Jamie’s Journal

I’ve had some good times this week. On Tuesday I redeemed the free movie and dinner Krystal had pledged for my birthday. We saw Material Girls which was all about Duff and her stuff. Unfortunately, Duff’s best stuff wasn’t that puff. (If you’ve been watching those Domino’s pizza adverts on TV you’ll know that puff means something along the line of ‘wondrous perfection’. See! TV is the answer to everything!) However, dinner was still great. I had my first chicken parmigiana and loved it! Plus, the restaurant was super funky with warm orange colours and candles. What could be better? It combined my love of orange, burning (hehehe) and good food.

Five minutes after Krystal had dropped me home, Matt from my course arrived. He’d forgotten that one of our assignments was due in the next day and that we had to travel into Melbourne to drop it off. Furthermore, he’d picked up a shift at his work. However, being the wonderful friend that I am, I agreed to take his assignment in for him. Before he left, we talked for an hour or so exchanging teaching round stories. So far, everyone I’ve talked to has had a vastly different experience! It sounded like he had a good time so all’s well there.

The next day, after I’d handed in our assignments, I caught up with Ellen. What was planned to be a simple lunch turned out to be so much more! Despite the fact I travel into the city several times a week, I never actually get a chance to look around. Thus, Ellen decided it was time to do something about that fact. We walked down Swanston Street and all the neighbouring streets. She showed me the good shops and nice eating spots. Plus, I found a CD store called Dirt Cheap CDs and bought Nelly Furtado’s new album because it was dirt cheap! (I LOVE IT! Nelly rocks!) Finally, we wondered across to the South Bank and had lunch by the river. Very nice.

I would have been quite satisfied leaving things like that… However, Ellen had other ideas. I was going to receive the ultimate city tour. We walked across to the Shine of Remembrance and explored the interior and grounds. There’s a really ace view of the city from the balcony and I’m definitely going back there. It was a sunny day and the grass looked so inviting. It practically yelled out “lie down and relax!” but Ellen had a tour to conduct.

Next we visited the Botanical Gardens. When I say visited, I mean explored… entirely. I started off by saying, “lets just do the first little walk”, yet we ended up exploring the whole darned place. Despite my whinging, it’s very beautiful and I loved it! I have a much better opinion of Melbourne now! Throughout our garden navigation we started getting quite tired and were taunted by a gardener zooming past in her golf buggy. It was then that we then started devising ways to steal the buggy and drive ourselves home. This somehow turned into Ellen saying she’d “kill the woman with her own rake”… As I said, we were very tired.

The last part of the botanical gardens we visited was the temple of the winds. That place is so overrated! It’s nice and all… but there was a massive hill to climb to reach it. Every time we thought we were on the top, we’d round a corner and there’d be another part of the hill to climb. Thankfully, respite was around the corner! We managed to exit the botanical gardens without realising and found ourselves outside the Sydney Myer Music Bowl. Thus, we naturally ran down the hill and up on stage. Ellen thought it was very sad that I was yelling “I’m where Marina Prior and Bert Newton stand at Christmas!”

After a stroll back to Flinders St Station, the tour was over. I’m very grateful to Ellen! It was a fantastic day that I’ll always remember. I slept really well that night too!

On Thursday I had a relaxing DVD binge. I bought Battlestar Galactica season 2 on DVD and watched 12 of the 20 episodes. I regret it now because I didn’t have enough time to reflect on what happened. It’s now Sunday and I only have one episode to go. I’m a little sad! I should have drawn the viewing out and made it last longer… However, season three is being filmed so there’s light at the end of the tunnel!

Friday was a massive shopping day. I bought nine new tops and a new pair of jeans. Lots of clothes for summer. My bank account is hurting… but what the heck?

I haven’t forgotten about writing my teaching round reflection… it’s still forthcoming.

Hope you’re all well!

I had planned to sit down and write a positive reflection on my two weeks in a primary school. However, regular programming has been interrupted for another ranting and raving entry. The school reflection has not been forgotten… just postponed.

Throughout yesterday morning I could hear the sound of machinery – trucks, chainsaws and the odd crash. However, this didn’t ring my alarm bells. The truck was probably doing road works, the chainsaw was probably a neighbour cutting up firewood and the crashes could have been associated with either. How wrong I was. There was no road works, no neighbour cutting up firewood, just the logging of the forest!

A group of pine trees stand at the edge of the native forest. Beneath the pines is a creek, other smaller trees, tree ferns and ferns. For many animals this area is their home and playground. However, it is all being destroyed in the name of “conservation”.

The pine trees are classified as weeds and are thus being removed. However, in the seventeen years we’ve lived here no new pine tree has seeded. In fact, the pines are slowly dying and falling down of their own accord! Thus, the so-called weeds are hardly threatening. They provide a home to native animals and give the area natural beauty.

In order to log the pines, the few magnificent mountain ash nestled amongst the pines are also likely to die… not to mention the smaller trees, tree ferns and ferns. The entire area is being decimated. Parks Victoria is consoling us by stating they will “plant seeds”. Oh, that’s nice! They cut down fifty metre tall trees and give us seeds. I’ll probably be dead before their seeds have regenerated the forest. That’s IF their seeds regenerate the forest. Furthermore, what’s to stop Holly or Sycamores trees from growing there? These trees grow much faster than the native plants! Holly and Sycamore seeds are only twenty metres away in neighbouring properties. This “conservation” effort is a farce.

How about this for a conspiracy theory? Parks Victoria has run out of things to do. Rather than admit that their jobs are no longer required, they’re “conserving” areas where their presence is neither wanted nor required.

Thankfully, our house is very well positioned. We still have trees and forest on all sides. However, the small pocket of pine forest at the base of our driveway is being transformed into a wasteland. As I’ve been writing this, the house has shaken three times. Three more trees that will never be seen again. I imagine it’s not exactly going to do wonders to the value of our property either.

I took some photos yesterday of the “conservation” in action. I’ll take some more over the next few days to document the before and after.

The view from the base of my driveway. All these trees are being logged.

“Conservation” in action.

Kookaburras sitting in trees that will soon be destroyed. Laugh no more kookaburras.

I’m also deeply disturbed that Parks Victoria has chosen to log the forest at this time of year. Kookaburras and other birds are having children. Their nests may very well be in these pine trees. When the trees come down, the chicks will die.

I’m on a teaching round at the moment. It’s more work than I ever imagined and very tiring. I’m taking lots of lessons, making lots of mistakes and learning lots from the experience. Thankfully, almost everyone else in my course is in the same boat. I’ve even heard a couple of reports of classes ‘going feral’ to the extent the supervising teacher has had to take over. My children have been under control 99% percent of the time… I just need to refine aspects of my classroom management strategies. I don’t like yelling at the children and tend to avoid it. My supervising teacher today encouraged me to embrace verbal bashings… but the kids are so small! Anyway, before I go to bed I just thought I’d share a rather amusing occurrence in this afternoon’s lesson. It wasn’t that amusing at the time. However, in retrospect…

I read the children a picture story book to introduce the theme of conservation. However, while I read I had the children create appropriate accompanying sound effects. This achieved the desired result of having the children become involved in the story. At one point in the book a wetland is bulldozed. During this sequence some of the children thumped their feet on the floor to represent tumbling rocks. Much to my horror a child interrupted the lesson a minute later to yell, “There’s smoke! There must be a fire!” All of a sudden my supervising teacher, the other children and myself became aware of a haze that had filled the entire classroom! We all jumped up off the floor, yet despite the obvious haze we couldn’t smell smoke. A few seconds later another child yelled, “It’s just dust!” and sure enough it was. The thumping on the floor had kicked up a huge amount of dust… yet none of us noticed it happen! We must have been too engrossed in the activity. Unfortunately, some children in the class suffer from asthma… I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

When I drafted my lesson plan I never thought creating accompanying sound effects for a picture book could pose a health risk…