Tuesday, November 21

I feel for the kids doing the exams this week.  The temperatures are hovering around 8-10 degrees above normal for this time of year, and we're just not used to 28 degrees for five days in a row.  The other thing is the classroom set-up.  We're using ten rooms and they're not designed for this purpose.  Today, we have 23 students doing Physics in a double classroom. I suppose there's enough space, but the desks are only standard school issue, about 60 x 45cm, and at least two different heights. It's a lottery which desk you get.  The names are placed in alphabetical order before the students enter the rooms so it's the luck of the draw.  One fellow is writing, hunched over a too-low desk with his too-long hair flapping in his eyes, and a young Asian woman's feet hardly touch the floor.

With five booklets, information sheet, pens, pencils, calculators, dictionary, and a bottle of water, the desk is inadequate.  They're forced to use the floor for the overflow.

And what's the deal with water?  People today won't leave home without enough water for a week.  I read that, across the world, we use 5 million bottles of water a minute!  Some of today's students have 2litre bottles; are they expecting a siege?

I've been trying to fill my time without breaking rules, and still exercising my brain.  On Friday, I listed all the words I could think of which ended in -ism.  I was surprised to find there are over 700 in the English language; I found 116 which I thought was pretty good.  Another day, I tried to list all the countries in the world.  There are dozens and I discovered that I have a woeful lack of knowledge of Africa and the Caribbean. This afternoon, during a Geography exam, I'm making notes for a blog post about what I do during the supervision shifts.

Not everyone is as stringent as I am about obeying the rules about no reading, no knitting, no sleeping, etc.  My partner this afternoon does crocheting (it's not knitting), others do Word Search or Sudoku (they're not crosswords) and it's not unknown to browse magazines found lying around the various classrooms.  Yesterday, a door opened as I walked past, and I spied one of the supervisors with a napkin spread across her lap, covered with a selection of open sandwiches.  All she needed was a glass of bubbly.

Monday, November 20

I'm like many of my generation, despairing of the fact that 'young people today' can't do mental arithmetic and, faced with the challenge of $1.50 + $1.75, they reach for a calculator.  Of course, like all good bigots, I simplify and over-state the situation.  Nowadays, the average teenager carries three calculators on his/her person: iPad, iPhone and smart watch.Why wouldn't they use them?  In any case, the average student's understanding of Maths concepts today, far exceeds my generation's.

In the General Maths exam the other day, there were five papers and not one was Arithmetic.  Instead, there was Interpreting Graphical Information, Finance, Trigonometry and two others I can't remember.

There have been one or two other changes since I sat the Leaving Certificate in 1959.  Realising that ten minutes on Google will give you all you need to know about dates and lengths of rivers, exams test for how students can evaluate and use information.  Some exams even come with Information Sheets with formulae, diagrams and tables.  Once upon a time, we went into exams with just a pencil, and a head stuffed with irrelevant 'facts' but now we need so much more.

Friday, November 17

I haven't been interested in the Australian cricket team for years, but the selection of Tim Paine for the Ashes squad this morning has caused a little frisson of excitement in Tasmania.  ABC Local Radio fielded calls, most of which were negative; after all, he couldn't even get picked as the Tasmanian wicket-keeper in the Sheffield Shield.  However, there is an explanation, as outlined by one of the guests on morning radio.

Josh Bean is, I think, a Sports Psychologist.  He's been working with Tim Paine for years, ever since Tim lost his place in the Australian team with sore fingers (!).  I snigger, but it's a serious issue for a wicket-keeper.

The fingers healed but the road back into the team was much more problematic.  Josh suggested visualisation as a technique.  I've heard that divers and high-jumpers visualise themselves performing their art perfectly, and this is claimed to have a positive effect, but how do you visualise yourself getting back into the Australian cricket team?

I might have missed some of the detail but, essentially,  Tim was given cards with pictures of his wife, his daughter, a cricket bat, a baggy green cap, a freshly-mowed lawn and a newly-washed car.  He started playing his cricket on the NW Coast of Tasmania where the standard isn't so high, and had regular counselling.

I may be misunderstanding, or simplifying, but I gather Tim was expected to put the cards in order of importance.  When the baggy green cap came in just after his wife, Tim was ready.

It's all too spooky for me.  One of the other guests on the radio show asked, "Josh, when did you change from being a Glenorchy-based bogan to a spiritual zen-finder?

Wednesday, November 15 (2)

A very long afternoon, supervising one student who had special permission to use a word processor and was allowed an extra half-hour.  With the reading time, that made the whole session 3 hours and 45 minutes, a long time to sit with nothing to do.  Not being allowed to sleep, or knit, or listen to Meatloaf, I fell back on writing a poem.  Textual analysis would say that is rough, unpolished, naive and trivial!; for that reason, I don't intend to do any more than record it here.

There's a lot of funny people in the town of Deloraine,

Who live in harmony from day to day.

If there's not a lot of contact

Among the sundry groups,

It's probably 'cause they've learnt to stay away.

First, there are the farmers, nobility of the land

Who feel their occupation gives them class.

They're quick to point the finger

At the hippies and their ilk,

And say they need to get up off their arse.

The hippies, to their credit, tread lightly on the earth,

And spend their lives on pastimes chaste and pure.

They value peace and brotherhood

And send their words of hope

Convinced the age-old wisdom will endure.

The movers and the shakers are Rotary and Lions

Self-satisfied and sure they've done their bit

To make this little country town

In Tassie's northern parts

Renowned across the globe - and quite a hit.

Artists and musicians find comfort in this place

The 'vibe' encourages cre-a-tiv-i-ty.

You see them in the Main Street

With clothes that need a wash

And beards that cover nearly all their face.

The tourists migrate here in summer months

They come and then they vanish just as quick.

I wonder if they understand

How special is this town,

Or is it just another box to tick.

Rich blow-ins are the latest group to come

They've sold their house and come here, all cashed-up

They think they'll share their knowledge

Of how things should be done

And wonder why the locals say, "Shut up!"

Much can be said about this unique town

And it may not be each person's cup of tea

But there's something in the water

Which makes it stand alone

And I'm pleased to emphasise it's right for me.

Wednesday, November 15

Years go, if I wanted a haircut, I went to a Barber Shop.  If I wanted something special, I might go to Tony's Barber Shop, hoping for a touch of Continental elegance.  But those days are gone.  Now, the barber shop has to have a clever name, like Chop Shop, or Jack the Clipper.  Some go all macho and call themselves Hair Force One or British Hairways ( do they break copyright?).  Others try to be upmarket, opting for Headonism or Sideburns.  I saw one in Melbourne called Moustachios.  The place I used to visit in Launceston is called Ali's Barber Shop, which is quite clever - the barber's name is Alison, known as Ali.

But, it's women's hairdressers who have really pushed the boat out.  When our friend, Dot, was opening a hairdresser's in Gosford in, I think 1974, we came up with Tresses, Headmasters and Cut Above, but we certainly lacked imagination.  The hairdresser who keeps me looking kempt in Deloraine is called Rock, Paper , ... inviting clever clogs to imagine the final hair-oriented word.  For the less clever, there's an image of a large pair of scissors.

I found there's a Pinterest site on the subject of imaginative salon names.  The simpler ones include Bangs, Tease and Honeycomb, and there's  Do or Dye and Cut and Dried.  I especially like  Shear Madness and Southern Roots.  It seems like the days of Val's Hair Salon are also long gone.

Tuesday, November 14

I've signed up to get involved in supervision of Higher School Certificate exams at Launceston College.  The exams run for 2 weeks and I've been rostered for 11 sessions.  It's tedious work and we're not allowed to read, do crosswords, use an iPad, listen to music or knit while we're on duty.  The guidelines also state that we are not allowed to sleep, which I thought might be self-evident.  In Tasmania, students sit the HSC exams in both Years 11 and 12, so some groups are quite large.  

On the first day,  my partner and I were allocated just one student, but she didn't turn up so we looked after a spill-over of 2 students from another group.  Their subject was Drama which I thought was mostly about performance, but they had to write at length for two hours.  Today, we had 32 for English, a three-hour paper.

Each student gets little booklets for the answers.  Some people write on both sides of the paper; others only write on one side.  We'd get smacked with s ruler if we wasted paper like that.  It did make me remember the pleasure of getting a pristine new exercise book at school.  I always resolved that this one would be the best ever.  Opening the first page, I would rule the margin very carefully, and write the words with great attention to detail.  And then I would turn the page and be faced with the impressions of the writing on the other side, and lose heart.  Of course, this was in the days when we wrote with pen and ink, and the ink was liable to seep through the page, marring the other side of the paper.

The pens we used were government issue, coarse wood with a cheap metal ferrule into which a cheap government nib was inserted.  I'm not sure how often we were given a new nib, but I bet it wasn't often enough.  The ink was manufactured on-site.  The ink monitors would tear open a paper packet of blue powder and mix up with a couple of gallons of water in a galvanised bucket, stirring with a wooden ruler.  The chances of making a mess, or have a calamitous accident were high.

The students are all different.  One young man is writing furiously and fluently, another is scratching his head, writing on the back of his hand and staring into space.  Some students write efficiently, others have lots of crossings-out and corrections. Even though things have changed, students are still expected to write their answers long-hand on paper, a system which hasn't changed for centuries. Sadly, I'm sure excellent students are slipping through the net because the challenges of the process do not play to their strengths.

Monday, November 13

I had to go in to the bank today to pick up a replacement credit card.  It was early so the place was quiet and, when the cashier asked me to wait while she checked out the back, I was just about the only person in the place.  Then my eye fell on three plastic bags full of cash, just lying on the floor.  Clearly someone was planning to feed it through the change-counting machine but had been distracted by something (or someone, maybe me).  I don't suppose there was a fortune in the bags, certainly not enough to risk a spell in gaol, but I hope they are looking after my money better than they are looking after this lot.

It reminds me of a time we were in Nepal and I had to go into a bank in Jomsom, high in the mountains near Dhaulagiri.  They made me leave my hiking stick at the door in case I had mayhem in mind but what really caught me by surprise were the piles of banknotes, literally stacked on the floor.  Nepal has notes for relatively small amounts of money but there were dozens of the piles, spread across the floor and separated from the customers by a simple counter.

I'm sorry for the quality of the picture; my hand must have been shaking.

Friday, November 10

It's insidious, but we're being bombarded every day with 'gentle' encouragement about how we should spend our money and, to an extent, I can cope with that, but now we're being pressured in how we should think.  Browsing the Internet the other day, I found my attention drifting to a little article about the ethics of buying shoes.  I didn't know that ethics was part of this mundane activity.

Oh, yes, there's more to buying shoes than picking the right size and negotiating a reasonable price.  If you buy a name-brand sneaker, you have to be aware of the toxic chemicals that go into their manufacture, and the fact that even the most expensive ones are made by exploited child labour in China or some other third-world country.  So, maybe it's better to stick to old-fashioned, tried and true leather.  However, there's another whole can of worms associated with that decision.

The article showed pictures of the appalling leather tanneries in India and talked about the early deaths resulting from the chrome used in the process, as well as more child labourers who work in slave-like conditions.  

Not wanting to go through life bare footed, I had a dig around for sustainable, ethical alternatives, and stumbled across a new product called pinatex (the n should have a ~ accent but I haven't got a Spanish keyboard). For generations, weavers in the Philippines have been hand-weaving the fibre from pineapple leaves into a beautiful shiny fabric which is used for high-quality garments like the Barong that men wear on formal occasions.

Now, a new process can turn pineapple leaves into a leather substitute which makes great shoes.  The material is like a suede and is manufactured in a city called Labo and sold to hand-picked designers.  Marilyn and I know Labo well as it's the nearest big city to our friend Kit's resort on San Miguel Bay.  In fact, we were involved in a project to help build a new school for a farming village on the outskirts of the city, where they grow pineapples.  Serendipity!

I pushed on to see where I could buy the shoes in Australia and was directed to a Vegan web-site.  Vegan?  I don't want to eat them.  Not content with trying to change our diet - pushing nut cutlets and soy marshmallows - they've moved on to infiltrating such diverse causes as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Same Sex Marriage, and now they want to tell us what to wear on our feet.  Is there no end to it?

Saturday, November 4

It's Craft Fair weekend again in Deloraine and the locals' quiet life is once more disrupted by the influx of thousands of visitors cluttering up the streets and emptying out the ATMs.  Marilyn and I are playing a low-key role this year, helping out on the gates but keeping away from the nitty-gritty of the organisation.  Marilyn does a shift each day in the hospitality area and she enjoys the interaction with the judges and other volunteers.

Tonight was the Awards Presentation.  This was always a bit of a bun-fight with lots of drinks and free finger-food but the current Director has aimed for a bit of class and has put on a nice meal and the expectation that people will dress up a bit.  Marilyn and I hadn't planned to go but, at the last minute, found ourselves putting on the glad rags.  It was a pleasant night.  We sat with the judges which is always interesting and had a great meal.

For each table of eight, the caterers brought out platters of pork belly, poached salmon and pork and veal rissoles.  A three-tiered cake stand had salad, potatoes and vegetables.  It looked terrific but I'm not always a fan of self-service at a crowded table, when the food is covered with sauce and everyone is in their best clothes.  The chance of a messy accident is high.

However, the food was delicious and we came through unscathed.

This year, we have a researcher from, I think, Flinders University, working on a study on why events like the Craft Fair are so successful.  Despite the fact we live in a low-population area, we depend on volunteer labour, and we are seriously affected by rising costs, we have managed to survive and grow over 30-odd years.  During this period, highly-subsidised capital-city events have withered and died, but we haven't depended on government funding or council support.  As Michael Veitch used to say on Fast Forward, 'There's something in this for all of us.'

Friday, November 3

I've complained before about finding myself on the roundabout of medical appointments, checking my diary every Sunday night to see what's on so I can plan my week.  And I've come to realise that the Government is complicit in this, inventing new programs to keep us oldies going back to the doctor over and over: bowel scan kits come through the mail, the doctor's surgery is full of signs for free 'flu shots and free shots for shingles, and the list goes on.

Marilyn had a letter the other week from a crowd called Australian Hearing, inviting her to ring for an appointment for a hearing test.  Marilyn controls the volume button on the TV remote and I had been complaining that it was getting a bit loud for my comfort, so she made the appointment.  LSS, she had some hearing loss and now has a nice little box with a pair of government-provided hearing aids.

Of course, there's always more to the story.  At her first visit she was given a card; if she recommended someone else to join up, she would get a Coles voucher.  Fantastic!  I had my test last week and, surprise, surprise, I have a slight hearing loss too.  To their credit, Australian Hearing said that I could go on as I am without aids but I would certainly get some benefit from wearing them. Not being one to refuse a free gift, I put in my order.

No money has changed hands, so where's the profit?  As eligible pensioners, we simply sign a form to signify we have been treated and Australian Hearing receives a handsome cheque from the Treasury.  For our involvement, Marilyn and I each have a pair of steam-powered Medicare hearing aids in a handsome presentation box.  I'm being cynical, influenced by too many 1950's British comedies making jokes about NHS glasses and teeth; the hearing aids we have are high-tech, not at all intrusive and very effective. Oh, and we have a Coles voucher as well.

Thursday, November 2

I've mentioned Quora before - the website where people ask naive questions on trivial matters.  It's a site just begging to be sent up and I sometimes wonder whether the contributors, in fact, first send in the questions and then write a clever answer.  The following was spotted by Jamie.  I hope the hapless US citizens reading it understand the irony and don't take it too seriously.

Is Australia a horrible place?

Donald Ferguson

Donald Ferguson, lived in Australia

Updated Oct 7

Definitely.

There is no internet in Australia. This message was written on paper and sent via carrier pigeon to a waiting Russian trawler where it was uploaded.

Australia is ruled by an evil king named Colin and his queen Cheryl. They live in a triple fronted brick veneer house in western Sydney. Colin has banned slavery and made free healthcare mandatory despite our vigorous protests. He even forces our kids to go to one of our thousands of free world class schools. Worst of all Colin makes us vote once every few years. Voting sometimes interrupts our saturday grocery shopping for 10 minutes or so. The only upside to this ordeal is a sausage sizzle at the polling booth.

The climate is terrible. There is nothing more boring than months and months of warm sunny days. We envy all those countries that have regular blizzards and deadly hurricanes.

Australia is incredibly backward. We are forced to use plastic cards to electronically transfer money instead of paper cheques. Our plastic banknotes make it impossible for counterfeiters to make a decent living.

Life is very hard. Our unfortunate minimum wage workers have to survive on as little as $20/hr and four weeks paid annual holidays. They only get another 10-15 paid public holidays each year. The cops won’t take bribes and expect you to obey the traffic rules. It is an absolute disgrace.