feline misdirection

I am distracting myself from my doctor's appointment this afternoon with this picture of the cat.

from a friend

A thoughtful friend shared this with me. I liked it so I am sharing it with you.

Dear Friday

Dear Friday
It's not often you receive a letter from me but this is a special occasion. I would like to publicly thank you for this rather splendid headache. Is it not enough that my beautiful man tripped off to Europe last Sunday for some length of time, and then the whole cyst-situation is ongoing, but now, you, Friday, usually the best of days have awarded me a headache on a day that I have to go in to work?
Please give some thought to these questions and think about your behaviour for when we meet in a week's time.
Regards
Wendy

Ignore the cards at your peril people....

As my wonderfully supportive tweet friends now know I have a fairly big ovarian cyst that requries removal. It was discovered by accident when I went to the doctor for something else (a bladder infection) and she did a routine exam of my abdomen. This was a week or so ago.

At first she frightened me by asking if there was any chance I could be 16-18 weeks pregnant. Answer: No. Phew. (She checked for a heartbeat anyway). So I bit the bullet and took her advice to go for an ultrasound. Yep, apparently there it is weighing up to two kilos and measuring approximately 14x10x16 centimetres. So now I have a pleasant letter of referral for a gynacologist, a slip for a blood test and the relief of knowing I just paid my MBF.

That's not what is weird.

Looking back over the past year or so I have put on some weight. Last year, two students asked me if I was pregnant. While most offended (surely I didn't look that fat!). I was still fitting into my size 12-14 clothes. I ignored the essence of the question. My grandmother came to watch a choir concert and kindly told my mother that I needed to go on a diet. Clearly, my waistline was embarrassing her and preventing her from boasting to her friends at the retirement village about her granddaughter who was playing the piano. Anyway, this year I have actually lost 6 kilos since May through exercise and healthy eating. I was feeling pretty chuffed with myself at getting back under 70 kilos. Then I took up the offer of one of my students who reads colours and tarot cards. The reading was lots of fun except for the fact that she said my female reproductive organs had popped up (as it were) three times so I should go and get checked out. Not putting too much store in such things, I blithely ignored this advice until forced to go the doctor last week for the aforementioned infection.

Ignore the cards at your peril people. Ignore the cards at your peril.

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me - ee cummings


i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Winter's afternoon at the beach

"I'm sure I paid it"

Here's a little story I have been holding off on writing about for a week or two. I think if you read on you will find something in it for everyone.

To begin, we must travel back to the end of 2007 when a young lady (let's call her Wendy just for fun) traded in her green Mazda 121 bubble car which had served her well for ten or so years and bought a new Toyota Yaris. She paid everything she needed to and happily drove it around and about, to Brisbane and other places for the last three years. Little did she suspect that for half of that time she was committing an offence which would end up costing some money, as well as the respect of her more organised colleagues.

So let's say two Saturdays ago Wendy and friend decided they would drive the half hour south to Childers to experience the Festival of Cultures. They had a lovely time in the huge crowds, people watching, listening to music and just generally wandering about. However, there is only so much time one can spend walking up and down the main street of Childers, so they jumped back the Toyota Yaris. Wendy said, "It's early, why don't we drive through Woodgate Beach on the way back to Bundaberg". Agreement. So even though they had started driving back to Bundaberg they circled round the back streets of Childers and got themselves onto the Goodwood Road leading to Woodgate. No sooner than they hit that road than they were pulled over by the traffic police for a Random Breath Test. They were out in force trying to catch people who had perhaps sampled too much wine on their day out in Childers. It should be noted at this point that Wendy was not driving her car.

The RBT was passed with flying colours. The policeman walked round the car and then went back to his flashy red number. "Oh No" said Wendy, "he's probably going to get me for my tyres or something". That's not too drastic she thought quietly to herself. The policeman appeared back at the car window wanting to know who owned the car. "I do", said Wendy, who was starting to become a little suspicious. Hmmmmm.

Policeman: "Are you aware that you are still displaying a 2008 registration sticker?"
Wendy: No. I'm sure my rego is up to date though.
Policeman: Do you have any documentation in the car that would show this?
Wendy: (whispering because she is a little bit dumb about these sort of things) "what sort of documentation is he talking about?"
Friend/Driver: your rego documents or new sticker
Wendy: "I don't have anything but I'm sure I've paid it"

Policeman goes back to his car to check it out.

He returns.

Drumroll please...."This car has had no registration since 2008 according to our records"

Cue Wendy feeling sick and wondering what happens next.

It went something like this.

Policeman confiscated my number plates and took the old sticker off the car and then left us on the side of the road, unable to drive home as I had no rego or ctp insurance. Friend is fined, with a summons to appear in court. Wendy was allowed to leave with no fine. Wendy calls the RACQ who an hour later turn up to tow the car home to Bundaberg. Everyone gets a trip in the front of the tow truck with a slightly eccentric young man who apparently was getting a tattoo of the Southern Cross on his back.

Back in Bundaberg Wendy bought CTP insurance in order to drive to the RACQ to get a roadworthy certificate which in turn allowed her to drive to the Department of Transport, pay new registration and get brand new numberplates handed to her over the counter. They are now proudly installed and my car looks new again.
And she vows never to put the rego sticker on the back window. It will always go on the windscreen for easy viewing.

The End.
(Except for the fine which is yet to be processed and paid)

Signs of Monday

It seems the cat killed a snake in the night. It was a baby little snake but a snake nonetheless. The cat kindly left it in the entryway.
I think it was a sign that today is Monday.

It deepens like a coastal shelf

Well I certainly have been Little Miss Slack Blogger lately. Work is hectic. If I'm not preparing classes I am teaching them. The good times continue though. My cohort of students are absolutely delightful. We have worked our way through simple, compound and complex sentences and are now looking at the various forms of top-level structure paragraphs which is fun. They have been writing thesis-illustration and cause-effect paragraphs for me which I am about to read before next week. The spelling tests continue daily (although I did give them one lesson off last week). One of my students has taken up Scrabble as a means of improving his spelling and vocabulary much to the delight of his wife - and me. I mean really, that is fantastic. And we have had some wonderfully interesting class discussions about community, values, morals, ethics - general topics which led us into the topics they have to write about for their first assignment - volunteering and fathers after divorce. That second topic has the potential to be a little fiery but I was so pleased with the mature way they handled the discussion. We had all points of view - from divorced fathers and mothers, as well of children of divorce which made for a really rounded discussion. We have also begun looking at notetaking strategies which they took to really quickly. Next week we begin paraphrasing and referencing (Harvard). In between all of this I have made room for some poems. The first one was by Philip Larkin:

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

It really was a great way of generating a discussion about changes in family structures. The second one I used as a prompt for their weekly reflection which takes place in the last part of of their last lesson for the week.

The Road Not Taken


TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

It was a beautiful way to end a busy week of writing, writing, writing. Next week I plan to choose some song lyrics I think.

Watch, listen and singalong: It's been a while...

It's been a while since I have posted a watch, listen and singalong. Instead I have been boring my facebook friends with youtube videos, but this is a band I have just discovered with the most wonderful album called "I and Love and You". Here are The Avett Brothers. One thing I adore is that the album was released on my birthday last year. I wonder if that is why I like it so much. Probably not, but it's a nice coincidence. All the tracks are gems but this one is a stunner.



(Make sure you fast forward through the Letterman intro)