This is where I write stuff.

I don't know how I did it, but I've given myself some kind of nasty food poisoning. I think my parents may have put ant rid or rat poison in their sugar without telling anyone. I've spent the last 24 hours or so clutching my belly from the cramps, except for the four hours of sleep I got after the nurofen. I'm now taking vicious 'Gastro-stop' pills in an attempt to concrete up my insides. Sigh.

I've been using the time to plan classes for my Lang students and the week of year 10 lang. I can't help it. I try to encourage my brain to day dream about nice beaches or being in a fantasy epic, but instead I seem to slide into being in a classroom while teaching enthusiastically about linguistics. What's the point of being holed up in bed, unable to read because your head's too fuzzy and your eyes hurt, unless you're going to get some good daydreaming in? Sigh mk2. At least I'll be prepared when classes start in two weeks.

Morsla accused me of being able to link together any film with any other film in one leap. He then tested me with 'Dark City' and 'Pirates of the Caribbean', which was too easy. Rufus Sewell and Tom Hollander were both in 'The Very Thought of You'. I then challenged him with the original Star Wars trilogy and the prequel trilogy, which he couldn't do. After a little thought I've linked it through Harrison Ford and Samuel L Jackson in 'Patriot Games'.
Now he has challenged me with Casablanca and Trainspotting. I don't think Lauren Bacall and Ewan McGregor have ever been in the same film, but I'm headed to IMDB in a second to find out.
This game is fun!

EDIT: Ok, I can't do it in one move. I have linked it in a convoluted fashion though. Lauren Bacall was in 'Howl's Moving Castle' with Christian Bale. From there, I worked out that Christian Bale was in 'Batman Begins' with Liam Neeson who was in the Star Wars prequels with Ewan McGregor. I haven't even bothered to find out if Humphrey Bogart has a connection, but it could be quicker. Somehow I doubt it.

Have to try to type using the letter i as least often as can. Have broken the key. Need a new computer asap. Can use, but better if don't. Want to be on holiday.

A colleague of mine, Mitsuko, passed away yesterday. She has been fighting lung cancer for about 12 months and so this is somewhat expected, but so many times she has deteriorated just to rally again that it comes as a shock. She was an amazing and beautiful woman. I wish I had half her grace. She reminded me of Audrey Hepburn, with her petite elegance and generous spirit. It showed through her illness too. She was often very ill, but she took it with calm and grace, refusing to let it bow her. I am proud to have known her. I know her family won't read this, but my prayers are with them.

Happy birthday Scottles!

Another birthday has passed and once again I can start telling the truth about how old I am (I usually calculate by the year, which means I'm wrong for the first 9 months). I'm not travelling this time, but it has been as subdued an event as last year. Next year I will make an effort.
We were discussing last night that I should be celebrating many times over as the stress of the last year has probably taken years off my life. Between Ben's dad passing away, the wedding, the Europe trip, the 3 months as head of department, the house buying, living in Somerville and my masters, this has been my most difficult year (with vague memories of year 12 being the closest). Fortunately, that means I'm due another dozen years before my turn comes around again.
So, cheers, here's to another year.

Blargh, I've just received an email from Gencon saying that nobody has registered for my freeform and would I be 'happy to cancel'.
Then I've gone to look at what other freeforms are running to see if everyone is having the same problem and realise I'm timetabled on at the same time as a 30 player and a 100 player freeform. Combined they have about 40 players registered. Is it any wonder I don't have any registrations? My little 18 player game has been completely swamped.
I don't know what to do. I'd still really like my game to run and I've asked if I can move to the day where there are no freeforms at the moment. Blargh, blargh i say. Things like this make me wonder why I bother.
Thoughts, advice, pep talks?

I feel it's important to note, I am now the joint owner of a house, my very own property portfolio.
I should be celebrating, cracking the champagne. I'm not, I'm feeling like I may just have made a giant mistake by walking into... a commitment. The house is great, the price is awesome, I can totally afford it, but I'm still feeling panic. Maybe once we move in I'll learn to love the idea. Hopefully sooner.

Most stressful thing I've ever done. Ever.

I have started my first subject on giftedness and there's a lot of reading talking about forms of testing for intelligence versus giftedness. This pricks my interest because one of the reasons why I became interested in the topic in the first place is because I felt that I was personally flirting with areas of giftedness, but not so much so that I was reaching genius level, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I thought it would be an interesting experiment to try a few online IQ tests to get an idea of how I actually score. The disclaimer is that I totally realise that these aren't reliable, but I figured it would still help me understand my readings better. Anyway, two interesting observations. The first, I consistently scored between 130 and 134 on all the tests I took. What this says to me is that I'm right, I do have the smarts, but I'm not a mensa candidate. The second, that there must be some consistent 'reliability' (I use the term loosely) if across a range of tests I can score in a similar range. The last, and most interesting, is that I can now see why IQ tests are considered so limited in assessing giftedness in children. The questions are amazingly narrow-focussed. If there was a heavier weighting on pattern questions, for instance, my score would have increased because I'm much better at spatial thinking, than say abstract maths, which there seemed to be an over-representation of.
I vaguely remember looking at this stuff in high school psych, and I know I'm not saying anything new here. What is new for me is that I'm thinking much more clearly now about what can be identified when looking for 'giftedness', and I'd like to take a few of the newer tests regarding social skills and creativity, because I suspect that's where my genius lies:)
Just sayin'.

We have returned from a week of being super relaxy. I do love going to Tasmania for holidays. I realised while we were away that it's been nearly two years since we last went. Of course the events of that particular trip meant that all our money went to wedding (and two trips to Europe, but whatever). I got sick:(

I bought an awesome bag. For more details see haul.com.au
I love the concept.

Also, aaaaagghhhhhh. We have signed paperwork on the buying of a house! More paperwork tomorrow and we're still putting 'maybe' or 'probably' on the front of it, but looks like we'll be moving to Kensington in the not to distant future!!!

Why do I leave big news for last?

I need a mortgage. Westpac has decided that I can't have one. I don't get this. My sister got a frickin' house loan and she's shocking with money and has a dodgy credit history. I, on the other hand, am awesome with money, have a spotless credit record and can't get a loan. OK, that's not strictly true. I've only been to the one bank, so I haven't really tried very hard yet.

Their reason for knocking us back was that morsla's income is a scholarship, which they won't recognise as income for the purposes of the loan. This means that they would calculate our ability to finance the loan on my income alone, which didn't cut it. This is because they calculated living expenses for two people into it. With this logic it's no wonder we couldn't afford the loan, pity it's completely unrealistic and stupid.

So now I need to find a bank that has the kind of things we want and will recognise a scholarship as income. We've contacted a mortgage broker now, but trying to fit in a meeting is going to be difficult. I'm hoping the difficulty in getting a home is going to be used up by the finding of the loan so that getting the house will then be easy. Come on karma!

Hello world, long time no see. I've gotten out of the habit of blogging regularly, but I think it's time to start again. I may even set aside a night for a weekly update. This promises to be a long post too, but I think it will be worth the read:)

Life has become particularly hectic over the last few months. I've been head of department at work (hooray for me) and I've been working on a Masters in Education. Combined with Rock Eisteddfod rehearsals I've forgotten what weekends are like.

It's the masters that has inspired me to write today.

I'm planning on doing a masters thesis, as I would like to roll my work into a PHD one day. I'm currently into researching gifted education. I might give a background on why it interests me another day. It's part of a research skills subject, but I figured I'll use the assessment as my planning period for the thesis.

I've been struggling to work out what the thesis is actually about, and today inspiration struck. The problem is that my school doesn't cater to gifted students. We mention differentiation in performance reviews and send a group off to Tournament of Minds, and call it done. I don't think this is good enough, and I wanted to research how to implement gifted programs. At first I was reading up on different programs that have run in other schools and trying to think of what you could do with students in a Web 2 world, but today I realised I've missed the point. I don't need to focus on the students, I need to focus on the teachers.

Withdrawal programs are a thing of the past and there's plenty of research that supports keeping gifted students in a main stream program. The main things that are needed in any program is communication between gifted students, opportunity for acceleration and the option to focus on areas of inspiration or interest. It's not the kind of thing I can just do on my own though. It's something that needs to be done by all teachers in their own classrooms. What's needed is a paradigm/culture shift.

I'd be willing to bet that if I asked most teachers what differentiation is and how they do it, they'd give me an answer and show me what they do, but that it won't be based on any research, reading, consultation with peers, in fact anything but their individual interpretation. It wouldn't be consistent across the school, and possibly not even consistent across learning areas. I get that, we're so damned busy, we don't really have time to do that unless we're passionate about it (which is why I'm doing what I'm doing now).

My thesis needs to centre around two things. 1. what is the most effective whole school approach to gifted identification and curriculum. 2. how do I effect change in a way that will be long-lasting and accepted? The second one is because I know my peers, they're resistant to change and being told that anyone knows better than them. If I did the research and started to run PD at my place of work, I'd probably be ignored (best case scenario). However, if it was presented a bit at a time in the right way, we wouldn't even notice we'd changed.

If this is successful, I'd really like to pursue it. I've long imagined that I won't stay in the classroom. I aspire to either end up as a principal, as a Uni academic or as a PD provider. I think this is a good step on my way to any of these. I don't want to be a worker bee all my life. I want to be an innovator. One of the thinker bees who says 'there's got to be a better way'. Education is desperate for thinker bees like me. Then morsla and I can start our own business revolutionising the world.

Next week: why management should be more people focused (brought to you by wishful thinking)

We have triumphantly returned from the honeymoon. It was awesome. Much good food was eaten and many kilometres travelled. My favourite memory of the trip was driving down the driveway to where we were staying and being surrounded by dozens of monarch butterflies. It was like a continuous cloud of them for about half a K. Magical. I think that will stick with me for a while.
So now we are on the countdown to moving day. Fortunately my game for Arc is written, so all I'm doing now is mucking about with layout and making notes for myself. I figure if I have the time I may as well keep adding layers of complexity. Hopefully this works. morsla has inspired me to rewrite 'A play by William Shakespeare'. I only remember bits of it though, so if you played and remember things, please tell me, however small they are.
Tommorrow I tackle the fabled 'under the stairs' *cue scary music*. Everything else is pretty much ready to be upended into boxes and stuck in the expanding pile. morsla owns a lot more stuff than I do, I've decided. Either this is my cue to acquire more stuff, or to do some kind of victory dance. It depends on whether this means I win or lose. For the sake of my bank balance, I choose to dance. I have acquired one new thing on our trip. I bought a copy of Bill Bryson's 'Mother tongue' because I can claim books on linguistics as a professional library. It's fascinating. I want to set it as a required text for all my students so that they can be as fascinated as I am. It's sad that they'd probably find it boring. I'm strange and I can't help it. BTW, if anyone knows of further fascinating linguistics books, please tell me so that I can acquire them. It's in view of my teaching a VCE linguistics subject (and thus breaking away from the endless french) so it's for a good cause.
Anyway, I'm off to feel content and happy for a while.

I have just realised that I no longer have copies of any of my old freeforms. My very first freeform (the soap opera one) has vanished, as has 'A play by William Shakespeare'. I still have the Iron Kingdoms one, as the most recent, but that is all. This is a sad moment. I'd really like them back as I went looking for them thinking I'd like to run them again. *Cries*

I don't feel like I'm on holidays yet, which is odd given I'm now two and a half weeks in. Christmas and New Years were fun, but not really rejuvenating. Since then the packing has been sucking any sense of relaxation or free time out of the holidays. We do the first stage of moving tomorrow, which should at least free up space in the house again. Then I'm spending Friday and Saturday doing what I feel like (which will probably end up being sewing and game writing). Then the honeymoon. I'm planning on making that replace all the lost holiday feeling to date. Bring on the holiday feeling, even if the holidays are already well and truly here.

I know I'm ten minutes early, but...

Happy New Year

lots of love,
aeliel

So, it's been about 3 months since I posted, and it's been an incredibly busy three months. Every time I think about posting I realise I have too much to write about and decide it's better not to. However, with holidays here at last, I can afford the time out to catch up a little. So, the obvious can be read in morsla's journal. Facts wise, ( we got married, we're moving, we faced adversity, we conquered, we move on. )

Also, I should mention that I'm also going back to study next year. I've been accepted into a Masters of Education through Monash (maybe I'll join MURP - nah). So exciting! This will be at the same time as full time work, being the LOTE co-ordinators assistant for the year, taking over the role for a term while the co-ordinator is on long service, being a team leader at year 7, helping with the Rock E and doing all the extra training to justify teaching English Language in 2010 (which I'm technically qualified to teach, but still want the training). Next year is going to be a big one.

More updates to come soon, I promise.

So, long time since I've written. As you can see from the time stamp, it's only 19:21 here, but in Australia, I'm already older. I'm sure it works out that way, somehow.

So, Happy Birthday to me in a time warp sense. Today hasn't been my happiest day ever, but we overcome, right? This year I'll be spending my birthday chaperoning ten students (aged approx. 15) around 'the continent'. To be more precise, I'll be showing them around Montmartre, which is one of my favourite parts of Paris. Today I spent swanning around Monte Carlo, clambouring around Eze (the closest to an authentic medieval town left in the world) and learning about what it takes to be the 'nose' of a perfumerie. I haven't taken too many photos, only 250 or so. You've got to love the digital age, right? Some of the others have already exhausted three memory sticks.

I'll be glad to get home. I'm having a scarily intense time. This time next week I'll be on the plane though.

More thoughts when I have them collected.

So, in about an hour I'll be heading out to the airport. I'm about a week off when I left at the same time last year. I'm feeling pretty apprehensive at the moment about the whole thing. Last time I was racing across the world to meet up with morsla, this time I'm dragging my feet as I reluctantly leave him behind. I've managed to make it feel 'not real' up until now, but with the house tidy and my packed bags sitting at the door, it's my cue to suddenly realise that it's real and I'm leaving today. Panic.

So I'll be back in two and a half weeks. Hopefully everything goes well. I'll try to post on here while I'm away, but I really have no idea what to expect. It's fine leaving with a half formed idea of stuff you'd like to do when it's just you, but when you're responsible for a dozen school students who have never travelled before... It'll be fine, right?

Alright then, see you on the flip side.

I have found a new book, Being Elizabeth Bennet, which looks like a cross between a choose-your-own adventure and a roleplaying game for one. You get stats that you add to or lose based on your decisions, ie. Accomplishments, Intelligence, Confidence, Connections and Fortune. I don't own a copy, yet, but it looks like something a few people I know might like to investigate.