Just a quick 'un

Teacher, the blogger program just ate my post.  Well it wasn't much, but I sure hate seeing "an error occurred" and then a big fat nada where my post used to be.  But given the events of the last week, I shouldn't be surprised.  When I have more time, I'll chronicle some of the tastier tidbits of the wonderful Study Abroad Smorgasbord of Psychodrama that I've been living, along with its domestic bass line over which everything is rolling.

Vic Johnson finds "Vickie Johnson" on the Volunteer Poles

But the field trip to the Blue Mountains last Saturday--with stops at the Olympic Park and at the surprisingly OK Featherdale Wild Animal Park--was rated "Best.Fieldtrip.Ever" by some usually hard-to-please students....

 

 

 

Not quite her comfort zone, ya think?

Yep, pretty kayoot.

 

You could try on snakes, which I decided not to do.

And here's the fam at the Blue Mtns "tunnel view" equivalent

Why does Alex look unhappy?

Because he just started moving backward up something very steep...

OK there ARE frustrations

...such as when I attempted to "top up" my Ozzie mobile this afternoon after a successful day of teaching over in North Sydney.  So the thing is, you have a 30 day account with a certain number of dollars but you have to recharge.  They say you can do it online.  Easy-peasy.  And mine doesn't expire til tomorrow.  I know this because I've been getting text message from SysAlert to that effect for the last week.

4:00 I'm on the terrace, comfy with computer and USB modem and credit card info and strong decaf  and a way-delayed lunch sandwich, having shared the 230 toward Mosman Wharf with at least four separate gaggles of oh-so-cutely-uniformed school students mosh-pitting amongst the other riders
4:03 Logged in to Vodaphone's recharge interface
4:06 Successfully entered all the numbers and my name and pressed "continue"
4:07 Get an error message "There seems to be a problem, call 1555 for assistance"
4:14 After some serious chirpy robo-voicemail ("I'm not following. I'll transfer you") I get said-such human being, in Bangalore.
4:15 I learn that the Vodaphone billing system ONLY WORKS WITH AUSSIE CREDIT CARDS
4:16 I gently and courteously inform Bangalore person that this might possibly be something that could be put in writing ON THE [EXPLETIVE DELETED] WEBPAGE!
4:20 I decide to try the PPoD (Pink Phone of Doom) itself and use the handset method, expecting the worst
4:21 The PPoD, being a Motorola acquired three years ago, is Much Too Antiquated to have its numbers actually recognized by Vodaphone, once a phone number has been dialed (as in, "press 1" I press 1. "press 1" I press 1.  etc.  Dozens of 1s are appearing on my screen but I am typing into a void)
4:25 I decide to walk up the street to pay a visit to smooth old Sam the Vodaphone man, away up near Spit Junction.
4:28 I leave for SJ, admonishing Alex to turn the TV off and do a bit of reading and the last seven problems from his stateside Algebra 'cause he says he has no Ozzie-math homework.  I'm an optimist.
4:38 I arrive only slightly sweaty at the tiny store, proud of having discovered and executed my shortcut without getting killed crossing any of the streets
4:40 I begin getting confused by the array of options outlined by Sam, both for my phone and for recharging the now-working-fine USB modem
4:44 Sam sells me the $30 voucher, for the phone and another USB starter kit, minus the modem dongle, for $29, which gives me an extra GB of data for less money because this is a special, though this means I will have to swap out the SIM card and reinitialize.  He offers to do it next time I pop round with my computer.  My heart sinks as I remember the gyrations it took to register / activate / change temporary password etc.  And at the moment I do know the new password and can ascertain how much or how little data I have used
 4:48 Sam offers to do the voucher thing right there.  But then we both remember the PPoD and its keypad impotence.  He assures me I can do it online
4:54 I spend a few minutes jawing with Sam about the American economy and its prospects.  He remembers to ask about Alex.  Smart businessman.  He tells me Amelie has been in that morning to recharge her card, after only two weeks, because there isn't a lot of data on that original plan and she is iPhoning it now, not using a crank-the-handle PPoD stone-age relic.  She's changed her plan, he hopes.
5:00 I depart, wondering do I stop at the IGA market to buy hot dogs for Alex or offload the chore onto Amelie.  I opt for stopping, figuring this may curry favor with the boy, and besides, Amelie isn't answering her phone as I walk.
5:10 I successfully drop $20 on staggeringly few items in my basket
5:16 Arrive home after my fast walk down Raglan Street.  I peek in the window from the sidewalk and am stunned not to see the TV on
5:18 I congratulate Alex on having a bash at the problems.  A quick glance reveals only four of the 7 have signs reversed or arithmetic errors
5:23 I log in to vodaphone's site
5:25 I log in again, thinking there must be some mistake.  No, I'm right.  You can't  use a voucher online, you have to use the phone's keypad.
5:28 I attempt one more time with PPoD (as I said, I'm an optimist)
5:29 I begin a 4 minute process of learning I cannot enter the voucher numbers orally/
5:34 Alex pulls off his headphones and stops watching Top Gearand asks me if I am OK.  What a sweetie. 
5:35 Incredibly, Alex sets down headphones, gets up, gets his phone, pops the back, removes the battery, pops his SIM, puts in my SIM, re-places his battery and closes it up.  And gives me a lesson in his bizarro LG keypad.
5:40 After only two attempts resulting in start-overs (too much delay in finding the microscopic # key after double-checking the 12-digit voucher number) I am successful in using keypad method to recharge.  Hosannas.
5:55 all phones back together with their proper SIMs.

No worries, mate.  Yeah right.

Update II: Classes and a field trip

My group itself seems to be settling in to the regular rhythm of classes on Mondays, Wednesday evenings, and Friday mornings, and we’ll have that normal schedule for these two middle weeks of October before throwing a three-day-weekend opportunity in there at the end, with some adjustments the way we did at the beginning of the term.  Even so, this past Friday we held our class as a field trip, walking around the old part of the city with our charismatic and much more coherent regular instructor Lorraine, whose regular gig is at the Art College. 

It’s strange to try to do some of the same things I always do, in a new setting: for example, for my first short assignment I always have students bring in hardcopies and then tape these to the walls so that everyone can look at each others’ submissions and reflect on what they see in others’ work that they didn’t do themselves, and what they’d do differently on revision, and why.  I don’t have them write anything on their colleagues’ work, just their initials, and then after they’ve had a chance to read at least ten others’ pieces, they take their own down and write out comments on the back--these comments can become the bases for my own critique, as in “You’re right, Jacob--you can include X and Y, and bump that other paragraph down a little,” so that the whole process becomes less completely directed by me.  The classroom is not ideally laid out, as the chairs don’t have tops, but there are half a dozen small tables that the early arrivals lay claim to so they have a writing surface.

 "A gift from Florence" for those of you who remember...

We’ve had some unseasonably cold and rainy weather of late, just in time for our first outdoor class of the term on Friday, a walking tour starting out at the cathedral downtown and taking in some of the earliest buildings constructed after the convicts arrived.  Amelie joined us after making sure Alex was safely at school, and mercifully the rain had stopped by the time we were actually underway.  About four students were late, something that is always a little hair-raising for me as a trip leader, and unfortunately it was the usual suspects with whom I will have to have one of those Difficult Conversations with.   

But Lorraine’s approach was informed, lively, well-paced, and thoughtful, and I was heartened to overhear so many students saying “I want to come back here later and see more.” That's not always a given with these things, and I appreciated how well paced the whole tour was--none of that overstaying one's welcome or feeling you were being yanked away, and even with some street crossings we kept the group together pretty effectively.  That said, every field trip or other excursion is for me a stressful occasion, and my sleep has been affected by the anticipated problems, the need to remember lists of phone numbers, etc.  

Of course at the end of the afternoon, after a pleasant lunch with Lorraine and Amelie at the cafe atop the Museum of Contemporary Art, I saw this vision of an alternate reality as I waited for the ferry home at Circular Quay--those are sort of normal sized boats in front:

Update I: Alex is in school!

Things on the domestic front have proceeded well since last posting as well: thanks to some pretty breathtakingly efficient playing of the school bureaucracy, we were able to get Alex enrolled in the local high school (the only one in the state that is both coed and doesn’t require uniforms) such that he could start class on Thursday!  Stunning actually, that with Amelie going in on Monday morning (after their two weeks of spring break) and with a multitude of little details to take care of including verification of visas and pro-rated fees and actual placement interview with the principal on Wednesday morning, he could start the next day, being shepherded around the new surroundings by “buddies” assigned to him, meeting most of his teachers, and getting squared away. 

Several clutch performances were necessary for this to happen, not least Amelie’s determination to get things done, but also incredibly friendly front-office people at the school itself, at the main office of education (Amelie started referring to this person as “Saint Peta,” she was so helpful and can-do about everything), back home (with our friend Michele securing a transcript from Alex’s old school--you can’t get the full previous year online, only the truncated present year--and scanning it and e-mailing it) and again Wednesday at the school (getting the application forms we’d filled out the previous hour faxed over to the central office right then, rather than forcing us to go to Office Works or wherever to get it done).  Yet with our MasterCard heated up (this is unsurprisingly more expensive than public school in the states, but a lot cheaper than private school tuition), we got the call that afternoon that he could start the next morning.  Amazing.

We couldn’t help reflecting with some sadness at how different this experience was than what would probably have transpired the other way: our experiences with Berkeley city bureaucrats and educrats have been so fraught with “No, not for two weeks” and “No, that person is away from her desk doing her nails” and “No, that’s not in my job description” and “No of course you won’t have a direct phone line to call to get your queries answered, instead you’ll be in voice-mail menu hell” that we couldn’t imagine getting a positive result in three weeks, much less three days.  Perhaps this is another side benefit of having ended up in an apartment in such a chi-chi postcode as Mosman: the wheels might well not have turned so smoothly somewhere else.

There are a couple of curve balls--the only language option available is Mandarin, which may be semi tough to catch up in (though the standard does not appear to be very high)--but the cafeteria meets Alex's specifications, there are people to play hoops with, and (if we can persuade him to do it) there is the option to take Learn To Surf as his PE.  He may end up with tennis just for the familiarity...   So we hope for the best.  The math isn't out of range, and he and I are continuing to do our almost-daily sessions keeping up with the homework grids sent from Berkeley.  Stay tuned.