The Not-so-Great NZ Debate

 I went to a lot of effort to watch and record The Great New Zealand Debate last night on Channel 1 (that is I asked Matt to set-up the video and then watched it. Tiring stuff really.) I had a cunning plan to end the Debating unit that I am doing at the moment with my Year 10 class by watching it on Friday. I thought it would be a fun way to end the term.

I have to say I was a little disappointed. Firstly, it was way too smutty and crass to let a Year 10 watch which is really saying something because they are not delicate little creatures.

However, what really disappointed me was the lack of actual debating. I haven’t always watched it over the years but didn’t they used to argue the moot, rebut the opponents’ points and well, debate?

Debating is supposed to use humour and some of the rebuttal can get fierce and heated but is not supposed to be a 6 minute stand-up routine of cheap and crude jabs at the sexual activities of Kiwi B-grade celebrities such as Charlotte Dawson and Shrek the sheep!

More Diary Fun

 Well these Victorian diaries that my students are writing are continuing to be the main source of entertainment I have at school at the moment. So far they have been quite action-packed which was a little unexpected given that the assignment was focussed on covering living conditions and mundane facts.

The diaries have been filled with adventure, romance, gambling, and crime (predominantly stealing from the Cabin Class passengers or murder) which has made them fun to read. One of the most amusing aspects is the way the students have subtly crafted their exciting plots with the historical details of everyday life they are required to include.

One of the best examples so far:

Timothy was so handsome when he dressed up for the dance on the deck. [Timothy is a young passenger with whom the heroine of the diary has been spending a great deal of time with.] I think I am beginning to fall in love with him. But maybe it is just the weevils. The sea biscuits we have to eat have become full of weevils.

For those you are interested, she does become involved with Timothy. They are married when they arrive in New Zealand after they discover that she is pregnant.

There have also been difficulties with students having the character who is writing the diary murdered during the journey. It makes the required final entry, when they describe arriving in New Zealand, a little difficult.

Still I cannot complain. They have really done considerably better than I expected. Some of them have written nearly 3000 words which is impressive when they only have to write 500 words.

Assuming Common Knowledge is Common

 Not everyone thinks the same. The world would be an uninteresting place if we did. However, sometimes the vast distance between what I think is common knowledge and what some 13 years old actually know is scaringly huge. A giant canyon that, at times, seems too wide to bridge. With such an immense chasm between us, I think that even if I jumped up and down waving my arms frantically they could probably only make out a vague shape in the far distance.

I had one of those moments today.

My class have been studying Victorian England and factors that led to British migrants moving to New Zealand in the nineteenth century. Naturally there have been interesting questions about that time period.

World War II was in the nineteenth century, wasn’t it?

Did they have TV cartoons back then?

The class covered a lot of research material about Victorian living conditions, child labour, housing, health, medicine and poverty. We read a book called Young Exile about a teenage English girl who immigrates to New Zealand in 1849 (a good Young Adult book - I enjoyed it).

Their assignment is to write a diary of a nineteenth century British emigrant before, during and after their three-month journey to New Zealand. They have to include certain historical aspects and be convincing in their descriptions.

I started marking the drafts today. On the whole they were good until I came across the line:

I am leaving England because I am too poor to buy McDonalds and want to go somewhere where I can have McDonalds.
(Spelling and syntax corrected)

Naturally I questioned the student as to whether McDonalds was historically accurate. He said that yes it was. Apparently a lack of Big Macs was one of the major ‘push’ factors involved in nineteenth century emigration from England. I mentioned that McDonalds did not exist in the nineteenth century and the look on his face was one of horror. He claims to not believe me and will be ‘checking it out’ (ie. asking his parents) tonight.

I don’t know why he is having such a hard time accepting this fact. The students were fairly unquestioning about all the other information I gave them about Victorian England.

Women couldn’t vote. Fine. Many children had to work long hours in dangerous and unpleasant jobs. Believable. No McDonalds? Impossible!!!

Is a time before Happy Meals ™ existed to terrifying for their young minds to contemplate?

Passive-Aggressive Feline Conspiracies

 I think I may have finally worked out the reason for much of Austen’s (my infamous tortoiseshell cat who is currently sprawled across my lap) recent Evil behaviour. She has a plan. Actually a conspiracy. Cats are too smart for mere plans. The word ‘Plan’ conjures up images of the silly schemes of simpletons like Wily Coyote. A plan would be leaving a trail of bird seed up to the bottom of a cliff above which a 40 tonne anvil is suspended waiting to drop on the road-runner. Plans invariably fail and usually with the coyote getting ‘comically’ squished himself. A conspiracy would require more effort. Clandestine meetings in underground lairs and boardrooms where shadowy figures menacingly decide on which method is best to inflict their doom on the unsuspecting public.

Thus conspiracy is far better word to describe the recent actions of Austen. She, however, does not require hoards of minions, influence over the Government or shadowy lairs to plot her way to achieving her goals. She works alone. A one-cat conspiracy – cute and fluffy but dangerous nonetheless.

Austen has been orchestrating an intricate operation. Each move as carefully calculated as a master Chess player. Each move bringing her closer to her end goal. And what you ask is that goal?

TO DRIVE ME TO A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN WHERE I HAVE TO QUIT MY JOB AND STAY AT HOME TO FULFIL HER EVERY WHIM.

I have at last found out the truth. Why else would she being going to such extremes as the following:

1. Drinking out of my glass of water. Every time my back is turned, I hear the lapping. I have even caught her drinking from my glass. Her own water bowl is full. I have carried her to it but still she persists in jumping up on the desk or table and drinking from my glass of water. The reason can only be that it is phase one of her conspiracy.

Phase One: Dehydration. Humans need water and slowly go mad when deprived of it.

2. Kill small mice. Decapitate them. Leave the corpses in places the humans won’t suspect like under the laundry. That maximises shock-value.

Phase Two: Shock and Scare Tactics. Nothing says “watch out” like a headless mouse in undergarments.

3. Meow loudly when the human does not expect it. Nothing puts a human on edge as quickly as a loud “meow” screamed in their ear from behind. Wait until humans are watching the TV or using the computer. Jump on them unexpectedly and meow loudly. Jumping from the side is good, jumping from behind is better. Randomly clawing furniture when they sit on it also helps build tension.

Phase Three: Keep the human on edge.

4. Be demanding. Sure a cat could paw out the food of her self-feeder by herself (hence the name ‘self-feeder’) but what would be the fun in that? Better to demand that they jiggle your food out for you regularly. Bonus: keeps paws clean.

Phase Four: Keep them busy with tasks you could easily do for yourself.

5. Run crazily around the room for no apparent reason. Act really affectionate until they stroke you. After a while bite and scratch them for no reason. Keep them guessing.

Phase Five: Confuse them with random strange behaviour.

6. Jump back on their lap while they are still typing their blog entry as if you have an uncanny knowledge of what they are typing… Communicate to your followers by walking across the keyboard…

0}bvggp0]kh[p0 reywyghut6xf4 jgtdyi8qwe (authentic Austen contribution from earlier today)

...then jump off and run away leaving the human with a desire to quickly finish typing and go and see what you are up to...

Cell-phones Killed the Video Star

 Well it has been a long and arduous term for me which is thankfully coming to its end.

8 more school days to go! Yay!

When I started planning this term's classes I cunningly scheduled 'fun' units for the bottom end of the term. This means Debating, Drama and Film studies as far as I'm concerned. Both my senior classes are currently studying films. This means I have had at least 2-3 cruisy lessons of watching videos in class. Fun and easy. The way I like things.

However, I had not counted on a couple of obstacles. The first being the other teachers have similar thoughts and the videos have been booked out solidly this week. The second obstacle was that some students struggle with the cognitive ability required to watch a video. This is a disturbing widespread problem. Brain Deficit Disorder (BDD) or as it is known in layman's "being too stupid to breathe and shut your mouth at the same time".

Thankfully being sent out into the cold to catch pneumonia seemed to counteract the noise created by students afflicted with BDD. There was still the problem of some students who were crafty enough not to talk loudly during the movie, getting distracted by their cellphones.

Why watch a movie when you can send inane and poorly spelt text messages to all your friends?

However for the most part my sixth form class impressed me once again. We have been watching The Shawshank Redemption - one of my favourite movies. They have all been completely immersed in it from the second it starts to the end of class. They appear to both enjoy and understand it. In fact, I nearly had a riot today when I turned the video off about 15 minutes from the end of the movie. It was the end of class but it is a pretty annoying place to have to stop watching.

Today I had to relieve another sixth form class. They were starting to watch Billy Elliot. They were appallingly juvenile and it seemed several of them suffered from BDD. Once again the allure of the cell-phone proved too much and many of them missed most of the movie.

Ultimate Singstar Fun!

 Last night was a fantastic fun-filled evening where people came around to do several of my favourite things.

1. Give me super-cool pressies (Joy! Rapture! Thanks heaps!)
2. Drink Chocolate Martinis (Yummy)
3. Sing the SingStar

The Singstar had the usual high calibre of karaoke despite the fact that some people cheated by actually being able to sing. I didn't do too badly though because Singstar doesn't measure how well you sing, just if you hit notes at the right time, get the right pitch and hold them. As we discovered, you can pretty much sing any words. There were some fantastic "monkeyfied" songs. The challenge was to fit the word "monkey" into appropriate places in the lyrics.

Some of my favourites included:

"Girls don't like boys,
Girls like cats and monkeys"

"Pretty monkey, walking down the street.
Pretty monkey, the kind I like to meet."

Another reason why last night was "Ultimate Singstar Fun" was the surprise addition of the Eye-Toy. I was luckily given an Eye-Toy as a present (Thanks - you rock!) and they are SO GOOD! The Eye-Toy games are pretty fun. You can do the Kung-fu (although the Pandas with baseball bats are hard to fight off), dancing, crazy mirror game, ghost fighting and window washing. All involve you standing in front of the TV and camera and madly flailing your arms and legs around (at least that is how I played them). If you get the High Score, you have to pose for a photo. Lots of fun but I do now have slightly sore arms.

The Eye-Toy is particularly cool when used with SingStar. You get to see yourself dancing around and singing for the music video, and it creates groovy effects around you and with your image. You also to have segments of your performances recorded for Playback.

Now I must pay the price of much fun and merriment - planning for the week and marking.

Hark! The fearsome Battie Cry of the Debz

 

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Who is that, prowling across the icy wasteland! It is The Debz, hands clutching buzzsaw hand extensions! And with a low howl, her voice cometh: "Vengeance and goo flow from my veins! I burn with the holy fires of destruction!!!"

Find out! Enter username:  Are you a girl, or a guy ?

created by beatings : powered by monkeys

It's the Weekend

 YAY!

It is finally the weekend. Long I have I desired to sleep in and have a fun-packed weekend. (Well technically it has only been 5 days since the last weekend but it has felt like AGES!)

Matt and I have been singing our 'Weekend' song since Wednesday. The weekend song was something we invented in Japan. It is a jaunty tune and is very good for rousing the spirits after a hard week.

The lyrics are touchingly sweet and poignant with depth some may find hard to comprehend.

It's the weekend
We don't have to work tomorrow
We have the whole day off
And the following day.

Maybe we should record ourselves singing it. That way people could download the mp3 and share the wondrous joy.

Happy Birthday to Me!

 Well my birthday has snuck upon me again. Well, it didn't really sneak because I having been looking forward to it for a while now. Yay for pressies and cake and whatnot. I guess it is more like my birthday has been doing a loud conga-line towards me and it seemed to be moving slowly when in the distance but frantically rushed up towards the end.

O Birth-day birth-day Con-ga!

However, despite the orgy of fun, attention and presents leading up to now, today was actually kind of dull and unexciting. The course I was on wasn't hugely fun or interesting. This is unusual for me because generally I enjoy Professional Development. I seem to prefer the theory of teaching to the actual real-life experiences. The ideals of teaching are great and I often get really enthusiastic but then the realities of the classroom and adolescent students are frequently stressful and depressing.

However, back to the actual course itself. Unfortunately I had to watch the Te Mana video again! I think I ended up seeing it at least three times at TCOL. It is a good video with some great points but I don't think I gained much from a fourth viewing (except that now I know some of the teachers and students in it).

The behavioural management and effective planning bits also had a lot of material I had already covered in our English Department holiday PD. This did, however, give my team an advantage in the 'Positive Strategies' mix and match. We finished first with 100% correct. Our efforts were rewarded with a mini-moro so the day wasn't entirely wasted. Actually maybe it was the 'Curriculum Terms' mix and match we won? I'm not sure now. We were named the Extension table anyway. Woot.

It is now my intention to wander off, eat delicious dinner prepared by wunderhusband and play Singstar for several hours! Yay!

Singstar! Woot!

Heh heh heh.

 Well my birthday is on Tuesday and I'm glad to see that my wonderful Matt is maintaining the tradition of letting me have my pressies early, that is as soon as they are purchased. This shows a sound understanding of the Debbie psyche. It is generally considered by most people that surprises are good. That not knowing what your presents are and only finding out when you unwrap them on your birthday somehow enhances the joy of receiving present goodness. However, I am of an easily excitable disposition. Not having any preview of birthday presents would leading to twitching and lack of sleeping. The excitement would be TOO MUCH and I WOULD HAVE TO KNOW.

So yesterday was a wonderful Saturday. We went down to Belmont to visit Dad and found out he now has a blog, got a useful bunch of stuff from my Nana that she no longer needs in her new smaller place, played some excellent Buffy and GOT COOL PRESENTS!

Firstly, my warm thanks to L and S for the lovely cupcakes with yummy blue icing, and the PIG PUPPET. Woot! Now I have a cute pig puppet just like in The Wolves in the Walls. The pig (called Dumpling) came complete with a short poem explaining his origins and Dumpling's special oinking features. When you squeeze his snout, he oinks. Or at least the label claims it is an "oink". However, when I squeezed Dumpling's snout I discovered the sinister truth...

"KILL DOYLE, KILL DOYLE..."

Dumpling, it seems, is in fact a dark and evil mind hidden in the body of a cute plush pig puppet. I don't know who Doyle is but it seems Dumpling has nefarious plans for him...

My second present of supreme coolness was... SINGSTAR!

Yay!

For those of you that have not had the joy of experiencing Singstar, it is a PS2 game of karaoke. It scores your ability to sing, well your ability to get the correct rhythm and pitch of the notes anyway. So cool!

There are many different games and options. Last night we played several enjoyable hours of Singstar at Jenni's place (Projector goodness - yay!). We played the Team Party mode where the teams must compete in different singing challenges with random songs. Much fun and a draw between our powerful singing teams.

We then played the game where you build up a Singstar career and become an international Superstar. You get gigs at different venues, make a demo, then get a record deal and move into a flash penthouse apartment with its own Golf Course. I was pretty excited about the Penthouse apartment. Very swanky.

Giffy's single of Superstar went to number 1 on the charts.

Needless to say we became World Famous by the end of the evening. Much fun was had.

Random Pig Strangeness

 Well, it a been a week of ups and downs. A week that has been far too busy for my liking, disagreeable due to the fact that it has been work busy. A week where I was run off my feet with frantic movie watching and ice-cream eating would actually be quite pleasant I feel.

However, it was becoming a boring yet busy week. Life has started falling into a bit of a routine. I have been getting worried that life was fast becoming a repetitive cycle of dreading workdays and really only enjoying my life on the weekends. The idea of constantly being bored, tired and depressed five days of the week for the rest of my working life is pretty scary. That would lead to a mid-life crisis.

It has been reassuring to know that just when life seemed to be getting tediously repetitive, weirdness stepped in with...

RANDOM PIG STRANGENESS!!!

Last night, whilst Matt and I were making a snack, we heard a particularly strange grunting noise. We went outside only to discover a big black pig wandering around our garage oinking and snorting. It was very friendly and cute. It liked to be scratched on the belly, which incidently was quite round and large. Our neighbours came over and tied a rope around its neck to lead it back to the house it lived at. Unfortunately the large pig showed little inclination to leave. It sat on the side of our driveway with an expression of stauch defiance which hitherto I had only seen upon the faces of my Year 9 students when they were given homework to do over the long weekend.

Pig liked the side of the driveway. Pig was not going to be persuaded to move with just a thin rope about its neck.

Pigs can be very affectionate and cuddly when being fussed.

Pigs can be very stubborn and noisy when people think they can drag them around like a dog on a leash.

However, this little piggy had a weakness. A distinct fondness for braeburn apples. Piggy gobbled up the proffered apple and was easily lured off our driveway with another piece of apple.

So the tale end happily with both my and the pig's life enriched by the crossing of our paths. I think we both learned a little something from the experience.

I learned that life can still sometimes be just as surprising when you're an adult with jobs and responsibilities as it was when you were a kid.

I also learned that pigs are cute and like braeburn apples.

I think the pig learned where to go and what to do next time he wants an apple.

I'm Shigure! Woof! Woof!

 Thanks to Jenni and her blog for the providing the link to the Which Fruits Basket character are you? quiz.

I'm Shigure. I'm not really surprised except that I wasn't trying to be Shigure. I deliberately avoided some of the obvious puppy answers. Hmm.


You're Shigure - the dog!


Which Fruits Basket Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

How Fruits Basket changed my life

 Well the last week has been one of sharp contrasts and extremes. The dark woes and traumatic experiences (mostly teaching related…no surprise there), and also fun and fluffy smurfiness.

I have been struggling with coping with the nastiness of delinquent third formers. I’ve have been sworn at, been insulted in various ways ranging from my teaching ability and intellect to my appearance, and had a used (well I hoping it was faked to look used) condom put on my desk (EWWW!). Nasty.

It has been hard for me because I really do not like confrontation and I have never really had people act so hatefully towards me before. Thankfully most people in my life even if they didn’t like me have been subtle enough to allow me to blithely continue in the belief (delusion?) that I am a likeable enough person.

However, the experience has not been wholly bad. The nasty students have been dealt with (the really horrible one has been put in another class! Yay! Dance of joy!) and heaps of the staff have been really nice and encouraging.

I think in many ways I owe a lot of support I have received to Fruits Basket – the shamelessly cute anime of loveliness. Not only has it always managed to cheer me up and put a smile on my face no matter how bad the day at work was, it also inspired my to act the way I did - ask for help.

Yep – life lessons from anime. In between the kawaii animals and big eyes there are some pearls of wisdom.

Often in life it is easy to get depressed and believe that nobody cares about you or your problems. Not true.

As touchingly demonstrated by Kyo and Yuki (aww) in a recent episode, people will often go out of their way to help and support you once they realise that you need it. It just that often we try to battle on bravely and the people around us do not realise how low our morale is or how badly we are feeling.

People are full of kindness and have big delicious plums on their backs (sorry, that reference will make no sense if you haven’t seen Fruits Basket).