Hotting up

OK, more home alone time today in which to accomplish miracles. Foremost is the Yr 10 RAVE course which needs to be created from almost scratch - topic: Anglican Church basics. I normally teach this by myself as a rotating unit to Yr 12s, but the Year 10 course really needs something "Anglican" and thus I am attempting to clone myself, so to speak. I'm also looking for any A/V assistance possible and am a little miffed that I know that there is a video sequence around somewhere of the Primate in his office, looking relaxed and chatting to unseen questioner about the role of Archbishop etc. This would be ideal as a school resource - so where the heck is the footage? I'm going looking for it - and when this detective gets on the case, I mean business.

I'm also looking for Youtube or other clips from films to help tell the Anglican story - maybe from Elizabeth or Golden Age. I didn't see The Other Boleyn Girl or whatever it was called but even with Aussie Eric Bana involved, I suspect it would be more about sex/nudity than the Anglican history I'm looking for, though I guess I should try to see it, just to rule it in or out.

(I got out Evan Almighty last night as well, with the idea of showing to all Yr 8 - will try to watch it today along with my other miracles.)

Looked up good sites re: basics of Anglicanism esp. some from Dunedin NZ and Texas. Need to combine these (with permission) and use stuff from Rev. Gillian M as well. Good luck to me.

Making progress

OK, work is getting done today, thx to Al taking Verity to Tashi and Dec being off at daycamp playing in mud and stuff. Finally finished Term 2 marking and now fully focussed on RAVE and Eng planning for Term 3. Still torn between school and household jobs - sanding bottom of toilet door, e.g., so that it doesn't stick in wet weather. I'll wait for kids to come home for that because it could be spectacularly good or bad as bodgy home jobs go.
Had Alex & Kelly and kids over for dinner last night - all quite pleasant. Mixed my beer / chardonnay / cab sav merlot so probably didn't sleep well, but certainly wasn't hung over.
Also still ripping stuff off the HDD recorder so we can buy another one - Al is desperate to keep all episodes of So You Think You Can Dance. Hasn't someone distributed the series on DVD yet? If not, why not? Surely they're trying to "monetize" it as much as possible.
Fell asleep during Spooks last night - thank goodness we taped it.
My knee has been 99% fine for last couple of weeks, and finally started hurting a little again yesterday - I'm strangely pleased because it makes the operation next week seem like it's necessary, when I was seriously considering pulling out.
Ciao for now...

Atheism and other strange pursuits

Hi ho everybody,
Quick funny moment: leaving Repco I'pilly yesterday after buying new hubcaps for Al's car - forgot it's a one-way street at the bottom of their driveway and turned left... only to be immediately met by a POLICE CAR who honked at me, flashed lights and then waited, holding up traffic while I did a quick 3-point turn and left rapidly (on the 50km speed limit) down the street. Embarrassing!
Anyway, a strange but I think productive day today. Woke up at 8.30am, the latest for a long time. Got dressed to race to Church but then decided against it, planning to go at 5.30pm. We had a long day at Seaworld most of yesterday with our neighbours Tom, Joanna and the boys so we were all pretty zapped. More filing then off to Field Committee meeting for Scott at Richard and Dell's - all good there. Home to stick glass doors on new bookshelves downstairs -not 100% happy with my handiwork, but they are good enough and by golly it's good to get all the books off the floor where they've been sittting for months.
Just finished reading "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" by Mitch Albom. Didn't like it as much as "Tuesdays with Morrie." It depressed me in some ways and hurt my faith a little - I was thinking, "Well, here's Mitch's view of the afterlife - what makes me think the Church has any better idea of what's going to happen?" At least his picture was nicer than some.
Now reading "Breath" by Tim Winton, finally out in paperback and thus affordable. Loved the opening chapter when I read it ages ago in a shop or a library.. actually I think it was someone's place, maybe Kates and Damian's? It's going well, anyway.
It's 2 mins to midnight and I think I may have to ban myself from midnight rants etc - can't be good.
Just worked on Yr 10 RAVE plan for this term - needs to be something like Anglicanism 101 - more about that later. I went looking on youtube for something on Elizabeth 1 and/or the Elizabethan settlement with which to dazzle the kiddies but instead found some guy called "Militant Atheist" who is, bizarrely enough, a militant atheist - another depressing clip where he has a go at creationists / fundo wackos / etc... ho hum. I suppose if I were living in a place surrounded by fundo wackos, I might start making clips like this too... but what a way to spend your life! Why not spend that time making clips which benefit people in some way, instead of just abusing people for their beliefs and sounding self-righteous? Or is that what he's responding to? Troubling stuff...
OK, beddy byes. Ciao,

Mad People

Came home from lecture at Church given by Michael Northcott, Professor at Edinburgh Uni and Anglican priest. All about Global warming / climate change / Gaia hypothesis. I've been very interested in Gaia for a while now and would have liked more. His theme was basically that if we hurt the Earth, the Earth is going to hurt us back - seems intuitively right to me. Had a chat to the Masons afterwards - Richard said the Archbishop mentioned me (and Paul B) at Synod in relation to the Talents Quest which is pretty cool. [Must write that ASTQ experience up in these pages before I forget it all.] Mentioned my classic RAVE question to the Mason clan: why did God create dinosaurs only to have them destroyed? Tough one! Also discussed 2001: A Space Odyssey etc - will humans all perish in 6 billion years' time? The sort of question which keeps me awake at night and on my theistic toes, that's for sure. Happy to hear some ideas on that, folks...

Came home and watched Mad Men with Al. It's compelling viewing - I think I may have missed the very first episode but I've been glued to it since - could be necessary to get it out on DVD and watch in one big hit. Alternately hilarious and appalling in terms of chauvinism and smoking in particular. Tonight had a lot to do with things vibrating. Did they really have those back in the early 60s?

Good night all.

From Ikea to Origin

Took a trip down to the Ikea megastore. Can't believe they used to be on one side of the highway and they've moved the whole thing over to a new spot. Bought 2 sets of bookshelves and doors, probably for downstairs. Sick of books sitting on the floor down there - it is pretty silly. Fitting them into the Zafira not a problem.

Also took in the Ford to check muffler and transmission. Reckon it's going to be expensive and maybe fatal for that car, but don't want to have to cough up for a new one right now. Wilfred will call tomorrow a.m., I guess.

Built one of the bookcases with Declan tonight during the second Origin game. He did pretty well with his half of the jobs. The good guys won the game pretty emphatically too.

Awful soccer coaching tonight - a couple of the boys were really disobedient and painful. With Richard away, I had no markers, bibs or whistle and the goals were all locked away - I came home in need of food and a solid beer, both of which my beautiful wife provided. As I was nearly home from Ikea today, I remembered Alison hinting at bringing her back a present and so turned around and went back to Shoppingtown to get something - ended up getting the 15th Stephanie Plum book at Dymocks which proved very acceptable.

We're discussing blog ideas to have fun and make $: Al has a good one with Australian resources for older people - there are incredibly few sites giving older folks good ideas on how to remodel homes or get organised in various ways, other than govt sites or academic papers. I thought today about a blog for teachers and others to send in funny stories about things which have happened at school. It could be ranting which all teachers need to do from time to time, but I'm still thinking about it.

Haven't thought much about Samson and Delilah today, which is usually a pretty sure sign it didn't have a lot of impact on me, unfortunately. It's like a story which means well (I guess) but I just don't know if I could really recommend it. Ciao for now.

Samson and Delilah

Just saw the movie of the name above. Very keen to see it following David Stratton calling it one of the greatest films ever made in Australia and he and Margaret Pomeranz both giving it 5 stars! It may be that I need to sleep on it a bit to get the whole idea, but sadly I'm not sure I can agree with them. (Possible plot spoilers to follow, as they say…)

Strengths: any film about modern Aboriginal life has to be useful. It is ridiculous that Australians like me who've lived here most of our lives still know virtually nothing about the realities of modern day life for black Australians in the Outback. I couldn't tell you the first thing about life in Arnhem Land or the NT. This movie shows us that black rural teens need love too and often need help. From a Christian point of view, there is clearly an awareness of Christ and/or the Church in the lives of the indigenous people as when we see crosses on the wall etc. However, there is a telling moment when Delilah visits a Church in what I guess is Alice Springs. She seems to admire the artwork more than anything but is in desperate need of personal help. A priest comes and stands nearby with his hands clasped behind his back. She doesn't ask for help and just leaves. He says nothing but just watches her go. It seems a pretty unsubtle symbolic statement about the Church standing by idly while black people suffer. For people like me who feel the Church exists in order to actively engage with, and improve the lives of, the disadvantaged and needy, it irks!

The acting is largely impressive and believable, though I don't think I ever felt as emotionally engaged as I have in some other films. It keeps your attention at every moment, though. Occasional moments of strong violence out of nowhere are genuinely shocking. The amount of petrol-sniffing is concerning – you want to reach up on screen and grab that tin out of his hands. The monotony and hopelessness of many black lives is obvious.

Weaknesses: I guess it's arguable how subtle the performances and themes really are. The title suggests hair-cutting will occur, and it does, but does it lead to a loss of power and disaster? Apparently not, though one can't see how the relationship can be sustained. It reminded me a bit of Bad Boy Bubby in some ways – disturbing images set in present day Australia, making us wonder how well we can ever know what goes on in this big place. (Memo – must see Wolf Creek sometime too – I see John Jarratt out in the street quite often so can probably enjoy his performance a little more, knowing he's not really a psycho…) The lack of dialogue is also apparently deliberate but without a great deal of plot motivation. It reminds us that indigenous people don't necessarily need to say much to communicate, but all the same, it can be frustrating to watch!

It's certainly very non-Hollywood and I guess that's a refreshing change, but I just can't help thinking of plot turns that could have been created, especially involving the art work involved etc. Maybe my sense of pace is just too Western and white.

I was watching it, asking myself constantly whether I could show it in Yr 11 or Yr 12 English, or even RAVE, but I'm just not sure. What point does it ultimately make about indigenous Australians? Is it ultimately a positive portrait? Does it make us question what's happening out there or just think it's all a hopeless case for the 'too hard' basket?

I'll see how I feel about it tomorrow.

Holiday work: a painful oxymoron

Holidays so kids at school. Alison suddenly unwell with headache, high temp etc. If this becomes swine flu...!
Trying to do too many things today (have holiday list of about 30 jobs) but desperate not to waste time (is writing this wasting time? Probably). Have done some filing and currently trying to copy shows off the DVD recorder onto DVDs. Need to buy a new DVD recorder as this one keeps freezing. Want to copy our wedding videos onto DVD, but then wonder if our VCR is up to the task or whether we need to buy a new one of those too. Should be pretty cheap - in fact we may not be able to buy one for much longer if they become obsolete. Wedding VHSs date from 1993 so condition may be suspect if I don't move fast. The good thing is they've been played very rarely and have been stored pretty well so should be largely OK.
But must do schoolwork whenever possible, especially during 9-3 when kids are away this week. Time to get into it.

Time for Kick-off

Hi folks,

It's the God HOD here. HOD is an acronym for Head Of Department and I guess you'll work out the rest. Really not sure what this blog is going to be about - very reluctant to go too public with some areas. I guess everyone gets rumbled sooner or later.
Maybe it'll just be a diary. Why don't I just save diary entries to My Docs then? Because I want things saved on some server somewhere - too afraid of IT failure at home?
Had a journal going for quite a while at The Open Diary way back but then had to go off-line for a long time and when I went back - it was all gone. Disappointed. They started auto-archiving things not much later but too late for me. Luckily I had copies of some key passages.
How much self-censorship? Who to name? Just had IT policy posted re: professionalism when using blogs etc. Well, don't worry - I'll be staying anon for now. Maybe this can be the personal diary and I'll set up others for work or whatever.
I had an idea many years ago to get a blog going with an entry for each day of my children's lives, detailing what they got up to, and not telling them about it for as long as possible. Goods and bads. Didn't do it, which is probably a shame in some ways but imagine doing that and then having your kids not care about, demand you delete it, etc!
I tried keeping all D's movie tickets but I've lost track of that too now - David Stratton, I'm not, I guess. Maybe I can at least get his and V's file-drawers straightened up these holidays, using folders for each year at least.
I'm always amazed at how much more photographed kids can be these days - digital cameras make it so simple and cheap. Not like when I was a kiddy, with expensive camera films, etc.
I've been thinking of 'restarting' this blog for quite a while now, but wanted to start on a "good day", not a sad one and hopefully one with action, not the mundane - bad luck!
Things on my mind - sore knee and upcoming operation; using holidays to do jobs (29 on the list this morning not including school work for next term); issues of faith and belief.
It's midnight - more tomorrow.