Category: Life

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Blogging challenges Life teaching Technology Work

#28/52 On the return to Term 3

Phew! What a week it’s been!

Yesterday morning, I drove Kiya, with Mum and her dog Trav, down to Brisbane for an appointment. It occured to me that last Saturday morning (7 days earlier) I had also collected Mum… but instead, to go car shopping. We’d visited a quite rusty Suzuki Jimny, locally, before heading down to Brisbane to look at a 2020 version – which sold en route. We then pulled into Suzuki at Nundah, and ended up buying a brand new Ignis, before stopping at CostCo on the way back up the Coast.

This week was

  • the return to school (that’s right, I have a 0.9FTE teaching job as well)
  • the collection of Mum’s car on Wednesday
  • Miss 16’s trip to QldTransport to have her photo taken for her Learners
  • the (hopefully successful) migration of this website from one host to another
  • Miss 19 job-hunting and speaking with prospective employers, and finally
  • yet another big trip yesterday.

Today, I’m playing violin at church, then spending the afternoon with my parents and godfathers who are visiting from NZ.

Phew! again…

Hope it’s been a productive week for you, too, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
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#blogjune Life places to visit

#BlogJune Day 22

Today was meant to be a shopping morning, followed by a party tonight.

But Miss16 decided that shopping could wait for another day, so it was ‘just relax at home’ before party instead.

De-cluttering happened. Organising happened. Numbers of Gilmore Girls episodes happened, and now I’m with Kiya in her favourite spot. And I have to agree with her, it’s one of my favourite spots too.

Here’s wishing a relaxing day for you too, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

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#blogjune family anecdotes Life

#BlogJune Day 10

So my Miss16 has 6 months left of school. And what does she do? Join in with the Senior Assassin game, of course!

Wear goggles? You’re protected. Floaties on your arms? Also fine. On school grounds (school bus seats included in this definition) or heading to or at your place of work? Also unable to be eliminated.

Anything else? You’re fair game for being eliminated (shot by a water gun, the evidence caught on video) and no longer able to win the hundreds of dollars in prize money awarded to the winning team.

My girl’s latest obsession: looking over her shoulder anywhere we go. Oh, and the goggles wearing, of course.

Let’s see if she’s a few hundred dollars richer by the end of the year!

Have a goggle-free day yourself, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

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Life Random thoughts teaching Technology

20/52 On accordions

I think I was about 10 when I decided I wanted to play the Piano Accordion. I did for a while, too! It was pretty cool 🙂

The other day, I was completing some online planning for work when I unintentionally hovered over a heading, prompting a notification. “Click to expand or collapse the accordion” it read.

Blink.

Accordion? What?

Since when is a menu, or downward facing arrow, or three dots (usually vertical, but not always) called ‘an accordion’?

But how apt! I love it.

I’m going to be using this phrase a lot more from now on. ‘Click to expand / collapse the accordion.’

Have an expansive week yourself, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn

 

 

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Life Random thoughts teaching Work

11/52 On marking

It’s a lovely feeling when it’s done! But my current marking is still firmly in the ‘present’ tense, so when it comes to writing this blogpost I’m rather time-poor, I’m afraid.

So here’s a photo Mum found the other week – me when I was 5, in Bristol, England – for you to smile at:

and I’ll see you next week, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn

 

 

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Life momentous events

10/52 On yodelling

I would imagine that yodelling is difficult. I’ve never seriously tried it, but to change pitch that quickly and accurately seems confounding to me. And yet people do it. And learn it. And now I can proudly say I know one of them!

Yesterday, I took my Mum to watch the Matthew Flinders Anglican College performance of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was astoundingly good. And I’ve been directing musicals since 1996, and been in them since the mid-1980s, so I’ve had quite a lot of experience.

Honestly, I haven’t seen that level of well-nurtured talent since my time in the music department at John Paul College in the mid-1990s. And JPC used to book out the Queensland Performing Arts Centre for its production week, so that’s saying something!

Seriously though, the levels to which these students were guided was simply incredible. There are some definite future stars at that school. And one of them is only in Year 8, and not even yet a teenager!

Which brings me back to yodelling. You see, she was one of the principals (all the others were Years 10 – 12, from what I can gather) and was cast as Augustus Gloop. [If you remember the story: he was the sausage-loving 9 year old boy from either Germany or Bavaria – depending on the version – who was the first to find a Golden Ticket. He was also the first child to depart from the tour of the Chocolate factory when he fell into the chocolate river and was sucked up the tube, precipitating the first introduction of the Oompa-Loompas.]

And in the Hal Leonard Australia version which I saw yesterday, Augustus and his Mum yodel. Quickly! (I mean, of course quickly. Who’s ever heard of a slow yodel?) And they yodelled brilliantly!

I don’t think yodelling is something you can do half-hearthedly. It’s probably like abseiling or bungee-jumping – you have to commit. And commit they did. It was brilliant!

As was the whole production, honestly. The staff at Matthew Flinders should be proud of themselves, with the amazing standard of singing, acting, dancing, instrument-playing, lighting and follow-spotting, stage-crew movements – even the email prior to explain car-parking! The whole kit and kaboodle was extrememly impressive. And I’m hard to impress.

So well done, students and staff. An achievement you can all be justifiably proud of.

And I doubt I’ll try my hand (or voice) at yodelling anytime soon! I’ll leave that to those with more talent…

Have an inspirational week yourself, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
Categories
Life Review

7/52 On transparency

Today’s the 18th of February. In less than a month, we’ll be heading to the poll booths to get ourselves the next four years’ worth of local politicians.

So the other week, I thought I’d look into who’s running. In my region, Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, both our Mayor and our Deputy Mayor (who was also my divisional councillor, just for interest) have decided to not run again… meaning I’ll have two newbies in these roles.

I headed off to Google to find out who’s been nominated. My first hit seemed to be the go: three mayoral candidates with a bit of a blurb on each. Impressive… until I realised that according to sunshinecoastnews.com, there’s six candidates for mayor, not three!  Jason O’Pray; Wayne Parcell; Ashley Robinson, Michael Burgess, Rosanna Natoli, and Min Swan (apparently listed in the order they appear on the Electoral Commission of Queensland website). I guess the original article made sense when I re-looked at the title “meet the latest candidates”… I’m guessing they’d already had an initial article with the other three hopefuls.

And in my own division, there’s three choices: Kristy Taylor-Rose; Jenny Broderick; and Stan Nowrocki.

Trying to find informaion on each of these nine people though, proved problematic. Surely there’d be a news article where each candidate was linked to their own page, which detailed (or even just outlined!) who they were and what they stood for? But nope.

So I tried Facebook. Nothing. Even a request to the Sunshine Coast Council’s offical Facebook page only produced this:

Hmm. So off to the ECQ website. Several clicks later, I can see that no, the list order must have changed since the 13th of February, when sunshinecoastnews.com published its article. No matter. There’s still 6 mayoral candidates, and 3 candidates for divisional councillor. Links to their websites though? Nope.

So I’ve decided that I’ll do it. I have my own website, yes? And an interest in getting this information out so people can actually be informed about who it is they might vote for? Well, here it is. For my division, as least. And they’re in alphabetical order (I’m a librarian, remember!)

Sunshine Coast Division One Councillor candidates:

Jenny Broderick

Stan Nowrocki (LinkedIn was the closest site I could find)

Kristy Taylor-Rose (again, no dedicated website; this one’s a news article and this is LinkedIn)

 

Sunshine Coast Mayoral Candidates:

Michael Burgess

Rosanna Natoli

Jason O’Pray

Wayne Parcell (this site takes a while to load…)

Ashley Robinson

Min Swan

Something I noticed about the mayoral candidates: numbers of them say they’re interested in transparency. So I’m guessing that when they inherit the Facebook page, the policy of ‘giving residents the information they’d like’ will change? Hmmm.

Enjoy, dear Reader! And feel free to share / comment etc as you see fit…

  • KRidwyn

 

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Life Random thoughts teaching

4/52 On happiness

I’ve decided that I need to slow down; be aware of where I am and what I am doing.

You see, the other week I was told I’d be teaching a Year 7 Art class this semester. To be exact, it was to co-teach with the Art teacher… but my first reaction was to panic.

So I’ve reflected quite a bit since then, coming to grips with ‘why do I feel this way’…and I’ve realised that it’s my ‘busy-busy-busy’ mindset that I’ve developed over 49 years that’s caused it. The way. I figure: if I “cram as much as possible into life” then certain things are more valuable, time-wise, than others. In other words, I’m “too busy” to sit and draw. Or sit and paint. Or sit, even. (Even when watching TV with Hubby, I’m back to crotcheting, seeing as I now no longer have books to cover.)

I’m not sure I particularly like this about myself. If I’m rushing through life, am I even enjoying it? Hubby said once that I made roadrunner look slow. Which was funny… but in hindsight, also an indictment?

So I’ve started trying, intentionally, to be observant of my ‘moments’. Which brings me to my beetle, and my puppy.

You see, I had my beautiful bug serviced the week just gone. And it was discovered that the back pair of tyres was 7 years old. The front pair, however, was 22!

So on Tuesday just gone, I drove it back up to Cooroy to drop it off, and then collected it Thursday evening with 5 brand new tyres. And on the drive home, my 12 month old kelpie, Kiya, sat beside me.

And life was good. Driving my beautiful bug, kelpie by my side, happy and healthy and at the beginning of a long weekend (happy Australia Day, for those of you who celebrate it!) was such a pleasure! And all the more so, realising that I was ‘awake’ in that moment and knowing it for the joy that it was.

Sigh. May I be cognizant of many more… and I wish the same for you too, dear Reader!

Have a wonderful week 🙂

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Life More about me Random thoughts teaching

On ‘schooling’

So my two school-aged kids are at the same school again, for the first time since June 2021. It’s Brisbane School of Distance Education, and they’ve completed the first week of Term 4.

And so far, it seems to be going well! Miss15 started last term, so it wasn’t ‘all new’ for her, but my taller-than-me-now Master14 has been at it for a week… and he seems to be tracking okay 🙂

Such a relief. This parenting gig is harder than it first looks… and wow but that pregnancy bit does NOT look comfortable!

I’m always second-guessing myself. Should I “let” Miss18 have a gap semester or a gap year – or just figure it out for herself? Will the benefits of Distance Education outweigh the issues for the other two, or have I just made yet another foolish decision? Will they be able to support Master14 with his autism, more effectively than at a regular school? After all – that’s why I’ve moved him…?

And when on earth does it all get easier?

Still. BSDE schooling *seems* to be going okay, at this moment in time, so here’s hoping that this will continue… Wish me all the best, dear Reader!

Til we meet again 🙂

  • KRidwyn
Categories
family anecdotes Life More about me

thoughtful.

As in, full of thoughts.

It seems as though the majority of children these days have ‘coped’ with the separation of their parents. And it appears as though I’m joining their ranks. At the age of 49.

I’m too full of thoughts, it’s difficult to write them all down.

Sorry, dear Reader. I’ll try again next month.

I hope yours is a good one.

  • KRidwyn