John Naish and The Irony of it all

Damn it I’m going to write this! I have been haunted by the fact that I haven’t written for days now, and I really think I need to do this. It is half past eight on Sunday night and I am tempted to disengage and go and waste my time watching TV. I’ll watch the TV and then get caught up doing something else and that will be that. The prospect of sitting down and writing (difficult to write any other way) an entry will seem very unattractive.

Nevertheless I have now been forced to move. My wife has just turned the Olympics on, the one where you’ve got to guess what is actually wrong with the person to warrant their participation in the ‘special Olympics’. It makes the mind boggle at the fact China is hosting this event, and winning the thing no less. The pressure they seemed to place on competitors a few weeks ago, and everyone else participating for that matter (the little girl who ‘sang’ at the opening ceremony anyone?) you wonder how anyone ‘special’ survived let alone competed. I know, I know, you’re only meant to think this stuff. So yeah, I’ve got my ipod on listening to Bruce Springsteen just so I can block out all the distractions.

Had a discussion during the week with a colleague I love and respect about listening to ipods at work. He is advocating the free use of them at school (where we work). I was against this idea, but all for having them in private study, one of the classes I take care of. He disagreed and said it wasn’t possible to concentrate while working on something and listening to music so yeah I fed the horse this carrot and it bit my hand, things with big human teeth have scared the hell out of me ever since… actually he’s right to an extent. Classical music is ok, so is soundtrack music, but contemporary rock etc… it’s hard to think deeply. Specially when it’s the BOSS. Undervalued, I feel, is Bruce Springsteen. And I have taken to writing like Yoda because I’m listening to Bruce Springsteen so I don’t have to listen to the special Olympics and find myself distracted listening carefully to try and pick if there is a distinctive slur in people’s speech. Yes, I teach children there is nothing wrong with being different, provided what makes you different is the fact that you can run faster than a significant part of the population.


By the way don’t start on me about writing this stuff and not understanding because I do understand and actually care very much about people. So as long as you read what I’ve written with that in mind you won’t find it as breath takingly offensive at it at first appears. Of course if you’ve read this far and not busy furiously writing a blistering comment sweat beading on your forehead because it’s people like me who blah blah blah. Like I said it’s hard to concentrate with Bruce in my ear.


I wanted to reflect on John Naish’s article Enough is Enough that appeared in the Weekend Australian Magazine March 22-23 this year. Funnily enough it talked about the inundation of information and the effect it’s having on us. Things as simple as anticipating emails when you’re doing work can completely undermine your effort to do anything effective in your job. Welcome to my world. Holy cow the irony in all of this is making my head spin.

This crushing drive to get writing about some of the stuff I’m thinking about in the area of what I teach, only to ultimately question the possibility that I am an information junkie. Running to you with the article grasped in my sweaty hand panting with wide eyed enthusiasm only to register a look across my face. A look of “I have to write about all this information… I have to tell everyone about starting with this one about information overload….wait a second… I think I’m actually participating in being part of the problem”. Might be better to say nothing at all. You can see why I’ve struggled to write anything.

Out of the mouth of....

Today I was eating some left over stir fry and a pea bounced out of the snow pea I was eating. The colleague I was talking to at the time picked it up and said, "Hey, an escapee!" I just felt that should be immortalized. 

In case of ermergency smash class

Sometimes when things go wrong I don’t react in any outward way. I sigh so deep it comes out of my soul and I just have to stand still. You can’t see me move, and only I understand what’s going on. Some people are struck by the oddness of it, you can tell because they stare while the rest of the world goes crazy.

During a Year Nine Beliefs and Values class a bunch of girls want to meet at lunch to discuss how God talks. It strikes the teens as ridiculous, incomprehensible that God would talk. They visibly struggle with the concept in half sentences and erratic hand waving, spitting out sentences like, “So he talks in your head… like a voice?”
“No it’s kind of like a thought that isn’t part of your own stream of consciousness.”
“So He doesn’t talk?”
“Not in the conventional sense, no. But you talk to Him and as the days go by you watch and wait, paying attention to seeming coincidence, except the things that happen, or the things that people say just happen to answer some of the questions you were asking. But it’s really important to first and foremost to read the Bible. Test everything against that.”

So a group of girls decide they want to talk about it further, can they meet at lunch? I set the bar high, telling them they need to bring another twenty kids who want to talk about the matter. I’ve been confronted by enthusiastic teens over the years that you give up your free time for only to find that they don’t turn up. I mean, there have been times when huge gangs of students turn up, a couple of years ago there was about twenty five year twelves who wanted to go through a little bit of the Gospel of Luke. That was a wonderful time. But having chased my tail I’m not so enthusiastic anymore. If it cost me it cost my family in the end and they haven’t asked to pay a price.

Nine girls meet me at lunch time. We’re eleven short but I meet with them anyway. I casually walk over to close the door to the class. My classroom is an old foyer converted by slapping up a few false walls and a million power-points. The huge glass double doors remain. As I casually go to close the door a year ten student grabs the door.
“What are you doing?” (Subtext: why are they allowed in there and we’re not?)
“I’m talking to these girls about talking to God.”
He smiles through my explanation without a hint of comprehension. I finish my point by closing the door.
He grabs it from me.
I pull it closed, dragging him with me. Suddenly three adolescent males grab the door and start pulling.
I pull back. Then I think to myself, no, use the situation to my advantage. They’re all pulling so if I push it suddenly they’ll go reeling. Suddenly I shove the door and brace that action by slamming my boot into the metal cross beam in the aluminium frame. Except I put my boot into the glass and it shatters spectacularly with a ‘set your teeth on edge’ crack.


In my defence the idea worked, they let go of the door… to fall about on the floor laughing.

The girls behind me in the class fall about laughing. The school yard outside has come to a grinding halt as students come across the court yard to see what’s going on. They try to fall about laughing, but now there's no more room on the gorund, so they just stand there laughing.
It’s like those films where people laugh in slow motion, the camera tilting wildly and careering about.
I mutter to myself a single word and after a moment, sigh.
Two girls stand and watch off to my right. They are completely silent and perplexed by my inaction. It is a mystery to them. I’m not laughing, or yelling or jumping around with the boys. I’m just standing there.
I finally move across to the set of draws where I have left my lunch.
A girl stares incredulously, “How long’s that lunch been in there?”
“A week,” I lie. She recoils in horror.
I sit and allow the questions to come.
“Are you angry Mr. Limb”
“No, I wasn’t angry, just hopelessly uncoordinated. It was supposed to look a lot cooler than that.”

And so we talk about Jesus and how He talks all the time to His Father, and how He teaches His disciples to pray. I go and photocopy the Lord’s prayer, taking a quick detour to explain to the groundsman that I’ve smashed a door. He thinks I’m kidding. I explain which door it is and leave him to his lunch.

In closing our discussion, as I mentally gear up for the onslaught of Year Tens, one of the girls pipes up.
“Do Christians swear?”
One of the girls yells out in a rebuke. “Derrrr! Mr. Limb swears.”
“What does he say?” Asks the girl.
“Crap.” Offers a bright eyed blond girl.
“No, that’s not a swear word… he says ‘shit’ I just heard him say it when he smashed the door.” She says matter-of-factly.
I was going to offer that I thought that I had said it under my breath. I don’t bother.

Rapper Boy and the Cliff

Now just add a beard and you've got the general idea.


It's the second last lesson for the day and there is a pitched battle as both sides grasp for control of the room. In the blue corner a pack of roughly 30 fourteen year olds. In the red corner is me, sitting fairly safely somewhere along the spectrum for high functioning autism. I'm trying to explain the concept of self-control and it's relationship to happiness. Self control + teenagers + afternoon class = stupid teacher.

It's a bun fight.

Half way through the analogy in which I attempt to explain the idea that reality isn't too fussed about whether or not you believe in it, I make two important discoveries. (I have to note at this juncture that teenagers have this marvelous apprehension of the belief that "if I can't see it, it's not there" and apply this to general knowledge - if they haven't seen something it ain't there. If reality was Chuck Norris they'd all be dead.) Discovery number one: two girls right at the front on the room, I mean right under my nose, are busy doing maths homework. Discovery number two: they haven't got a clue what I'm talking about.

Me: You see, just because I don't believe in gravity doesn't stop it from existing. So if I dance on top of a building in the belief that gravity isn't real regardless of what I believe the reality is I may well fall to my death. In the same way morality is a law that may very well... girls? What are you doing?
Girls: Maths homework.
Me: Maths homework?
Girls: Yeah we have a test next session.
Me: Yeah but you probably have a party to go to this weekend.
Girls: So?
Me: (walking across the room and taking the work off them) So think of this as study for that.
Girls: What?
Interfering child #1: Tear the work up Mr. Limb!
Me: Shut up.
Me:(putting work in draw) Now girls I hate maths almost as much as I hate inebriated teenage girls..
Girls: What?
Me: Shut up. And I find it troubling that you would do that work in my class.
Girls: But what has gravity got to do with parties?
Me: I'm talking about the reality and implication of a moral law, whether or not you believe in that moral law.
Girls: But what has gravity got to do with parties?
Me:...
Girls: (one of them suddenly puts up their hands) I don't understand what you're talking about. What's morality?
Me: (beat) What?
Girls: What's that word mean?
Me: You are kidding, right? (Looks at room in disbelief, he suddenly notices something he hadn't before - a complete lack of comprehension) Who can tell me what morality is?
Room: Silence
Me: Put up your hand if you know what morality is. (there is the no movement - two students turn to ask each other a question) SHUTUP! Who knows what.... ok no-one know s what the term morality means. This is so getting blogged.
Girls: Hey rapper boy's dead.
General mass along that side of the room erupts.
I bring a meter ruler down on a desk.
Me: QUIET. Does anyone have a working definition of what morals are?
Girls: No he's dead, he jumped off a cliff 'cause he thought he could fly.
Girls: You know who he is Mr. Limb, you know? Rapper boy?
Me: (I stare)
Girls: yeah... (one of them starts absurdly bobbing up and down in her chair folding and unfolding her arms like a mummy having second thoughts) (She sings... badly)
Class erupts again.
I explode again. Ruler starts to splinter.
Me: You don't know what... that makes things a little more difficult.
Girls: Yeah morals is rules about doing the right thing.
Me: Ok. Good, now morality is the same idea.
Girls: But what's that got to do with gravity and parties?
Me: You know Rapper Boy who jumped off the cliff?
Girls: Yeah?
Me: Was he drunk?
Girls: Yep and high on...
Me: Good. Now you understand the link I'm trying to make between gravity and parties.
Boy: But you can't prove that God exists.
Me: What?
Boy: You think God might exist but you can't prove that!
Me: Where did you... (I try to make the link)
Class erupts.
Teacher quietly thinks that rapper boy may have been onto something.

The Lonely Moon

We care about our children's health. We care about our mental health more, and this is why I decided to buy a Coke and go thirds with both my kids. There had been some earlier travesty in which my daughter had been embezzled out of the last mouthful of the only coke she had been allowed to ever have and was justifiably upset by the whole thing. I had found myself in the unenviable situation of having to wait for what turned out to be three hours with the kids while Tan was in an eye appointment.My daughter's misery weighed heavily upon my frame.

I decided to amp the kids up on sugar and caffeine in order to improve their moods.

Upon purchasing the Coke we found a place to sit, us three, while we consumed it. The venue was the dispatch/drop off entry at the rear of Charles Gairdener Hospital. A massive empty room last decorated in 1972. The carpet was made up of those square tiles of pony hair that any poor soul tripping or sliding across would be eviscerated. In fact there were darkened patches in places across this enormous chamber. Around the walls of this catacomb were pieces of artwork created by Western Australian artists and understandably hidden here.

In this setting we sat listlessly, silently, passing the bottle back and forth. No one speaking. After some minutes the bore water stained doors abruptly slid open and an elderly man in a wheelchair was delivered by a large mustached man in a white uniform.

"You can take yourself the rest of the way." Were the only words uttered as the doors suddenly closed again.

The man sat motionless at the other end of the cavern. A huddled form that seems entirely incapable of doing anything. The coke continued to be sipped as we passed it back and forth in silence. The three of us sitting on the only chair in the entire room. The man, the room, the three of us set out like some sort of Post Modernist Exhibition. It was the most exciting thing the room had seen in years.

His withered hands unfolded from his lap and almost incredibly the wheelchair began to move. It hissed as his leathery hands slid to find their place and move the wheels inches forward. And this was all there was as we silently watched the man move across the room like the moon across the evening sky.

Eventually, as he drew closer I broke the endless silence by asking if he wanted to be pushed. I waited, dreading the response.

There was no response.

He had absolutely no idea that we were there. He was completely unaware of anything other than the chair. Probably a good thing given the art was truly deplorable.

It hissed passed us. None of us took our eyes off him.

Then, as he was about to pass out of sight around the corner he spoke. Startling us.

"Thirty bloody years of THIS."

The silence swallowed his words as he vanished around the corner. We silent witnesses beheld the futility and the passion contained within. My daughter then began to giggle, trying to drink the last of the Coke, becoming increasingly hysterical with laughter as my eight year old failed to purse her lips around the bottle. The word 'bloody' had struck her as mud slung across the masterpiece of post-modernity we had all beheld. Perfect and a privilege to behold.

Kissmas

Santa and his Ninjas. Crazy.


Christmas.

It's the time of year for reconciliation and hope. A time when family and friends get the chance to put their differences aside and gather around the manger for quiet reflection. Sure it's commercial, rushed and tends to be a bit stressful but dang it, it's worth it.

As we sit around the Christmas tree sipping eggnog with Christmas carols playing in the background and laughing together at this or that, suddenly, quietly there comes a disquieting sense that you're merely acting out something you saw in a film. In fact, it's 35 degrees and everyone has jumpers on. As you step out of your chair, eggnog smashing in slow motion to the floor you realize there's a blazing fire and the heat has sent you stark raving mad. You rip off the santa hat and the jumper, exposing your black t-shirt. Pointing to everyone who have now frozen in toothy smiles with looks of confusion you scream out the command to turn the shiny poisonous music off.

You sink to your knees, fists at your ears, eyes squeezed tightly shut....

Christmas.


Look I don't hate Christmas... it's just that Christmas and me don't speak so much anymore. We both decided it was better for all involved, you know (conspiratorial whisper) the kids.

Actually I do hate Christmas, but if I opened this entry with "My giddy aunt I hate Christmas..." most people may very well go "Well there's a surprise..." and go and spend their time on a less dysfunctional activity.

But let me explain.

The whole thing tears me up because I can't make up my mind. I wouldn't want to call for an end to Christmas, not that anyone's asking me to make that decision for them. Cut to:

(It's a darkened room, like those war rooms you see in Armageddon and million other stupid films full of men in uniform)
General (sweat drips from his forehead): It's time to call it Mr. Limb
The camera pans taking in anxious faces.
Limb: (Head down teeth clenched, he suddenly looks up): Burn him, burn the fat man.... end Christmas.
General: We have it men, GO GO GO!
It's pandemonium in the room as men run through the room with guns - a massive computer display featuring a flashing Santa with a cross through him with the title:

MISSION: Burn Fat Boy, Burn.

Anyway I digress. Not that anyone's about to ban Christmas. If people decided to ban Christmas I'd worry about a future event involving empty streets with newspaper and tumble weeds wandering listlessly about with gray houses filled with miserable children staring at an empty corner. I'm not ready to call it quits, but nor do I want the ordeal. You see I'm jammed.

The arguments for it aren't compelling.

1.It's a time for family to get together.
Let's face it, if that's the only time the family gets together then maybe it isn't worth the trouble, I mean they're not busting their guts to get together at any other point in the year. Should these people really be in the same room together with a surplus of food and alcohol.

2.Gift giving.
Love presents - but I don't like presents given under compunction. They end up being shit. You know I like the way Patrick thinks about things. He's a fan of coming across something and thinking "Such and such would like this..." Versus scrambling about a few weeks or even days before the event grabbing anything that looks substantial in wrapping paper. A possible solution is to do something along the lines of Patrick's idea, but hold onto until Christmas. If you are that organized chances are you probably don't enjoy Christmas, it will kill you or alternatively it all becomes such a competition for you that you should not be allowed to participate on the grounds that you are in danger of turning the whole thing into a Jihad.

3. Jesus' Birthday
No, it wasn't.
Here's a little history of Christmas
Here's a little something about the date of Jesus' birth
and here's something else
Yeah but it's an opportunity for people who don't go to church to, you know, go to church. See point number 1.

Having said all that there are some people that just love doing the cards and the presents and all the other cute red and white celebratory stuff and at the end of the day you've just got to let them be, live and let live. Unless of course they start imposing their views on you. Then it's time to burn the fat man.






This image was going to be my title image. But then I thought about it and... well, here it is for your viewing pleasure. I couldn't pull my eyes away there's just so much that's... wrong. Go to the website - many other images, many.

taken from: http://www.dudeirock.com/
worth checking out if you have a moment or two...

Oh, and then I found this. Always loved this guy, but this is really something else.

Tiny Spiders of Shame

There are times when I actually believe that I am a decent person. For some reason this always occurs to me when I'm walking into the male staff toilet at school. It's kind of like a confessional sans the priest. A priest in there would make it awkward. A priest in there isn't likely to be a priest, rather a man dressed as a priest in which case he is there because he is taking a break from his nefarious plans. Alternatively, he is in the middle of one of said nefarious plans.

Anyway.

I walk into the alcove and through the orange toilet door and that's when the thought hits me. I'm doing okay... people like me... my life matters... blah blah blah.... blah. Unless of course someone is in there and the door is (hopefully) locked. Then I just slam into it, hurt my wrist, hope that I wasn't talking to myself too loudly so that whoever I scared the proverbial out of doesn't work out it was me and make like a bat out of hell out of there.

There are times when I think that I am a decent person.

Today wasn't one of them.

Tan was working today and that meant I had to get off my arse and provide some sort of assistance. On Thursdays that means dropping her off at work, and taking Zed and his friend to school. My oldest is already at school and the plan is to meet her and then take her to the uniform shop.

I drop Tan off. Me and the boys find ourselves a little early so I park the car out the front of school and crank up The Shins. The boys kick around in the back seat. So I read a magazine and let the clock tick round until class is only 5 minutes away.

I jump out the car and tell the boys to do the same.

They do this. His mate grabs his own bag and hops out. Zed jumps out and starts to strut off like, I don't know, Huckleberry Finn. I notice that his sandals are on the wrong feet.
"Hang on, where's your school bag?"
He heads back to the car.
Nothing.
I open the boot. The boot looks alarmingly empty. I'm actually alarmed before I realize why exactly I'm alarmed. Then it hits me. This means there's no bag in the car at all. Spiders begin to skitter across my heart.
"Oi... where's your bag?"
"At home."
At HOME?!"
Silence.
Parents. Glances. I forget he's five. I talk to him like he's my idiot henchmen in one of those gangster films.
"Right, boys, back in the car."
The spiders in my heart produce knives and start stabbing my heart as I begin to do the math.

I'm supposed to meet my daughter in 2 minutes.
The round trip will take 10 minutes.
Failure to meet daughter will mean no uniform.
Last chance for uniform.
No uniform means an unhappy wife.

I picture the scene for a moment.
It unsettles me

It's ok, I'll drop the boys and then meet daughter then I'll go home and....
No.
I've got to be in class to teach in fifteen minutes.
Uniform = at least ten minutes... at least.
Round trip back = ten minutes... at least.
Zed needs his bag. He can't go all day without food.
There is no way I'm going to get that bag in time.

There is no chance of pulling all of this off.

I start to yell.
I'm actually yelling the sums in my head out loud. And as I start I'm angry. But halfway through the list my eyes point in different directions and my mouth moves like it belongs to a marionette. I've shot straight through to bastard maniac at the children in the back seat. I glance in the rear vision mirror. My son's eyes are perfect circles. The other child's explaining something about not forgetting HIS bag but I can't hear him over my noise.

I finally work out that I have to turn the car around.

I swing it and suddenly it's like we've just got the call for back-up. Cept I'm not a cop, I'm a loser Dad having a tantrum.

On and on I go like Tony Soprano. There is no object lesson for my son in this. The lesson, if there was ever one in the first instance is blown away by the hurricane of me and my dancing, angry, stabbing spiders who wear tiny T-shirts with a picture of me with the title "DICKHEAD".

I ring my wife. I yell down the phone at her. I think I'm actually explaining something to her, like that's the intention but it must just sound like she's got a call from a war zone evac gone wrong.

I get the guys to class. Miss my daughter. Fish her out of class. Sort out uniforms. Talk to a friend who had wound up behind me when I chewed up the asphalt (she's actually a cop... I play back the tape in my head... the spider's T-Shirt now say something I've made the decision not to publish). I work out how I can fix everything - I'll be late to my appointment with the University in Fremantle... but for the most part I can work things out.

I get back in the car to get to class.

I think how little my son is and a part of me dies inside.

There are times when I think that I am a decent person.

Today wasn't one of them.