Blogging Power Xtreme!

In the future, when we are all cyborgs (except for that one orang utan), I will be able to upload my blog direct from my hard brain disk. And connecting my USB will be so much more satisfying.

Like a rogue Centurions, I have been using my Power Xtreme! to churn out blog post after blog post. I think it is fairly telling when you consider that I have made more postings in 2010 so far than the entirety of 2008 or 2009. That was never a particular goal of mine. There are a couple of reasons for it:
• Some stuff has happened in my life that is actually worth commentating on.
• Funemployment has made me bored.

• I am becoming more comfortable with sharing my ideas, and with crafting my writing in a public forum.

· It’s pretty funny when I mess up.

I have realised though, that while writing my blog is fun and, I think, valuable for my writing, it is taking me away from my larger works.
So I’m going to update less for a little while, although it should be noted that this would have naturally occurred as I begin to pick up more work. I will try to complete ‘Freckles’ as I know of at least one person who, against all odds, wants to know what happens next.
I hope something I have written has brought a smile to your face. That’s all I want.

Speaking of Centurions, I had the Max Ray toy when I was a kid and he kicked ass. This is a guy who went swimming in a suit of armour. I also liked the way he closely resembled my Dad (circa 1989). Yeah, Dad says he was in the Army Reserve, but I’m pretty sure he was really helping military dolphins blow up rogue nations’ submarines.

I’m sorry I missed your birthday, son. I was... at army reserves camp. Not in the ocean.

I must remember to post this...

Who are you and what are you doing on my blog?

My memory is not too crash hot. That’s a fact. And while I remember, if you’ve seen where I left my sunglasses can you let me know? Ta.

Anyway, I had occasion to reflect on my less than impressive memory as I got my hair cut today. The lady who cuts my hair had done so once before, in mid-December. She sat me down in the chair and said, “Now, last time we took some weight off and razor cut with some other stuff, etc, length of your sideburns, then more stuff about hair.” This may not be what she said verbatim. I can’t remember. The point is, I was impressed that she could remember how to cut a hairstyle she had done once before two months previous.

As she was washing my hair in the basin (the best bit!) she ventured: “Are you a teacher?” I told her I was. “Yeah, I thought so, but I wasn’t sure, so I wasn’t going to say anything.” I pointed out that she did in fact say something. “Oh yeah.” she replied matter-of-factly. “Actually, I guess I was pretty sure.” I suggested that may have something to do with her eidetic memory, which she laughed off.

It was at this point that I felt I had to reveal my secret shame: when I had called up to make the appointment I had not been able to recall even her name. She’s lucky I remembered what time my appointment was, having made it in the far reaches of the past (I.e. yesterday). The conversation of the making of the appointment went like this. Probably.

Me: “Hello, can I make an appointment for a haircut, please.”

Receptionist: “Just a haircut?”

Me: “Yeah. Nothing crazy.”

Receptionist: “And who normally cuts your hair?”

Me: “.... right. I thought you might ask me that.”

Receptionist: “Have you been here before?”

Me: “Yeah! I got my hair cut by... a lady.”

Receptionist: “....”

Me: “I can’t remember her name. There, I said it.”

Receptionist: “Oh, okay. Well, do you mind who cuts your hair?”

Me: “I’d quite like her to do it again, if possible. Look, I can remember my own name, if that helps. If I give you that can you do some CSI-like cross-checking?”

She could, and she did. My question is this: should I be concerned? It’s not like I have immense pressure on my memory. I pretty much have to remember my Playstation login code and which drawer I keep my socks in and that’s it. But what happens when I have kids? I suspect I’m going to be the one who forgets to pick my kid up from soccer practice; then they resent me; then they begin to write bad poetry, probably on the bedroom walls to really wind me up; then they’ll probably get into illegal substances which will, of course, screw up their memory. It’s like a whole cycle. How bad does your memory have to be before you’re a danger to society?

In conclusion, I... um... what was I talking about, again?

To Be a Gym Bunny! Part 3

Amazing news, blog watchers! As further proof that my body is a master of misdirection, I took my third fitness test today, with the weighing and the measuring and the clip on the ear and the cycling. All that. The end result, on a scale from 1-5, was a 2.

My quest for 2 is well documented (in To be a Gym Bunny! Level 2.) but to somehow achieve this magic integer without having attended the gym for 2 months strikes me as unusual. There is an outside chance that my body works differently to other humans’, and that I was doing it a great favour by studiously avoiding physical exertion, except where it involved a lady, for the last 27 years. Perhaps it threw up a 1 on my first two fitness tests to try and dissuade me.

I don’t understand you, body.

Nevertheless, having achieved that goal I need to set new goals, like a New Years Eve reveller, but less drunk and with more intent to actually follow through with them. I have decided to pass on the goal ‘maintain the 2’ (Thanks for the show of faith there, Dad!) and instead try and get my body fat percentage down from 24 to 20%. In other words, I would like to have less stored fat than a Kodiak bear approaching hibernation. I also want to increase my oxygen intake from 29 to 40.

I have until the end of March to achieve this.

One other interesting thing I learned about the gym after my 100 min (!) workout today is that it confirms that the desires for both food and a shower can occur with equally urgency, simultaneously. Disclaimer: I do not advise this; it leaves you with an apple core that won’t fit down the drain hole.

How to Survive Meetings

I’m hearing from quite a few of my teacher friends (and I am blessed with many) that the new year’s cycle of meetings, reporting on those meetings, then discussing those reports has begun again in earnest.
Part of being funemployed is that I don’t have to go to any meetings! Bwahaha! But I remember what it felt like. Oh yes. There are specific types of people you must take care to avoid at meetings. Don’t worry, I will list them for you so you don’t need to work it out for yourself.

The Ego Tripper
As someone who is almost completely self-absorbed, I am still frequently amazed and horrified by people who are more egocentric than I am.
I deal with egocentric children on a regular basis and there is something so depressing about the idea that this persists into adulthood. Because the universe has a black sense of humour, these people are always at courses where I am supposed to be learning about something more important than how awesome they are.
You will unfortunately meet several of these special individuals on your career journey. You should assume that any possible thing that can be done they have already done to a championship level. The ego-tripper gives birth at the top of the Eiffel Tower, without the use of drugs, despite being male. The ego-tripper will either be early to the meeting, due to being so much better at driving than you, or late because they had to give someone a tracheotomy with a plastic spork outside the dairy on the way there. Then they had to fly the rescue helicopter because the usual pilot acknowledged that they would ‘do a better job anyway’.
What has happened in your life that makes you feel that you need to have a story about yourself or someone (probably false) in reserve for every conceivable situation?
This is how a typical conversation with one of these people will play out.
Me: “I once jumped off a burning oil rig and swam to safety off the Crimean coast.”
Annoying Egotist: “When my brother jumped off a burning oil rig he rode a dolphin to shore. And on the way he prevented a shipment of cocaine from alighting, thereby saving a small coastal town’s children from a deadly, wicked addiction.”

Shut up.

Oh, I'm riding a dolphin... so it must be Tuesday.

The “Royal We”
More damaging to your life is the Royal We. Have you ever met this person? “Oh, hey, I’m glad I caught you,” they will open with casually. “We really need to get together to talk about synergising our outcomes (or some such crap).”
“Yeah, fair enough. I suppose we should get onto it,” you say good-naturedly.
You have just been snared by the Royal We. Say goodbye to your free time.
Later at the meeting.
“I’ve got nothing. Can you bang something out for us? I’ve got to get my nails done.” The Royal We, having delivered their sting, departs.

These people prey on the knowledge that you are just as lazy as they are, and won’t start the task until the last possible moment. The key to avoiding them is to always give an impression that you have completed any task. Then when they ask you to get together you can say “Already done it” and saunter away casually. I would whistle too, to show how not worried you are. As you round the corner you can start freaking out about the task that you have been successfully avoiding up to this point. You have now turned the Royal We from an annoyance to a useful reminder service!

Chips McGee
This one is pretty simple. Chips McGee is the person who, despite all common sense to the contrary, brings a bag of potato chips to the meeting. Like the person who eats a Big Mac combo in the movie theatre, this person has no regard for human life, and should therefore be euthanized.

...and then I think we should blarghmrayargarmfff

If you can identify and avoid these three pitfalls of meetings, your working life will be that much more delightful! Yay for helping!

On Reading and Baths. And how the two don't really go together that well...

I was having a conversation with some wonderful people last night about how children learn to read. This essay – which I actually wrote and submitted to a Teachers College paper before being asked to do it sensibly – came up in that conversation. I propose that it has some useful and relevant ideas. What do you think?

How I Learned to Read

I’m not actually able to remember how I learned to read – or when. What I do remember is this: the feeling you get when you first find you can read something is great! I imagine it’s something like how you would feel if you had spent day after day staring at a brick wall and then one day found that you could see right through it.
An even bigger factor in the formation of my strange reading/superhero obsession was when I made it to primary school they had one of those people that come around and get you to read them a little something. Based on this, they evaluate your ‘reading age’. When it was discovered that my reading age was twice my actual age that clinched it for me. Surely this was proof of some kind of superhuman power, albeit a strange one. Could I stop an out-of-control locomotive with my head in a book? Leap tall buildings in a single paragraph?
Subsequent to this astounding revelation, my school invited me to research and then ‘publish’ some books for our school library. If I may say so, it was some of my best work. That’s including this essay and all of my university papers.

The more I think about it, the more it seems probable that I learnt to read the old-fashioned way: repetition, repetition, repetition. As in, “Honey, you mustn’t drink that. It’s poisonous. See? Poi-son-ous.” After many repetitions of this speech, or something similar, I believe the first word I learned to read was, in fact, ‘poisonous’. After examining photos from the period, and having pored over in-depth interviews with parties present at the time, I can confidently assume the second one was ‘cakes’, closely followed by ‘pies’. (Now do you see the meticulous research that has gone into this?)

Another important tool in my early reading development was my bath book. These are the books that are made entirely out of plastic, so that a child can play with them in the bath. They usually contained words like ‘duck’, and ‘soap’, with a cartoon-y, descriptive picture. Whoever had this idea was, in my opinion, possessed of an incredible genius, while at the same time tremendously short-sighted. I have yet to find a book for anyone over two that is safe to take into the bath. Now all those who as children had one of those glorious bath books have to work through the conflicting emotions these bath books have created. We yearn to read in the bath, but don’t want to risk damaging our precious books!

Happy Tour - The harrowing tale of what really happened during the Vietnam War.

Oh yes, the path to becoming a good reader is fraught with danger, pitfalls and strange tangents about super heroics and bathing. And yet how rich the rewards! An accomplished reader can read anything they want, and that’s exciting. But, hey, you already know that. I’m sure you have more important things you could be reading than this. Go on then.

So that’s the essay in its entirety. This is also worth a mention...

The Incredible Bathtub/Bookshelf Combo

Honestly, if you're reading more than one book per bath, you're staying in there too long.

I think you will agree that this seems like a pretty cool idea. I’m not a fan of the ‘absent-minded professorial’ style of book-stacking they use here, but I can see what they’re going for.
They’re all like, “yeah, I have a bookshelf in my bathtub, but it’s not a big deal.”
To which I would respond, “But doesn’t the intense humidity in your bathroom when you actually have a bath cause your books to become more wrinkled and soggy than Nan at the beach on a hot day?”

So in reality, this is a bookshelf for people who do not use their bath, for bath haters. For those people, this idea could actually be useful: they could stack up all their reading material there to while away the long minutes on the toilet.

Freckles, Part 2

The thick plottens, as my Mum used to say.

The year is 2010. My life has taken an... unusual turn. At age seven I declared to my parents that I had every intention of making bullfighter my career. It turns out things were not destined to be so cut and dried for me.

In fact, the map that I had drawn on Cory’s face all those years ago resembled our school grounds. What this meant for us, we didn’t know at the time. But we both knew that we were more excited about going to school the next morning than we had been at any other time that year. Except that day when the canteen had done American hot dogs.

So that morning Cory and I walked to school together. Of course my Mum rang Cory’s house and told his parents about what we had been up to. I’m pretty sure she had implied that it was all my idea too. My Mum always thought that kind of stuff was my idea. She was right. Cory’s mum, not my biggest fan to begin with, gave me a particularly filthy look when I knocked on the door to collect him. I knew she’d come around to me though (she never did). When Cory came to the door I could see that his mother had seen fit to subject him to another scrubbing session. His face looked pink and sore, which meant she had probably had a go this morning as well as last night. Not that Cory’s Mum had experienced any more success than my Mum had for her efforts; Cory’s face remained a living example of my artistry, albeit a slightly faded example. It made me glad Mum had never thought to check under, say, my T-shirt. My body remained adorned with every single one of Cory’s creations. I could imagine my barbarian ally under my shirt sleeve bringing me strength.

The looks, gestures and whispers from other kids started even before we got through the school gate. Cory was today’s show and tell. We were in different classes that year (for the first time, but not the last, once it was recognised that we could get up to more mischief together than separately) but I was considerate enough to seek out most of his classmates, the ones that mattered at least, and by that I mean the ones who were most likely to tease him. I told them that his facial markings were the first step in our plan to get Cory adopted by ninjas. If they were to tease him, these kids were told, I couldn’t guarantee that they would be swiftly and quietly murdered... but I couldn’t guarantee that they wouldn’t, either. For me the day passed uneventfully. I spent it gazing around my classroom and out the many windows, trying to gain some inspiration. What was Cory’s face-map trying to tell me? No matter how much I strained my brain I couldn’t come up with anything.

After school Cory and I met on the playground swings to compare notes.
“Did you see anything unusual today?” I asked him.
“Yeah. I saw everyone in the class staring at me all day,” Cory muttered. I sensed a sulk coming on.
“So you’re popular now. No need to thank me. Anything else?”
“Oh, yeah, my teacher pulled me aside at interval and asked if I was being bullied. That was a fun conversation. I don’t think she believed me when I told her we did it for fun,” he said, real confusion showing on his face. How could that not be considered a fun activity? "Other than that, nah, nothing.”
“Dumb.”
“What if it’s not really a map of the school? Maybe we made a mistake.”
“Do you really think that?” I stared right into his blue eyes, searching for the truth. “Do you know what I think? I think this is the furthest thing from a mistake possible. We did something completely right, maybe for the first time in our lives.”
Cory’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah. Why does the best thing we’ve ever done have to involve messing up my face though.”
“That’s just the way it is, man. You’ll be right,” I threw Cory a reassuring grin, although I didn’t feel reassured. It was then that I noticed a particular set of freckles in on Cory’s right cheek. It wasn’t perfect, but if you looked at his face front on they almost formed... an ‘X’. And that ‘X’ was right where we were sitting, on the swings.
“What are you boys still doin’ here?” a voice called from behind us. “You waitin’ to be picked up?” It was Mr Tonkin, the caretaker. He was really nice to us kids, when we saw him. He was often out on the field, mowing, weed-whackering or pruning. He probably would have offered to call someone for us if we were left waiting.
He pulled off his sunhat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Cory and I both gasped. For some reason, before today we had never noticed how many freckles Mr Tonkin had. We looked at each other and my best friend tipped me a little nod.
I spoke up. “No, we’re okay, Mr Tonkin. Hey, this might sound a little bit weird, but...”

END OF PART 2.

Josh and Tom Tom storm Auckland. Twice.

So I had a very important, potentially life-changing interview in Auckland today. Because Auckland is not my friend, I enlisted the help of Tom Tom, a GPS navigational doohickey that was gratefully borrowed from the Windle (a teacher from Cushla’s school).
But Tom Tom and I did not see eye to eye about how our partnership would work. I thought Tom Tom was going to give me directions and help me get to my meeting well in advance of the appointed time. Tom Tom preferred to whisper cryptic directions such as “KEEP. RIGHT” until the last possible moment. Then it would casually suggest, in its robot voice, “TAKE. EXIT.” What it should have said was, “VEER. WILDLY. ACROSS. THREE. LANES. OF. TRAFFIC. TAKE. EXIT.”
Apparently there was a volume button to ramp the whisper up to a reasonable volume, but my frantic stabs at the touch screen were not sufficient to rectify the problem. So with the radio off and the windows wound up tight to screen out the noise of motorway traffic, I craned my ear, desperate for guidance. But no guidance was forthcoming. As I missed my intended exit and watched Tom Tom recalculate my arrival time for the second time, I could imagine how Tom Tom would react if it had human emotions like me.
“KEEP. RIGHT. TAKE – OH. CHRIST. AM. I. TALKING. TO. MYSELF?
As I crossed the Auckland harbour bridge heading for the North Shore, I broke. Perspiration began to bead my forehead, in part from stress and partly because I was forced to keep all the windows up and the morning sun was throwing its two cents in. I began to swear at Tom Tom. “Fuck you, Tom Tom!” I screamed (being quite stressed at this time) “You had one job! One fucking job!”
“KEEP RIGHT”, Tom Tom replied.
“Fuck you.”
After a little scenic tour through the northern suburbs Tom Tom got me back on the motorway heading into Auckland city centre once again. I decided to ignore Tom Tom until I had found the proper exit myself. Once I was in the city centre Tom Tom actually came through for me. And finally, finally, I heard some good news. “YOU. HAVE. REACHED. YOUR. DESTINATION.”

YOU. MUST. BE. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME.