Awww - Cute little rodents

 I like rodents. I think they are cute. Mice and guinea pigs are especially cute. Rats and rabbits are not as adorable but they are still pretty cuddly-looking in my opinion.

My fondness for the furry critters is not shared by everyone especially not school caretakers and many students.

The English block has a current mouse “problem”. That means several mice have discovered that classrooms are fairly good mousy habitats (English ones anyway, they know better then to venture near the biology rooms).

Reasons why mice like English Classrooms (Sponsored by Rodent Reality)
1. There are heaters for warmth. Heaters also make a good spot to run behind and hide when cleaners or caretaker are after you.
2. There is plenty of food dropped by messy students. Not boring vegetable-type food either. Chippies and cookies. Crumbs galore! Especially since students try to hide the fact they are eating in class by surreptitiously nibbling on food behind their books or under the desk which often leads to dropping more crumbs!
3. Plenty of good books around to read for the literary rodent
4. Classroom are generally vacated after 3.30pm
5. If a mouse craves excitement, he or she can simply run across the room or whiteboard during an otherwise dull and boring lesson. The shrieks and clambering onto desks (yes really! Apparently some female students have been watching 1950s sitcoms and think that shrill screams and over-reacting are the feminine things to do).

Apparently the caretaker is going to get rid of them. Sniff. I’ll miss the intelligence they brought to my class. I’m sure the average IQ of the class has increased by at least 20 points since Mr or Ms Mousy moved in.

The English department had a meeting this afternoon in a classroom. The two mice residing in the class came out and frolicked around quite a bit.

We decided to name them after students. Julian (the frantic ADHD mouse ran pointlessly about in different directions looking confused) and Ashley (the cheeky mouse out looking for trouble). Just like their namesakes.

ROTK - Warning: Dangerous Menu for Arachnophobes

 I suffered a rather traumatic night with many a creepy spider dream thanks to the lovely people who decided to make the Special Features Menu of Return of the King a tribute to her eight-legged freakiness.

It took a lot of mental preparation for me to handle the wonderfully scary Shelob's Lair when I saw ROTK at the theatres. I was so engrossed in the movie that I could not look away but needless to say there was some squirming and wriggling from me. In fact I'm pretty sure I bruised one of my friends with my fierce grip on her arm as I watched in terror.

However, I was unprepared for the random spider footage present on the Disk 2 menu. I think there was one part where they showed the shot of Shelob appearing from round the corner and raising her front legs at Frodo but worse was yet to come...

When Matt and I selected the 'Trilogy Preview', a full screen close-up of Shelob's hideous visage pounced out at me.

AAAAAARRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Now I know what a SAN check actually feels like in real life.

I was a trembling wreck for the rest of the night.

I think what really creeps me about Shelob is not just that she is huge and ugly but that she is so damn sneaky. Giant spiders are terrifying enough but the idea of one that enjoys playing with you and sneaking around behind you - shudder. It gives me the heebie-jeebies.

No doubt the Special Edition Box Set of ROTK will include 3D glasses with extra spider footage.

Why don't they produce a DVD where all the Menu shots are of Shadowfax and Hobbits?

"I can't believe it's instant" instant coffee

 Until very recently I have considered instant coffee a necessary evil. It is the only coffee freely available in the staff room (sniff - a perk of my former office jobs was decent coffee (filter or plunger at the very least) being provided).

My lunch break is frequently too short for me to flee school grounds in search of espresso, so I am forced to drink the instant. Not all bad I suppose, it does save me the few dollars I would otherwise be spending on coffee. One should not look a gift caffeinated beverage in the mouth.

Recently I had Robert Harris freeze-dried coffee recommended to me. I have tried it and was impressed. The columbian coffee actually tasted pretty close to filter coffee standard. An instant coffee that actually tastes like coffee rather than coffee substitute.

Now I just have to convince the powers-that-be to supply some freeze-dried coffee in the staff room...

"Hee-hee-hee-hee!"

What was that?

Oh, that was the high-pitched maniacial laughter of a thousand flying pixie-pigs giggling at the hilarious impausibility of management spending more money on their staff.

The High Cost of Having too much Fun

 I had a rather hectically relaxing weekend and I am now paying the price of doing no planning in the weekend.

Warning to fellow teachers: If you do not do your planning and marking during the weekend, you have a rather nasty Monday.

However, I can at least feel comforted in the fact the all the toil that I am currently avoiding (blogging is my new favourite form of procrastination!), is a result of much fun and activity rather than being wretchedly sick for the whole weekend as is the case with one of my fellow English teachers.

I have come to realise that at the ripe old age of 25, I am really only capable of enjoying most things in small doses (chocolate and sleep being the main two exceptions).

While it is fun to spend a couple of days going places, doing things and generally running around being busy, I’m not really up to doing it very often. My body is aching with exhaustion. It is simply not up the fast-paced, action-packed pursuit of fun I put it through this weekend.

Too much driving, too much walking, too much delicious food, too many activities, not enough sleep.

I remember as a child being devastated when the fun and action stopped – no matter how much fun I had had, I desperately wanted it to keep going. My joy at birthday parties would always crumple when I realised that my friends had to leave. That all the cake, games and presents were inevitably coming to an end.

Now, like a deflated old foggy, I’m secretly relieved when visitors leave and I can sit down and not do anything. No matter how much you love spending time with your friends and family, and how much fun you have doing things together, I really love the time when the house is empty and calm, and I’m left alone with nothing and no one but Matt and the cat.

Peace and doing nothing is sometimes the most fun thing on Earth.

Reading

 I was reading Giffy’s blog on ‘Why I read’ and then had to take a third form class for their Sustained Silent Reading. Interesting contrast in opinions. As far as many third form students (especially boys I must say – worrying) are concerned, reading is a pointless form of torture invented by English Teachers for purely sadistic purposes. In fact several boys opted to copy out definitions from a dictionary in preference to reading a fiction book of their own choosing from the library.

One thing that has struck me recently is how baffled I am by people who do not enjoy fiction.

I have come to understand that some people do not enjoy reading. While for me and most people I know, reading is a fun, relaxing passtime, for others it is just too difficult. If your reading skills are so poor that it takes you a full minute to struggle through a sentence and even then there may be at least three words you can’t work out, reading is confusing, frustrating and difficult. It is hard to enjoy a book if the mechanics of reading takes too long. In this society we are used to the fast-paced stories of TV and movies, and if your reading speed is very slow, then it will seem like the book story is taking forever to get started. I have often been gob-smacked by students telling me that a book I love and think is a rollicking read, is boring and slow. I have then checked their reading logs and found out that they are only reading 1 or 2 pages a day! When I start a book I do not expect to be ‘hooked’ until page 30 or so. If I was only reading a couple of pages at a time, I probably wouldn’t be very interested in most books. They simply would take too long.

To enjoy books, I need to get fully immersed and lose track of time.

The feeling when you can’t put the book down because you HAVE to know what happens next – that’s why I read. Whereas TV and movies have external factors dictating when you get your ‘fixes’ of story, whether it is a single episode at a time or a two hour movie, the pacing and time is pre-determined. With reading, the reader can choose whether to sit down one afternoon and read the book from cover-to-cover, or whether to leisurely read it a chapter at a time.

Oh my, what a long digression that turned out to be.

My original point was going to be that while I can understand why people who are not good readers do not enjoy reading, I still struggle to understand people who simply do not enjoy fiction.

There are some people who prefer not to read fiction. They prefer to read history books, political books, biographies etc. That makes some sense to me. I have read some truly fantastic non-fiction books, ones that were highly entertaining as well as interesting. I suppose they also feel a more virtuous form of reading.

I do have a slightly strange way of looking entertainment. That is that entertainment is like food and there is entertainment that is good for you and also entertainment that is not so good for you. Reading a scholarly non-fiction book is the equivalent of raw carrot sticks and salad. The health food of leisure activities. Reading fiction is still pretty intellectually healthy in my estimation. Probably the equivalent of rice or wholemeal bread. Still at the bottom of the food pyramid.

Watching a documentary or arthouse film is like the protein - cheese or lean meats. Part of a well-balanced diet.

Watching schlocky Hollywood movies. Pizza and chips.

Watching TV. Chocolate and candy. (Reality TV is the equivalent of chewing a lump of cholesterol-dripping lard).

Unfortunately, that means at the moment my intellectual diet is as unhealthy as the food. Too much mind-candy, not enough veggies.

Once again, Debbie neglects to actually get to the original point.

What I have been trying to get to is that there are some students I have who do not seem to enjoy listening to stories being read out, watching plays and do not even seem to enjoy movies. The only things they will ever read are car magazines or sports biographies. No fiction. Not in any form.

Scary.

Could it be that there is a new breed of teenager out there who just doesn’t like stories?

Did they have their imaginations sucked out by some sort of monstrous vacuum cleaner as a small child? Or is it just a phase where stories and fiction seem babyish?

Perkifying Treats of Goodness

 Well it has been a long week of work, flu and stress for me. The horror of staying at school late for Parent-Teacher interviews on Wednesday (and then Matt had his on Thursday so that was two days we hardly saw each other) nearly pushed over the edge into a dark abyss of despair and self-pity.

However, Friday was mostly good. A reasonably light workload at school and then the WEEKEND!

Still, feeling then a little blue from harshness of my week, I endeavoured to seek out some fun and pampering. Things that make you go: "Life is good".

Debbie's list of Perkifying things to do:

1. Take a nice bubble bath (note bubbles ARE important. Any bath without bubbles is not perkifying, regardless of how many nice smelling oils and bath soaks are used.) For ultimate perkifying bath treatment, I recommend playing music, lighting some tea-light candles and drinking somthing from a stemmed glass (note: beverage not as important as shape of glass).

2. Listening to some perkifying music. Perkifying music is any music that compels you to either start dancing or singing along, or even better, both.

3. Chocolate. Chocolate with praline is even better.

4. Watching a good movie. Either at one of your favourite cinemas or snuggled up on a couch under a blanket at home. Both are good. Popcorn and other snacks are obviously required.

5. Double chocolate fudge martini. Hmmmm. It is like chocolate dessert and alcohol mixed together in a blend of smooth and creamy delicious goodness. Divine.

6. Reading a good book with a cup of tea and some sort of dunkable biscuit. I recommend gingernuts, superwines or Girl Guide cookies. Best places for reading: snuggled in bed, curled up on a sofa. I have tried reading in the bath but would not advise. The stress of trying to stop the book getting wet negates the relaxing qualities of both activities.

7. Laughing. Find some funnies and laugh until your sides hurt. Note: poking Matt (or whoever your significant other is) and saying "Be funny!" doesn't usually work. Many people find it difficult to be humourous on command.

8. Stroke a cat or hug someone you love. Or even just like. Hugs are good.

Well, that is about all I can think of for now. Readers, please send in suggestions of any other Perkifying Pamperings you recommend.

Dreaming of an Apocalypse

 I suspect it may be a result of guzzling too many lemsips and paracetamol but I had a particularly eerie dream this morning.

The dream started with me trying to get to sleep and being worried that I would not be able to get to sleep and, not getting my 8 hours of shut-eye, would be tired, cross and surly the next day. After spending hours tossing and turning in my dream (yes, I often do dream of having insomnia - definitely a sign of a neurotic personality), I gave up my wretched attempts to get to sleep and turned on the TV.

On the TV, there was a news report (curiuosly read out by the news-caster who read the chorus at the beginning of Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet ), saying that there was an epidemic of sleeping. They called it 'Sleeping Beauty Syndrome' (yes, I have a cheesey subconscious), people fell asleep and never woke up again.

The dream jumped to a few days later and most of the world had fallen into eternal slumber. I was sitting up in bed shaking from the copious amounts of caffeine I had consumed and was trying to read a book but my eyes could not focus on the words. Eventually I became so exhausted and weak, I finally gave in and let myself fall asleep even though I was crying because I knew that if I went to sleep, I would die.

I woke up around that point. Actually I was relieved to wake-up. Even on a Monday morning!

Anyway, I have been thinking about a little about Apocalypses (is that the plural? Should it be apocalypsi?) since then and have decided that compared to plagues of bugs and machines turning humankind into batteries, a sleep apocalypse is not so bad.

What do other people think? An interesting, if somewhat morbid, poll for Monday.

What kind of apocalypse would be the best/worst way to end the world as we know it?

Sometimes a mushroom is really just a mushroom...

 Welcome again gentle readers. Today I shall regale you with exciting tales of the joys, the dangerous and numerous frustrations of attempting to teach one of life's great literary mysteries - poetry.

To some of us poetry is a breath of fresh air as sweet as a pale spring morning. A robust wine to be imbibed, to be savoured and swirled about the mouth, to infuse the mind with great relevations of the human condition and the inner workings of the soul.

Many others feel that poems are something best avoided unless they are a humourous limerick preferably beginning with a line such as "There once was a girl from Nantucket..."

However, the powers-that-be have ordained that all students must be instructed in the appreciation of poetry. Perhaps, you may argue, this is essential knowledge. It may be all very well for English teachers to shy away from the rigours of teaching poetry but where would this leave the students? Imagine a world, you may argue, where grown men and women are ignorant and defenceless in the face of poetry. A world where accountants could add a considerable sum of figures but are stumped as a Christmas tree in December when it comes to similes. A world where silver-tongued lawyers are reduced to babbling by the utterance of onomatopoeia. A world where steel-nerved surgeons are frozen with terror in the operating theatre by presence of a metaphor.

"No!" I hear you cry. This can not be! Educated people cannot be undone by these poetic devices. They must be able to conquer, to arm themselves against language of the figurative kind.

Thus inspired by the necessity of this Herculean task, I set out to teach these young minds about poetry. To cram into their little minds the knowledge they would need should they in latter life perchance to come face to face with a sonnet.

I taught them all the metaphors and all the similes
The assonance, the consonance, were pointed out with ease.
I looked at every stanza and at every single rhyme,
The structure and the metre took quite a lot of time.

Once I'd taught them all the terms and noted each device,
One student raised their hand and asked for some advice,
"I have underlined the features and written down the theme,
But could you tell me Miss, what does this poem mean?"

I was nearly undone.

However, being of staunch of mind and of spirit, I pressed on. For hours, it seemed, we covered the purpose of the poetry, the hidden meanings, the truths to be gleaned from the text. We looked at 'No ordinary sun' - how the sun is _really_ an atomic bomb.

Then, today, we read another poem, 'Mushrooms' by Sylvia Plath. The poem was rich in imagery and language but not too difficult. This one, I fancied, they could read and understand all by themselves. They read it. They noted many features.

"Repetition," one remarked.

"Metaphor," another called out.

I felt well-pleased with my work.

Then, to my horror and dismay, the dreaded question raised its loathsome head.

"Miss, what is it about?"

"Mushrooms," I replied.

The murmur in the room was one of discontent.

"No really, Miss, what is it actually about," another student demanded.

"Mushrooms. It is really about mushrooms," I repeated.

They looked at each other suspiciously.

"What are the mushrooms, though," tried another student tackling the problem from another angle.

"The mushrooms are mushrooms. That is what the poem is about. It is called mushrooms and it is about mushrooms!"

"That is stupid. You can't just have a poem about mushrooms. It has to be about something else!"

If anyone has any ideas about what the mushrooms actually represent, my students would be grateful. Mushrooms are not, apparently, interesting enough in themselves to warrant a poem.

Shakespeare in Schools

 I spent a rather enjoyable evening at school watching the regional Shelia Winn Shakespeare in schools tonight. Good to see youngsters having fun with the bard. Petruchio in leather pants with Kate the shrew in camo, more than the usual amounts of cross-dressing in Twelfth Night (a male Olivia and Vioila) and many bouncing fairies. Jolly good fun.