Archive for 15/03/2007

A Social Life

31/03/2007 Joh family, friends, gratitude

I have had a very social weekend. I even went shopping with my little sister Kate this weekend. I love having Kate around, she’s so generous and funny. My friend Rhonda came over yesterday afternoon and we all sat around and laughed till it hurt.

I had two events last night. My twin Auntie and Uncle’s 50th Birthday party and a close friends engagement party. I wanted to attend both and managed it. I forgot to take my camera, which was a shame, but there were camera’s around so I imagine I will see photo’s.

I loved catching up with my family. They are such great fun and I had a few good memories. I saw a photo of my auntie and I, that was taken probably 30 years ago and I immediately remembered how much I idolised her. She was probably 20 and I was probably about 11 or 12. She was heading off to Malaysia with her partner and I was devastated. When she returned after a few years our relationship had changed, I was older, the gap had lessened. I forgot how much I adored her. All my brothers and sister were there and it is always good to catch up with them as well as most of my mum’s 7 brothers and sisters and their families. It was great.

At the second party there were people I worked with and some who had left the school had returned for this party and I loved seeing them again. My work mates are a valued part of my life and it was lovely to catch up with those I’ve missed.

I feel very blessed and happy today. Both my children are home and safe, it is holidays and all is well in my world. I am grateful for the wonderful life I have.

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Rediscovering ‘The Invitation’

30/03/2007 Joh reading

Today when I got my email from Yasmin Boland about the days astrological weather, she included ‘The Invitation’ by Oriah Mountain Dreaming and that link. I remembered when I first read this peice when my children were little I had seen it in a Wellbeing Magazine and cut it out and put it on the wall beside my bed. I loved it and read it over and over. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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Great Comic Story

29/03/2007 Joh reading

Just a brief post to say that now that I have began noticing comics, I am seeing more, everywhere. This story on Articulate on the ABC website is about a comic artist who has created a community project to tell the stories of a community. It’s a lovely story and a great use of art. Collaborative Auto-Biography is what Sydney artist Mathew Huynh has created to tell the stories of his community.

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My Day

27/03/2007 Joh family, gratitude

Today was magical for me. Our students had a poetry competition at school and it was breathtaking to see them stand up and read their poems to their peers. At this time of the term it’s the last thing I wanted to have in front of me today. My patience has worn to a thin veneer all week. The students were well behaved and attentive and gave each other the respect they deserved. There were 40 odd poems read to an audience of about 180 students from a variety of classes. Many were labelled as students who just wanted to get out of class, yet they learnt today. They listened, participated and responded appropriately to one anothers poetic offerings. I felt proud of them all and deeply touched by many of them. It was great.

The last week I have been blessed by my dad, recently retired coming to do a mountain of maintenance that I just haven’t had time to attend to for a long time. As a result I now have a back garden that doesn’t look like a neglected wilderness, two doors that I can get into my home with ease rather than a wrestle and a pile of rubbish removed from my view. My mum and auntie have helped me inside and I now feel I have a home to come to at the end of the day. It has made such a difference. I’m not sure how I managed to neglect everything so much but there have been quite a few things going on and I have found it easier to blog, read or sleep than to do anything productive.

I visited pa on the weekend and he has made an amazing recovery so far. He was sitting up and chatting to those around him. The doctors have solved a few of his health problems and he seems to be mending more, each time I visit. He has had mountains of visitors. He has 3 children, 15 grandchildren and over 20 great grandchildren. Most of them have been to see him in the past week or so, some travelling from Adelaide, Queensland and many from Melbourne. He is such a powerful force in our lives and so well loved.

Lot’s of things happen in your day. So many that I can never manage to keep track of them all but today was great. So I am feeling very satisfied and blessed tonight. I am still tired and ready for my holidays due to commence at the end of the week, yet I feel content.

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Theodora’s Gift by Ursula Dubosarky

23/03/2007 Joh reading

I totally enjoyed this slim novel. ‘Theodora’s Gift’ is a great story and shows a complex world of relationships and events past and future that many young people will relate to. For those who keep a diary as I do this extract

“Theodora had kept a diary, more or less, since she had learned to write. Theodora was the sort of person who paid attention to things. So much attention that she found she couldn’t keep it all inside her head, and that was how she had started keeping a diary.
She wrote everything down, everything, everything, everything. Everything that is, that she saw or heard, which if you think about it, leaves quite a lot of everything out.” (p7,8)

may make you think about what everything, everything, everything, you write.

I don’t write what I see and hear, I realised when I read this and thought about it. Although I possibly include some of it to explain why I think and feel. I write what I am thinking about constantly or feeling. As a result my diary is boring and repetitive at times. I keep it because like the character Theodora, I can’t keep it all inside my head and it makes me feel better to get it down on paper. Sometimes it helps me to move on. It often allows me to realise I am going around in circles or obsessing and often when I wonder if I have experienced something before, I can check and see that a pattern has formed. It does have it’s uses.

I still think it would be more interesting if I wrote down what I saw and heard!

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Comics, Cartoons and Graphic Novels

23/03/2007 Joh reading


Head Trip – Don’t Ya by *shinga on deviantART

David Bowie should definately have stayed! This cartoon captures the voice of the young people I teach.
In my ‘Creative Writing’ student group at school last year I had a couple of highly talented young people who expressed themselves wonderfully using this form. They created wonderful drawings and turned them into stories. This year not one. The group of young people enjoyed writing, but not in this form.
I must admit I haven’t taken much of an interest in this form either, so I am going to challenge myself to read a graphic novel this year and to use more comics and cartoons in my teaching. I want to ensure I don’t limit my students to my own tastes.
When I was a kid I remember my dad reading the ‘funnies’ in the newspapers and laughing and then passing them to me to share the laughs. I often didn’t find it that funny. I think I found it annoying that he found things funny at that hour of the day. I was frequently tired and cranky in the mornings. Now I get up early and don’t communicate much in the mornings and progress through it much better, not having to talk for a while.
I did like political cartoons though and often laughed at those. I need to give them a go and find out more.

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Is this real?

22/03/2007 Joh blogging

I have been reading Martin Strickland’s blog ‘Combe Martin Life’ and have seen some very beautiful and amazing photo’s from his part of the world.

This video that is on his blog today is bizarre. I wonder if it’s real.

I have been quiet this week due to too much work and not enough play. Not much to say.

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Hospital

18/03/2007 Joh family

My beloved Pa is in hospital. He has injured his back. It is hard to sit by his bed and see him powerless. To see the purply red marks where the drip has gone in and created a big bruise. He looks frail and elderly. He is 87. He means so much to me and I love him for so many reasons.
As I read to him yesterday he seemed to come and go, yet laughed at, responded to the story. He had conversations with me in between the hospital business that goes on. He leant over at one stage and unhooked some strands of hair that had caught in my earring. He is not so out of it, despite the painkillers, the age, the appearance of being an old man.
He asked me why I was there on a Saturday because I normally visit him on Sundays. I told him since he was sitting still, I thought I’d come both days. Last night I found out that my brothers and sisters and cousins were coming from hours away to see him, so I let them have their time today. I will see him during the week.
I can’t stop thinking about him though. I was grateful of my friends this weekend visiting and phoning and talking about their lives. Funny, both of them kept saying they felt bad about discussing their worries, when I was worried about pa, but they were doing me a great favour, distracting me.
I hope they (the hospital staff in general) take care of him and treat him with the respect he deserves. If only they knew him as I did!

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New Moon Eclipse in Pisces

16/03/2007 Joh astrology

This Monday the new moon is in Pisces and it’s a partial solar eclipse. This article from Astrowisdom.com, written by Lisa Dale Miller is worth a read and explains the types of things to focus on at this time, astrologically.

We are celebrating Harmony Day at school this week and I have been putting up quotes from great people on the whiteboard each day about harmony and friendship. It is a good thing to focus on. Oneness, what does it really mean? How do we live each day with the knowledge of our oneness? Students wanted to know what it means, so I have left them with the weekend to reflect on it. I will too.

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Waiting Rooms

15/03/2007 Joh health, reading

Waiting Rooms are designed to drive me insane. I have spent a little time in them the last few days. I have completed a whole book sitting in a waiting room. That is the good thing about them. Now I know to bring a book, because the magazine selections are always poor and insulting. The chiropracter’s waiting room is tolerable because the people waiting there are usually not contagious. If you go to a doctor’s waiting room however, it always seems to me insane that all the sick people are hanging out together, waiting for so long. Who knows what you could catch? The name itself, “Waiting” how’s that for setting you up for impatience? I guess it’s better than the catch the flu room, which is how it feels sometimes in there.

By the way the book I finished was the short story collection by Margo Lanagan, “White Time”. It was great. I can’t say my favourites because I loved every one of them.

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