So. Not a geek then?

I found my Christmas gift to myself (unless someone else buys it for me.)

I can't get it right-clicked, so you'll have to go to the page!

Holiday Wrap-Up

So, holidays are now over. Well. At 11am tomorrow morning when I head back to W. What have I done? Well... in no particular order other than the order in which I think of them I have:

1. Found out about Eftpos costing money from the 1st October. Thieves. (I know, they're not, it's a business... but it's my damned money and I live in a town with no reditellers!)

2. Handed in a (pretty crappy) uni assignment.

3. Hugged my nephew lots. Lots.

4. Held H for the third time, and O and S for the first time.

5. Paid $920 to service my car three months after the last service.

6. Chosen brilliant pictures of my nephew and one is in my wallet. Not creepy! No,  it's not even though I'm not actually related to him.

7. Seen:
Lion King
The Change Up
Abduction
The Help
Spy Kids 4 (DON'T!)
Johnny English the Rebirth

8. Watched tv channels other than Imparja, Southern Cross or ABC 1.

9. Slept a lot

10. Done absolutely NO term 3 planning.

I had a good two weeks off. Now for the 6 hour drive and getting up the courage to ask my housemate to flush!

2939 words

And it is done!

Thank God.

Now I have two days to write three units.

But there's the TES and other websites to help!

:)

ummm

2.5 hours after I got up (yay holidays!) and I now starting to think about my assignment. It's 1600 words lacking, and I can't really finish it without reading reading reading. About to start!

Multi-years in the Australian History Curriculum

It doesn't work! How in God's name can I get these topics to fit in with one another to make teaching multi-years easier? I am scared witless as the idea of having to teach two totally separate topics in the same room. Not only the extra planning, but getting the message through to the kids and doing the topics justice.

If we were given just a broad overview of 8 - the ancient and medieval word, 9 - The expanding world and 10 - the modern world, I could work with that!

Do thematic units - for example, PLAGUE! and teach the Black Death to year 8, The Spanish Flu to year 9 and SARS and Swineflu and the possibilities of another to year 10. That, I could do. The same kind of content, with slightly differing focusses for the research assessment.

But that's not how I interpret it.

The Curriculum outlines an overview curricula and then 'in depth' curricula. And dear God they don't match. Not at all. Not even the same themes!

Note to the writers - we don't all have perfect little classes of 30 students to whom we can write the program once and then not have to wholly re-write again each year. I don't know how may kids are going to be in my class or the year levels until the end of the year before, and I then have to re-write the program in totality! 

Make it easy for people please - I thought that was the whole friggin' point? To tell us the 'what' to teach, but not the 'how'? Yes, you've done that, but you haven't considered people like our tiny little school who need to run a year 8/9 combined SOSE and, maybe, include the year 10s in there.

Oh, and I've got to fill 90% of the year with in-depth studies? So how do I get Geography, Business and Civics into the SOSE curriculum. We don't all have the luxury of having separate teachers - we have four teachers. FOUR! We can't separate it out because we don't really have the staff to cover it all. Or the kids.

That's my rant about the History Curriculum. I will now put it to the back of my mind, because it doesn't go 'live' until 2013, while the English on goes live in 2012.

And I still haven't written my Term 4, 2011 units.

**DISCLAIMER - I think that the curriculum is well thought out and written. I am looking forward to teaching some of the topics and I believe the content that has been chosen is very engaging and relevant. I am talking about my ability to do the topics justice in a multi-years setting.***

Tupperware

Had a great afternoon at my Tupperware party today. Thanks so much to Jess for leading us in a plasticware gala!

Everyone I invited came so I felt great. I really thought a few wouldn't and it would just be S and me, but D, N and K came as well. :) And all the kiddies.

One hit everyone on the head. Two cried, fed and slept (under 8 weeks) and one tried to get another to play ball. Sooooo cute!

It reminded me of what I don't have - love and companionship - and discussions about the texture and solidity of someone else's faeces.

So, while I don't have anyone to love me (other than blood relations and a couple of close friends) I do have autonomy in my discussions and never have to think about other people's bodily fluids.... and I definitely don't have to one-up someone else on how long between shits my lovely little dear went!

*But I don't mind (most of the time) being privy to conversations like that.*

ummm

Can I go on the record as saying that while Taylor Lautner may make a good werewolf (I wouldn't know, not having seen any of them) he's damn ugly as a person.

'Cause he thinks I'm sexy and all. ;)