Work Work Work Work Work (like that song)

Part of it being winter here means that there are fewer social activities happening, as I have mentioned. This is even true for indoor activities like trivia (attendance-wise). This week at one of our trivias (we have two that we go back and forth between now, since one of the trivias is more accessible to our friends who had a kid) there were only five teams. That went decently well for us and we came in second. A few weeks ago our other trivia only had four teams and I was able to win some stuff there too. Sometimes, on rare occasions, showing up really is half the battle. I love it except for the fact that trivia hosts look so sad and feel like they have personally failed somehow. 

In other news...

My last two days of work have been the kind where I literally have a different class each hour throughout the day. On the one hand, it's tricky to be constantly adjusting to a new group throughout the day and sometimes having to come up with plans on the fly. On the other, there are (even more-so than usual) no longterm problems if something is not going great. What's that, kid with behavioral problems? I only have to put up with you interrupting me for a few more minutes? I have all the patience in the world. 

Today, one of my hours was with a 6th grade classroom where students were working in groups to create some kind of electronic structure. They literally had to wire the circuits and build everything from scratch; the non-electronic features essentially being made out of recycled cardboard or plastic. We never did anything like this when I was in 6th grade. My initial thought before actually working with the kids was, "Please don't put me in charge of impressionable young people wielding hot glue guns and live wires. I don't want to write incident reports all afternoon", but it was actually really impressive and they showed some maturity. One group made a robot with glowing eyes, another made a traffic light, another made a lighthouse model, etc.

My last class of the day was to teach 5th graders how to do caricatures for Art, which also ended up being pretty fun. I drew one of me throwing a frisbee on the board as an example, and now I'm regretting not taking a picture of it.

After my post workday workout, I got dinner to go from Roll'd, my favorite Vietnamese takeaway franchise here. 

Good times. 

House Stark

Everybody in the Northern Hemisphere is posting all these lovely photos on Instagram and Facebook, sitting on their patios drinking a beer or going for a hike enjoying the fresh air because they are just loving the weather.

For about 9 or 10 months of the year our weather is as nice as the weather everyone else is having right now. For us, though, it is the short sliver of time that it is actually cold and we must endure the fact that no buildings have proper heating systems. If I'm lucky, I end up in a classroom with an ancient gas heater (but we have to crack the windows or we will all die), a wall unit air-conditioner that can pump out warm air, or a tiny space heater. At the apartment, I have two or three blankets piled on me when I'm sitting around or sleeping, and we pump our little space heater. Eve risks getting kicked in her sleep to sleep on/near my legs. Less social stuff is happening because nobody wants to stand around on the beach in a down jacket.

Despite how it may sound, I am someone who generally enjoys the winter season. I will always be a winter baby at heart, even though my last two Februaries have fallen in summer. Anyway, enjoy it while you can, folks. The solstice has come and gone, and we will be moving on to warmer and longer days soon enough.

Also, the last two episodes of this season of Game of Thrones - awesome, right?

Entertainment 720

Friday, we saw Heathers, the musical, at the Sydney Opera House. I can confidently say that it is the worst play I have seen in the last 5 years, and possibly ever. I had seen the original movie, so I knew the story was a little odd. But, the music was just terrible, the dialogue was pretty low-brow, and the set/props were not conducive to good storytelling. I expected more from an opera house production. 

Other than that we have been watching a lot of WUGC (for those of you that don't know, the world ultimate frisbee championships) streaming this weekend. The US teams played incredibly and won gold in every division. The Australian teams also did very well, bringing home a silver and two bronze. It was very exciting to watch games where both teams were comprised of people we had played with and against. It's cool that we are able to watch these games at all through the power of the internet; just ten years ago this wasn't an option and you would just find out after the fact how your team(s) did. 

Last, but not least, we got our fingerprints done as part of our background checks we need to apply for permanent residency here. It has been a quiet, but somewhat productive weekend. 

Brexit Reaction

Like so many other people around the world, I'm watching and waiting to see what the effects of the "Brexit" will be. What I find to be disturbing is that many people in the UK may not understand what they voted to do. I also feel selfishly fortunate that it is not my home country - for once - that the world is staring at, wondering what the hell is going on. 

Lost in Translation

Today was one of those days at work where I feel like I did a lot of good things at work- better than an average day. But, I also feel like I had a few things happen that made it look like I was screwing up, to the people who weren't actually watching me all day. For example, in the morning I was told I was going to be on one classroom, then I was told by another person to go to a different one, and then the original person told me to go to another classroom. I went to the classroom I had most recently been told to go to and did my job. Then I got a call over the loud speaker to call the office; I called and there had been some misunderstanding about what classroom I was supposed to be in (I wonder why). The person moving me around hadn't communicated the changes to other people, but it ultimately got sorted out. When I told the teacher (who thought I was supposed to cover for her) what had happened, she said, "It's okay", but didn't seem convinced. The whole ordeal wasn't my fault, but it think it seemed to other people like I as doing the wrong thing. 

Even one kid that knows me came up to me and said, "Whoa, that was embarrassing that they called you over the loud speaker, and even said your first name!" Thanks kid. I wasn't embarrassed before. Then I saw her again at the end of the day with her friends and she told her friends how embarrassing it was for me to have my name called over the speaker. Thanks, kid, I was hoping everyone had forgotten about it by now. No dice.

Anyway, you win some, you lose some. Speaking of winning and losing, we got to stream the World Ultimate Championships USA vs. Australia men's game live (from London). It's amazing what you can do with a phone and an AppleTV these days. Australia put up one hell of a fight at the beginning, but the USA pulled away in the middle. It was really cool to see a high level game where we personally knew a bunch of people on both sides; Michael had played with and against more of them than I had, though. We're enjoying all the updates from our friends who are over there representing Australia, The US, and a few other countries. 

Finding Dory/Piper

Tonight we saw Finding Dory, which was cute and touching. I think (I assume) it was particularly relatable for children with special needs, and parents of such children. Even though Dory's short-term memory loss is kind of a joke in the original, it was more of a serious issue in the sequel. One of the big themes was Dory finding her own way to do things, as well as other characters recognizing her unique abilities. 

Before the movie was one of my favorite Pixar shorts in recent years, Piper. It's the very simple story of a tiny shorebird gaining the courage to forage for food. I really love the shorts because they have to convey so much emotion and story using no dialogue. Some of my other past favorites were La Luna and The Paperman.

Not Good Enough

Just like everyone else, I'm saddened and angered by the news about the shooting in Orlando, just like I have been about all the mass shootings I've heard about happening in the U.S. in the last several years. It has taken me a few days to decide whether or not I wanted to say anything about it. I think Conan summed it up pretty well...

Now that I hear about these shootings as I live overseas in a country very similar in many ways to the U.S, where shootings like this DO NOT HAPPEN, this is what I hear. A lot more of my international friends (those from and living outside the U.S.) have been posting about this issue lately as well. It echoes around the world. 

Thoughts and prayers are not good enough. Looking on the bright side about how love will conquer hate is not good enough. It's a good start at how people should be living, but it's not sufficient in making anyone feel better about the fact that these tragedies can be prevented. The American children trying to make sense of this are learning that adults who do bad things get attention, and adults who want to do good are helpless and only know how to pick up the broken pieces afterwards. That's not good enough. 

I have friends that have stopped watching the news because of the negativity. I suppose it might work for them. I try to limit how much I see, but cutting it out altogether doesn't work for me. I want to know what is happening around the world, especially when I live far away from many friends and family. I want the things happening around the world to not be awful. 

Blue Mountains Winter Getaway

We spent the holiday weekend ("The Queen's Birthday", which is not actually celebrated on the queen's birthday) at the Blue Mountains with some friends. We stayed at the Clarendon Guesthouse for the first time, which has unremarkable rooms, but is quite cosy. They did have a nice common room with a fireplace, and a game room that had workout equipment that was so old I was amazed it still was in kind-of-working order. They also had my favorite winter amenity - heated beds. 

We ate at some local favorites like Station Bar (good wood-fired pizza), The Treasured Teapot/Bygone Beauties, and Yellow Deli. We also got to try an Indian place called Anki, which was pretty good. 

We hiked a trail called National Pass, and enjoyed Lilian's Glen, Empress Falls, and Wentworth Falls. We also went golfing in Leura, which we rarely do and are terrible at. It was all good fun.

Up for Debate

This week in two different schools I've had to listen to a lot of 6th grade public speaking. I was actually quite impressed with some of the kids' skills; they were better than I remember a lot of speakers being in my high school public speaking class. 

One boy in particular read his speech about how he was tired of being told to respect his elders, and how adults need to respect kids more and not yell at them. It was kind of an amusing in an, "Oh, you entitled brat, you are in for a wake up call in the next few years" kind of way. Usually, adults are not going around reprimanding kids for no reason. Most school staff I know look for as many reasons to praise and encourage kids as possible, and really think carefully about how they phrase criticism. Usually, they enforce rules based on common sense, common courtesy, or safety issues. Usually you don't get yelled at the first one or two times you break a rule (unless you're doing something pretty dangerous or mean). When you repeatedly piss off an adult, especially for the same reason over and over, then they yell at you. So kid, why was it you were getting yelled at again? You didn't say. I bet you were doing something you shouldn't have done. More than once. Knock it off. 

Five years, Floating, and Vivid

Today, Michael and I celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. Five years! That's longer than most goldfish survive. That's longer than I've ever had the same job. That's about as long as it takes to travel to Saturn. 

Since it was a rainy day, we spent the first half of the day burning some bacon and french toast, and facetiming family. Then we tried floating for the first time. We ended up going to a place near Manly, although since making the reservation there we found out there is an even closer and cheaper one really close to us in Paddington. 

This is what I will say about floating. It was an interesting sensory experience. It was really hard for me to stay still the whole time. My experience wasn't as obviously calming  as other people tend to describe it (I wasn't so relaxed I was in a trance or about to fall asleep), however it did definitely relax all my muscles (and I do often suffer from a tight neck and shoulders). There were also parts of the experience that weren't as obvious because they were "negative" effects, in that they were the absence of something, and I only noticed them after the experience when they returned. For example, I am often a person who thinks about the past or thinks ahead, and when I was in the pod I was very in the moment because nothing was cuing me to think of anything else. I am a person who is often thinking about food and how hungry I am; in the pod I didn't think about food or feel hungry at all. Temperature wasn't an issue, whereas I am often adjusting my body temperature by removing or putting on layers (as I warm up moving around or get cold when I stop moving). I am a person whose memory automatically reacts to stimuli around me a lot; I can look at an object or smell a certain smell, and memories of previous experiences pop into my head beyond my control. While I was in the pod, that simply wasn't happening. My brain could be "still" and simply not react. Since I found it hard to stay still, I tried moving into different positions, kind of swaying from side to side feeling like how I imagine an anemone feels. I also found stretching very nice since the minerals had already relaxed my muscles. 

Michael had a different experience than me, since he was more comfortable floating still. In fact, I have never seen him look so relaxed as he did afterward. He isn't sure if he fell asleep or not. He also has a typically hard time visualizing things (the opposite of me, sometimes visualizing more things than I want to), and said he found visualizing different scenes easier with no distractions while floating in the pod. Anyway, it was an interesting experience and he and/or I may try it again at some point in the future. 

After our floats, we had a delicious dinner at Pony in The Rocks. Everything we had was delicious, as usual. After that, we did a different kind of float. We took a ferry ride around the harbour to see the lights of Vivid. I wasn't as impressed at the lights this year as I have been in the past, but it was still a nice and free way to check it all out. 

We went from pitch black silence and stillness to a festival of crowds and lights and music in a short span of time. Bizarre. I suppose it was as good a way as any to celebrate.