Sue Bursztynski's Page

Blogging with 8A

2009-07-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

This week, I started to set up my homeroom/English class with their own blogs. It seemed like a good way to get them started on a sort of on-line journal and let them see that there are other things than social networking sites!

It's still at the teething stage. I suppose I should have committed them to one choice of blog, but you have to have a Gmail account to access Blogger easily and besides, Livejournal offered "friends" which seemed a good way to ease them into a different kind of on-line presence, so for those of them who didn't want to bother opening a new email account, I offered Livejournal. I discussed the differences between the two, pointed out that they could post plenty of pictures on Blogger, but they could have "friends" on Livejournal and let them decide.

Some of them took to it with great enthusiasm, had fun coming up with names for their journals and actually succeeded in putting up posts. Others tried desperately to open their new accounts, but had trouble with the "are you a human?" check where you have to type in the nonsense words, because even when they got it right they were rejected. Then there were those who managed but said, "Okay, I'm in, now what?" and didn't like my suggestion of beginning with an introduction to themselves. There were a couple whose posts were written SMS-style and they insisted they wanted it that way.

There were those who spent so much time acquiring "friends" that they didn't get around to posting.

And then there were those who set up successfully the other day, but forgot their logins and passwords alike.

I had taken a list of URLs, but I am going to make each of them give me their log-in and password if they don't want to risk recording it in their school diaries, which have a tendency to get lost.

I took them to the library, where we only have 12 computers, so had to book the class set of Netbook computers to have enough for everyone. It sort of worked, but those cute little computers take time to get used to.

I need to think of a structured way to get this going, but I think they enjoyed it and once it's up and running, it can be a semi-regular thing. They can post at home or at lunchtime, they can post late in a period when they have finished other work.

Still, I'm exhausted!

Till next time...

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL 2. TEACHING YOUR GRANDMOTHER TO SUCK EGGS: SCHOOLS, TEACHING AND THE GOVERNMENT.

2008-10-18T18:31:00.000-07:00

Recently, in Melbourne newspapers, we’ve been reading all sorts of stuff about how schools have been wasting too much time doing all that fancy-schmancy stuff and it’s time to get back to the basics! Or, rather, the Basics! You know, the three Rs that we’ve supposedly been neglecting all these years (perhaps in response to all those letters to the editor that begin “They oughta be teaching - fill in the blank- in the schools!” Not to mention editorials that think we “oughta” be teaching swimming, values, health, drug education, sex education, the list goes on and on, in the schools! The kind of stuff parents used to teach, but think their taxes ought to be paying for, these days). I’ve been working in the school system most of my adult life and can’t remember when nobody was teaching the basics (sorry, the Basics). The grammar books are a lot easier to follow and less forbidding than they used to be, but they’re still there and nowadays you can also go on-line and get other people’s ideas. I’ve had to. Suddenly, I have had to be responsible for 8B, in an area I haven’t covered in a long, long time. So I know. The simple fact is, most people can’t spell. I remember, in my second year out, having a student who was bright and articulate but couldn’t spell to save his life. Probably, these days, he’s using a spellchecker in his highly-paid job. Maybe there’s a spelling gene. I think I have one. Most people don’t. You can only do your best to compete with the advertising and the TV shows and the shop signs and the text messaging, all of which tell people that it's okay to use apostrophes other than to join two words or indicate possession - or not to use them at all, that it's fine to abbreviate words to "txt", even when it isn't costing you money.

But hey, the government knows best. At the Federal level, they’ve got the bright idea that they can grab kids who got high scores in uni, give them a five-week crash course and send them out to the schools to teach experienced teachers how to do it properly.

Then there are all these warm and fuzzy articles in the newspapers about this or that primary school where they’re teaching – wow! – local history. Or robotics. Well, duh. Guess what? We had local history at Flemington Secondary College back in the 1980s, when I was getting a full day’s time allowance to handle it. People from outside the school system were coming in to use our historical newspaper microfilms. And at Sunshine College, where I now work, we have local history units at Year 9. Sunshine is a very important place in the history of industrial relations. Some of our students are descended from the original Sunshine Harvester workers. We like them to know that they have plenty of which they can be proud. And yes, thanks to a very good teacher willing to give up his own time, we have robotics too, and students who wouldn’t normally hang around after school hours are going along. It’s going to expand.

So what’s new?

Victorian schools these days make a lot of fuss about literacy, but get rid of their teacher-librarians. Thing is, when Jeff Kennett came to power, apart from closing a lot of schools to save money (and make money in the case of Flemington SC, which he sold to the Victoria Racing Club next door), gave principals powers they’d always wanted. Among them was control of the purse strings. The trouble with that, which these principals probably never considered, was that controlling the budget means you have to make decisions you mightn't like. You need to fiddle with the funds to make them fit. You have to hope that the more expensive experienced teachers will leave so that you can replace them with kids fresh out of university who don’t have to be paid as much. Of course,you can always, as so many principals do, declare that you want "young and dynamic!" as if you have to be one to be the other. You have to decide that the first place to make cuts is the library which, let’s face it, is just a book room. Give everyone a key and get rid of those people who, after all, just stamp books! They don’t, of course, help design curriculum or teach research skills or fit kids to books or help instill a love of reading. Come on, now! We don’t need them. Not if it means paying out more money.

Or, if you MUST have someone in the library, get someone without library qualifications or teaching qualifications. Much cheaper! And you can make them work longer hours than teachers, even if nobody makes use of them.

We used to be able to apply for jobs at other schools, but with the global budget, once you reach a certain level, you can’t do that any more. Schools aren’t advertising for experienced teachers unless they need someone in a leadership position and then only grudgingly. So if you want to move, you have to take a pay cut and then, when you finally retire, your superannuation pension is lower because the calculations are done on your last two years, no matter how many years you’ve been paying your super contribution before that.

When the budget was centralised, people could be chosen or promoted on merit, not on how much they were going to cost. Schools were still making cuts in the library, but the minimum you had was one full-time teacher-librarian. Those were the days when you could concentrate on the basics instead of our current, overcrowded curriculum when we somehow still fit in the important stuff among all the things that parents don’t want to do any more.

So go on – teach us to suck eggs!

Reflective Journals, Circle Time and 8B

2008-10-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

Recently, the VIT (Victorian Institute of Teaching) decided to show they were doing something other than taking our compulsorily paid money every year and providing us with glossy, self-congratulatory newsletters, so now we have to start, effectively, keeping records for tax and we have to prove that we're doing PD, keeping log books and noting how much time we spend on each PD activity. The fact that we just do it without thinking about it, read stuff for our work, in my case review lots of YA books, read papers for use in class, check out useful web sites, attend conferences and Booktalkers at the State Library and generally exchange information counts for nothing unless we have it written down. We have to prove all these things at our annual reviews anyway, but without all the record-keeping.

It's likely to lead to people counting their hours, saying, "Well, that's VIT satisfied" and not bothering with more, but there you are.

One of the things they suggested is to keep a "reflective journal". Until now, we've had that as an option for our annual reviews, but been assured we don't have to show it to anybody. Which, by the way, doesn't stop meeting leaders from inviting us all to "share" ("Hallelujah, brother! Today I did Circle Time with 8B and one of the students who's normally a pain really enjoyed it!")

At the last meeting we had, I told people I keep a reflective blog and they're welcome to go on-line and look any time they like. My diary I don't share with anyone. I more or less do what "reflective journals" do orally, as does every teacher I know. But now they want it in writing.

So here it is. I did try Circle Time with 8B. They had seemed to enjoy the previous one, which was done with the school nurse, so I decided to have a go at it myself. The theme was "self-esteem", which is this term's Pathways unit (Pathways being a fancy name for "homeroom")and I began by saying something nice about every student in the class.We passed around a "speaker's tool". After that, we had a ball that was thrown around and you had to say something nice about the person who threw it to you. I'd like to say it was a huge success, but while some of them did what they were asked, many couldn't think of anything (this was mostly the more peaceful students, who will write anything you want and do you fabulous posters, but are just too shy to speak up in class) and others simply didn't get the rules about one person speaking at a time and banishing from the Circle anyone who interrupted or put down anyone else. I finished up the period but told them that we wouldn't be doing it again until I was happy with them. Since then, they have asked me, "Can we do Circle Time?" and I've said, firmly.

I think I might try it again, for the last few minutes of a period when they've been good and see if it works better. Meanwhile, I know that at least one student was made happy by my compliments, because she positively beamed when I said how hard she worked and that she did terrific posters. That has to count for something.

And self-esteem is very important. This is not a school with kids who have everything in life. A lot of them have very low self-esteem, especially the worst-behanved, who feel they have something to prove. They need to understand that everyone does something well, even if it's just making other people happy, or being honest about having done the wrong thing. Hey, I discovered that one student, who was having a struggle in class, does tae kwondo! I made sure to let him know how impressed I was.

Circle Time #2 - perhaps even today? Or maybe next week...

Marta Sisay saves the world

2008-08-17T02:02:00.000-07:00

This is an entry that I originally put on my classroom blog. For some reason, it hasn't registered on Google yet and Marta is a wonderful student. She wrote this piece about the day her class went tree-planting in Science Week. I've done minimal editing so you can get her voice. Enjoy!

Save our planet by planting trees

On Thursday 14th of August 2008 we went on excursion to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air by planting a tree with students and some teachers. We went by bus with Mr. Smythe and Mrs. King. When we got there we saw two women standing with the equipment that we were going to use, some of the equipment included water, gloves, shovel and a hammer. We started the day by the two women telling us why we were planting trees and what difference it will make, and then we were partnered and I had Madit as my partner. After that we started digging a hole to put the plant in and when we finished digging a hole we put the plant in the hole and we water it. At the end me and Madit we planted about 8 trees and then it was back to school and into work.

Boys and non-fiction

2008-08-11T02:38:00.000-07:00

I wrote this letter to the Age newspaper in response to an article by that wonderful children's writer Paul Jennings, which was published in the education section one Monday. My letter was published, although the next time I saw the article it had the same list of suggested books. And don't get me wrong, they were great books, but there seems to be some idea that if it isn't fiction, it isn't reading. Or, at best, they say with a rolling of eyes, "Oh, well, at LEAST it's reading..."

But non-fiction is still story-telling, as I've found out over the years as a writer of non-fiction for children. It's just telling a story that is true.

I've found that my students will usually shut up when I'm reading to them - but it has to be true. The weirder the better - it has to be so weird it could almost BE fiction ... but it's not. And they read the newspapers or watch the news on TV. Quite often, they'll say, "Oh, yeah, I heard about that on the news ... on Sixty Minutes... "

So, off to find something else "stranger than fiction, perhaps in MX or in the Age Odd Spot which I will follow up in Google News, to present to my class.

Meanwhile, here's the letter:

"I enjoyed Paul Jennings' article on encouraging boys to read. Mr Jennings is one of Australia's best writers for girls and boys alike. What he says is absolutely right, as far as it goes. Teachers can't do all the work. Parents need to be involved. And yet... your recommended reads for boys included not one non-fiction book.

Boys love non-fiction. As a librarian I have watched English teachers yell at boys to put down that book on soccer or cars which would have engaged them and get a novel - right now! As a teacher myself, I've seen a noisy, almost-all-boys class hush and listen when I read them some bizarre news story, followed up by, "Miss... is that true? Really?" I've been at children's literature panels where participants grumbled, "Oh, well, at least they're reading..." implying that they SHOULD have been reading fiction.

All right, I admit it: I write non-fiction. Two-thirds of the sales on my latest book have been through Book Club, where children can choose what they want. What does this suggest?

If you want boys to read, you have to offer them what they want to read."

St Kilda on Sunday

2008-08-02T21:23:00.000-07:00

This morning I had to get an MRI scan to work out why my left leg is still hurting a couple of months after some idiot in Hobart knocked me over while daydreaming as I crossed at a green light. After I'd had the snapshots of my knee taken (listening to soothing Rimsky-Korsakov and Chopin), I decided it was too late to go to the Continuum meeting in Carlton, so I took the 16 tram down to the beach.

I'd earned a break, after spending all of yesterday on my computer, fixing up and editing my manuscript for my new book, which I'm doing for Ford Street Publishing. No title so far, because neither of us really knows what to call it. Paul likes: Crime Time: Australians Behaving Badly. I still have eight chapters and the "Did You Know...?" file to finish, plus some more "Did You Know...?" entries because Paul Collins, my publisher, keeps worrying we might have left someone out on the list of Australia's famous criminals and I keep finding amusing snippets, such as the story of the forger who was Australia's first artist and forged cash on the way to Australia to get extras for himself and his friends in chains,and the fact that our Prime Minister has convict ancestors. But it should mostly be over by the end of this week, because the typesetters are on holidays for a month and Paul wants to get it all out of the way before September (though I'll still have to do my index).

The Sunday craft market was in full swing. I saw the Dutch Blue Delft stall and asked the lady there - the artist - if she could bring me a full-sized teapot, which I can buy as part of my wedding gift to my sister's best friend's daughter. They're very beautiful and I have had one for many years, still used for Saturday morning breakfast cuppas.

The gentleman who makes Australian animal stuffed toys was next on my stop list - I have a wombat of his, plus I have bought other toys for children. One of his wombats went to England, for the daughter of my penpal, Joyce Cluett. Tricia is grown now - perhaps she has kept it for her own kids. I hope so. I have also had a recent e-mail from my American "honorary cousin", Walter Bursztynski, who has a second grandchild. I could perhaps send a wombat for the new child, Paige, and a possum puppet for young Chase, her brother - it's great, you put it on your hand and drape it over your arm and it looks as if you're cuddling a possum. He'd love it!

I did consider some painted glassware for Maia, the young woman who is marrying, but the man only had two of everything on the stall, his partner makes them as the mood hits her and two wine glasses are useless for the Shabat table. Pity.

Next were the wonderful wooden chopping boards, but Maia has one - I gave it to her for her engagement.

For myself I bought several pieces of handmade soap and two CDs of soothing harp music, from the lady who recorded it and gave me two for $10. A win-win situation - it would have cost her about $1.00 to burn and most folk selling their music charge a lot more. I look forward to playing them. I do like to support local artists.

Then down to the beach for a walk. Unfortunately, the newly-built walk has taken up a large chunk of what was beach. They have knocked down the small round shelter that has been at the start of the pier for years and had a Mirka Mora mosaic in it - I hope they at least preserved that somewhere! There is nowhere to sit along most of the walk and for the moment, at least, no designated bike path, so cyclists just zoom along wherever they please and walkers have to leap out of their way. I know we're supposed to be all for bikes because they're more environmentally friendly than cars, but I just CAN'T like the things when they're on the footpath. Elderly people have been known to get killed by some idiot cyclist who thinks they own the path.

I shouted myself lunch at the Stoke House restaurant on the beach - barramundi, quite nice, but not as good value for money as the barramundi at the Presse cafe near my home, which comes in a bigger piece and lots of salad/potatoes/whatever, and four dollars dearer.

I remember when the Stoke House was just a pleasant place for afternoon tea instead of a rather upmarket restaurant. You could get huge scones fresh from the oven, lots of cream and jam and a massive pot of tea or coffee. Or Sachertorte or bienenstich... Yum! No more, alas! But it is a nice, if expensive, restaurant.

I am writing this in a local Internet cafe on Sunday afternoon, before going home to clean the house and do some more editing ... Work never ends!

Another family photo

2008-02-29T15:44:00.000-08:00

Here's my grandmother, Zelda Altbaum, after whom I was named. She was the mother of my own Mum, Mila Bursztynski. Mum doesn't know when this photo was taken, though she says it was certainly before Zelda was married. I'm guessing it was about 1920, judging by the style of her coat and hat. She was, like most of my family, a victim of Herr Hitler, so I never met her. Mum says she was the firm parent you have to have while Grandad Altbaum was the one who undermined any punishment by taking her out for afternoon tea. :-) She also says that her mother got her into reading by asking her to read aloud from such books as War and Peace (Mum was in prinary school at the time.)

I would have liked to know her. This is the only picture we have of Zelda.

Technorati Claim

2007-12-21T18:20:00.001-08:00

Thought I'd done this ages ago, but here it is, so I can ping them when I update and find something on Google more up-to-date than my Thousand Paper Cranes post!

Technorati Profile

More family stuff

2007-09-24T17:47:00.000-07:00

This is Mum's gorgeous sister Hanna and her husband Mendel in 1936. It's truly sad to think I never knew most of my family because of the Holocaust. After it was over, on Mum's side ofthe family, there were only her and her sister Esther and a cousin or two whom I never met as they were in America. When people who will never suffer such loss question the Holocaust, my blood boils.

Anyway, here's Hanna - see what I mean about the film star looks?

On scanning family photos

2007-09-17T04:15:00.000-07:00

Dad gave me a pile of photos to scan a few days ago. Some I have seen before, others not. The pictures are of him, his friends and Mum's family. It's strange to see family members in the 1930s and 1940s, before I was born, some relatives I never met, such as my mother's beautiful older sister Hanna, with her husband Mendel, taken in 1936. She looked like a film star, the kind you could almost imagine being carried up the Empire State building by a giant ape ... or in Roman costume, falling in love with Fredric March. Dad was quite a hunk in his youth too, smouldering out at you from some of them, standing in his Israeli army uniform or outside the hostel where he worked...

I'm going to use this post as an experiment, to see if I can put one of the pics up on-line. Here's one of my gorgeous family members for the enjoyment of all.

Afternoon Tea at the Windsor

2007-07-11T18:10:00.000-07:00

Let's face it: I'd always wanted to find an excuse to have afternoon tea at the Windsor Hotel, one of Melbourne's historic hotels. Afternoon tea there is an institution. I'd never got around to it. So when, a few days ago,my Brisbane friend Natalie Prior e-mailed me that she was going to be in town to see her new publishers at Penguin, it seemed a great excuse. She was staying at the hotel anyway; she'd liked it when she was here as a guest at the Melbourne Writers' Festival and decided she'd indulge, despite the hotel's expensive room rates.

On the Sunday, I rang the hotel to inquire about times and prices and discussed it with an amiable young staff member with a pleasant Irish brogue. I booked us in for 3.30 and off I went, Monday afternoon - the first day of my term holidays.

Natalie and I sat in her room and chatted for about half an hour, interrupted only by a phone call from my sister, Mary, who wanted to know something about a payment for her latest article; it was more than she'd expected and she was wondering if there was a mistake somewhere. Natalie told her to take the sizable amount offered and run. Then we strolled downstairs to the hotel restaurant, where we were settled into a nice corner table. The waitress brought us coffee and a huge pile of sandwiches each, along with a cake stand of tiny, dainty cakes. It didn't look much, but by the time we were through with our afternoon tea, there were still half the cakes left.All those sandwiches, maybe? The coffee was a bottomless cup, as much as you wanted. The waitress also brought us each a glass of iced water.

Outside, it was cold and wet; inside, Natalie and I sat and yarned on about family, friends, work, movies, books and publishers - I last saw her a year ago, but it was as if we'd never parted.

Afterwards, when I was standing in a queue to pay for the tea - a set price per person - I was surprised to see several people who were paying extra because they'd ordered wine. I mean, honestly, why would anyone want to buy more stuff when there was plenty to eat and drink within the set meal?

Anyway, now I know how it works, I'm certainly going to do it again, whenever my next interstate or overseas friend is in town.

Mark's Wedding

2007-03-18T00:28:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I went to my nephew Mark's wedding. Mark and Bianca had been going together for several years. You wouldn't have imagined them together. He's six foot four in height, she's more like about four foot ten(This is not necessarily a problem. I'm five foot two and used to date a guy around Mark's height. You do have to lean a long way back to kiss, unless you're sitting down). He's gentle. She's a black belt in her martial art of choice. That said, she works for a vet and adores working with the animals. But their personalities meshed. And she had some great ideas for the wedding, such as getting a friend to make up about fifty squares of patchwork and sending them to family and friends to decorate. These squares were then made up into the chupah, the wedding canopy. And wasn't the finished product gorgeous! Mine was a unicorn (because that's my personaily) surrounded by Australian native flowers and Mark and Bianca's names and Hebrew wedding date. Embroidered, of course - that's what I'm good at. My parents contributed one of Dad's cartoons of themselves, Mum's contribution a heart with their names in it, between Mum and Dad's upraised hands. I traced the picture on and embroidered it in black thread. Mark said it was his favourite. The chupah will be an heirloom they will cherish.

Friends of Bianca's family lent their home for the event. I still have no idea how they got 270 people into a large, but not huge suburban back yard, and it wasn't even very crowded, not uncomfortably crowded, anyway. The food was home made, not catered, and it was terrific. Vegetarian, as Mark is a veggo, and it meant I could eat anything on the table. I usually go for vegetarian on plane flights in preference to kosher, which is rarely as nice.

My brother Maurice's mother-in-law, Carole, for whom a kosher meal was prepared, was very helpful in the lead-up to the wedding. She and I went halves on a pair of Shabbat candlesticks. I also went halves on a dinner set with my friend Bart.

The ceremony was beautiful. One of Mark's friends from his rock group sang the bride and groom under the canopy, and the rabbi was a "cool" one from my sister-in-law's workplace (Joanne works at Mount Scopus College). And Mark and Bianca were beaming, absolutely delighted with each other and with finally Doing It. The little girls - my grandnieces, Dezzy and Rachel, and my niece Amelia, made lovely flowergirls in their pretty floral gowns. I'm assuming someone explained to Amelia that it was okay to scatter flower petals on the ground. At her Uncle Robbie's wedding, she was scrabbling around, tidying them away during the ceremony! Mark said to me, dazed but thrilled, "Hey, I'm married!"

The speeches, later in the evening, included three songs - one from Bianca's Dad, one from my brother Maurice and one from Mark himself who decided it was easier to sing than to make a speech. Bianca, though, had no problem. "He's my best friend and my lover and now my husband!" Yesss!

Today, on my way to the beach, I passed another Jewish wedding in the park and stopped to watch and call out my congratulations. I was utterly moved, as last week (when I stood under the canopy with other family members, a broad grin on my face).

Yesss!

At the Writer's Festival with the girls

2006-08-29T02:09:00.000-07:00

There was some doubt expressed when I told the other staff I was hoping to take my small ESL group to the Melbourne Writers' Festival. Would their English be up to it? I wasn't sure, myself, how it would turn out. But I wanted to take them to hear Melina Marchetta, whose novel, LOOKING FOR ALIBRANDI, they were slowly making their way through - and it would be a day out and something they normally didn't do.

In the end, the boys didn't go. Ibrahim had a medical appointment. Majang just doesn't like excursions, no matter what, and had turned down a much more important one, to Collingwood TAFE.

"Who needs you?" the girls teased, and we went, Amani, Ranya, Achol, Noura and me, along with another class which was going to the Rialto in Melbourne, to see the view and do some measurements (it was Maths Extension class). We had to stand up in the train nearly all the way, packed in like herrings. We reached town early, though later than I had expected, and went for lunch at one of several fast food joints along the way, as the food at the Festival is expensive. They all upsized their meals; only Ranya realised she'd never get through it and offered me some chips, but I was full already. And then we took a stroll along the street and I suddenly remembered I was with sixteen-year-old girls. They fell with cries of delight on the first clothes shop, though they didn't overdo it. Noura, who is the most "girly" of them, kept stopping to drool over shoes in windows - the others dragged her out of a clothes shop, because we really needed to get to the festival on time. We climbed on the No.1 tram to South Melbourne and found ourselves there early.

I sent the girls out into the sun for a while, because the staff couldn't find our tickets. Finally, they simply printed us out some more, and I joined my students at a table outside. I bought them all some drinks - fruit juice in interesting-looking bottles - and then we strolled into the theatre. As we were the first there we were asked to go to the front row, where we sat, waiting for the session to start.

The usual interview which is done by a student on the students days at the festival had been replaced by a full-length talk by the author. She wanted to promote her new novel, which has just come out, but realised that the audience wanted to hear about her other two books, so went through them all and read from the new book. Then she answered questions, which were fairly predictable ones, such as "What's your favourite of the books?" and "How do you feel about the different ending of book and movie?".

I glanced over at the girls, who also glanced at me. Two of them had shut eyes, but when we left, they were talking enthusiastically about the presentation and discussing what she had said - and they teased me that I had fallen asleep! (Not this time - I have been known to do it, but this time I was listening carefully in case they had questions or wanted clarification).

As we stood on the tram, they even noticed someone had bought a copy of the new book. The train to Sunshine was less packed than the one to the city and we found seats together.

Today they were telling everyone what a good time they had. Nice! One successful experiment.

Handcrafting and ESL

2006-06-01T00:41:00.000-07:00

My ESL students weren't doing exams today. Their English just isn't good enough, yet, to expect them to do it. I was asked to run a handcraft session, before they were taken on an excursion - this week has been full of interesting (we hope!) and useful excursions. The official craft was supposed to be cardmaking and I took along the stuff needed, but I had a sneaking suspicion there wouldn't be much interest in it, so I also took along some of my old beads and earring hooks and necklace clasps and needles and thread and soon, the girls were happily making necklaces and bracelets. The boys just made paper planes. No one made cards, until near the end, when someone decided to have a go.

Amani showed Ibrahim how to make a paper crane, but I think they're craned out for now.

Sue And The - Er, Several Paper Cranes

2006-05-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

Try teaching ESL to a bunch of kids fresh out of the language centre, making it up as you go! Oh, I'd found all those suggestions, which usually began with, "Divide them into groups of six and get them to brainstorm..." Well, I barely have six in each group, some of whom are absent a lot, and trying to explain brainstorming is not easy. I thought they might be a bit fed up, too, with stories about refugees, because as far as I know, only one of them actually IS a refugee and he, understandably, doesn't like to talk about it.

So I got out some copies of SADAKO AND THE THOUSAND PAPER CRANES and we read it together - short, not hard reading, but not an insult to their intelligence. And then I got the idea of actually making paper cranes, which would give them the chance to follow instructions in English.

It worked beyong my wildest dreams - too well, actually,they would keep making paper cranes, even when I was trying to do something else with them! One of them looked up Japan on the Encarta. Another one got so good at it, she did a microscopic crane, no more than a few millimetres, perfect, with its tiny wings outspread. And it is addictive, I've been "craning" every spare bit of paper I got hold of - newspapers, advertising brochures, everything. Wonder if I'll get to 1000?

A Fannish Funeral - vale Diane Marchant!

2006-04-17T01:43:00.000-07:00

I remember my early days in fandom, when I had just started to make friends. I was a member of Austrek, which at the time was the only Trek club in Melbourne (and maybe it is again, now that the others have died off!). I was invited to come along to one of the Friday evenings at Diane Marchant's home in Mordialloc. At the time, she was living therewith her mother, Jessie, but Jessie was always in bed when we arrived, so I rarely saw her. Diane was delighted to have visitors and always made us welcome. We would sit in her living room talking Star Trek, then we were invited into her special room, where she kept her collection of Star Trek memorabilia - signed photos, books, jewellery, toys, cards - and that massive collection of fanzines. Diane was only too willing to lend them out to us and that gave me the chance to read fannish Trek fiction. Afterwards, we would retire to her kitchen for supper. My favourites were the cheese and pickled onion sandwiches (I still make them, and think of her when I do). I remember, later, when she and Helene Shaw, my friend who passed away almost exactly thirteen years before Diane (about two days difference), used to play a game called ENCHANTED FOREST and argue good-naturedly abvout who was winning. Eventually, the Friday nights no longer happened. For personal reasons, Diane withdrew, even from the Star Trek Welcommittee, which she had helped found, and although she never quite lost touch - I used to get a Christmas card each year - she made most of her friendships in her local church.

Her funeral, on Monday April 10th, was in that church. We did get the fannish tree going, and most of her friends and acquaintances found out. Only about a dozen fans actually made it to the funeral, though I'm sure everyone who could get there did, but the church had quite a lot of people there, because she also had plenty of friends in the congregation.

There were some of her most cherished items on the coffin, including her signed photo of a very young Leonard Nimoy, who was one of her friends in the old days, and probably knows by now.

The actual service took about an hour, then there was a morning tea and Geoff Allshorn did a very good eulogy - the official one was during the service, but this was the fannish one. Helena Binns, our indefatigable photographer, was there taking group shots of everyone. She had taken a picture of Diane in bed, looking very much herself and waving cheerily, made copies and kindly distributed them to all of us.

We went on to the Springvale cemetery, which is surprisingly beautiful, looking more like a park than an old-fashioned cemetery, where Diane was laid to rest in her family plot, and we threw rose petals on the coffin. After that, we all went off to the cemetery cafeteria, would you believe, and had a belated lunch. It was nice having company to cheer each other up. Fandom just won't be the same without her.

The SCBWI Conference

2006-04-01T18:11:00.000-08:00

A few weeks back, I went to a conference in Sydney, where I got to meet a whole lot of other children's writers. Some I already knew, some I knew by name, but hadn't met, others I didn't know at all. I managed to talk Edwina Harvey into coming for at least the second day and very pleased she was she'd done it too. Two days of hearing publishers tell you what they were - and weren't - after, of writers who were actually making a living out of this telling you how you, too, might sell more, a fascinating talk by the GoH, Susan Sherman, an art director from a US publisher, on how a picture book is put together and finally published. Mind you, when the lady showed us two potential covers and asked for opinions, she seemed shocked when I suggested that perhaps she might like to ask some kids. My own book cover was chosen by kids only recently - in fact, it turned out to be the one the publishers had in mind, though they added a bit of the other cover to make sure boys liked it too (it worked). So everyone was happy. Oh, well. :-)

It was supposed to be an international conference, but, like the Worldcons we've had in the past, doesn't seem to have drawn too many overseas attendees (I suspect the GoH was the only one). Comes of being on the wrong side of the world.

I'd intended to stay at the YHA, either in the CBD or Bondi, but when I was offered half price for a small room at the con hotel, I thought what-the-heck, why not? and I don't regret my decision, which saved me some taxis. Breakfast was included, after all, and the con membership included lunch, morning and afternoon tea and dinner. I took a cab to the hotel on the Friday night, and it was not too far. It was a graceful-looking "boutique" hotel in the expensive area of Woollahra.

Now, I was expecting my room to be small, but I hadn't quite expected the bed to be a bunk or the view from the window to be the hotel laundry, which was literally about two metres away! Still, I was only going to sleep there and the bathroom was across the hall. I chose the bottom bunk, although you had to be very careful sitting up! They had supplied me with the usual hotel tea, coffee, etc., even some after-dinner mints (melted in the heat, alas - I put those in the fridge). There was a cerling fan, but no air conditioning and the room was very warm, even with the fan going.

Still, I thought, I'd have a nice shower and sit up in bed with a cuppa, biscuits and watch Star Wars on the TV, then switch off the bed lamp and sleep... Um, no. There was no kettle. The kindly manager got me one on request, but I had to boil it on the floor because there was no extension cord (he gave me one next day) and no free power points. And there was a bed lamp, but you couldn't plug it in because the pin was bent. The TV remote control didn't have an on/off switch, so I got up to switch off TV and light at the same time. Still - I got my cuppa, biscuits and movie and that night, at least, it was quiet.

Saturday night, however, I think it was forgotten I was there, because after midnight there was a rumble of washing machines from the laundry. I got up, dressed and went into the kitchens next door to ask if the machines could please be turned off. They did.

All that said, I had a good time, the food was fine and the staff were nice. I just think perhaps they might consider turning that room into a storeroom or some such. Everyone else was writing in Pass It On about what great rooms they'd had. Well, they paid full price, but you have to wonder if that particular room is normally the very expensive regular price they paid...?

It was nice to see Edwina, who accompanied me to the airport and kept her patience even when I suddenly reaslised I'd left my bag at the hotel and we had to get offthe bus and go back!

I took some photos, which I'll post as soon as they're developed and scanned. It was a fun weekend, even the room!

Aris, Paul and me at the Formal

2006-01-03T20:49:00.000-08:00

Aris, Paul and me
Originally uploaded by Zeldaleh.

Aris and Paul are twins, but different as oranges and apples, personality-wise. Just as well I like both oranges and apples! I will miss these two characters.

Cheeky Zeineh

2006-01-03T20:48:00.000-08:00

Cheeky Zeineh
Originally uploaded by Zeldaleh.

Zeineh, who looked fabulous on the night, had a great time and couldn't resist doing a little belly-dance shimmying.

John and Maree at the Formal

2006-01-03T20:46:00.000-08:00

John and Maree
Originally uploaded by Zeldaleh.

They danced together most of the evening. Both of them look great and had a wonderful time.

Nikolina, Ivana and me at the Formal

2006-01-03T20:38:00.000-08:00

Nikolina, Ivana and me
Originally uploaded by Zeldaleh.

The Year 12 formal is the last chance to say goodbye to the students. This is me with Nikolina (in red, who won the best female clothing award) andIvana, our MC for many school events, who looks like a model from Vogue in her white pants suit. These two were terrific to know during their two years at Sunshine College Senior campus.

Sue with Richard Harland

2006-01-03T20:37:00.000-08:00

Sue with Richard Harland
Originally uploaded by Zeldaleh.

This is a photo of me at Swancon with Richard Harland, who was launching his new novel, THE BLACK CRUSADE, at the time. Richard is a very funny man and his fiction is over-the-top zany. Since the above was taken I have read and reviewed his children's novel, Sassycat, which is a great piece of entertainment. (See my review in the children's section at www.januarymagazine.com)

English11E

2005-12-09T22:24:00.000-08:00

English11E
Originally uploaded by Zeldaleh.

English 11E
My English class, or what was left of them by the last day. Stefan, Kellie, Josh,Rebecca, Cat, Nancy peeking from behind her, Paul and Leah. Jasmina put her arm around me. Ebru and Ali were celebrating the end of Ramadan. Lucy was not attending classes by then. Actually, she hadn't attended classes, in English or anything else, for some time. Cat, Kellie and Ebru visited me in the library to say hi, after they finished for the year, which was nice - and unexpected! Josh and Rebecca were busy burning DVDs of the school show by then. Paul was probably playing with the cars he loves so much. :-)

Me and 11SB

2005-12-07T20:43:00.000-08:00

11SB
Originally uploaded by Zeldaleh.

These students are what was left of my homeroom at the end of 2005. They're a fabulous bunch of kids and I will miss them. Tam, Angelique, Kerrie, Shane, Ricky and Dale were the ones who turned up to say farewell at our last pastoral care session for the year. Huynh was absent, alas. The photo was taken by Zac, who was joining us only for two days. He did a good job.

Catspy

2005-12-07T20:40:00.000-08:00

Catspy
Originally uploaded by Zeldaleh.

Here's the cover of Your Cat Could Be A Spy. It's been exhausting but fun, working on this, and there was a lot of stuff that had to be cut from the finished product. The thing about writing non-fiction is that you learn a lot and there's always far more information than you can possibly use. I'm proud of this!