hello rover

my first week at beerwah high has been a very mixed one. first of all i didn't seem to fit in, then i thought there was no way i was going to be able to become a teacher, and then finally after the panic and uncertainty passed, i felt accepted, welcome and almost at home being a teacher at the school. and so, the journey of becoming a teacher continues. in the next few weeks i will take on a few more classes, some more demanding ones, and hopefully i shall make the grade.

woohoo! my favourite song by josh pyke, 'middle of the hill', made it to number 19 on the hottest 100. happy australia day everyone. good ol' bernard made it to number one.

today was my very first class. 11 senior maths a, 21 students. because it was the first day of school for them, they were quite well behaved. also, i'm learning to stop off-task behaviour sooner, before it leads to distractions. and so, another school year begins, full of eager students keen to learn, disinterested students keen to do nothing, and mischievous students keen to do no good. how these people turn into adults is a complete mystery to me. the only thing certain is that time will not let us escape growing old. the growing of minds however is far more complex.

looking over the edge
seems far away

one must have faith
the ground will rise

to meet my foot
like it always has

today was my first student free day.
my supervisor, dr mark, is great. he's been teaching for 15 years and i will learn a lot about teaching, especially behaviour management. we have a 9 core maths science class of apparently 'difficult' students and i am expecting to learn many new behaviour management techniques. but for now i have lots to read, and lots to plan. i must go.

Calvin and Hobbes

in the midst of life's activity
make a little time for creativity
(Anonymous)

Try this for a cool 'time e-capsule' for yourself. You can send a happy birthday message years in advance :) Take two and call me in the morning.

A cool new song I've been listening to, Middle of the hill by Josh Pyke. They even have an mp3 to try.

When I was a kid I grew up in a house on a hill, not the top, not the bottom but the middle.

And I still remember where I cracked my head, in the vacant lot, there's a row of tiny houses there now.

And we used to light fires in the gutters, and I could cool my head on the concrete steps.

But the girl down the street hit my sister on the head with a stick and we hid behind my father as he knocked on her parents’ door, to tell them what she did, but the parents were drunk so they really didn't give a shit.

And the girl down the street said her dog couldn't bark, because a man with an axe cut its voice box out.

But my older sister told me that it probably wasn't true, and I believed what she said because she took me by the hand one time, when a couple of men drove down the hill in a white van said there was a phone box filled with money 'round the corner, and I would've gone along, but she took me by the hand to the house in the middle of the hill.

And our Mother knew the words to a lot of different songs, and we'd always sing the harmonies when we'd sing along.

She had cool cool hands when the fever hit, and then the noises that the trains made sounded like people in my head.

And the stories that the ceiling told, through the pictures in the grains on the pinewood boards.

And I could stay outside till the sky went red, and I could cool my head on the concrete steps.

And you can never really see the top from the bottom.

I don't pay enough attention to the good things when I've got them.

You can also hear more songs from Josh Pyke

Ellen MacArthur