one fine day

of course, as soon as the camera is produced,
Bulldog turns into a goonie:

i think it's actually time for tattoo number two

yippee zippee it's queen's birthday weekend, which means that it's two weeks until my Big Birthday - but i am thinking i'll swear it off this year - weird cos i thought i'd made peace with it. *not* having a big parteeee then. planning one at the end of the year to sillybrate the end of the next beginning. the transition. the rebirth of the new katie. if there is one. am looking at some new glasses instead. have just made sushi for six and am turning off study for the weekend cos the kids have just turned on a family movie - and that is froiday noight in The Sunny Bay. thank you and hippie happy weekend. memo to self - don't blog after beer o'clock.

home stretch

woah nellie!
i just realised yesterday that this semester is nearly all over, rover!

there are two weeks left of lectures and then one more week after that to get four assignments completed - one of which i have already finished!!! (the one about teaching painting lol worth 35% - it was *so* cool - yesterday this gorgeous little feller with the paint-moustacheexcitedly announced to me that he thinks he'd like to be an artist one day - my number one goal is to make people feel special so i am ecstatic.)

so then i have
#1 small history task due this thurs worth 8% - which is actually a bit tricky (tric-tric-tric-tric-tricky)
# 2 another art journal worth 30% - printmaking - i have started making the pages. i need to make some prints to stick in it then lol.
#3 the 35% history assignment - which is a research project on one NZ school from the year dot until now - needs a fair bit of work.

i am so glad i've survived - there will be a whole month holiday and then there is one more rinse and repeat.
and then - i'll be eduKATEd.
(it's an oldie but a goodie) X

sunday morning, rain is falling...

oops, i got my weekend weather forecast a bit mixed up - i should've gone to the beach *yesterday* and finished the essay *today*.

never mind - fun found:

sammy's little meaty pies!!
and

woozie's little bracelets.

am off in search of a chick flick and the rest of my chateau countdown:
bouquet of a wet dog, hits the palate like a razor blade, gives you a blinding headache in the morning... and there's no telling what a second sip might do. (movie line)

jazzing it up

um, yeah, i'm posting youtube videos instead of writing the next essay. i have decided that "B is for Balance", though at this rate, i'm in danger of "D is for Dimwit".

but hey, this is what we sprinted back from The Big Smoke at Easter to see - Sammy's talented guitar teacher, mainstage at The Sunny Bay's Jazz Fest.



uh, c'est moi, the blonde one, 1:37 mins into the clip - trying to figure out the best place to take a pxt - that's a whole seven seconds of fame, but who's counting? X

painting by numbers

we-e-e-e-ll, i am rather
surprised to report

that it's just like
riding a bike:
loads of fun and
incredibly energy sapping -
where oh where
is my chocolate stash?
seriously though -
i had a whole morning
with beautiful,
enthusiastic, responsive,
creative six year olds -
and i loved it.
uh, the eleventy
billion photos are 'cos
it's an assignment and
i am a girlyswot *cough*

backchat

Katie [upon surveying the carnage]: wow, remember when we were first married and i was teaching and you were a student and life was mental and we used to spend three hours every saturday morning folding washing?
Bulldog: mmm, we seem to have come full circle.

the big news is that i also cleaned the showers today - but am wondering why it's called "Sugar Soap" - does it have sugar in it? and also wondering why they're called "scotchbrite scouring pads" - uh, they don't seem to contain any scotch - but i have the cleanest showers (and feet) in The Sunny Bay. can't remember the last time i cleaned the showers so am feeling pretty righteous.

lesson plan

tips? hints?
cos i'm being let loose on a class of six year olds over the next two mondays to teach painting. ha!
and the last lesson plan i wrote was - oh - about twenty years ago.
so the one i conjured up last night on 10cm square paper looks like this:

*ahem* not very h'official-looking.

get this though - when i were a lad i lived in cardboard box i' middle o'road - when i was last teaching a class of six year olds, there were 36 of the little dahlings. this class has 21 - and the beautiful teacher has offered to do a switcheroo - she teaches half of them maths while ten kiddos and i throw paint around the classroom and then we do a swapsie.
looks like i won't be needing my arnie moves then.

dinky pinky

well, i think the internets are about to crash under the weight of me announcing my happy happy joy joy everyfreakingwhere, but .....
(drum roll).....
i just got my first A+!!!!!!!!!
yep. for this. i can't remember the last time i got an A+. well, i used to top all the spelling tests at skool.

so instead of crashing the library after art class in search of stuff for my next NZ history assignment, i came home and ripped off this. the ultimate garment. it's a top.
for free, gratis.
cos i scored this sexy organza fabric from nik who got it from the sallies:
(sorry, nighttime photo - hence no pics of moi modelling the top - but sherry looks gorgeouser anyways)

i only wish kim'd consulted moi before adding that errant acute on the last "e". (sorry, can't help myself mentioning that. my excuse is that i've imbibed half a bottle of vino to make up for last night's glass that i threw on the carpet without even a sip. upset, much?). i am totally saving to get kim to make me some black linen pants though - they are amazing. hopefully that'll make up for the ripped-off-top. (and the next one i'm gonna whip up in charcoal satin.)

and the other news from today is that i handed in the essay - my lecturer even got an extra 600 words for his trouble because i simply could not edit them out. i am really rather glad another essay is all over rover. i got myself so constipated over it. hmmmmm. chill pill needed.

another little procrastinatory moment

i had an epiphany this morning.
i am finding essay writing such a struggle because i am not a linear thinker - you know - that and that and that and that and that equals that.
i am a swirling thoughts person - you know - that and that and oh! hop hop hop and this over here and ohmygosh that's fascinating and that and that and far out, whaddya think about this? and that and that and oh! where was i?
it's like putting seventeen books into a washing machine, adding water, and expecting to get five flat pieces of legible paper out of it when the machine beeps.

this is the latest scoop of cold water surf (yeah, i may buy happy eggies, but i am not yet an organic washing powder chick) that's been making bubbles in my head:
it's discussing the topic of the home environment of working class children compared to middle class children (like it or not, there are definitely the "haves" and "have nots" even here in Godzone) :

Diane Reay, for example, has noted the significance of family life/background as a "primary site of social reproduction". She argues that, in class terms, there's little evidence to suggest that different social classes view the importance of education differently. On the contrary, she argues, educational success tends to be seen by all classes as one of the keys to social mobility and success. Reay uses the concept of "emotional labour" to describe what she sees as the crucial role played by mothers in the educational life chances of their children. Reay argues that middle class mothers, for example, are "better-placed" (that is, they have greater reserves of cultural capital) than their working class peers to provide the support required by children throughout their school career.

This "emotional investment" works on a number of levels, from being better-placed to provide their children with "compensatory education" (help with school work, for example), having more time to spend on their children's education (middle class women, for example, are less-likely to spend large parts of their working day in paid employment) to having the status (and confidence) to confront teachers when they feel their children are not being pushed hard enough or taught well enough (Reay notes that middle class parents, for example, are better-placed to exert pressure on schools to dismiss/discipline teachers who do not, in the view of such parents, come up with the educational goods for their children).

read more here

cos i've seen this "compensatory education" happening in my life - in my own education experience, in my brief teaching career and in my mothering/educating years, especially since the kiddos have started skool; and Bulldog said yes, it's primarily the mothers who phone/email him to chat about joe and josephine - and now i'm wondering how to equalise this for our nation's children who have less cultural capital - because i'm all about mothering, and this and that and hop hop hop over there and *slaps self, closes window and fishes around in the washing machine, trying to rescue all those books*

eduspeak

i have another essay due in four days, so my head is full of social dynamics and accessibility and the deprivation index and decile funding, and various socioeconomic factors which directly affect educational opportunity, and choice or lack of it, and Beeby and Dewey and Thrupp, and even Pierre Bourdieu - but it occured to me as i sat in my social issues lecture this arvo/evening (yeah, four hour lecture, oh joy) that this culture shock is slowly starting to ebb and i am finding the readings far less dense and frightening and mystical than i initially did, and i am finally beginning to assimilate all these Big Words into my consciousness.

the weight that i continue to lose is kinda shocking though - i'm now a kilo less than i was at a rather slender nineteen - although the chub seems to have been redistributed to different places lol. memo to self - e.a.t.

when Bulldog came to pick me up after my lecture tonight, he played me this song, and held my hand as we drove along the expressway, and i blinked back tears as our journey flashed past like the blinking lights from warm lounges and street corners and the words echoed around and around as i thought about the new *coming alive* for us this year - connecting in the sphere of academia - i am loving tripping inside all this history and politics and thinking deeply about the world of our nation's children, and sharing all of it with the person i love as much as any in the world.

still i try to find my way, spending hours, endin' days, burnin' like a flame behind my eyes. drown it out, drink it in. i lay there in the dark, i close my eyes.
you saved me the day you came alive.