[Miscellany]

Honestly I tried to avoid this as long as humanly possible but I've come to the point where I have to finally come clean or risk living a lie for the rest of my life.

I'm a fan of the song "Last Christmas" by Wham.



There's just something so deliciously warm and inviting about Andrew Ridgeley in a (rather too) thick knit jumper looking over his wine glass knowingly at George Michael. What a lovely civilised Christmas they all seemed to have, even though George Michael's heart was given away (the very next day...but last year. Yes it's all very confusing). Their Christmas was so unlike any Christmas I ever had and I wished they'd invite me over for egg nog and snow ball fights too. I even had a multicoloured thick knit that I could have worn to the festivities. Alas, it was never to be - for one thing we're in the middle of summer and wearing a thick multi-coloured anything is just wrong when it's 30 degrees outside and everyone is playing under the sprinklers and not drinking egg nog at all. A girl can dream though.

Anyway, the point is - although I realise that the song is no classical masterpiece it still warms the cockles of my heart whenever I hear it. I guess that's what nostalgia does for you - good or bad.

Wherever you find yourself at Christmas this year, I hope it's a lovely one filled with many a knowing look across the dinner table over a glass of red with someone with 80s hair. Personally I plan to spend the next few days thoroughly smashed - not because of any fun get together reason but just because it's the only way I can foresee getting through it without having a nervous breaksdown -sans liver sure- but alive nonetheless. Does alcoholism start for many as a method to numb the horror I wonder? We shall have to wait and see.

But no, really Merry Christmas.

What's your favourite Christmas song? I have much too many to list but this is in the winner's circle (I can't help it!).

Last Christmas - Wham!

Labels: 80s icons, christmas, musical monday, relationships, wham

posted by M at 12:07 am 28 comments

Me - I'm sooo not ready for the end of the year. I've got so much still left to do. I'm moving rooms next year.
#2 - I got offered a new room. The new room is actually a lot better than the one I have now but there is no way I'm going through the pain of moving.
R - I would seriously rather teach in a hole than move rooms again.
Me - haha.
R - moving is the worst!
Me - yep, tell me about it.

It's not just the physical pain of moving but also the mental drain of knowing that you have to set up a whole different room from scratch - not to mention the mental switch moving to a whole new type of teaching. I'm wondering if I remember how to do it.

The hardest bit to deal with though are the emotions I'm going though about leaving. It's harder than I expected it would be. Every piece of work I take down I'm thinking about that child and the effort they put in, I'm think of my own teaching and guidance that helped achieve that result and I'm thinking of the joy it's brought to so many people who have walked past and stopped, looked and commented. Taking the work down is a process I need to go through in order to leave it behind properly. I'm leaving behind a wonderful team, a space I have perfected to my own tastes, a bazillion motivated children and most importantly my autonomy. I'm going to miss that and I know I'm giving it up to work under a leader I quite frankly don't respect all that much to do work that will, I already know, not be appreciated for whom I do it for. I need the challenge though.

I've received a lot of cards and lovely presents this year. It's really the words I take with me more than anything else. Words about flourishing children. Words of thanks and praise. Words saying that for the first time ever they are seeing their children enjoy art. Affirming, lovely words that lift my spirits. These words are very important to me because in a profession like teaching (and nursing too I'm sure is similar) you hear all the complaints but none of the compliments. When there's something wrong, you get words straight away: Words in letters, words in cards, threatening, spitting, accusing, hissing words. When you do good, it's the rare parent that notices or thinks to give a gift of words. We use them everyday and they cost nothing - and yet when it comes to giving them nicely we hesitate...

I guess I'm saying that it's an easy present to give and yet it brings a lot of joy. So, you've got a day left before the holidays (Victorians) - do it.

Labels: christmas, school, stressed teachers, teaching, teaching the teacher, words

posted by M at 10:57 pm 9 comments

* Currently rather sick, in manner of throwing up a lot and limited to bed and tele watching but too sick and bothered to properly look for the remote. This means I'm stuck on whatever channel it is that has ready steady cook on it (no, changing channel by getting up is not really something I want to do when fear of bile rising up haunts me). It's rather unfair to be subjected to watching RSC when I can't actually eat anything at the moment. Also rather unfortunate that I'm missing all the parties I actually WANT to go to but am well for the ones that I would rather avoid. How in the hell does that work? Also rather shitty that have fallen sick at time when I have no sick "leave without doc certificates" left. This means I have to pay 60 odd bucks for a trip to the doctor if I want to get paid, better yet the doctor is booked up until after this blasted illness will have already ravaged me and shall be back to normal. I always find it's better not to ask for a medical certificate when you're nice and healthy. Oh ya, I really was sick Doc. Pluz give me two days off for last week!! I iz telling da truth, honest! It's either that scenario or get docked two days of pay. At this point I'm just too bothered to care and that maybe having less pay this week will stop me from splurging over the Christmas season. I knew that I was born under an unlucky sign. Stupid tummy bug.

* Last Sunday afternoon I decided quite suddenly to get Xmas shopping done in one day. Yes, you read right I didn't even get up early in the morning. I just turned up willy nilly mid afternoon thinking righto, now who do I need to buy for? Looking back probably not one of my better plans. Might have worked best if I had a list or ...well my wits about me. I forgot to buy about 5 presents and now I have to make time in-between spews to go back. I have spend a rather gargantuan sum of money all fueled by my philosophy of I'd rather buy this perfect present than spend the rest of the day looking for something similar but cheaper. On the whole I do think that if you get me for your Kris Kringle/Secret Santa gift you've hit a spot of good luck. If, however you happen to be me, you're in the shitter.

* Am absolutely appalled almost beyond words by this

Nine males who pleaded guilty last month to gang-raping a 10-year-old girl at the Aurukun Aboriginal community on Cape York have escaped a prison term, with the sentencing judge saying the child victim "probably agreed" to have sex with them.

Once again I'm just disgusted by the way that rape against women is handled in this country (I'm not even going to attempt to discuss 3rd and 2nd world atrocities against women). This is by far not the first time I've written about how overwhelming evidence was ignored in a rape trial on this journal and I can tell it won't be the last. Next we are going to be handing out medals to people who violently rape women. By the way Ms Judge (yes, it was a woman) a 10 year old can't agree to shit, no matter how much you rationalise it - yes even in QLD. For fucks sake. How can this still be happening? How can rapists still be getting off? Put your daughters in hiding, that's all I can say. :(

Labels: christmas, dirty femmo, gender stuff, money, rape, sick

posted by M at 9:17 pm 17 comments

I'm struggling lately with feelings of low self worth. I've always struggled with this stuff, as long as I can remember but recently I've felt it more than usual. I do remember being about 6 or so and feeling that I wasn't good enough for my family or friends or school or anyone and those feelings have always been with me ever since. I look back now and know why and how I started feeling like shit about myself but you know..24 odd years of feeling that is a long time to turn a habit into something ingrained. The truth of the matter is that I've never known what it's like to feel that sense of 'this one person in the world accepts me for who I am' - which I'm imagining that most people feel at SOME point in their lives even if it's from their parents or a lover or good friend or offspring etc. Part of this I can credit to my upbringing and part of it probably goes to myself for actually NOT being good enough. I may be self critical but I'm also extremely self reflective and not unfairly either. I do tend to see things as they are, in the harshest possible light, without any kind of rosy glow. It's also true that no one could ever tell me anything to my face or behind my back that I haven't ready flogged myself about a million times already. I've thought of everything already.

Reality; for all my imagination and fanciful thoughts I'm extremely good at it.

My ability to do this has kept me grounded but it's also given me a serve or two up the back of the head - maybe I'm concussed. Right now, I'm being pounded with shitful (made up word) feelings. Feeling undervalued at work is part of it but not all. The house thing isn't going to plan, there has not been anyone boy-ish around in forever and the friends are starting to dwindle. Family too hasn't kept up the bargain of love and respect and all that nice stuff. Health wise I haven't been right for a while either. I don't know what to say - when it's one or two things that aren't going right for a little while then you can put it down to the alignment of stars but when all is very wrong for a very long time then one asks themselves Maybe I really don't deserve any of that nice stuff that normal people have, and the old favourite what's the point?

It's a shitty time of year for being reflective though, I'll admit that. Christmas is seeing people all happy go lucky but I don't feel that way at all. I just feel really empty and like I don't belong. I feel like I'm renting a space and the landlord is going to come along any second now and say 'hey, you're just not living up to expectation' and evict me. Not quite sure where I'll go...

Labels: christmas, fear, fed up, feel like crap, feelings, oh I don't know., questions, sad sack, wonderings

posted by M at 12:02 am 23 comments

Ahhh, Christmas - full of alcohol-laden cheer and little children squealing with glee because they get to sit on the lap of a man with a big sack who offers them candy. Whatever happened to "stranger danger" I wonder? Anyway the year has been a very interesting one. I've...okay it's been as boring as fuck. I became an art teacher, made a movie, created a mural, piss farted around, reconfirmed that yes I am in my LATE TWENTIES (no going back), piss farted around some more, started looking for a house (but realised that being a singleton afforded me no joy in this matter), um...then I think I piss farted around even more and then I got sad. Wow, I sure am one of those doers - how on earth did I keep a blog and update nearly every day with so little going on? Will 2007 be more of the same? Probably. Perhaps I should get you guys to write me a 'to do' list or something to keep me busy. Obviously, I need one.

Anyway, I shall finish off by wishing all those who read/comment (and the one lurker) a Merry Christmas (or other assorted holiday - yes, satanists you too deserve good cheer). And at the risk of sounding like a complete sap I want to say thanks for being my friends. You are much, much more than electronic blips on the computer screen to me - and are sometimes even more real than the friends I have in what I term the reality zone (overrated).

Now every year I have a Christmas message - but this year I couldn't decide - so I'm going to have two. One is an all time favourite from artist Anne Taintor. It's an apt message for me in 2006 - it's exactly how I feel - featured at the beginning of the post. The other is recycled from a card bro gave me a few years ago - I still find it HILARIOUS and absolutely true.



Oh come on, you KNOW you agree :P

And just in case I don't have time. I have a lot of favourite Christmas songs. One of my all time favourites is Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Judy Garland (bless!) but if I play it I know I'll cry so I'm not going to, this year. Instead one from my childhood - Santa Baby - Marilyn Monroe. I used to have the Madonna version on tape somewhere and played it a bazillion times until even I got sick of it (I imagine bro wasn't that impressed either). I tried to put the cassette tape into the computer but it wouldn't go! - anyway if I can't get Mads to play for ya, then Maz will have to do:

Santa Baby - Marilyn Monroe



(and count yourselves lucky because it was going to be Feliz Navidad by Boney M - don't think I'm not playing it right now, because I am!)

Labels: christmas, musical monday, soppy bloggy stuff

posted by M at 8:40 am 20 comments