just buy it!

Well, I just spent (on paper at least) about a quarter of a million dollars! On Saturday, E and I saw a great house in a fair location, so I went back tonight to have another look and thought 'what the heck, I think I'm going to buy a house today!' So I did. Not really sure why, but it feels kind of funny. I cannot imagine this amount of money - even though by most standards it is a very modest house.

E is in Sydney for the rest of the week, so I might get some work done. Heaps of marking as I haven't really been keeping up with things (this always happens). I would like the benefits of marking without having to actually do the work. I'm very lazy and would rather be writing, reading or chatting to someone. I must get on to all this stuff.

Much better day today. CJ came back to work today - she was married on the weekend - and I was hoping she would look different in some way. No luck here - I mean she is great the way she is, but perhaps weddings do that - you kind of expect people will be suddenly different. We had a wedding lunch for her - yum. NV brought some homemade vegetable curry, I bought a passionfruit and lemon tart, and there were various other items. During period one (my spare class) I took KBs car up to grab the gift for CJ, but apparently David Jones doesn't open till 9.30! My other spare I sat with Nick and gave him some feedback on a text response essay (GATTACA). I'm not Nick's teacher this year (I have him last year), but it was good to see that he still feels comfortable coming to me for help. CW (his teacher this year) is an experienced teacher and student coordinator, but is not well at present, and has also been under pressure. It's good to be able to lend a hand where possible.

Staff meeting was interesting (as always) - worthy of a paper or two these meetings - most probably are, but English faculty meetings ... I'm sure KB is going stark raving mad at the lack of interest that most of our colleagues show in most of what she has to say. Of course, it's a complicated issue - bad meeting times, tired, overworked teachers who are 'boxed in', under valued by the administration, and treated as semi-professionals (at best). It's no wonder there is not much left over for faculty meetings.

I need to think through this one more carefully, but I'm sure somethings can be done. For example, KB has flagged the idea of some kind of 'English Newletter' to keep everyone up-to-date. This would free the meetings up to disc the important, big ideas and leave the administrivia to the pinboard. I think this is a great idea - or at least the idea that the style or running on these meetings needs a rethink. Rather than being an information swap, it might be possible to run things a different way. Who knows.

Oh, one other thing, KH came in this morning and mentioned that the photocopiers were not accepting the English code, and not allowing any English teachers to 'imprint' or copy. Apparently the admin has set a daily copy limit and once this has been reached there is no more copying allowed!

We live in interesting times ...