Major Production

 Well another second-year teacher and myself have decided to direct the Major Production at school this year. Just a small play, no big broadway musicals which suck out your life for two terms in rehearsal time and with a small managable cast.

We put a notice in for a small meeting today - the idea was to get a list of names, tell them that auditions are in the holidays* and that it would be fun but require a great deal of commitment**. I figured that after the exhaustion of Stage Challenge we wouldn't get much interest. It was short notice and many students are sick at the moment. However, come interval my classroom was flooded. I have decided that the most appropriate collective noun for a large number of drama students is 'chatter'. My room was invaded by a chatter of drama students. None of them seemed put off even remotely by our stern instructions and warnings of hard work ahead. Even the prospect of giving up a day of holiday did not deter them.

I was a little worried at how few of them would end up with parts and hoped they wouldn't be too disappointed if they missed out but at least the number was still small enough that auditions could reasonably be held one afternoon in the AV theatre. Or so I thought...

After the bell rang for lunch, my classroom was flooded with a second wave of students who, while they were equally enthusiastic, hadn't listened well enough to the notices to work out when they should come to the meeting.

Our sign up page is over two pages long. Arrgggh.

* Thus putting off all but the very keen.
** Words such as 'hard work' and 'commitment' are also very good at putting off the less decidated students.

Stage Challenge Write-up

 Friday was Stage Challenge Day for my school and it was an exceedingly long, fun, exhausting day. Starting with getting on the bus at 7.40am and I didn't get back home until after midnight. (This makes me wish teachers got paid overtime - Stage Challenge in the past few weeks would have added a hefty wad of cash to my pay! - I guess we do get the holidays so can't complain too much.)

It was my first Stage Challenge ever, I had seen Stage Challenge before but never participated in one or been there for the whole day. The atmosphere was pretty amazing - lots of chanting, dancing and singing between rehearsals and meetings. It was pretty lovely to see all the students getting along with each other and being really supportive and encouraging. Even though this is only my second year at the school I knew a pretty high proportion of the students involved and have gotten to know heaps of the others. They are such a bunch of sweeties. They were adorably sweet to us teachers. They cheered us and there were many hugs and high-fives going around. When the other teacher in the crew and myself had to leave the backstage area and go into the auditorium, all the crew and performers cheered and put their hands out for us to touch as we went passed. Yay for Rock Star-esque teaching moments.

I kind of want to teach at a school where it is only the nice Drama and nerdy type students. None of the thugs and bullies. It would be heavenly. Teachers would be smiling and stress-free people who felt loved and appreciated rather than the wound-up ticking stress-bombs we so often seem to be.

I was expecting some sort of behind-the-scenes nastiness or major disasters to occur but the day went off pretty smoothly. The only stressful moment was when the on the bus when there was a sudden panic that 2 Year 9 students weren't on any of the buses. I think it turned out that they had gone home with one the mothers or something. We actually lost over a bus worth of senior students to the allure of Wellington city on Friday night*. The Teacher-in-charge had predicted this and booked one less bus for the return journey. I had been a little worried because I thought that most of the little darlings would be too tired to do anything except fall asleep on the bus ride home - wrong.

We didn't get a placing but there were heaps of prizes spread around so noone went home empty handed. I'm not really surprised that we didn't win because there were some pretty awesome entries this year. I was surprised that HIBs didn't win because their performance was 'teh awesome'. I guess judging is pretty difficult and I'm not entirely sure what their criteria is to be honest.

* Teenagers never cease to amaze me with their tireless energy when it comes to doing things they enjoy. After buzzing around dancing, chanting, cheering and yelling for over 16 hours, they naturally had to go off to sneak into clubs and paint the town red. Yet this energy never seems to appear when it comes to writing essays or doing study.

Older and slacker

 Well, it seems that having recently turned 27 hasn't not led to being more organised or a more prolific blogger.

I guess I shall have to briefly summarise key events of the last wee while...

1. Birthday - had the PRT course the day before so I didn't have enough time to pressure students into buying gifts. As a result, only presents received were hastily drawn comics/cards and being sung at rather loudly.

Did receive nice pressies from family and firends and such however. Still having to work takes a lot of the pleasure out of the birthday itself. No sleep-in, no slobbing and no energy to party down with your birthday self on the actual day.

2. Staff outing on Friday night. The staff decided to hit Porirua for drinks, bowling and thai food (in the order mostly as it turned out). The school mini-van headed off a little after 5.20 for our adventure. I realised soon after that I NEVER want to drive a minivan full of backseat teacher drivers, especially not when some have already started drinking. The ride was entertaining as humourous anecdotes about staff, both former and current, were shared in a gossipy nostalgic way. Bowling was great - I won in our lane! I only came about 6th out of the whole group but I was pretty happy. The thai restaurant place close to K-mart is actually pretty good - although my judgement may have been a little biased as I was exceedingly hungry by the time we got there.

3. Birthday celebrations in the weekend. Excellent. Went and Saw The Complete Works of Shakespeare which was hugely funny and enjoyable. It is hard to know what my favourite bit was - I really liked the Hamlet and also Oliver Driver in tweed as the academic was pretty cool. "Shakespeare, an actor? Yes. A playwright? Definitely. A poet? Uh-huh. A podiatrist? A little known fact." Then went out for delicious curry goodness.

4. Stage Challenge. The big 4-8pm rehearsal on Sunday. This meant I had to spend most of Sunday in at school as I had to get my reports finished before hand. I finally got to see all the kids in costumes and the flat up with the props and everything. Yay! All the work seems worth it. I can't wait until Friday although I will probably end up deaf and exhausted by the end of it all. The other teacher there with me and myself got to judge the different groups on their chanting and enthusiasm and they can really be loud when they want to be. We then had the joy of locking up the whole school and setting the alarms. It felt very grown-up to be the last people to leave the college but also school is actually quite sinister looking when you are walking around checking darkened buildings and there is noone else around.

5. I became an Aunty! Yep, Matt's sister had a baby on Sunday morning so I am now a first-time Aunty. I'm planning to be the cool and groovy aunty who brings presents and stuff rather than the scary Wodehousian Aunt type. What is really cool is that Matt will have to travel down to Christchurch to see his nephew so he will be "Uncle travelling Matt"! Yay!

A Pro at Procrastination

 Yep, I'm putting off this enormous pile of Creative Writing marking. I shouldn't be as I have a long meeting after school and it needs to be done by tomorrow because I'll be away at a PRT course.

Marking Creative Writing is surprisingly joyless. It disappoints me how few of my Year 12 students seem to be able to punctuate sentences, let alone dialogue. Also many of the stories are depressing. They have to write a Prequel or Sequel to a short story studied in class, apparently to many students this means describing the death(s) of a significant other and/or parents of the main character.

However one line of genius has lightened the mood so far (I'm only 5 papers into a 27 student class).

"They walked arm-in-arm down the street like an old married couple, the only thing that gave away their youth was the absence of argument."

Hee hee.

Mostly it is just bad. Sometimes in a funny way.

I've already had to talk harshly to a student about the fact that "shiver me timbers" was unlikely to be uttered by a Mansfield character as they observed the chill air at the park!

My husband - the bogan

 Well, the students have had an extra day of weekend to really prepare hone their cheekiness (and loudness) it seems.

I was greeted this afternoon by my Year 12 students screaming accusingly, "We saw you with your bogan boyfriend at the supermarket on Saturday!"

"That would be bogan husband," I replied.

My retorts on the pseudo-Monday that is a Tuesday after a long weekend, are seldom snappy.

There was mumbling and grumbling but eventually they got over it and settled down to some work. But then as one student walked out he called, "Bye Miss. Say hi to your bogan boyfriend."

This led to me wondering about several things.

Firstly, why did he insist on saying boyfriend after I had corrected him? Was it because it was alliterative and hence more pleasing to the ear? Was it inconceivable that bogans would get married due to rebellious attitudes towards the old-fashioned institution?

Secondly, is Matt technically a Bogan? He certainly does not measure up to the stereotypical image of boganry that I have (and since I grew up in the Hutt I consider myself fairly knowledgable on the matter). But how many features of boganry does one have to have until one has crossed the line and become a Bogan.

Sure Matt has long hair, was wearing a black beanie and has a predilection for loud rock/metal type music. But on the other hand, he cares little about Fords/Holdens or cars in general, and his interests tend more towards arty and geeky endeavours. Maybe he is a sub-species - an intellectual bogan or fluffy, arty bogan.

Absurd Laws of Old

 Thanks again to the Horrible Histories collection. Today's Year 9 Social Studies lesson was on the Victorian Justice system. There was a quiz to guess which crimes children as young as 11 could be shipped to the colonies for (stealing as little as a loaf of bread resulted in a sentence of 10 years in Australia for a 13 year old).

There was also a list of True-or-False offences for which a person could be fined. The students shocked to discover that you could be fines for shaking out your carpet in the street after 9am.

The offences with the fines were not always the ones expected.

Sample:

Which one of these offences would result in a fine in the 19th Century in Britain?
a) being truant from school
b) making a snowball in the street
c) eating a pork pie after 9 in the evening

It was pretty funny. Some of the students then started talking about Absurd laws that still existed today in various countries. I'm not sure if they were all true, but some were pretty weird.

I think I want to find a book about weird laws that have existed or still exist in the world today. Anyone know any?