stolen - they took the children away

The other night, E and I were in town (Melbourne) seeing the wonderful Beth Orton and the truly surreal M Ward. While we were transfixed at the show our car was broken into - the rear driver side window was smashed - and all our stuff stolen. Laptops, bags, files, diaries, house keys, invoices etc. all gone. We have parked in this area before (almost once a week for more that a year) and didn't ever think it might be a risk. We often leave our stuff in the car and are careful to push it under the seat or whatever, but we have an XTrail so we don't have a covered in boot section and this has often caused us some worries.

So anyway, we were stunned for a couple of minutes and then I had a walk around the nearby park to see if perhaps any of the non-pawn shop stuff might have been dumped. NO. After filing a report with the police we headed home in a dazed kind of silence.

I guess I'm not that upset about the laptop - I mean it has heaps of my teaching stuff on it, old student work and resources that I can never replace, but I was more upset - or felt angry but whatever it is in someone that allows them (or gives them permission) to take something that is not theirs. I was hoping (and still am in a way) that when they (?) discovered I was a teacher that they would do the noble thing and return my things - perhaps anonomously. NO

We tried to get the window replaced yesterday and after dropping the car off a the workshop and coming back 2 hours later nothing had been done. They had run out of time.

Anyway, so I had my won 'Stolen' experience this week. Of course, it was really nothing - most of the valuable stuff (about $7000 worth) was was owned by DE&T and Telstra. We will only really be up for the cost of the window ($560).

Yr12s are responding well to Stolen and most want to see the production. I am pleasantly surprised and hope that they can exercise some tolerance if they have different opinions. I still need to give them more work though.

Yr7 Jack Game said that he likes English because 'we' don't get much work and can talk more freely in class. Once again, the cry of not much work rings out. Is this to be my personal challenge forever? How much work can y7s handle? How much work is useful?

yeah