Posts by Cecelia
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Compare. One common factor emerges: rushing ain't good. We want the new gummint to be a good'un but it's alarming us a wee bit.
Contrast. Bill Ralston's opinion pieces are so lightweight as to be totally unhelpful and lack any sort of wisdom, insight or even irony.
(Can't be bothered giving examples!) -
I've just retired a bit early from secondary school teaching and one of the things that got me down was the bureaucracy of it all. I'm sure I would have loved you as a student, Emma, but if I was your form teacher or house tutor and responsible for your absences I would have been tearing my hair out. With my luck you would have been abducted the very day I didn't report your absence. Or your mother would have made a complaint to the school in the middle of the year because I HADN"T rung up and informed her of your frequent unexplained absences.
Every serial wagger is a bookkeeping nightmare and adds to the admin workload of teachers who just want to teach but have to keep registers and are in their turned bullied by management if they don't dot the Is and cross the Ts.
Most students aren't as bright as you and generally speaking the kids who turn up to class regularly are the ones who get the good grades if that is what people want out of school!
As a teacher with the best intentions I've upset plenty of kids. A few years ago some students of mine and a colleague's performed a ritual burning of Othello.
No matter how hard you try you can't win 'em all. Report comments are written to a deadline and can come out wrong so very easily! There are some 'orrible teachers but most of us want to be liked and don't deliberately torment our young charges. -
"Going forward"
John Key was saying it a lot during the campaign. Tony Veitch used it during his media statement. It was then played and replayed and the term got maximum exposure.
Where did it come from and why did it take off the way it did?
At least "to be honest" is dying out.
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Craig from a while back - I really love Jane Austen - I've read P and P dozens of times and don't like commercial fiction but Twilight was eminently readable. The way she describes Edward; the way she shows a girl's first feelings of sexual attraction: I think it's pretty impressive. I can't quite put my finger on it but the underlying values are pretty awful I think - especially if you are a vegetarian and don't like co-dependent relationships! That's what I'm struggling with - not the quality of Meyer's writing.
And my all time favourite author at this point in time is Coetzee: Disgrace is the best and I loved Diary of a Slow Year. So generally I like a thoughtful read and like male writing. Beats me how I lapped up such girlie stuff as the Twilight saga. -
Great Expectations is okay. Read it with Mister Pip. It's really funny. In parts.
I hate Da Vinci Code with a passion and I haven't even read it. The first SENTENCE is appalling.
Now Stephanie Meyer. Stephanie Meyer. Vampire novels. Wow! I have devoured all four. I'm an English teacher who should know better. I'm 62. Too old for young adult fare?
Has anybody read them and can anybody tell me why I enjoyed them so much WHILE my antenna were telling me "this is sick"? It all started with a Time article - new JK Rowling etc.
I've passed on the addiction to my (girl) students one of whom did a seminar yesterday and mentioned the "erotic power of abstinence." Maybe that's it!
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Why is the Bell Jar disturbing but Hamlet isn't? Or is it? When you get to my age you forget what being disturbed is. I DO remember finding Faust disturbing when I did German.
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As a (soon to retire oh joy) English teacher I was speechless when I read the SST article on texts. It's from an examiner's report that came out ages ago. I've been an examiner and I know where they're coming from but honestly, what's NOT dark about Lord of the Flies and Othello and Macbeth - the texts they like!!?? Macbeth's head is on a stake at the end, for goodness sake. I don't think that happens in Shawshank.
One of the short stories we do in year 11 was on the naughty list so I did a big long rationale for studying it and told my kids today how they had to go out there and prove the examiners wrong.
We discussed the epiphany at the end. They're not terribly academic kids but one of them said there was an epiphany in the Simpsons so I'm off to Google that for tomorrow.
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About Palin's pride in her soldier son ...
I know she didn't "send" him but her status as a loving "Mom" conflicts in my bigoted left wing NZ mind with her stated pride in his willingness to fight in Vietnam ... oops Iraq.
When I had my three sons - potential cannon fodder to someone of my generation - I prayed to God (whom I don't believe in) that I would never see them enlisted to fight in a war. (These days girls go too, so ...) But Palin is positively gleeful about her Track going to war. A pretty damn pointless war. He could die.
sorry about the syntax, Russell - I'm home on sick leave - brain not in gear - running on instinct ...
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Going back to an earlier page, I think that Sarah Palin is pretty. She looks really good, an unusual thing in a politician?
But if we judge her by the content of her character ... She is proud of sending her son to a war zone to fight a war many Americans consider unjust or unwise. Fighting for his country???
And she believes in teaching creationism!
And the moose stew ... and the guns ... the NRA.
Time for another Michael Moore doco.
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Never mind Winston. Has Helen Clark lied to us? Is withholding the truth lying?
And really I don't give a fig about the donations and I've never approved of Winston. Anyway, I doubt if the odd hundred thou has ruined our democracy. I guess Nats have lots of tricky way of getting money too BUT if our Helen has been dishonest than I'm moving to Oz.