In honour of two enigmatic and very talented princes of poetry and symbolism.
Coming and Going.
Being Honest With My Students #213
He did laugh out loud in class when he received this.
Mission accomplished.
Double Disillusion.
So, it’s on.
Australians will head to the polls on July 2nd in an election that will see a “spill and refill” of all the seats in both houses of the Australian Parliament. For those unfamiliar with the Australian political system, this process is called a “double dissolution election”.
I had to laugh, though, when an ABC commentator today commented that “it’s going to be a very long campaign”. Has he not seen what’s going on in America? Months and months of campaigning just to obtain a party’s nomination to run for President, which means even more months of campaigning.
Fact is, I’m very interested in politics, but I don’t like any of the choices, either in America or here in Australia.
Why can’t we have honest, hard-working people who just want to serve their country as candidates for leadership? What happened to the statesman who believed in doing the right thing morally, both individually and as a nation?
Both countries have, in the past, had leaders who stood up for what was right and made vital changes in one way or another. Think of Lincoln standing against slavery, or JFK challenging the people so directly on issues of civil rights. Think of Whitlam putting an end to the White Australia policy. Whether or not one agreed with them, then or now, those men stood up for what they believed was morally correct for their country.
Contrast that with what we see today. People hungry for power, and willing to sell their souls to the devil to get it. “Campaigning” means bludgeoning one another with lies or, at best, insinuations. It’s not about policy or what the people want any more, it’s about being the last man, or woman, standing in a very personal and sometimes excruciating competition.
So often, I watch and listen aghast as they deliver speech after speech full of vitriol. Some speak hatred and intolerance. Some barely have any policies on anything much at all – who am I kidding? Why let policy and standards get in the way of politics? Candidates mock and discredit each other in the false belief that it makes them look better, but it only serves to demean themselves. Muckraking and sledging are no way to win respect. I just don’t understand why more people can’t see through them.
I’m so tired of the modern political game. Give me a candidate I can believe in. Give me policies that don’t involve vilifying or punishing an entire group of people because of the actions of a few. Give me someone I can vote for without killing part of my own soul.
That was a compliment, right?
Y9 Student: “You are quite possibly the most sarcastic person I’ve ever met!”
Me: “Thank you!”
It was my shoes… honest!
It’s only when your students are absolutely silent during an assessment that you realise how badly your shoes sound like squeaky farts.
Barefoot for the rest of the lesson, it is.
I tried.
From time to time, teachers are asked to cover lessons for colleagues who are absent for some reason.
Today I had the privelege of covering a Y10 Health and Human Development class.
They could have been discussing exercise, nutrition or health… but, no.
That would have been waaayyy too easy. They had to be learning about male and female body parts and their functions.
While I was busy asking myself why these lessons always seem to be handed to me, I was interrupted by a student asking a question.
Student 1: “What’s the cervix again?”
Student 2: “It’s the trapdoor thing that stops the baby coming out.”
Wait. The what??
Very diplomatically, I suggested he might like to look things up in a dictionary, or at least the printed notes they had been given to read and highlight. I don’t think he did, though.
A little later, Student 1 had another question: “Are the uterus and the urethra the same thing?”
Again, I pointed him to the printed notes and the dictionary.
“How is that going to help me?” he asked.
“How indeed?” I thought to myself.
I’m sorry, Miss K. I tried.
There’s only one way to find out.
I tend to experience a macabre sense of the perverse when I watch those people who audition for The Voice or American/Australian Idol thinking they’re so much more talented than they really are.
And sometimes, when I post my writing on my blog, I fear that I might be one of those people in the world of poetry. It’s obvious that I like what I have written, or I wouldn’t post it. But does it leave my friends cringing and thinking, “Oh man. She’s at it again!”?
Most of the people I know are nicer than me, and would most likely never admit that to me. So how can I find out if my work is good enough to be published properly – on paper, in ink, rather than just on my own blog, or if that is a completely vain and unrealistic dream?
The only way is to ask someone who knows.
So, tonight I bit the bullet and submitted one of my poems for publication in a quarterly poetry journal.
I’m both excited and terrified.
I hope they like it.
I hope I picked the right one.
Oh Lord, I hope I’m not making an idiot of myself.
But if I don’t try, I’ll never know. Nothing was ever achieved by chickening out.
Out of the mouths of babes.
In church this morning, this conversation happened:
Pastor: “What can God do that we can’t?”
Kid #1: “Work.”
Pastor: “What kind of work can God do that we can’t?”
Kid #2: “Make things!”
Pastor: “What things?”
Kid #1: “Um… Trees?”
Kid #2: “Elephants.”
Kid #3: “Toilets!”
No prizes for guessing that the pastor wasn’t expecting that.
My not-so-secret hope.
It’s widely known that comedians often make something sound lighthearted when they actually speak deep truth.
Alan Alda was just interviewed on ABC television here in Australia.
When asked about being invited in previous years to run for President of the USA, he stated he wouldn’t have been any good at it, but neither party cares if you could do the job, they just care about whether or not you could get elected.
I was about to comment on one of the current candidates when the interviewer asked Alda if he had a preferred candidate between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump, he said, “I don’t make pronouncements. I don’t make predictions. I do have my own secret hope for the survival of mankind. Maybe that will give you a clue.”
Something tells me his hope is the same as mine.
WordyNerdBird 