A Lesson In How To Ignite Their Gasps

Currently as I write this I have year nine exam supervision. I hate exams. Really, really hate them. Nevertheless I have to tow the line in terms of being a demonstrative bastard.

The students come tumbling into the room and one of them cheerfully greets me. “GET OUT OF THE ROOM” I roar at him. Then without changing pitch or volume I instruct all of them that any talking will result in them being thrown out of the room. The great thing at the moment is I’ve got a mild cold that makes me sound like a chronic smoker so my voice is particularly shattering when uttered with any volume. Upon reflection it was probably a little bit much, nevertheless I wanted students to have the notion absolutely crystal clear that exams are not environments in which one should have a happy go lucky approach. Least ways have any ideas in your head that you can chat. Police pull people over, teachers have exams, it's just the way things are.

What isn’t helping is that I’ve got a really high blood sugar at the moment. As a diabetic a high blood sugar can make you somewhat easy to irritate. It is hard to convey, but imagine being cut off in traffic. Someone cuts you off in traffic and gives you the bird. That feeling right there, that’s what everything feels like. Take for example the fact there were no tissues in the exam. It’s a simple mistake, in fact you couldn’t even really in all fairness call it a mistake. There are simply no tissues in the room. Ordinarily you would smile graciously to the child requesting the absent tissues, politely lean out the door. Upon seeing there was no-one outside the room to assist you quietly inform the student that there weren’t any tissues and that if they just waited a couple of minutes there would be enough tissues to stuff a mattress. I would chuckle, sigh, put my hands on my hips and cock my head to one side with a wink. That particular scenario with a high blood sugar evokes a response from me that would be on a par with insulting a Europeans’ mother. The absence of tissues is a personal affront. It would be like setting my dog on fire. Personal. Affront.

A student puts up their hand and requested a tissue. I quickly scan the room. No tissues. I step backward out the door. No floater. A floater incidentally is a staff member who hangs about outside the room to assist teachers in the classroom with requests pertaining to things like tissues. I waited. The sounds coming from the waiting student continued to bubble and hiss. I glare at the student – there are other ways to resolve this. I pause and think better of it. No floater. I leave the exam and storm across the foyer into the English staff room and explode upon the teacher standing there. “Where’s the frigging floater? I need some tissues!”
“Why, that’s alliteration!”
I stare. A moment passes and then I flick the back of her head so that her face smashes into the table she’s sitting at.”
A male staff member offers the following comment much like I imagine a Lewis Carroll character would speak. “The floater’s meant to be sitting out in the foyer.”
I grab his elbow and hurry the him over to the filing cabinet, open a draw and slam his fingers firmly. “I know that, I know the floater is supposed to be sitting in the foyer. But they’re not. They are not sitting there. They are gone.”
Slowly, with trembling hands he hands me a box of tissues.
I re-enter the room and hurl the box at the student, killing him instantly. He bubbles and churns, like a snail frothing to death. That by the way is a simile. The children gasp. Gasping. Hate gasping. Probably a little bit more than exams. I make my way to the groundsman’s office. The gasoline is easy to find. Back in the exam I start to empty the contents on the floor. Shaking the tin wildly above my head.The world about me shimmers. Stepping back I draw on my cigarette and explain apologetically – no gasping in exams. The cigarette is flicked John Woo style into the air igniting their gasps.

I blink. The room smells like hair conditioner and students. The occasional one yawns. Time passes.

On another note – another Zac story. Zac and Tan are shopping. They pass a woman in a full burhka and Zac excitedly points out to Tanya – “Mum, I just saw a real Ninja.” Made his day, to see a Ninja out at the shops.


This goes for nine minutes, so only if you have time. I've heard about it over the years and remember it in the media at the time, but boy, does Safran have nerve.

The Mirror

The thing that concerns me the most about living in a bureaucracy is that you could very well end up where you don't want to. Often in a bureaucracy there are forms to fill in. While at first these forms appear to have a variety of boxes to tick giving us what appears to be innumerable choices on closer inspection, (or in the event you actually fill in of these forms) you realise that you don't really fit into the descriptions provided. There's not actually that much choice. No big deal. No big deal until you wind up dead that is. Then it is a big deal. Obviously not to you, but to everyone else. Hopefully.

I get nervous filling out organ donor information when reapplying for my driver's license. As a diabetic I kind of wonder who the hell would want my organs anyway. It’s not like there’s anything wrong with them. Not that I’m aware of. But I could imagine that’s there’s a little bit more wear and tear on them. Perhaps it’s not even that, maybe it’s the thought that the recipient would be told, “By the way your heart belonged to a diabetic.”

“A diabetic? So… why do I get the heart of the diabetic… like they can’t even get life insurance… why would anyone want their heart?”

“Look do you want the heart or not… it’s got 10 maybe 20 good years left in it… how much did your heart have left? A week, week an a half?”

“I guess… I just… I just hoped I’d get like, you know an athlete’s heart, someone young, strong, and possibly black… you know?”

“Oh this guy wasn’t black… nope, nothin’ even close. Wasn’t tall either. Nope. School teacher. Sorry buddy it’s that or the 75 year old that kicked it at the picnic.”

I have this fear of letting down complete strangers as well. I don't want to meet the eyes of the lady behind the counter as I hand the completed form to her. Like, I don’t want to be sexist but in my mind it's a woman - a biggish middle aged woman with no sense of humour who mentions that I've checked the bit that says I'm not handing over my organs upon death. She keeps staring. Even when I look away, I can feel her eyes on me. Even in my imagination she’s staring at me and if you look closely (even though I’m not looking at her I can because it’s my imagination – actually if it was my imagination I’d have adimantium claws and a light sabre) you can see her eye lid twitch. Either way I apologise and hastily correct the information.

I don't want to feel bad.

I don't want to explain that I'm diabetic.

And most importantly, I don't want to face the poster that says, "Don't take your organs to heaven, heaven knows we need them here." Apart from the unlikelihood that we are actually going to take ourselves off to heaven in our present form and God is going to receive us only to turn us around and say,

"Hold on a minute tiger. No kidneys... you have no kidneys... were you aware that... you know this is happening more and more what's going on? Why is everyone giving them away. You need them here. Did you know you need them here?" He pauses, maybe for a minute, maybe for an eternity, thing is you're in Heaven. Finally He says, "And it's not just the kidneys, you name it, livers, hearts, eyes, brains... people are turning up without brains. Try playing chess sans a brain." At this points God sighs and folds His arms with a faraway look in His eyes. " This wasn't happening 50 years ago. Now you people turn up like sock puppets..." He trailed away,"...sock puppets."

So now I'm worried that upon an accident I might look dead, a brief discussion ensues amongst rescue workers and out comes the esky and Stanley trimmers.

That's not really what I'm talking about though. I'm talking about online tax returns that you simply haven't really got any idea whether or not you've provided the right information and then upon pressing return your house gets repossessed for tax fraud.

Well, the reason I'm bringing all this up is because of that particular feeling being invoked when I responded to an email. It read, simply Fred (not Sarah's real name) wants you to join Facebook. Should be called My Face. (Big shout out to Katie)
Well, that's nice, I thought. I'll join. I'll join and say hello. How nice.
Next thing I had a Facebook and I was contacting all my friends telling THEM to join. I didn't recall deciding to do that today. It wasn't even at the back of my mind. THEN I had one friend write back and say I needed to spice up my Facebook. So I urinated on my laptop and yelled "Is that enough salt for you? IS IT?" But I'm not sure if salt is a spice.

So now I'm part of something I can't abide.

Myspace tried to lure me in with their cheap tricks. Tom and some other guy. Wish I could remember his name. I've had him two if not three times try to get me to join. When I first got the email I was genuinely touched. Wow... someone wants to be my friend. Well, I will be their friend. And we will be friends. So I clicked on the link. And there he was, all by himself. That's about when my alarm bells went off. Why was a good looking guy like that all by himself. Someone I've never even heard of is smiling back from his desk where he is writing on his laptop, presumably to me. Suddenly I was a budgie in a cage staring into the mirror. And for a second I bought it. For a second I thought I had a friend. So I emailed him and told him that I wasn't going to be his friend. In fact, I had chosen to be his enemy. I was going to have my picture posted not under friend, but enemy. Sworn enemy. Come knocking on my cage, will you?. My diabetic cage of vengeance and… vengenceness.

Oh, and this is just for nerds only.

And Patrick needs thanking for putting me onto this one. Magic.

My Son the Bat.

Everyone wants their kids to be special. Special in a way that leaves the other kids in the dust. Not that we'd say that out loud of course but we want the rush of watching our kid finish the race first, or write something in class (or anywhere apart from a wall for that matter), that leaves us beaming with pride. We do not want our children to be special in the other sense of the word. The kind of special that makes us aware that other parents glance sidewards at us.

Recently we got Zac's report home from his pre-primary class. He's five.



















It's possibly a little hard to read, double click on it and you can read it for yourself. If you can't be bothered it essentially breaks down as such:

Creates a recognizable person: partially achieved

Includes a body, head arms, legs and facial features in their picture: partially achieved

Adds extra features to their portrait: Not yet evident

Uses a variety of colours in their portrait to distinguish features: Not yet evident.

So what precisely did my son draw when he was asked to create a self portrait?









Teacher's comment: Zac has drawn himself as a bat with his eyes closed.

Teacher is fairly certain Zac is autistic.

We suspect he is anti authoritarian.

Draw a picture of myself?! Noooooooo.... that's boring. No we really need a picture of a bat with his eyes closed.

I asked Zac why the bat's eyes were closed. Zac looked at me as if I was insane. "Because the sun is up."

I thought that showed some sort of intelligence. Bet the other kids didn't draw their self portrait depicting themselves with their eyes closed.

And hello to Emma who must start her own blog and Max who must also bite the bullet and start her own blog.... way to cool for anonymity these two. And they sell wine and are forced to listen to diabolically bad music. Cept Sting... I'm exempting Sting from that. And maybe a tiny bit of Wendy Matthews. But I can say that cause I love Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse and that balances out the uncoolness. Cept Sting is cool. Love Sting.

Oh, and by the way... there is something wrong with our new dog. His mouth is too big.

Hirsute

Hey, if you're ever in Karratha ( if you are from somewhere other than Western Australia write in Karratha + Wikipedia - it will impress you that people live here) check out the television advertising. The actual Television is the usual commercial pap however I was corpulent with joy for the ABC on Saturday morning when in my feverish stupor I got to watch Rave - it makes so much more sense when you have a fever. Anyway the advertising is read by people humming like Buddhist Monks. Hooley Dooley it actually grabs your attention and then it holds it with astonishment. Surely, surely there is someone who knows what inflection is.


Oh and the word Hirsute went my brain like a woodpecker. I thought it meant hairy which would be weird because who on EARTH would be so cruel as to make a word up that sounds like HAIR SUIT that actually means "Gee, he looks like he has a suit of hair on." Who is NOT going to get upset at that.

FOR EXAMPLE:

Vivian tried desperately to placate Susan as to why her husband could not join them in the spa. "Why, it's just that he's well, very hirsute."
Susan hesitated for a moment unsure as to whether Vivian had offered a compliment as to why her husband could not join them in the spa. "What.... what does hirsute mean Vivian?"
"Oh my Gawd," Susan drawled "it means hairy... it means he looks like he's wearing a hairy suit!"
"Then why not just say 'He is too hairy for our spa, Susan," Susan began to involuntarily shake, her hand to her mouth she barely uttered the words "oh my.... Vivian...why?" Hot, angry tears rolled down her checks.
Vivian merely stared back with feline ice. "It always gives me time to do this.." Leaping unexpectedly to the side Vivian suddenly threw an ice pick savagely into Susan with a sickening thud.

The mere force of the blow brought Susan breathlessly off her feet.

Vivian landed, high heeled, neatly on both feet with a tidy click. The wet ground squealed as she turned and began to walk away, glancing briefly over her shoulder she muttered. "There is no way, on this Earth, that I am unclogging the filter after your husband has been in there. He has a hairy suit and he is hairy... he is Hirsuit."

The yellow angry stare of Susan's husband met Vivian as she turned. He slowly, as if in a dream, rolled his eyes with a blink over to where his wife lay. As though lightning struck a blackened sky Nathan flashed his massive canines in a soul shattering scream. He was indeed hairy, even for an simian.

Hirsute: Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source hir·sute /ˈhɜrsut, hɜrˈsut/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[hur-soot, hur-soot] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–adjective

1.	hairy; shaggy.

2.	Botany, Zoology. covered with long, rather stiff hairs.

3.	of, pertaining to, or characteristic of hair.

---

[Origin: 1615–25; <>hirsūtus rough, shaggy, bristly; akin to horrid]

Heartless. Absolutely heartless.

I WANT A BADGER

"CCCCCCRRRRRAAAAAAPPPPPPPP," he exclaimed.

The left foot is cramping up something rotten as I sit on the floor writing this and my nose is running - I have the flu. I don't think the foot is symptomatic of the flu although I generally never suffer from cramps... so I'm putting it down to cramp. Or menstruation. (this is where men claim that the situation they have just regaled you with, no matter how patently untrue, is true - and cramp to validate their sincerity) Long story as to why it is really, really not great timing. Supposed to be going out bush with Marnus and Shoz and my family.... blahhhhhh really have been looking forward to it. I would have been in a gorge. Out in the Australian outback. So far out you need a GPS. Pan pipes play when you walk around and native animals eat from your hand. And now? Now I get to wallow in my own mucous and exhaustion - good news is I have Owen for company. Owen is their Labrador. Shoz and Marnus (NOT to henceforth be referred to as S&M) call him squish... he is actually squishy - except when he treads on your genitals - he is squisher and he's good for a laugh and knocking over children. Same thing really.

Cool things: BTW - you gotta read to the end of this one... priceless.

Giant 'corpse-eating' badgers terrorise Iraqi city

July 11, 2007

THE Iraqi port city of Basra, already prey to a nasty turf war between rival militia factions, has now been gripped by a scary rumour – giant badgers are stalking the streets by night, eating humans.

Mushtaq Abdul-Mahdi, director of Basra's veterinary hospital, has inspected the corpses of several badgers and tries to reassure Iraqis that the animals are not a new post-war arrival in the region.

“These animals appeared before the fall of the regime in 1986. They are known as Al-Ghirayri and locally as Al-Girta,” he told AFP. “Talk that this animal was brought by the British forces is incorrect and unscientific.”

Not everybody is convinced.

The honey badger, or ratel, is known as a brave predator capable of killing a cobra. It weighs up to 14kg.

Sattar Jabbar, a 50-year-old local farmer from Abu Sakhar north of Basra, believes the badger can tackle even large prey.

“I saw it three days ago at night attacking animals. It even ate a cow. It tore the cow up piece by piece. I tried to shoot it with my gun but it ran away into the orchards. I missed it,” he said.

Speaking of tearing up a cow....

And now a slight segue
Context: After constant provocation from Judah Babylon goes in and nails the place to the wall. This scripture details the final stroke where the officials of the invading king enter the city and begin to sort out the details of what will happen:

Quote from the Bible: Jeremiah 39

Now when Jerusalem was captured in the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it; 2 in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the city wall was breached. 3 Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came in and sat down at the Middle Gate: Nergal-sar-ezer, Samgar-nebu, Sar-sekim the Rab-saris, Nergal-sar-ezer the Rab-mag, and all the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon. 4 When Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, they fled and went out of the city at night by way of the king's garden through the gate between the two walls; and he went out toward the Arabah. NASU

Of course none of this REALLY happened because it's the Bible and the Bible is a collection of stories that serve this or that Israeli King's agenda. There's no actual supporting evidence like extra biblical manuscripts and texts that actually identify obscure people independently of their existence in the Bible.

Actually Higgaion has already dealt with this in his usually freakin genius fashion - check this link. Higgaion's take on things

Old Testament figure named on 2600-year-old tablet

By Dalya Alberge in London

July 12, 2007 01:00am

Article from:

• Tablet dating from 595BC deciphered
• Names figure in court of Nebuchadnezzar
• Figure was 'witness to turning point' in history

The tablet names a Babylonian officer called Nebo-Sarsekim who, according to Jeremiah 39 was present in 587BC when Nebuchadnezzar "marched against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it".

The cuneiform inscription records how Nebo-Sarsekim lavished a gift of gold on the Temple of Esangila in the fabled city of Babylon, where, at least in folk tradition, Nebuchadnezzar is credited with building the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

So did you spot the link?

Yep... Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon was actually King of what is know known as Iraq and giant badgers are eating Iraqis.

And Um... this just to hand: what you see here is actual footage of a Badger on the rampage in Iraq.

Why the hell doesn't this guy use a chainsaw effect?

That horrible thinking feeling may just be boredom...

This is a pretty accurate depiction of me in the car park. Read on...

I have made something of an important discovery. There is nothing to do in Karratha. Evidence of this: they have one of the biggest Video Ezy stores I have seen - which is where I picked up Bubba Ho-Tep and GoodNight and Goodluck for a total of 10 bucks between the both of them. Then I found the complete season 4 of Curb Your Enthusiasm for 6 bucks. Worth traveling 1600 kms for I say. But that's about it people. It's a mining town with nada history -

Wikipedia please....

"Karratha is an important centre in the resource-rich WA's northwest. It is located approximately 1,535 kilometres (954 mi) north of Perth and 850 kilometres (528 mi) south of Broome on the North West Coastal Highway.

Its economic base includes local iron ore, salt mining, ammonia and export operations, together with the North West Shelf Natural Gas Project, Australia's largest natural resource development. All this makes it the biggest town in the northwest after Port Hedland with a population around 10,000. Karratha came into being in the late 1960s due to the tremendous growth of the iron ore industry and the need for a new regional centre caused by the lack of land in Dampier. Karratha also has the biggest shopping centre in the Pilbara, called Centro Karratha."

I'm quite sure with a different take on things I would find mystery and intrigue in this place. I did with Carnarvon when I lived there - largely because of it's history. But here we are catching up with family. So I'm treating it as an extended chill session.

Here's one of the other things we did today.

Here's something I found quite interesting. It's a bird

These are some of the interesting things I took away from the library this morning:

Neurobiologist Antonio Damasio - University of Southern Califronia in Los Angeles studied people with damage to only the emotional part of their brains and found they were crippled by indecision, unable to make even the most basic choices, such as what to eat. Damasio speculates that this may be because our brains store emotional memories of past choices, which we use to inform present decisions. p. 38 New Scientist 5 May 2007

Now I have been wondering what would happen to a person were they to undergo an extremely traumatic event in their infancy or childhood, given Damasio's research it would suggest that it would mean that in adulthood people may very well be affected by these past events. Medication helpfully covers the symptoms but is unable to resolve the cause - something that I suspect may be able to be healed and restored once you identified the event and bought restoration to the point of emotional 'damage'.

I also found the actual experiment that I sometimes refer to in class - in terms of research by Stanley Milgram into how so many were complicit in the activities of the Nazi in Germany during the Second World War. It set up a test where everyday people applied certain amounts of.... look it's too boring to write. Average Joe's committed heinous acts while under the direction of men in lab coats. Nothing new there really. Through this stuff round at parties while everyone gets stumbling drunk for no other reason than it's the done thing.

THEN I FOUND THE SHOWSTOPPER.
James Stirling: Admiral and Founding Governor of Western Australia - Pamela Statham-Drew
Wanted to get my hands on this for ages... this is an extract from the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards - 2003 Judges' Report Poo Bum Wee I AM QUOTING A LOT TODAY...

"This is a monumental work of academic scholarship. Pamela Statham-Drew has documented the life of James Stirling, founding governor of Western Australia, in comprehensive detail. In doing so, she has given us new insights into the character of her subject, as well as the origins of our State. James Stirling emerges from Statham-Drew's book as a man of vision and adventure, compassion and resolve, qualities that enabled him to withstand the vicissitudes of founding a colony in the most remote corner of the British Empire."

My observation:
Pam has astutely identified where the Beer company "Cages Road" makers of relatively average beer (obviously in my opinion) has obtained it's name. " Exploration of this area was now all but complete, so on 21 March at 1pm the Success weighed anchor and MADE SAIL INTO GAGE'S ROADS where they anchored for the night. ....Stirling had named after his future commander-in-Chief, Rear Admiral William Gage..."p.79.

YEAH?! How about that for stunning obscurity. Not that Pam actually wrote about any link about the beer company.

Now what the hell is Rogers named after.



Man, with time on my hands this Blog is TOTALLY ROCKING!!!!
I did an awesome handbreak in the car park of Video Ezy. There was an Aboriginal guy watching in his car... and yeah he was pretty impressed. DO NOT DO THIS ON VENTILON because you will look like a bigger loser than you could imagine and what's more once you gauge what a complete dick you look from people's reactions (country people what's more) you will not care.

Bubba Ho-Tep people. Let's hear it for the King. You will wet your pants if you haven't heard of this film before. Very, very cool once you look into who's in it.

By the way, I'm still coming down off of the Ventolin.
Here's a close up of the bird.

It's a 24 hour tuna...

The Road into Carnarvon

I have missed the Walkers. The Walkers are the folks that kept me sane and safe when life went pear shaped around the time I got ready to depart from Carnarvon all those years ago. Bruce, Sue, Judy and I would sit and talk for hours in his living room – it was probably the closest thing to Christian community I have ever encountered. In those days Bruce was the Shire Clerk, Sue (his wife) was a primary teacher, Judy was alive and I work as a Clerk in the local hospital. Upon returning to Perth I experienced bewildering loneliness after having experienced such close life together.

Some thirteen years later we’re sitting around on Bruce and Sue’s porch at their new place – a place reminiscent of a cross between iconic outback Australia and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. This time though, I have a wife and two kids, but apart from that and massive life change the essentials are still the same. Close friendship. A pint of Guinness, two glasses of wine and into my third and I’m suitably giddy with joy. Felt like joy. Could have been inebriated a little bit, but it was still joy. There is certainly no doubt that it was joy when Bruce struck up the fire – a pit with an iron table placed over it and meat was thrown on from every creature known. And chilli – straight from the garden. Friggin’ ridiculously brilliant. And we sat, drank, ate and talked into the night.

In the midst of the process I was introduced to Michael. Michael is a local carpenter. What is interesting about Michael is that he epitomizes the essential Carnarvon quality. Lunacy. Michael had gone out for the third afternoon in a row with mates looking for Tuna. They tracked a school, cut the engine and then Michael climbed into a kayak, where he silently moved into place over the school. Apparently they had a three days of no luck concerning this cunning creature and this was a new approach. He then cast out his handheld rod and instantly struck gold. Cept, he’s fishing for Tuna. These things are fairly large to be pulling out of the water with a hand rod. On a Kayak. Out in the middle of the ocean. With help a significant distance away. Any way in a Hemmingway type of struggle with nature he got the Tuna onto the Kayak.

This is Michael. He caught a Tuna. He is quite, quite out of his mind.

By the way, don't watch this, it's horrible. Laughed myself silly. But it's horrible.