hello rover

yesterday i visited shell rock at mt beerwah
after getting a few scratches from the scrub
and a few scary moments climbing down the small chimney
we finally arrived at shell rock
it is quite spectacular, a hollow gas bubble left behind
in the hard rock of a volcano
you can see through the roof where the thin rock has broken away
and you could even see the moon in the late afternoon
now my legs and muscles are aching from being used so much
when they have not been doing much recently
i'm going to try and start getting fit again
there's nothing like the feeling of getting outdoors and
being beaten and scratched by mother nature to remind you that you're alive

i've decided to take up a new sport
geocaching
now i just have to buy a gps so i can start

i love that old fashioned feeling you can only get when an object you ordered arrives in your mailbox. sometimes it may take a week or two to arrive, but that only increases the expectation of the final arrival. and when it finally arrives and doesn't fit in the mailbox so the mailman delivers it personally then it is even nicer. you get to have a quick hello and interaction with another's world that is ordinarily never seen. now i can sit down and read my new book that came all the way from massachusetts. information that came via the slow scenic way.

today i finished my contract
only a few students turned up
my 8s were apologetic for their behaviour at times
they said thank you
i said thank you
we all left happy

i just saw one of the most beautiful sights i have ever seen. i checked onto heavens-above.com to find the shuttle/ISS viewing times for my location. i went outside tonight to watch the shuttle go over.

i got more than i had bargained for. not only did i see the space shuttle drift overhead, i also saw the space station gliding along just ahead. it was wonderful. it was spectacular. i wish i had a camera to show you.
the space station outshone jupiter in the sky and the little space shuttle trailing it was like a small star moving among the the heavens. if the space station were named lucy, and stars were made of diamond, the event could be likened to listening to a beautiful song.

a navy seahawk helicopter visited our school today. it was amazing. everyone got time off class to see it land on the oval. it made a lot of noise and showed the kids just how scary 10 tonnes of fibreglass and steel can be when it hurtles through the air. i got to touch it too, the skin was fibreglass, and it had a really cool tail rotor to help landing and manoeuvrability at sea. i want to go for a ride in a helicopter one day, that would be great fun.

i may sound relieved to be finishing soon
and indeed i am
i used to think that teachers had it easy with holidays every 3 months. now i know that i was wrong and there's no way teachers could manage without a holiday from the kids. the holidays don't mean holidays from marking assignments and preparation for lessons, unit plans, work plans and all sorts of crap you never think of when you're a schoolkid. i can't wait for my holidays right now. it will give me time to recover from this cold/flu thing that's been hanging around for the last 7 weeks, and have some of my time to myself. i feel like i've lived three years in the past 9 weeks i've been working, i can't imagine how real teachers must feel. they see whole lives come and go before them. some of the teachers here even taught steve irwin in his biology class.

today the news came that steve irwin has died.
this was a rather big surprise, and caused some sadness.

i'm sure that steve has inspired and touched the lives of millions of people on this earth with his infectious passion for what he does. while some may not like his brand of aussieness, his genuiness can not be doubted.

i relate a personal story.
about 7 years ago i was digging with a front-end loader at my parent's farm. i ran into what i thought was a nest of rats in a hole in the ground. on closer inspection they turned out to be two cute little platypus. i had badly injured one and the other seemed a little dopey, or perhaps just sleepy. i picked them up (carefully as i was aware the male one had little spikes on its hind legs which are poisonous) and ran to the house to show my brother and mum who were both home at the time. i felt bad because they were platypus and there's not many around and so i decided to call the australia zoo to see what could be done. they said they'd send someone out to have a look. about 20 minutes later Steve and Terri Irwin turn up with Steve's mum. i was surprised that steve himself turned up. i showed them to the injured platypus, who was now dead and the other one who was still a little drowsy. steve and terri got straight down to business, asked to see the nest where they came from and we went out and placed the surviving female in the nest. we resecured the nest and hoped for the best. steve and terri took the dead platypus and were going to send it to another park on the gold coast for inspection. all the while steve and terri were so keen and passionate about helping out, and they were so genuine, kind and warm, that it hardly seemed like i had never met them before.

ever since steve has come to be one of my heros. a person that i would like to have been. i always hoped that i could be as passionate about teaching as he was about showing the world interesting stuff about animals.

my sympathy goes to terri and their two children. steve's legacy remains, a happy platypus still swims through my parent's dam to this day.

this week i learnt that i trust untrustworthy students too much. i rely on unreliable students, and i can't stop students from throwing oranges across a classroom. fortunately i also learnt that one of my students from a disadvantaged background is very bright. i gave credit where credit was due and i earnt some respect, from one student anyway. that leaves about 85 students to go.

i was really annoyed when two kids in my 10 class started fighting and one snapped and pegged an orange across the room behind my back, smashing against the back wall narrowly missing it's target. the problem is, i feel responsible because for that sort of stuff to happen i must not be a good teacher nor have the kids on task and being reasonable. but for some things i think i have to absolve myself of responsibility. i can't hold a students hand to prevent him from choosing to get mad and throw stuff, nor can i gag them to stop them talking when i need to talk. all i can do is ask them to choose the right thing. too often they choose the wrong thing. i can only hope that my follow-up will one day sink in and they will learn to choose the right thing when they get older.