Paving is backbreaking hot and unpleasant labour, but my oh my the results are pleasing.
We’ve made good progress on the areas between the laundry tank and washing line as well as plotting out a looping path through the orchard for bikes.
So much more work to do.
Tonight I’ve finished my tutoring flyer. Channeling some early playbill style. Some information redacted for web display.
Booked a First Aid & CPR refresher in Dubbo for Feb 2nd. It has been a while since I have had to pay for my own, schools usually cover the group’s cost. This course is going to bite for the cost of accommodation the night before as well as travel. Still better than letting it lapse and needing to do the whole two day again.
About to kick card production to another level. Here begins the first week in which I try and bring to completion multiple whole cards.
We’ve spent the last two days at the farm for a family gathering. The six boy cousins (3 infants, and another 3 aged 3 to 12) had an amazing time. There were epic meals, dangerous fireworks, late nights chatting and more drinking than is strictly healthy.
I’ve squeezed in a bit of drawing each day, first pass at card thumbnail roughs are ready for review.
This afternoon I finished the first piece of paving under the hill’s hoist. Some work remains securing the edges, and locking the gaps on the curve with gravel.
Brought my laptop back from the dead again today, it overheated the night before we left for the farm and had been refusing to get past the windows loading screen. dusting and checking connections worked for it. I also brought N’s computer back to life, it had been dead on arrival as there was a loose cable inside. Her comp is still frequently randomly restarting with no error message. The work of a friend at attempting to reolve the issue prior to departing Brisbane doesn’t seem to have been a complete success unfortunately.
I’ve taken time to have a play with my $3 macro lens .
I have been stabbed, pricked, scratched, gouged and shockingly surprised by these things since arrival:
Come on 2016, it is going to be an exciting year. Love to all near and far, may 2016 bring you joys, triumphs and many many laughs.
A very quiet night here, I was the only member of the household still awake for 12 local.
I used to really like NYE. I have many times stayed up for the dawn of the new year, particularly so when at the Woodford festival. This is not so easy or desirable with small children in the house and as I’m on morning duty I’ll keep it brief tonight.
We are going out to the farm tomorrow for a big family gathering.
N was laid low with a migraine for much of the day, the boys were their usual delightful little whirlwinds of emotions. One moment paralysed with laughter, the next incandescent with fury. I didn’t accomplish as much ad I otherwise might have liked to, though the day had its moments. Like F curling up on me and falling straight to sleep having declined bed moments before.
Made a card for my stepfathers birthday today. Which would have arrived late anyway but I blew it at the last minute so I can share that one. I’ll have to make another to send in the morning.
I have inherited an unfortunate allergy to dust, cat dander, some pollens and mould spores. Consequently I have spent far to much of my life with a runny nose and or itchy eyes. Life before cheap and readily available antihistamines was pretty miserable.
The dust of unpacking has at times gotten to N or I even so and when it does not even a timely dose of loratadine will stop the misery for at least 20 minutes.
Today marked the first time we have managed to get the rooms set up and floors clear enough to vacuum completely. Mopping up the fine dust that makes hands and feet feel like the very moisture of your soul is being wicked away will happen tomorrow. Today we finally have a home again. A hundred dollars’ worth of cardboard boxes is wrapped in plastic in the laundry and the rest of the cardboard is piled outside ready for soaking and weed control. Not everything has found its place yet, but rooms have taken shape and surfaces are reappearing, art is hung.
Internet is likely going to take more than three weeks. A new physical phone line needs connected to the house as the old had been dug up and coiled around the water meter by the previous tenant. This is going to take a while and involve co-operation, heaven help us, between Telstra, iiNet and a Telstra sub-contractor. It’s also not going to be cheap.
No creative output today, I’m stewing on a few things and focusing on getting the house done.
Instead here are a couple of pics of one of my first big sculpting projects. Discarded in this last move as he has sat unfinished for six plus years and is irreparably broken in a variety of ways.
My favourite little megalomaniacal alien, Invader Zim
Edit: Fixed images not loading.
I can’t spend the data to verify that this is indeed what it claims to be, but trusting that it is, the fantastic line
“In the event of, say, a full scale alien invasion, how prepared do you think this planet’s defenses would be?……… Tell Me!”
Up to my eyeballs is disgusting under the house dust, leaves and detritus. The end of the pack is in sight, the clean remains. Today N did the oven while I took the boys out, hunting boxes and mulch for the garden. although we have a cleaner booked to do some there are a number of jobs they won’t have time for or won’t do to our standards. Lots of things accomplished, lots still remain.
I’ve begun thumbnailing the 46 ability/evolution cards required for the game. Now too tired to think.
A very productive day. With the help of my father many a cupboard and wall mount were taken down and holes in the walls filled. Whole rooms have been consumed by hungry cardboard box monsters, who now tower engorged in great heaps around the house.
The image above is a very rough style demo for the game project I discussed yesterday. This image is for the card I thought of as ‘teeth’, looking again it should be ‘fangs’ and thus the revised version will be a whole lot greater bigger and pointier. The style I’m going for will be quite jagged and geometric and be heavy on the black with solid colours and occasional gradients underneath.
The bad news is my finger will likely need surgery, according to the GP the chip of bone that has disconnected is the ligament attachment point. I have been instructed to splint the finger indefinitely and seek the advice of an orthopedic surgeon. This is not very likely to happen in the two business days left prior to our departure to regional NSW. I’m going to try for a last minute appointment all the same as it is not going to be easy to find specialists in Cobar and this finger splint is already annoying. I will also have to do a work-cover claim which is a pain in the bum for everyone now that holidays have begun.
Today I play tested a number of very interesting board game and card game concepts and agreed to be the principal illustrator for one in particular.
You can expect to see a fair bit of concept art relating to that project here over coming months.
The creator and I have made a written agreement with broad terms to recognise our good faith negotiations with each other, we have allowed time to make sure the creative relationship will work and have divided expected responsibilities and expectations. One of the key terms of our agreement is to seek a much more official contract before money or intellectual property is formally exchanged. So I’m now on the hunt for a suitable contract, something like this one, to use without engaging the services of an IP lawyer at this already extremely expensive moment of my life.
If anyone knows a good IP lawyer I have a couple of things I would like to run by them. At my own expense of course.
Incidentally I’ve never been particularly huge on board games but I’ve been so surrounded by people who are and for so many years that a certain amount of passion for them seems to have rubbed off on me. I know enough to say if you have not experienced board games other than Cluedo and Monopoly you owe it to yourself to try one of the new generation of games that are actually fun.
Rough concept forest tile. My pen ran dry and I am struggling to keep eyes open so I’m not going to refill and continue I’m foing to bed.
By agreement I am going to try and channel a bit of the style of the indomitable Mike Mignola into my work.
With a quick hue shift to reduce the contrast some.
It’s the final week of school. Tidy trays are packed, classrooms are striped bare.
We have had our long free swim and yes of course I joined in. On Thursday we will feast as a class and conduct our Secret Santa exchange. On Friday we will clean desks and classrooms and then put a film on for the students while the teachers feast.
Today I was taken off class again to put finishing touches on the template of a project for admin. This Chatterbox will be the interactive display tool for the new 5 year strategic plan at WESS. There are a number of fields still needing filled in and my template has spaces and text boxes ready for them.
This design also features my update of the school’s logo which I completed in my own time mostly out of irritation last year. The original had been hand painted and it seems that at some point somebody had live-traced a low quality scan. I made a number of subtle modifications and fixed a bunch of missing or garbled details from the original.
I had a discussion with my sister who is also a teacher a weekend or two ago in which we both expressed dismay at the present push for earlier and earlier instructional tuition in Australian schools. Today she shared an article, which I think I have seen quoted elsewhere but had not until today read.
Key quote:
Studies have compared groups of children in New Zealand who started formal literacy lessons at ages 5 and 7. Their results show that the early introduction of formal learning approaches to literacy does not improve children’s reading development, and may be damaging. By the age of 11 there was no difference in reading ability level between the two groups, but the children who started at 5 developed less positive attitudes to reading, and showed poorer text comprehension than those children who had started later. In a separate study of reading achievement in 15 year olds across 55 countries, researchers showed that there was no significant association between reading achievement and school entry age.
I maintain that forcing children to read before they want to sets them up for a lifelong distaste for reading rather than a lifelong love of it.
I’ve been packing my classroom this week. I’m taking only the best of my own stationery items and my curated classroom bookshelf collection. Even though I strive to keep as much of my work digital as possible the sheer quantity of paper that comes across my desk each week is extraordinary. I am recycling whole reams as I discard for the pack. I’m also offloading a ton of my own hand made resources as gifts for colleagues or just into the schools collection via the Super Aides on our staff.
The first two are word wall headings. Given to my year level coordinator this year.
It appears I need a better photo This is one of the few items I will keep as it will definitely be used again and again. The school rules are simply Be Safe, Be Respectful, Be Responsible. It is standard classroom protocol to decide as a class the rules for our room on the first day of school. It takes patience and practice to Sheppard the discussion so that we arrive at a set of aspirational rules that the students feel ownership of that can also be used all year long as a behavior check.
This could be the original or it could be a YouTube freeboot. It certainly has less views that the copy doing the rounds on Fbook. Star Wars will merit a post all of its own at some point.
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