Getting there...

Well, my office has never been as ready or set up as it is right now. Having said that, the hallway is a mess because half of the office is in there. However, the new computers are set up and the desks reconfigured, the filing cabinet operating properly (which is a first in itself) and space on my desk top. Yes, I know, it does seem a bit hard to believe, but there you go - space.

The key to all of this is actually several keys. These are:

• Firstly, I must deal with things as they arrive, i.e., actually file things in the now working filing cabinet.
• Secondly, I must be decisive about where things go.
• Thirdly, I must get the book shelves as soon as possible.

These book shelves are hardwood, about three feet wide and six feet high or so, and we are planning to get about six of them! Three will go in the hallway and three in the entrance. Between the six of them they should be able to hold:

• The children's books;
• The encyclopedias;
• The novels;
• The text books;
• The reference books; and
• The resources.

The difference that these shelves will make cannot be understated. Curses be though that they have to be paid for, so they will take a little while. Grrrrr. Oh well, at least the office is organised...

Back again!

Well, it's been a little while since I posted, so the question you may be asking is, "Where have you been?" Then again, you may not be asking. You may not care. Indeed, there may be no-one reading this at all. However, deluding myself that there is at least one person out there that is reading this and cares - well, here is my answer:

I have been on a teaching round at a primary school down the highway a bit.

However, that answer does not capture the multitude of emotions that have occurred during my practicuum, so here is a post to attaempt to capture as much as I can of what it was like.

Firstly, it was hard. It was hard because I left the house early and got home often quite late, which meant I was tired and had little time left over for study and no time for writing! It was hard because I had to prepare lesson plans which were overly labour-intensive. It was hard because what time I did have left had to be used, to a certain degree, on catching up with my family (who are perhaps too used to having me around all-day every-day).

Secondly, it was tiring (aside from the points above). At first the constant standing and pacing, the constant get up and go, the constant energy of "performing"(see below) and observing, the constant always having something to do really drained me. I became somewhat used to it over time, but it was very tiring aside from being long.

Thirdly, it was emotionally draining. You would hope to go well, and some little snot would play up and detract all the goodness out of the lesson. Things would be running smoothly and then someone would get some attitude or cheek and your plans would come crashing down around you. Or, as the case may be, you just would be ready in time, or you were just plain wrong, and the kids would look at you like you were an idiot, or say you were an idiot, or just ignore you...

Fourthly, it was a hoot. I shared some great times, put on some alright "performances", had some great laughs and shared in some terrific moments. There were some amazing highlights, and perhaps none so high as when some kid who just didn't do some particular thing did it under my tutelage! For example, one of the purposes behind my social education sequence was to encourage one particular child to communicate, another to come out of her shell, another to gain leadership skills, and others to develop interpersonal skills, and they all did!!! What a high.

This teaching round will definitely be a whole chapter in my memoirs (hah hah hah).

However, now I am back here in my little room, at my little computer, with a mound of assignments looming. So I have to lay aside all that and get into it, because, as they say, time waits for no man.

_______________________________
"Performances: performing": I do not mean to demean teaching at all when I speak of performing and performances in regards to teaching. However, I also do consider teaching - in the practical classroom environment - very much a performance based activity. Consider the voice projection, eye-contact, pacing, use of humour, dramatics, etc: all performance essentials that are vital to good classroom teaching, I think. However, while this is not to say that all teachers are first-rate actors (and actors are not all teachers - they don't have to plan and evaluate and record and observe the way teachers do), performing is part of being a teacher.

The ball is rolling...

Well, my first assessment for the graduate bachelor is done, marked and back, so to speak, and it is encouraging to note that I did what I would consider as quite well, really. This is a good start. I have felt quite nervous with the new uni and the new units, being unfamiliar with them to a certain degree, and this has been unsettling. This is not to say that I am feeling completely settled, oh no, no no. For example, a continuing source of "unsettlement" is that I start a five-and-a-half week student teaching round on Monday, which is wracking my nerves.

It is good to have a couple of short stories off and away, even though I am sure that they are not going to rock the world, so to speak. However, their process of development has begun, and first steps are not final steps and - hopefully - growth will happen.

To be honest, at this stage I am really looking forward to starting the MA in literature and professional writing. I just get the feeling that I'll go better once I've got that bit of pressure on me, and I am very interested in the area, to say the least.

At the moment I ave got quotes coming in from various places about new computers (for M. and I). This is both exciting and frustrating. This computer (not yours, dear reader, but mine) is really starting to crack up, and I am keen to get onto the new ones. However, we can't get the new ones until everything goes through with the sale of the other house - oh, hallelujah, I can't wait until everything has gone through with the other house, it has been a thorn in my side for years!!!! - and the funds have cleared. Anyways, these quotes are merely rubbing salt in the wounds that this computer occasionally gives me.

The last thing I'll think I'll note is that Catherine Bateson (for whom I designed a web-site) has just had her book Millie and the Night Heron short-listed for the CBCA 2006 Book of the Year - Younger Reader award, which she is obviously very excited about. You can find out more about it at her web-site, although please don't think nasty thoughts about the web-site design....

Regards.

A further update on life

Well, I have started into my Graduate Bachelor studies, which has been good. They are interesting, which is always helpful. Aside from that family life has been quite busy of late, what with one thing and another. Furthermore, the band looks like busying up, which will be interesting as well.

M. has decided (finally!!!!) to study. This means that she is now slightly freaked out by it. However, it will be really good for her. It also means things will definitely be busy around here, but in a more positive way.

I haven't got back into V. as per yet, but I have started getting a few short stories on the go and off to various places. The first - Time to Think - is about adultery, but with a slightly different spin I would like to think. M. thought it was quite good, but we'll just have to see.

So life is going well, and promises to keep me on my toes, so to speak. So that is good.

[Insert whoop of joy of your choice here]

Well, by gum, by golly, by gosh, by crikey, by tum-tiddly-tum, by jiminy, by faith an' begorrah, and any other thing you can thing of "by-ing" by, I'm finished with CMM37, CMM38, EDU120, ENG210 and PAC30. And this means I am done with my second Bachelor. And this means I am feeling pretty "wahoo-ey", so to speak. What a relief!

Life is, of course, still busy. I need to whip into the Graduate Bachelor now, and I have work on V. and various short stories to do. Additionally, I want to enrol in the MA later this year. However, at this moment, I think things are pretty rosy.

Norm and Tom (particularly Tom) wants to pursue more opportunities to perform, as well. This means that there are two performances in a couple of weeks, and possibly further gigs after. Norm also wants to jam with some trumpeter in the jazz style, Tom is keen to form a three-piece, and everybody's kind-of keen. However, these things can all crash down as fast as they build up, but it is nice to be in demand (so to speak) for my musical ability.

Life is full of opportunities, and this is exciting. The kids are going well, and I am looking forward to being able to help them go even better. My energy levels are once again starting to rise, I am getting some sleep and I am not feeling so wretchedly run down, so things are looking up. Hip-hip-hooray. Anyway, there is still heaps to do, so I had better hot-shoe-shuffle out of here.

...(puff puff).....almost.....(puff).....there.......

Before I go any further, I read an apt quote just before.

"Sure, ninety percent of science fiction is crud. That's because ninety percent of everything is crud."
Theodore Sturgeon

Something to be mindful of...

I have only two more assignments for this study period, plus an exam. PAC30:A2 is a biggie, and I am a bit nervous about it, but CMM37:A3 should be a quickie. Once these are done I will be free of that period of my life.

Hip hip HOORAY!

Of course, I start the post-graduate bachelor now, but that is something completely new and different. I am a little nervous about it though simply because I have not yet had a chance to go through it so I am very unsure of what is expected of me - always nerve-wracking I find. However, I am looking forward to the challenge.

So my next major challenge, having come out of this rediculously heavy period, is to build for myself a more reasonable and maintainable weekly lifestyle-routine, so to speak, one that includes writing, exercise, sleep, and family, as well as being able to accomodate work and study. This will be a challenege, but one which should yield productive and rewarding results.

I've still got to finish these last couple of assignments, though, or I'll just be making things hard again. I can't let these assignments compromise my initial period of the new post-graduate degree. I really want to be well settled into that before I start a MA, which I want to start in the second semester. So I can't let up. having said that I have a band-practice tonight (and it is here, which will make it perhaps more difficult), and tomorrow I am helping out one of the teachers at the kid's school for an hour or so.

Anyways, despite tiredness and a present propensity to headaches, I feel I have achieved a lot over the last thirteen weeks or so, and I also feel that I am just nearly free of this current study, which is not a little thing to me.

Another day, another bank charge...

Well, PAC30:A1 is moving along slowly but surely. It is interesting, but as with most things it is hard to keep it going when I'm tired. H. has popped in with W. so the house is in a bit of an uproar. Then again, when is the house not in a bit of an uproar. M. is in the middle of a particularly heavy femaleness at the moment which is making her tired, plus the weather is hot, it being summer and all. In all, domestic life is abundant.

Church has finally got a new YP leader, which is both a wrench and a relief. They're not my kids, buts it's like they're my kids, almost. I'll miss that. However, I am sure there will be plenty for me to do.

I haven't really got to do much study today, or yesterday for that matter. Yesterday I took the kit out to J.'s school and let the kids have a go. They all enjoyed it. I'll be taking it to another couple of primary schools in a couple of weeks. The next week and a half will be busy though as I have to finish PAC30:A1 and also:

• CMM38:A3;
• ENG210:A3;
• PAC30:A2;
• EDU120:A3;
• CMM37:A3;
• and the PAC30 exam.

That is not as bad as it has been in the past.

I'm just so tired. It is so hard to keep an essay in my head when I am tired. It is so hard to recall where all the good quotes are, as well. Having said that, I tidied up my textbooks a little so at least that makes it a little easier.

I have finished Macbeth and am into Antony and Cleopatra, although I am not finding it as gripping as Macbeth was. I'm getting through it though. I am also going to be getting (I admit guiltily) a load of books from eBay. Naughty naughty naughty.

On another front, the other house really does look like it is going to go through, which is fantastic. We should be getting enough to cover pretty much everything we wanted it to cover, including a new computer (at last!!!). Most of all it will "ease the squeeze" - to use a Lathamism - on the weekly budget.

There was an interesting discussion on the ENG210 discussion board which got quite personal at the end (if not at the beginning?!?) which was quite diverting. It looks like it has moved to more private domains, however. Anyway, I had better keep going.

Cultural capital

In the midst of the recent crisis I completed two units which I loved but was unable to complete to my satisfaction. These were the LTR units through Griffith, in which we were supposed to read ten classics. These were:

• The Odyssey by Homer;
• Medea by Euripides;
  
• Beowolf [anonymous];
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight [anonymous];
• The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer;
• Macbeth by Shakespeare;
• Antony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare;
• Gulliver's Travels by Swift;
• Anna Karenina by Tolstoy; and
  
• Wuthering Heights by Bronte.

I was not able to read all of these texts. Therefore, it is with some . . . pride (no, wrong word) . . . perhaps sense of relief that I have just finished Wuthering Heights. Why? Well the answer to that is perhaps more complex than the one word which postulates the question.

I, I believe, was raised with a respect for, shall we call it, high culture - literature, classical music, and so-on. However, at the same time I was raised without access to high culture. Therefore, I respected it, but I did not know it, and it grew to intimidate me. I guess I feared that should I encounter it I would not "get" it, thus proving my base nature. Added to this was my oddness and literal-mindedness, which has oft given me a different point-of-view and less "arty-farty" outlook. Thus my fear that I would fail miserably in potential encounters with high culture.

However, I also knew that I was lacking, and felt that I was lacking, because I had not really tasted of "the classics". For this reason I stealed myself to do the LTR units, enboldened by the fact that I would be alone in my studies (as they are by correspondence) and thus if I should fail I could hide the shame of my uncultural soul within myself.

However, I did enjoy the LTR units, and while enjoy is perhaps not the best word to express how I experienced the texts, appreciate possibly is. Thus I was quite mortified when the recent crisis disenabled me from reading them all!

So, having now finished Wuthering Heights, almost being ashamed of how late I have come to it, especially with my literary pretensions, I will now get into some Shakespeare. I will start with Macbeth, which I have read some of before, and then go into Antony and Cleopatra. I will use the LTR study notes to kind of spring-board me into it, and try and keep the ball rolling with Othello, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. Some literary studies books I have managed to appropriate will surely be of some assistance.

I suppose if anyone reads this they can perhaps learn this from me: If there is something that you feel you are missing, that is holding you back, don't not do it out of fear of failure, as that is guarateed failure, the very thing which you are fearful of. Avoidance of what you fear is not avoidance of fear, but rather a strengthening of that fear. Take a deep breath, find out how, and give it a try. You may fail, in which case your fear will be confirmed and you will be able to move on around or past it. However, you may not fail, in which case your fear will be denied and you will be one more step towards where you want to go.

Urgh. That was all a bit trite. Oh well, I guess it happens to the best of us.

All ahead full, cap'n

Whatever doesn't kill me, makes me stronger.

I've been thinking about that a little bit in the last few months as, to be honest, I thought a few of the things that were lining up against me were going to finish me off. I'll try and explain.

The situation at the last post...

Well, things were going alright, I suppose. I was finding study was getting on top of me a bit, which is I suppose not surprising. I was doing six units - CJR350, CMM26, CMM28, PSY210, PSY230 and VIS210 - and two modules - Novel 2B and Poetry 1B - and feeling very worn out by it all.

Then, it hit...

Something so devastating that it beggars belief hit me fair and square in my children. It devastated my wife - she did little but rage and cry for months. It completely changed the course of one of my daughter's life. I found myself the place of final buck-stoppage, so to speak, as my daughter divulged secretly to me on one side, and my wife lamenting and fuming to me on the other. I just couldn't think straight anymore, and study dropped out of my head.

The rest of August disappeared, and September and November, with appointments with all kinds of peoples and organisations, and study just fell in a hole. A big, deep hole. A big, deep, dark and scary hole.

At the start of December I found myself having twelve assignments for the six units to complete (even though they were supposed to be finishing), and over half a dozen assignments for the two modules (which were finishing in a couple of weeks). And on top of that, five more units were starting - CMM37, CMM38, EDU120, ENG210 and PAC30.

So, I got back to basics. I focussed on my general outlook. I focussed on my attitude, and compared it to the attitude I should have, according to the Bible. I studied how I felt about the people who had committed so hideous a crime against my daughter, and brought it into line with what the Bible tells me I should feel about them. I focussed on my goals for the future, and what is important to me. And I prayed, real hard. And then I worked!!!!!

It took me about four weeks to do the twelve plus seven assignments, which is better than I have ever done before. I also got all of the assignments due for the new study period for that same time, ammounting to over twenty assignments in five weeks, which is something I just praise the Lord for. I also put a lot of work into activities for church, and spent some good time with my wife and kids. And then I got to go away with my family for three weeks to the Grampians (before they were cindered) and near Geelong, and spend some time with some incredibly lovely people from my church. I've then come home, and got into and stayed into it.

The Lord has continued to bless. The other house is on the market and has just had an offer made for it. I got into the post-graduate course I had applied for, exactly as I wanted to. I have found some other courses that I will do to further my career. The local assembly has just sparked up, which is exciting. I've lost weight and my general health and well-being has improved. And other factors of my life have just been ticking along.

So, right now, things are looking up, and I have to praise the Lord for his graciousness in all these situations. I also have to relax, and learn that all of these things which come against me, if they don't kill me, they make me stronger. They make me better able to deal with disasters when they do come, and disasters do come. They help me focus on what really is important to me.

I've also been thinking about this passage from Isaiah a bit:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory."

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the alter. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"

And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

So now, I find myself at the tail-end of my last lot of units for a little while with OUA. I've done 53, and failed none. In a few weeks I'll have completed the last units, and I'll then be able to send away my academic transcript to Griffith University for two bachelor degrees. I'll go to two graduation ceremonies this year; the first for a Diploma, and the second for two Bachelors. I start my post-graduate Bachelor in a few weeks, and a Masters in about five months. In the two years after that I will, while working, do a Bachelor Honours, and a Graduate Certificate. I'll then go on to do a PHD, if I can.

This year promises to be much, much easier than last year. I plan to work daily on V. from March onwards. I'm going to start entering competitions again later this month. I'm also reading more, which is great! I'll institute a regular exercise program for myself with the aim of it becoming habit, and thus further improve my general health and fitness and lose more weight. I'll spend some good time with my kids this year, and try to get away with my wife one weekend for a special thingo. And we'll also try and get the renovations done to this place done either later this year, or early next.

Well, that's the plan, and while plans do have a habit of going pear-shaped, at this moment, everything is pretty much full steam ahead, which is a real relief. It is really nice - and terribly satisfying - to have come out of a particularly difficult time and feel as if one is getting somewhere.

Thank you Lord. I truly am an amazingly blessed man.


PS. With everything that has happened, this blog became qu8ite dusty. However, I am aiming to start posting to it on a much more regular basis. This is the aim, but if I don't meet it, please don't be too harsh on me, dear reader...