One more week but who's counting...
I can't believe that time has fled like wild fire and I have neglected my poor FM. Well, lots has been happening here in God's own dot-in-the ocean country. YT has been totally preoccupied with what pays half the bills around here and the other half that will help that half go up by heaps! Are you with me? Personally I got lost after preoccupied, but anyway.
The head matriarch of R's family beckons us back to the mothership during Christmas for a big occasion in the family and I am miffed at the thought that someone thinks they can tell me what to do! I have my own plans and will go when I feel like it. No wonder, R's hair is falling out! I won't be caught dead attending said occasion.
Today at school, one little b***** kept insisting that the immigrants in New Zealand needed to go back to where they came from. Yet another insignificant ignoramus who will get only so much space in this post.
NZ is getting a bit too slow for me these days. Miss the city. Maybe we should move house but city life in Auckland is way behind. Maybe we need to move country! Any jobs for an Economics teacher anywhere out there in the more civilised world, except Australia, please? I come with great refs.
Oh well, here we go again moan, moan, more moan. Can't wait for the TB to chill out for yet another fourteen days of utter nothingness.
Abbreviations:
FM = Fireplace Musings
YT = Yours truly
TB = Term break
The head matriarch of R's family beckons us back to the mothership during Christmas for a big occasion in the family and I am miffed at the thought that someone thinks they can tell me what to do! I have my own plans and will go when I feel like it. No wonder, R's hair is falling out! I won't be caught dead attending said occasion.
Today at school, one little b***** kept insisting that the immigrants in New Zealand needed to go back to where they came from. Yet another insignificant ignoramus who will get only so much space in this post.
NZ is getting a bit too slow for me these days. Miss the city. Maybe we should move house but city life in Auckland is way behind. Maybe we need to move country! Any jobs for an Economics teacher anywhere out there in the more civilised world, except Australia, please? I come with great refs.
Oh well, here we go again moan, moan, more moan. Can't wait for the TB to chill out for yet another fourteen days of utter nothingness.
Abbreviations:
FM = Fireplace Musings
YT = Yours truly
TB = Term break
Labels: Rantus Minora
Back strain and more
I am sitting with a strain in my right shoulder way down through my back contemplating on life as we know it today. Yes, you want to know about the strain first. Well, hubby and I decided to watch the cricket finals yesterday in the living room on the comfort of our inner-sprung mattress which we accommodated quite snugly, all in preparation to see cricket history being made. Well, tale be told, the little one shows up soon after the delayed match starts and makes himself comfortable with his legs on my face! Trying to manoeuvre myself to get a better angle of the savviest batsman in the world, Adam Gilchrist, doing his thing, I strained my back. I thought nothing of it at the time but through the day, coupled with the miserable feeling of Sri Lanka's loss and having to see the OZs standards not being met for the third consecutive WC in a row, the pain got excruciatingly unbearable. Out with the portions and balms, dearest R getting a handle on dinner and J babysitting mum for a role-reversal. I had to call in sick and so here I am doing what any sick person would do... contemplating about life.
While I ponder, I think about what my students keep telling me... that they are bored of school. They are bored of school! It was not very long ago (lies, lies, damn lies!) that I was happy at my desk in school myself. School for me was the best possible place to be in the world. All the new ideas, the friends, the studying, playing, gossiping, teacher-thrashing, et al, nothing could be better. Not a day away from school for yours truly. It was the love of my life at the time. Ah-ha! That's the key to the secret of success at school my students have thrown away too early.
These days students are growing up too early. Life experiences are brought way ahead of their time. Most of my students have active sex lives by their 14th Birthdays. They've already latched on to love as they know it. What else is left? When you've seen all that there is to see, life holds no hidden meaning left to explore. Everything becomes boring! Adulthood has set in. Curiosity is not appealing. That's for children. But, curiosity is important to succeed academically. You are always going to be an adult but childhood lost is lost forever.
Society also has something to do with it. Here in NZ, for example, it is perfectly legal for children of 16 years to take up jobs. Hello! They are still children! Why can't we just let them be. If it's legal, parents need not be responsible. Having said that, children can legally leave school when they turn 16. How regressive is that?
Anyway, it then comes down to cultures where children are allowed to be children sometimes even past their time. Children like these have found to succeed academically - Asians, Indians and the like. While in other communities where you have to be a "man", students have little or no support to continue school because that's for children! A "man" needs to work!
Which brings me to the problem of an aging, stressed-out, debilitated population. That's what we end up having. Teens with babies, working teens, stressed out teens, illiterate or uneducated teens, under-performing teens in the workforce. Society crumbling under the strain of dealing with the social evils meted out by this evolution.
I'll leave it at that... my back cannot handle any more nervous tension building at the base of my neck.
While I ponder, I think about what my students keep telling me... that they are bored of school. They are bored of school! It was not very long ago (lies, lies, damn lies!) that I was happy at my desk in school myself. School for me was the best possible place to be in the world. All the new ideas, the friends, the studying, playing, gossiping, teacher-thrashing, et al, nothing could be better. Not a day away from school for yours truly. It was the love of my life at the time. Ah-ha! That's the key to the secret of success at school my students have thrown away too early.
These days students are growing up too early. Life experiences are brought way ahead of their time. Most of my students have active sex lives by their 14th Birthdays. They've already latched on to love as they know it. What else is left? When you've seen all that there is to see, life holds no hidden meaning left to explore. Everything becomes boring! Adulthood has set in. Curiosity is not appealing. That's for children. But, curiosity is important to succeed academically. You are always going to be an adult but childhood lost is lost forever.
Society also has something to do with it. Here in NZ, for example, it is perfectly legal for children of 16 years to take up jobs. Hello! They are still children! Why can't we just let them be. If it's legal, parents need not be responsible. Having said that, children can legally leave school when they turn 16. How regressive is that?
Anyway, it then comes down to cultures where children are allowed to be children sometimes even past their time. Children like these have found to succeed academically - Asians, Indians and the like. While in other communities where you have to be a "man", students have little or no support to continue school because that's for children! A "man" needs to work!
Which brings me to the problem of an aging, stressed-out, debilitated population. That's what we end up having. Teens with babies, working teens, stressed out teens, illiterate or uneducated teens, under-performing teens in the workforce. Society crumbling under the strain of dealing with the social evils meted out by this evolution.
I'll leave it at that... my back cannot handle any more nervous tension building at the base of my neck.
Labels: academic success, Children, Rantus Minora
Turning back time
Kiwis are known to be strange (note: we are not talking about the bird here). It is the proximity or lack of it to any other notable country that gives many Kiwis a tall poppy syndrome as they like to call it here. They strive exceedingly hard to be different from everyone else: take the accent, the food, the lifestyle...they're everything that generally shouts out "European" but with a slightly differentiated flavour attached or detached from it. They love their country up to the point of nauseating patriotism but if you take into consideration the "brain drain" and the running or flying away of younger Kiwis to far off lands (aka Australia) you would realise that they are quite a paradox.
All in all, they are different though not quite unique. There is a bit of backward thinking among the circles I have to associate with and I find myself having to deal with prehistoric suggestions and archaeological fossils dictating the infamous "Kiwi" way of doing things. But can anything change? No, total opposition builds a brick wall in front of you or the change is really very slow you may not live long enough to see it to fruition.
New Zealand is beautiful (God's own country) and I so love being here. Things are not so bleak and it's looking promising by the day if you consider the number of very progressive immigrants infiltrating the shores. It will truly be the lovliest place to live in in a few years.
I feel I'm rambling on incoherently but it's just another one of those musings. Can I turn back time? Of course I can... it's daylight savings and I'll get an extra hour of life!
All in all, they are different though not quite unique. There is a bit of backward thinking among the circles I have to associate with and I find myself having to deal with prehistoric suggestions and archaeological fossils dictating the infamous "Kiwi" way of doing things. But can anything change? No, total opposition builds a brick wall in front of you or the change is really very slow you may not live long enough to see it to fruition.
New Zealand is beautiful (God's own country) and I so love being here. Things are not so bleak and it's looking promising by the day if you consider the number of very progressive immigrants infiltrating the shores. It will truly be the lovliest place to live in in a few years.
I feel I'm rambling on incoherently but it's just another one of those musings. Can I turn back time? Of course I can... it's daylight savings and I'll get an extra hour of life!
Labels: just some rubbish, kiwiana, Rantus Minora
Obiter Dicta!
This is especially for those of you who frequent my blog:
- I would appreciate some written feedback in terms of a comment about my posts. Don't feel right to have to tell you how, but just in case, click on "Your Musings" and follow the instructions!
- The feedback need not be positive... Remember, "We all make mistakes, including me (even though that's really hard to believe! hehehe)"
- I am waiting to hear what you think. That's what this blog is about, sharing ideas, opinions or whatever.
- DONT BE SHY!
Labels: Rantus Minora, Your Musings
The Weakend!
After three whole days of school, I thought that I had worked reasonably hard enough for my weekend of useless passing time away, dreaming into the sunset which is really very late these lovely summer days with my beloved (ahem!) and maybe just do some preparatory work for school on Sunday. Really???? You think that that's what I can possibly do? Dream on....
"Beloved" has ideas of his own. They always have to be something to do with gallivanting across the city to something we are totally clueless about till we get there. That's what stuffs it! Anyway, this weekend, I was told to finish my work by Saturday afternoon and continue Sunday so that we could go traipsing to the far north of Auckland (a good hour by car) to see, guess what,,,, a Country Western performance! Yup, be it as I like the music, I decided, why not? J was very impressed with grand old Dad since they share the same genes of wanderlust and whatever else so we had no revolt on that front.
But before we left, R decided that we need to have a BBQ for Saturday lunch, getting totally into the Kiwiana part of our life here. I, as the dutiful wife that I am, obliged with a fantastic fare of butterfly prawns (my son loves me more now) and battered mullets on the grill (yummy, yummy). Let's say that after some Chardonnay, we needed to sleep so sleep we did and woke up in time to rush out for the music show (free, btw).
The friends we went with came totally prepared, chairs, food, booze, et al and we were like the stepchildren in some fairy tale. While they got their seating arrangements sorted, J and I crashed on the grass but food was a concern. We left that to the hunter of the family - the male!
So, tale be told, my "Weakend" was lumbering around McDonald's with the other bloke for a good 45 minutes for food for the family while J and I were supposedly enjoying the music with the other wife and kids. Muu ha ha! Then, Auckland summer as it be, the nippy weather started descending on us poor unsuspecting, under-clothed souls. I decided that we had to scram out before we even got into the fun of things. My "Weakend" was none too pleased with the prospect of hearing me grumble (read hit the roof) during the rest of the weekend so we left peacefully with no debate.
A waste? That's a matter of taste. R was happy, J seemed happy enough, and me, well, I'm me.
"Beloved" has ideas of his own. They always have to be something to do with gallivanting across the city to something we are totally clueless about till we get there. That's what stuffs it! Anyway, this weekend, I was told to finish my work by Saturday afternoon and continue Sunday so that we could go traipsing to the far north of Auckland (a good hour by car) to see, guess what,,,, a Country Western performance! Yup, be it as I like the music, I decided, why not? J was very impressed with grand old Dad since they share the same genes of wanderlust and whatever else so we had no revolt on that front.
But before we left, R decided that we need to have a BBQ for Saturday lunch, getting totally into the Kiwiana part of our life here. I, as the dutiful wife that I am, obliged with a fantastic fare of butterfly prawns (my son loves me more now) and battered mullets on the grill (yummy, yummy). Let's say that after some Chardonnay, we needed to sleep so sleep we did and woke up in time to rush out for the music show (free, btw).
The friends we went with came totally prepared, chairs, food, booze, et al and we were like the stepchildren in some fairy tale. While they got their seating arrangements sorted, J and I crashed on the grass but food was a concern. We left that to the hunter of the family - the male!
So, tale be told, my "Weakend" was lumbering around McDonald's with the other bloke for a good 45 minutes for food for the family while J and I were supposedly enjoying the music with the other wife and kids. Muu ha ha! Then, Auckland summer as it be, the nippy weather started descending on us poor unsuspecting, under-clothed souls. I decided that we had to scram out before we even got into the fun of things. My "Weakend" was none too pleased with the prospect of hearing me grumble (read hit the roof) during the rest of the weekend so we left peacefully with no debate.
A waste? That's a matter of taste. R was happy, J seemed happy enough, and me, well, I'm me.
Labels: Rantus Minora, Weekend
