Attention all students who frequent the JCU Western campus. This morning Townsville Education students were notified via email that one of the computer rooms on Western campus has been "closed for cleaning". Who would have thought that this magical day would ever come? Many years have passed since this room has been cleaned. Spider webs hang from the ceiling as proud trophies of neglect and dirty shoe prints line the floor, creating an intriguing pattern. The computer room has very little graffiti, however this could be attributed to the fact that most pens are unable to penetrate the thick layer of dust that covers, well, everything. Some may miss the unique, if not disgusting, qualities of this room. If this is you, do not despair. It will be 3 months before the room is once again in use, and almost certainly at least 3 years before it will be cleaned again. That is more than enough time for the mankiness of cockroaches, spiders, cobwebs, dirt, dust, wallabies and college students to reinhabit this space.
I must admit that I was speechless upon receiving the news that one of our rooms was being professionally cleaned. Perhaps the sparkling hand of cleanliness will one day be extended to the remainder of the rooms on Western Campus. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
All that is left to say are but a few words from a grateful student: "JCU... I love it."
Good ol' Bob Dylan, that phrase is always so relevant.
Today I began studying for final exams. My first exam will be for an ICT (information communication technologies) subject. I also spent a few hours at school today. It's that wonderful time of year when schools often do a stock take, and guess who volunteered for the job? Just as a word of advice, DON'T EVER volunteer to do a whole school stock take. The lady who I spoke with before beginning this arduous task referred to me as her victim five times, and called it "the crappiest job in the world" 3 times. She said that she would understand if I decided to bail.. but did I listen? No, of course not. The work is extremely tedious, however I'm finding ways to make it fun. I've been able to meet so many teachers and students around the school, which has been so lovely. I really enjoy meeting new people... although, I do seem to have my fair share of awkward conversations. Here's one that I had the other week:
Me: "Hello!"
Colleague: "Good thanks, how are you?"
Me: "Good thanks, how are you?"
Colleague: *pause*.... *awkward laugh*
Not to worry. I even enjoy the awkward conversations.
Anywho, as a victim of stock take, I need to sight all of the items in the school that cost over $100. It could be worse, I could have to count pencils or paper clips or something. As I was making my way around the school today, it was interesting to see all of the different forms of technology, and how quickly the definition of 'modern' technologies can change. In one classroom there will be prehistoric computers and OHPs, and in another there will be SmartBoards and PS2s. When I was in grade 4, I remember wheeling an OHP from one classroom to another on a rickety old trolley. I hit a crack in the cement and the OHP fell from the trolley onto the ground. I wanted to die. Seriously. I wanted God to strike me down where I stood so that I didn't have to face the inevitable disappointment of my teacher. Fortunately no damage was done, and I lived to tell the tale. However this may not have been the case if I had tipped over a SmartBoard.
Incidentally, I used a SmartBoard for the first time on Tuesday in my ICT tute. My fellow Ed Heads will understand how sad this is. This is only made worse by the fact that I've previously only ever seen a SmartBoard used to screen a DVD. Hardly educational. Anywho, using the SmartBoard didn't make me feel very smart. It did make me feel like a complete novice, which... really, was quite appropriate. It reminded me of the time that we tried to teach my grandma how to send an SMS. Keeping up with rapidly changing technologies is a bummer in most jobs and is certainly not exclusive to teaching. I haven't yet decided if it is irritating or a blessing to have students who know more about technology than I do. But such is life, that's the way the cookie crumbles, that's the way this wheel keeps workin', hakuna matata, rah rah rah.
Ok, now that I have written these disjointed ramblings, I will continue studying. Peace out!
As the title so implicitly suggests, I have a cold.
Having a cold really is the pits. Yes, that phrase is from "Happy Days". I love "Happy Days". However, please do not be deceived. This will not be a happy post.
As someone who has had some form of ailment for most of this semester, I feel that I can speak with some authority on this topic. So, here is my "been there, done that, bought the t-shirt" list of things that I hate about colds:
1. Everyone has had a cold at some stage, therefore sympathy is hard to come by. A cold is not serious enough to legitimately complain about, however it is bad enough to make you feel doughy, miserable and useless.
2. It is difficult to sleep when you have a cold. When your nose is blocked, breathing through your mouth is your only option for survival. However, if you unknowingly attempt to breath through your nose you as begin to nod off to sleep, the ramifications can be quite severe. The lack of air to your lungs will serve as an abrupt reminder that breathing through your nose is not ideal in your current state. Training your body to breath through your mouth, and thus survive the night, may prove to be an arduous task.
3. Blowing your nose in public is an uncomfortable experience for all involved. People make strange noises when they blow their nose. Noises that otherwise would be deemed inappropriate in public settings. Whether you're a squeaker or a honker, you sound ridiculous. However, there is nothing worse than someone who noticeably has a cold yet refuses to blow their nose. This leads us to point number four.
4. Sniffing raucously in public. This can be quite nauseating, however admittedly unavoidable at times. The ridiculous noise that you make when you blow your nose really is preferable to the obscene sound of you intermittently snorting and blorting. For goodness sake, think of the poor unfortunate people who share your unpleasant company and find a tissue. If there are no tissues available, this leads us to point number five.
5. If, for whatever reason, you do not have access to tissues, walking around with a roll of toilet paper is nothing short of humiliating. Everyone likes to laugh at the girl with a roll of toilet paper by her side because she didn't have time to buy tissues and is acutely aware of how annoying point number four is.
6. Perhaps the most alarming point of all, is that no-one wants to hug you when you have a cold. As someone who relies on physical touch to feel like I am alive, this is certainly troubling.
7. Your voice changes when you have a cold. At the moment I sound like a nightmarish mixture of Barry White and The Nanny. If you are a guy, the deep and husky voice that a cold provokes may even be preferable to your normal voice. However if you are a girl... well... I could teach you a few basic words in Auslan?
8. When you have a cold, your once sharp, astute and capable brain that enabled you to possess a lucid understanding of life is but a distant memory. Instead, your brain has been replaced with dough, which is not conducive to, well, anything. You will find yourself saying "I don't know" at the end of most sentences, however due to point number two, it will sound more like "I dond ndow". When friends or relatives ask you a question, they should anticipate a substantial pause before you're able to elicit a response. And, even then, you will probably only utter the words "I dond ndow" in a deep, husky and barely discernable voice.
9. The cruel combination of all of these points makes you feel gross and unloved.
So, to my healthy readers, be kind to those of us who are of poor health. Do not ask us purposefully difficult questions, so that you may watch in awe as our brains threaten to explode under the pressure. Do not step away when we beckon for a hug. Instead, embrace us. Love us. We are people too.
P.S. This is my 50th post! Hurrah!
To my wonderful facebook friends,
Please refrain from sending me invitations to join you in FarmVille, FarmTown, FarmLife, HappyFarm or any other imaginary farm-related facebook application.
I do not care if you have lost a lonely black, white, pink or psychedelic fluorescent multi-coloured polka-dotted sheep somewhere on your farm. I will not help you find it. As far as I am concerned, you are already a few sheep short of a paddock for wasting your time with such pish-posh.
I also do not care if a poor, ugly, socially-challenged duckling has run away from home and wandered onto your farm. I will not adopt the duckling. And no, sending me a picture of this glossy-eyed buck-toothed duckling will not evoke sympathy. It will probably evoke rage.
Nor will I celebrate with you when you "move up in the world of FarmVille". This probably means that you have been demoted in the real world, where we value face-to-face interactions and frown upon people who spend excessive amounts of time in imaginary worlds. There is quality medical care readily available to people with such troubling concerns.
Thank-you for understanding my request.
Kind regards, Carly.
This is my second blog in one night. Excessive blogging is quite normal for someone like Nathan, however I rarely blog so frequently.
The reason that I am posting again is because of a news story that I recently stumbled across. The title of the news report is "Addict" has 15 abortions in 17 years.
There are lots of selfish people in this world, however this story really does take the proverbial cake. It appears to me that Irene Vilar, the protagonist in this horrible tale, has seriously misunderstood the profound value of life if she is able to knowingly kill 15 of her own children. I understand that, as in all situations, there were some confounding factors that fueled her abortion addiction. In her memoir, Irene attributes blame to a difficult marriage and an older, overly controlling husband. However, this line in her interview really did upset me:
"But (Irene) believes the availability of abortion saved her life as she would have found a way to end her pregnancies, legal or not."
I cannot fathom why the 'happy ending' to this story would be that through killing 15 precious lives, she was able to save her own. Yes, it is wonderful that Irene is alive and able to share her reflections from this lived-nightmare, yet it came at such a great cost. Abortion, by its very nature, does not save lives. It's primary function is to take lives. 15 children, each uniquely and wonderfully made. That is nearly the size of my grade one class at Vincent.
The question I would like to ask Irene is this: At what point did you realise that you could no longer allow fear and selfishness to murder your children?
For people who are considering abortion, I would firstly urge you to read Gianna. This is an incredible story about a little girl who survived abortion. She suffered many physical and emotional scars, yet she truly understands why life is so precious. Please read it. I own it, and I will happily give it to you.
There is something so wonderful about receiving a letter. I'm not just talking about the excitement of finding something other than a computer generated message from some local government twit in your mail box. What is captured in a letter lasts. When our memories fail, the words will remain.
Receiving a letter from a child is so beautiful. On the last day of my placement at Buddina State School, I was given 20 letters from my kids. Each letter is so precious and serves as a wonderful reminder of each unique child that was in my class. They are also highly amusing, so I thought that I would share some of them here. Bear in mind that these letters are written by 6 year olds, so they are riddled with spelling mistakes. However interpreting the errors is all part of the fun. I asked the kids to read their letters to me, so if you're unsure of what any of them say please feel free to ask.
Enjoy! :)
"Dear Miss Laird. I hop yoo hav a god tim bak at indglen (England, LOL!). I wil mis yoo and yoo wil mis me and yoo are the besde tesa I love yoo and yoo love me." - Jake.
"Dear Mis Laird. I am going to mis you. Mis Laird did you hev fun with us and you wor the bist teacher. We had the besd fun with you." - Shyla.
"To Miss Laird. I will miss you forever. Wiy are you going. I hope you have fun down ther. You will miss us wot you. It will be freezing there." - Abby B.
"Dear Miss Laird. To Criey (Carly! She knew my first name, cheeky little thing...). I love you. And I hope you had a good time here. And on youre bday I hope you get lots of game presins and fun. You are the best tisher. With lots of love." - Johanna.
"Der Mis Led. I hop yow hafa lafle rip (I hope you have a safe trip). I lik yoy sow mach Mis Led. I wil mis yow Mis Led. I luv yoy sow maeh." - Drew.
"Yo. ar. a. god. tech. I. kat. blev. theat. yo. ar. leven. I. wil. mis. yo. I. hoop. yo. well. kam. bak." - Asia.
'Dear Miss Laird. Miss Laird thac you for being my best teecha and I hop you hav a luvle chrip and I love you I hop you biy sumthing." - Paris.
"Miss Laird. I hope I see you again. You have been a nice techer." - Meaghan.
"Dear Miss Laird. You are the best tehca ever. I will miss you forever. You are the best one Miss Laird." - Abby D.
"Dear Miss Laird. I am going to mis you. You are a really, really, realle nice teacher." - Hunter.
And my favourite letter...
"Dear Miss Laird. I am going to mss you a llott and a llott and so much. I wich you cood come bak to scooll and you are the bessd tishuua. Plls I wot you to come back plleiss Miss Laird. And wyi kant you come back here. I want you for evu Miss Laird." - Zarian.
I hope those letters made you smile as much as they continue to make me smile. It is so precious to have a child write that they are going to miss you "a lot and a lot and so much". I'm learning more and more that teaching can be an incredibly hard job, yet these sorts of memories never fail to remind me why I love it so much.
I found this thought provoking link on one of Nathan's posts. Read it. Now. GO!
The writer deals with the issue of baptising people with mental disabilities in the Baptist Church. I think that he draws an extremely apt conclusion. Many of the comments that follow give way to a discussion on the inclusion of special needs people in churches more generally.
Before I go any further, I appreciate that as a special needs teacher aide, I am admittedly biased here. However, I feel that as a church, we frequently leave the issue of 'disability' in the "too hard" basket. In some ways that is understandable. Reconciling the existence of disability, and then acknowledging the implications that this has for a congregation is certainly not an easy task.
I suppose that I find it extremely disappointing when people with disabilities (particularly intellectual disabilities) are forgotten in the church. We often think that it is 'good enough' that someone brought them along to the service and sat them in the back row. At least they're there, right? Wrong. We wouldn't be satisfied with such minimal involvement and interaction with anyone else in the church; why do we think it's enough for people with disabilities? Please don't read this incorrectly, I'm certainly not suggesting that we should encourage a woman with high functioning autism to lead the pre-prep Sunday School class. It just breaks my heart to see congregations that are content to view people with disabilities as a disengaged presence. This issue isn't necessarily going to be addressed during the service, or even in opportunities that exist for people to serve within the church, but rather in how we love our fellow brothers and sisters. There are a number of adults and children with special needs in our church. I often wonder how many people know their names, or even acknowledge their presence. That said, there are also so many wonderful loving people in our congregation who actively love our brothers and sisters with disabilities... yet it shouldn't stop with them.
I realise that some may believe that their efforts to show love to people with disabilities are of little effect, and therefore not worth the time... but this really is a myth. The ability of many people with intellectual disabilities to understand and therefore show love is incredible. You need only spend one day in my job to understand this. When I am working in the grade one class at Vincent, my role is to shepherd the children in the class with special needs. One of the little boys I look after is functioning at the mental age of approximately 2 and a half years old. When this little boy blows me a kiss and signs "I love you" with the most basic of Auslan signs, it truly makes my heart melt. Some would say that he is simply mimicking modelled behaviours, however I think that the smile on his face and the glimmer in his eyes would beg to differ.
I realise that this post hasn't actually discussed a theology of disability. This is partly because I am still figuring it out in my own head, and partly because I have a history test in two hours and have rambled on for long enough. I suppose that the take home message would be that we need to be more proactive in showing love to people with disabilities in our congregations. Have another read of 1 Corinthians 13 if you're unsure of what this should look like. This passage isn't just applicable to wedding ceremonies.
I'd love to hear your thoughts or outbursts on this issue :)
