Stand and Deliver

I used to be a teacher.  Teaching was one of the most draining and exhausting things I've ever done, and it was also one of the most rewarding and inspiring things I've ever done. 

These days my forays into the classroom are limited to tutoring at university while I pursue other goals, but today I'm going to reminisce fondly about my very first day of teaching for realsies as a fully-qualified teacher with no less than THREE successful practicums under my belt (a whole 12 weeks in total). "Stand and Deliver" was the nickname Will Ferrel gave me when I saw him in New York in his stage play, You're Welcome, America, as a series of stock responses to individuals' professions. It seems an apt title for what follows.

Fresh out of university, I'd applied to the Meatgrinder; the juggernaut that was the government education system.

Source: http://www.theman-cave.com/2010/08/pink-floyd-wall-1982.html

I was given a place at a local senior high school the day before school was due to start. I'm going to call the school Rock Ridge Senior High School.  Firstly, because this experience reminded me of what it was like for the new Sheriff on his first day in Blazing Saddles.  And the people who know me well will work out the other reason why.

I arrived, bright-eyed and idealistic, and feeling very much like I did my own first day of school.  Would I know anyone? Would I get lost? Would they like me? The latter referred to the staff and students equally. I was taken on a brief tour of the school and shown the key components, such as the office and the staffroom.  As a product of the government education system myself, the layout and architecture of the school itself had an eery familiarity to it, as they tend to follow similar layouts.  This school however, I was disappointed to note, did not have a reading pit in the library. A small detail, perhaps, but as my form period (or mentor, house, tutor group, whatever your school happens to call it) was overseen by the battleaxe librarian, the subterranean reading area had provided us with sanctuary from her stern, judgemental gaze as she attempted to prevent Scott from reading out "Dolly Doctor" letters to us all, complete with theatrical gestures as we tried to fill what was, from our perspective, a completely pointless block of time in our school day.

The staffroom boasted a fully-stocked and padlocked drinks fridge, the portents of which I completely failed to recognise, naive engenue that I was.  I was then ushered into the office of my new boss, the Head of English, who was named, somewhat appropriately, Read. I introduced myself, and he pulled out my résumé from one of the piles of papers which would perpetually adorn his desk.

"Says here you went to UWA. So what are you doing in a place like this?"

I had no response to this.

An extremely awkward interview ensued, and then I was handed my timetable and sent on my way.

My first class was a year nine class, and I WISH this was an exaggeration of how it went:

As a new teacher, and the last to join the staff, I was given the classes that we left.  This meant the classes no one wanted.  This year nine class was a 'low ability' class, which basically meant that they had very little interest in school in general, and English in particular.  I let the students into the room, anticipating an elaborate first lesson, getting to know them and introducing the subject.

Oh, I got to know them all right.

As I attempted to take the roll, I had to corral loud and disinterested students, and eventually had to give up on getting Craig to stop banging a chain across a desk at the back of the room while staring demonically at me and saying 'slut' over and over in menacing tones in time to the beating of the chain.  Before I'd even finished reading out their names, two girls had started a fight at the front of the room.  As I tried to calm them down, I looked over to find James setting fire to masking tape that he'd surreptitiously wrapped around the metal table leg, while Steven was attempting to melt a plastic chair at another desk with a lighter, and Kale tried to kick a table to death off to the side.

In the ensuing chaos as I proceeded to put out fires, Natasha climbed out the window.

We were on the second floor.

After some cajoling and coaxing, I managed to get Natasha to come back inside, and relieved James and Steven of their lighters.  A desperate call to the deputy relieved me of Craig for the lesson.

By the end of the first term, I was in the swing of things, could detect cigarettes and lighters from the way pockets bulged and would confiscated them 'ere they had a chance to burn anything, and had convinced Craig to swap his bike chain for a pen.

But I'll never forget my first day of school.

Going down...

A few years ago I did the gap year thing and spent a year traveling around the world. One of the places I went was New Zealand, where I spent a month backpacking around the north and south islands, first on my own and then with a Contiki tour group (that is a whole other story by itself). 

I’d come via Melbourne, and flew into the sleepy little citylet of Christchurch.  It was an idyllic, open and olde worlde meets moderne little place filled with, it seemed to my touristy wide eyes, shiny happy people. I took to it immediately. From its latticed sculpture in the main square, to its rugby bar called The Holy Grail (you can always count on the Kiwis for dispassionate objectivity when it comes to rugby), to its very British grammar schools complete with blazers and boaters and its artsy cafes, I fell in love with the place.  

My first day was spent wandering the city and exploring the Antarctica centre.  Because where else would you learn about Antarctica?! Though truth be told the only part of that which had any lasting impact on me was the snow dome where you could don snow gear, play on the snow slide and experience a simulated snow storm. (Turns out, snow storms are not particularly fun...)

It was on this day that I also had the most delicious fish and chips of my life at a little shop by the river, and was given a cloud-like tiki from a really sweet Maori lady. I was replete.

I’d marveled at the cleanliness and idyllic perfection of the city all day, so I thought nothing of walking back to my hotel later that night.  However, the clean street I’d walked down that morning had transformed itself as dusk had fallen.

Somehow, I’d managed to choose the one hotel on Hooker Lane.  Standing, slouching and lolling about down this street was a series of prostitutes, all open for business at orderly 20 metre intervals.

At first I was passing pretty young girls in skimpy outfits and high heels and didn’t think overly much of it, but the further away I got from the city centre, the older the women got.  Young miss things gave way to the matronly, the boiled chooks and then the elderly, and I knew I’d hit a whole new level when the women suddenly got younger.  A closer look comfirmed that they were now also men in drag, and they too proceeded to get older and hairier as I continued my walk.

I began to wonder how this trend would continue, and envisaged the next horse-faced elderly man in a scraggly dress being followed by an actual horse in drag.  

I reached my hotel before Hooker Lane ended, so I never did find out what the Ultimate Hooker Level looked like... sometimes I wish I’d just kept walking. Perhaps the street was so long it simply curved back in on itself and I would have found myself at the beginning of the selection again, like a sushi train...

Christchurch. City of Fishy Delights.

There's a Light...

In the velvet darkness, of the blackest night, burning bright, there's a shining star...

Maybe it was the sugar high from the Baskin and Robbins Caramel Salty Yoghurt we sampled this evening, maybe it was the pints of Pipsqueak Cider that preceded it at Little Creatures, but this evening my friends and I were transported into The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Not in the most memorable scene in the film, perhaps, but one which led to the song "There's a Light" running over and over in my head for the last hour, so I'm writing this as a form of exorcism.

We were driving by the port o' Fremantle, idly taking in the freighter ships while our conversation ambled along.  A motorcycle overtook us, and we were all momentarily startled.  Then a second passed us, and I commented on the similarity to the scene in Rocky Horror where the motorcycles all pass Brad and Janet in the car in the rain.  At that moment several more zipped past, perilously close to the car, each driven by a man or woman in quirky clothes.  The scene was particularly germaine as the driver played the RiffRaff to my Magenta many Halloweens ago, and with whom I've gone to the annual outdoor-with-audience-participation-and-live-performance screening of Rocky Horror for the last several years, as we will next year.

I see you shiver with antici-

-pation.

Running the Gauntlet

I love Perth, and I particularly love living in the somewhat pretentious, yet oh so pretty corner of it snuggled between the ocean and the river.  It's known as the golden triangle, in all seriousness by many of its residents, ironically by the rest of the community.

I have recently rejoined the world of the daily commute, as I'm going to film school this year. The last few years I've been working walking distance from my home, and living five minutes from uni, so it's been a bit of a culture shock.

Some of my local friends often joke that people should need a passport to get into the triangle, but it's starting to feel like this has become the case, as I run the gauntlet of checkpoints and obstacles in and out of the area.

My drive to school each day looks a little something like this:

I've obviously taken a little artistic license here, although one road really does have a tortoise crossing.

I'm all for improving Perth roads, but it seems like they've studied a map of Perth, picked out all the major arteries of the city, and decided to rip them all up.  I wonder what visitors to our fair city must think as they drive down Great Eastern Highway, with its concrete bunkers surrounded deadened wasteland... it makes Perth look more like the post-apocalyptic wastelands of Tank Girl or Mad Max than Baz Luhrmann's rose-tinted vision of Australia, and it's a far cry from the way people used to see it...

Postcard from Perth, 1954

My drive home looks like this in reverse, except that three times in the past week it has also included being stopped to be breathalysed and having my I.D. and vehicle registration checked.

You really do need a passport to get down here.

Flying Low

I've done a fair bit of traveling in my life, and there are times when it all goes a bit horribly wrong.  I'm a comfortable flyer and can squish myself into tiny economy seats and endure long flights (a necessary evil when you live in Australia), with a mixture of reading, films, and when all else fails, popping in the ear pods and blasting my music to drown out the crying babies and snoring middle-aged men, and just pass the time in a semi-comatose state, ready to rise blearily and stumble out into the fluorescent light of whatever port I end up in.

Butterbeer!

And then there was my harrowing trip was in the hands of American Airlines.

I'd booked a trip around the States in January, returning to my beloved New York for a visit, then heading to Washington DC to check out the Smithsonian and White House. and finishing up at that pinnacle of culture; Orlando for a week of Disney parks and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

One word: Butterbeer.

My flights seldom flew as scheduled, but they got me from A to B eventually.

It was on the return flight to London that we hit rockbottom.


I had to change flights in Miami, and the delays meant I had to do my Amazing Race impersonation as I quite literally sprinted from one terminal to the next in order to make my flight. It was likely an amusing sight for passers by, as I ran up escalators, past travelators, into trains, only to pause with my personal muzak jangling away in my ears as I waited impatiently for my station, then I was off again.

I made my flight with minutes to spare, just in time to hurry and wait.

The wait for take off always seems interminable, especially since music players and e-readers are banned. Apparently they possess sufficient power to make the plane fall out of the sky EVEN WHEN IT IS SITTING ON THE TARMAC.  I tend to finish the in-flight magazine in the first fifteen minutes and am then left with nothing to do.  So I nap in the hopes I'll be so comatose by the time we take off that I'll simply wake when we land.  It has yet to happen, but I live in hope.

Soon, my neighbours arrived - a large family with three young children and two teenagers. The father sat next to meet with a toddler next to him, his wife sat directly behind and they arranged their children around them. Now I had a sulky kid kicking my seat behind me, and two bouncy moody screaming toddlers on the other side of the father. Joy.

About half an hour into the flight, when it was too late to flee the plane, they announced that the in-flight entertainment wasn't working in my section. Not a problem, I thought, and pulled out my Kindle and started reading. Then they announced that the lights were malfunctioning, so they could only be either all on or all off. Rapturous. They made the executive decision to turn them off after dinner, so those who wanted to could sleep.

No! I mentally screamed. Give them eye masks! Let the rest of us read! But, after dinner, off they went, including the reading lights.  At this point I discovered my phone battery was critically low and needed to be kept turned off, since I was going to need it to call my aunt when I arrived at the airport.

I tried to sleep, but by now one of the toddlers had fallen asleep across his daddy and was restlessly kicking me in his dreams, something his father did nothing to curtail.  In addition, the wife kept leaning over the seat to affectionately fondle her husband's face every few minutes - WEIRD - and would knock me in the side of the head every time she did so.

I watched tv shows on my laptop till the battery died, then settled down to endure the Longest Four Hours of my life, with nothing to do but sit there in the darkness being periodically assaulted by this seemingly endless family.

I was so excited to make it into Heathrow at the end of this, only to be confronted by a new fresh hell. It seemed that 5 flights had landed at the same time.  It took me TWO hours to get through customs, not the least of which because the woman conducting the too many queues into the too few checkpoints decided to hold a grudge against my particular line.

Exhausted from lack of sleep and physical and emotional abuse, it was an extremely wobbly shadow of my former self who shambled up to my aunt once I was finally released from my purgatory.

I slept so HARD that night.

Why so, Sirius?

Among the many shiny features that came with my new phone, was the notorious Siri. I call mine Sirius, as I set my phone's language to British English, and thus my Siri is a man who speaks in clipped tones. Also because Alan Rickman. I much prefer him to the annoying woman, but it can lead to communication issues as he often seems to have trouble understanding my accent.

This was particularly frustrating during a late-night drive home Friday night.  The bluetooth feature allows me to sync Sirius with my car and ask him to play music for me. He was quite happy with randomly shuffling songs, and would skip tracks whenever I commanded it. It made me drunk with power. It was then that I decided I wanted to listen to a particular band and it all descended into anarchy.  

I decided the leisurely drive along the river called for a more melodic genre, and asked it to play Stokes, William, a band I'm particularly fond of - a sort of more melodic and whimsical Mumford & Sons. After assuring me he didn't understand me and asking me to repeat myself a few times, Sirius decided I must mean William Shatner, and proceeded to play "Common People." Not quite the atmosphere I was hoping for...

The more he attempted to play other songs, the more stubborn I became. I mean, sure, I could have done it manually while stopped at the lights, but it had become A Matter Of Principle now.  What followed was a fairly nonsensical stream of text:

Things went rapidly downhill after that.

When I got home, still unsuccessful, I picked up the phone and held it to my ear, determined to try it one last time; curious to see what he'd come up with now.

"Play Stokes, William, " I commanded him.

"Playing Stokes, William," he responded smugly, and proceeded to do so.

Well played, Sirius, well-played...

Pun intended.

I kind of want to start a band called Text Cockleberry now...