Back to School

I still remember the moment it happened. I was sitting on the couch, quite comfortable really; munching on some lunch while watching the Sydney test.  If you’d asked me that morning if I had an inkling of what was about to happen I wouldn’t have had the foggiest. I mean, surely I had another week at least? Wasn’t Christmas and New Years just a few short days ago?

It was Officeworks. Seriously, what kid is going to require a 1 TB external Hard Drive? Every year, at the same time, in one way or another, be it watching the cricket, reading the paper or browsing a catalogue; Teachers see their first ‘Back to School’ ad and come crashing back to reality.

Not that I’m complaining, it IS quite nice getting 5 or 6 weeks off in Dec/Jan every year (not mentioning the other 7 weeks), especially when your wife has holidays at the same time. But still, it seems to be coming sooner every year, like Christmas or Easter. I thought I saw a pseudo Easter display in Woolworths a few weeks ago, yes in January. Yikes.

But I digress. Back to school, it’s a precious time really, when tens of thousands of students and teachers try to squeeze as much enjoyment as possible from the few remaining days they have. Of course for roughly three weeks the only ads you’ll see are for USBs, books, pens, bags, shoes, muesli bars, LCMs and pencil cases and of course, Lowes. This year I’ve also seen a couple of ads for laptops and the previously mentioned 1 TB External Hard Drive. Now as a teacher who likes to think he keeps abreast with all things tech, what possible reason could a High school student have for 1000 Gigabytes of portable memory? A single page of writing is a mere 10 Kilobytes and even a two hour movie is only 1.5 Gigabytes or thereabouts. So which school is making their students bring in their 100 million page homework assignment for marking? How convenient a piece of technology for the student that needs to show his teacher his 1200 hour home made movie epic?

The irony of the situation is that both teachers and students want the same thing; at least …. 6 weeks more holidays. Unfortunately, this doesn’t take into account the amount of content that teachers are supposed to squeeze into a single year, or the eighteen different outcomes, sixteen quality teaching standards and eight student learning styles we are supposed to take into account.  Perhaps we should start school a month early? Even three weeks would help actualy, the I could spend more time teaching skills or even… wait, what the hell amd I saying?

6 weeks it is.

The Beach holiday

I just got back from a beach holiday. It was a great week away and very generous of my wife’s family for inviting us and letting us stay in their beautiful house very close to the beach. But before I forget there’s just a few things I need to say about Beach holidays.

For starters, what’s with the sand? Now call me un-Australian (especially this close to Australia day), tell me that a beach is made up of sand so I should expect it, but i just can’t understand why God had to make beaches out of such annoying stuff? I mean what is the purpose of sand? Don’t get me started with all this “it’s the product of a process of oceanic erosion beginning eons ago” mumbo jumbo; have you ever tried to get the stuff out every crevice and crack your body possesses?

And what about sunburn? I probably wouldn’t stick out too much at a white pastey man convention and yes I do get a little burnt from time to time but nothing burns me like a trip to the beach. I could probably muse about the wide open spaces, the longer amount of time I’m spending in the sun or the fact that the water acts as a reflect for the suns rays (actually I probably should because there all true but that’s besides the point). The fact is, regardless of how much sunscreen I lather on, or how many times I paste myself white, one of two things happens; I miss a spot or I get burnt anyways. In fact I’m sure it’s all part of some big cosmic joke, let me paint you a picture:

God’s chatting away with Melchizadek, “Did you see the Knicks game? Everyone thought Rodrigues was going to make that Home run for sure!” Melchizadek might be chiming in with some witty response until God interrupts him “Oh check it out! Scott Wimble’s going to the beach again, what spot do you want him to miss out on this time? Back of the knees? Left shoulder? Oh I know! Neck!”

(hmmmm, might work on that one. For those who haven’t worked it out yet, it’s currently half past one in the morning and I can’t sleep… but I digress.)

This is usually where I’d finish up, sand and sunburn, the two ruinous elements that can put that sting in an otherwise enjoyable beach trip. But not this time. We were actually staying with Megan’s family for the second hald of their stay up at Byron Bay and the day before we arrived not one but three members of her family had been stung by blue bottles. Sitting around the table on our  second last night at Byron the stings were still smarting and my (stingless ) sister in law chimed in with a cheeky “Hands up who wasn’t stung by a blue bottle last week.” To which I simply had to reply “Hands up whose never been stung by a blue bottle?”

It’s actually quite painful, even when you’re fully expected it. It also itches which I didn’t expect, sometimes being a smart alec has its disadvantages; especially when you’re trying to get to sleep with itchy feet.