens that don't work, small bottles of congealed perfume from when I was 12, old empty glass bottles of Southern Comfort, and the list goes on.

So, it was really surprising that 6 months later, I ended up with a similar amount of crap. WTF??

I'll finish with a funny quote by comedic genius, George Carlin: "You know, I've never slept with a ten, but one night, I slept with five two's! is that the same thing?"



*includes: clothes, beer, spirits, unwanted cakes.

Enough said...sigh. I'll just wait for the film. If there isn't one, I'll be very very angry.

In other breaking news, I made a pumpkin soup for my parents. It is really runny and hence quite shit. They ate it and I could tell they were totally hating on it as much as I was. HUFF.

While this mood progresses for the worse, isn't it annoying when you've been really close friends with someone for over 12 years and they get married, give birth and just kinda refuse to socialise anymore. Isn't it weird when you have constantly tried to call them, invite them out and include them in activities they may be interested in (even post birth), and they JUST DON'T RESPOND! I know, I know, I should be over it, I have great friends at the moment but I can't let it go...

That's what I get for looking at silly old photos. Nostalgia = gay.