![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
2008-10-14
Some things...
2008-10-14 01:55I thought I might have been fancy today, but I was not. Maybe next week. It was as well I did not.
Before doing any such thing I had intended to talk with the head teacher of my course. Despite the support of anti-discrimination laws here, still I thought it advisable to give the staff some advance notice. My suspicion is that administrations seldom take well to being suddenly surprised.
Although much delayed, last week I made enquiry via the school website about the head teacher's staff email address with the aim of contacting him before resuming class. The lack of response to this was a contributing factor in my decision not to follow through with my plans for today.
I was not sure what I was going to do. Maybe put this off until next year. Maybe try talking to him after class. If I could think what to say. Except when class was starting he addressed me by name and mentioned my attempt to get in touch with him over the holiday, asking if I wanted to talk with him then or perhaps a bit later.
So after much hesitation and pausing I explained that I would appreciate a lack of objection to presenting more explicitly female in future and he said it would be no problem, even if he had wanted to make it so. I gave him permission to inform the rest of the library teaching staff.
Shortly after, he left for his break and Q was the first student to return to the classroom. I remarked that I had just taken steps to ensure there would be no administrative freaking out if I were to show up in class and we joked a bit about the flappability (lack thereof, rather) of a particular teacher. Then I straightened the misaligned table between us and the conversation turned to OCD not being a problem if it is not actually acted upon to a significant degree (i.e. Q had specifically not being straightening the table, therefore she was not having a problem with any compulsion to do so [unless I was having a totally different conversation]).
So. Did something just happen?
Before doing any such thing I had intended to talk with the head teacher of my course. Despite the support of anti-discrimination laws here, still I thought it advisable to give the staff some advance notice. My suspicion is that administrations seldom take well to being suddenly surprised.
Although much delayed, last week I made enquiry via the school website about the head teacher's staff email address with the aim of contacting him before resuming class. The lack of response to this was a contributing factor in my decision not to follow through with my plans for today.
I was not sure what I was going to do. Maybe put this off until next year. Maybe try talking to him after class. If I could think what to say. Except when class was starting he addressed me by name and mentioned my attempt to get in touch with him over the holiday, asking if I wanted to talk with him then or perhaps a bit later.
So after much hesitation and pausing I explained that I would appreciate a lack of objection to presenting more explicitly female in future and he said it would be no problem, even if he had wanted to make it so. I gave him permission to inform the rest of the library teaching staff.
Shortly after, he left for his break and Q was the first student to return to the classroom. I remarked that I had just taken steps to ensure there would be no administrative freaking out if I were to show up in class and we joked a bit about the flappability (lack thereof, rather) of a particular teacher. Then I straightened the misaligned table between us and the conversation turned to OCD not being a problem if it is not actually acted upon to a significant degree (i.e. Q had specifically not being straightening the table, therefore she was not having a problem with any compulsion to do so [unless I was having a totally different conversation]).
So. Did something just happen?
I just woke up. I woke to the news there was a phone call for me. The person on the other end turned out to be my supervisor from the industry placement I had recently completed, the teacher-librarian for that school.
What she wanted was to know if I would be willing and able to come in on the 23rd and fill in for someone else, if I could come in this week and fill out some forms so they could pay me.
I said yes.
Never before have I been offered work. The little I have done (other contexts, other years) I was not paid for. And once those papers are processed I will be able to work more easily in the Catholic education system in NSW. I've never been in a position like this before.
Between yesterday and today I am feeling overwhelmed.
What she wanted was to know if I would be willing and able to come in on the 23rd and fill in for someone else, if I could come in this week and fill out some forms so they could pay me.
I said yes.
Never before have I been offered work. The little I have done (other contexts, other years) I was not paid for. And once those papers are processed I will be able to work more easily in the Catholic education system in NSW. I've never been in a position like this before.
Between yesterday and today I am feeling overwhelmed.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
allieflowlight asked me my favourite kinds of birds.Local birds like magpies (though not up close - they can be a walking hazard), cassowaries (again, from a distance) (also, although the link focuses on an Australian species, I think they are primarily of New Guinea). The mallee fowl and lyrebirds. I guess the kookaburra is okay too. And the kiwi, although that is from New Zealand, but I always loved those adorable little things.
Corvids, I love corvids, those local and not. Crows and ravens, we have some native though I wonder if those be the ones I see.
And parrots. The galahs and the cockatoos but most especially the rosellas (and these) and the lorikeets. Rainbow lorikeets feed in my yard sometimes and I love to see them.
I was not actually very fond of kookaburras or galahs when I was younger. Found their noise unpleasant and grating, but these days they are at least a familiar comfort in appearance. Also I forgot to mention satin bowerbirds.
Many of these birds are not immediately local to me - where I live has magpies, galahs and lorikeets - but those are still the birds I grew up with.
It puzzles me when people talk about how exotic and bizarre the local species are. Have they forgotten where they live? This is ordinary, they are the normal, and if any plants and animals should be viewed exotic it ought be those bizarre foreign creatures, the cows and rabbits and bears.
Rosella was a brand of soup when I was young, I think. Tomato soup with a crimson rosella on the tin label. My grandmother would make soup and I would take the tin and stare at the bird.
