Sunday night experimental dinner

Spinach meatloaf and roasted veg damper. Yum!

Shocking News : Potential Primary School Nit Plague

Dear School,

It was with shock and concern that I read in the newsletter that a case of head lice has been detected in the school. Following your advice, I am avoiding alarm but agree that immediate action must be taken.

There has been much discussion about this development throughout the parent body and it seems that the outbreak at this stage may be confined to a few classes in the lower school. In order to avoid a wider problem, can I suggest the following as a way forward.

1. Prep to year 3 to be considered under quarantine for the next three weeks. Students (and their siblings) should undertake distance education during this time.
2. After the three weeks is up, students must see a doctor/hairdresser and have their lice-free status confirmed by certificate.
3. Random on-the-spot lice checks to be carried out by admin staff daily for the next two months. Students with lice in their hair will be immediately excluded.

I have diligently checked my children's heads and have found that they are clear. I trust that your school head lice management policy will ensure that they stay this way.

Yours,

A. Parent

WW series 6...

...in a day.

Well, almost. 32 hours.

Overcome by my own administrative awesomeness.

GTD? Who needs it!

My systems at work this year are incredible. So far I haven't lost anything. I should write a book.

I teach 13 different classes across 4 year levels. And run some extra-curricula stuff. How do you imagine that I manage all the planning, paperwork, marking, records etc for all of these classes and activities? Let me tell you.

For each year level that requires paper (not little kids) I have 2 displays folders. One is called 'stuff I've given out - masters' and the other is called 'stuff I've given out - copies'. In the masters folder I keep two copies of everything (just in case) and in the copies folder I put the handouts before I've given them to the kids and then any leftovers after I've distributed them. In the back of the copies folder I put completed work that I'm marking. I also have a clipboard holding a printed copy of my e-markbook. I write on it during the day then transfer stuff to my computer during staff meeting in the afternoon.

Tonight I've finished making my junior choir name tags. We start rehearsing at 7.45am and school starts at 8.20 so there is no time to waste marking 60 names off a roll. Instead, the kids collect a name tag as they walk into the room. I gather up the name tags that aren't collected and mark those kids absent on my choir roll during staff meeting after school. Magic.

I am almost overcome by my administrative awesomeness. My system last year was reasonably effective* but this year's is beyond anything I've seen done before. For a small sum I can tell you the best type of display folders to use. Or you may prefer to wait for my book.


*  The folder of doom contained every piece of paper/piece of choir music/confiscated love letter that I had collected/copied/handed out over the year. If kids lost anything, they had to search through the folder of doom to find a copy. 

seven things.

• The marriage books are right: make time for each other, learn good communication skills, talk about issues, be nice to each other... All obvious but really important.

• Practice on the small stuff - who will wash the dishes, who will vacuum the floor - because bigger issues are coming and you need to have the skills to deal with them. (Paying for someone else to clean your house in the pre-kid stage may not help you long term.)

• Flatmates are easier to live with than spouses. Don't think your marriage will be fine just because you lived together for a couple of years.

• Money doesn't fix things.

• A career won't make you happy.

• Kids won't keep you together.

• It really sucks when it all falls apart.

We're sorry (so, so sorry) but unsurprised.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 eLove is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it jis not irritable or resentful;2 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 mLove bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,endures all things.

Nicodemus story

I was really pleased with how Sunday school went this morning. I felt like I was able to hold the kids through a somewhat abstract story. I made this into a big book and ad-libbed around it. Feel free to use it (print it out or beam it up) if you ever have to teach this chapter.

Our Christmas tree came down today

6 weeks late.

It was stressing me out. Another job not done. I don't put Christmas trees up or take Christmas trees down. The kids are responsible. But I've not had the time or energy to insist that it be taken down.

I had a brainwave at 4am this morning. I got up and wrote the kids a note, "No electronic media today until the christmas tree is taken down and put away properly."

(I also added 'half hour computer time = 15 minutes instrument practice.)

I woke up to the sound of a trombone and cello.

Beautiful.

Priscilla and Aquilla center conference

I'm listening to the 2012 talks.

Did anyone go?

Tantalising.

We've tasted the first fruits of the spirit. We want more.

Romans 8:23

Where has my comments widget gone?

Always good to find a theological justification for laziness and disorganisation

Today I was busy cooking dinner at 3pm. I pointed out to the kids how awesome a mother I must be to be onto it so early (6.30 is normal.) Nathan said it was a risk to make dinner then. Jesus might come back sometime in the afternoon and my efforts would have been wasted.

Great thinking.

Christ brings all things back again.

What does this mean, "I bring all things back?" Surely, that nothing is lost. In Christ all is gathered up and kept, everything in a transformed state, purified, and set free from agonising selfishness of desires. Christ brings all this back again, but in the form that God had intended it from the beginning, unstained by our sins."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a letter to Eberhard Bethge, December 1943.

Amen. Maranatha.

Tell me.

How hard is it to make a patchwork quilt?

I'd like a nice big one for our bed.

I have no skills in sewing, no ability to read instructions, no staying power and no attention to detail. Is a quilt beyond me?

Piper on 'does Christianity have a feminine feel?'

He didn't answer the question in the same way that I did (below).

Have a listen - from 5:12 to 8:50.

Piper says that a community with a 'strong masculine feel' creates a space that is big and roomy and has space in it for many feminine feels. A man who is prominently masculine can also be appropriately feminine. A woman who is prominently feminine, can also be appropriately masculine. He defines what he means by masculine and feminine.

Masculine = having backbone, being articulate and thoughtful
Feminine = being tender, kind, nurturing, warm, artistic, liking to write.

Trying to work it out... The overall vibe of Christianity (by which I think he means the Christian community) is to be masculine - tough, backbone, powerful, authoritative. "Strong singing primarily led by men, and then a voice from God is heard."

So it's not just about having men in leadership roles, it is about those more 'manly' qualities being on display. It wouldn't be right for an artsy guy to be leading a church in an artsy way. He might be being inappropriately feminine. But maybe if he were to do that more in the background, in an overall context of 'manliness', it would be okay. Is that it?

Piper is winsome and eloquent and I have sympathy for what he is saying, but I don't think his categories of masculinity and femininity are biblical. Am I wrong? Point me to verses.

Piper is advocating more than just that men should occupy leadership roles in church. He may not be after a culture where all men play football, but I think he is saying that that the stereotypical man vibe is to dominate our experience of Christianity.

Thoughts?

Why I'm tired.

Six observations about men in ministry

In one way or another, I spend quite a bit of time hanging out with men who work in full time ministry. Over time I’ve noticed that the same themes keep on coming up in our discussions. A friend suggested it might be good blog fodder. So here are a handful of observations. What do you think?


1. The house of cards is balancing precariously. Be afraid.
Men in ministry are desperately afraid. Afraid that the minister in the next suburb will steal your congregation, afraid that your people won’t like you, afraid that the other ministers in your denomination will think you are incompetent, compromised, heretical or ungodly. Things may look like they are holding things together, but it is all so precarious if could collapse at any moment. And you will have failed.

2. The house of cards is balancing precariously. Watch out.
Men in ministry have a tendency towards paranoia. People are out to get you. You have a small (and shrinking) group of people that you trust and everyone outside that group is treated with suspicion. Especially other men in ministry. The fact that they don’t do things in exactly the same way as you means that they don’t like your way. They think you are wrong (or worse, incompetent. Or maybe even heterodox.) Many of them will knock your house of cards over if they get the chance.

3. The house of cards is balancing precariously. Don’t strengthen your neighbour’s house.
Because you are so afraid that your own house will tumble, your ability to praise your neighbour’s construction skills are seriously depleted. You feel that to affirm the work of the minister in the next church will upset some delicately balanced system and cause your own work to fall (also true of co-workers.) Praising your underlings (who you don't perceive as a threat) or those in non-competing ministries is possible, but praising your peers... almost impossible.

4. What you want more that almost anything else is to be told you are doing a good job. With specifics. And you want your peers to do it. (But they won’t, because they are afraid that it will somehow knock their own house over (see #3).)

5. Ministers are emotionally muted around their collegues. There is shame in admitting weakness. Shame in struggling with doubts, shame in struggling with anger or sexual temptation, shame in admitting incompetence. So you don’t share anything much at all. This creates a weird self-protective dynamic. You both have PhDs in NT, surely you've got interesting stuff to talk about! No. It seems not.

6. Indentity issues are big. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who defines themselves more by what they do than ministers. Your whole self perception is wrapped up in your job. Fail at it and you’ve lost everything. You think that your friends wouldn’t like you any more if you were no longer the hot shot preacher you think they think you are. And if you’re a second generation minister there’s another bag of issues to sort through. If your dad is someone with whom you fundamentally agree, then how do you assert your independence from him?

Thoughts?

What I love about blogging #867

That I can have a whole lot of people over in my lounge room at once.

The guys go hang out in the family room and bash heads over theological issues (I hand out band-aids, bandage up any broken bones and remind you all of the importance of getting along) and the girls sit on the lounge and talk about Malory Towers books. I'm equally invested in both discussions.

Malory Towers Mega Quiz

I spent yesterday with my good friend Cate. Cate and I share a love of literature - in particular, Malory Towers books. We're both up with our MT trivia. Probably equally as good. This quiz is a continuation of our discussion yesterday. Feel free to answer the questions if you can. No cheating. I wrote the questions without looking at the books. You answer them from your MT general knowledge.


A. Books
1. Which book number(s) have the word 'year' in the title?
2. Which book number(s) have the word 'form' in the title?
3. Which book number(s) have the word 'term' in the title?
4. Which two books take place straight after each other (i.e. the terms run directly after each other.)
5. In which two books was Darrell head of the form? In which 2 books was Sally head?

B. Book 1
1. List three new girls that come to MT in this book.
2. Darrell has a problem with her temper. What does she do wrong?
3. Who does Darrell befriend at first? Is this good? Why/why not?
4. What does Sally Hope look like?
5. What is Sally's problem? How does it resolve?
6. Who rescues Darrell from the pool? How does she do it? What does she gain from this experience?
7. Who is the form mistress? Name one other teacher.
8. What is Darrell's father's occupation?
9. What is the name of Gwendoline Mary's ex-governess?
10. What tower does Darrell belong to?

C.  Book 2
1. Name 2 new girls and describe their talents and faults.
2. By the end of the book, these new girls have paired up with someone. Name their partners.
3. Who had a near death experience?
4. Who stole things?
5. Who is friends with a west tower girl?

D. Book 3
1. What is Mavis' talent? What is her fault? How is she cured?
2. What is Bill's full name?
3. What is the name of Bill's horse?
4. Who is the form mistress?
5. Who does Darrell meet before term begins? Where is she from? What does she imagine she's good at? What is she actually good at?

E. Book 4
1. What major stressful thing happens this term?
2. Who played nasty tricks on who and why?
3. What health problem did Clarissa have?
4. What did Gwendoline do to try to escape the exams?
5. Who had relatives begin at MT this term?

F. Book 5
1. Who wrote the script? Who wrote the music? Who was the conjurer?
2. Which role did Gwendoline want? Who got this role?
3. What responsibility did Moira have?
4. Who was the blessed martyr?
5. Which new girl got on everyone's nerves because she thought she was good at everything?

G. Book 6
1. Why did Amanda come to MT?
2. What was she good at?
3. What was wrong with her coaching methods?
4. How did June help?
5. Who was head girl? Who was sport's captain?

H. Friends
Name the friend of each of these girls.
1. Sally
2. Belinda
3. Clarissa
4. Alicia
5. Mary-Lou

God gave Christianity a feminine feel

Ephesians 5
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Saviour. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.


In order to follow Christ, believers must become somewhat feminine. We respond to Christ as a wife responds to her husband - in obedient submission. There is no room in the church for alpha male types. Christ fulfils this role. He is our alpha.


And he delights to choose people (male and female) who delight in being beta. Compare Jesus' encounters with Nicodemus (Jn 3) and with the Samaritan woman (Jn 4). Jesus was not pleased with Nicodemus' masculine competitiveness and took him down a peg or ten. He favoured the more feminine response of the Samaritan woman.


God gave Christianity a feminine feel on purpose. Throughout history his choice has consistently been for the underdog - quiet, bookish Jacob over big hairy Esau , harp playing poet David over beefy Goliath, the village of Bethlehem over the city of Jerusalem, a stable over a palace... and now, the oppressed gender over the oppressor gender. It makes sense that Christianity has  a distinctly feminine feel. If one wants to be part of God's kingdom he/she will need to leave macho behind and  learn to submit to Christ as a woman does to her husband.     


Of course to speak of Christianity having a feminine feel is silly. I want to stay in the complementarian camp, but Mr. Piper, you are making it really hard.

Miracle Metaphors

Metaphors have remarkable healing powers. They fix things.

Andrew doesn't believe it*, but it's true.

Here's how it works.

1. You tell me about the rubbish day you've had, which is really just a symptom of the rubbish year you are having, which matches your whole rubbish life.
2. I reflect back to you what you've told me using a nice metaphor.
3. You feel listened to and understood. (Which, for many of us, is enough.)
4. The metaphor helps you to see your troubles as something separate from you. It bundles them up neatly and ties them with a bow. Your problem becomes something that you can sit back and look at or walk around and examine from different angles.
5. You gain the rationality to analyse things more objectively and see the way forward.
6. You get on with life.

See?

* Andrew will argue that the problem still isn't fixed. I say it is because the real problem is not the situation itself, but the way that we become entangled in them. Ensnared. Metaphors free us.

Food on my dog

You have to check out this blog. Karen says it's pointless (but hilarious). I say that the whole www was worth creating just for this.

Note to self #395

If a whiteboard marker doesn't work today, it won't work tomorrow. Don't leave it with the others, hoping for an overnight resurrection. Throw it away.

abortion silent pastors

I think Andrew is one.

Reading an email from a pro-life group about what our church should be doing to stop abortion. It is lengthy. If our church did 20% of them, it would be all that our church did.

One of the final items on the list is for the pastor to get alongside local abortionists and abortion-silent pastors in order to convince them to change their ways. Andrew's only mentioned abortion a couple of times that I can think of. And those mentions were only in passing.

Not sure what the point of this post is. But church isn't a lobby group.

How long does it take to get sick of a good song?

Nine listens. If they all take place in the same 2 hour period.

I had forgotten.

Even if it's a good song and teaches the exact chord/rhythm/whatever that needs to be taught, you still shouldn't do it with every class. 

Finally.

Normal work day.

I have a timetable.

I get to see kids all day - not just when I can beg their teachers to let me have them.

Yr 6 is learning the joy that is Dm chord. And we're playing Coldplay Princess of China.

One week into school and...

Nits.

The Ghost Ship

I'm running a choir for year 2 and 3 kids this year. Looking forward to it. I'm starting with this set of songs.

Thoughts of Home

The Captian's Mate

last ep series 5

tense.

When it comes to evil...

... we are ambidextrous.


Micah 7:3.

watching the West Wing.

Season 4.

On Australia Day.

Find Life - John's gospel for kids

I've been working on this for ages.

I'm reasonably happy with it - still a few typos to fix, but this is basically it.

It also comes in a younger kids and little kids version and with drafted scripts etc. But I can't be bothered uploading them right now.

Have I mentioned how much I love my job?

Having fun.

Aussie flag flyers more racist: survey

The World Today 

By David Weber

Updated January 24, 2012 15:17:27

PHOTO: The researchers said not all flag bearers were racist. (ABC News)

RELATED STORY: Australia still racist, says surgeon Charlie Teo

RELATED STORY: Teo targets intolerance in Australia Day speech

RELATED STORY: Booze-related violence to peak on Australia Day

MAP: Australia

People who fly Australian flags on their cars have more racist views than the rest of the population, a new study has found.

Many flag flyers also support the now-defunct White Australia Policy and are afraid the Australian culture is under threat, researchers from the University of Western Australia say.

Researchers surveyed 513 revellers among the 300,000 gathered to watch the Australia Day fireworks in Perth last year.

One in five of those surveyed said they had attached Australian flags to their cars.

WA University anthropologist Farida Fozdar says those flying the flags expressed more racist opinions on a number of issues.

"People who had flags on their cars, 43 per cent of them believe the White Australia Policy had saved Australia from problems that other countries had experienced," she said.

"Fifty-six per cent of those with flags on their cars feared their culture and its most important values were in danger compared to 34 per cent of non-flag flyers."

Professor Fozdar says of the people surveyed who do fly flags, the common factor was fear.

"You can't actually ask outright a question about 'do you feel fearful?' I guess the question that I asked that was closest to that was the one about fearing the loss of one's cultures and most important values," she said.

"Certainly 56 per cent of people with car flags agreed with that statement, but there was definitely a feeling of, I guess, being under siege."

back to school!

Yeah. I'm excited.

10 things I love about this stage of parenting (this stage = minimum effort, maximum reward)

1. They don't take much looking after.

2. They are all very touchy at the moment. Cuddling me and holding my hand when we're out are popular. I like it.

3. They have good taste in music, which makes driving long distance fun. We put 6 cds into player and then take it in turns to choose a song to listen to. Current faves are Cold Play (track 10 Mylo Xyloto), Greenday (Viva la Gloria), and Tim Freedman (You Weren't in Love With Me). When a nice metaphor comes along, we talk about it.

4. They love having me at school with them. I'll teach Nathan and Joel again this year, but not Micah. (He feels a bit left out but is happy that his classroom is closest to mine. How sweet!)

5. They are great to hang out with. Interesting conversationalists etc.

6. We talk quite a lot about the bad-dog-things that our pups gets up to at night after we go to bed. (We know that she goes out places at night because she sleeps most of the day.) She has a thing for casinos and she spends a lot of time at the pokies. We are disappointed that Andrew's Wilke's reforms won't be coming in. Arry's bad-dog habits are getting expensive.

7. Nathan (#1) and Micah (#3) are now sharing a room and finding joy in each other. They talk about sporting trivia, play Ticket To Ride, play backyard cricket, and listen to ABC radio. This delights me.

8. Joel now has his own room. It is his pride and joy. He keeps it perfect and stays on his bed reading for hours a day. Long time readers will rejoice with me in this!

9. I love it when Micah plays cello. I love that I can accompany him.

10.  I'm paying Joel to me origami Ninja Stars to decorate my classroom. 20c per star. I love that he still sees this as a good deal. I need 30-50 stars...

The joys of renting.

My mum bought a steam cleaner and cleaned her 30 year old carpet. It looks amazing.

I borrowed my mum's steam cleaner and cleaned our <30 year old carpet. It looks like damp rental carpet.

I tried.

work work work work work

I've just finished 3 pupil free days at work.

At the beginning of the year you want the whole school to look just so. Classrooms fresh and bright, grounds clean, everything organised. Not so for us this year. Our main administration building - formally a feature of the school - is without a roof and many of it's walls. There are security fences up to keep the kids (and parents) out of the construction site. There are Q-build guys moving around shifting stuff. Our school hall has been turned into an admin area and staffroom with dividing boards and furniture that doesn't match. Teachers have done a good job in their classrooms but the carpet hasn't been cleaned (no one was allowed on site over the holidays because of the asbestos risk) and there is still a slightly smokey smell hanging around. We had no internet at all until yesterday (and it is still not school-wide (the server room was destroyed)), so everyone's been working off photocopies of photocopies. We start teaching from the national curriculum on Monday, but many are having trouble accessing the resources.

I'm more organised than I've ever been before, but I feel stressed. Just want the kids to arrive so we can get on with it.

holidays over

Back to work.