As ready as I’m going to get anyway. Cleaning and laminating at school consumed much of the day. All the important stuff is done and the room is now clean and tidy, awaiting a tornado of students. Tomorrow I become one of the new most import people in 28 children’s lives for the next 11 months.
Tonight I have been playing with this auto colouring tool. Which produces spectacularly weird results. Note that in the image below I only gave it eye colour to work with for the Vodyanoi on the right.
Lots of typography work over the last couple of days making word wall headers, name labels and drawer labels to suit my needs. As well as some general teaching aides for the smooth functioning of my room:
Last thing to share today is this Bonobo clip that I have revisited twice now. It really is just supurb.
A hectic couple of days with late nights and early mornings. N’s new computer arrived as two large boxes and required assembly, which along with software installation took the better part of two evenings. It has now been running smoothly with steady uptime now exceeding exceeding twenty-four hours. With thanks to the gods of technology
There were two hiccups during setup. The first when we went to turn it on for the very first time and nothing happened. It was apparently only a cable that needed taken out and put back in again but my oh my it gave me a fright. Then a genuine and still unexplained peculiarity, during driver installations the screen took on a bright magenta hue and could not be convinced to change back, despite many settings tweaks and restarts, the loading screens were coloured normally, only windows was pink. Anyway changing graphics cable types solved the issue and since then it has all gone swimmingly.
In addition I’ve had two extremely busy days of PD and preparation and I’ve spent every spare moment from those tasks creating more classroom resources now that I finally have my class lists.
A free worksheet for any who are interested is included below. Heraldry and fantasy elements are all tying in as I’ll be using Classcraft as my central reward system this year, I’m even going so far as to pay for it and split the fee with another teacher.
Speaking of fantasy elements, I haven’t made time to work on L’s costume in a week but I also haven’t shown the most recent addition. Cut from a 3 ply block of 12mm foam the blade edge is actually 12mm wide. There are two very fiberglass rods providing core strength. Lots of sanding and detailing to go. Painting of the whole costume is within reach now.
Back at work. The classroom is coming together. Mandatory online trainings are complete and planning is progressing.
Still cleaning my classroom which had a fair bit of teacher and student detritus and disorganised cupboards. Also whipping up a few more classroom elements; today word wall headings and bookwork layout guide posters. One of which I may need to remake at some point. For now finished is better than perfect.
We watched Doctor Strange last night, which is fun even for one who has never read a single issue of his storyline. As with all recent Marvel’s it is more than a little bit silly, ultimately predictable and incredibly visually impressive. It would honestly have been extraordinary in 3D.
On my first step into the kitchen this morning, my bare right heel crushed the life and a significant portion of goo out of a large grey slug. I recoiled, looked at my foot, looked at the mashed gastropod, had to stop and explain what had happened to L who was coughing. Helpfully he informed me that:
“That came out of mouth.”
“No, no it did not.”
You have not been to the Upside Down L. Nor will you, ever. Ever.
Shuddering as I began attempting to rid myself of the slime in the bathroom sink. More difficult than you might imagine, scrubbing brush, soap and hot water were required to remove the film of grease like gunk on my foot. My best guess is the slug and its companion found on the bench made their way up the greywater pipe from the garden into the sink. There are probably cheap comparisons to certain topical politicians but lets not get bogged down.
The day has been all uphill from there. Sorting the shed to make room for my new Mitre Saw 😀 and just generally making the space workable again. A whole family trip to the dentist with not a single problem or filling required. Productive classroom preparations and organisation with delightful help from L choosing poster locations and geeking out over the 3d printer.
Two very expensive days later. We have been to Dubbo and back, had a date night with film and dinner, visited, Bunnings, Clark Rubber, Big W, Target, Aldi and Coles. We have new tools, new underwear, classroom prizes and cupboards packed to the brim with food.
We have been needing to make a shopping trip since getting back to Cobar as we have spent more than the total cost of fuel, accommodation and meals from this Dubbo trip as extra on food alone by shopping exclusively in Cobar over the past three weeks. The start of work crept up on us and it became Sunday or not at all for a few more weeks. We bit the bullet and as shocking as it is driving home with $600 worth of food in the car, if it can last us a month supplimented only by milk, bread and fresh veggies when these run out it is definitely worth it.
Tomorrow we all have Dentist appointments and I have classroom setup to do. Work begins for me on Wednesday and my students next Monday. Eager as I am to break out my new tools, first I will need to make space in the shed for them to live by tidying it up.
We went to see Lion. Which is moving and beautiful, a perfect date film, if a bit harrowing for parents of a four year old. Not a dry eye in the theatre by the end, The cinema was roasting and became positively humid. Patel is a joy to watch and the role is well inhabited, the children are excellent. As the film is clearly Oscar bait, I feel it is probably only really a contender for Cinematography, which is sublime. Somehow the protagonist’s journey is not, despite the rich storytelling, enough to carry best actor.
Indulge me and say for instance we change the date of Australia Day to May 8th or better still sometime late in the year when we are desperately short of public holidays and make it, like Easter, a floating holiday so that it always falls on a weekend, say the last Friday in November. Guaranteed long weekend, no need for sickies, warm weather, an altogether good time to celebrate what is great about our nation. Also keep the 26th of January as a public holiday rebranded as for instance Reconciliation or Survival Day. Invasion Day simply isn’t going to fly. All sounding fair enough so far I’d hope.
My concern is about what happens on January 26th that first year. Because there is a significant section of our community that is not going welcome or readily accept this change. How significant I don’t know, maybe within a decade they will have dwindled into insignificance. Right now I suspect the proportion is quite staggering, possibly as high as 30% of the general population who will resent and actively resist the change. Even with a bonus public holiday. How these people are treated will have very serious ramifications for us all.
Even the proposal for this change is creating deep divisions within communities. I don’t feel the potential consequences are being given enough discussion. If for instance this issue became a cultural touch stone to One Nation voters or Rise Up Australia, which seems quite likely to me, we would be looking down the barrel of some serious and ugly disrespect and push back both on the day and in the polls with our own inflammatory demagogues picking up even more seats in our parliaments. Thereby imperiling many of the gains in social justice fought for and won in past decades.
I have seen it suggested that we could practise a different way of conducting Australia day. Start with a fire ceremony, an acknowledgment of country, broadcast speeches by the PM and a select few of the new Australians of the year reflecting upon our history and injustices and challenging all Australians to find ways to improve our country together in the year ahead. Start and finish with national minutes of silence across all media, one each to reflect upon the past and look into the future. After midday fire up the barbecue, eat and celebrate what we have become together. I don’t have the answer and by dint of my heritage my opinion has limited weight.
Finally, in all honesty I think changing the date and signing a treaty, much as with marriage equality and a Federal ICAC is an inevitability it is merely a matter of time and political integrity. One of which we have, one we don’t. How well the transition is handled will determine whether it is an act of healing or deepening division.
Foam work and time line labels ate the productive hours today. Only three elements and a little glue required to be ready for painting now. What a relief it will be to have that project complete. The elements remaining are the cloak attachments and the sword and shield, principle pieces for which are now all cut. I am way behind on build videos and going to devote some time to trying to finish one tonight.
I had a question about the time line I’ve been making and I guess I have not explained the project very well so far. A time line is a pretty indispensable teaching tool and pretty much every classroom needs one. In the past I have bodged up something similar, but without as much detail or orderliness as this new one. Typically a class room time line is used to order a small portion of events around a specific topic like the ‘Gold Rush’ or ‘Ancient Rome’. I have always found such time lines inadequate, they don’t have room for broader consequences or causes and they rarely give a contextual relationship to the students lifetime. This project is an attempt to create a timeline that includes at the start a whole bunch of critical events and dates as well as the lifetimes of a great number of famous historical figures.
My time line will be 14m long and will stretch across the whole wall above my whiteboard and around the corner slightly at each end. It will use a log scaling to allow inclusion of the big bang at the left end and one hundred years in the future at the right. It will have 1m for this year, to the left and right of this year 1m for ten years in the past and future. Beyond them another meter to the left and right for the 100 years before and beyond that. After that it extends only left each meter a length of time ten times the previous. Most of the final meter is unnecessary as the Big bang will be right at the right edge of that frame but it wont fit otherwise.
Today I added another twenty or so name and event labels and then began the odious task of transferring all I’ve made so far into Indesign as Illustrator was beginning to have serious difficulty with the file size.
Preparing for the term ahead by sorting, repacking and cleaning each area of the house systematically. Today emphasis was on our front storage room which had, due to repeated rummagings by both myself and the boys, deteriorated. Also contended with laundry and toys throughout the house. A good start, but the Shed/ Laundry, mud room, back porch and study all remain. In addition to some yard maintenance and mucking out the hen house.
The heat as always lately was intense, so we hid for a time in the aircon and I took the time to work on timeline labels, the number of which is now well and truly out of hand. Repairing a number of items of clothing and a faulty door lock. Also a couple of new classroom posters:
Ready for lamination. I have others waiting for access to a colour printer.
Brutally hot day and the pool was shut for a memorial service. Terrific storm this evening has washed the heat away, likely to be worse tomorrow though.
Made my classroom time line and labels to laminate and attach to it.
After a good meditative start and a nearly 6k run the rest of this day simply evaporated into meal times, naps and swimming. A little work related reading and housework and continuation of the parenting course with N.
I experienced my first print failure due to the existing spool holders inadequate movement.
But got the Spirograph made yesterday working properly:
I’ve been avoiding comment on the orange man’s inauguration. But I do want to share the immense pride at the vast numbers of women and their supporters who have turned out to marches globally to denounce Trump and all he stands for as well as celebrating diversity and resilience.
I also need to address the large number of really heartfelt ‘Thanks Obama’ memes being shared around and while he has been without doubt the most progressive American president of my lifetime I am concerned that the rose coloured glasses shouldn’t rapidly become opaque.
A lot of the Obama legacy will be dismantled or used as a tool of oppression in the coming years and some of the responsibility for that rests firmly on his shoulders. The fact that Trump is even in the White House now is still to my mind very much the fault of the DNC with whom Obama also has a very close relationship.
by 
