My Short Life |
Posted: 01/06/2008 |
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I entered the service (RAAF) after I finished my Junior year of high school, (grade 11) mainly because the drop-outs had all the jobs in my lil town. (Incidentally, you wouldn't even get an interview nowadays with just Junior year.) Anyway, it was a big adventure to go down to the capital city and raise your right arm and swear allegiance to Queen and Country, yada yada yada. I looked at some of the other kids there in the room, wow, look at him, looks like some sort of Neanderthal, how did he ever pass the entry exam? Anyhow though, he would have been good on the football team, and maybe we'll have footy teams in the Air Force too. Wow, I thought, look at that kid, lucky ugliness is not a criteria barring entry. I used to consider myself quite ordinary in the looks department at school, but looking at this crop of recruiits, kinda raised my self-esteem a few notches. Or maybe it really was just the nerds who joined up in those days?
They bussed us all out to Eagle Farm Airport in Brisbane, and we drove right onto the tarmac, no check in counters for us. Drove right up to the back of an RAAF Hercules C130 warming up on the tarmac. "Alright get in the plane and sit on the jump seats." We all filed off and walked up the ramp into the belly of the Herc and sat down. The pilot comes out and we just stared at him. Dressed in his flight uniform, pipes coming out everywhere, helmet tilted back, his Vietnam Vet's medal colours on his chest, wow, most of us were impressed. I was most impressed with his pilot's wings sewn onto his flight jacket, kind of reminded me of the Battle of Britain pilots I saw in the film the year before. At about this time there should have been someone to slap me in the face and snap me out of the reverie, but there wasn't. The Pilot speaks, so cool, "I am Flight Lieutanant What's'isname, and I will be flying you to Wagga base today. We'll be cruising at 21.000 feet and it should take us a couple hours. Enjoy the flight, you won't see much as we'll fly over clouds but by all means look out the windows."
We arrived at this dingy looking country airport that was attached to RAAF base Wagga Wagga, in the middle of nowhere. They walked us down to our assigned rooms, but we had convinced ourselves that nothing was secure, that the 2nd year guys would basically terrorise us, and padlocks were no use as they would just rip them off the doors. So we had imagined these bunches of evil villains just waiting to pounce on us raw recruits. It turned out to be much ado about nothing. Air Force just turned out to be a big boarding school. Trouble was, if you mucked up you got CB instead of Detention. CB Confined to Barracks, is anything but, you never see much of your room or bed. When the normal work day ends you go to work in the Mess Hall cleaning sweeping washing plates, peeling, and then when that is all finished you have to dress in A1 uniform and march up to the guard house every hour on the hour and check in till 11pm. then you can sleep until 5am so you can be there at 6am when you have to check back in. They would discipline me if it killed me! Well, I am still here so the former must have happened... |
Mayberry, North Carolina |
Posted: 01/01/2008 |
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Tuesday
10/13/04
Now I had never spoken with a Southerner that much before. Well VA is in the South too, but not really cuz it is full of Yankees now. Well here was this school Principal I had to phone to be interviewed. I told him I was the new teacher being sent to him and he said, "Fine fine, just come on down and we'll fit you in." Indeed, so easy, but first I wanted to find out something more abnourt St Pauls NC, so I asked in my ignorant Aussie tone, "Er sir, could you tell me what er like ah what is St Pauls like as a town?" He says,
"Son, have you heard of Mayberry North Carolina?" To which I replied,
"Why yes sir that's Gomer Pyle's town, isn't it?" And the Principal says, "
Well then, y'all know what St Pauls is like."
So the interview with the Principal went well and he told me to come down ASAP, so I told him I'd report next Monday morning.
Saturday
10/17/04
Bonnie had baked me a tin of cookies for the trip down and as I was leaving her house she offered to lend me any money I might need, this was to be very fortunate as I would find out.
I arrived in St Pauls around 3pm and I left I-95, and went for a drive around and check out the school and township. It was very picturesque and exactly like I expected hometown America to be like. A main st, a city hall, a few churches and houses, not at all like Loudoun County, VA, where all one could see was apartment complexes and parkways.
I drove down further to Lumberton and met up with the VIF teachers I'd spoken to and they showed me to some apartments, but since I was teaching in St Pauls I wanted to live there if I could, so I stayed at Motel 6 that night.
NC October Week 1
I went to church in St Pauls this morning, a Presbyterian church as I'd seen it when i had a drive around yesterday, they welcomed me and brought me into a Sunday school thing where they had scripture lessons. Well being a 'know all' I had to put my two cents worth in when I felt the guy teaching said something erroneous, so I started explaining myself. He told me I shouldn't be a teacher, I should be a preacher, that I'd make more money. Anyway, during the service I met two teachers from the HS and they welcomed me and said they'd see me the next day. I went home to Motel 6.
I arrived at school bright and early on Monday and after I met the principal he put me with a teacher that I'm replacing to observe until I could get certified by the board. Later that morning I went to RCPS office to start the orientation, mainly to have the drug test, so I could be certified. I passed it but I couldn't take it back with me it had to be mailed so I had to wait until head office received it, before I could teach. I was once again at Motel 6
You know in Australia, when you get certified, it means that you can go to the looney bin, the nut house, the asylum, that you are certified crazy, but here in America you can teach, oh well no difference after all...
The next day I observed the teacher again, all day, and team taught some of the topics, added my two cents worth here and there, but after school there was not much time and after going on a wild goose chase to check out an apartment complex, which had no vacancies, I drove aimlessly around St Pauls looking for a To Let sign without luck. I referred to the staff at Motel 6 by their first names by this time.
I followed the substitute (supply) teacher around for a week and I noticed why the other teachers had left, the kids were out of control and the sub, who was a Desert-Storm veteran couldn't control them. The School's about 25 miles south of Fort Bragg, the big army-air force base. They were getting good grades but only because the supply teacher was grading very leniently, as he was a Math teacher. I knew I had my work cut out for me...:(
All week I formulated rules in my head and the following Monday when I took over, the kids didn't know what hit em, I totally laid down the law and told them things were going to change, and the easy A and Bs were finished because i was an actual English teacher who'd grade their work accordingly. They tried to laugh it off but after 3 days of straight Fs they figured they had to start actually letting me teach them stuff. They do a lot of grading here, I am trying to get kids to understand that it's useless to grade something unless I teach it first, but anyway, the schools expect at least 2 official grades a week.
Wednesday, I decided to take the day off from school and find myself a flat. I drove all around St Pauls checking out places, luckily there was one Realty office in St Pauls so I rocked on up there to see what they might have. Welcome to down home USA! The sign on the door had their business hours, Monday, Tuesday, CLOSED WEDNESDAY, Thursday, Friday. Exasperated, I drove back to Lumberton and checked in with Century 21. They sent me to an apartment that smelled like it hadn't been lived in for ages, so scratch thaty one, then i decided to have another look at the one I'd seen the previous Saturday whern I'd first arrived. Yeah cool, I took that one. I could only afford, due to the extended Motel 6 stays, the security bond, and I had to tell her I'd pay in the next couple of days, which she accepted after a 'have pity on me' look from me. Then I went to the city hall to get the power connected and that was gonna cost $135 up front, dang! I paid it with my debit card and hoped and prayed that she didn't deposit my check until I could put more money in the account.
That night I rang Bonnie, lovely Bonnie, and asked her for the loan she suggested, and she was gonna send it the next day.
No money today so panic again. I followed the teacher around and observed, but on a progressive note, they did receive my drug test so I can start teaching next Monday.
I received the money and deposited it, nothing was said to me so they probably hadn't bounced my check. I paid the rest of the rent and now I just have a few dollars to live on until I get paid.
Now begins the scrounging and begging for furniture, I have been offered some if only I can find a pick-up truck.
NC October Week 2
Halleujah, a guy at church has agreed to lend me his pick-up truck next week so I will go around and get the sofa and love seat. Still sleeping on a blow-up mattress though. School tomorrow.
Well the students have seen that I meant business when I told them that I was an English teacher who would be grading them according to English standards and not as easily as the sub-teachers had with them before. Their grades went from being As Bs to Ds and Fs, mostly Fs, and they complained that I must've been doing something wrong as they were all A& B students. They immediately wanted me to give them more and more worksheets and tests to bring up their grades, but I explained that one couldn't grade things until they were taught, and only then could learning be assessed. Amidst grumblings of dissent I proceeded to teach them how to do reading and comprehension and other grammar stuff. The rest of the week proceeded pretty similarly and as the county requires heaps of grades I want to be sure to do them but also to give students a range of different types and not just one or two as they'd been getting.
NC November Week 3
We are obliged to help out at sporting events and I was tapped on the shoulder by the coach of the football team and asked to turn up and sell tickets at the gate. I thought great because I'd never seen a GRID IRON game live before. Well I didn't get to see much, I was stuck inside the ticket box all night and I only made it out in the second half of the last quarter when the game was all but won. At least we won it. I spoke to some old guys there about Rugby and they said that the game was much too rough for them, as we don't wear armour.
NC November Week 4
I am having a great time at school, the staff are very supportive, asking if I want anything just ask, and it's done. VIF have been in touch and I have heard good reports from them regarding my time at the school. Ximena, the Chilean teacher of Spanish at my school, lives next door and her husband and son have arrived from Chile, so she is happy and they aren't speaking much English, but he's a good cook and he gives me the occasional meal as well.
NC November Week 5
I found out that my classes here like poetry, especially Aussie Ballads, of which I have recited The Man From Ironbark, along with the accompanying actions and How MacDougal Topped The Score. You can see them getting into the beat and rhythm of the lines.
NC November Week 6
I discovered a motivating tool in my 2nd block English class. Now after a month here I am loving it, I wastough from the start, but occasionally I recited an Aussie ballad and the kids related to it like Rap.
I had to tell a kid to be quiet by rapping to her today.
First I couldn't get a girl to be quiet because she was rapping this song and she wouldn't shut up, so I just started rapping a song back at her and dancing around:
Bridget Bridget, in your seat
shut your mouth
shut your mouth
I told ya once I told ya twice
zip the lip and lemme teach...
I just made it up as I went and the class loved it, they kept asking me to do it again, but they all stopped and listened to me so I could teach them a bit. There are certain rhythms that they respond to well. In fact, I was explaining about Iambic Pentameter to one class in the library and equating Rap lyrics to Shakespearean verse. I showed them how they both had similar rhythms. I asked a guy to give me a line from his favourite rap song, then i wrote it on the board and used scanning lines to show the rhythm, and how it works out the same. Later a visiting teacher who heard me giving the lesson, came and complimented me for showing her another strategy with poetry education. I felt pretty warm n fuzzy about that.
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Who's Afraid of Virginia Parents...? |
Posted: 12/08/2007 |
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Sunday
10/23/04
Many things have been happening over the last few weeks that I haven't taken the opportunity to update this journal. I am now living and teaching in North Carolina, and How did I come to this juncture, let me elucidate. As I mentioned I was having sciatic nerve problems and this made it hard for me to sit and consequently I fell a little behind in my school work, but of course, not too far behind. Staying at school every evening till 6pm enabled me to catch up on the work which I had neglected due to pain, so everything was going swimmingly, frequent meetings with my mentor assured me of this and so I was preparing for the first interim grades and settling into a routine, even though Grade 6 is really a Primary school grade, and I am a High school teacher, or so I thought.
Sunday
10/03/04
Anyway, as you do, the deputy principal had a 'cook out' (barbecue) for all the staff at his place on the third sunday of school and a flyer was deposited in all our pigeonholes. I thought this would be a good opportunity to advance my friendship with a certain teacher I liked and asked her if I could follow her out to his place as it was in the next town to the west. She said she wasn't going directly there and gave me directions as how to get there, hmmm.
I brought my guitar there in case we had a chance to have a sing-along and I could contribute, but once I saw the music teachers arriving, natural shyness precluded any show of my musical abilities, or lack thereof. I did get to play one song but everyone seemed uninterested in listening and singing alone so I just gave it a miss and locked up the guitar again. The aforementioned teacher didn't show a lot of interest in conversation, with me anyway, so I looked further afield for amusements and I learned how to play 'horseshoes' which I have seen in Westerns before but never tried. The party started to break up around 6pm and people were saying goodbye and going home so I decided this was the opportune moment to leave also, especially as I could no longer see 'her' anymore, figuring that she must have gone already. I had last seen her being led into the house, and I figured that she was going out to the front or being given a grand tour of the house, but she never returned so I thought the former was most likely, in any case, I chose to leave at this point too.
Just before I left, I asked the principal if he was going to observe me this week, and he said yes, and i told him I had a plan for him and would give it to him tomorrow. He nodded and said good.
Monday
10/04/04
First thing I did this morning I took the lesson plan to the office and gave it to the principal and he received it as I expected him to, saying that he would be seeing me on Wednesday to observe a lesson. So I taught the lesson as normal that day, and the spelling test which I had been reminding students of each day for the week went rather well, as students were well prepared for it. I even had one kid, who normally doesn't do homework, insist that I check homework because he had for once done it. And that's understandable, why do it if it's not going to be checked and marked. That afternoon as I left I noticed 'her' car parked next to mine, so I made a mental note to phone her when I got the chance.
Tuesday
10/05/04
I went to school this morning like I had done every other morning, as I had no inkling that anything was different. As I was walking in to the classroom I was told by a teacher that the big cheese wanted to see me, so I diverted around to his office. He sat me down in front of his desk and gave me that look, the look that you give a wounded animal, just before you blow it's head off. He fired me, I couldn't believe it, he fired me, he said some crap about it not working out and maybe VIF could put me somewhere else, but he fired me. I tried to figure this latest development out. Something had clearly spooked the boss so I went back through my time at the school. Teaching-wise I was ok because my mentor had loved my work, so I figured it was a cultural thing which had grated against the guy. Now like a good detective I put together a list of scenarios,
1. I did not join in playing basketball with the teachers, ok that could be misconstrued as culturally snobby.
2. The coach had brought me a blow-up mattress because he thought this would fix my back, wrong, I already had one and it was more of the problem, this could be taken for ingratitude.
3. I barracked (rooted) for the wrong football side, (cultural insensitivity?) or
4. I rubbed up the parents the wrong way on 'Back to School Night', they didn't like that I was actually using resources to teach students instead of just grading everything.
One parent raved on at me that her daughter was a straight A student at elementary school and I must be a bad teacher for giving her Bs. The following day I gave the class a quiz and they all got an A+ but she got a C, maybe she didn't understand the task, I took her aside and explained the task more clearly, then, let her do the quiz again, but she could still only manage a B. Hmn, straight A student eh? I had been stunned at first, then I figured it out, the school was run by the parents, and because I had rubbed some of them up the wrong way, I was being canned. Ol' Charlie was being pussy-whipped by the mothers, it seemed. Oh well, looks like I was headed home before I even got a ‘pretend’ American accent. Stay tuned... |
Another week in paradise?? |
Posted: 12/03/2007 |
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Wednesday
09/15/04
I gave my first homework assignments in class today, I am starting to get a routine going with the classes. I haven't been able to do much planning while at school because they have Apple computers and dang if I'm going to devote time to learning another word processing system, stuff it, I'll just use my laptop and WinXP/Word.
Payday at last, I figured that after all this time we'd get paid directly into our accounts, which they'd made a big fuss over our setting up the direct deposit thingos when we'd started. As it happened, when I walked into the school secretary's office in the afternoon, she says, “Oh by the way, you have a Check here, Duh, I thought, do they mean I have to rush to a bank now and deposit this, so that I can pay the rent?” We had been here over a month and filled out so many forms and now this. Oh well, I jumped into the car do drive to a BB&T bank, I'd been told that I couldn't get to the closest one in Sterling because there'd been a big prang on Route 28, and traffic was banked up, so I'd have to race 8 miles in the other direction to Leesburg. There were actually closer ones but I didn't know them and I didn't want to muck around with maps at this stage, so I just went to the one I knew.
It took me about 25 minutes to drive 8 miles, and I got the Check deposited alright, but it was going to take two days to clear, great! At least the staff were pleasant to deal with.
Friday
09/17/04
We left the school at about 8.55am bound for Washington DC and we arrived there at about 10.00am at the MCI center in the downtown area. Well, most of Washington is downtown, but we ended up at a Basketball/Hockey stadium, absolutely humungous in size. I you could stack three Brisbane Entertainment Centres on top of each other, you'd get the idea of the size, and this is in the middle of America's capital city. This is just one venue mind, there must be other bigger ones. The US Army put on a show for the kids, marching, and a history of battles and re-enactments etc. The boys were enraptured, so basically I just saw it as a huge recruiting exercise for the Army. At least half of the kids who were there will end up joining the Army, anyway, so it is worth their while to put on the PR exercise. Of course, I had told all my group to go to the Loo before we left the school, and they did, but as soon as we were seated, we arrived last and had to sit three rows from the ceiling, I was having attacks of vertigo we were so high. I felt like I should have had a hang glider so I could soar out over the arena, and make a heroic landing to the rapturous applause of the crowd, but no, I just had to hope my sciatic nerve wouldn't flare up while I was perched in a seat 60 metres off the floor. I'd hate to have to climb down all the narrow tiers with a leg in agony like last Saturday. Anyway, I digress, no sooner had we sat in our seats and I had arranged all my group in seats cosily together that one boy says to me, “Err, Mr Silvestri, I need to go to the bathroom.”
“What? Already, we just got here, well you'll just have to hold it because I'm not taking you down again right now.”
“That's ok” he says, “I know where it is, I have been here with dad to watch Basketball many times.”
Aware that if I allowed him to go it might trigger an avalanch of requests I hesitantly agreed, “Oh alright, but be quick about it!”
What is it with young boys and bathrooms, when the intermission rolled around, I stood and said, “Ok, anyone who wants to go, come now or forever hold your peace.” Well all the boys got up to go, even the one who had been earlier with my permission, I don't remember having to go to the loo so much during the day, when I was a kid. Maybe they drink more water these days, or more junk?
Saturday
09/18/04
I decided to go to the DMV today to get a tag (number plate) for my car. I had been assured that there was only a ten minute waiting time at Sterling DMV. So I drive down there and it's 11.30am and they close at 12.00. I figure 10 mins and no worries. No such luck! As I drove into the car park there were no parks to be found, and while I contemplated parking illegally, I glanced over at the main door and I saw why there were no parking spots. The queue for the DMV extended some 15 yards out the door, along the path and into the car park. Well, that looked like heaps more than ten minutes worth, so I went to Family Dollar instead, and bought a broom and ironing board. Roomie likes to iron on the floor, but I am a traditionalist, who must stand whilst ironing, or it's just not ironed.
Another week in paradise, little did I know... |
Shattica, siatticha, scattica, sciatica! |
Posted: 12/02/2007 |
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Saturday
09/11/04
I had decided to go to the 9/11 memorial in Leesburg starting at 8:30am but after a night of pain I doubted whether I'd actually make it in time and then be back in time to meet Bonnie who was coming by to spend the day together. She came by and I went to her and let her in and then we went to a bank, now I have mentioned before that I am flat broke, having spent all my money on the car basically, I have been scraping by on a few dollars, I even borrowed $20 at one stage. Well I picked up my wallet this morning and it had $6 in it and I decided to take out all the receipts and papers that you collect over time and I felt some paper in the zippered section, dang! What was that, I remember, It's the Aussie money that VIF told us to bring to do a currency lesson, holy money, there was $AUD200 there. I am saved, I'll just cash it into $US and if I ever teach currency, I buy some from a bank I thought.
Well, not so easy, I just thought I could just go to a bank and change it, so I went to Bank of America, and rocked on up to a teller, “I have 200 aussie dollars, I wanna change em into American.” She looked at me startled, oh dear, “Do you have an account here?” “Well no, but look it's just cash, I don't want anything else I just want cash for exchange.” But she wouldn't do it, and I walked out in a huff and back to the car and Bonnie. We went to the BB&T bank at Sterling down the road and the same thing happened with the teller, and I was tearing out my hair at this stage. I went over to the enquiries desk and said, “I thought this was a bank, now who is gonna change money if you don't.”
“Oh dear sir, I don't know how to do it, err, I know someone does it but I never have.”
I was ready to tear out my hair by the roots and scream loudly, when the young guy nearby looks over. She asked this young guy at the next desk and he says, “Sure you can, this is how.” so after filling out many forms and showing a card, he comes to me and gives me a receipt and says, “there sir, it's done.” with a smile. I was afraid of this, that they'd notice I was overdrawn and just take the money to cover it. But I said, oh, I just wanted the cash, we get paid direct on Wednesday, and he promptly says “no worries” and gives me the cash, which I thought was quite good as I was overdrawn after all.
Bonnie and I went to Walmart and bought some stuff, then we went to her house where I helped them unload their moving Pod, well I should say I started to help them, then I had an attack of the pain which I had been having over the last few days. I had thought it was just a pulled muscle, and last night it felt like I had a hairline fracture, as it was agonisingly painful. I writhed around in pain on the lawn then crawled inside and sat at the table where I was eventually able to sit and eat something. Larry, Bonnie's husband, was finally able to identify the problem, in my Shati-watchamacallitah, He'd had the same thing happen, so at least I know what it is now, even though it still hurts like hell. Bonnie and I drove home and we bought some Ibuprofen, which I scoffed a few tablets of, and shuffled up the stairs, I felt about 100 years older than I was. Bonnie is coming back tomorrow. Well as it turned out she doesn't have to come tomorrow because the 4 Ibuprofen, (you are supposed to take 2) I took have done their job and the pain subsided and I could walk again. YOU know, by this time I had to go to a doctor about this. I had been avoiding it because of the fiscal situation. Isonically, a few weeks later, when i did get to a doctor, I waited ages abnd this nurse comes out and says she my doctor, well a Nurse-Practitioner. She examined and poked and prodded me here and there, then prescribed Iboprofen and charged me $75. I drove home and blessed the Lord for Blue Cross, and I slipped into a pain-killer induced euphoria again. |
The teaching begins... |
Posted: 11/26/2007 |
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Now, as I said, I was in America to spread a little Aussie knowledge and culture to their school kids, the organisation of our sponsor, VIF, I mean, this was the whole premise for my coming here after all. Our sponsor had encouraged us to bring a myriad of Aussie resources that we could use to teach from. So I had brought half a suge suitcase full of units and texts from Australia. The Principal of the "Middle" school where I was working had lauded me immensely saying how much he loved having an Aussie teaching in his school, so of course, I was not going to disappoint him. I get right into things and start teaching according to their curriculum, but using my Aussie Texts of course. The students loved it, but the next day a parent phones me and asks me why I am teaching her child about Australia, well duh! So she goes to the Principal and complains that some foreigner is teaching her kid.
This week marked a decline in my standing at this school, and mostly it was basically a culture shock. Not for me that is, but for the Principal, who so had the wrong idea of what Australians were like. On the flight over, I had agravated my Sciatic Nerve and for the first couple of weeks, I was in much pain and had to hobble around. The 1st rubbing up of the wrong way was when he invited me to play basketball with the teachers one afternoon. I couldn't do it as i could hardly walk, let alone play basketball. then Friday, I must have slapped his face again. Loudoun County is on the outskirts of Washington so everyone there roots for the Washington Redskins Foootball team. This night, they were playing the Dallas Cowboys, the only American team I know anything about, and so they were my team. Well all the teachers turn up on Friday in Redskins' colours, and the Principal sits me down and begins to expain about American football and NFL etc. He fully expected me, I guess, to join in his fervour for the Redskins. Well American football is about as exciting as watching grass grow usually, but I did enjoy watching the Cowboys because they throw the ball around sometimes. As fate would have it, that night the Redskins were playing the Cowboys. Now I knew, that it was probably an error of judgement to tell the Principal that I followed the Cowboys, and I wouldn't be rooting for his team, but this was exacerbated by the fact that that Friday evening the Cowboys thrashed the Redskins, on their home ground no less. Now I know that it would have been nice to rub this fact in on Monday, but in the interests of intercultural understanding, I resolved not to do that, well, I may have mentioned it briefly, in passing.
For a cultural ambassador, things were not ambassading too well, and they went into a bit of a decline from here. |
Expectations dashed, Reggae splashed, and Gloating cashed |
Posted: 11/22/2007 |
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Monday
08/30/04
Another day of meetings at school, staff development more handouts and power point presentations, holiday snaps etc. Once again I drove the long way to get home, this happens because everything is around the other way here, and what would normally be a simple retracing of the morning's route, but of course, U-turns are a part of life here, that is, when you realise you've driven past the turn you have to make, when you start driving past unfamiliar houses.
One of the reasons that we chose this apartment complex is that they have 5 yes F I V E computers on cable internet in the common room, so of course we think this is very good and handy. Yeah? Well we have been here for two weeks, and in the first day we discovered that one puter was always ‘had it’, and the others worked at varying speeds. In this age of Pentium 4/5, one would naturally expect that a facility in America would have the state-of-the-art computers, but no such luck. Two of the 4 not 5 computers only run Windows 98....old hat! And the monitors are the old cathode Ray type...old old hat!! And the other two, even though they have LCD monitors, they only run Win 2000, and have virtually no RAM so that any speed it does have has no memory to run. If this wasn't bad enough, school kids who live here and are on summer holidays, and are supposed to have parental supervision before accessing the computers, don't. They look up porno sites and download programs onto the hard drives which are set up in such a way that one can't delete the crap that has been installed on it. This further slows the puters down, and of course stuffs them up. Tonight there were 2, just two computers working, and the TV room is locked every day at 5.30pm, unless you sign the keys out, yada yada yada.
Tuesday
I decided to explore my surrounds today, so I changed into suitable garb, shorts, Tshirt, and Nikes. I power-walked, well years ago it would have just been walking briskly, but today whenever you walk with purpose it's called power-walking, so that'll do. I went past the soccer fields at the back and there was a boys' and a girls' team practicing and I went past, and continued into the scrubby area behind. Now we had been told that there was 70 acres of bushland leading to tje Potomac River, so I thought this will be a good chance to see how hard the river was to get to. Pretty hard in fact, I went through the scrub track and came to a fence, which I jumped over and continued down the road there towards where I thought the river was. I walked past a movie type backwoods house with a pickup truck in the driveway, I hal;f expected a member of the NRA to come out and take pot shots at me. Shortly after that I came to a cul de sac and a fence with NO TRESSPASSING signs on it so....so much for the Potomac River.
That Weekend
Then back at home there was a bolt of excitement, Maybe? My roomie breezes in and asks me if Rob had told me about a Reggae concert at Belmont Hills country club, I vaguely remembered it so we got ready and went along, all the while I was saying that if there was an admission, my limited budget would preclude any entrance. We were assured that there was no admission price and we poured over the ad looking for a $$$$ sign and there was none. We drove there in two cars, in case I had to bail of course, and when we arrived there were about a million cars and ushers. Now this was suspicious, I said to myself, "self," I said, "now how can they employ all these ushers and traffic attendants if it's a free show, hmmmm, curiouser and curiouser." So anyway we parked and walked over to the gate where two blokes were checking bags for drinks, even water, food, guns, clubs, spears knives etc. Annemaree had a bottle of water so we polished it off at the gate, then proceeded to walk in like the others had. This guy says, "Tickets please!" so I said,
"What tickets?" and he said,
"Man you gotta have a ticket to get in, go out front and buy a ticket."
Anyway, the upshot was that it was going to cost $10 to get in and as this was half my budget for the next week, I decided that I did not like Reggae Music so much, they're all marijuana smoking, dreadlocked, cocaine dealers anyway. I drove home and surfed the net for a couple of hours and Noels comes home and tells me that Rob won a return trip to anywhere in the US, hmmmm.
Italiano
Lunedi
30/08/04
Un altro giorno, altri impegni, svilluppi professionali, fotografie delle vacanze. Sono guidato tanto chilometri per arrivare a casa, mi sembra che tutti le scuole stanno lontano dalla casa. E mi perdo la via sempre. Penso che normalmente devo solo guidare sulla stessa strada della mattina. No. Sempre leggo la carta geografica per vedere dove sono.
Gli apartamenti. Abbiamo sequestrate nel questo complesso perche avevono 5, si CINQUE computers con il cable per internet nella stanza computer. Si che bravo che sei. Im beh. Abbiamo stati qui gia` due settimani, e nel primo giorno, abbiamo scoperto che c’e` sempre una computer che non funzione, e gli altri hanno fatto un patto. Funzionono un giorno e il prossimo se ripose, e non faro niente. A questa eta de il Pentium 4 e 5, naturalmente uno espetta che in America, si puo trovare I computer migliori del mondo, ma no! Tutto tenevono Windows 98.
E se queste problemi non erano abbastanza malevole, I ragazzi dell apartamenti, sono in vacanza dalla scuola e ci sono sempre nella stanza. Anzi, loro scaricano tutti I programme pornografici, e cosi le computer funziona ancora piu` piano. Il regolo del complesso e quando I ragazzi usano l’internet, dev’essero I genitori, ma nessuno si frega.
A questo punto, forse pensi che sono un puo sfortunato a questa sogiorno nelle stati uniti. Aspetta, quando pensi che non poteva essere peggio, aspetta…
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Athens Olympic Games |
Posted: 11/20/2007 |
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Sunday
08/29/04
Tonight the girls have planned to have a Olympic closing party at the common room of the apartment complex, so I will go along there.....
Now, I love watching the Olympic sports, any of them, I will get into the spirit of things. Well except for Curling at the winter games and Synchronised swimming, hmm. I don't normally watch the opening or closing ceremonies because I don't really give a rats who's there, I mean the media beats it all up so you know who's going anyway, and the performances, blah blah, ho hum, so what, If I want to see dancing, I go to a show, if I want to see singing, go to a concert. I want to be a good cultural guy so I went along to be with the guys as it were, and of course NBC is the carrier of the Olympics and they want to get the most out of the advertising dollar, so what do they do? They start at 6.30 with documentaries of Ancient Greece, interspersed with copious quantities of commercials, then fast forward to the 20th century and WWII and the Nazi Occupation yada yada yada, and they keep throwing in 6 commercials to break up the boredom of the docco, this history lesson. Half the guests left before the actual ceremony started and all I wanted to do was see the Aussie athletes. The first half of the ceremony was filled with Greek performers dancing around fires and singing in their language, well, it's all Greek to me.
So, now it is 10pm and I am back home and I haven't seen the Australians, once again reinforcing my notion that I don't watch the opening or closing ceremonies. It's just a commercial exercise for the broadcasters and waste of precious time that could be better spent watching grass grow.
See ya soon...
ES
In Italiano
Mia cugina mi ha chiesto che provi a scrivere questo blog anche in Italiano, allora ci provo :).....
Stasera le ragazze hanno preparato una granda festa nella sala TV dell' apartamento. E` per vedere le ceremonie della chiusura dei giochi Olympici, allora sono andati tutti i ragazzi, ed anche io. prima cosa mi piaciono tutti gli sporti Olimpici . Ma "Curling" nelle olimpiadi invernali e il " Nuoto artistico " forse sono troppo niosi. Di norma però, io non guardo mai le ceremonie di apertura e di chiusura delle olimpiadi perchè proprio non mi interessa chi viene e chi non viene. Se voglio vedere ballare, vado ad un 'show', se mi interessa sentire cantare vado ad un concerto. I giochi olimpici sono per lo sport, per guardare, per vincere e per perdere, tutto questo ballare, questo cantare bah, chi se ne frega?
Comunque comincia ll programma. Prima c'era NBC che trasmetteva per gli americani. ebbene Hanno cominciato alle 6 e mezzo della sera con una programma degli antichi greci, e poi la seconda guerra mondiale e la storia dell' occupazione Nazista alla Grecia durante la guerra . via ,via, via quasi tutti i ragazzi avevono lasciato prima che la ceremonia abbia iniziato. Io volevo solo vedere gli atleti australiani. Mi sono sforzato per guardare. La prima parte però, era ballare e cantare tutto in greco, beh, è tutto greco per me!
Invece, alle 10 della notte mi trovo di ancora
all' apartamento, senza aver visto niente, e mi sono ripromesso che non guarderò mai più ceremonie di apertura e chiusura dei giochi l'olimpici. Mi sembra che sia solo un modo per le TV per fare soldi dalla publicita`. Per me è stato tempo perso, tempo che potevo usare meglio, a guardare come cresce l'erba.
Ciao
ES |
Still getting set in USA |
Posted: 11/19/2007 |
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Monday
08/09/04
In a couple of different flights we finally arrived at RDU airport a day late, all that is, except for my luggage which spent another two days in the twilight zone.
Drama 12: We’d arrived at 8.30am and after everyone had found their luggage, I was still standing like a dork at the carousel waiting. After I had watched the same luggage go around about 30 times, I figured there was no more to be seen and I went to make enquiries. They checked the ticket and it turned out, or so they said, that Qantas had only booked it through to Dulles and not to RDU. Could our beloved national carrier be at fault here?
Next followed a period of relative calm, we checked in at the Millennium Hotel and registered with VIF, got our kits etc and had welcome showers and sleep. 6 hours of sleep later, at dinner I was told that my luggage had arrived at the hotel.
Drama 13: I excitedly rock up to the reception but no one knew anything about it, so I went to VIF and they rang around but no one could find it. I offered to go to the airport and get it, then they tell me it’s really not there but it’s still in Dulles. I’m still living in borrowed clothes.
Drama 14: The next day I insist that I go to the airport whose baggage claim had insisted it had not arrived and see for myself. This very helpful driver Joe took me out there and I ran inside to the baggage area. The lady recognised me and said, “Sorry sir your baggage is not here yet!” so I just said that I’d have a look for myself, and I immediately said to her, “What’s that bag there, the big black one?” she looks calmly at it and replies nonchalantly, “oh that’s not yours” I couldn’t believe it , was she blind or what, “ Bullshit!” I said, “it’s got VIF tags and my bloody name all over it, who else’s could it be?”
“Err so it has, you’re right sir, it is yours” she finally relented.
“Thank you” I shot back, and grabbed it and took off before she tried to tell me that I was someone else too!
Drama 15: As it turned out, the very plane that we’d been told had left without us was still parked outside the terminal where it stayed for 90 minutes. We worked out that Max and the young guy just lied their whole way through everything, maybe they belong to United’s Disaster Mitigation, or (Disaster Migration) branch. Nevertheless we had a good chance to bond with each other as colleagues because we went through it all together.
As an ironic footnote to these dramas, the luggage of Allison, the teacher who had in fact boarded the correct flight, arrived at RDU last, even after mine!
Notice here that I am now using the official IATA designation letters for the airports, this is because I can claim to be an experienced international traveller, sounds good huh, or I’m just being a pretentious pratt, one or the other. Anyway we retired to the hotel for some well-earned showers and sleep, eagerly awaiting what was in store for us in the coming days.
Tuesday
08/10/04
Durham NC at the Millennium Hotel was where we were orientated etc so that we could begin to survive in the USA. We were given driving tests just to ensure that we could actually drive, as I believe that people have lied about this in the past and tried to bluff their way through. But an unfeeling automobile has no sympathy for the person who does not depress the correct pedal or press the right button, these charlatans have been subsequently sent home. I of course, being a cab driver extraordinaire, passed with no troubles, but she told me not to speed so much in future. If I had to sum up life in USA at this point I would just say ‘Forms’.
Wednesday
08/11/04
Forms, forms, and more dang forms. And they tell us that this is just the beginning. We filled out Social Security forms, medical insurance forms, car insurance forms, car hire forms, alien whatever forms, exemptions, allowances, tax, banking etc. Basically we sat in lectures and form filling all day then we had a break of a couple of hours where we were asked to present some kind of cultural show featuring the traditions of our home countries.
Of course we Aussies had to put on some kind of performance so as a group we all went in front on stage and sang Waltzing Matilda using the original Queensland tune, and then in keeping with the Banjo Patterson theme I recited The Man from Ironbark, with all the accompanying gestures and actions, and my paper beard. Following this we all sang the national anthem Advance Australia Fair properly first then to the tune of Gilligan’s Island. Each country that was represented performed something uniquely cultural to that country.
We also had a chance to meet all the VIF honchos that we’d be dealing with during our stay.
The bus left the hotel in NC early Thursday to travel on up to VA. We stopped for a watering break just over the VA border and most people made a beeline for Maccas, but four of us decided to avoid the crush and walk a bit and go to Burger King, or Hungry Jacks as it’s known in Australia. It was pretty much like a coach trip in Australia and I had a really good chat with Allison from Boonah near Brisbane and we clicked pretty well, talking about school, life in general and most importantly, Church. I hope we get to go to some services together. We arrived in Leesburg around lunchtime and were met by our advising teachers who took us immediately to pick up our car options. Mine was a Rental so I was taken along with several teachers to a Rental office in Leesburg where I was given a Chevy Cavalier, which was fine in and of itself but we then had to all meet up at the same drop off point back at LCPS office, Duh… hello… we just arrived here, so I asked the rental people how to get back and they totally misunderstood the question, must’ve been the accent, the girl said, “oh sure, it’s just around the back here” now I have been a cabbie long enough to have some idea of how far I had travelled, and it certainly wasn’t just around the back! I tried to carefully retrace the landmarks I’d seen back to LCPS office, no good, nothing looked familiar. Let’s see, I remember the Loudoun Times office, we turned left there, so if I turn right I’ll be heading back, yeah, duh, nuh, no good, maybe it was down that one way street, maybe not. Anyway to cut a long story short, I drove around Leesburg seeing lots of stuff, and being hopelessly lost, until I saw a cop car, so I pulled up, or rather, guttered up to him, I’d misjudged the distance to the kerb and whack scrape. I jumped out of the car and told the cop “Excuse me sir, I am hopelessly lost, can you…” but he yelled
“Sir I can’t do nothing for you, Ah am escorting this truck and you have parked in between him and me, now move your car please… then I’ll talk to you, when ah get time.” I decided that since I didn’t find a readily vacant spot to park that discretion would be the better part of valour, and I just kept driving. Eventually I pulled in at an Exxon garage which I had passed a few times already. I must’ve looked quite stupid at this point because I had stumbled almost back to where I was looking for, and was just one block away, the garage guy said, “whaa sir, it’s raaght there, the next block.” There it was I had driven past the front of the building and not recognised it as the bus had taken us to the rear of the building, duh duh once again. As it turned out, I was not the only one who got lost coming back to the school board office, note for future, <travel in convoy> About nine of us descended on Nidia’s (Local advisor) apartment where we all sacked out on the floor or on air mattresses, after the customary fast food evening meal.
Friday
08/13/04
The next morning we went to a Realty office nearby which was prearranged, and they showed us to some apartments. This turned out to be a bit dodgy because they were quite pushy and while the apartments looked quite nice to me, I really didn’t want to rent on my own. Luckily I met up with a Kiwi girl, Marianne, and we decided to share a place. We looked at apartments all day and she had certainly done her homework, as she was an alumnus and had done it all before. She was very finicky about what she wanted and I was quite happy to defer to her, when it came to which flat. I was basically happy anywhere that had a roof. We ended up finding a really quiet place late in the afternoon, but the landlords only took cheques or money orders so we had to return with one the following day. We filled out the applications, (more forms), then I nonchalantly asked the landlady, “What if someone turns up with a cheque book and writes one on the spot, will you give it to them?” and she hesitated to answer so…
Next morning we were waiting when they opened, and paid by check and that was that, we had it. Next I had to get a hold of a car.
Now there was a big Kafuffle about buying cars in Loudoun County. The word was Tyson’s Corner, which I logically envisaged was literally a corner with a few car yards on it. Well, what else would it be? I mean, who would call a whole town, ‘Tyson’s Corner’?
Anyway, it was south from Leesburg and closer to Washington, and I figured like this: Surely the closer one went to Washington the more expensive cars were likely to be, business goes where the money is…
So, I decided to go west in search of a car, and I drove over the Shenandoah river, resisted the temptation to break out into ‘Country Roads’ and I finally arrived at Winchester, where I stumbled into a car yard called Clarke’s. Here I met a guy called Wayne, who says to me, that he had some reliable 2nd hand Dodge Neons.
Now I informed him that it was my experience, in Australia, that one doesn’t use ‘Neon’ and ‘Reliable’ in the same sentence. A cultural difference here, I actually said, “Neons in Australia are a heap of shit!” Wayne said that, yes, they were a heap of ‘stuff’ in USA also but that problem had been fixed.’ I mumbled my disbelief, but when he mentioned the lowest price at $8,000, I said, “Whoa there mate whoa!, I am not spending a cent over $3000,” so he says he has nothing for that price. He did however send me to another car yard. He told me to go to a place called Big Daddy’s, in Winchester and ask for a guy called Brett, and tell him Wayne sent me, hmn, so I drive on down to Winchester shops and driving all around the Mexican restaurant where it was supposed to be, I couldn’t see a car yard.
So I walk in the back of the Mexican restaurant and ask the Hispanic dude there in a kind of darkened pool hall where Big Daddy’s was, and he said, I was standing in the sales office. So I asked, where the cars were, and he gestures out to the shopping centre car park, and sure enough, what I had thought were shoppers’ cars were in fact the Car Yard inventory. The best looking car they had was a Toyota Tercel with a marked price of $2400 so I asked about it and the guy says ‘Cash or terms’ to which I reply ‘Cash’ and he proceeds to drop the price by a half. I was mightily impressed with this so I asked if he had any better cars, and he said that there was a nice Chevy at the main yard. He gave me directions then to Big Daddy’s at Berryville. Finally I arrive at a car yard that looks like a car yard is supposed to look. An office, a garage with a hydraulic hoist and the owner’s BMW parked in the driveway. I inspected the afore-mentioned Chevy and as I was talking to the secretary about prices, I informed her that I would not go over $3,000. Now there was a guy fiddling around under a desk in the office whom I had figured was a telephone repair guy or something, well, he pops up when he heard me say $3,000 and he says, “Whaa heck, ah’ll let yah have the Beemer for $3,000. It turned out that he was the owner of the yard, and that he was the illusive Brett that I had been told to speak to. So he was in fact Big Daddy. A former league baseball player.
I Returned to Berryville with Mark the next day, bought the car, Mark drove the hire car back, and I drove BMW home, then I went to Manassas to DSS office to apply for my Social Security No.
On Friday I woke up late, and I drove very fast in to the County office. Well the meeting was not there, instead it was at one of the High Schools instead, err. At this point I became Sterling Moss and drove to the meeting at Dominion High School, raced there actually, late 1 hr, but no one even noticed my tardiness, I could’ve walked. I just registered, got stuff, went to ERMS after lunch, met colleagues, classrooms, curriculum etc. We went to a Birthday Party for Steve at his place, and all the Aussies were there, and we had a Barbecue, kind of, American style. Around 9pm I made my excuses along with two girls and went to Washington DC. Allie was enamoured with this refidex-type book she had found, so she was doing the directing. I thought Washington might be a bit scary at night, but it was like any major world city. People were out and about, we went to all the main sites to see, The Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, which are huge, much bigger than I’d thought, the Vietnam Wall, museums Pennsylvania Avenue, White House. Unfortunately I didn’t have a camera at that stage so I have no record of our exploits. Like, jumping over fences and cutting across private lawn areas because as foreigners we could claim ignorance.
As I have mentioned, I was sharing a flat with one Kiwi girl and I had assumed that we would be able to share most stuff quite easily. I mean I Am an easy-going guy. Share and share alike etc. Not so. At the beginning we had cable TV connected to our flat and before we could afford to buy a TV, my flatmate, Marianne, managed to scrounge a little black & white TV from a girl she’d met. She came home and said, “Look, I was given this TV for free.” So I think, “Great, at least we can tune in and pass the time at night.” So we have a look at it and I work out how to get it going etc, “Look we can plug it in here, in the living room, there is an outlet..” No such luck, she takes the TV into her room and plugs it into her room outlet. Her room was sacro-sanct, and totally out-of-bounds for me. So she would sit in her room and just watch her “TV” and with no thought of sharing her good fortune or anything. Oh well, I thought, you’ll hurt your eyes looking at that little thing anyway. We went grocery shopping together though, so I thought, oh well, we’d pool our resources together and buy food and share those responsibilities. Wrong! Once again, she bought what she wanted, and I got what I liked. When we got home she set about making demarcation lines in the kitchen cupboards and drawers, this is mine, this is yours, this half of the fridge is mine, this is yours, oh crap, so this is what the flatmate from hell begins like… I didn’t care about the TV anyway, I had a laptop which I was accessing the internet with so I didn’t watch much TV anyway. I went to Walmart though, and bought myself a clock radio, and listened to right-wing talk-back radio into the night, so there.
This morning the girls and I went to Algonkian Baptist Church, and I realise it was different from the one I went to last week but we are doing, as Allison so eloquently puts it, ‘Church surfing’, until we find a good one. This is not to imply that the ones we have been to are necessarily bad but, you get the picture.
The apartments have a Dumpster and recycling area where people throw out what they don’t want etc, so I saw that someone didn’t want a bookshelf, so I decided to recycle it and it now hold pride of place in my bedroom.
Incidentally, a few weeks later, when they finally paid us, I went to Walmart and bought a large flat-screen colour TV with a Remote. I thought to set it up in the living room and play it very loud, but being a congenial person I put it in my room and invited the said roomie to see it. |
Sojourn in America |
Posted: 11/18/2007 |
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As you would know if you have read my bios attached to my books, that I have spent the last 3 years in America teaching High School. I figured that this would be as good a place to try out my Journal as any, so here goes...
VIF
VIF stands for Visiting International Faculty, a program that was established to promote intercultural communication and interaction, chiefly through the work of international teachers in the host school systems in the United States. I saw an advertisement for the program in Courier Mail Newspaper (Why not teach in the USA?), August of 2003, while I was teaching at Radcliff High in Queensland and I rang the Australian director. I was a little concerned at my age but he said that he did it when he’d been older so I applied. This was followed by a battery of submissions, forms, tests, interviews and references, and finally in March 2004 I was interviewed by the Deputy something-or-other of Personnel for Loudoun County VA, one Matthew Britt, and he offered me a contract on the spot, So I signed on the line and all was fine and it was time, to move on in line, and thus began the following odyssey…
Sunday
AUS
08/08/04
After a sleepless night of anticipation, waking up at 4am and unpacking the laptop to surf a bit of web, we finally left Peregian Beach and my Mother’s home for a one-hour drive to Brisbane Airport for the flight to Sydney. I had packed exactly 32 kg for I remember this being the weight limit from previous trips that I’d been on. However, when I plonked my bag on the check in it weighed 34 kg and despite my bathroom scale-driven protests it was to no avail and I had to remove two kg of items from my bag. It turned out that I was allowed 32kg per bag, so in fact I could’ve brought two bags of 32kg each duh me, for not asking.
We left at 10.10am and I was of course sitting in the wrong seat and this woman comes into the cabin and says, “oh hi Enzo”, and I of course didn’t recognise her, so I said “oh hi…” back, making out like I remembered her name and everything. I | | |