Gillian Polack's Blog, page 274
January 23, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-01-23T11:26:00
Two of our guests for Australia's very first Women's History Month program are getting their heads put on stamps this week. This has made me realise that I don't really want to lick the back of the head of anyone I know (whether I know them virtually or other). I therefore encourage all of you to not get your heads put on stamps. Find other ways of being famous and acknowledged and adored by the public, perhaps.
Anyhow, it got me thinking. Last year Women's History Month was a complete fizz because I was so sick. This year I want to do something special to make up.
Watch this space. I mean it - the vast bulk of my Women's History Month celebration will happen on this blog and it's going to be amazing. No stamps though. Not one.
Anyhow, it got me thinking. Last year Women's History Month was a complete fizz because I was so sick. This year I want to do something special to make up.
Watch this space. I mean it - the vast bulk of my Women's History Month celebration will happen on this blog and it's going to be amazing. No stamps though. Not one.
January 22, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-01-22T16:32:00
I feel that it is incumbent upon me to announce that the giant ants are sharing my flat with meeples. The meeples appear in the oddest places, without warning. I know how the meeples got into my flat (they were a present from a friend who realised that my students need them to play my Medieval board game*) but I have no idea how they get around. Possibly the ants push them.
*If any Medievalist friends wants to see the game, ask at Leeds. I shall have it with my other files on USB. I shall also have my novels, the Beast, a vast number of cookbooks, an enormous amount of reading matter (I'm easily bored and the trip is long) and the complete current dissertation. In fact, most of my external brain will be in my handbag for the duration.
*If any Medievalist friends wants to see the game, ask at Leeds. I shall have it with my other files on USB. I shall also have my novels, the Beast, a vast number of cookbooks, an enormous amount of reading matter (I'm easily bored and the trip is long) and the complete current dissertation. In fact, most of my external brain will be in my handbag for the duration.
January 21, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-01-21T20:55:00
I just made a friend very happy by introducing her to the word 'barmie.' I thought that was what everyone called a bar-mitzvah...
gillpolack @ 2011-01-21T13:25:00
This is a quick post because I was certain I had posted yesterday and discovered I had not. My big discovery of the day (how could I not have known this?) is that in counting using the alef bet chaf sofit is 500. Thinking back, I suspect I've never had to count beyond 100 using the Hebrew aleph bet. This means, of course, I can't do advanced arithmetic in Hebrew, which means that in the Stargate universe I am toast. Or I would have been toast. I now know how to read 500.
I may do a proper post later. Or I may not.
I may do a proper post later. Or I may not.
January 19, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-01-19T11:52:00
Today I've been pushed back into memories. I think I shall blame Georges (for reminding me that last time he saw me - in 1984 - I looked younger than I do now).
Once upon a time(when I was an undergraduate) I used to volunteer once a year at a local high school and teach. The first year, the History and English staff told me two weeks in advance how many classes I would be taking and what they had been doing and offered me full support and "Don't worry, we're with you the whole way." I was doing Roman History that year, so I very carefully prepared a class that took all these year sevens (such a young and polite and enthusiastic age group) through the shape of Roman society. Everyone liked it, it seemed. I gave two of those classes and spent lunchtime with the school debating team, training them. It was all very straightforward.
The fact that the teachers liked it meant that (this being Australia and us all being ratbags under the surface) the teachers decided to extend me a bit the next year. I was given more classes, less background, Year Eights were added to the Year Sevens and I was given only three days to prepare. I fell back on what I had just done at university, myself. I was doing second year, and that included much Old French literature. The story of the Chanson de Roland went down a treat, as did making the students sing a song from the Jeu de Robin et Marion. The school said "Come back next year - we love you."
The next year, the teacher with the ratbag sense of humour had obviously taken over the department. I was given the explanations of what the students were doing fifteen minutes before the first class began. I was given classes pushed two into one room and of mixed ages. All I knew, really, is that they were studying Ancient History. They had a class set that had a picture of the Rosetta Stone, in, however, so most of my fifteen minutes was spent finding it. We talked about reading ancient monuments; I showed them the picture of the Rosetta Stone; I talked them through how it was solved; I taught them a basic alphabet substitute cipher; I taught them Lewis Carroll's cipher (and gave them a clue for the coded text at the back of Alan Garner's Owl Service); and then I put them into teams so they could start training to decipher Linear A by inventing their own codes.
That same day, I was given an invitation to come back and be guest teacher. At this point, I said to my mother "They're really going to test me next year, aren't they?"
"Of course," she said.
I got to the school early, but I was given a cup of tea and told "We'll get back to you."
Just when the bell went, a teacher came to escort me to class.
"Take a deep breath now, because you've got straight classes from here for the rest of the day. They're mostly fifteen year olds, he explained. Two classes in one."
"What have they been doing?" I shouted. I had to shout because kids were racing past us, jostling and yelling useful bits of information such as "We're late for roll call."
"Don't worry," he said. There'll be a teacher present if the class gets dangerous."
"Dangerous?"
"Some of them are a bit rough. Don't worry. Oh, by the way, it's a double period."
He really shouldn't have said that. He so shouldn't have said that.
"What have they been looking at recently?" I was now in the classroom and the second teacher (two classes in one - two teachers.) was surprised no-one had told me. I derailed her surprise and asked again.
"Helen of Troy?" she said, dubiously. "I have to tell you," her words raced like a train. "I'm a bit nervous about all this. I'm first year out. I don't know what I think about you teaching my class."
"Just sit up the back," the other teacher said. "I've seen Gillian in class before. It'll be fine. She's like her mother."
How I got the volunteer teaching was because it was my mother's school. It does explain a lot. A's comment, just then, explained even more. They knew a lot more about me than I had known they knew. Too late. I was about to teach the toughest kids in the school…without preparation. This is possibly the first time in my life Evil Gillian has been seen by a wider audience.
I asked for four volunteers. A big show of hands. This taught me always to ask for the volunteers before they know what they're volunteering for. I picked the kids who looked as if they were most likely to cause trouble. The new teacher shifted restlessly in her seat at the front. She looked quite scared as the boys came from the back of the classroom to the front, swaggering just a bit.
"Now," I said, "I need you to make a list of words. They need to be classified from mildest to worst, so make four headings. I'm relying on you to find me a lot of words. If you get stuck, though, you can ask the rest of the class."
The new teacher nearly fainted when the boys wrote up swear words and insults. I would examine the words critically and ask "Can't you do any better than that? The whole class will be working with these words - they have to be colourful."
Everyone got a bit rowdy. The experienced teacher up the back just crossed his arms, leaned back and didn't stop laughing for the rest of the class. I think I made an enemy for life of the new teacher up the front.
Once we had enough words, I dismissed the holders-of-chalk (I found out later that two of them were normally kept away from the blackboard for very good reasons, but they were angels for me - angels with good vocabularies) and we moved on to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This was when TMNTs were very, very popular.
I explained that in Old French epic legends key characters were always described in a certain way so that they could be instantly recognised. I gave Charlemagne as an example, with his beard and Roland (preux) and Olivier (sage). I used Old French because, after all, this was a class in high school. I explained what Old French was. I explained what chansons de geste were. I told them Roland's death scene.
We then listed key descriptors for all the turtles. I explained simple rhyme and laisses similaires. The rest of the periods the kids wrote their very own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle epic battle scenes, replete with insults (gradated so as to build up the tension and etc) and chanson de geste style characterisation.
I taught another two period class after that, but it was much less fun because by then, the teachers were expecting it. In fact, the teachers in that class got right out and left me to it. Gillian and 70 teenagers, together with a blackboard full of bad words. Altogether, I taught five periods that day. A lot of students learned to grade insults according to severity. Every single one of those students (including the tough ones) insisted on me being sent a package with all their poems, handwritten and often decorated. I still have those poems, safely stowed away.
That was my last year. In fact, I left Melbourne at that point, which probably saved me from the wrath of irate parents.
Once upon a time(when I was an undergraduate) I used to volunteer once a year at a local high school and teach. The first year, the History and English staff told me two weeks in advance how many classes I would be taking and what they had been doing and offered me full support and "Don't worry, we're with you the whole way." I was doing Roman History that year, so I very carefully prepared a class that took all these year sevens (such a young and polite and enthusiastic age group) through the shape of Roman society. Everyone liked it, it seemed. I gave two of those classes and spent lunchtime with the school debating team, training them. It was all very straightforward.
The fact that the teachers liked it meant that (this being Australia and us all being ratbags under the surface) the teachers decided to extend me a bit the next year. I was given more classes, less background, Year Eights were added to the Year Sevens and I was given only three days to prepare. I fell back on what I had just done at university, myself. I was doing second year, and that included much Old French literature. The story of the Chanson de Roland went down a treat, as did making the students sing a song from the Jeu de Robin et Marion. The school said "Come back next year - we love you."
The next year, the teacher with the ratbag sense of humour had obviously taken over the department. I was given the explanations of what the students were doing fifteen minutes before the first class began. I was given classes pushed two into one room and of mixed ages. All I knew, really, is that they were studying Ancient History. They had a class set that had a picture of the Rosetta Stone, in, however, so most of my fifteen minutes was spent finding it. We talked about reading ancient monuments; I showed them the picture of the Rosetta Stone; I talked them through how it was solved; I taught them a basic alphabet substitute cipher; I taught them Lewis Carroll's cipher (and gave them a clue for the coded text at the back of Alan Garner's Owl Service); and then I put them into teams so they could start training to decipher Linear A by inventing their own codes.
That same day, I was given an invitation to come back and be guest teacher. At this point, I said to my mother "They're really going to test me next year, aren't they?"
"Of course," she said.
I got to the school early, but I was given a cup of tea and told "We'll get back to you."
Just when the bell went, a teacher came to escort me to class.
"Take a deep breath now, because you've got straight classes from here for the rest of the day. They're mostly fifteen year olds, he explained. Two classes in one."
"What have they been doing?" I shouted. I had to shout because kids were racing past us, jostling and yelling useful bits of information such as "We're late for roll call."
"Don't worry," he said. There'll be a teacher present if the class gets dangerous."
"Dangerous?"
"Some of them are a bit rough. Don't worry. Oh, by the way, it's a double period."
He really shouldn't have said that. He so shouldn't have said that.
"What have they been looking at recently?" I was now in the classroom and the second teacher (two classes in one - two teachers.) was surprised no-one had told me. I derailed her surprise and asked again.
"Helen of Troy?" she said, dubiously. "I have to tell you," her words raced like a train. "I'm a bit nervous about all this. I'm first year out. I don't know what I think about you teaching my class."
"Just sit up the back," the other teacher said. "I've seen Gillian in class before. It'll be fine. She's like her mother."
How I got the volunteer teaching was because it was my mother's school. It does explain a lot. A's comment, just then, explained even more. They knew a lot more about me than I had known they knew. Too late. I was about to teach the toughest kids in the school…without preparation. This is possibly the first time in my life Evil Gillian has been seen by a wider audience.
I asked for four volunteers. A big show of hands. This taught me always to ask for the volunteers before they know what they're volunteering for. I picked the kids who looked as if they were most likely to cause trouble. The new teacher shifted restlessly in her seat at the front. She looked quite scared as the boys came from the back of the classroom to the front, swaggering just a bit.
"Now," I said, "I need you to make a list of words. They need to be classified from mildest to worst, so make four headings. I'm relying on you to find me a lot of words. If you get stuck, though, you can ask the rest of the class."
The new teacher nearly fainted when the boys wrote up swear words and insults. I would examine the words critically and ask "Can't you do any better than that? The whole class will be working with these words - they have to be colourful."
Everyone got a bit rowdy. The experienced teacher up the back just crossed his arms, leaned back and didn't stop laughing for the rest of the class. I think I made an enemy for life of the new teacher up the front.
Once we had enough words, I dismissed the holders-of-chalk (I found out later that two of them were normally kept away from the blackboard for very good reasons, but they were angels for me - angels with good vocabularies) and we moved on to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This was when TMNTs were very, very popular.
I explained that in Old French epic legends key characters were always described in a certain way so that they could be instantly recognised. I gave Charlemagne as an example, with his beard and Roland (preux) and Olivier (sage). I used Old French because, after all, this was a class in high school. I explained what Old French was. I explained what chansons de geste were. I told them Roland's death scene.
We then listed key descriptors for all the turtles. I explained simple rhyme and laisses similaires. The rest of the periods the kids wrote their very own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle epic battle scenes, replete with insults (gradated so as to build up the tension and etc) and chanson de geste style characterisation.
I taught another two period class after that, but it was much less fun because by then, the teachers were expecting it. In fact, the teachers in that class got right out and left me to it. Gillian and 70 teenagers, together with a blackboard full of bad words. Altogether, I taught five periods that day. A lot of students learned to grade insults according to severity. Every single one of those students (including the tough ones) insisted on me being sent a package with all their poems, handwritten and often decorated. I still have those poems, safely stowed away.
That was my last year. In fact, I left Melbourne at that point, which probably saved me from the wrath of irate parents.
January 18, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-01-18T16:02:00
An email in my inbox just now read "Ladies Garden Party. ACT Mikveh ready for use." Alas, the two items turned out not to be related, but one after the other in a newsletter, and the email client had simply compressed the headings. But, if they were, I would go to that garden party and return ritually pure, simply because I could.
I shall keep the garden party/ mikveh combination in mind for worldbuilding. It would work very nicely in a novel, I think.
I shall keep the garden party/ mikveh combination in mind for worldbuilding. It would work very nicely in a novel, I think.
January 17, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-01-18T00:32:00
I had intended to write 800 words with very short (almost minimalist) reviews. Instead it turned into a 2600 word essay. And only two bad jokes in the whole thing. Oops.
I'm one book short of where I wanted to be at the close of today, and two articles short. Still, I wrote 1800 extra words on the one I did complete. I could have written something much shorter and more pedestrian and have less unfinished.
I'm stopping now. I blame the 3 cm ant that just tried to walk over my foot, but the truth is that it's a rarely comfortable night and I plan to catch up on some sleep.
I'm one book short of where I wanted to be at the close of today, and two articles short. Still, I wrote 1800 extra words on the one I did complete. I could have written something much shorter and more pedestrian and have less unfinished.
I'm stopping now. I blame the 3 cm ant that just tried to walk over my foot, but the truth is that it's a rarely comfortable night and I plan to catch up on some sleep.
gillpolack @ 2011-01-17T21:47:00
My papers are all over the floor. I would say "again," but it's different papers to the other day, and for a different reason.
The weather change has happened. We have a wonderful evening breeze. I have my big sliding door open and windows open and my flat has cooled down two degrees in ten minutes. The aches have gone, and I'm about to do two more hours work (to make up for a very grumpy afternoon - simple changes in air should not have mirror reflections inside the body - I tell my body this and it just won't listen) - I'll send off three articles tomorrow and the fourth later in the week. On Wednesday I shift from reviewing and writing to editing. It's like this lovely breeze - a refreshing change of direction for a short time.
Soon the breeze will shift directions, or even fade entirely. I'm hoping to take another two degrees off the ambient temperature before that happens, however. Those extra two degrees will make everything around me perfectly comfortable, for working, for watching TV, for sleeping. I'll be working regardless, but I'll enjoy the work a lot more.
The weather change has happened. We have a wonderful evening breeze. I have my big sliding door open and windows open and my flat has cooled down two degrees in ten minutes. The aches have gone, and I'm about to do two more hours work (to make up for a very grumpy afternoon - simple changes in air should not have mirror reflections inside the body - I tell my body this and it just won't listen) - I'll send off three articles tomorrow and the fourth later in the week. On Wednesday I shift from reviewing and writing to editing. It's like this lovely breeze - a refreshing change of direction for a short time.
Soon the breeze will shift directions, or even fade entirely. I'm hoping to take another two degrees off the ambient temperature before that happens, however. Those extra two degrees will make everything around me perfectly comfortable, for working, for watching TV, for sleeping. I'll be working regardless, but I'll enjoy the work a lot more.
gillpolack @ 2011-01-17T14:03:00
I've finished my book and written it up and had some lunch and am about to have a cuppa. I need to celebrate my latest Bibliobuffet column. I want to subtitle it "Where Gillian waxes very nostalgic." One of my editors says it has soul. This makes me wonder if my soul is full of yearning to tell people about the past and about my childhood memories and has not much else to it.
ETA Cause of typos and computer strangeness is solved. A simple weather change is on the way. A nice one, at that. My dexterity and brain will sort themselves out together, later today.
ETA Cause of typos and computer strangeness is solved. A simple weather change is on the way. A nice one, at that. My dexterity and brain will sort themselves out together, later today.
gillpolack @ 2011-01-17T12:59:00
Today is the day of the impossible typo. They sneak into places even after proofreading. I can't even blame the heat, since it's not even 30 degrees outside.
All my writing today will be checked and checked again tomorrow. Sorry folks-who-expect it in their email - you will just have to wait a day. You will like it much better tomorrow. I promise.
In other news, the seven books I had to finish by the end of today (I tallied them up about this time yesterday) grew to eight books, but that's OK because I've started them all. I've finished three entirely. If I stopped playing round here and did some work, I could finish the one I told myself had to be finished before lunch. Then I could eat. All good things.
By tomorrow, every single one of those books will be read. And enjoyed. I know about the enjoyment because that's why I've read some of each - I just couldn't wait to find out if they were any good. I had to *know*.
All my writing today will be checked and checked again tomorrow. Sorry folks-who-expect it in their email - you will just have to wait a day. You will like it much better tomorrow. I promise.
In other news, the seven books I had to finish by the end of today (I tallied them up about this time yesterday) grew to eight books, but that's OK because I've started them all. I've finished three entirely. If I stopped playing round here and did some work, I could finish the one I told myself had to be finished before lunch. Then I could eat. All good things.
By tomorrow, every single one of those books will be read. And enjoyed. I know about the enjoyment because that's why I've read some of each - I just couldn't wait to find out if they were any good. I had to *know*.
