DO NOT LEAVE ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT LYING AROUND

This all dates from last year. Just found it looking through a few photos. They tell the story.












Ok... this is me telling my daughter to quit taking photos of me. She was five at the time. There are far, far less flattering photos of me.

Once More with Feeling

This is the speech I made at the Year Nine Graduation Night tonight. I was the keynote speaker. Often with these things they go for a long time and, while important, can get a bit much for parents. As beliefs and values manager I wanted to do something people weren’t anticipating. The entire speech was done with a Scottish accent. It worked so well the Principal told of an English couple who exclaimed that they hadn’t realized that I was Scottish. He took great pleasure in telling them that I wasn’t. Yep… it was a huge risk but I think we pulled it off. It ends with a Flashdance routine. Seriously.


I’d like to thank Miss O’Leary for the opportunity to speak to everyone, it is a privilege for you to be able to listen to the sound of my voice tonight.

I wanted to do something a bit different to what you’re perhaps used to … so I asked Miss O’Leary: do you think I could dance for them tonight – interpretive dance of 1 Corinthians Chapter 13…. but she thought better of it. Alarms the parents.
And so I thought I’d let you in on a couple of secrets about my self… something of my past, something of where I come from, and how I got here.

A lot of students ask me “Mr. Limb… why did you choose to become a priest?”
Well, for a start there’s a couple of things to clear up. Number One… I’m not a priest, and number two it’s Mrs….

Well, the question gives me pause to think about my time as a young person in Scotland. We didn’t have all the advantages that you have, for example there were no lights in the halls we had to meet in. They were cold and damp and they had tonnes of old people – called teachers – they weren’t the sexy young things that are surrounding you here tonight. And you could see these old folk drifting around in the murky darkness. They used to scare the daylights out of me, you could never pick where they would pop up.
“Limb! What are you doing here?”
“Havin a heart attack… I thought I was being attacked by a giant stick o’ leather or the undead.”
They weren’t particularly fast, but then they didn’t have to be it was dark even in the middle of the day.

And the reigns that we used to have in Scotland… let me tell you about the reigns. From 7.30am till 6 o’clock in the evening we would have to wear reigns like a horse until we were 6 years old. It was terrible, the metal bits they used to put in your mouth would chip your teeth – and all of us had these badly chipped wee milk teeth, it was good for tourism though – we’d bear our teeth at tourists and play village of the damned on Friday nights.

On weekends we would be yoked to ploughs were we would work the fields, for we’d eaten all the horses. But we kept up our spirits, of course the longer we kept up our spirits, the more crooked the lines we ploughed became.

And so when we were old enough we were boxed up and sent to boarding school. It was awful being put in those boxes. There wasn’t much room to move, and then once they started moving us our food would go everywhere. And then, when you need to go to the toilet… well lets just say it got a wee bit confusing as to what was what. It was a bit frightening at first, but once we learnt we could look through the air holes and other such luxuries it gave us the giddy sense of freedom. At one point in the journey some of us ended up in the same post office – that was great. We’d whisper to one another,
“Edwards…. What are you doing?”
“Nothin’ what are you doing…?”
“Nothing (pause) hey Edwards do you want to set fire to something?”
“Yes!” (kind of like a ‘hell yes’)
“Do you have any matches?”
“No…. do you?”
“No”
“Is your cardboard wet?”
And to think, all that combustible material…..

One of my friends, Warren, his parents put the wrong address on his box and he wound up in Switzerland. He told us that there are no old people there, they chased them off the mountains. And he also got a Swiss Army Knife. Let me tell you that came in useful during our school years and we were attacked by bears. We’re the reason why there are no more bears in Scotland.

There was one thing I hated about Boarding school more than anything else. And people talk about boarding school – all the horrors they had to face. But there was one horror more horrible than all the other horrors out together to create the horrible of all horribles.

(whisper) It was the dancing.

After being soundly whipped, so we’d pay attention to the lessons about love and grace, we were taken to this great big hall with wooden floors. It was dark and then something moved off in the gloom. Warren leaned over to me, “It’s an old person”
“Nah,” I said, “it’s moving too quickly… it something else”.
Then we saw this… glow. This tiny red glow getting closer and closer. And then behind the little red glow, a enormous shadow loomed. It was the biggest nun I had ever seen in me life. And I’ll never forget what she said that first time we met her… as she took a drag on her Cigarette.
(Burlesque American accent) “ Life is going to throw some nasty things at ya boys. If you’re to get through life…. You’re going to have to be able to (do a dance move) dance. You see, dancing is the antidote to life’s miseries. Sadness – Happiness. Tears – Smiling, Fear – Courage.”. Well, I fairly filled my pants. AND then she danced like we’d never seen dancing before. And her cigarette lit up the darkness like a neon light – forming words as she moved about.…. Faith… Hope …. Love
I remember Warren looking at me… “ She’s not bad”
“I’ve seen better”
“What? Dancing?”
“Oh… I thought…her teeth… yeah, no she’s really good at dancing”

So the nun, Bertha, along with some other nuns, taught us to dance. Days, turned to weeks, weeks turned into months, and the months became a year. And then we were ready to tour. We were called “Bertha and the Nunettes” It was exciting at first, going to all those exotic places. Glasgow, Edinborough, London, Paris, Phuket. But then, when we got older we saw it for what it was. The mockeries from other school children who were taken to see us perform, as an example of what dancing could mean. far from being impressed they would yell out insults – “dance little nun boys”, “shake ya habit”, and the most savage of all, “hey look, dancing”. Well Warren had a shocking temper and he would just …explode – it was like fight club in tap shoes – but ultimately it was through those children that we saw what we really had become.

The word that began to circulate amongst us was… Exploitation with a distinctive Latino feel. … Soon the strain began to show. The late nights, show after show after show, the only relaxation that was allowed was Peter Allen videos. Peter Allen videos?!?

And then one night it all went horribly wrong. One of the stage managers left his pipe and matches back stage. Edwards got a hold of them. Bertha was out doing her opening routine with the other nuns “Come here all ye faithful or you’ll get yours”. Warren dared Edwards to flick a match onto the stage. The first match went up, a tiny symbol of dissention, of resistance, but Bertha’s tap shoe snuffed that out before anything could happen. One of the other nun’s saw us out of the corner of her eye and rushed across the stage when unfortunately the hem of her garment caught a stage light.

Now these stage lights were so hot that moths would evaporate if they ever danced across that beam of light. One time a circus troop lost all its poodles and ponies because they got too close to those lights. The smell was reported to be terrible. Well, this nun went up in a shrieking pillar of smoke and fire. And nun after nun burst into fire as they came in contact with one another. But as consummate performers they threw themselves into the act. They were like fiery stars in heaven. Dancing fiery nuns. The crowd went nuts, standing, cheering… applauding. And us boys learnt what commitment was.

Warren looked at me and Edwards and said – “You know what this means?” “Yeah”, I said, “the nuns have taken to wearing a polyester nylon mix– if only it were wool…. If only if were wool.”

We were all taken into custody. And we were told that we had a choice. You could either do time, or you could be sent down to Australia. I begged and I pleaded. “Please, please lock me up forever and throw away the key, just don’t send to that terrible, terrible place.”
Father Allen stopped me, sent all the others out of the room and leaned in close.
“Oh no Limb, we’ve got something special for you. You are going to where you won’t be coming back… a place we’ve arranged a rather special job for you so you can atone for all your sins.”

And now here I stand before you looking at your faces. The story finally told… of how it was that I became the Beliefs and Values manager. Each one a little punishment for all the sins of my past.

And sometimes, when I’m weary from another day of working at Carey Baptist College I will close my tired eyes and see Bertha -dancing in the gloom and the words lighting up the darkness. Faith, Hope ….Love.

To close (taking maracas from podium) I would like to do a brief interpretive dance. Flashdance music – “What a feeling” begins to play as I slow raise maracas into the air. I queued Nat (Year Nine Manager) to briskly arrive on stage and escort me off.

Blogging: Fun and exciting new experience may end in tears...and fire

Holy COW!!!!! Thought I'd have to donate an organ to get this entry in tonight.... all that google stuff.

There have been so many moments this last couple of weeks where I have gone – that should go in my blog…. That really needs to go in my blog…. Oh… that has to go in my blog. And so what went in my blog? – Nadda. Zip. Zero. Just this, the ultimate in emptiness; telling no-one about nothing.

Got a bit of an alarm last week when a guy I know who is a youth pastor made a couple of comments in his blog that went down like the Hindenburg. He got absolutely slaughtered by all these ‘anonymous’ entries who actually know him. It was a mess – admittedly I doubt he should have shot his mouth off about as much as he did in a blog attached to the Youth Group Website that he was overseeing. It was like a fight I saw many years ago when this guy couldn’t work out what was going on because people were taking pot shots every time he turned around to confront the coward who had hit him in the back. Once again the guy had asked for it, but nevertheless it was disturbing to see what people will do if they think they won’t be held accountable.

So…. Yes….

It made me wonder about doing this blog because I hold a fairly significant position. A position where, if I shot my mouth off, (which I can tend to) about matters where I really don’t know a lot about (which I tend to) involving people who don’t really need another person throwing in their observations (which I tend to do)… where the heck was I going with that…. Even as I read back over that I can’t remember my point. Something about being nice to the other kids. Everything… I… say… is …. in ….writing…. need …. to…. be….careful….because… it … is …. in …..writing…. can’t… do… much… when… people… have… it… in… writing.

Look, in case you are reading this and it has dawned on you that there was really no point to this – fear not! We simply call it ‘Post Modernist’ and hey presto, there’s a point in not having a point. Brilliant! Conceited and utterly pointless. And by putting the word ‘brilliant’ with an exclamation mark, people will be rushing to agree – too scared to stop and say, “Um… I don’t get what it is that was so brilliant.”
To which we say “Ah…. That’s because you are not educated.”
They will say… “…yes… I ….” And hang their head in uneducated shame. Of course if they are educated they will stalk away to their red wine, and pointlessness. Ah…. Post Modernity. The truly hip will renounce me for even referring to Post Modernity – because it is soooooooo yesteryear.

See…. Things you would never risk putting in print and do…. Blogging.

Hey and if you read this leave a comment. Someone told me they left a comment but it didn't show up. Email if it doesn't show: limbidgit@hotmail.com

Thecollective hole in the donkey

Made…. It ….. through… another……. Tuesday…..(cough) Staggers through door, reaching for a chair but misses and lands in a shower of dust on the floor. His eyes are open…. Then…. Nothing.

Tuesdays are my ‘I quit’ days. These start innocently enough with my Year Sevens. This morning I was a tad late and they were already in tearing up the place. There were a couple of girls running around the room, another couple were up at the whiteboard trying to write with a bloodied finger (I think) and then a bunch of guys were fighting over the furniture. It was chaos. I yelled at them like a drill sergeant and threw them all out of the room. Except the throwing was relatively short lived because yet another bunch of guys thought it would be hilarious to stop everyone from leaving the room. So, instead of stopping the mass continued to move forward, creating a tangle of humanity that continued to mount up around the door until the little one’s bones began to snap and the screaming began. This is the point at which I want to use expletives – to really let rip and say awful, awful things about people’s mothers and the holes in their donkeys.

This was the first minute and a half of class. I turned to find the deputy principal standing there. This is where you want to point out to her that, “actually this is part of my lesson plan, it’s a community project which allows for individual expression as part of…..
(I reassess)

….Actually, this is the result of a crap classroom which is too narrow and entirely made of metal which I suspect has magnetic properties because the TV ends up with purple in one corner and is almost unwatchable and the whole shebang sounds a lot louder than it actually is, the room, not the TV, and it makes me sound like a crap teacher. Loud classes = useless teacher. I’m not complaining, because I know in some countries these kids would be employed as child soldiers…

3 minutes of class have gone by as I stare at the Deputy as her lips move in slow motion. She wants me to grab a particular student out of the mash of humanity building up behind me.

I get everyone in and they’re seated. Then I threaten to kill them. Like, dead. Someone puts up their hand and asks why the Palestinians and the Israelis can’t just be friends. I explain. The lesson is a success.

Next lesson. Year Eights. Same again, but this time with attitude. We talk about communication skills. I do this particular lesson a total of three times, three different classes. Each class progressively worse as I get more and more worn out.

I stop for lunch then address a Year Nine assembly about why calling each others hoes and other terms of address isn’t really great. I get to say crap and hoe. I finish the day with my last group of eights and we talk about the most horrific accidents we’ve witnessed.

Then we wash the rest of the day away with a staff meeting where the Principal announces that as part of the end of year staff event we will go Lawn Bowling. Lawn …. Bowling. An alarming number of staff turn to see my reaction. I mime blowing my brains out.

I can't write at the moment except that I am actually writing. I do wonder what the point of all this is. Like who gives a flying fig what I think - really. If I were reading a blog what would I look for?

Well, for a start, a perspective on something I was interested in. Something that had some sort of insight about a matter I cared about. Perspectives on a film. Reflections by an actor. Something a journalist is considering behind the scenes. I am interested in writing, not because I like writing, but I love stories - I try to avoid the stories because it sounds a bit… lame, I prefer to call them narratives. Let’s face it though – it’s a big person’s word for story time.

Narrative lets you encounter a range of things. As I write what comes to mind is that it lets you revisit emotions that you've had in the past, it lets you experience them in a safe environment. I recall that this was the reason why the ancient Greeks loved their tragedies. They wanted to experience the feeling of loss without having to experience actual loss. This was something that the writer of the particular article found deplorable. At the time I agreed, but now days, I think - isn't that a bit judgmental? The tragedies allowed for the viewers to participate in the spectacle, but it wouldn't have been the only thing that they brought away with them.

Tan and I are watching Battlestar Galactica at the moment and loving it. I think it succeeds where Star Wars ended up failing. Well, it doesn't make merchandising a deciding factor in terms of what you put up on the screen. But putting that aside it succeeds because it explores the nature of relationships, the dynamics of our decisions in the many places we occupy in our lives. What it is to be in a position of authority, trusting those in a position of authority, the experience of being a son, a daughter, a friend, a lover - all these things are done so well. It actually uses the genre of Science Fiction well, the main ingredients are there, not least of which is the theme of the human race over-reaching itself. The essentials of being a human – that even in the face of extinction we still fight and betray, that we can be petty and that ultimately the enemy will always be us. A theme explored by having the enemies, the Cylons, actually look like us – imperceptibly different save a synthetic compound in their ‘blood’ that is almost impossible to detect. I could go on… but I need to get onto death.

At the cemetery yesterday I came across an old tombstone shaped like an open book. On the left hand side was the faded insignia of a husband that was loved and missed by his wife - I don't remember if there were children. He died in the 1940s in his early 60s.

The other side was blank.

It looked strange seeing something so old, so faded, waiting like a fresh page forgotten. It was like he had been left at the station. His wife never came. What happened to her? Surely she was dead, there is no way that she is still alive. Did she remarry? Did she return to a home over seas? Did she really not love him? That empty page strikes me, the waiting....

Outside it is raining in the darkness and this seems more appropriate to this memory of a blank tombstone than the sun and warmth of when I encountered this grave stone

I think about that, I think about loss and waiting and expecting. Sometimes the days can seem like a production line, our obligation to stand as the mundane and the ritual of it all pass in succession with each hour. Not sure what it is I expect. I'm not unhappy. But there is an emotion or a feeling that is sitting in my chest - it's a constriction, it doesn't hurt but sometimes it flares and it feels... like if I were to yell it out my voice would be too small.

There are lines all around my life, like fences on properties. There are roads between the fences and the properties and I walk them everyday. I dare not deviate from them. I remember feeling that years ago driving to and from the school where I was a relief teacher. Thinking that I should pull over and go for a walk in a park before I got home.

To stop every so often and savor life.

There was a costal freeway, I remember reading about once, and on it there were signs telling people not to pull over to watch the whales. Sure enough it may cause an accident, but what an opportunity at sunset and that every so often someone out of the thousands that pass by there everyday would stop and risk their safety to experience that sight. Would we enjoy cooking if it didn’t smell so good? We have to eat, but it’s the pleasure involved that makes life worth living.

The Macabre - It's spelt like a dance

Tomorrow I'm running a seminar for the Year 11s at the school where I teach. Actually, it won't be at school - rather it will be at Karrakatta Cemetary. Why? I hear nobody ask.... Because we don't want our teens to drive into trees, have reckless sex and become accountants as a result of the misconception that they are impervious to death.

Yes... it sounds macabre... but that's not all - then we look at birth. The birth bit is to give them hope. We bring in a Mid Wife who's been in the job for 25 year AND SHE LETS THEM HAVE IT. No, she's very sweet and talks about.... birth.

Look, just read this stuff I've got from Alan De Botton, he puts it into perspective.

The ancient Greek Herodotus writes about an interesting custom practiced by Egyptians at their grandest social gatherings, feasts and picnics. When guests were at their most exuberant, their thoughts focused upon pleasure and power, servants would pass between the tables carrying skeletons on stretchers.

The ritual was to remind party goers vividly of their mortality

It might seem unnecessarily grim to turn our thoughts to death, but doing so might be the fastest way we have of dispelling any worries we have about status.

Nothing helps us sort out our priorities as much in life.

The effect of the thought of death can be to lead us towards what we most value and at the same time to encourage us to pay less attention to the views of other people. Other people will not after all have to do the dying for us.

The prospect of our own extinction may lead us to take more seriously what we most value in our hearts

The contemplation of death has a long history in western art. Vanitas paintings were hugely popular in the 17th century (1600s) Hung in domestic environments – studies or bedrooms

New found wealth resulted in this work – A skull and Hourglass were set in the middle of a bunch of trinkets and fun things and things of values – along with the Latin “Death always wins”

It wasn’t leave the owners depressed about the vanity of all things but rather to make them bold to find fault with specific aspects of their experience, and to urge them to attend more seriously to the virtues of love, goodness, sincerity, humility and kindness

YOOOOOUR MUM!

Look this has a spoiler alert. So if you want to watch Code 46 don't read this. Having read this, you won't want to watch Code 46 any way. So onto the task at hand. This is the second Winterbottom I have seen. It’s highly likely I won’t watch a third. I have Megan Spencer from the film review segment on JJJ to thank for watching this. I like Megan, so I won’t hold it her against her. Actually, I think to be fair she said there was plenty going for it, some good ideas, but it left her a bit ambivalent. I think. I think she might have said that. Watched Code 46 tonight, it's one of those films I felt sorry for - a lot of money spent on it, big name stars and an attempt to make a sci fi film that isn't glitzy and over the top. It did raise some emotion in me but not quite enough to check my brain at the door. You're sort of sucked along and then HELLO he just had sex with WHO? People just didn't like it. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 51% . Nik Huggins from http://www.futuremovies.co.uk/review.asp?ID=243 sums it all up pretty well: Code 46 seeks a kind of geography of the body and mind in its central relationship to burn brightly amidst the shackling hegemony of this anonymous future world. Unfortunately the lack of on screen chemistry between Robbins and Morton crucially lets the dramatic element of the film down and thus reduces the entire enterprise to little more than a sumptuous mood piece. There isn’t enough at stake emotionally to draw you into the story and the relationship becomes lost and confused amidst the awesome visual scale. High on atmosphere, low on drama, Code 46 washes pleasantly across the senses, and remains a rewarding viewing experience, but in the end it’s little more than an exquisitely crafted travelogue laced with an overwhelming sense of missed opportunity. I would have to agree with this assessment. I think further to this - if you want to create an empathy with the audience, why the hell have the character married, and totally cheating on his wife? Sure, they did that in The Bridges of Madison County - and people lapped that up (even though that wasn't Merryl Streep's naked body) Yep... and Clint Eastwood wasn't making whoopee with his mum. WITH HIS MUM. Sure, if you're going to start playing with taboos like sleeping with your mother why hold back - but if you are going to create a film that rings true with the audience at some level, surely create a character we can empathize with. Usually films manipulate us to think the wife is an emotionally black hole and then we sort of see our way round to saying.... "Yeah.... yeah, don't agree with it but I can understand why...." Like Walk the Line. They did that in Walk the Line and we lapped that up. Actually I saw that and went "Uh Oh.... " I found myself musing at William Geld's (Robbins) increasingly outlandish behavior (and yes - I did make the link to the empathy bacteria he had) and wondering why reason didn't prevail. Even if his emotions were riding him strong, his sense of "CRAP - I can't get home to his family" would knock him out of careering off into the desert with his floozy. Hey... maybe careering out in to the desert with his floozy would do it - didn't though. Ultimately the film failed with me because I just couldn't see the warning Winterbottom was presenting us with. Holy Cow in the future a computer system called the Sphinx will use DNA to stop you cheating on your wife and sleeping with a woman that shares the exact same DNA sequencing as your mum, in fact a clone of your mum. And stopping all that from happening is bad because........ well, because it's romantic and wistful to leave your central character totally screwed over living out in the desert on the bare bones of her arse. That's no way to treat your mum.

SONOFA.....

Just flippin lost a post I have worked on for... a while - like I wrote what I thought was a great piece and then it just.... went.

So much for "Well, I'm going to have another go at this..cept this time I won't be so pretentious... and I hope that I spelt that right... because pretention is worse when you can't spell...

so yeah it was like my come back tour only to have the band go up in smoke.

Anyway....

this is so no one thinks I'm dead or worse... giving up.
Which I kind of did.

Superheroes arn't as practical as I once thought

Sometimes I write stuff that has no useful place in the known universe.

Until now...

Transcript of Police Interview
Date: 15/2/04

Suspect Warren Troy

Troy: Then he steps up onto the ledge of the apartment block and as he goes to leave I said, "Hey, thanks for saving me." Then he goes "Anytime you're in Gotham you're…" but he stood on something loose and it just broke off, and he was gone. And there was this thwack, like…. I don't know... a watermelon hitting a car…

Officer 1: How did you know this?

Troy: What?

Officer 1: How do you know what a watermelon sounds like when it hits a car?

Troy: Oh… I don't. I guess he just sounded like a guy falling fifteen floors in a latex and rubber suit. Anyway I looked over and he's just laying there all sprawled out like a puppet when you cut his strings.

Officer 2: What strings?

Troy: You know, puppet strings.

Officer 1: You were talking to a puppet?

Troy: What?

Officer 1: You were having a talk to a puppet after it saved you?

Troy: No, I’m just trying to explain the picture to you. He looked like a puppet when you cut it’s strings, it just lays there all twisted and bent.

Officer1: Puppets don’t have strings

Officer 2: That's correct. Puppets don’t have strings. They’re like hand puppets. The man puts his hand up the puppet – they don’t use strings

Troy: That's not correct. Look... look... the guy looked like scribble, okay? Human scribble in a bat suit? So I call out...

Officer 2: Hang on... just...does puppet have one 'p' or two?

Officer 1: Just the one.

Officer 2:....

Officer 2:.... alright, continue.

Troy: So I call out... "Hey mister… hey Mister are you okay? Hey! Are you….” And I just stare and he's lying there looking, I don't know… pathetic... I felt sorry for him. Like, he's this big crime fighter, putting terror into the hearts of criminals and he's just lying there. He looked ridiculous… why would an adult do that? Dress up like that? Restricting your vision so that you fall off a flipping building, it was sad.

Officer 1: And was there anyone else?

Troy: Yeah…. then this kid comes out, looking really stupid in a yellow cape and a little black mask and green boots

Officer:1 Green boots?

Troy: You stop me at green boots? And he looks at him and then looks up and starts screaming at me. "You killed him, you killed batman"

Officer 1: Batman.

Troy: Yep. Batman.

Officer 1: The little boy in the red boots.

Troy: Green.. he was in green boots. That’s what he said. “You killed Batman.”

Officer2: That sounds like a confession.

Troy: No… that’s what the kid said. And I'm like, looking around going, "no, he fell… he fell off!"

Officer 1: So you’re saying he just fell off.

Troy: Yeah…but the kid was screaming at me. He reaches for the guy’s belt all the time yelling and yelling, clearly not paying enough attention to whatever he was trying to do. Then suddenly there's this little pop and all this yellow smoke, real weird colour, came hissing out everywhere. Then he's just rolling and screaming, reaching out at nothing…. It was horrible.

Officer 1: So what did you do then?

Troy: I …well.. I pushed the guy on the roof off.

Officer: What?

Troy: The guy who tried to mug me? Yeah, I thought, ‘Man, whose going to protect me when he wakes up?’ So…he was really heavy but I managed to get him off the roof.

Officer 1: And what sort of sound did he make?

Troy: The sort of sound you hear when 110 kilograms of adult male falls on a kid in a yellow cape and green shoes.

He has nothing to say...nothing

The most recent Blogs are at the bottom of the page. So scan down to the bottom of the page for the latest entries.


I have a couple of people to acknowledge for the existence of this... weblog. First, Lincoln, he has been doing this thing for a bit and while I've always been intrigued by blogs, he's the first person I know well who has a blog. A student of mine from some time back keeps a blog - but I've forgotten the site.


The other person to acknowledge is the enigmatic Panda. That's not actually her name, like it's not "Enigmatic Panda". It's Just Panda. She put a spin on the whole 'Blog' thing that just blew my mind. She inadvertantly encouraged me to look into all of tis a bit deeper and what I found really... well, it's huge. Some have some terribly important things to say, some have some have absolutely nothing to say.

I figured, I've got nothing to say too.

And by jingo, I'm going to say it. Softly at first, but then louder and louder until others catch the cry, and they will then cry out with one accord,

"HE HAS NOTHING TO SAY..... NOTHING" except there will be one guy and he will say "NOTHING" just out of time with everone else.

So yeah... I was talking about Panda.

(Awkward pause)

That reminds me of a story. Pandas look cute and cuddly but there was this tourist guy, in China, where Panda's are native (actually where the Chinese are native as well, which probably negates the whole tourist guy thing I just wrote) and he figured he'd climb into the Panda enclosure and give it a hug. The Panda took exception to the guy. The guy and the hug. The guy and the hug and his camera. The guy and the hug and his camera and his arm. Suufice to say the man parted ways with his arm with a little help from the Panda, and with a little further encouragement, his life. Wild animals are real funny about personal space. Nasty. Nasty Panda. The Chinese guy hugging the Panda went right round the world. Something to encoourage people NOT to do. If it's in an enclosure, they spent all that money for a reason. You know, and I know this is probably not the right thing to say, but people who hug wild animals get what they deserve. It's Mother Nature's way of culling those who shouldn't really be contributing to the gene pool. Take the Grizzly Man. The Bears certainly did. Hope his mum never reads this.
I tried to find a link to the news story, but to no avail. Instead check out this link and enjoy watching a hunter getting the crap knocked out of him by an angry deer. You will have to scan down the page a tad to find the link.

And just to make it crystal clear, Panda is not a real Panda. She works in a book shop and that's how I met her. Through that shop I bought a copy of the book Barons to Bloggers: Confronting Media Power. The blurg on the book summed up the importance of the whole blog thing:

Whatever one thinks of Rupert Murdoch or his ethics, when a mogul of his stature stands on a public platform and predicts the end of God-like media figures telling people what's important, you begin to realise that there's something seismic going on in the world of communications. Seismic, but unpredictable. -

Eric Beecher, Publisher,

crikey.com.au

The picture of the Panda? This is a dramatic reconstruction of events leading up to the attack. Note the constricted pupils, a dead give-away that Pandas are about to attack. That and the screams from the people on the other side of the enclosure.

Teaching and Terrorists

Well, it’s the second post and the feedback hasn’t been glowing.

Panda didn’t have much to say other than make the astonishing observation that my blog could be called “Just in limbo”.

In all my life no-one has put that sentence together. Suffice to say my wife was very impressed. Panda, very sharp girl. By the way did I mention she attacked a Chinese tourist, took his arm right off. Terrible.

Linc thought I had been taken over by some sort of alien life form. He actually asked me that. He suggested that I write in English. I spouted all this crap justifying the disaster by claiming that my first blog was a critique of the two extremes of blogging. Which it was, but you know I had to explain that so.... yeah, it failed.

Sigh.

So… Part Two.

I work with teenagers, I am a teacher. I won’t tell you what I teach, we can work up to that later, although I can tell you that I’m not a manual arts teacher – so I don’t make bombs.

There are moments that, well, leave you gob-smacked. Not because of how jaw droppingly naïve the individual is, but how much physical danger they put themselves in. Mainly from me.

I’m not really a person to upset.

I’m not a fan of smiling sweetly at a cheap shot made by a kid; placing my finger on my chin with arms folded in thoughtful repose and pointing out the error of their ways.

No.

I want a big messy pile of blood, gore and carbon left where I’ve struck.

I don’t believe in yelling though.

Yelling at a student leaves you with no place to go. You impress no one. You’ve got to leave them with the distinct impression that something terrifying lurks beneath your restraint. Something that requires a parole officer to check up on you each night at 6pm. Yelling just makes you look like an imbecile – all that teeth and spit, and then you loose the faculty for lucid speech so your witty retort comes out so far short of what you wanted.

For example, here’s a transcript of typical midmorning English classroom incident:

Teacher: I’VE ASKED YOU REPEATEDLY TO GET YOUR WORK OUT AND STOP TALKING!

Jinny: (gums slapping with the chewing of gum) I wasn’t talking.

Teacher: RIGHT! I’VE TOLD YOU!

Jinny: (gum makes strange little popping noises) But I wasn’t talking, that was Sharron!

With eyes blazing you turn on Sharron. Sharron is colouring-in her pencil case and could care a tiny bit less than zero that you exist. She casually turns to talk to her friend you’ve been remonstrating with and begins to continue her point about Barrie or Bescuit or whatever his damn new age sensitive mispelt name is when you actually interrupt her. Needless to say she exhibits her annoyance with the roll of her heavily made up eyes.

You can’t remember what happened next. Except you play it back in your head and you seem to have come across like a children’s television co-host with your arms outstretched pretending to be a bear. And yelling. Lots of yelling. And there’s makeup and blood all over your hands.

We put more and more restrictions and demands on teachers and then wonder why the only people teaching are those who are out of their mind, trapped or just can’t find other work – the shortage of teachers makes schools even more desperate and prepared to employ people who don’t brush their hair in the morning.

Having said that there are good days. Don’t let me put you off teaching. Just go in with your eyes wide open and the safety off your Glock.