foetid air and gritty

Test pattern.

2006-09-30T19:32:00.000+10:00

Metablogging.

2006-08-18T11:24:00.000+10:00

Metablogging.

I'm having an existentialist crisis. Of the blogging kind. How sad. See I've been getting the feeling that I write about nothing. Sure, Seinfeld can get away with that premise, but that's only because he's a comic genius.

The whole blog thing started out as a procrastination toy. And now I don't have time to do that, even. Well, except for now. I'm in the Education AccessLab, at the moment and I'm supposed to be finding journal articles on curriculum adaptation/enhancement/augmentation for students with special needs. And I can see LongJohn (ha!) through the glass in the AccessLab annexe. Just thought I'd mention that.

I think I'm a bit over it. Maybe I just don't find anything intersting enough to write about now. Is this a sign that I'm ageing or something? Am I getting the grumps? That sucks. Also I think I'm becoming a little self concious about what I write about too. Fancy that, being anonymous and the like, and still feeling self-concious and stuff. On the net. Bah!

Meanwhile, I'm contemplating a move to Wordpress.

Listening to:
Title: The Girl From Impanema
Artist: Whoever
Album/station: In my head
Length: THE WHOLE FREAKING DAY

Chorus angelorum te suscipiat.

2006-08-17T16:48:00.000+10:00

Chorus angelorum te suscipiat.

I'm not particularly spiritual. A faith in his noodleness is about as religious as I get. But I'm partial to religious music. Only some, mind you. None of that cheap Hill$ong arms-in-the-air 'rock'. Real, proper stuff. Requiem mass compositions, choral works, and even some British anthemic hymns. How lame.

Requiems I like especially. It might be a little morbid - they're about death after all - but they're beautiful pieces of music. They're solemn in parts, and in others they're literally striking the fear of God into you.

So I've bought some tix. Who shall I take with me?

Listening to:
Title: Pie Iesu
Artist: Schola Cantorum of Oxford
Album/station: Faure: Requiem, Messe basse, Cantique de Jean Racine (1994)
Length: 3.31

Oh Danny Boy.

2006-08-14T20:24:00.000+10:00

Oh Danny Boy.

The last thing I could've imagined myself doing on a Sunday morning was reminiscing about Father Ted while lying in bed with a gorgeous Irishman. I met him at the Place, as one does, and well, I guess I ended up going home with him.

It was a beautiful morning to wake up to, despite the noise of the traffic on Old South Head Road outside his window. Too good to waste indoors.

Listening to:
Title: Complainte de la Butte
Artist: Rufus Wainwright
Album/station: Moulin Rouge OST (2001)
Length: 3.06

Aww, diddums.

2006-08-09T19:42:00.000+10:00

Aww, diddums.

Whether or not our mate Johnny is to blame, one of Howard's battlers says that her trust in our fearless leader has been destroyed because of the interest rate rise.

Never mind the lies and non-core promises that Honest John made in the run up to every election to date. Never mind that no children were ever thrown overboard, or that he introduced the GST that he promised he wouldn't. And neither should we mind that there were never any weapons of mass destruction.

Apparently, it doesn't matter that essential government services and public goods are being run into the ground, or that access to genuine opportunity is being reduced rather than increased for those who need it most. Neither does it matter that Australia is becoming a socially, culturally, technologically and intellectually stagnant backwater.

Only now that the credit card bills are coming in, the mortgage repayment for the McMansion is due and the hip pockets are being hit, suddenly trust in Howard takes a dive. Permit me to perform le eyeroll.

Listening to:
Title: Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before
Artist: The Smiths
Album/station: The Very Best of the Smiths (2001)
Length: 3.34

Shut the fuck.

2006-08-06T06:50:00.000+10:00

Shut the fuck.

So. Stonewalled again, even though I said I wouldn't. I don't know why I go to that fucken place. I always feel like total shit after. And now I'm broke.

But I pashed on with some hot Frenchy dude. Pierced eyebrow, gorgeous smile. His boyfriend was a cunt, though. Tell me again how I got the boyfriend's number but not Frenchy's. It does not compute. Bah.

I'm going to crawl into my burrow and never come out again.

Listening to:
Title: ---
Artist: ---
Album/station: ---
Length: -.--

Oh noes! I can't afford my fag habit!

2006-08-03T17:38:00.000+10:00

Oh noes! I can't afford my fag habit!

So interests rates have gone up and the aspirationals (read: bogans) cry foul. You know what? Tough shit. If you decide to spend dangerously beyond your means, you deserve to be stung. You can't honestly believe that $55k can support four kids (and another on the way), a mortgage and a $48/week fag habit. And they're jumping the Lib-ship, too. Have some conviction, people. Stick to your golden boy.

Our fearless leader should shoulder some of the blame for the latest economic woes and should get the sack for this and everything else the rodent has been the perpetrator of in his ten years in office. But the mindless twits who voted for him under the pretense of cheaper borrowing to fund their materialist aspirations aren't entirely blameless. While The Great One claimed that he could keep a lid on the cash rate, plebs everywhere borrowed and spent like they had some kind of monetary dysentry.

And as if changing one's vote is going to change one's personal situation. More than anything, I think this whole episode has highlighted the fact that lots of people out there are single-issue voters. And shallow, selfish issues at that. Whatever happened to having no child living in poverty? Or free and secular education for all? Or toiling with our hearts and hands to make this Commonwealth of ours renowned of all the lands? What about our boundless plains to share?

Meanwhile, I like the irony that the tax cuts may have contributed to the interest rate hike.

Listening to:
Title: Sell My Soul
Artist: Midnight Oil
Album/station: Diesel and Dust (1987)
Length: 3.37

Double vodka redbulls.

2006-07-31T00:35:00.000+10:00

Double vodka redbulls.

It was about as romantic as pashing some random at the Wall of Stone can get. In other words: not really.

But it was coming up to four AM and I was having a Cinderella moment. As much as I wanted to stay with him, I simply had to go: things to do, places to be. I whispered into his ear. He took my hands and held them.

He pulled me close and kissed me again, never letting my hands go. I stepped back. I didn't want to look away; I couldn't. A second step. Then his hands released mine, and I'd lost him amongst the crowd.

The winter air outside hit me like a brick wall. I shivered in my sweat-drenched T-shirt. I reached into my back pocket. Empty. Bah! The cunt stole my cigarettes.

Listening to:
Title: Love Ain't Gonna Wait For You
Artist: S Club 7
Album/station: Best: The Greatest Hits (2003)
Length: 3.20

CAWW!!! CAWW!!!

2006-07-28T18:35:00.000+10:00

CAWW!!! CAWW!!!

Gah! I was attacked by birds today! It was very Hitchcockesque. My first feed of the day was some dodgy McDonald's, and SEAGULLS WERE TRYING TO STEAL IT! Sure, I've been a leetle less than nice to our winged fiends, but I DID NOT deserve this.

All I wanted to do was go home. I'd missed breakfast, and I hadn't had a break from classes all day. I was tired and hungry. And then this pack of skyrats swoops down from fuck knows where and picks my food right out of my fingers. Like ohmigod! See, I'm used to the Quay gulls getting all aggressive around humans bearing food - charging up to you on foot, assuming some kind of avian battle posture and cawing like a drunken sailor would, if the sailor had feathers. But these ones were INSANE! Absolutely psychotic. All flappy and bitey and the like. At least they didn't shit on me.

I've decided that there's no more hanging around Circular Quay for me. It's straight off the bus and onto the ferry now. Not that I've given in to the airborne threat or anything. But it all does remind me of ex-boyfriend Hoover, who shat himself whenever he saw any feathered creature. Naww, how cute.

Meanwhile, I bought a Lotto ticket today. I've popped my Lotto cherry.

Listening to:
Title: Sunshine
Artist: Keane
Album/station: Hopes and Fears (2004)
Length: 4.12

A Happy Beerday

2006-07-27T20:15:00.000+10:00

A Happy Beerday.

So it was my birthday the other day. A pretty low-key affair. I'd intended for it to slip entirely below the radar, but it just wasn't the case. My parents actually remembered this year. How inconvenient. Now there's nothing for me to be bitter about. Bah!

After class, I ended up pickling my liver with a few mates over at dear, dear Manning House. I wasn't really intending on doing anything that night - I really only wanted to go home and wallow. But instead, I phoned around at the last minute and got drunk on a school night. And I was really feeling it when I turned up to my SpEd tute the next morning.

Oh memories of first year. When I turned eighteen, the birthday celebrations continued from the weekend well into the uni week. Ah yes, Manning Bar, noon on the first day of semester: copious amounts of alcohol were consumed, and all at Simon's expense. Cut to the Education Building, MacLab 224, later that day: inebriated, I sat at an iMac, trying my drunken best to learn, but only managing to giggle. I don't think anyone noticed - I hope.

But back to the drinking. I pashed someone I probably shouldn't have. Ah well. But it was good while it lasted.

Listening to:
Title: As Long As I Am
Artist: Paulmac feat. Luke Steele
Album/station: Panic Room (2005)
Length: 5.27

Plans.

2006-07-24T23:29:00.000+10:00

Plans.

It's about this time every year that I like to think about the future. You know, not that I set aside particular dates to go all introspective or anything. It just, well, happens.

So, two ideas. The first one involves teaching for a few years after uni at a New South Welsh public high school before heading over to the UK and teaching there for a while. The second idea involves teaching for a few years before joining the AFP.

Both those ideas involve going back to a NSW public school and teaching again. Eventually. Or in the case of the former, possibly even staying over in the UK and becoming a subject of Her Majesty. We'll see how it turns out.

Listening to:
Title: Don't Look Back
Artist: Telepopmusik feat. Angela McClusky
Album/station: Ministry of Sound: Chillout Sessions 7 (2005)
Length: 3.42

On the eve of second semester.

2006-07-23T23:57:00.000+10:00

On the eve of second semester.

I actually looking forward to uni this semester. I'm overloaded by about six credit points but I'll see how I go. I'll get to catch up with a few people and see how their pracs went.

And speaking of which, I found myself over at one of those gay online dating sites, the one that I joined years ago and almost forgot about until someone pointed me over there recently, and I stumbled acorss a lad I knew from my course at uni. Outed. But I mean, more me than him. See I'm not out to any one in my course - well, not to anyone in the B.Ed. side of it at least. Ah well, it had to happen sometime.

Meanwhile, inspired by McDonald's El Maco burger, I made myself a Mexican-themed burger for dinner. Behold:

A Woolies burger with lettuce, cheese, nacho sauce, some guacamole I'd made myself, a dash of Nando's peri-peri sauce and some sour cream on two thick slices of toast. Like, ohmigod. I was sad when it was all over.

No one comment on how messy my kitchen is. I already know. And yes, I was too lazy to wash and shred my own lettuce.

Listening to:
Title: Lacrimosa
Artist: Mozart: The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra
Album/station: Requiem, KV 626 (1989)
Length: 2.43

Blowing money on beer 'n wimmin.

2006-07-17T23:42:00.000+10:00

Blowing money on beer 'n wimmin.

Maybe not quite beer and women. Subsitute the words 'lolly water' and 'gay boys' and you'd have a more accurate representation of my weekend. And so I'm officially broke. Again. Loose me upon the world! Watch me fall destitute!

I didn't really want to go out on Saturday. Just generally recently I've been feeling sorry for myself. Mood swings, dontcha know. You'd think you'd have left them behind when glorious puberty had passed you by.

Lauren had a date with a spunky guy scheduled at some strange hour of the Saturday night/Sunday morning. She felt like she needed some Dutch courage, she said. And well, I missed her so I got off my moody bum and headed out. But it was her idea to go to Wall of Stone; I didn't want her to get trashed at a gaybar before her date. We joke about how she's my faghag, but I don't get to see her very often anymore. She works for the Tax Office now, and over some transnational non-crazy-Christian fair-trade coffee before the making-of-blindness, she answered all my tax questions. She was so pretty.

Anyway, so we ended up the place and drank, killing time before her date. But the imbibing of alcohol soon became the date. The boy joined us, with two of his mates. Did I mention the guy is an underwear model? Le swoon. And his entourage consisted of a twinky gay guy and a buff country bumpkin. It was the second trip into the city for the country boy. Ever. And what a way to spend it: in an establishment for the gay man, of all places. Fags left, right and centre, trying to get their greasy mits on him. Hey, I wouldn't blame 'em; I'd hit it. Hard.

The rest of the night/morning was a bit of a blur. I lost Lauren at some stage, bumped into a few ex-boyfriends. But I found a guy from uni, which I know isn't hard, but he was from my course, and in a lot of my classes, even. In fact, we'd often partnered up for group work and we each did our teaching practicum at the same school.

I'd known him for so long, and I didn't find out he was this-way-inclined until very recently. And even then, we'd never spoken about it openly. He moves in completely different circles to me and all the other gays I know. And here I was thinking Sydney's queers were all one giant, globular mass.

Ended up at the Imperial in Newtown. I don't think I'd ever really been there before. How I got there from Oxford Street, I don't know.

Listening to:
Title: Finished Symphony [Hybrid Soundtrack Edit Mix]
Artist: Hybrid
Album/station: Ministry of Sound: Chillout Session, Vol.2 (2002)
Length: 3.18

He smells.

2006-07-15T17:47:00.000+10:00

He smells.

You're walking down a grey city street. Everything is grey. The sky is grey, the footpath, the road, the buildings, even the people are grey.

A man in a long black coat brushes past you, and you smell something familiar. It's sweet and flowery, but musky and masculine, too. Sexy. The moment it tickles the hairs in your nostrils, synapses fire all through your body: it's the fragrance that you remember one of your ex-boyfriends used to wear. You don't know what it is exactly, but you've been looking for it in all the shops ever since you saw him last.

Two years have passed. Two years since that cold June Sunday afternoon. You woke up first; he was drooling on his pillow. It was pretty unsexy, you remember, but strangely adorable. With that thought, you dove under the doona and roused him from his slumber with a blowjob. And after you'd finished him off, he took a bleary-eyed look under the doona, letting a crack of light and that cute lop-sided smile of his shine through. He pulled you up and nibbled on your ear lobe, his stubble scouring your cheek. He still smelled like he did the night before. It was that fragrance.

You remember drifting back to sleep, your head on his chest. You sigh. You don't miss him, you think to yourself. No. But you wouldn't object to waking up with him again.

Your eyes almost follow the scent over your shoulder and you do a double-take. No, black-coat-man's too tall, and just not him. And you're a little disappointed.

Listening to:
Title: I Will Follow You into the Dark
Artist: Death Cab For Cutie
Album/station: Plans (2005)
Length: 3.09

Holidays.

2006-07-06T14:17:00.000+10:00

Holidays.

Payday. Finally. Pretty early on in the week, the hole-in-the-wall blocked supply and I've had a constitutional crisis of my own. Hardihar.

That made no sense. But it's okay! I'm on holidays! I tell you what, after three weeks of school, I think I've earned it. Gosh I'm such a pussy. Teachers do forty weeks of that shit every year. Funnily enough though, I've run into a few of my students at the shops over the last few days. Heh, look at me: my students? Oh dear. And they still call me sir! How sweet! At least I haven't seen nor heard from creepy-emo-stalker-girl.

I met a pretty hot boy at a party on the weekend. Unfortunately, he doesn't worship at the altar of cock like, well, I do. I don't seem to meet any gays anymore. WHERE ARE YOU ALL? Anyway, the lads name was Dean and the lead singer of some band that I don't know. He walked around feeling people's nipples. Including mine. I felt his, too. Reciprocal nipple touching, he called it. If only he'd known. Unfortunately the bash ran out of alcohol before I could test out the six-beer law. It just wasn't my night.

So I'm staying at Mum's at the moment. It's nice to have a break from dense suburbia sometimes. Went up for lunch on the high street yesterday. Found a copy of The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants and watched that. And ohmigod I cried! How lame!

Listening to:
Title: Holiday
Artist: Mad'House
Album/station: Remix Heaven Vol. 2 (2003)
Length: 3.29

Teaching practicum, day fourteen.

2006-06-30T19:38:00.000+10:00

Teaching practicum, day fourteen.

So practicum draws to a close and, well, I'm a little sad about that. I'm not sure if it's the same for anyone else, but it's been a moving experience for me. And I don't know, maybe I've gotten a little too emotionally involved in it all, but I just don't see how one can't be. The last three weeks have been so mentally and emotionally draining. Teaching as I experienced it might not involve all that much physical exertion, but when I get home I'm ready to crash.

I think first prac has got to be one of the most momentous events for teachers. The staff at school I've spoke with over the last three weeks all seem remember their first professional experience with a bit of nostalgia and warmth. It's been hard and at times I'd wondered about whether I really wanted to become a teacher or not, but you know what? I loved it.

There were ups, there were downs. There were ups and downs simultaneously. It was crazy. But the kids were great. Except for year eight. They're idiots.

Listening to:
Title: Catch Me Up
Artist: Gomez
Album/station: Split The Difference (2005)
Length: 3.47

Teaching practicum, day eleven: creepy-emo-girl

2006-06-27T22:51:00.000+10:00

Teaching practicum, day eleven: creepy-emo-girl.

Hmm, so many grammar and spelling mistakes in that last post. Frustration, exhaustion, et cetera.

Practicum has been good the last few days, relatively. I really quite like all the people I'm working with and learning from - people that I hope to end up teaching alongside at some point in my teaching career, as unlikely as that may be. I like the sense of community, even just within the walls of our faculty staffroom.

I think the thing that has gotten me through teaching prac has been the discussions/bitch sessions I've had on the couches with one science teacher or another; a bit of a debrief after a class helped a lot with coping. It has been a tough few weeks and it's just been so draining. I think I can say that teaching is harder than I thought it was, but it's something I still very much want to do. My uni supervisor said to me that teaching isn't easy, but a good teacher is one that makes it look so.

Anyway, today things with that creepy girl got worse. I was headed back to the staffroom from the canteen at lunch when the creepy-emo-girl from year eight came up to me brandishing an eight-by-ten of that Big Brother tosser she's obsessed with. She held it beside me face and remarked on how much I look like him, which I DON'T. So I did a polite version of a whatever, and just as I turned she put her arms around me. I was all, FUCKING GET AWAY FROM ME FUCKING CREEPY-EMO-GIRL. Well, I didn't quite say that, but I was thinking it. And I couldn't push her away because I couldn't move my arms - that's how she held me - so I did my best to wriggle out, and I pretty much scarpered. One of my year eleven chemistry students saw what happend and asked me if I was okay or if I needed any help, which was nice of him.

When I got back, I told my cooperating teacher about it. Apparently I was meant to say to creepy-emo-girl that it was inappropriate et cetera, which I would have said if I wasn't so CREEPED OUT.

It didn't end there. At the end of day, creepy-emo-girl cornered me by the front gate. I tried to cross the road to get away from her, but she followed. And get this: she told me she loved me, several times over. LIKE, OHMIGOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, BITCH? Once someone had picked her up, I called the other science prackie on my mobile from the bus stop. I was freaking out a little at this stage, and she told me I should probably tell someone about it. I ended up going back to the staffroom and telling my head and my cooperating teachers. Actually I think at that moment, I was more worried about covering my arse. You know, being male teacher, child protection laws and all that jazz. If somehow I pissed creepy-emo-girl off or if her parents got the shits and a complaint was made, it'd forever be on my record - it'd stick to me - despite it all being absolutley INSANE. And that'd kill my teaching career before it began.

I got some support from the other teachers, and some accompanying jokes at my expense too. My cooperating teacher asked if I wanted at escort off the school grounds. Har-di-har. She also couldn't help but say I-told-you-so, too. See, she picked it on the first day when creepy-emo-girl initially approached me. Apparently, she sensed something strange afoot. Then again, it was suggested that creepy-emo-girl might just be a normal teenager, but just trying to rile me up. If that was her motive, well then it worked.

In suppose that in my own ego-fuelled way, I was kind of hoping I'd get a few girls crushing on me. But not like this. It was flattering at first but now it's just, you know, shudders. Luckily I won't have year eight again in any great measure. I don't think many of them will turn up on Thursday afternoon.

Listening to:
Title: Silence
Artist: Gomez
Album/station: Split The Difference (2004)
Length: 2.55

Teaching practicum, day eight.

2006-06-22T23:40:00.000+10:00

Teaching practicum, day eight.

Today has got to be the worst day I've ver had in my life. Everything that could go wrong did.

Because I spent last night trying get a few more futile entries done on my portfolio, I didn't have much time to plan my lessons for today. So I got to school early this morning so I could finish them off (which is a bad idea in the first place) and I was running out of time by recess. I had classes right through from period three until home time, and to top it off, my tertiary supervisor from uni was going to be oberving my year ten class over the periods five and six double.

I was so unprepared for year ten. I'd left so many of my teaching aids up in the staffroom, unphotocopied or elsewhere. It was a practical lesson too; I was teaching them about writing word equations and precipitation reactions. I think I had them engaged for about thirty seconds when I poured a beaker of lead nitrate solution into another beaker filled with potassium iodide solution. When it came time for the students to perform their own experiments, everything went to shit. My instructions were heeded, it's just that my instructions were shit.

Then there was year eight in the periods seven and eight double, the last lesson of the day. It was a shocker. It was a seventy-five minute double-period, and absolutely nothing got done. They did nothing but talk. I wasn't about to talk over them, so I stood and waited. And waited. I told them I wasn't going to start until everyone was quiet. Then for a few seconds they were, and I managed to squeeze a few words here or there.

Then I wanted to extend on the work they'd done a week before with their normal teacher (and my cooperating teacher), and they knew nothing. I wanted them to relate the words they learnt last week, i.e. dependent, independent and controlled variables, repetition, validity, reliability, et cetera, to assess whether Super Size Me was a valid scientific investigation. But they had no idea. I said to them, "turn to the work you did last week" and they say to me, "What work, sir?". What work?! They genuinely had no idea about what I was on about! But I know they did it, and they did the work well; I marked it myself! For some reason it was totally absent from all but a few books. Some kids don't even bring books. They just don't learn. Of course, it's never their fault.

So I wanted to go over them again, but I never got that far. Not even one question was answered. My lesson plan went out the window. I even tried to group them so that they could discuss the task in groups, but they just wouldn't. There's this girl that really shits me who has the biggest mouth. She never shuts it. Bah!

Then I went in to uni to hand in my portfolio for marking. Had to print some more pages off at AccessLabs and then I headed off to the Education Building to stick all the pages in the folder and hand it in. But there was a problem: not all my pages had printed out, and I didn't notice until I was just about tp hand it in. So I ran back to Fisher, but the missing pages weren't anywhere to be seen. Ran back to Education. Ran down to the Education Building AccessLab and had a look at my thumbdrive; I hadn't saved copies from my computer hard drive to it. FUCK!

Anyway, I ended up in my course-coodinator's office in what he calls the crying chair. Wasn't crying, just talking about stuff and how shit I think I've done. He told me that the M.Teach portfolios are marked differently to B.Ed portfolios, so there's hope for me yet. And I've got a few days to get my missing pages in. Crisis averted.

Listening to:
Title: Rio
Artist: Duran Duran
Album/station: Greatest(1998)
Length: 4.45

Teaching practicum, day seven.

2006-06-21T22:40:00.000+10:00

Teaching practicum, day seven.

I only had year eight to teach today. I had them watching a documentary DVD on fast food (yes, that one) so I didn't have to do much except play policeman and give the kids who dare spoke a death stare.

I'm settling in quite well at school. It sucks that I'm only there for three weeks, though. I think I'm getting a tad too attached. Despite the tough kids, I'm not even sure if I really want to leave at the end of it. There's such a strong sense of community amongst the staff, and I feel so quite at home there now. I love how everyone supports one another and are just so chummy. It's the kind of community that I want in on.

Meanwhile, I've given up on my curriculum portfolio. I've just let it go and I'm not going to stress about it. At the moment, I've decided that the marks I could gain from doing more work on it won't make up for the marks I'll lose for handing it in late. And I've lost all motivation for it, really. I'll just hand in what I've got and cross my fingers. I'll have a chat to my lecturer too, and see where that goes.

It was getting in the way of writing my lesson plans. My bestmate Sarge noted the irony in that a piece of work about learning to teach was getting in the way of actually teaching.

Listening to:
Title: Lilac Wine (Live, Palais Theatre, Melbourne Australia)
Artist: Jeff Buckley
Album/station: Mystery White Boy: Live '95-'96 (2000)
Length: 5.19

Teaching practicum, day six.

2006-06-20T23:48:00.000+10:00

Teaching praccticum, day six.

Today was great. Period zero: year eleven chemistry. They were a dream. No problems at all, and I got through most of what I'd planned for the lesson. Then, period five, it was the class that I was dreading: year eight. But I stood my ground this time and I conquered them! Well, mostly. Anyway, it's cause for a party.

But there was/is a big downer to the whole day. See, on Thursday I have a science curriculum studies portfolio due. The thing is, I left it too late before I started the bloody thing and now the stuff I have done is pretty substandardly poor. It's all dawning upon me now, tonight. I'm looking at a fail for this unit, methinks. First F EVAH. Yep, that'll put the B.Ed. half of my degrees on hold for a year. Bah!

Of course, it's mostly my fault. I didn't do as many readings as I would've liked, and I didn't critically reflect on things as much as I should've. Oh, and STARTING EARLIER might've helped, too.

Then again, it's also a post-grad unit that we poor undergrads have been co-opted into. Make me feel better. Who else can I blame?

Listening to:
Title: Save Tonight
Artist: Eagle-Eye Cherry
Album/station: Desireless (1998)
Length: 3.58

Teaching practicum, day five.

2006-06-19T20:58:00.000+10:00

Teaching practicum, day five.

Year eight are the spawn of Satan. That is all I have to say on the matter, really.

Also I found out today that the teacher I have a crush on is married. Le pout. So much for my gay theory. I mean, not that anything could've or would've ever happened. But you know, he shared the same look and some of the same mannerisms as January Shag. Just slightly older, nerdier and less sexy but more adorable. Ah well.

So teaching prac is a whole lot of disappointments at the moment. But I'm learning stuff.

Listening to:
Title: Where It's At
Artist: Beck
Album/station: Odelay (1999)
Length: 5.30

Teaching practicum, day three.

2006-06-15T23:36:00.000+10:00

Teaching practicum, day three.

I was hit with one class after the other today. First, year eleven (twice), then year ten and finally, year eight. It was a pretty good day considering. Year eight watched Super Size Me so they didn't cause much grief, year ten made models of atoms and year eleven are just perfect regardless.

I had a double dose of year eleven because the other science prac student asked me to sit in on her physics class and be her 'critical friend'. Both my chemistry and her physics classes are pretty much the same kids so I knew them all already. It's a little bit scary being dropped into the deep end like this. Our cooperating teachers are pretty much leaving us with the kids on our own while they seemingly use the time and opportunity to catch up on other work.

Anyhoo, I've spoken to some of the other prac students from other faculties at school and a couple more who've gone to other places, and nearly everyone is feeling the same: dejected, tired, confused. How sad. I think everyone is having second thoughts about teaching, which is a shame.

We're having a meeting at lunch tomorrow for all the prac students at school, and there's quite a bunch of us. I think it'll be more of a group therapy session.

Listening to:
Title: Without MSG I Am Nothing
Artist: McLusky
Album/station: McLuskyism(2006)
Length: 2.57

Teaching practicum, day two.

2006-06-14T20:20:00.000+10:00

Teaching practicum, day two.

Yesterday I felt a little out of my depth. But today I feel totally in over my head. There's so much that you've got to do before every lesson. It's more work than I originally thought. I only have around two or three classes a day at the moment, but I'm so buggered by the end of it all. It's just so draining. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I suppose it's just something one needs to get used to.

I had year eight today and they were a bunch of little shits. I'm still only observing and helping out at the moment, but I don't know how I'm going to cope when I get my turn next Monday. I need to work on my teacher's voice. It's just not in my nature to shout at someone. Like in class today, the kids were supposed to be performing the first-hand investigation they designed yesterday. But instead of putting an iron nail into a test-tube of Coca Cola, some kids pour some Coke into a beaker and drank it. Like ohmigod! People put all sorts of chemicals and shit (literally shit, i.e. dog poo in one instance) into beakers. It's not just potentially dangerous, it's downright unhygenic. I should've yelled. BUT IT DIDN'T COME OUT. Bah!

I bought a meat pie from the canteen for lunch. Oh memories: canteen pies. They're probably made exactly the same way as any other pie, but somehow school-bought pies taste a little different. Maybe it's psychosomatic or something. Hmm. Now I'm well aware that you can't ever be too sure about what's in a meat pie, but at least it makes whatever entrails it contains tasty. I think meat pies and sausages do the world a service: they make offal, which would have been otherwise wasted, appetising.

Spent the rest of the afternoon bumming around in the staff room with coffee, biscuits, and chatting with the other teachers. Bumming around in staffrooms is becoming my favourite pastime. We talk about all sorts of shit and I'm learning a lot just from the conversations I have there. I was told today in one such chat that we prac teachers won't fail if we fuck up; we'll fail prac if we fuck up and don't recognise it.

Meanwhile, the crush on the teacher who looks like the slightly older, nerdier version of a shag from the beginning of the year goes on. We had a D&M about earning and getting respect from the kids and, well, he's just so sweet. Sweet enough to eat. Le sigh.

Listening to:
Title: Don't Panic
Artist: Coldplay
Album/station: Ministry of Sound: Chillout Sessions, Vol. 6 (2004)
Length: 2.06

Teaching practicum, day one.

2006-06-13T19:42:00.000+10:00

Teaching practicum, day one.

Blogging about prac is actually kind of handy: it sort of gets me going on my prac journal entries. Otherwise, I don't think I'd get anything done. I'm such a lazy fuck.

I managed to wake up on time, four-thirty on the dot (shower me with all your pity now), and I made all my train and bus connections. Other than the freezing cold, it was a brilliant start to the day. But despite the effort I put in to get there on time, neither the class nor my cooperating teacher turned up until some time later. Apparently, there was some kind of strange game with a round ball on the TV late last night or early this morning. Or something.

So in period zero, or what was left of it, my year eleven chemistry class got into some empirical formulae, molar masses and moles. Some of the exercise questions they got were tough, though; even I had a little trouble. Eek. Of course, the kids in this class are a whole lot better behaved than any of my others. But having to plan a lesson is a little tougher, so I guess it all evens out. Next Monday, I've got to teach them about some guy called Gay-Lussac and something about the volumes of gases involved in reactions with metals. I'm probably in over my head on that one; my curriculum studies unit only covered years seven to ten (stages four and five) science. Curriculum studies for senior high school chemistry doesn't happen until next semester.

Went to assembly roll call after that. Gosh it takes school kids aaaages to do anything. The whole school got a basting for uniform related offences from whichever teacher was leading the assembly. Rah rah rah. Does anything ever change in any school? I found the whole lining-up-in-the-quad thing a little beneath these kids - that's more of a primary school thing. Actually, it reminds me of those war movies in P.O.W. camps when the prisoners fall into line in the yard.

Spent most of the rest of the day in the staffroom busying myself with tea, gossip and lesson plans. Bah! Writing lesson plans is teh suck. Sure they'll save your life in a class of thirty-something kids, but writing them is so time consuming and mentally draining. But that might just be because I'm crap.

I had a year eight science class fifth period. Absolutley nothing got done. Because Tuesday is sports day, fifth period only goes for short thirty-five minutes. It took year eight about ten minutes to get settled and with all that time wasted, my cooperating teacher abandoned what she had wanted to do and had to resort to her plan B. Seriously, these kids have some sort of handle on the space-time continuum. I don't know how they do it, but THEY MAKE TIME DISAPPEAR. WITHOUT IT BEING FUN.

There was a little moment in that period five year eight class, though. You know, one of those moments that teachers have. See, the plan B was to get the kids to design their own first-hand investigation into the corrosive nature of a particular famous brand of cola. Now there's this kid who sits off to the side. He doesn't do well in class and normally, he spends class time chattering and stuffing around with his mates. But for some reason, this activity engaged him. He made suggestions about using other flavours, other brands, even water.

At the end of the lesson, my cooperating teacher went around to check books and this kid had not only finished the task, but he did so outstandingly well. She told him it was perfect. I'd never seen a kid so proud. And I don't think I've ever seen a teacher so proud, either. I hope you'll pardon me for being a little sappy here, but something like that would make your day. Despite the shit that some teachers have to put up with, they still keep on doing it. And they've got to be doing it for a reason.

Lunch followed and I tagged along for playground duty. This is when it got weird. A pseudo-goth-emo chick tapped me on the shoulder and when I turned around, she was holding a picture of Michael from Big Brother. She says to me, "you look a lot like Michael", "Michael is perfect", and "I'm going to marry Michael". Creepy girl. Shudder. Anyway, the only thing I have in common with that Michael dude is my first name. Other than that WE HAVE NOTHING IN COMMON. I mean, what the fuck? I look ~~a whole lot better than him~~ nothing like him at all.

I helped supervise sport too, but that was one massive bludge. I spent the whole afternoon chatting with another prac student who, incidently, goes to the same uni as my best mate Sarge, doing the same course, a BA/BTeach. Speaking of Sarge, I visited him at work on the way home and had a big long whinge about school. Conveniently, his station is on the route I take between school and home, and CityRail's given him shifts that coincide with hometime.

Listening to:
Title: Angel
Artist: Sarah McLachlan
Album/station: Surfacing (1997)
Length: 4.29

On practicum eve.

2006-06-12T18:39:00.000+10:00

On practicum eve.

Practicum starts tomorrow and I'm feeling, well, a little teacherly. I've got a folder with my class timetable on the front cover and the bell schedule on the back, but all I've got inside at the moment are three class rolls. Mind you, this is the most prepared I've ever been for anything.

The thing that sucks is that I've got a year eleven chemistry class tomorrow morning. Firstly, I'm not a big fan of chemistry. Chemistry is the poor man's physics. Secondly, it's a period zero class. Yeah, period zero. As in the period before period one. I never had those when I was in high school and when they told me that I'd be starting in zeroth period, I thought they were kidding. I mean, to me it was conceptually IMPOSSIBLE.

So I've got to get up at four-thirty and be on the 5.34 train, get there by seven, and be all settled by the start of class at seven -thirty. I did a trial run of the trip on Friday morning, just to see if such a feat could be achieved, and it went well. It doesn't really take one-and-a-half hours to get there of course, but the connections between the two trains and the bus I need to catch are pretty shit that early in the morning.

Also, the bus I get doesn't accept my TravelPass, so now I have to cart around a pocket full of shrappers to pay the bus driver with. Woe is me, et cetera. Just the thought of travelling on any busline other than State Transit is foreign to me. It goes to show how geographically insular I am, really. Just like the children of the corn who never leave The Shire, I don't often leave the territory of Sydney Buses.

Anyhoo, prac should be fun, if not educational. Expect a daily round up.

Ohh and Eastwood kicked some Gordon arse at Chatswood Oval this weekend: 33 points to 12. Woo!

Listening to:
Title: Debaser
Artist: The Pixies
Album/station: Doolittle (1989)
Length: 2.53

Work, Maggie Thatcher, gay teachers.

2006-06-06T23:24:00.000+10:00

Work, Maggie Thatcher, gay teachers.

Yeah, there are a few things occupying my mind at the moment. Nothing really all that deep and profound but, you know, meh.

Work at Faceless Corporation's Call Centre of Hell^TM wasn't all that interesting tonight. There was a pretty cute lad sitting across the way from me though and I had a bit of a perve. Dark brown and carefully messed up hair, jeans, black studded belt, and a wanky polo top. Yeah, guilty pleasure: boys with wanky polo shirts. DON'T JUDGE ME OKAY.

Anyhoo, at one point during my shift Queer As Folk came on the TVs all over the call centre, and well, there wasn't much else to do but watch, really. The cute lad across the way had his eyes on the screen too and I thought for a while if he was one to nosh on teh cock, too. Of course, the obligatory scene where Brian fucks someone flashed on the TV and cute-lad-across-the-way averted his eyes. Now that could mean anything. He could be closeted. He might just be a modest kind of guy. But most likely, he's straight. Bah!

Also at work, there's this supervisor I kind of have a crush on (bah, this is ridiculous; Matthew reckons I have crushes on every second guy I meet, which is probably shamefully true). He's got this soft, sweet voice and he always makes me titter when I ring through and he answers. At one point today, he answered me with, "Hey, what's hangin' my brutha?" With his voice, it's so lame but so adorable. Brightens up the start of a shift when he's on the sign-on desk. Le sigh.

To other things, has anyone seen the new Red Cross Blood Service ads? I love this frame from the print ad:

Of all the things that are British and eighties, they chose Maggie Thatcher. Matthew says they probably want to remind everyone what a mad cow looks like. Touché.

Lastly, after yesterday's post few people have asked me about what I'd say if a staff member or a student from school asked me if I was gay. That's a toughie. See, if was a colleague, then it'd depend on who it was. Incidently, quite a few teachers I've spoken to at my prac school and several others studied under one of my current lecturers/tutors, who's apparently ancient and, well, gay. And one teacher I've spoken to referred to him jokingly as 'that faggot', and stopped short of warning me to be cautious when he was around. Now I don't think come out to that particular teacher, even if it meant lying, and especially while I'm in preservice training.

With students on the other hand, I don't think I'd tell them. It's not absolutely vital for them to know, and there needs to be some kind of distance between them and us anyway. But I'll admit, there is a need for honesty between student and teacher. Students know if you as a teacher are hiding something, and to build trust and a rapport with them, one would need to be completely honest; it's been drummed in to us through this whole semester that if they ask something, tell them. There is, however, a line.

Coming out to a group of one's students may expose a teacher's vulnerabilities. They are kids after all, and particularly the adolescent boys, are probably insecure about their own sexualities. As much as they may have had exposure to positive attitudes of tolerance towards queer folk, some are still going to feel threatened when a fag is around, and that's not conducive to creating an effective learning environment. So in a way it's as much in their interests as mine.

Listening to:
Title: At Last
Artist: Eva Cassidy
Album/station: Time After Time (2000)
Length: 2.58

Classrooms and staffrooms.

2006-06-05T20:23:00.000+10:00

Classrooms and staffrooms.

I went to my practicum school again today and I got to meet some of the kids I'll who'll be in my class - or whose class I'll be in. Either way. Now I know I've only had a couple of periods with them and that I wasn't the one charged with having to teach/manage them today, but they're the nicest group of kids. The teachers I've spoken to at school all agree that they aren't the best academically when compared to some other schools, but they do pretty well for themselves.

I wanted to get in in time for roll call, but I slept through my alarm. I'm not used to early mornings anymore. Bah! Stupid relaxed university hours. They've ruined me. Aside from trying to wake up on time, actually getting to school today sucked teh ball. It was freezing and wet, and I had to get two trains and a bus. I'm fine with having to take public transport but fuck, what has happened to the weather? It feels as though it hasn't been more than twelve degrees for the last two weeks. This can't be normal; apparently it was five degrees below average today. I'm not geared to wet and cold weather! My wardrobe simply isn't optimized for cold and rain.

It turned out that my year ten class wasn't until third period, so I bummed around in the staffroom with some of the other teachers. Have you ever watched Teachers? Okay well it wasn't quite like that, but how kerrazy would that be? I'd love it! But no, the teachers in the faculty are a top bunch. I went to an observation to a nearby school earlier in the semester, and they totally thought the worst of their kids. But despite similar problems, the teachers at my prac school expected more. I'm glad I've ended up there.

Of course I've also developed a bit of a crush one of the staff, which is typical of me, really. He's a quiet one, green eyes, and a little nerdy. Actually a nerdier, slightly older version of a shag from a few months ago. But ohmigod he's funny. He's got great timing and witty one-liners. Adorable. I ran into him on playground duty, and we mused about the idiocy of some of the kids who just sat in the rain in the middle of the oval. Le sigh.

Listening to:
Title: For The Price of a Cup Of Tea
Artist: Belle & Sebastian
Album/station: The Life Pursuit (2005)
Length: 3.19

A disappointing first round.

2006-06-04T12:49:00.000+10:00

A disappointing first round.

Sydney University, 49.
Eastwood, 3.
T.G. Millner Field, Marsfield.

I don't know what happened. I sat in the cold, cold stands of Millner with my best mate Sarge in disbelief. The Woodies only managed a penalty goal to Uni's forty-nine points in this first round of the Toohey's New Cup.

At least the Woodies beat Uni when it counted, in the grand final last week.

Listening to:
Title: Summer Heat
Artist: The Crustaceans
Album/station: I'm Happy If You're Happy (2005)
Length: 3.04

The heights of procrastination.

2006-06-01T13:28:00.000+10:00

The heights of procrastination.

Instead of putting together some reports for curriculum studies and my portfolio as required by the NSW Institute of Teachers, I've downloaded the font used on roadsigns in Australia and North America.

Behold:

And don't you know it. Did you know that the standard green for signs is precisely RGB(0,110,85)? Or that the typeface is called Highway Gothic? Well now you do. Don't you feel better for it?

Listening to:
Title: Freelove
Artist: Depeche Mode
Album/station: Exciter (2001)
Length: 6.10

In school again.

2006-05-30T23:51:00.000+10:00

In school again.

I popped in to my practicum school yesterday for a pre-pre-prac visit. You know, just to get a few things worked out before I get my teaching timetable and all that jazz. Like ohmigod! A timetable! Periods! Bells! Assemblies! Roll call! Oh it's all coming back to me now.

I've been going through the staff handbook they gave me, and I almost can't remember living such a regimented life. Roll call, periods one and two, recess; periods three, four, five and six, lunch; periods seven and eight, home. Oh and the bureaucracy too! I only remember now how much red tape is churned out by schools, day-in day-out. Notes, forms and passes for this, that and everything else.

The head science teacher gave me a tour of the grounds, which were almost IDENTICAL to the high school I attended as an awkward teenager (which really wasn't all that long ago). Yes, the same generic designs from the late fifties. Remember back in the day when state governments mass-constructed and owned their own school buildings?

The folks are quite nice. I met most of the science faculty and the head honcho, the pricipal. Surprisingly, she was relatively young and female. Not that I don't think young women are incapable of the big job; it's just that you don't expect that sort of thing. I didn't get to meet any kids though. Not properly, at least; nothing aside from passing a couple in the corridor.

Anyway, I'm going to be observing/teaching a year eight science class, a year ten science class, and a year eleven chemistry class. My cooperating teacher is also the year ten adviser so I'll have to tag along for year ten adviser things, and I'll have to go to school sport too. And you know what? I'm a little bit excited. Squee!

I head back on Monday for a proper orientation-type thingy. Woo!

Listening to:
Title: Self Control
Artist: Raf
Album/station: Self Control/Running Away(1984)
Length: 6.07

Woods 17 def Uni 10.

2006-05-27T18:28:00.000+10:00

Woods 17 def Uni 10.

Eastwood, 17.
Sydney University, 10.
T.G. Millner Field, Marsfield.

Gosh, it's been a week already? How boring, I blogged about the rugby last week only two entries ago. Bah!

Anyway, 'twas the Shute Shield grand final between Uni and Eastwood today. And the Woods kicked arse! There were quite a few fumbles though, but they still made it through.

It all gets repeated next Saturday. Eastwood plays Uni at T.G. Millner again in the first round of the Toohey's New Cup, but this time both sides may have a few kids back from Super14 duties. Sounds like quite the game, to me.

Listening to:
Title: How Soon Is Now?
Artist: The Smiths
Album/station: The Very Best Of The Smiths (2001)
Length: 6.46

Mikey the educator.

2006-05-25T22:44:00.000+10:00

Mikey the educator.

The other day I received my teaching practicum placement which I'm quite pleased about. It's a public high school in the western suburbs, and I'll be there for three weeks from the thirteenth of June. That's right folks: the first day of stuvac. And that's because I DON'T HAVE ANY EXAMS THIS SEMESTER!!! Woo! Instead, I've got to ~~put up with annoying little shits~~ enjoy the company of teachers and students, experience the ups and downs of the profession as well as participating in the facilitation of students' construction of knowledge. Oh yeah.

I go in for a pre-prac visit on Monday. Apparently I've got to dress up all classy-like.

Also, I'm now a member of the NSW Teachers Federation. Because the union makes us strong.

Listening to:
Title: Ripple
Artist: The Church
Album/station: The Best of the Church(1999)
Length: 4.31

Woods: off to the final.

2006-05-20T17:43:00.000+10:00

Woods: off to the final.

Eastwood, 28.
Parramatta, 22.
T.G. Millner Field, Marsfield.

Rock! On! The Woodies are in the Shute Shield Final next Saturday. And judging by the progess scores from Coogee Oval, it might be another match against Sydney Uni. Today's Woodies-Parra game may screen on ABC2 tomorrow from about 11.25pm if anyone feels like watching.

A Woodies lineout in the second half. Eastwood leads, 14-10.

Woodies' scrumhalf Josh Holmes in, erm, position.

From behind again. Obviously he wasn't being co-operative AT ALL. I don't mind of course. Drool.

The thin blue line. Oh and Josh Holmes, too. NO I AM NOT STALKING HIM, ahem.

Listening to:
Title: Home Again
Artist: Dirty Vegas
Album/station: One (2004)
Length: 4.46

A blow to quality television.

2006-05-17T19:27:00.000+10:00

A blow to quality television.

So Commander-In-Chief is being axed by the US network that produces it. And you know what that means: no more Horace Calloway.

Oh Matt Lanter. How will I live without my weekly fix of you?

Listening to:
Title: Where is My Mind?
Artist: The Pixies
Album/station: Surfer Rosa (1988)
Length: 3.52

Paranoia?

2006-05-15T00:39:00.000+10:00

Paranoia?

I'd stepped off the train at Meadowbank after our weekly Sunday night dinner at Sarge's place. Living on his own while his parents and siblings are spread throughout continental Europe, England and Wales hasn't been the very best of experiences for my best mate. It seems to be a series of unfortunate but comical events, much like those inflicted upon George Costanza or John Becker. But I digress.

It was the second last train of the night and I'd stepped down onto the platform. Another guy in black pants and a black hoodie with a bottle in a brown paper bag had gotten off too, and as I'd walked down the platform and crossed the tracks over the footbridge, he slowly walked behind me and to the right; I got the feeling he was following me.

I immediately thought the worst. I've kind of been on edge about this sort of thing after the mugging last year, so I thought it prudent to stick within view of the station surveillance cameras, pretending to check the timetable poster on the wall. I was hoping that this guy would just continue on his merry way and that I was just being overly paranoid, or if was indeed following me, that he'd not be game enough to try something under the bright fluorescent lights and gaze of the electronic eyes.

So there I was, pretending to check the timetable poster, and the guy seemed to hang around. Then I did something one probably shouldn't do: I looked at him and made eye contact. But I recognised him; it was someone I knew. From high school. We weren't buddies or anything, but we knew each other. He was a shady character back then. You know, drugs, violence, and maybe a little crime. But that was back then. Of course, I wouldn't know about now.

Anyway, I called out his name. He looked up, seemingly just recognising me then, and we had a brief chat. And then he went away. I took the long way home from the station after that. Now, I'm not going to cast aspersions on his character. I mean after all, there are ongoing construction works at my local railway station and the access to/from the street is pretty confusing; he may have just been a little lost and was relying on a random to find a way out. But I couldn't shake that feeling of being hunted, almost. Maybe I spooked him because I didn't turn out to be a total random. I don't know.

I'll say this about him though: he isn't a bad sort. My mind ran away with me as I walked the dark streets towards home. Maybe he'd heard those rumours about me and just wanted an easy way to get his end away. Not that I'm into sexual predation or anything. Or that I'm easy.

Listening to:
Title: I Know
Artist: Save Ferris
Album/station: 10 Things I Hate About You OST (1999)
Length: 2.52

Woods.

2006-05-14T16:24:00.000+10:00

Woods.

Eastwood, 27.
Southern Districts, 27.
T.G. Millner Field, Marsfield.

Another draw. Like The Woods-Uni game, Eastwood led by a small margin until the opposition scored after the fulltime siren. Bah!

Another freezing Saturday afternoon in the stands at T.G. Millner. I don't get to see my best mate all that often anymore, and going to the rugby is one of those things that always brings us back together. I see us growing old and still going to the rugby on most Saturdays; he with his children and me with my, erm, golden retrievers.

Another ode to scrumhalf Josh Holmes. He can feed his Gilbert into my scrum whenever he'd like.

Another semi-final. Next week, Eastwood plays Parramatta at T.G. Millner in the Shute Shield semis. Woo!

Listening to:
Title: High and Dry
Artist: Radiohead
Album/station: The Bends (1995)
Length: 4.19

How depressing.

2006-05-13T02:18:00.000+10:00

How depressing.

So I worked late last night. It was pretty shyte going at the Faceless Corporation's Call Centre of Hell^TM: customers were especially rude for some reason, and a cock up with Faceless Corporation's national phone system had customer calls from Queensland and Western Australia pouring in to us instead of where they normally go.

I couldn't scab a lift home so I hopped on a train. It was the last one for the night on that particular line and to complete my journey home I needed to change at one of the City stations. The night was relatively young, considering that I was only coming off the last train; on a night out I usually get into the city on the first Nightride Bus.

There was about ten minutes between the arrival of my train at Town Hall and the departure of the N80. Ten minutes in which I could've decided to cross Hyde Park and head down the Golden Mile/Kilometre/Fraction Thereof, possibly indulging in the sensory experience that is Stonewall.

But I boarded the bus instead. And spent most of the trip back into sleepy suburbia pissed off that I'd wasted my Friday night. Le sigh.

Listening to:
Title: Rock Your Body, Rock [Poxymusic & Kid Kenobi's Break Your Body Rockin']
Artist: Ferry Corsten
Album/station: Ministry of Sound: Clubber's Guide to 2004 (2004)
Length: 2.59

Woodies and pretty boys.

2006-05-07T12:08:00.000+10:00

Woodies and pretty boys.

Eastwood, 50.
Northern Suburbs, 8.
North Sydney Oval.

I stayed home and watched the match on Aunty this weekend, and now I know the name of 'Wood's hot new scrumhalf: Josh Holmes, formerly of the Warringah club. My nether regions ache for him. The Northern Suburbs side, on the other hand, is full of pretty boys - almost, too pretty. Unfortunately for me and others who are same-way inclined, ABC2 isn't replaying the game at all this week. Bah!

Some even better news is that Sydney Uni lost to Southern Districts this weekend, so that puts Eastwood at the top of the competition! Woo!

Lastly, while we're speaking of pretty rugby boys who make my heart go boom-boom, Drew Mitchell has signed with the Western Force. It's too bad, you know; he looked good in a maroon jersey, and I don't think blue is his colour. Incidentally, the Force won their first Super14 game against the Cheetahs last night.

Listening to:
Title: Sweet Harmony
Artist: The Beloved
Album/station: Ministry of Sound: Chillout Session, Vol. 2 (2002)
Length: 3.23

Panic room.

2006-05-05T16:47:00.000+10:00

Panic room.

So my Dad has turned this house even more into a prison that it used to be. See, the landlord let himself in the other day, with prior warning to us by way of letter, to install new smoke alarms. When Dad realised what had happened, he was suddenly incensed that someone has been in our flat without either of us being there to keep a watchful eye, and for a few days he frantically looked for something to be missing, simply to accuse our landlord of theft. Which he promptly did; apparently he'd 'lost' a six-thousand dollar ring, and he went to the police and filed a report. Eventually our landlord found out about the allegations and that only worsened the relations between my dad and the owner, who we've known for at least fifteen years.

Now my Dad's changed the locks and DIY installed a dodgy alarm on our front door, which I thought was a modest move, considering. You know, if it cures him of his delusional paranoia, then it's all good; all you've got to do is stick the code in to arm the alarm and then stick the code in again to disarm it. Easy. But today when I came home, the alarm went off and I shat myself. He's rigged it so that it goes off WHENEVER THE DOOR OPENS, whether it's armed or not. No normal person rigs an alarm like that. Like, ohmigod.

Fucking ridiculous. It defeats the purpose of having an alarm if it goes off regularly, i.e. boy crying wolf. So everytime I leave in the morning, everytime I come home of an afternoon or evening, and more importantly everytime I sneak out of this damned hole of hell, this ruddy electronic screech cuts through the whole block of flats. I think it's crazy enough that at my age, I've still got to sneak out. Bah! I can't live here. Last straw.

Listening to:
Title: Panic Room
Artist: Paul Mac
Album/station: Panic Room (2005)
Length: 3.39

Teaching science, III.

2006-05-01T13:55:00.000+10:00

Teaching science, III.

Commenting on Teaching science, part deux, John said:

First, to your comments on questioning, I am currently reading the Stages 4 and 5 Science Syllabus for an Engineering course I am undertaking. I found it somewhat interesting that the domain is meant to be the framework upon which students can base their questions. Aside from the fact that I doubt most of the students have read the syllabus, it is essentially written in by the BOS to think inside the box, and inside the box only. The point I wish to convey here is that the students are not really being inspired to be critical citizens at all - their "questioning of authority" is only to be as designed by the institution itself. It is almost circular: the government wants us to question it and all those in power, but only as much as it wants us to. That way, we get the impression of power through our authoritarian questioning, and they remain firmly in control.

One of the outcomes for Stage 5 science (years nine and ten) is for students to "[use] critical thinking skills in evaluating information and drawing conclusions". Identification, analysis and evaluation, in concert with each other, forms the basis of several other learning outcomes throughout both Stages 4 and 5. I'm sure that similar outcomes exist in the other curriculum areas; science is not the only curriculum area upon whom the task of encouraging critical thought falls, and I apologise if I've given that impression. Surely, through immersion across several disciplines, a student would gain some kind of critical thinking skills. Critical thought, in my opinion, is transferential. Combined aspects of it from the sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences in schools, I think, should go some way to fostering critical discourse on society.

John says that the conceptual framework, the domain, which provides a focus for student questioning, as presented in the syllabus document constrains student thinking. I beg to differ. I think that the framework provides an underlying structure for which questioning can occur. That framework, or skeleton as it were, provides a basis which teachers and students can 'flesh out', and I'll get to why I think so in the next part.

J: To the changes to the syllabi specifically, then, and the reduction in mathematical basis was, as you say, to dumb it down. Personally, I didn't chose either Phys or Chem to learn about Planck vs Einstein. Yes, their differing views are important to a fuller understanding of the relationships between politics and science, and have probably shaped the way we learn today; however, it is structured in such a way that we learn they had different views only. If, perhaps, the syllabus lead to us adopting one perspective or another and then developing our arguments for either side, we would THEN become critical citizens.

The construction of knowledge is a social activity according to Vygotsky. When one enters a field of knowledge, one can't pick and choose which knowledge to take or leave; that is pretty much all decided by societal and academic contexts. The content in syllabuses has been collated by educators, academics and bureaucrats alike for one reason or another, as representatives of their respective communities of practice - educators on behalf of teachers and schools, academics on behalf of the body of knowledge for that curriculum area, and bureaucrats on the behalf of government and ultimately or ideally, the electorate and greater society. So someone must've thought it important to include Planck versus Einstein, and probably for some of the reasons John has given.

It must be remembered, though, that the syllabus is not a stiff board that teachers and schools are bound to. Teachers, after all, are not robots implementing the law of the Board of Studies, nor are they merely just an interface between the students and the curriculum. While the syllabus provides the broad structure and essential content for teachers to implement in their classrooms, it is up to a teachers own pedagogy to facilitate the construction of knowledge and the development of skills amongst his or her students. The syllabus, while somewhat prescriptive is not overly didactic. Teachers take an active role in implementing the curriculum through the syllabus as a tool, not a cage. And at least in Stages 4 and 5 Science, a large responsibility for linking content with the domains (knowledge and understanding, skills, and values and attitudes), and the broad learning outcomes of schooling (including an unconditional goal for creating critical thinkers) lie with the teachers, within with their respective school faculties themselves, rather than it being dictated to them explicitly in the syllabus.

So rather than being an issue of the syllabus, I think that the issue that John brings up really lies with the teachers in the classroom. The specific syllabus statement says that students "process information to discuss Einstein and Planck’s differing views about whether science research is removed from social and political forces" (Stage 6 Physics Syllabus, p.51). Now a teacher isn't, or shouldn't, merely going to set a task in which to rote learn facts involved, despite that being the seeming intention of the syllabus document. If a teacher wants students to engage in deep learning, which teachers should and do aim for and in some respects are obligated to do, they would approach that lesson with some creativity to not only satisfy the syllabus requirement but to impart real, concrete knowledge and to satisfy the broad learning outcomes. Those outcomes include the development of critical thought, although not in those specific terms. There is teacher discretion in how a teacher presents syllabus content, and that creativity may well manifest itself in an approach that John has suggested.

Surely though, not every single learning outcome stated in the syllabus leads directly to skills in critical thought. After all, that which is critically thought about has its own context and its own history, so isn't that knowledge of background important? While as stated in the syllabus, it makes no mention of critical thinking, nor analysis or evaluation, surely that knowledge of sociopolitical influences and consequences of science through two different perspectives then, as used in our example, provides a basis for critical thinking through how it relates to now. Students do not have empty heads and nor do they switch off their minds when they leave the classroom. They will, on their own, whether they realise it or not, relate what they see in the world to what they have learned.

J: The humanities side isn't being taught properly to my knowledge, either by teachers who disagree with the revised structure (my Phys teacher) or just spewed it forth onto the unsuspecting class, and we were left to mop it up, absorb it, and regurgitate it in an exam without consideration being given as to what was being taught (my Chem teacher).

Science teachers who have been educated and trained to teach science and only science probably wouldn't have the experience to teach the humanities side to science. The current HSC science syllabi are only relatively new, and a large bulk of teachers have been teaching for twenty or thirty years. Some of those teachers may just be averse to change, don't understand the Board's intentions, lack the relevant professional development, or may have genuine concerns about the new content in their curriculum area. It's an issue that can only be addressed by further in-service training and greater consultation with teachers at the next and subsequent rounds of syllabus revisions. The syllabus isn't perfect.

J: I do agree to your comments on cognative development. Whilst the Year 1 student is taught that sugar dissolved in water and sand doesn't, the understanding of these principles does come later and we have been able to develop what was originally just a pocket of useful knowledge into a complete comprehension of the phenomena.

Your example of atomic theory, though, leads to an interesting conundrum. What is the purpose of early-stage (Stages 1-3 or K-6) education? If it is more to give them the foundations on which to structure their secondary education, then yes, teach them the atomic theory and all other foundation techniques, such as the Newtonian Laws of Physics or the theory of evolution (vs creationism, to keep the religious happy) here. The current syllabi across the science stream in particular does not have enough cross-linkage between stages. And this leads to a lack of enthusiasm and interest in the sciences...

My choice of example in the model of atomic theory was merely to counter Matthew's Meissner Effect/Lenz's Law example and put cognitive development into a science education context. On reflection it was probably a poor choice based on ego rather than considered decision, but I digress.

Certainly, the science curriculum over the first, second and third stages, and the fourth, fifth and sixth stages is discontinuous. But the realities of today's primary and secondary education prevent in-depth science teaching in Stages 1, 2 and 3. Where as secondary schools can have specialised science staff, primary schools as we know them have teachers with only general science knowledge, or in-depth in one particular science (often biology). Those teachers also have the demands of teaching primary literacy and numeracy to their pupils.

In as far as cognitive development goes, I would risk saying that many abstract concepts in the physical sciences would be beyond primary school-age children, where as biological sciences could be more appropriate. However, I think a better grounding in scientific method - developing hypotheses and testing them - would be beneficial, and done properly, could foster an enjoyment of discovery which would feed into later science study. My curriculum studies are only in secondary science, however, so I think I would be even less qualified to comment on that.

J: As a final point, as to your shifting focus, I can agree whole-heartedly that focus has already begun to shift. I know several recent education graduates, and they all have no classroom control at all. Because, it is impossible to teach at any school by merely "orchestrating classroom activities". If you ignore Little Jimmy who is currently punching poor Suzie, he is not going to stop. And, unless he is required to do this activity as part of the "orchestrated classroom activities", should he not be doing this. Yet, you are avoiding behaviour issues. Whilst there is a need to have a more wholly organised lesson, any decent teacher has been doing this for years already, and many issues with individual behaviour management do seem to dissipate. Even the most organised lesson can go to hell, and you will need to deal with individual behaviour. And, I am willing to bet you $10 that, in your first week of actual teaching, you will realise all of this.

As a part of a teacher's responsibility regarding student welfare, there would need to be intervention if Jimmy were punching Suzie. I was merely suggesting that, in response to Matthew's point, the focus in the classroom is shifting even further to where the main priority was the construction of knowledge - learning. Of course, behaviour and order in the classroom are major issues and shouldn't be ignored. But focusing on keeping kids behaved and then teaching them on the side as a second priority undermines what schools and teachers are and do. If that were the case, then schools would be nothing but day prisons, engaging their inmates in training for better employment prospects on the outside. While stated explicitly that schools are where students learn and where teachers teach, the hidden curriculum amongst such institutions can be wildly varied.

The way in which a teacher approaches a class, the mode of a teacher's practice for example, can have implications on the classroom. If a teacher comes into a classroom with with conceptions that his or her task is to control the class first and facilitate learning second, then that's how he or she will teach - with an iron fist and through intimidation. Pre-emptively invoking authority, either tacitly or explicitly as some teachers do, will alienate the students in one's class, even those who initially did want to learn. Engaging students on the otherhand will and does help to reduce disorder in the classroom.

John mentions that the education graduates he knows have no classroom control at all. I don't want to seem pedantic, but that implies a teacher-centred view of teaching/learning. Students need to be at the centre of educational activities for learning to be effective. But the point I want to make is that as a beginning teacher, one has not yet built a repertoire from which to draw upon. While being fresh out of university, armed with the latest theories and principles does not equal expertise, neither does experience in teaching. However, together through reflection in, on and about practice, teaching expertise in general pedagogical and pedagogical content knowledge does develop. So the teething problems in managing a class are, unfortunately, a necessary torture.

Also, in addition to his last comment, Matthew said:

In any model of modern teaching there will be situations where authority can not be questioned and the child understanding why it can not be.

For example teachers are responsible for the health and safety of the children under their care. While these symptoms might be restrictive you have situations where legally teachers must stop children from questioning authority. Again leading to a situation where children are on one hand being told to question authority and on the other being told to follow orders without necessairly knowing the reason why (often because the teachers themselves can't understand and "because the law says so isn't really a decent reasoning when discussing questioning authority".

Questioning authority is quite distinct from open rebellion. I don't think teachers do nor should stop children from questioning authority - well as far as healthy scepticism goes. It may not be practical, but at some stage a teacher would need to explain actions, ideas or paradigms held by the authority - often that's the only avenue for which information like this can reach children. Saying that "because the law says so" is a bit of a cop out, and if a teacher doesn't know why something is, then it's his or her responsibility to find out the intentions or motivations for those law or policy makers and pass that on. A simple thing like that can build trust and respect between student and teacher.

Listening to:
Title: Ocean Breathes Salty
Artist: Modest Mouse
Album/station: Good News for People Who Love Bad News (2004)
Length: 3.49

Yesterday.

2006-04-30T17:04:00.000+10:00

Yesterday.

Eastwood, 34.
Sydney University, 34.
University Oval No.1, Camperdown.

With seconds to go, my Woodies had a three-point lead. But a penalty after the full-time whistle levelled the scores. Gah! Uni's lineouts REALLY SUCKED, which was good for us; it was the lineouts that killed Eastwood in the Toohey's New Cup final last year. And the new Woodies scrumhalf is HOT. I was too busy salivating to find out his name, though. Probably just as well.

My bestmate Sarge and I tottled down to uni for the Shute Shield Woods-Uni game yesterday, the first clash between the two for the year. Seeing my Woods and my Uni play each other is a twice-yearly event that I never miss - or at least I try not to. And regardless of the result, of course, I'll still wear my Eastwood jersey on the Monday following.

We also went to see Kokoda at the George Street cinnies. I cried. How embarrassing. See, there was an old man sitting a seat away from me; for all I knew, he may or may not been a war veteran. But just before the closing credits rolled, he dabbed his eyes and blew his nose. And that's when I lost it. (I wasn't uncontrollably weeping, mind you. Quite restrained.)

Listening to:
Title: Light My Candle
Artist: Adam Pascal (as Roger Davis) and Rosario Dawson (as Mimi Marquez)
Album/station: Rent: Selections from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2006)
Length: 4.10

Teaching science, part deux.

2006-04-30T15:01:00.000+10:00

Teaching science, part deux.

Commenting on Teaching science, Matthew said:

While the physical sciences do not exist in a vacuum (I need help considering I instantly thought of the lack of air resistance in most experiments) the syllabus has removed a large amount of basic scientific content in order to introduce social aspects, which for the most part are irrelevant, such as Plancks and Einsteins differing views..., while being able to argue that is an important concept students aren't asked to argue it, they are told to discuss the viewpoints that two scientists had, one of which is probably the most well known and admired cousin marrying scientist around, it isn't impartial, it doesn't encourage critical thought on the subject but just more rote learning by those who are not interested and are just doing the physical sciences to get into law like their mummy and daddy wants them to.

I do agree with Matthew that, unfortunately, large tracts of purely scientific content has been downgraded in importance or removed altogether from the HSC science syllabuses. A finite period of time in which to teach the preliminary and HSC courses has meant to some things have had to suffer with the introduction of new content. That absence or diminshed focus has hurt, and is hurting, students with aspirations to higher education in the sciences by inadequately preparing them for tertiary study. Science education in secondary schools may have, in the past, been a means to getting students into university science courses, but I think there is a broader role for science education. Instead of focusing solely on those with science ability and prospects of going onto a science degree, there is a larger purpose to better educate greater society, albeit with a more generalised knowledge.

However, I wouldn't call the social aspects introduced into the course as irrelevant. Matthew's example of Planck versus Einstein with regards to the politicisation of science is, in my opinion, a valid issue for discussion in a year twelve physics class. Context is important in any study of history, and like the rest of human endeavour, science has a history. Granted, an understanding of the sociopolitical contexts that science develops within doesn't lead directly to encouraging critical thought, but surely it provides a basis for which critical thought can be developed. Rote learning, indeed, is a major obstacle to education and is the antithesis of deep-learning and critical thinking. In the next curriculum cycle, attention will need to be paid to that issue. Ideologically, however, I think we've only just started shifting that paradigm of education as the transmission of prescribed meaning.

Also it can quite easily be argued that the syllabus has been largely dumbed down by the introduction of simplified processes that are passed as factual or at least the current scientific understanding of a phenomenon, such as the Meissner effect which is discussed as an application of Lenz's law which fails to mention in the syllabus or requires to know in the syllabus that the Meissner effect will occur without a change in the relative velocity of the magnet and conductor because a penetrating magnetic field of a superconductor will decay on its own.

While various aspects can be taught using simplified models, indeed simplified models are required in nearly all aspects of education, teaching students wrong ideas about how stuff works (not knowing exactly how things works is better then thinking it works in a different way) is I believe detrimental especially when it isn't the current prevailing theory. But of course I do believe the fun of starting every sentence "A can be treated as B" or "A is currently thought to be caused by B".

It's a principle in constructivist education theories that students are best assisted in their construction of meaning and knowledge by means of scaffolding. Sure, simplified models may be giving students ideas which are slightly wrong about how things work to begin with, but at each stage of school education, those simplified models are refined and made more sophisticated (and more 'correct') as students develop their knowledge. Conveniently, some simplified models come from those which were once the generally accepted theories. That too, also provides insight into the development of theories and science in general.

Also, there are issues dealing with the cognitive development of students - depending on how far through stages of cognitive development he or she has progressed through, he or she may or may not be able to grasp particular scientific concepts. Usually as the student grows older and progresses through those stages, his or her ability to understand complex concepts increases. For example, according to Piaget's theory of cognitive development, a child under the age of seven years will not, generally, understand that a tall, narrow one-litre bottle contains the same amount of water than a shorter, wider one-litre bottle.

It makes sense then, for example, to introduce the model of an atom as a nucleus of protons and neutrons being orbited by point-charge-like electrons at a relatively early age. Then much later, students can use that knowledge, while technically wrong, to build a more sophisticated understanding of the ins and outs of particle physics: that electrons are not just particles-in-orbit but waves of energy, too (wave-particle duality); that protons and neutrons are made up of smaller, subatomic particles (quarks, gluons, et cetera); and that forces and interactions between those subatomic particles are mediated by other particles.

It is suprising that you think schools are made to impart critical citizenry when the schools themselves are some of the most authoritarian places in society. The teachers, in a position of power, are constructed to be in charge and obeyed without "backchat" or question. You have one socially authoritative group telling children to question authority then they get punished when they do.

I feel that, as schools are ostensibly agents of socialisation, it's a major reponsibility for schools to create a critical and healthily sceptical citizenry. I do recognise that in todays schools, students are being punished for questioning authority in one way or another. It could be argued that some of those students are barking up the smaller, wrong tree; that students are merely questioning the authority which maintains order in the classroom and the school, rather than questioning the greater authorities of knowledge and society.

But on Matthew's point as I interpret it, I think that authoritarian approaches to classroom order are on the way out. As the old guard retire from the ranks of teaching, those approaches which some of those retiring teachers practice will go into decline. In my education as a future teacher, I've noted that there is a shifting focus away from controlling the behaviours of individual students to orchestrating classroom activities; that order (as opposed to anarchy) is created through a wholistic approach rather than focusing on misbehaviour.

So yeah.

Listening to:
Title: Là Pour Ça
Artist: Nada Surf
Album/station: Let Go (2002)
Length: 3.17

Teaching science.

2006-04-27T21:34:00.000+10:00

Teaching science.

I finally started curriculum studies yesterday. This is where my education degree gets interesting, or at least supposed to, as distinct from what I've been doing for the last two-and-a-bit-years which, though important, has been boring as batshit.

Our group plunged into discussion about where science education has come in the last few years. We face a future where less students choose the physical sciences, at least in this country, and there are dire economic, industrial and societal consequences for that. And the worst part about it is that the brains we nurture and develop here leave us for greener pastures elsewhere - the brain drain. If we let other countries overtake us, as far as education, research, invention and innovation, then we risk turning into something of a backwater society. I mean, there is already a diminished general science intelligence or a knowledge of what science is in the general populace. The intelligent design debate and the heights it reached is a testament to that.

Anyway, the apparent reason for falling student numbers in the sciences is in its education: the way we've been teaching science is turning kids off. So the powers-that-be overhauled the curriculum. I experienced the new HSC science syllabuses when I was in high school, and I've been critical of them. The new syllabuses reduced the purely scientific content and introduced content better suited to the humanities. Effectively, I thought, they'd dumbed down science education (gosh, the words 'dumbed down' have had a bit of a run this last couple of weeks, haven't they?). The science schools in the universities have complained that the HSC courses don't adequately prepare students for tertiary-level science study, and I personally found that they didn't.

Soon after my tute, I arrived at home and read an excellent letter addressed to the Murdoch rag The Daily Terrorgraph and their boar of a columnist, Piers Akerman (Boar! Bore! Geddit? Har har!). And it made me think, you know. Maybe the new syllabuses aren't all that bad a thing.

Much in traditional science education is prescriptive. Science, by its nature, is governed by its own natural laws, has outcomes that are predictable, and is an objective discipline. Students at a secondary school level aren't expected nor are likely to rock the scientific community with some kind of amazing revelation. They're expected to sit and absorb facts and figures unquestioningly, and they receive a marginal grounding in scientific method.

Science education, I think, wasn't living up to its obligation to impart critical thinking skills to students. In fact, I don't think many, if not all, of the other curriculum areas were. Schools are, inadvertantly or not, agents of socialisation - mere children are turned into citizens of society. And critical citizenry is superior to an aqcuiescent one, especially in a time where government and business seem to be as treacherous as ever.

So I wouldn't call the changes to the science curriculum a dumbing down of science education. Science after all doesn't exist in a vacuum; there are sociopolitical influences and consequences that are intertwined with everything scientific, and I think students need to know about that. Getting a grasp on the history and philosophy of science is important, too. On a basic level, school students should be exposed to the notion that the prevailing wisdom is not necessarily correct; that science isn't about sets of immutable facts or laws but that it's a process of building knowledge. It's a shame, though, that such changes had to come at a cost of scientific content.

It's changes like that, and other changes in pedagogy as well, that will attract students back to the physical sciences.

Listening to:
Title: Pure Imagination
Artist: Gene Wilder (as Willy Wonka)
Album/station: Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory OST (1971)
Length: 4.19

2 903 words.

2006-04-26T10:15:00.000+10:00

2 903 words.

So my essay is clocking in at 2 903 words. Seriously, though, it’s a shitty essay. I should’ve started on it weeks ago instead of Sunday night. Then I wouldn’t be here in the Education Building’s AccessLab, hours before it’s due, furiously finishing and attempting to de-crapify this fourteen page, double spaced pile of steaming brown badness. Gah!

And just look at the question:

Reflection is the most important aspect for teachers and schools in creating effective learning environments.

Discuss this statement incorporating your observations, coursework, expriences and professional reading.

Your response should be exploratory, critical and reflective, typed and may include diagrams and images.

I’ve been told by mates in education faculties from other universities that it’s a shit question, too. One laughed and said that my lecturer probably hates me. Le sigh.

Listening to:
Title: Oh! You Pretty Things
Artist: Seu Jorge
Album/station: The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions featuring Seu Jorge (2005)
Length: 3.31

UQ: in daylight, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee...

2006-04-24T13:05:00.000+10:00

UQ: in daylight, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee...

So on Thursday night, Adsie took me to see a live production of Rent at UQ Union's Schonell Theatre which was rather good. The lad who was cast in the role of Roger was quite hot; the whole guitar and singing thing just rocks my socks.

Adsie took me on a tour of UQ some time afterward. Even though I'd never been there before, the place seemed familiar; the UQ campus features often in several of Nick Earls' novels that I've read. Just building names, mainly. Of course, it's not like visiting Hamlet's Elsinore or what, but sort of cool nonetheless.

We'd been in to the St Lucia campus earlier in the week when I tried to get a bit of that three-thousand word essay done, but it's so much prettier at night. By the way, that essay is still very much unfinished. Some would say unstarted. And I know that's not a word. It's due on Wednesday, so I've still got a little time.

Duhig Building, housing the Social Sciences and Humanities Library.

Physics Annexe. Woo physics!

Covered way near the Prentice Building.

Physics Annexe, by Staff House Road.

An ugly ugly cane toad in front of the Wordsmiths Cafe. Probably should've killed it or something, but I shat myself and ran away.

Adsie at the NAB's ATM in the UQ Union Building.

An international student, I gathered, using a payphone at some ungodly hour of the night. And she wasn't the only one. What's the deal?

Listening to:
Title: Human Love
Artist: Dirty Vegas
Album/station: One (2004)
Length: 5.18

Sarge: the master of the house, plus Brisbane pics.

2006-04-23T22:34:00.000+10:00

Sarge: the master of the house, plus Brisbane pics.

It's only the first week of my bestmate Sarge living on his own (temporarily at least - for a couple of months), and I've had to do his groceries for him. Not that I mind. It felt kind of cool, feeling fatherlike (or rather, motherlike) and buying things that I thought he should have. I wouldn't want him to go hungry, you see.

While he has the house to himself, I think I might have to head over and crash every few nights or so. Or maybe even live there for a while. You know, to keep him company and stuff, what with him being in such a big house all on his lonesome. And after a week away, I'm hating coming back to live with my parents, so getting away again would be a pleasant bonus.

Meanwhile, some more photos from the aforementioned Brisbane trip. A bunch didn't turn out as great as I'd thought they would, so there aren't as many as I'd like. Oh well.

A train departs Brisbane Central for points south.

Our stop.

If you'll believe me, this is The Gabba. A poor unfortunate combination of a fast car, poor light and slow shutterspeed.

The Story Bridge over Kangaroo Point.

The City from over the Brisbane River, also at Kangaroo Point.

Listening to:
Title: I Feel Loved
Artist: Depeche Mode
Album/station: Exciter (2001)
Length: 4.20

All aboard, part deux.

2006-04-23T00:06:00.000+10:00

All aboard, part deux.

NT32 Car D, Seat 39.
dep Brisbane (Roma Street) 0730 Saturday 22 Apr 2006
arr Sydney Terminal (Central) 2154 Saturday 22 Apr 2006

I'll tell you what: I was over the romance of rail travel after Kyogle - the first stop. I thought it'd never end. Fourteen hours and twenty-four minutes. Three different people occupied the seat next to me over the whole sojourn from Roma Street to Sydney Terminal. And I outlasted all of them. At least when I got to Central, there were a pair of heritage trains. Lucky me.

There's something funny about whooshing through familiar railway stations on long distance trains. You don't get that when you fly. It's just, well, when you've been staring out this window for fourteen-and-a-bit hours, you've seen all this scenery that's so foreign to you. Then suddenly something familiar, something local whizzes past. The trips never feel over until you've stepped off the plane or train, and yet my local station had flashed past like the countless unfamiliar ones before it, as if I was still hundreds of kays away from home. It spun me out. Or maybe I was just delirious. Fourteen hours. Bah!

NT31 from Sydney arrives at Roma Street at 0630, turns around and forms NT32 to Sydney, departing at 0730.

NT32 arrives on Platform 2 at Sydney Terminal.

4803 and 4916 head up the Cockatoo Run from Platform 1 at Sydney Terminal.

3801 in grey on Platform 3 at Sydney Terminal.

Waiting for mum and dad to pick me up.

There will be some Brisbane photos. I promise. A bunch of them.

Listening to:
Title: Quicksand
Artist: Seu Jorge
Album/station: The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions featuring Seu Jorge
Length: 4.35

All aboard.

2006-04-19T15:08:00.000+10:00

All aboard.

NT31 Car D, Seat 49.
dep Sydney Terminal (Central) 1620 Sunday 16 Apr 2006
arr Brisbane (Roma Street) 0630 Monday 17 Apr 2006

Central Station.

NT31 on platform one, Sydney Terminal.

Fourteen hours with nothing else to do. Except a 3000 word essay.

Spam?!

Standard fare on the XPT: Grilled fish, steamed vegies and a bottle of Yarra Valley cabernet.

Fin.

(P.S. I've hijacked Adsie's lappy and taken advantage of UQ's wireless network to bring you this piece of visual infotainment. While here, he's informed me that I snore. And visited his queer little Carden Room. There'll be more Brisbane photos at some stage. Maybe.)

Listening to:
Title: ---
Artist: ---
Album/station: --- (0000)
Length: -.--

Going away & them bois.

2006-04-15T18:14:00.000+10:00

Going away & them bois.

So I'm off to Brisbane for a week and enjoying the hospitality of dear dear Adsie. I'm heading up on the XPT, and not just because it's cheaper; trains are my preferred mode of long-distance travel. I mean, sure the romance of rail travel isn't quite there anymore but I'll hold on to what's left of it. Plus, I have an essay to write. That'll eat up some of the fourteen-hour trip.

Meanwhile, I ran into a pair of my ex-boyfriends at Stonewall on Thursday night: El Presidente and the one I've dubbed Hoover (because he won a vacuum cleaner! Geddit?! Harhar). You know, in the entire time that I was seeing one or the other, I don't think I'd ever been to the Golden Mile/Kilometre/Fraction-thereof with either of them. Bah! I can't deal with seeing more than one former flame in one night. And I don't think I was at my sober best, either.

Listening to:
Title: Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy
Artist: Queen
Album/station: Greatest Hits [Parlophone] (2004)
Length: 2.56

Wheel! Of! Fortune!

2006-04-13T17:07:00.000+10:00

Wheel! Of! Fortune!.

Like, ohmigod. My ex-boyfriend is on Wheel Of Fortune. No joke!

Listening to:
Title: ---
Artist: ---
Album/station: --- (0000)
Length: -.--

More from Boys' Corner.

2006-04-11T23:19:00.000+10:00

More from Boys' Corner.

Ah yes, Boys' Corner. Who says that toilet-wall discussions can't be profound?

Life is meaningless. Why do we bother? The sun sets, the sun rises. Everyday is your own personal nightmare.

Not when your [sic] judged by a bunch of shitty marks.

It's not hard to see why your marks are shitty with spelling like that. "Your" is a possessive pronoun (e.g. your idiocy), "You're" is a contraction (e.g. You're an idiot).

Look how you dot your i's with circles. You're not sitting down to shit, you're sitting down to pee.

Here endeth the lesson.

Listening to:
Title: The Mess We're In
Artist: PJ Harvey & Thom Yorke
Album/station: Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea (2000)
Length: 3.57

Revelations and infatuations

2006-04-09T18:13:00.000+10:00

Revelations and infatuations.

Revelations. So last night, my Dad let me in on something he's never told me before. See, back in the late eighties and early nineties, he worked at a restaurant in Darlinghurst, which I already knew. What I didn't know was that in the basement of the aforementioned restaurant was a nightclub. And after being employed at this restaurant for quite some time, the owners of the place had promoted him to manage the nightclub beneath every few nights. He even told me about how he had to go around the corner to Kings Cross to recruit Islander bouncers. But the impression I got was that it wasn't a permanent full-time thing; it was just a contingency measure to cover duty managers who couldn't front up to work for one reason or another. But still, my dad, the homophobic Catholic womaniser, managing a club on Oxford Street. Like, ohmigod.

I don't quite know what to feel about my Dad sometimes. Generally, I don't like him all that much; he's hard to get along with, and he likes to antagonise people. That, and his parenting always seemed to me to be a little inconsistent in most ways, and consistently disappointing on numerous others. But sometimes when he isn't being a complete wankstain, when he comes up with these little anecdotes, then he's okay.

Infatuations. I went to a mate's twenty-first, which happened to be in a house next door to where The Whitlams' song No Aphrodisiac was penned. I rocked up a little late though, because Faceless Corporation's Call Centre of Hell^TM wouldn't release me from its evil clutches. So by the time I did turn up, there was so much to catch up on. Of course, lessons learnt from that sociology report I did on youth drinking last year went out the window. Empty stomach; absinthe shots; JD and Colas.

And pretty boys. There were pretty boys. Plenty. But there was one in particular: a hot lad from Melbourne. Blonde scruffy hair, adorable dimpled smile, hot bod. Lick. Shotted the absinthe with him, and I briefly crashed with him on the sofa bed. At some point I may have accidently brushed my hand past his doodle area and, umm, it felt kind of hard. Well, if it were indeed his doodle. Alas, there was rejection; straight boy, after all. Me: a self-made arse. And in addition to that, due to my inability to control the volume of my voice in conversation when intoxicated, I may have also inadvertently announced my wee-morning-hour craving for dick to a larger audience than planned. Bah!

I went kebabbing with Hot Melbourne Boy and a few other folks this morning, and then he had to return to his fair city. Le sigh.

Listening to:
Title: If You Find Yourself Caught In Love
Artist: Belle & Sebastian
Album/station: Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003)
Length: 4.15

Ululating like crazy people

2006-04-07T18:09:00.000+10:00

Ululating like crazy people.

So someone thought it'd be a good idea for us student teachers to engage in some collective arse-making. Which suited me fine; it'd make a change from me just making an arse of myself all on my own. But it wasn't without its purpose, though. The arse-making was ostensibly to help us use our voices better in the classroom for when we go on practicum, and if we don't become discouraged by then, for our eventual teaching careers. So if you happened to be hanging around the Old Teachers' College today and heard ululating akin to a dying gazelle, that was us. Voice workshop plus arse-making equals fun!

Meanwhile, third-year B.Ed.(Secondary) seems to be full of gays or boys that should be. Or open to experimentation, at the very least. There's Mister Dane, for example: tall, dark, and a little odd. And he also has this stream-of-conciousness thing about him which I find fascinating. Some might say alluring. So as luck would have it, I ended up being partnered with him in the workshop today, and the fucker had me giggling all through it. Fucker. There was this one activity where each pair stood toe-to-toe, counted to one (ha!) and took a step back, counted to two and took another step back, and so on until we reached ten and then back again, adjusting the volume of one's voice as appropriate to the distance. When we met in the middle again, we ended up a tad closer than when we began - misjudged steps on the return journey, methinks - and he told me I smelt nice. Me: weak at the knees.

Listening to:
Title: I Get A Kick Out Of You
Artist: Jamie Cullum
Album/station: Twentysomething (2003)
Length: 4.10

Private-school girls and boys, and other musings.

2006-04-05T21:14:00.000+10:00

Private-school girls and boys, and other musings.

So for my weekly school observation visit, the Faculty of Education despatched me up the North Shore to one of the elite private girls' schools that seem to infest the area. I didn't have high expectations for the visit. You know, snotty girls and staff who are just as snotty and focussed on results rather tham learning. But you know what? The place was pretty nice. The kids were sweet and the teachers seemed to love doing what they do. Of course, there was the glaring absence of problem students. I suppose an exclusive school such as this one can afford to reject undesirable kids (and I suppose they aren't obliged to accept them, either).

And ohmigod, the campus; my preconceived notions of an elite non-government school confirmed. And these buildings were probably subsidised by the public purse, mind you, whilst schools of the state fall into relative disrepair. Bah! Anyway, I think I'll take this chip off my shoulder, just for now - because, well, it was nice. The girls were nice; the staff were nice. The campus. Just, nice. Nice, nice, nice.

I sat in on a year-eight English class (don't ask how I ended up there) and a year-twelve physics class. Physics, finally. I mean, seeing as in all my ob visits, I hadn't actually seen one yet - a great effort for Mister Physics-teacher-in-training, moi. They were studying relativity, which was great: a topic I'm semi-comfortable with - secondary school stuff, after all.

But then I realised how crap the HSC physics syllabus is - it's a tad restrictive, and the powers-that-be have taken things away without giving anything back in return. Nothing about Lorentz transformations; nothing about how Einstein really came to E₀ = m₀c². Not even a geometrical derivation of length-contraction, or mass- or time-dilation (which is really really helpful). Instead, kids in their last school years these days don't learn; they memorise with a view to regurgitating facts and figures at some later date, i.e. this is the equation, and you don't need to know how or why it works - it just does. Hopeless. Anyway, when the class teacher asked me to pitch in (free labour, after all), I did my best, considering that I couldn't use the tools and methods that I had to learn this stuff myself. Hmm yep, a great profession awaits.

Oh yeah, and Ms Physics-teacher asked me to speak to the class before they got down to the relativity-business. Stuff about physics, education, and university. Which I did. It sucked a bit, short notice and all. And I'm shit with speaking off-the-cuff. I tried to inspire or something. But I may have failed dismally.

Meanwhile, at Faceless Corporation's Call Centre of Hell^TM, there's a small article of grafitti in Boys' Corner about a totally different educational institution although in the same general area:

Barker cock suckers - and that's just the girls!

The italic portion was added after the original scrawling, I suppose. Was Barker the one involved with the Apple-Chapel rumour?

In other mental defecations, Edward and I may or may not start a lobby group dedicated to replacing the '`' key on qwerty keyboards (to the left of the '1' key) with an interrobang key, i.e. '?!'.

Listening to:
Title: Hungry Like The Wolf
Artist: Duran Duran
Album/station: Greatest (1998)
Length: 3.25

Things that shit me.

2006-04-03T17:59:00.000+10:00

Things that shit me.

I need to move out of home. Exhibit K:

Listening to:
Title: Jungle
Artist: Frente
Album/station: Shape (1996)
Length: 3.05

2006-04-01T18:05:00.000+11:00

Shute Shield: round one.

Eastwood, 33.
Penrith, 17.
T.G. Millner Field, Marsfield.

A glorious first round of the Shute Shield club rugby comp. And, back to the stands at T.G. Millner, with its trademark hard and uncomfortable wooden seats and the cold, cold breeze blowing across the oval. It was absolutely freezing today - what the fuck was up with that? Great game though, and my Woodies totally caned Penrith. Woo!

Also, a lad from my year group in high school scored a position as a winger on the team. And ohmigod he's grown and bulked up since I last saw him. He's a beast now. Friggen HUUUUUGE!

Now of course, I go to rugby games for the strategy, the tactics, and the spirit of the sport. But, umm, the totty out there on the grass is nice too. You know, it's all just incidental. The Woodies' fly-half in the second grade team in the game before the big one, with the blond scruffy hair, pretty face... GRAWR. He took a monster tackle in the dying minutes and I may or may not have screamed out, "Not the face!". I want a rugby boy for my birthday. It's in July, so you've all got plenty of time.

Meanwhile, Adam and Steph played a nasty April Fool's prank on me. They pretended that they had a monster fight and called off their wedding. Of course I was going to be concerned, being the loyal friend that I am. Nasty. But wouldn't it have been shit if I'd told one that that the other was a bitch/bastard and that they were never right for each other in the first place? Remember rule forty-two: when consoling broken hearted friends, never use the he-or-she-is-shit approach.

Listening to:
Title: Need You Tonight
Artist: Mylo
Album/station: Ministry of Sound: Chillout Sessions, Vol.6
Length: 4.42

2006-04-01T00:59:00.000+11:00

Anxiety.

Someone said to me the other day that the new colour scheme was a little emo. Just so you know, that wasn't the intention; I just copied the red and black from the NAB. But while we're on the subject, permit me to be just a tad, erm, emo. Just once.

Uni. Apparently this week's group of Sinny Yooni kiddies on observation visit to the shire high school were yelled at by a teacher there, apparently because of something last week's group (my group) did. Something that was bad or disrespectful or something-or-other. I have no idea why they were given a talking-to, but I have this weird feeling it was because of something I did. Am I paranoid? Maybe. Neurotic? Possibly. Anyway, I feel really shit, if not for me, then for them. Fancy that, adults being scolded like children for something they didn't even do.

Work. I'm surprised they haven't sacked me yet. I show such a level of incompetence at Faceless Corporation's Call Centre of Hell^TM that they must be close to the end of their rope with me by now. By the way, work tonight sucked too. Then again, I suppose ending my employment there wouldn't be such a terrible thing. But being sacked at the hands of dodgy Faceless Corporation would really hurt my ego.

Parents. I'm fine with them breaking up. In fact, I'd rather they did. But they haven't. There's this weird sort of limbo where they're together but not. And then there's this powerplay between them. I mean, I'm ninteen years old; nearly twenty, even. I'm too old to be a pawn, a gambling chip in their shitty games. Like, ohmigod. Le eye roll. And I don't like my dad all that much, but I hate being mean to him, so now I'm all anxious about that, too. Blah.

The only thing keeping me sane at the moment is an ancient copy of A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess from Fisher. Ha!

Listening to:
Title: Boys Don't Cry
Artist: The Cure
Album/station: Greatest Hits (2003)
Length: 2.41

2006-03-29T00:18:00.000+11:00

Brainfart.

In my compulsory bi-weekly posting to a web discussion group for my teacher's craft knowledge course, I almost used the words discourse and hegemony. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank.

Listening to:
Title: Beautiful
Artist: Belle & Sebastian
Album/station: Push The Barman To Open Old Wounds (2005)
Length: 5.13

2006-03-27T23:41:00.000+11:00

More from Boys' Corner.

Last week I wrote about Boys' Corner - the badly-lit end stall in the mens toilets at Faceless Corporation's Call Centre of Hell^TM. Well I think I might make this a weekly thing here on Foetid Air & Gritty. They seem to have a penchant for polls, but they mostly seem old rather than topical. Maybe the boys who participated in toilet-wall discussion have left Faceless Corporation's employ. And we're all the less for it. Le sigh.

Anyhoo, this week Boys' Corner enters pop-cultural discourse (pardon my dodgy html):

Good Crap
Big Bro ~~||||~~ ~~||||~~ ||
Aus Idol ~~||||~~ ~~||||~~ ||

What next for the lads of Boys' Corner? Existentialism versus fatalism?

Listening to:
Title: Ocean Breathes Salty
Artist: Modest Mouse
Album/station: Good News for People Who Love Bad News (2004)
Length: 3.49

2006-03-26T22:42:00.000+11:00

A Sunday.

In breaking with tradition, I did not drink myself stupid this weekend. If my liver could talk, he'd thank me. But I did, however, wake up to the periodical fragmentation of my family. There's a two year cycle with this sort of thing, usually. And I don't care what you say, it's always my Dad's fault. Hopefully though, this time it's for good.

The catalyst this time: some girl he's had on the side, probably on his last trip overseas. Which was pretty much the same sort of deal last time my parents split. This time though, Dad received a txt message and Mum read it, which may or may not have been inadvertant, seeing as they both have near identical mobile phones. Then Dad went on a three-and-a-bit hour tirade (or a thirty second rant, repeated ad nauseum) about how his privacy was invaded, as if it was all Mum's fault.

My parents have split up more than a few times in the past, but for some godforsaken reason they end up getting together again. I don't know why my mum keeps coming back - my dad is nothing but a big dickhead. He's spiteful, vindictive, manipulative and is severely deficient in tact. At least she has a choice. If I had the means, this birdy would have flown the coup years ago, let me tell you. Ah well. Two and a bit years (maybe even less) and I'm gone.

Anyway, I explored most of the Bicentennial and Millennium Parklands on m'bike today. Great day, sunny and not too hot. I think I did about thirty kilometres in all. I'm a little worse for wear though. I have some lower back pain now, and my right knee is acting up.

Listening to:
Title: Freelove
Artist: Depeche Mode
Album/station: Exciter (2001)
Length: 6.10

2006-03-22T19:17:00.000+11:00

Another school: Shireville High.

Another Wednesday, another school observation visit. This time, I had the pleasure of trekking across the city to the Shire. I mean, I understand the importance of experiencing things outside one's usual sphere of existence, but just let me whinge about waking up at five in the morning, sitting on two trains for one-and-a-half hours, and walking about a kilometre uphill, all before nine o'clock. Thanks.

And I didn't even get to see a science class, after all that. The whole faculty was on an excursion to fuck knows where so they put me into a year ten maths class instead. Yay. Binomial expansion and quadratic factorisation. Nyeh. I couldn't teach that, or maths in general. Seriously, if a kid can't see that (x + 7)(x - 4) is x² + 3x - 28 then I'd smack him upside the head and yell at him, "what the fuck is wrong with you?!?!". I have no time for maths. I know maths is a big part of a science curriculum, but that's a maths teacher's job. I expect my physics students to come to class knowing differential and integral calculus, dammit. So much for numeracy and literacy being the task of every teacher, whatever the subject area.

Anyway, the kids were great. The girls had their heads down and worked through the exercises, while the boys were-- well-- boys. You know, things like sticking post-it notes on each other's backs with cheeky little messages on them. They even put one on their teacher, but with a benign note about playing the bass in some pussy rock band. Still, any normal teacher would have "chucked a spaz" (do they still say that in da skoolz these days?) but this teacher played it cool and surprisingly maintained a good level of order. I'd pay to find out how she did that. No wait, I already am. It's called HECS. Har-di-har.

But I'll tell you what: I'm not sure if this is representative of schools in the Shire or anything, but the place was crawling with prettyboys. Now I'm not saying that in a dirty-old-man-pervert kind of way. It's just, you know, yeah. An observation. Even the nerds in my maths class today were trendoids. Bah! Only in the Shire.

So yes, the place wasn't half bad. Apparently, it's got a waiting list, so that's pretty special for a public school. And for a school down in the Shire, there were a surprising number of NESB kids - something the deputy principal kept bringing up in his introduction spiel. Well that, and how far away along The Kingsway (and down a few back streets) the school was from Cronulla.

Listening to:
Title: Cry Me A River
Artist: Natalie Cole
Album/station: Take A Look (1993)
Length: 3.53

2006-03-21T23:44:00.000+11:00

Bathroom grafitti and teaching arts students.

In the men's room at Faceless Corporation's Call Centre of Hell^TM, the poorly lit stall right at the end is called the Boys Corner. Or so one piece of grafitti tells me. Sounds a little toilet-block-in-the-park, if you ask me. Anyway, working at Faceless Corporation has taught me one thing: toilet grafitti is where the cutting political satire is to be found. Behold my dodgy html table representation of an actual piece of toilet wall grafitti:

Election 2004
Howard Mark ~~Latham~~ Riddel Taronga Zoo ape
||| |||| ~~||||~~ ~~||||~~ ||

Obviously, it's a reliable, peer-reviewed source. I think I might even need to put a reference in, APA style. Heaven help me if I'm caught plagarising.

Meanwhile at uni today, the main activity in my craft knowledge tutorial was to teach the tute group something from your curriculum area. So Mister Nick and I, being the only science students in the class, banded together and tried to engage the rest of the class, all B Arts kids, with the physical phenomena of dispersion of white light through prisms.

It all went pretty well on reflection. According to the feedback, our pseudo-lesson was interesting and threw up a lot of questions which apparently points to engagement and deep learning. Which is good and all. But-- well, I sucked. No, seriously - I'm not just being hard on myself. Mister Nick stole the show and was just excellent. I, on the other hand, sucked teh ball.

I guess it's only early days yet - a first small foray into proper teaching in the classroom setting, as opposed to presenting a report or something to a tute group. Either that, or I'd be as good a teacher as a horse's arse. I suppose the question now is whether teachers are born or made. Some are born, I'd like to think. Like Mister Nick. Warm, approachable and altogether mentally coordinated. Others, well, maybe they're made. I hope. For my sake.

Listening to:
Title: I'm Looking Through You
Artist: The Wallflowers
Album/station: I Am Sam OST (2001)
Length: 2.40

2006-03-19T22:38:00.000+11:00

The First Laddy.

There's something about writing essays that makes me so not horny.

But I'll tell you who does: Matt Lanter.

You may know him as President ~~Geena~~ McKenzie Allen's son Horace, from the Seven Network's Commander In Chief. See, Commander In Chief might not be the political drama that The West Wing is, but gosh, the first son (first boy?) is polling in the Republic of Mikeynation as extremely fuckable. If first-sons were like princes and had harems, I'd be so there. I suppose in fiction, anything's possible.

If the day that a Republic of Australia ever comes, I'll vote for the candidate with the hottest son. I mean, the real power is in the Parliament anyway.

Listening to:
Title: Sunshine Eyes
Artist: Paul Mac feat. Peta Morris
Album/station: Ministry of Sound: Chillout Sessions, Vol. 8 (2005)
Length: 3.27

2006-03-18T12:09:00.000+11:00

St Patrick's Day.

Dinner at the Lansdowne, five-dollar steak. Indulged in a little drinking.

Traipsed down City Road. Simon snatched unlit cigarette from my mouth and cruuuushed it under foot. Was down to last one. Simon got that one too.

Saw Scrabble Unscripted at the Newtown RSL. Much hilarity.

Imbibed at Kelly's. Was honorarily Irish for a few hours. Sang/mumbled Irish standards and blokey rock songs. Got pissed off when man with guitar broke a string. Played pool and won.

Stumbled to the Marly. Did as one does.

Wee hours of morning. Parted ways with the group. Stumbled back up King Street and through uni. Slept a while on front lawns.

Didn't feel like being a bum anymore, got up, walked up Broadway. Watched a guy get hit by a car. And then saw his mate run across the road to help him, but got hit too. Saw bodies fly through the air and hit the road like rag dolls. Saw windscreens shatter. Heard flesh meeting pressed steel. I cried.

Boarded the last Nightride bus instead of first train as planned. Crazy man harassed the bus driver. Discerned that the hot boys sitting in front of me frequent the Wall of Stone but are in fact straight. Wankers.

Bus drove past the accident scene. By that stage, police and ambulance were in attendance. Flashing lights dazzled me.

Arrived at my stop. Disappointed that hot straight wankers didn't get off the bus too. Walked down my street. Realised I'd lied to my mum and told her I'd be staying at a mate's house. Realised how much of a tosser I am, still lying to mum at my age. Walked down through the park under moonlight to the ferry wharf. Started singing By The Light Of The Silvery Moon.

Noticed first ferry wasn't 'till 9ish. Finally headed home.

Couldn't help but be noisy when I got in and woke mum up. Headed straight for my room. Put fresh pack of cigarettes under latest issue of DNA in my drawer; would rather parents find pictures of hot men than cancer sticks.

Slept.

Listening to:
Title: At The River
Artist: Groove Armada
Album/station: Ministry of Sound: Chillout Session, Vol. 2 (2002)
Length: 3.59

2006-03-16T17:51:00.000+11:00

Mem'ries, like the corner of my mind.

So yesterday, a bunch of us teachers-in-training went along to this public high school in Sydney's western suburbs as a part of the Department of Education and Training's Beyond The Bridge program. I'm not really sure exactly what the point of it was. The impression I got was that it was about challenging stereotypes of public schools, and western Sydney ones at that. Not that it changes my mind at all, I'm still gunning to teach in the public system anyway.

But I'll you what though, the school they sent me to totally shat on the one I attended, back in the day. It had just under one-and-a-half thousand kids and over a hundred teachers. And for a public school, it was pretty well resourced. But of course, a tad more couldn't have gone astray. My high school in the northern suburbs, on the other hand, was relatively small with only about six or seven hundred students, and I used to think that that was pretty good as far as public schools went.

The small group of us from USyd got the introduction and were led on a tour by the deputy principle. Of course he doesn't teach anymore, being in charge of discipline and all, but he was a great bloke and he totally loves what he does - in his words, he just loves punishing kids. But not in a sadistic kind of way I don't think, he seemed like a big softy. On the tour, he must've confiscated dozens of iPods, mobile phones and other articles of electronic paraphernalia from unsuspecting students, and told off about a dozen more for having their shirts untucked. He had this look he'd give them while he waited, too. Yep, he stopped the tour of the school until every shirt was tucked, and then we moved on. Such a character.

I spent most of my time at this particular school in the science department, and if I wasn't in the staff room, I was in the labs. And they were exactly the same as the labs at my high school. It was so creepy. They looked the same. They even smelt the same, of musty linoleum and wet rag. I was almost expecting my year twelve biology teacher to jump out of the prep room.

It was so strange being in a school and not being one of the munchkins, pottering around the school, from period to period, learning stuff. It was stranger still, hanging out in staffrooms and having morning tea with the other teachers. Gosh I love 'em. Once the bell went, the place would be full gossip and idle chit-chat. This one physics teacher I spoke to was about to head off and show this video to her year seven kids about human reproduction, and she was giggling like a school girl.

The science head teacher took me down to his year seven class, which happened to be the bottom stream. While we were talking kept referring to them as the dumb kids, the dumb class. Of course I found that a little shocking - I didn't think teachers were supposed to speak like that. But they were great kids. Incidently, it was a lesson about the alimentary canal and sir said to his class that they were mature year seven kids now, and that it was faeces not poo, anus not bumhole, et cetera. But I laughed. Well, tittered. Anus... teehee.

I also went to a special ed science class, and they were performing an experiment to see how much energy was in food by heating water with a flaming peanut. Some of the boys in the class incinerated a whole pack of matches, while this group of girls were, or seemed, totally terrified of the bunsen burner. And get this: they called me Sir and asked me to light it for them. Ohmigod! I could get used to that. The sir part, not the flirting sudents. I mean it would be flattering and all, but wrong.

I'm looking forward to practicum in June. Fifteen days of observing and practice teaching.

Listening to:
Title: Popular Mechanics for Lovers
Artist: Beulah
Album/station: The Coast Is Never Clear (2001)
Length: 3.04

2006-03-10T10:35:00.000+11:00

Summer days, drifting away.

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm really getting into the whole early mornings thing. I mean, not that getting up at 7am is especially early. It's just, relative to my usual efforts of rising at eleven or noon over the summer holidays, seven o'clock is early. And considering last night was a late night, too - or an early morning, really. That's because, folks, I went to Beachball at Manning Bar.

I wasn't thinking of even going this year, you know, because I thought I'd be well over it by now. But I went and ended up having a good time. It started with beer and cocktails at Hermann's and drunkenly stumbling towards Manning House (yes, ashamedly already trashed - blame Simon and Pat) and waiting in line for a couple of hours because someone wasn't smart enough to buy tickets beforehand. Bah! More drinking ensued. Not healthy.

Another thing that's so not healthy: I came so very close to kissing a girl. A GIRL! Luckily I freaked out and went outside for a breather. Crisis averted. A pox on chicks who try to turn gays straight. It just isn't happening ladies.

Anyhoo, so despite all of that, I still managed wake up in time to get the 8.15am ferry this morning and grab something dodgy to eat for brekky.

HarbourCat Pam Burridge coming alongside Meadowbank Wharf.

The dodgy McCoffee that accompanied my breakfast at Customs Square this morning.

Listening to:
Title: In Between Days
Artist: The Cure
Album/station: Greatest Hits (2001)
Length: 2.58

2006-03-08T23:50:00.000+11:00

Idle chit-chat.

Alrighty, so over the summer holidays, it appears that Dave was involved with a reality program called Nerd FC. Apparently, a bunch of sportingly-inept nerds get trained up in the art and/or science that is football (a.k.a. the sport formerly known as soccer), and eventually play off against a first-grade, A-League team.

But Dave? A nerd? I mean, sure he's a little skinny. And he a moves a little awkwardly. But he's got the perfect tan. And he's a tiny bit cute. He's even got pretty hot hair.

Hmm. Oh dear, that'll be a show to watch. It'll screen on SBS TV weekly from Good Friday.

Also, Edward and I are thinking of branch-stacking the Dems. Well that, and competing for first position on the Democrats Senate ticket for 2013. Apparently, he appeals to the old folks, and little ol' me, I appeal to the call-centre-chick demographic. Obviously we'd do the Dems a whole lot of good, seeing as old folks and call centre chicks are an influential segment of the electorate. But seriously though, I'm still shopping around for a political party to join since I made a resolution to that effect post-2004 election. And the Dems are at the top of the shortlist.

And, umm, if you've never seen one and always wanted to see what dumb bogans look like, well then here you go.

Oh, and further to the previous post, if I ever end up getting one, I think I might call my boat Schrodinger's Cat.

Listening to:
Title: I Know It's Over
Artist: The Smiths
Album/station: The Very Best Of The Smiths (2001)
Length: 5.50

2006-03-06T17:13:00.000+11:00

Summer dreams, ripped at the seams...

A new dawn and a new university semester. Ohmigod, I'm a third-year student. That's the realisation that came to us during the first session of sociallist potato-goods-consumption for the year. You know, where everyone puts in what they can to the notional hash-brown/chips fund and each is entitled to an equal share, regardless of their contribution. It was a respectable turn out of the Manning House Couch crew, minus the couch. Damn first year kids, taking our damn couch. Bah! We will have our vengeance...

Officially, I don't share any more classes with those good folk. While they complete the last few senior units in their science degrees, I'm treading water in the education half of my combined degree. But while I can't actually enrol in PHYS3040 this semester, I've decided that with all my free time - free time that as a science student, I'm not at all used to - I'll sit in on the lectures anyway. Yeah, it's pretty nerdy. But think about it: learning for free with no pressure from assessment and exams. Sweet. And it'll set me up for when I take it up in first semester next year.

Meanwhile, coming home from the first day back at uni wasn't without its drama. Just after leaving Milson's Point, the ferry I was on broke down. RiverCat Marlene Matthews lost her starboard engine and spluttered around off Blues Point before eventually limping back to the McMahon's Point wharf. But the powers that be despatched a relatively petite HarbourCat Anne Sargeant to fill in and amazingly, she got us home only ten minutes late.

The Red Ensign flying from Anne Sargeant's stern.

The ferry takes around twice as long to get me home than the train does, but it's so much more pleasant. And it doesn't matter if the ferry isn't air-conditioned because there's almost always a nice sea breeze blowing up the river. Generally though, I just love the water. So much so that being a sailorman in the navy was second on my list after being a teacher.

I drifted off into a bit of a daydream on Anne Sargeant's aft open deck. It might've been the scent of salt on the air, or maybe I'd just had too much sun. But y'know, I've given up on owning my own home, and despite the astronomical cost of housing in this city, I don't think I could leave it. We might be wankers, but I like it here. And without a family and kids of my own to provide for, I've decided that instead I'm going to sink my meagre future teaching salary into a boat. Something small, about eighteen to twenty-five feet, single mast, and some decent internal accomodation. I'll snatch up a mooring somewhere up river from the city, near Shepherds or Brays Bays, and sail around between school terms, Pacey Witter-style. Of course, I'd give my boat a less pussier name than True Love.

Listening to:
Title: Danse Macabre
Artist: Kraak & Smaak
Album/station: Ministry of Sound: Chillout Sessions, Vol. 8 (2005)
Length: 5.13

2006-03-03T13:21:00.000+11:00

University bureaucracy.

Alrighty. The inaugural post from the AccessLab in the Education Building will be an incoherent rant. Great start to the year, innit? Honestly, this ridiculous bureaucracy has me seriously rethinking this B.Ed.(Sec.).,B.Sc. degree. Okay well not really, but well it's my party and I'll cry if I want to. Cry if I want to. You'd cry too if it happened to you. Et cetera.

So I came to uni today for this course orientation meeting. I thought it'd all be pretty sweet. I'd enrolled in all the units that I was supposed to and I was pretty confident it was all good. Then the guy who's in charge of the science curriculum subjects tells me that EDSE3053 Teaching Science Elective (Senior Science) isn't running in and was never offered for first semester. Bah! The online enrolment system said it was offered, and I even had to put in a special permission form to the faculty office. So some bigwig in Edfac must've thought it was running too, gave approval and let me enroll.

Bah cruntsticks. So now I've got to re-enroll in EDSE3053, but for second semester. And now I'll be overloaded. Woe is me. On the upside, I'd have it easy this semester, so that got me thinking. Maybe I could jump everyone else and sign up to a first semester physics unit to make up for that lost class and I'd have a proper full load. Sweet. And it'd sure solve the problem of losing momentum with my science degree, excuse the pun. Of course, I was WRONG. Teaching practicum covers both stuvac and the exam period. So it wasn't a goer. Bah!

It already sucks as it is, seeing that there isn't going to be a physics teaching elective. Not for this year at least, and there's a slim chance it might get up next year. Very slim. I don't want to teach chemistry. Chemistry sucks teh ball. How is Edfac meant to churn out much needed physics teachers if they don't even run the course? Kerrazy.

Listening to:
Title: Inane chatter
Artist: The good folk of the Education AccessLab
Album/station:
Length: never-fucking-ending

2006-02-28T00:47:00.000+11:00

Gays will hit on you, Dad says.

Alrighty, here's the scene. It's Saturday and I'm freshly showered, ready to go out. At the time, all I was wearing was a pair of dodgy briefs, owing to a shortage of washed sexy underwear. Yeah, it was a bit of a Bridget Jones-unsexy underwear situation, but at the opposite end of the spectrum.

So as I ran to my bedroom from the bathroom to cover up my shame, Mum wolf-whistled. Har har. Then Dad, calling from the living room, said the strangest thing.

"You're a sexy boy", he said. I was like, erm okay. Odd. I didn't think much of it, and hurried into my room and closing the door behind me. It's always a nice thing to hear, I suppose. But from your own father? And that wasn't the end of it.

"Miiike", he called, in his trademark broken English. "I want to talk to you". So I pulled on a pair of boardies and headed out.

"You're a sexy boy," he said again. "You know, to the gays". Gosh, if only.

Mum and I looked at each other knowingly and laughed. See, Mum and I don't often talk about me and gayness, but when it does come up, she isn't usually all that happy about it. So maybe now she's okay with having gay son. At least enough to laugh about it. Le sigh.

Anyway, Dad (to whom I'm not out to) regaled us with stories from the old country, from when he was a strapping young lad. Apparently in his younger days when he was out on the town, he was often stalked by homosexuals wanting to get into his pants. Puh-lease. I've seen photos, and he wasn't all that. I don't see what the axe-wounded half of the species ever saw in him, let alone the über-critical eye of the fag.

So he was warning me about the dangers of the gays. "They'll only want to use you", he says, "for your body and your money".

Really? All gays? Gosh, I'd like to think I'm a little deeper than that.

Listening to:
Title: What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?/It Sucks to Be Me
Artist: Original Broadway Cast
Album/station: Avenue Q (2003)
Length: 5.55

2006-02-23T11:09:00.000+11:00

Thursday night: the President on Aunty.

So The West Wing screened for the first time on the ABC tonight and I think the show has found it's natural home. It's a shame US network NBC axed it.

This time around, I found myself getting really into it. I don't think any other political drama comes close. But you know, it could've been the absence of ads that did it for me tonight. Or maybe it's just my aversion the commercial networks and pretentious preference for good ol' Aunty. Who knows. But if there ever is a ~~President Martin Sheen~~ President Jed Bartlett, I might even consider moving to the US. Ah well, as if the voters of America would ever elect a guy like him anyway.

I used to date a lad who was mad for The West Wing. He was mad for anything political, really - a student politician in the making, back when I knew him. His interest in politics was just a touch more zealous than mine, but enough to put him over that tipping point from being an armchair expert (like moi) and actually doing something about it (like El Presidente, i.e. him).

We used to do this thing where we'd txt each other messages in diplomat-speak or politic-ese. "The presence of the Mikeynational Minister for Snuggles is requested in the Bed Embassy for an important summit", or something like that. Once, he briefly put hugonomic sanctions on me because because I chose a crap film when we went to the movies, but I managed to 'smuggle' a few cuddles in during that time. There was even a UN Kisses-for-Hugs program.

Yeah, it seems pretty wanky now but well, you just had to be there I guess.

Listening to:
Title: Last Christmas (live)
Artist: Busted
Album/station:
Length: 2.42

2006-02-19T22:15:00.002+11:00

Kerrazy Filos.

I hang on to my cultural heritage purely for comic value. I don't at all identify with it, and sometimes I resent it. That said though, it'd be a shame that when my parents die, the rich and often amusing culture, as far as my connection to it is concerned, would die with them.

I guess it's all a part of that ethnic humour schtick. Especially where food is concerned, things that appear normal or even valued in Filipino cuisine would sound absolutley vile to the palates of Australian-born children of Filo parents - and well, anyone else, really.

I mention Filo food because that's where I ended up after surfing the interwebs, looking for guidance on choosing or restructuring my name. I decided to look to my nomenclatural roots (more on that... eventually). See, even when I'm not doing anything academically or work related, I still procrastinate.

So I find a littany of Wikipedia articles on Filipino food. One of my favourite dishes features in amongst them: adobo. It's "pork or chicken, slow-cooked in soy sauce, vinegar, crushed garlic, bay leaf, and black peppercorns" and apparently it's "widely known that as adobo ages, its flavour becomes more potent". And I thought it's only attribute was that it was yummy.

But amongst the less palatable aspects of Filipino cuisine (cue to put down any food you may be eating) are:-

balut - boiled duck egg with a fetus inside that was almost carried to term. I've watched older relatives feasting upon the unborn, and it involves a lot of sucking and slurping. I don't know why they can't just peel the shell away. Maybe they derive some sort of enjoyment from hoovering the bastard out. Oh wait, I almost forgot, there's baby duck juice, ergo the sucking/slurping. Maybe it's just me, but I can't bring myself to consume anything like this. I like to make sure that anything I eat has at least seen the light of glorious day.
dinuguan - pork stew made with entrails in a broth of pigs blood. Again, I haven't had the pleasure of tasting this, erm, delectable dish.
pinapaitan - by far the most stomach churning of the lot: beef or goat heart, lung, stomachs (three of the four that exist in a cow), intestines and liver, drenched in a soup of the animal's own bile. Yep bile, which can be bought from your local Asian butcher in its own convenient packaging, a cow's gall bladder. Le gag. Every Christmas, one of my relatives has the honour of whipping up their own interpretation of this dish, but I so don't understand why. It's Christmas for fuck's sake. You're meant to use the best cuts of meat, not offal!

I looked for a wiki article on pinapaitan, but all I could find was the one in Ilokano. Rightly so, I mean, if it were in English it'd probably be banned for being both visually and culinarily offensive.

I did, however, find a pinapaitan fan's journal entry. Interesting read, but I'm not converted. "Given a choice between a girl and this pinapaitan", he says, "I'd seriously have to think about it first". Well, given the choice between offal cooked in bile and a person with an axewound for genitalia, I'd reluctantly choose the girl.

Listening to:
Title: Debaser
Artist: The Pixies
Album/station: Doolittle (1989)
Length: 2.52

2006-02-19T18:06:00.000+11:00

Ruggerbuggers.

Waratahs 32
Stormers 26

Crusaders 47
Reds 21

Bah! Faceless Corporation^TM had me working the phones last night so I missed the Reds/Crusaders game and I slept through the Waratahs/Stormers game in the wee hours of the morning.

I really wanted to see the Reds versus the Crusaders. Hot Drew Mitchell versus hot Dan Carter. MmMmmm. Ah well. I'll have to wait 'till FoxSports 1 replays all the matches on Tuesday.

Listening to:
Title: Buddy Holly
Artist: Weezer
Album/station: The Blue Album (1993)
Length: 2.38

2006-02-17T11:14:00.000+11:00

Pinko ramblings.

So the state's new treasurer says that the Federal budget surplus should be spent on public services rather than personal tax cuts. It sounds like a pretty sociallist thing to say for a guy from Labor-Right, although I do remember reading in the Honi Soit that Michael Costa was once a Trotskyite, back in the day.

It's a point of view I agree with - the services versus tax cuts that is, not Trotskyism. There's just so much more that a pool of money can pay for than if everyone had a few more dollars in their pockets to spend on something stupid. Economies of scale and some such. It doesn't even have to be recurrent spending, although that would be good. What about some good old nation building, splurging on some key national projects?

Listening to:
Title: Watch The Right
Artist: Anti-Flag
Album/station: Underground Network (2001)
Length: 2.52

2006-02-16T00:31:00.000+11:00

Hammering in the tent pegs.

I'm looking forward to uni starting up again. It'll bring some semblance of order back to my day-to-day life. It's just, you know, at the moment things are just so unpredictable. Work rosters me on seemingly random shifts, and often I'm not even sure which roof I'll be sleeping under of a night. I'm sort of floating around without the comfort of routine and, well, I'm feeling a little dislocated. Short of calling myself homeless (which would be stretching it a bit), at the moment I don't feel like I have a home. Just houses I regularly sleep in. The nomadic existence I've been living for the last few months is starting to wear thin, and I just want to stay put in one place for a while.

Ultimately, I'd like to live somewhere on my own terms, at a place I can call my own. A place I enjoy going home to every night. And a place free of the suffocating relationship I have with both my parents. Oh gosh, my parents. I get the feeling that they only have token faith in my abilities as a functioning human being and refuse to give me room to grow, as it were. Of course, I don't have the means for leaving them at the moment and I'm somewhat dependent on them too, so I guess I should stop my whinging.

Listening to:
Title: Somewhere Over The Rainbow
Artist: Judy Garland
Album/station: On Radio 1936-1944, Vol 1: All The Things You Are (1993)
Length: 2.50

2006-02-13T23:51:00.000+11:00

Cogito ergo sum.

Alrighty. So I've downloaded, printed and filled out a Statutory Declaration to Register a Change of Name. You know, just to see what it would look like on paper. At the moment I've just inserted another middle name - one that I'm not really all that attached to right now, but one that's different.

I've been thinking of changing my name for a while, scoping out different things I'd like to call myself. So far, I've decided that I'll keep my surname and some semblance of my first, but that might be relegated to a lower ranking middle. You know, not that I'm not having some kind of emo identity crisis or anything. I think I'm just going through some kind of existentialist phase.

So I'm still looking for a suitable first name, and I've set myself a dead line of graduation, circa 2008/9 so that my testamur will have my brand spanking new name on it. Suggestions are welcome (I believe the weasel words are 'community consultation'), but the name Michael and any derivative thereof are out.

Listening to:
Title: The Old Apartment
Artist: Barenaked Ladies
Album/station: Disc One: All Their Greatest Hits (1991-2001) (2001)
Length: 3.22

2006-02-13T10:41:00.000+11:00

Brainfarts.

So I was going to head off to the beach today, but I slept in. Instead I indulged in a guilty pleasure and watched Parliamentary Question Time on ABC TV, and listened to it a little bit on ABC News Radio (to get the tail end of the ~~censure motion~~ motion to suspend standing orders that was sure to be defeated due to government numbers anyway).

So the shit seems to be hitting the fan for the Government, and they're still playing dumb. But the thing that bothers me is that the body politic doesn't know nor care about the whole scandal. Like Barney Joyce said, it's not grabbing the electorate. But it should. Just because Johnny and Pete give them all an unnecessary and false sense of security/fear, tax cuts and fattens them up on middle class welfare cheques, they're prepared to turn a blind eye to flagrant corruption. That, and all the other shitty things this Government has done to turn us into its servants as opposed to we being the served.

You know, once there was a Government that improved public infrastructure, rescued the national economy and stomped on unemployment, and the plebs turned a blind eye to the unspeakable evil that the aforementioned Government was also responsible for. But I'm not about to trivialise the Holocaust by comparing it to the Oil-For-Wheat scandal which really doesn't rate in comparison, but the point remains. Also, that fills my lefty obligation to compare John Howard to a fascist dictator every now and then.

Some humour (?) was injected into the day at least: Dana Vale, member for Hughes (a.k.a. half the Sutherland Shire) said that abortion equals Islamisation of this country. "Australia is going to be a Muslim nation in 50 years' time ... when you actually look at the birthrates and you look at the fact that we are aborting ourselves almost out of existence by a 100,000 abortions every year", she says.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Did she come up with that, or was there some kind of focus group for ridiculous brainfarts? Maybe there's a whole ministry for that sort of thing. And she uses the word guesstimate. Gosh, I don't know which is more offensive.

Listening to:
Title: You Don't Care About Us
Artist: Placebo
Album/station: Once More With Feeling: Singles 1996-2004 (2004)
Length: 4.00

2006-02-12T13:40:00.000+11:00

OMGZ!!

Batboy is moving out! Naww.

Also, Waratahs kicked arse. Squee!

Listening to:
Title: Pleasure From The Bass
Artist: Tiga
Album/station: Ministry of Sound: The 2005 Annual (2004)
Length: 4.05

2006-02-10T23:59:00.000+11:00

Super14, part one.

It's always the same at my place when the rugby is on. I'll stay over at my Mum's house, where the TVs are hooked up to Foxtel, and I'll park myself in front of the telly on one couch with my uncle on the other, and anyone else that wants to join us has to bring their own chair/stool/milkcrate to sit on. Because it's my couch, dammit.

So the 2006 Super14 started today with the match between the Brumbies and the Force, and with it started the almost year-long season of exclusive sitting rights on the aforementioned sofa. Now I'm not a fan of either team; I mean, my tribal loyalties already lie with this other team. But a bunch of guys from my local rugby club are playing for the Force this year, so despite them being a west coast team, they were my pick. It's a shame they lost, twenty-five to ten.

So here's to a new year of hugging/juggling/tossing the Gilbert on the couch in front of the TV (or in the stands at TG Millner Field, Concord Oval or Uni Oval No.1). And may the Woodies, Waratahs and the Wallabies smite all their rivals this year.

Y'know, someone said to me that I'd made a transformation from camp to butch in under twenty-four hours - from singing whole Grease soundtrack one night and then watching big buff guys smacking into each other the next. Hey, I'm a lad of diverse intersts. And it's not just about the perving as was suggested (although the new skin tight jerseys don't hurt).

Listening to:
Title: Big Mouth Strikes Again
Artist: The Smiths
Album/station: The Very Best Of The Smiths (2001)
Length: 3.15

2006-02-10T10:52:00.000+11:00

Summer heat, boy and boy meet / But, uh oh, those summer nights...

So Adsy's been and gone. Le sigh. The last couple of days have probably been the best this summer. It's all felt like a bit of a holiday without leaving home, really. Since there was no space at the Mikeymoo Inn due to a pair of overbearing and nosey parents, Steph kindly put us up for the last couple of nights. Much hilarity ensued, owing to the presence of two Adams in da house (the other one being my bestmate and Steph's significant other).

Amongst other things we did while he was here, we went to karaoke at Stonewall (both of us were impressed by a pair of cute lads of did an duet of Abba's Does Your Mother Know) and we went and saw The Aristocrats. I nearly died in the cinema that night, I absolutely cacked myself. Then there were the late night wanderings about our fair city and the trips on the Nightride bus at godforsaken hours of the morning back to Steph's.

And well, there was cuddling too. And as it turns out, I'm not a total bottom after all. Oh Adsy. So sweet and adorable, I could eat him for dessert. Shame he lives so far away. So, you know, I don't get to see him very often. Ah well. Looks like a trip to Brisbane is in the offing.

Listening to:
Title: Last Goodbye
Artist: Jeff Buckley
Album/station: Grace(1994)
Length: 4.35

2006-02-06T23:02:00.000+11:00

Why this week rocks.

Un: Adsy is flying down from Brisneyland! Let's hope this visit leaves him with a better impression of our fair city than the last time he was here. So far, he think's we suck balls. And not in the nicer, literal way; in the bad, figurative way.

Deux: Super14!!! Waratahs versus Queensland Reds on Saturday. I wonder if the game'll be televised? I hope so. I know what I'll be watching:

But as much as I love you, Drew Mitchell, the Waratahs have got to win this one. Sorry.

Listening to:
Title: Turn A Square
Artist: The Shins
Album/station: Chutes Too Narrow (2003)
Length: 3.12

2006-02-05T22:59:00.000+11:00

Musings of a Sunday night.

Another day, another peanut earned at Faceless Corporation^TM's call centre. It was marginally better tonight. There weren't any surly or stupid customers like the other night, which is good. Oh god, did I mention I was on 'till midnight on Friday? Le grunt. Of course, the bowels of customer service hell are a little empty on a back shift like that one and well, there isn't much to do except put up with abuse from drunken and/or psychotic folks that like to call up people they don't know and verbally abuse them for hell knows why.

A book would've been useful. Even a trashy magazine would've sufficed. Instead I was left alone with my thoughts. Hmm, dangerous. I even began jotting down random idle thoughts. Most of it rated as fecal splatterings, but it's something I might make the subject of an entry one day. Not that they're anything all that deep, meaningful or profound - just, y'know, your regular brain farts. Things like things I'd say to customers if I didn't have to play nice, how much the shift supervisor on duty scares me, or gushing about how hot the boy sitting across from me was. Oh, Matty boy. I think the most tragic of my insect scrawlings was when he finished work for the night: "Oh no's! Matt's gone".

Unfortunately, no Matt today. But Nirvana was on shift so that was good. Gosh I love her. I've mentioned it here before, about how I love the way she answers a call: "hello, this is nirvana". Titter. She's at least forty- or fifty-something, but she always has great hair and she has the cutest spectacle frames. And not in the menopausal woman kind of way. She carries the whole thing off and doesn't look one bit like mutton dressed as lamb.

Last night, my surrogate sister Olga had her belated twenty-first birthday dinner. We used to be really close, but since high school we don't get to see as much of each other as we once did. I even see her boyfriend Dave more often than I see her. Ah well. But we got to dress up! Woo! In attendance was occasional Wentworth Cubby pool buddy, spunky Roland, in front of whom Lauren blurted out "why are all the hot ones gay?". Naww, bless.

Also at dinner was Alex. THE Alex. A couple of Saturdays ago Jenni and I were having this surreptitious txt conversation across the room at Adam's twentieth about how hot he was. Because, well, he was. I find myself talking about the oddest things with Alex these days. I mean, besides his girl problems which are kind of cute, we talk about gay bars. He delivers fruit (teehee) and veg for a living, up before dawn and trucking fresh produce around the city before we've all even thought about taking care of our morning wood, and one of his customers is a bar right on Oxford Street. Unfortunately, that's as close as we can get him to gracing us with his presence on the golden mile/kilometre/fraction thereof. It's better than nothing I suppose.

Finally, while watching Channel [V] this evening, I discovered this Jackass-esque show called The Dudesons. Mmm, nordic lads doing stupid things while being hot (well, except for the human dartboard). Le drool. I love the Broken english. It's so cute.

Listening to:
Title: Valley Of The Dolls
Artist: Mylo
Album/station: Ministry of Sound: Chillout Sessions, Vol. 5 (2004)
Length: 2.51

2006-02-01T22:55:00.000+11:00

In the navy.

Alright, so I like to think of myself as a pacifist. But the thing is, I have this weird fascination with the military. And not just for the lads in uniform, mind you. In high school, way back when kids like me were sussing out their futures, joining the navy really appealed to me. I liked the pomp, ceremony and tradition. I mean, who ever watched Hornblower and didn't want to go sailing into battle? And also the idea of being at the service of the community, maybe that too (but being a public school teacher instead is kind of serving the community, erm, right?). Incidently, I even thought about joining the Army Reserve. But I'd need to be right buff for that. Or maybe I'd be all buff as a result? Gah. Chicken, egg; egg, chicken.

Anyway, when my bestmate Adam and I had heard that a new toy was in harbour, we thought we'd go and have a gander.

The view from Harry's along the wharf at Fleet Base East: (front to rear) HMA Ships Success (AOR 304), Warramunga (FFH 152), Stuart (FFH 153), USS Pinckney (DDG 91), HMAS Newcastle (FFG 06).

Also in Darling Harbour for the Seapower Conference: HMA Ships Armidale (ACBP 83) and Townsville (FCBP 205). Incidently, the next one in the class after Armidale, Bathurst, carries the same name as the corvette that Adam's grandfather served on in the Second World War.

HMA Ships Armidale (ACBP 83), Townsville (FCBP 205) and Hawkesbury (M 83).

Listening to:
Title: Somewhere Over The Rainbow/What A Wonderful World
Artist: Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
Album/station: Facing Future (1993)
Length: 5.08

2006-01-31T23:57:00.000+11:00

Suburbia & pleasantness.

So I went on a ride tonight instead of during the sensible daylight hours. See, my day was filled with a few odd jobs and, erm, napping. And Faceless Corporation^TM wasn't in need of my valuable services so my night was free. Perfect. The new head- and tail-lights I got the other day paid for themselves twice over this evening. I was very nearly sideswiped by a B-Double. A B-FUCKING-DOUBLE! Ahem. And on a narrow back street, too. I would've shat myself if it wasn't for the massive saddle sore I was developing.

Near-death experiences aside, I think I'm beginning to warm to the local area where I live. I used to loathe this brand of medium-density suburbia. It all seems as if it's all been slapped together, not homes but places where people sleep in between days at work. I craved for something more urban - maybe it was the wannabe yuppy and/or boho in me. But riding through it tonight, and then chilling out at home with all the windows open and the TV, radio and stereo all silent, it all seems sort of pleasant. There are smells of someone's cooking on the breeze and there are sounds from someone else's TV somewhere. And the crickets, too.

I usually only get this warm and fuzzy feeling about my suburb whenever I come home in the wee hours from a night out. The N80 Night Ride bus drops me off outside the station and I stumble home, often drunkenly. I guess when you're drunk, you love everyone and everything, i.e. I luurrrvee yooou, et cetera. I think it's the street and house lights. They make everything seem soft and pretty, as opposed to the harsh light of day. Hmm, must get pictures...

So Simon's been telling me about this new bar guy at his work. A flamer, apparently, and he's been causing quite a stir at this particular bar down in the Shire. Of course, Simon's straight so my usual inquiry of "is he hot?" doesn't usually wash. Instead I have to rely on the question: "would I find him hot?". Only then will I get an answer. But it's essentially the same question, asking the same thing. Ah straight lads.

You know, not that looks are all that important to me. Or anything.

Listening to:
Title: Le Pastie de la Bourgeoisie
Artist: Belle & Sebastian
Album/station: Push Barman to Open Old Wounds (2005)
Length: 3.10

2006-01-29T21:05:00.000+11:00

Another ghey movie.

So the other day I was browsing the gay et al section of HMV Pitt Street again, which is something I should probably stop doing for a couple of reasons. Firstly, HMV prices are ridiculous. Big deal, so you've got a dog listening to a fucking gramophone. Apparently that's a licence to anally butt rape poor consumers like me. It's just not cute anymore! Teach the old dog a new trick for fucks sake (although, I suppose I don't have to shop there, so it's my fault for my aching behind, really). But I digress. Secondly, we wouldn't want my DVD library (and well, my life) to become one-dimensional, would we?

Anyway, I purchased myself a copy of Eating Out. You know, because of hot Ryan Carnes, and the scene where you can see, for a split second, his doodle. My gawd, his character's name is Marc Everhard. Le eyeroll.

Yep, so Eating Out probably wasn't worth the dosh I spent on it. Buff straight guy gets dumped by skank, gay room mate gives him this brilliant idea to pretend to be gay. Buff straight guy 'eats out' with hot Ryan Carnes, whom gay room mate is apparently in love with, in order to have teh secks with the faghag. Hilarity ensues. And that's the plot. You do get to see a lot of Ryan Carnes' pecs and his six-pack though, and same again with the buff straight guy. MmMmm. But it felt like they crossed a soap with a sit-com, threw in a few fags and dragged it out for 90 minutes. That said though, I'd probably watch it again.

Listening to:
Title: Grace (Live, Palais Theatre, Melbourne Australia)
Artist: Jeff Buckley
Album/station: Mystery White Boy: Live '95-'96 (2000)
Length: 5.39

2006-01-29T17:58:00.000+11:00

Summer Sundays.

Something I'm going to look forward to when I move out: waking up on late on a Sunday morning after a big night out, frying up a few burgers and some bacon, and maybe an egg, then slapping it all on a few slices of toast and eating it over the kitchen sink with a frosty glass of beer in hand. Well, I do that sort of thing now, but it'd be cool doing it in my own place. Le sigh.

Meanwhile, today I began cycling on a new, longer route. So after crossing the river on the old lattice girder railway bridge, I now continue on down through Rhodes, Concord West and around Bicentennial Park and back, before rejoining on the old route over the Ryde Bridge to Kissing Point and then back to Meadowbank Park. It's about twenty kilometres, just over double the old route and chock-full of hills, and it takes me just under one and a half hours to do.

Larger size? Satellite image from Google Maps.
It's all a part of the Buff-By-Birthday Scheme, something I resolved to do at the beginning of the year, probably in some kind of drunken stupor but nonetheless it's probably worth my while. I'm hoping to turn my skinny bag of bones into something more, umm, desirable before I turn twenty in July. Come semester break, if all goes well, youse might be seeing me shaking my arse feathers topless at Arq or something.

Listening to:
Title: 60 Miles An Hour
Artist: New Order
Album/station: International (2002)
Length: 4.35

2006-01-27T18:31:00.000+11:00

The last bastion of the scoundrel.

Australia Day this year left me feeling, well, a little empty. It's the flags. After last December's unrest, the sight of the thing anywhere but at the top of a pole leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Amongst other things observed yesterday were the juvenile bogans, swaggering around with that yobbo attitude and wearing the flag like capes on their backs with the fly-edge dragging over the ground. And then there were the girls with flags wrapped around their torsos in some kind of improvised halter top. Actual flags mind you, not apparel with representations of the flag on them.

Is this blind, lazy nationalism meant to make up for their other shortcomings as responsible citizens? You don't contribute to society by flag waving - or wearing, as the case may be. It's bad enough that they're expressing their love for their country through mere symbols rather than through constructive involvement in society, it's worse still that they're using the aforementioned national symbol in such poor taste.

Listening to:
Title: Scared Cow
Artist: Crowded House
Album/station: Afterglow (1999)
Length: 3.37

2006-01-25T19:31:00.000+11:00

On Young and Bent.

Corner of Young and Bent Streets, Sydney.

Listening to:
Title: Blonde On Blonde
Artist: Nada Surf
Album/station: Let Go (2002)
Length: 4.58

2006-01-24T21:27:00.000+11:00

Summerstorm, continued.

So Summerstorm has screened a couple of times over the last few days here at the Mikeyville Twin. I just love it. I think it calls for an unauthorised screen cap.

The scene: the wharf by the lake, late afternoon. Leo (Marlon Kittel) utters the sweetest line in the film: "Why don't you stay?" It's not the words so much. It's the half-cocked smile. And the eyes. Sexy, but not sultry. And well, sweet.

And then it leads to all this. Nothing but the sound of the water lapping at the shore.

Listening to:
Title: Shadowland
Artist: Youth Group
Album/station: Skeleton Jar (2005)
Length: 3.37

2006-01-23T23:06:00.000+11:00

iPoor.

So I succumbed and bought an iPod. Yep, a black 2GB Nano. And it's been nothing to me but grief for the last day or two. El gringo lappytop just won't acknowledge that it exists. Stick the white cord into lappy's USB port and he'll just ignore it. I've done everything the iPod support website suggests, but nothing. Oh well. At least it works with Mum's computer.

This whole episode's got me thinking of finally retiring this old boy and sending him to the big laptop bag in the sky. He's given a few good years of service and he should go out with dignity-- Ohmigod, what am I saying, it's a fucking computer.

I'm not sure if anyone else goes through this sort of thing or if it's only me, but I suffer from obsolescence anxiety. It really bothers me that you can buy something with money that you've bled, sweated and cried for, and in a matter of weeks or months, some faceless corporation releases something that renders what you've purchased worthless. And then when it busts, you can't get it mended because it isn't supported anymore so you have to buy a new-fangled one and the cycle starts again. Oh dear, such a bourgeois affliction...

Meanwhile, I'm ditching the white earphones and instead going with my chunky silver headphones. I'm just replacing one affectation with another one really, but it could just as easily be about intra-iPodosphere snobbery. Yep Adsy, you're right: gosh, I'm a wanker.

Listening to:
Title: The View
Artist: Modest Mouse
Album/station: Good News for People Who Love Bad News (2004)
Length: 4.13

2006-01-20T13:58:00.000+11:00

Summerstorm.

Behold! Summerstorm! Here I was, waiting impatiently for the DVD to be released on Monday when I hear that JB Hi-Fi in the City has put it on its shelves a little prematurely. Props to Harley for the heads-up!

Le sigh. It's better than I remember it was. Gosh, it's been around six months since it screened on SBS. Aaages ago. Six months of waiting. And I have an aversion to waiting.

And if that isn't enough, Summerstorm is screening at the Newtown Dendy next Wednesday. Woo!

And oh dear, I'm in love with Leo (Marlon Kittel), the guy from the queer Berlin rowing team who shows closeted Bavarian rower Tobi the, erm, joys of boy sex. Making love on the wharf by the lake. Kissing tenderly on a bunk bed in the middle of the storm. Dreamy. Oh Leo. Besides being a nice piece of Deutsche crumpet, he's everything I want in a boy. He's sweet, thoughtful, tender, even when the other guy is being a total cockscrape. And quite often, I am a total cockscrape. See, we'd be perfect.

Leo (left) and Tobi (right). Mmm Leo.

Listening to:
Title: Go West
Artist: Nova International
Album/station: Summerstorm [Film] (2004)
Length: -.--

2006-01-19T19:27:00.000+11:00

Cinderfella.

I knew Summerstorm wouldn't be out (pardon the pun) until next Monday. But I had to browse the foreign/gay and lesbian film section of HMV in Pitt Street anyway. And of course, while window shopping, I didn't mind the ghastly prices that His Master's Voice puts on their goods.

But then I found this: Prom Queen. It's based on a true story apparently, about a Canadian lad at a Catholic school who wants to take his boyfriend to his prom. And like lot of gay-themed 'coming of age' flicks, it's a sort of hybrid between B-grade teen drama and daytime soap. So much cheese that even those who aren't lactose intolerant will have the squirts. But then there are nice cuddly parts. Is it possible to be both bad and good at the same time? Bah! And may I never utter the words 'coming of age' ever again.

Thank fuck for the Canadians. Less uptight than their southern bretheren. And with cuter accents too.

Listening to:
Title: Bouncing Off The Ceiling (Upside Down)
Artist: A*Teens
Album/station: Teen Spirit (2001)
Length: 3.14

2006-01-19T01:23:00.000+11:00

Motor.

So I'm on the hunt for a set of wheels. Is it really ghey that I'd rather have one of these instead of a car?

Honda Today 50. Yep, I want mine in yellow.

Honda Scoopy.

So yes, they're slow, don't carry much and well, they're death on wheels (I'm sure you could do a lot of damage at, erm, 30km/h). But they're cheap and do up to seventy kilometres on a litre of petrol. And they're pretty cute, too.

Getting a licence for one is a bit of a bitch though.

Listening to:
Title: The New Pollution
Artist: Beck
Album/station: Odelay (1999)
Length: 3.39

2006-01-16T23:59:00.000+11:00

At the Con.

So today I went down to the Conservatorium of Music again and paid a visit to the library. Ahh, I love it. Imagine this: shelves stacked with CDs, paid for by the taxpayer, plus a uni student with a laptop. Join the dots, people. But of course, it's all for academically-related purposes. Erm, yeah. You know, for something to ~~dance naked to while procrastinating~~ listen to while studying. Yeah. See, I told you it was all academically related.

And I think I became a little gayer today. I happened upon a Judy Garland CD and I listened to it in its entirety. And well, I-- erm-- kinda like it. A lot. Deary me. I'm not sure what the new paradigm is with regards to Judy Garland, though. Does the contemporary fag have at least one Judy CD in his collection anymore? Nonetheless, I can see it now: just before my next exam, instead of burying my head in books I'll be in my underwear, bopping around to the strains of The Trolley Song. Ding-ding-ding, indeed.

Aside from some bad Motown albums that I ripped, I also fed my morbid fascination with Requiem masses (the only orchestral music I'll really ever listen to) with Mozart's Requiem in D Minor. It's not as pretty as Fauré's though.

Listening to:
Title: The Trolley Song
Artist: Judy Garland
Album/station: On Radio 1936-1944, Vol. 1: All the Things You Are (1993)
Length: 3.21

2006-01-14T03:58:00.000+11:00

Cheddar.

When I'm inebriated, I become reflective. But only when I'm proper-drunk, not wired-drunk - I'm never making that mistake again. I space out after a couple of drinks and sort of drift in and out. I'm a quiet drunk, generally. It probably comes off as being a little rude, but oh well.

So after some unadulterated alcohol (i.e. untouched by evil Red Bull) last night and current period of sobering up, it occurs to me that I really do attach sentiments to all and sundry. And it's ridiculous. I mean, it'll only be a matter of time before I have to leave this city for all the primarily boy-related memories I attach to every single aspect of it. You know the kind of thing: romantic/sappy moments, hot and sexy ones, or even the gut-wrenching ones where I suffered tremendous heartbreak. Le sigh. And the really crappy thing is that sometimes the sentiments alone overwhelm me.

Like when my Dad unknowingly started wearing the same cologne that Chris did. And that really creeped me out. I mean, smell is very emotive. It's like Pavlov's dog, except instead of food and bells you've got boys and smells (Oh and that rhymes too. Hah!). I even contemplated stealing the bottle, just so I could daydream about Chris on my own terms. Oh, and to combat the wrongness of my Dad reminding me of the then boyfriend, too. That's a whole world of eww.

Then there was the time with Flyboy at the drive-in movies, in his car, during a thunderstorm. See now when I think of Sydney thunderstorms (I reckon our storms have a unique ambience), I think of backseat sex to the soundtrack of a bad Colin Farrel movie.

And then there are those kissy-kissy moments (cue montage). Like that one summer night, kissing Dazzles whilst wrapped in each other's arms, astride a nineteenth-century cannon at the old Dawes Point Battery. Or that time kissing Tony at a humid Tropfest 2004 just as it started to rain. Or kissing Laddy in a darkened Domain, while horribly late for a meeting with some friends. Or curled up in front of the TV, kissing N!xau and watching Yes, Prime Minister episodes on DVD. Or kissing Douglas at the Observatory Hill bandstand one Saturday morning, when we were interrupted by a bride and groom wanting to snap a few wedding photos. And I remember that new husband saying to us, "romantic spot, don't you reckon boys?". Sigh.

Yeah, it's all pretty cheesy. I know that. But I'm a sucker for cheese... hmm, bad choice of words, but you know what I mean. Also, evidently I carry way too much emotional baggage. Dr Phil?

Listening to:
Title: I Want You Back (Z-Trip Remix)
Artist: Jackson 5
Album/station: Motown Remixed (2005)
Length: 4.35

2006-01-11T11:03:00.000+11:00

Fucked up.

I've been a bad Mikey. I haven’t had any sleep since I woke up yesterday morning, and there’s no sign of a restful slumber anywhere on the horizon. My throat hurts a little too and at the moment, I feel like blowing chunks. Oh yeah, and my head feels like a giant fuck-off bus has hit it. Like one of those Routemaster double-decker things.

See, last night, I managed to blow half of last week's pay on alcohol in the first episode of shameful binge drinking for the new year (the other half I spent on underwear – don't ask). Actually, I'm glad I held out this long, for all of eleven days. But with Dad overseas and Mum over at her house, I had Dad's place all to myself. And lately, with the parents around post-mugging, it's been hard to just up and decide to get plastered on the golden mile/kilometre/fraction thereof. So I upped and decided to get plastered.

There was beer and spirits but of course my drink of choice is the Vodka and Red Bull, which is a really silly drink when you think about it. I spent most of the night and the wee hours of the morning both drunk and wired at the same time. The feeling starts to grate after a while and gosh, how I regretted consuming them all. I had quite a few of them which is a little disconcerting, seeing as people have died from drinking large amounts of the stuff. And you know, I think I'm still a little wired now. And my pulse is racing.

Mind you, this all happened at the Wall of Stone, where Tuesday is karaoke night. I'm not game enough to put my dignity on the line, even with a few drinks in me but I did, in my drunken stupor, promise people that I'd get up next week and sing something tragic. Stupid Dan. And stupid blond boy who looks like a younger, more musical version of the ex-boyfriend N!xau.

So anyway, I got home in the wee hours, head buzzing and fingers smelling like cigarettes. Instead of sleeping I watched early morning free-to-air TV and worried about if I was going to die of a Red Bull overdose while feeling hangover symptoms slowly creep upon me. I didn't think that was possible. Meh.

At the moment though, I'm at the Access Centre at Fisher, killing time until work tonight. Normally I'd be sleeping in until some godforsaken hour of the afternoon and waking up in time for work. Not today of course. With all my items of entertainment still sitting in my room at Mum's place, including el gringo lappytop, and friends all being productively utilised at their places of employment, there was no other place to go than the library and her air-conditioned interior. How nerdy. I was originally going to go up to the Con Library, but there are greenie protests up that part of the City, and well, lack of laptop to rip music with. And I need to build up my tosser cred and read up on some classic literature that everyone else besides me has read.

Listening to:
Title: If You Find Yourself Caught in Love
Artist: Belle & Sebastian
Album/station: Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003)
Length: 4.15

2006-01-09T11:06:00.000+11:00

Nirvana.

At Faceless Corporation^TM's call centre, there's a woman who goes by the name of Nirvana. I'm guessing that she was a hippie back in the day. Whenever she answers a call, she says, "Hi, this is Nirvana--". And I can't help but laugh everytime.

Listening to:
Title: Ocean Breathes Salty
Artist: Modest Mouse
Album/station: Good News For People Who Like Bad News (2004)
Length: 3.49

2006-01-07T09:10:00.000+11:00

Saggy pants.

William Sutcliffe of the Guardian (via the Sydney Morning Herald) claims that young straight lads are reclaiming the arse and wearing their pants low - like really low. You know those kind of boys: the skaters lads with the baggy pants showing lots of underwear above their belt line.

As much as I'm pained to admit it, I'm one of those lads who wears his pants low. Except for the skater part (I'm only a wannabe). I'm reclaiming the arse for fags! I'd like to claim some skaters too, but it's proving to be a little difficult.

Listening to:
Title: Andy You're A Star
Artist: The Killers
Album/station: Hot Fuss (2004)
Length: 3.14

2006-01-06T12:51:00.000+11:00

Collected musings.

I went to the high street for lunch the other day and I saw the cutest thing. A pair of identical twins: one was in hot surfy garb - you know, boardies, slimfit tee, a pair of thongs and scruffy dirty-blonde hair. And the other was was dolled up in some emo gear, complete with emo hair, Chuck-Taylors and black and white stripy socks. Both über hot too. Mmm.

SBS TV screened the final part of The Corporation the other night. The Corporation also went to air on SBS for a couple of Wednesday nights last January. I remember spending every Wednesday night it was on TV at the then boyfriends place, and we watched it together. Le sigh. I attach memories and meaning to feckin' everything.

When the blood bank says male-to-male sex, do they mean all manner of man-to-man sexual contact? Or just anal-penetrative sex? If they only mean the latter, then well, I've done my twelve months of absention and I'm due to give blood. Finally. Don't know whether that's something to be proud of or not.

Hot Nickelodeon boy Drake Bell (hotter than Jesse McCartney as far as barely legal totty goes, I reckon) has survived a car crash somewhere in LA. You know, not that I pay attention to celebrity news or anything.

Young Labor wants to bring back national service - but national service not necessarily being military service, that is. It's an interesting thought, and I agree with the general idea. Y'know, turning us young'uns into more productive units of society instead of the self-obsessed, increasingly conservative and apathetic bunch that a large swathe of Gen Y seems to be morphing into. But being compulsory might not be such a good idea. Maybe instead if it were voluntary and strongly encouraged. With incentives. Maybe.

And lastly, fan-fucking-tastic: debate and dissent has been outlawed in this country. I would be looking forward to the next election, but I get the feeling that the mindless body politic will probably re-elect these aspiring dictatorial fiends.

Listening to:
Title: Novocaine Rhapsody
Artist: Dean Gray: Green Day vs. Queen
Album/station: American Edit (2005)
Length: 4.18

2006-01-04T01:50:00.000+11:00

The manner of my employment.

Alright. So I've been a little coy about it all. You know, my involvment with the Occult. OoOoh. Quelle horror!

Erm, well no, it's not that interesting, really. But it is more evil; it's a power to be feared more than Satan himself. The entity of which I speak is (insert crash of thunder here)... Faceless Corporation^TM. Dun-dunnnn. Le gasp! Oooh, did your eyes just dart around the room too? Mine did.

Yes, I'll admit my somewhat shameful day job: I'm a call centre minion. But we're the good kind of call centre (if such a thing exists) - we take incoming calls so, you know, I won't be interrupting your dinner/TV viewing/wild sex of an evening. Of course, as an anti-doocing measure, I can't disclose which multinational for whom I'm doing the devil's bidding.

I don't mind the job all that much. The people are nice and the pay is-- erm-- peanuts. But you know, pay peanuts and you get monkeys, and, well, I'm a monkey. And gosh the customers are shit. Paraphrasing a few words of wisdom from Keisha of Bromwell High: they're shitter than shit; they're so shit that they make me want to plug my ears with shit, and eat some shit, and then do a shit. Ah, I heart gratuitous swearing. But it's all good; the hot lads in the employ of Faceless Corporation^TM more than make up for the bum customers.

And speaking of bum customers, as of yesterday all the Victorian calls are now being sent up to the Faceless Corporation^TM's Brisbane call centre (who pretty much now take calls from every other state) instead of us, so now I only have to deal with New South Welshmen, women and children who've taken it upon themselves to be shit. Apparently the Victorians are ruder and well, more shit. Or so I've been told. Not a sentiment I share, of course. Erm, yeah.

Listening to:
Title: Mr Brightside (Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duke Mix)
Artist: The Killers
Album/station: Ministry of Sound: Sessions Two (2005) Disc 2
Length: 5.14

	Good	Crap
Big Bro		~~\|\|\|\|~~ ~~\|\|\|\|~~ \|\|
Aus Idol		~~\|\|\|\|~~ ~~\|\|\|\|~~ \|\|

Howard	Mark ~~Latham~~ Riddel	Taronga Zoo ape
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