Weather

Weather is odd.

We've been having some odd weather in NZ, which has completely mucked up our sports day(s) in Nuova Lazio High School.
Last Tuesday (the day of the terrible Christchurch earthquake) we were supposed to be having a sports day.  Our students were excited about it, not because of having to run around a track in the hot weather, or throwing a metal spear, or jumping over a bar, but because :
1. They didn't have to attend normal classes
2. They were encouraged to wear the most outlandish costumes, based on their house colours (Blue, Yellow, Green and Red)  Prizes would be given for the best outfits.

On the morning, I had to leave for school at 7:00 so I would have time to arrange for some relief teachers if the sports were cancelled. (Obviously I didn't have to arrange relief teachers if the sports were on; I mean, who cares if there's 4 instead of 5 teachers supervising the Discus, or the Javelin.  Admittedly, having a Year 9 pupil skewered by an erratically thrown Javelin is not to be encouraged (in almost all cases; but I have a little list, they never will be missed) and might even bring the school to the attention of the dreaded press, but adequate sports activities supervision was all arranged, and not my responsibility). 
I was dressed for the sports; big floppy sun-hat, cool cotton shirt (blue check, house colours,  The BLUE obviously, not the check, unless you're a Czech, then it's modrá) trusty ex-Army shorts that have seen me through 5 house paintings in two countries, really silly pair of Hush Puppy sandals and about ½ litre of factor 50 sunblock. 

Factor 50 SunBlock is a bit thick

It was raining as I left my house, a gentle spatter on the windscreen.  The skies were full of dark clouds.  Excellent I thought, the sports day will be cancelled, normal classes will run, and I'll appear as a complete prat to everyone, because they'll have heard the radio announcement cancelling the sports day and will have had time to change into normal school dress ( not necessarily a dress, could be a frock, although I prefer the traditional tweed jacket with leather elbow-patches, brown corduroy trousers and highly polished brown brogues)  The Head of PE was due to make the call at 7:30, and the local radio would announce the cancellation at that time.

At 7:35, just as I was driving into the Nuova Lazio High car park, the announcer gave the cancellations for that day.
Only one.

Upper Hutt Cricket.

Oh Hell, that meant our sports were on. It was still drizzling.

The Evil that is a Mince & Cheese pie

We entered the fields at 9:00 taking out all the equipment. Our wonderful ground and caretaking staff had already set up the areas, roping off the danger areas around the javelin, discus, hammer and the pie stall. (Personally, I reckon a Kiwi Pie of Mince & CHEESE is an abomination under God, and should be banned under the unnecessarily high fat foods Act, but our kids love them and have to be strictly controlled when purchasing them, otherwise fist-fights spontaneously erupt) They had also set up some tables

and in my case at the Javelin area, no chairs (Gentle reminder guys, at least 2 chairs next time, OK?)
First job, grabbed a group of Year 10 boys, "Go get two chairs"  They did get the chairs.  It took them 20 minutes.  I saw them approaching through the now heavier drizzle, one poor sod carrying/dragging two chairs at the rear of the group, the other three boys laughing and chatting at the front. (have you ever noticed? There always one person in a group that actualy does the bloody work)

Badly supervised Javelin

We began to process the students through the Javelin throwing, occasionally watching participants on the track as they passed.  One bad sight of the year was a Year 13 boy, who was running in a faithful replica of the notorious (and banned in 23 countries under the bad-taste provisions of the Geneva Convention) Borat  Yellow Unitard.

Should be banned world wide. It's just WRONG

 Making a mental note to purchase a wire brush and some Dettol (sometimes removes bad memories, and I could always use it on that stupid bastard Matt, to remind him that Borat was passé) we continued with the Javelin attempts.
By now the rain (no longer drizzle) was coming in across the fields in ever-heavier bands, and it was getting colder.
When I was in the Army, I have spent many hours working or walking under pouring rain, hail and snow.  I have marched for miles through cloying mud, scratching gorse and dense woodland.  I have even crawled through soaking heather and bogs.  But I was always ready and prepared.  I wore suitable clothing, which even when soaked through protected me to a certain extent from the elements. And there was always a feeling of an important objective to be reached, a time constraint or a vital task to be completed.

Standing in the rain amongst a bunch of brightly painted kids who really didn't give a rat's arse for the sports but just wanted to have some fun with their mates could not be construed (even by Ringo) as an important/vital task.  As the water dripped off the brim of my hat onto the record sheets in my clipboard, and began to wash away the previously recorded names, even as I tried to write the current competitor's name and house, I decided that enough was enough.  I began to tell the kids and the other teachers to pack up.  I was now soaked through, and it was getting colder. 
Every time I moved, I was aware of a feeling of numbness in my shoulders and arms, a feeling of water running down my legs, my bulging varicose veins guiding them into my now squidgy sandals, and a decided lack of numbness in my nether regions, where it felt that the rain had converted my normally robust but soft (and comforting) shorts into at least grade 10 sandpaper.

We began to hear, through the drumming of the now relentless downpour, shouted instructions from the command tent to pack up, head for cover, sauve qui peut mon braves. It was like being at the beaches of Dunkirk, the retreat at the Marne.

The rush to shelter

And so ended our sports day.  Many of the kids buggered off home to get warm and dry, but many staff had to stay, and we sat in our wet clothes and shivered and tried to work. 

Then we heard about the Christchurch Earthquake.  Tuesday 22nd was not a good day.

It was decided to go ahead with our alternate sports day on Friday, but as the day approached, the weather forecast became worse, with showers promised on the Friday morning.. The decision was made on Thursday to cancel the sports on the next day.  Normal classes would resume.

Friday was a lovely day. Warm sun, fluffy high clouds, even a gentle cooling breeze.  It would have been a perfect day for the sports.

Weather is odd.

Sports Day

It's all about Sports

No teaching today, just supervising our kids frolicking under the merciless New Zealand sun.  There's always a slight haze in the air in Nuova Lazio, I suppose it's the marijuana smoke gathering in some sort of temperature inversion in the volcanic bowl that we all live in.

Anyway, back to the sports.  Ringo gave his seminar on e-portfolios yesterday, I actually did want to go, but there was some errors with the relievers' pay, and I had to sort that out first.  Our erudite and grammatical guru went, so I'll get some feedback from him and from the others who went.  There's a rumour floating around that the HOFs had to cajole, browbeat, bribe and in at least one case, threaten members of their faculties to attend as their designated victim representative.  nobody denies that the concept of the e-portfolios is a bad idea, it's just that technically there are some serious issues, and socially, not many of our kids have easy access to computers and a broadband connection, so many will automatically be disadvantaged.  It's not right.

Anyway, back to the sports.  I'll be in my normal place, right up at the far end of the field, helping with the javelin.  It's not too bad, and once we get properly organised, we'll feed the kids through conveyor-belt style, and should be finished by lunch.  Most of our kids enter into the spirit of the day, with real Kiwi enthusiasm, painting themselves in house colours and wearing silly clothes. My only concession to the day is to come in wear shorts, sandals (not jandals and definitely no socks) a big floppy hat and sunnies.  Plus of course a slathering of factor 50 sunblock.  Any non-kiwis reading this should be aware that the sun in New Zealand can be really ferocious, much worse than in Aussie, and good protection is vital.

Blistering, Scorching Kiwi Sun

I remember, just after I had arrived in NZ, going to a used car lot to buy some form of transport (I couldn't afford to keep my hire car much longer)  I didn't have a hat, but only spent 30 minutes looking at cars and talking to the salesmen in the yard before going into the office, and in that time my balding pate got enough sun to cause extremely painful blistering that evening.

Anyway, back to the sports.  The finishing event is normally the student - staff relay race, but our HOF of PE seems to think that such a race may be too dangerous to allow.  He gave some sort of half hearted reasons like a fear of one of our older and out-of-shape teachers collapsing while have a myocardial infarction, or risk of extreme groin strain, but we could tell it was just an excuse.  He was frightened that the students would win (again) 

We should run events more in keeping with the general school ethos.

200 metre joint sprint:  Where students attempt to outrun a slavering police dog whilst finishing and then swallowing a 50g joint.  Extra house points are awarded for style, lack of brown trouser stains and levels of intelligibility after finishing.

Subaru Strip:  Where teams of 5 students strip a Subaru Impreza down to the chassis.  The school record is 25 minutes and 42 seconds.  The current record holder is tutoring advanced classes in Rimutaka Prison.  He was exceptionally skilled at removing parts, but exceptionally bad in character judgement after he tried to sell two front panels to an off-duty Senior Sergeant in the Firemans's Arms in Petone.

The Warehouse Nonchalant Stroll.  Only for senior students. Where individuals have to move without expressing tension, stress or dropping any of the 25 items of Warehouse stock secreted about their person over a 50 metre obstacle course.

The Teacher Pursuit.  Run in two heats.  The first leg is where 10 -15 of our younger athletic male teachers are each given a baseball bat and allowed to chase catch and thoroughly beat a group of our worst behaving male students.  The students being handicapped by a ball and chain and a sense of social inferiority.
  The second heat is where any (living) male teacher is allowed to chase a pack of our lady teachers.  Just for fun.

Chase the lady teacher

Anyway, back to the sports.  I would really prefer to spend the day teaching my students.  They're really great kids who perform to the best of their abilities, and it's fun for all of us.  That's one of the secret advantages of being a teacher.  You can plan, prepare and present a topic or concept in such a way that the students don't really realise they're learning (the juniors anyway) and the teacher has a captive audience to try jokes, funny voices, practical jokes, trivia from life history etc.  Fun is had by one and all.

An example of a bad joke (but with an ICT teaching component)

Anyway, back to the sports.  The one major advantage from my perspective is the lack of relievers.  If one of our staff throws a sickie, I don't have to arrange a relieving teacher.  Who cares if there are 4 or 5 staff supervising the discus?

Hmmm.

Is that a migraine coming on, or just an acute attack of situational hypochondria?

Synchronised Swimming

Ever since the Olympics introduced Synchronised Swimming as an event, I wondered what type of person would want to do it.  Apart from the idiots calling it a sport, it must be decidedly unpleasant to participate.
With your head under the water for a goodly portion of the performance, water up your nose and in your ears, trying to keep your breathing timed to your surfacing must be difficult.
But why?
Are you trying to go faster?
Are you trying to go deeper?
Are you trying to be more graceful?
No.
You're just trying to be exactly the same as everyone else in your group.
What's the bloody point?
It must be the most boring and irrelevant "sporting" pursuit.

I met an ex-member of the NZ Synchronised Swimming team at the weekend.
She seemed almost normal.  No mad gleam in the eyes, no gills.  Quite ordinary really, though quite pretty.

When she told me of her participation, I felt quite proud of myself.
I didn't give a belly laugh of derision, nor did I snort in snide amusement. 
I just smiled, and said (lying) "How Fascinating".  I did say she was quite pretty, and like most men, I find it difficult to be rude or offensive to pretty girls.

She seemed keen to tell me more, but my beloved, who was sitting next to me gave me the subtle dig in the ribs I have come to love and expect. 
About two broken ribs worth of love I would judge.

I just sat quietly for the rest of the meal doing what every married (or partnered) man does in that situation  I fantasised about this pretty girl in a skin-tight swimsuit doing all sorts of synchronous activities.

Synchronised tea-making.
Synchronised vacuuming.
Synchronised dusting.
Synchronised car washing.

All in the gleaming skin-tight swimsuit.

My beloved had to give me another elbow in the ribs (Mach 2.5, I judged, grunting in pain) to remind me it was about time to leave.

I still think it's a bloody silly "sport" though.

Almost as silly as Solo Synchronised Swimming.  I mean to say, which fucking moron thought that one up.
Synchronised with what?
Move your left foot at the same time as your right foot. 10.0  10.0  10.0  10.0
My daughter could do that at age 3.

Solo Synchronised Swimming
(So difficult)