What a weird couple of weeks. Snow, sickness and workshops have meant that teaching has been a bit empty. I don’t know what was in the water this week but the students were all over the place. I wasn’t much better. With the Stanley Cup on I am next to useless. The fact that it’s cold and wintery doesn’t help any I guess. I left home today on my bike in the warm dry morning and got to work soaked and iced up. I had some choice things to say about the World and then went and taught juniors to weld themselves to metal. Very tired.
Am getting seriously sick of being told I’m young at school. I don’t suppose it’s occurred to anyone that I look young because everyone around me is pushing 80 and should have stopped teaching a million years ago. Fucking baby boomers. Ooooh, it’s all about you … ya selfish bastards. Get over yourselves.
Edmonton Oilers won game 5 so I get to watch more hockey on Sunday. I don’t ask for much really but in a nation of rugby morons it’s nice to watch hockey morons.
Whisky and hockey kill the pain.
That sickness that started to set in last Friday has just started to go away. I think all my muscles turned into mush over the last week…which sucks ‘cos they’re not exactly iron at the best of times. To top it off I managed to pull my calf muscle while cutting sheet metal today. I feel old.
After a week of trying to get wireless going on Suse 10 I have given up. It would appear I have one of those wireless cards that just plain suck on anything other than Windows. I blame the manufacturers for being silly with their chipsets and sucking up to Microsoft in the worst possible way. I have also downloaded the Ubuntu distribution on the advice of friends who know better. It’s all positive though as while trying to figure out how to solve problems on Linux I have inadvertantly learned a lot. The best way to learn I say.
It is Stanley Cup time again…finally. I have missed the first two games due to that school/teaching thing. This will not be tolerated for much longer. Sunday will be a day of watching hockey.
Long weekends are a bit of a godsend. Three days to relax in seems a bit of a luxury really. I, of course, became sick on the first day and am still feeling like a concrete mixer ran over me but I have another whole day so all is good. That and four weeks until the end of term so I am willing to take the knocks in the meantime. Positive…if a little dramatic.
I have finally converted my laptop to Linux. Our house is now officially a Windows free zone and my hair has gone just that little bit more grey. I chose Suse because it seems slightly friendlier and for the most part everything is working. I have internet access, I can talk to the server, I have all the applications I need and more and the printer is working. Next in line: wireless, scanning, wacom and proper write access for all machines to the server. I’m leaving the webcam out for now but it will happen I’m sure. The support for Linux on the web is phenomonal and so far nothing I’m striking is new so it’s easy to potter along trying things until something works. It’s interesting how quickly you can get the hang of using a commandline when you have a reason to. The aim is to get enough experience under my belt to convert my classroom at school to Linux workstations in the near future.
Winter is starting to appear in full force. It’s amazing how much harder life becomes in winter. Something to keep in mind.
Nothing good to say today. This is a blow out rant for the sake of sanity.
I am tired of being told what I can and cannot do, I am tired of people with no self-discipline or honour, I am tired of people who constantly ask questions they could easily solve themselves if they put some effort in, I am tired of bullshit systems that pamper people who are dead weight and above all I am tired of the fact that deep down I actually care about people and want them to succeed. Sometimes I think life would be much simpler if I was a complete bastard.
I stood in front of two classes today, the two I really enjoy teaching and found I had absolutely nothing left to give. Half way through the week and I’ve got nothing left. I still don’t really understand why we’ve institutionalised education and made it so relentless. It seems really insecure and unsustainable. There is no leeway for mistakes or any sort of pressure valve. This morning I heard about the teenage girls who had beaten a couple of bus drivers, dealt with kids who were in various states of coma (some alcohol induced) and didn’t want to be in class, listened to some twattle about the 21st century being all “hi-tech”, shiny and glossy, was witness to a woman get hit by a car and then got the low down on the 5th Dunedin-based teenage suicide in 2 months. Something has broken in this part of the World and bad things are starting to happen. I find myself looking at certain kids at school wondering if they’re going to be the bastards who break into my house or assault someone I know (or me). It’s a shit way to spend a day.
I know there are great people out there working hard to make things better. I work with some of them each day. Today I could not see them for the layer of shit.
I had the unfortunate experience of driving in this city this week and all it really did was reinforce my dislike for the clumsiness of cars and the overwhelming feeling that something big is about to give in society. It’s no shock that we are seeing price increases beyond incomes and that certain industries are simply selling vapour to vacuous people and it should come as no shock that our society has become very demanding, arguably unreasonably so, and that something somewhere will give under the pressure. Back to the driving experience though – I found myself at one point with a rather large, angry, somewhat overweight man pulled up beside me with his head sticking out his window yelling abuse at me. From what I understood I had changed lanes in front of him and this had irritated him in some way… at least I think that was it. I tried to take a photo of him with my camera phone while he was in full swing (he looked pretty absurd all red and puffy like that) but that only made him drive off (with his head still out the window I might add). Now, I might be wrong but that doesn’t seem like the behaviour of a stable and relaxed individual…but then, I don’t seem to understand the current rules in this country anymore.
On a similar note I was talking to my Mum recently and she mentioned that three, very old Ngaio trees had been cut down to make way for development in a section near them (they live in the coastal rural world). This sort of thing upsets me as it’s just another example of that needless waste that leads greed fueled destruction that is so prevalent now. I can’t understand people who see themselves as separate from the World. My biggest concern about where things are headed is how other people will react. If they all decide to get angry, red, puffy and try to maintain their current levels of lifestyle I’m likely to get taken down with them. Not something I’m overly keen on.
Back at school with some slightly reworked approaches to teaching.
Today was a testing day for the black boy peach wine I’ve had on the go for a while now. It’s been sitting clearing for the last few weeks and has a way to go yet but a quick test proved it to be pretty fine stuff. Given a year of sitting it’ll likely settle down into a very nice wine. There may well be method to this madness. In a similar vein I started a new wash for spirits as well. It’d been at least two weeks since I was in the brewing supplies place so figured it was time to do something. That and we polished off the last of the bourbon while in Auckland and with school starting I’m likely to need the reinforcement.
While in Auckland I found a model shop that sold Gundam models like those I discovered in Japan back in 2002. Was so stoked I bought two to keep me happy for a while.
Our kitten is now at that age when vets and the woman of the house believe it is time to get neutered. It concerns me how eager women are to get males snipped. It’s messed up. What was worse is that I was given the job of taking the wee guy to the vet and I felt a right shit about leaving him there. The look I got when I went to pick him up kinda said it all really so I’m now actively working on getting him to transfer that hate to the one who initiated it all. Men of any species know the score…
I’m currently in the middle of one of those “holidays that aren’t actually holidays” things. School ends, ZYPE starts. I need to rebalance this way of life or I’ll go mad. We spent last week in Auckland…and most of that was staring at insane people, drinking water that tastes strongly of chlorine and avoiding speeding cars. Good times.
Petrol costs have well and truly gone north on us now and have started making things a bit tricky for some of us. It’s been fascinating to watch different people’s reactions and the somewhat odd solutions that start to arise. Places like Auckland are in so much trouble it’s not funny. I wonder who is trying to kid who at the moment.
There seems to be a lot of discussion about things like “house prices only go up”, “do women get sexier over 40”, “reverse mortgages (where a younger generation takes on debt to sustain the lifestyle of the older generation)” and the usual “think of the children” bullshit. Now, to me this just seems like self-congratulatory backslapping from an aging generation who are getting a bit concerned about how wrinkly they have become. Word of advice, don’t look to your kids for reassurance. You thought your parents were ugly as they got older…nothing has changed. In general we’re in massive debt and simply can’t buy houses without going bust. Forget a reverse mortgage, if you didn’t save that’s your problem. I’m assuming the concept of inheritance has gone so my money goes towards my future not yours. Stop telling young people they are in trouble or getting worse. You sucked as kids. Didn’t you base your existence on sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll? Shit, teenagers today can’t do anything to make a difference without being stamped on. Stop thinking about the children and stop shafting them.
”denial > anger > bargaining > depression > acceptance”. Peak oil is starting to cause us problems….where do you fit on that sequence of emotional reactions of humans facing certain death?
School’s are turning out to be really odd places. I guess it’s been a while since I worked with this many people and I’ve never worked in such a large organisation so maybe it’s not surprising that things seem strange. I think every conversation I’ve had so far has ended in someone skipping around the issue and being overly polite. I’m not used to that as in the past most of my customers and colleagues who disagreed with me were quite blunt about it. I’m not sure which I prefer actually.
I have just been through a salary assessment which involves listing all my work experience to date and getting credit for the relevant stuff by going up the pay scale accordingly. Now, I didn’t go into teaching for the money, it’d take more naivety than even I have but when it came back with my time as an employee acknowledged and my time running a design business ignored my eyebrows were somewhat raised. I remember the bank having trouble with me when I went to talk about a mortgage a few years back. Being a Director of a company (that is making pretty good money I might add) is seen as less stable than being employed by a company. Financially I couldn’t see their logic: being paid by around six different sources each month is less stable than being paid by one? If I lost a customer I still had five sources of income, if I lose my ‘customer’ now I don’t have any income (especially if you discount my company the way the Ministry of Education have). Will have another go at this and make sure they aren’t just being obtuse. On a positive note it provided some content for discussion about running a company with my Computing College students. I’ll have my army of political and social activists yet.
I was struck this week by the number of people who use the word ‘boss’ to describe their employer or, even worse, anyone who supervises them. I’m not a big fan of the word as it seems to me to be loaded with connotations of control, ownership and slavery. It was worse when I heard it used on the TV news to describe ‘media bosses’. That’s just scary. I can’t imagine what kind of person would use language that describes them as less or lower somehow than someone else. I realise it wasn’t that long ago that New Zealand was blatantly socialist and we were all told where and how to buy fridges and unions were all the rage but surely we have pulled enough control back now to not have to refer to the people who employ us as ‘bosses’. For those of us who run a company and work as an employee it’s just plain confusing…though it does explain some fun, if odd conversations I’ve had with the principal.
I’ve been looking around lately and thinking I don’t belong in this World. Nothing that seems to be considered normal makes much sense to me and I’m not sure if it’s because of me or everyone else. I guess I’m talking about western society (as a generalisation) as I have no idea what is going on in a lot of places. Specifically I’m probably just talking about New Zealand but it feels bigger. All a bit confused really. As I get tired I tend to get cynical, or more so at least, and in an effort to break that I have to ignore almost anyone who works in retail, marketing, housing, fast food, anything to do with cars, tourism and anyone who talks about the global economy or that really messed up ‘knowledge economy’ thing. None of it seems to make much sense to me and all seem to make my hackles go up. It’s easier to ignore them.
I watched the majority of my Graphics class knuckle down today and complete some really good work. They came in, sat down and started working without much prompting. It was a great moment. Nothing cuts through cynicism like watching young people do something creative and interesting. It was also reassuring when one of my Computing College students had the muppets, ‘manah manah’ on their playlist.
Ignore the tossers and listen to the muppets. That’s my advice to myself for now.
I think I have discovered a law of marketing. I call it the law of one thirds and it goes a little something like this. Whatever a business or organisation says about themselves only one third is likely to be true. For example, if an IT company says it can set up Linux servers and workstations, develops for open source, and is the leading technology company in the world, you can probably bet that they, maybe, use a Linux server and possibly Open Office and are a small company in the back stall of a small toilet block.. The rest will be bollocks. If a company advertises a 29″ TV, you can probably bet it’s only 9.6″. That sort of thing. It just seems that lately everyone is lying about what they do and hoping they will never have their bluff called. It is time to make a stand, walk into businesses and start asking for them to do what they say they do. If they can’t, raise your eyebrows (one if you can do that as it looks more cynical), snort gently while shaking your head and leave without saying a word. Maybe mutter “pathetic” as you leave. I am tired of all the white noise that surrounds business at the moment. It’s not necessary and not making the world a good place.
This weekend I have managed to kill two electric sanders. One was brand new and it just stopped working. Either it’s not a good time for me to be playing with electrical items or the above law has come into play once more.
I have now officially met all my classes…I am going to go back next week but I can see this is going to be a very interesting year. The Computing College students are great, the Year 11 graphics class are pretty standard teenagers and the Year 10 Material Tech students are…well…Year 10 students. I had them for one hour today and was totally drained after. In an interesting twist one of the students I met during my practice at Linwood is in the class. I think he spent the period trying to hide. Poor kid. I feel almost exactly like I did on my first teaching practice. Hopefully that means I’ll find my feet and get into it and stop feeling like a muppet. Needless to say I am glad I did all that brewing and distilling over Christmas.
My laptop has started to fall apart. I think something in the graphics card area is starting to fail but knackered if I can track it down. Sometimes computers seemv ery random. It occurred to me recently that I used open source software for everything so there is nothing stopping me from moving to a Linux operating system now. After a bit of playing I’ve decided I like Suse so very soon Windows XP will be replaced.
I think I need some sleep very soon.
My first week as a teacher is over though the students don’t start until next week so probably not a major achievement really. Mostly all about information overload at this stage. I think I’m pretty much ready, classrooms set up, lessons planned etc so just a matter of getting used to having breakfast really early, having lots of people around all the time and having lots of people giving me their opinions all the time. This is all quite an adjustment considering my last four years. It’s going to be interesting.
The cat has gone into mad mode lately and spends most of his time spazzing out. Our vet mentioned it would get worse before it gets better and he was right. Whenever we walk into a room we can expect to have a small fuzzy animal attack our legs and sometimes groin area depending on the level of madness. He was introduced to rain recently and did not seem to approve.
My first load of wine is drinkable and actually quite nice. January was all about making beer, spirits and wine all of which is now done and stored away for future use. It doesn’t seem too long ago that I started this hobby but apparently it’s been about a year.
It is raining today which is good. I am in the mood to sit inside and do very little. Waitangi day tomorrow so nominally a holiday.
A really slow day has seen me perusing the Web and generally ambling along. I ambled right into a news site with the headline “Oil companies defend price hike” and being somewhat concerned about peak oil etc I wandered in for a read. The opening stated “The latest petrol and diesel price hike has shocked motorists, but oil companies say they had no choice” and I caught myself wondering if many people are actually “shocked’ or whether it is just sensationalism. Surely by now even the most ignorant bastards out there have noticed increasing living costs, hell, just look at what has happened to the price of housing (idiot economics aside), food, clothing, electricity, education, health care …actually damn near anything. The only things I can think of that drop in price regularly are electrical consumer goods but that may simply because we’ve passed the buck on the costs to people poorer than us. It also occurred to me that having a large and affluent middle class is not all that normal in history. It’s usually a very small ruling class with a really large working class and bugger all in the middle. Makes you wonder where we’re headed…though possibly not in a shocking way.
Our kitten now sports a very fancy little sleeping cave thing that we made out of leftover material. I spent this morning hand sewing the base to the top bit while being attacked. We came to a truce when he bit me, I growled at him and he went off to play with a piece of foam rubber. I wish I had a little sleeping cave thing, it looks very comfortable.
School starts soon. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling a little nervous. After the two hundredth “It’s going to be good” I start to sound a little less convincing.
A new year rolls around following a Christmas with the families and a New Year in Middlemarch with C’s family. Too much food, too much alcohol and way too much chocolate. Good times though was nice to get home.
A kitten has joined our little collective and is causing all sorts of hell. He’s a nice little chap with a penchant for high speed attacks on the curtains andfeet (depending on which he hits first). He is very cute when asleep and very destructive when awake. I am guessing he will grow into a very nice cat.
School starts in February so starting to get myself organised for for that. It is proving very hard to get rolling again after the holidays and it seems like I’m not the only one struggling to get back in to work.
The garden finally delivered and we are up to our ears with potatoes, cabbages and lettuces. My first load of wine is fermenting and another load of spirits and beer are in progress as well. The cycle continues.
The rain has stopped and my scooter is running again. Good times.
I got the official sign off on my teacher training this week and was handed a pile of forms to fill in. Having duly filled them in and provided certified copies of everything, in triplicate, stapled to a duplicate set of triplicated documents I am ready to be unleashed on the youth of the world. You are all in so much trouble it’s not funny…
I am actually looking forward to teaching next year. The ‘computing’ course we’ve set up is looking like a lot of fun and it’s been great to set up something that teaches design process alongside technical skills. We’ve even thrown in some business skills for good measure. If I can just stick with it and make it happen it should be a great thing. Feels a little bit like when I started ZYPE, something new and interesting based on some solid ideals. If I can just stay away from any formal managing positions and stay hands-on I should be fine.
I finally got the new circuit breaker for my scooter after the old one decided to spit the dummy. A bit of a process to install as the scooter has layers of panels that need to be removed to get the wiring but got there in the end. Now the beast actually charges up and goes for distance. We are back in action just in time for good weather.
It is raining … that nice sort of spring rain, very light, very wet, warm and great for the garden. It’s one of those days when it’s nice to work in the garage on something meaningless with the door open.
I have learned something new. Birds don’t like glazed cherries. We found an old fruit loaf thing in the cupboard that has been there for about 3 years (perfectly preserved I must say) and put it on the bird table. It has slowly disappeared leaving the cherries arranged in a strange tower of little green and red gems. Fair enough I say .. and it makes me wonder what has been done to the cherries to make birds stay away.
During this break I have been re-establishing my military training in the form of the PS2 game – Socom 2: Navy Seals. My original military training came in the form of the same game a few months previously. I suck at it. I am one of those people who can take cover behind a building and still be completely out in the open. Needless to say I get shot a lot and wouldn’t last three seconds in any real combat situation. I hardly last three seconds in a virtual combat situation.
I finally bought a set up for making wine so following Xmas I am into it. The first port of call is a simple wine kit to see how it goes but I now have a few friends who are able to provide reasonable quantities of fruit on the proviso they get a bottle or two of the finished product. That may or may not be a good payment but we’ll see.
I wonder what next year will hold for us. We have been given warnings about water levels again but continue to water our lawns frivolously. We have been warned about deficit spending and the impact it will have. We have been warned about the cost of oil and that with the northern hemisphere going into winter the cost will likely only keep going up at an ever increasing rate. All of these issues have a delay on them but all of them are dangerously serious. I’ve always tended to think that those who laugh in the face of danger tended to be a little unstable.
My partner watches TV in the morning before work and sometimes I am unfortunate enough to catch it. This week I was sitting in my usual morning daze watching something called ‘Breakfast. I think it’s meant to be a sort of journalistic talks how. Anyway, they were interviewing Michael Cullen (finance minister) about interest rates, tax cuts and in general trying, and succeeding, to be abrasive. Despite the really stupid questioning Mr Cullen said a few things that made sense [to me]. The first was that he thought we needed to find controls beyond interest rates to slow spending. The second was that one of his priorities was to make a viable market for first home buyers. This struck a nerve with me anyway but he went on to say (after some confused questioning) that he meant a ‘home’ and not an ‘investment’. He very carefully made the distinction that real estate could be a great part of any investment portfolio but that NZers tended to put all there money into it as a single investment…because we tend not to save enough in general. You have got like that guy. He knows full well that when the deficit spending comes home to roost people will blame whoever the finance minister is. I’d be getting my sound bites recorded on TV as proof of my warnings as well.
When I started my business the one predominant piece of advice was “run it as a business and not a hobby”. The idea is that a business makes money, a hobby tends to spend it. Both can be fun and be based on ideals and values but the distinction is definite. It has occurred to me that the ‘investment housing’ market is mostly bollocks as is reflected in the general lack of professionalism in the rental market. The phrase “it’ll be good enough for a rental property” is common place now which should scare the willies out of any human out there as it effectively defines someone who rents as being somewhat less than someone who owns. Class is alive and well in New Zealand make no mistake.
During the course of a discussion recently I discovered that there are approximately 2.2 billion [human] children on this planet. 1.9 billion of them live in developing countries and 1 billion of them live in poverty. Kinda puts things in perspective when I look at a classroom of students each with a computer and most of them not caring. This is a very challenging world.
We have started harvesting from the garden. I can still hold my own in that area at least.
Ever have a day where you feel you were being used…in a prison bitch sort of way. If you’ve got something to say about someone, say it to them, not me. I probably don’t give a shit and if I did I’d probably still tell you to talk to them instead of me. If you’ve got something to say to me, just say it but don’t be surprised if I tell you you’re a wanker and leave you to rot. If you want me to do something, just bloody ask, don’t wank around trying to manipulate me. I’m too clever to fall for it and too stupid not to punch you in the mouth for trying. We have seriously become a namby pampy, pathetic excuse for a species and god help if the bird flu isn’t possibly just what this planet needs.
I watched another one of those ‘we’re all going to die’ programmes on TV tonight…I think it was the 6 O’clock news but too be honest I’d been drinking for a while and wasn’t entirely sure. Either way we’re all going to die and we should apparently be stockpiling all sorts of shit to make sure we don’t. Basic rule of nature, over population leads to some change that reduces that population, be it rabbits or humans. Morons will always survive. The good people always seem to die first for some reason…don’t ask me why.
The next person who tells me that “their job is the hardest in the world and that they are really busy and that they have people to meet and places to be” gets a solid smack in the face. Go away and leave me alone. You probably don’t have a very hard job and you probably watch too much American television to be good for you. Go navel gaze with someone else.
Granted it was not a very good day today but that’s no excuse for people being dumbasses.
This has been quite a fun long weekend really. One of experimentation. I have done what I hope is the last lot of distilling for the year and we are now well prepared for Christmas presents. I also had my first go at making bagels setting the dough up in the breadmaker and then boiling and baking. They came out alright and all. A few more goes and they should be perfectly breakfasty. The less successful experiment with dandelion coffee was also a feature of the weekend. After hearing from a friend that you can make a coffee substitute out of dandelion root and us with an excess of dandelions I rushed off to the internet and found some recipes. Turns out dandelions only have decent roots when you think of them as weeds, soon as you need them they produce the most pathetic little roots you can imagine. Still, I found enough to make a decent go of it, sliced the roots and started roasting. All was going well until I took my eye off them and burned the roots slighty. I crushed them anyway to see what would happen and the result was a slightly burned coffee taste which I’ll take as a positive sign. I’m also not dead a day later which I also take as a positive sign. The actual taste (underlying the charcoal) was actually pretty decent.
Went and saw Serenity last night. After being put onto the series recently by a friend and getting completely hooked I was looking forward to the movie and wasn’t disappointed. The series was excellent and the movie picked up and ran with it finally showing us those Reaver critters and doing a nice job of explaining some things. Anytime you end up with a great western where the cowboys use spaceships you’ve got a winner in my mind. In a world where we have endless repetition of mindless television programmes it’s not surprising this one didn’t fly but at least in the theatre you knew you were surrounded by people who had enjoyed the series and probably got it from the internet. My kind of people.
You can tell it’s getting close to Christmas because everyone panics. Deadlines that have dribbled all year are suddenly vitally important to the survival of humanity, shops are packed with people trying to beat the ‘Christmas rush’ and making a whole new kind of clutter, and I simply stop talking to people or going anywhere that people work, live or play. I have a feeling that the whole ‘time is arbitrary’ argument has been lost somewhere along the line.
Rod Donald, co-leader of the Greens died this week. I don’t often feel much when politicians die but Rod seemed to be one of those people who put a stake in the ground and lived by his principles. He made it easy to support the Greens and was a great person to listen to. New Zealand just lost one of its better people.
To my detriment I have started cycling more often as the days have improved. Apparently there are still a lot of cars on the road and apparently the people in them still have very important tasks that require them to drive very fast and get all frustrated and wound up when something gets in the way….like buildings, people, other cars etc. I’m not sure if I’m going insane or if the world is. I now seem to have quite a physical reaction to being in a car and often end up very angry, frustrated and effectively unhappy. This this is very inconvenient for long distant travel but must be the culmination of concerns with petrol costs, peak oil and not being able to enjoy the trip at a decent pace. Don’t get me started on the parking side of cars. When I bike I spend about 20 seconds parking, in a car it seems to take ages to go through the whole process of driving as close to the destination as possible and then spiralling out to actually find a gap to park in. Our record at the mall is 3 minutes of spiralling. I can’t say how absolutely stupid that is because my partner will smack me one.
Final rant. To the wanker in the van this morning who pounded through the roundabout without slowing down and yelled abuse at me because I was biking around it without my ‘indicator’ on, “Get a grip. You try sticking out your arm while leaning a tight right and balancing on two wheels”. If you’re in a motor vehicle you simply don’t have the right to shout abuse at cyclists. You’re not worthy. It was a Downer Connect van by the way. The side effect of modern advertising saturation is that in small countries we know who you are.
When you ride an electric scooter around town you quickly realise what energy use actually means and it starts to become obvious that we currently burn diamonds. I have a choice when I get on my scooter. It’s a simple choice. I can accelerate quickly and sacrifice distance or I can ease back and get another 5km of travel. In a world that is rapidly running low on oil (that magical substance that drives our society) our current approach to travel seems to be more and more obscene. I lean towards going for distance which means I hold my speed down a notch and don’t accelerate like a bitch on heat. My scooter is essentially a speedy bicycle where I don’t need to pedal. I use it when I am going somewhere sweat is not a great idea or when I’ve already biked that day and am feeling nutted. While riding a scooter the true obscenity becomes obvious. Drivers accelerating quickly from a set of lights only to be braking 5 seconds later for the next set and probably using enough oil to support a small village for a month. I no longer feel sympathy for speed related “accidents”. Sounds awful? It is but I have come to understand that despite all the warnings we still drive with a throttle jockey mentality and the obvious outcome of that is regular and fatal collisions. You drive too fast you will eventually hurt yourself or someone else. Either way you are a total prat and dangerous. I imagine that tolerance for that attitude will get lower over time.
In a similar vein, the reserve bank keeps giving us warnings about our spending. This is an indication of how insane we have actually become. A sane person wouldlook at spending and say something like “If I spend more than I earn I am truly fucked”. Today the response seems to be, “some magical force of economics will ensure that all my investments will go up and that my return will allow me to constantly upgrade and stay ahead of the economy”. I read something recently that noted that intelligent people die in storms more often than “people of lower intelligence” because they think they can outsmart the storm. It makes sense to me. Intelligence without wisdom is just another sort of stupid and it seems to be the prevalent form these days.
I have been hired as a teacher. Be afraid…
This world is weird…and getting weirder by the second. Our new government, announced one month after the election (she’ll be right mate) is the result of a fascinating mix of compromise and blackmail. The fact it’s Labour led is a small saving grace but Winston Peters as foreign affairs minister? Really? The Greens have been pushed back a notch and if Peter Dunne says one more thing on TV I’m afraid we’re going to need to institute political assassination. He really does need to just shut up and count himself lucky.
The reserve bank came out with a warning that consumer debt is somewhat out of control and NZ is entering the role of ‘banana republic’ (not their exact words but close enough)…ya think. Interest rates look to be going up again, which for us is sweet as we can’t afford to enter the big games like housing so our money is simply sitting there waiting. I am kind of glad we haven’t been able to do the mortgage thing…I can see only bad times ahead for that in the short term. No surprise though really. Wait for the results of peak oil to really start to hit home…then we’ll no some shit scary pain.
In other news, the garden is starting to look okay, the teaching diploma is coming along and summer looks like it’s desperately trying to make an appearance.
My new pair of shorts have been put on hold at the last minute. I blew out the last needle which puts a damper on things. Hopefully I’ll be able to sort out a new lot tomorrow. The shorts are looking pretty good though. Had a few days at Maruia and Hanmer springs over the weekend. It was nice to get away but I think I’m more tired now than before so the value of it all was dubious.
The garden is not really getting a fair chance this year. Snow and cold winds this late into the year is not particularly good for getting things started and my poor pea seedlings keep getting frozen. Hopefully things settle down soon so the more gentle veges can have a fighting chance. Even the spuds are looking like they are having second thoughts.
With a little help from a friend I have got the interface switching working on the site again. Really stoked to have it back and for the most part it’s working pretty well. Nice to see some of my older styles back in action again. Also nice to see how far I’ve come with this stuff.
Still really tired but have to get back into this teaching diploma again next week and try and complete it as quickly as possible. This term is likely to suck but there you go…I suck as a student.
I think it’s time to start another load of spirits for Xmas.
In the middle of assessment week again following the end of term. Thankfully I started early on this lot and am hoping to finish a bit earlier and have a bit of a holiday. I have mixed feelings about finishing at Hagley, on the one hand I am glad to stop for a while and have a break, on the other I really enjoyed my time there and working with the students. We are heading to Hanmer this weekend for a brief holiday.
I have hit that stage again where I’m really tired and worn out…I always know because I start singing weird combinations of songs to myself. Currently I have a medley of Kiss’ I was made for lovin’ you and Burt Bacharac’s Rain drop’s keep falling on my head. I’m getting a lot of strange looks…luckily I’m too tired to care though should probably start listening to music again and settle my brain down a bit.
We went to a Punk Goth exhibition last night that one of our friends was part of. It was down at Creation and actually pretty cool. I’m not really into the whole goth thing (too much black) but Phil’s stuff was pretty cool. One of the holiday projects I’ve set for myself is to build a new pair of shorts and I’m keen to design a belt to go with them. I’m seeing camo shorts, black pockets and edging, studs, leather, metal utility rings, clips, zips and velcro…in what arrangement I currently have no idea.
Right, enough procrastination, time to get into assessment work.
Not much to say at the moment. Down to the last week on practice and I have been busy sorting out assessment, getting started on my portfolio for the term and generally trying to keep up. My 31st was last week and the weekend was spent in BBQ mode with friends.
We’re being overloaded with election weirdness at the moment. I’m assuming that being a small country we don’t have a huge amount happening on a normal day so elections and Xmas get wound up months in advance. I am also assuming that tomorrow we will be overloaded with the results of the election. There has been an absolutely stupid session of campaigning from all parties pretty much reinforcing that they are all dicks and hardly worth vague attention let alone a vote. In a lovely twist of irony I almost got knocked off my bike by some nutter wielding a ‘Greens’ placard thing on a street corner. I think he was trying get my attention…and I already tend to vote Green. If he’d actually got me I would’ve shown just how un-hippy today’s young Greens are, clocked the shit out of him and then not voted. Odd that the Greens would print off shitloads of plastic (of all things) placards for one-time use only. Kind of seems against the whole point to me but there you go…
On top of that I keep hearing people talking about how they are going to vote strategically like it’s some sort of Survivor episode and missing the point that they have much the same say as everyone else in the country. This will, however be an interesting election as it feels like NZ will be deciding between selfishness and selflessness. I hold no hope considering we have been more and more selfish as a society over the last decade. The “What’s in it for me” voice has become very loud. It will be interesting.
On a completely unrelated note I have been biking to school every day and have noticed I have developed some bitchin stomach muscles. Cool.