Singing with tears & pleading in the dark.

A little girl at school has been in a terrible car accident. Her family’s car was hit by a semitrailer as they were driving a few weeks ago. Until now I have had no words to write about it. 

Little Lidia is a beautiful girl! Her and her twin brother were in Kindergarten with my eldest son. These three played together almost everyday despite the language differences. Lidia and her brother repeated at the end of the school year by way of enabling them to develop greater fluency in English. My Dear Siah was pretty sad to go on to Year One without them. He is now in Year 4 and they are in Year 3. 

The car accident occurred in the recent holidays. While the family all sustained minor injuries, Lidia has suffered a great amount of brain damage. We’re all shaken. Her family is devastated. Yet through it they have had so much unwavering faith, strength, hope and reliance on God. They have prayed, we have all prayed for Lidia. We have begged God desperately to heal her, to restore her fully, to return her to her family, to us and to school. We hope and pray for a miracle. We ask that the God of life will give life back to this little girl and be glorified. We hope. 

It’s really hard. I have cried so much, begged and pleaded and simply cannot understand why God would not heal her. He can do it. Anytime He likes. Now….or now…He can. I know it. But as days turn into weeks and Lidia shows only the barest signs of life, we wonder, what is God doing? As people pray and talk about God bringing good out of this my heart cries “Where? Where’s the good?” I can’t see it. 

My little Mmoo (7yrs) prayed for Lidia and said, “God we thank you that if Lidia comes back to school we will be happy and we thank you that if Lidia goes to heaven her family will be happy that she is with you. But we thank you because we will be happy if she comes back to school” and I thought…perhaps either way is good. Terribly devastatingly painfully good. And though the darkness closes in I try to sing through the tears…

 

But it’s hard. He gives and takes away…and it’s so hard when it’s a child.

So still we pray and plead and beg in what feels like a great darkness and I know my heart refuses to believe how serious Lidia’s condition is…maybe it’s hope…She could still be healed. She could. 

I wish it was still Rebecca’s month of petitionary prayer so I could say, “Pray with us!” I’ll say it anyway and I think I’ll call it ‘missm’s call to desperate impassioned prayer’. Will you join us? 

 

Adaptation & Appropriation

Gerard Gennette once said everyone who truly loves books must hope at sometime to love two at once, or something like that [actual quote pending - where is that book?]. This love for two texts is a love I hope to instill in the hearts of my extension English class as we study adaptation and appropriation this term. So far I have a short list of possible texts for study, however, I know there are so many more out there and I know you know of them. So I’m making a list and am asking you to help me add to it. So far I have the following:

 

The Taming of the Shrew - Shakespeare

& 10 Things I Hate About You

 

The Odyssey - Homer

&  O Brother, Where Art Thou? 

 

Lady Windermere’s Fan - Oscar Wilde

& A Good Woman

 

Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen

& Bride & Prejudice

or Bridget Jones’ Diary (Which I hate and thus want to ban from my list. Blah!)

 

Twelfth Night - Shakespeare

& She’s the Man

 

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy - Laurence Sterne

& Tristram Shandy

 

Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Paterson

& Bridge to Terabithia 

My list contains mostly appropriations because that is what I like best, however, it would be good to have some adaptations on the list as well like, well anything Jane Austen that has then been done by the bbc. Adaptations are interesting because often tiny changes are made to the text to make it relevant for contemporary audiences even though a fairly ‘true to text’ approach is taken. For example, did anyone notice how the teacher in Bridge to Terabithia makes reference to the internet even though the movie is set in the 1970s and this reference, as well as being anachronistic didn’t appear in the original text?

I plan on teaching adaptation and appropriation as a continuum and proposing a range of texts along this continuum for the students to choose from. We will then focus our studies on how changes have been made from the original text and what these changes say about context, audience, worldviews and values.

 

SO, I’m wondering if you can help me add to this list? What are your favourite adaptations and appropriations of texts? What do you like about them?

In retrospect: It’s all about me[!]me[!]

My friend David, who I kinda went to school with - same school though he was about a million years above me…ok 5 or so - but have never really met, tagged me for a meme. And surprise, surprise, it’s all about me.

So, I’m supposed to wade through my past posts and select one representative of each of the following themes (one link/theme, I think): family, friends, me, something I love and anything I like. Pretty much, this is what my whole self-indulgent blog is about but here we go…my selections are as follows:

FAMILY: I have a lovely new Poppy! And more very funny little people. I adore my family. 

FRIENDS: The ones who do things like this and inspire this response are awesome. 

ME: a post I wrote from my old blog - the second one actually… the one I began after deleting the first on some serious but rather impulsive whim - by way of obscure introduction. Here I strangely assert that I am from Bullfrogs and Butterflies - more precisely, the album. Those of you who grew up with the tapes will know what I’m talking about. Oh! How I loooooved Nathaniel the Grublet!

SOMETHING I LOVE: Besides Nathaniel the Grublet… the sea, books, reading, books, coffee, music, beach, family & friends, study, when the weather compliments my mood….oh! How am I supposed to choose ONE thing?

ANYTHING I LIKE: How about reading indulgently and learning through literature.

 

So I cheated. I linked to too many past posts…I’m not one for rules. However, one of the rules I DO like is the tagging rule. So, these people are it - and I don’t mind if you include multiple links for each theme either - Kim, Kim, Ellen, Beck, & Island Sparrow. 

I see through your kiss! ;)

For Project Looking Through

This photo was taken while playing around in Photo Booth. Oh how I love Photo Booth! It’s soooo fun! It enables me to kiss my little man on BOTH cheeks at once! Isn’t technology great.

My dear friend Kim is playing and I thought I’d join in. Here are the details as posted at Mark’s blog:

Project Looking Through

The only requirement is the sensation of looking through something. That keeps it specific enough to keep us focused, but vague enough to free up everybody’s creativity. I figured Project Looking Through — PLT for short — is a good name.

So, join in if you like, and please use the Mr. Linky form in my latest Project Looking Through post to add yourself to the list of participants.

There’s your invitation so come & play along with us!!

Everything’s Coming Up Poppy’s!

I am an Aunty!!!!
Wooooo!!!
My brother and his lovely wife have given birth to a beautiful little girl, Poppy! She is soooooo lovely! Incredibly beautiful and we are all wildly besotted!

The Most Beautiful Poppy in the World xxx

The name Poppy really suits her quite well for she is so delicate, so beautiful that no one can keep their eyes off her as soon as she enters the room, deliciously faintly scented with that lovely new baby smell, and is somewhat, ok completely addictive!

Since holding her my boys have said:
Oh Mama! If anything ever happens to Poppy I will be soooooo sad!
&
[whispers] Awww! Did you see that?! Isn’t she beauuuutiful!

We watch every little blink and frown, every twitch at the corners of her mouth - they are smiles, you know - every squeak, every sigh, every flutter of her lashes, crinkle of her brow, and wiggle of her fingers and we adore her. Oh we adore her!

She is, as my little man says, “The first girl-child in our family [and] it’s lucky she is here because we needed a girl-child.”

This same little man has taken up French Knitting to make his precious little cousin a “sausage shape” or a “P for Poppy”. He has chosen a fantastic colour changing wool that, like Poppy, is “just beautiful!”. My older little man has been somewhat more reserved, that is until he held little Poppy yesterday. Now he is devoted. He has become Poppy’s personal photographer, capturing every change and admiring it nostalgically moments after it occurs. Mum is madly knitting little booties and bonnets and embroidering pink onto everything. Dad is quietly proud. He holds her and beams. My brother cries with joy, my sister-in-law is radiant. Sleep deprived and still radiant. I am an Aunty! And I can’t stop buying pink things, filling my house and my brother’s house with fresh poppies from local growers and exclaiming, “Welcome, beautiful Poppy! You are so beautiful!” And isn’t she?!

An Artful Disorder: Symmetry is for Faces not Vases!

As I was arranging a bunch of flowers tonight, the following passage came to mind:

There was really no point trying to arrange wild flowers. They had tumbled into their own symmetry, and it was certainly true that too even a distribution between the irises and the rose-bay willow-herb ruined the effect. She made some minutes making adjustments in order to achieve a natural chaotic look. While she did so she wondered about going out to Robbie.

These are the thoughts of Cecilia in Atonement, a beautifully written novel - which has also been adapted into a gorgeous film, as you probably know - by Ian McEwan. A novel overflowing with evocative description and vivid characterisation.

As I arranged my flowers I thought of symmetry, life past and future, that which is determined and a man I long to see. I thought of my life. My day. My tomorrow.

Like Cecilia, I have never liked symmetry - except for in a face. It’s far too ordered, predictable and balanced. It’s so balanced it makes me feel…well, unbalanced. If I see something symmetrical I have to fight the strongest urge not to rearrange it. Unless it is a bunch of flowers, then nothing can hold me back!

The flowers fell into a unsettling symmetry before me tonight and as I swiftly rearranged them I wondered at my abhorrence of that which is uniform because, you know, it extends to more than just floral arrangements. I have a terrible feeling that the way I like my flowers indicates some deeper darker truth about who I am, what I think and how I want to live: I think I’m pretty much inherently rebellious. But for now all I want to say is, Cecilia is right: symmetry is for faces not vases. What do you think?

Btw, have you read Atonement?! Every word is soooo very delicious!

I would…

[mark] it
better
do it
faster
if I
could just
find my texta.

I have marking to do but have misplaced my red pen. *sigh* While looking for it I have become distracted by videos such as this one:

Living Between the Trees - Rob Bell

Check out this video: Trees

Add to My Profile | More Videos

The precious blood of Jesus Christ redeems forgiven I’m alive, restored set free.Your majesty resides inside of me,forever I believe. forever I believe.arrested by your truth and righteousnessyour grace has overwhelmed my brokennessconvicted by your spirit, led by your wordyour love will never fail your love will never fail‘Cause I know you gave, the world your only son for usto know your name, to live within the saviour’s loveand he took my place, knowing he’d be crucifiedand you loved.. you loved, a people undeserving!  

I love…

I love how the sea beckons me, picks me up, kisses my face and tousles my hair in warm greeting like an old forever friend.  

I need…

…a new blog. This one is not very beautiful or functional. *sigh*Suggestions? 

reclaimEd

roses tipped with pink

grow new days

& smell like freedom,

making her heart

shine like the sun

glistening on the ocean

outside his window.

The Happy Swim

Late yesterday afternoon as I was swimming at the beach with a friend, we were suddenly surprised by the appearance of a little black and white head in the water. It was one of these little fellas:

  

 A Fairy Penguin.:) 

It was rather enchanting.  

Switching Off

Right now I am supposed to be writing a seminar presentation on study skills for Year 11 students. I am supposed to present as the hip-young-technoliterate-teacher who, while being techno savvy, spurns all temptations to use the internet, ipods, skype, blogs, mobile phones etc for evil and redeems their use for good. One who masters technology without being mastered by it. One who knows the temptation of technology, her own limitations and successfully resists the urge to be distracted by this new evil lurking amongst us. I’m supposed to speak clearly and coherently and with much conviction so as to benefit our students. I am planning on saying how it is so important that instead of switching off our minds apathetically when know we have to approach study we should switch off that which distracts us…We should shun all that makes our mind wander and begin to embrace the wonder of learning. I am supposed to be writing all this in a convincing speech. But alas, I cannot for I am distracted… by technology of all things. Gah!!!!If you have any advice as to how I can inspire my potential scholars on how to get ’switched on,’ I’d appreciate your suggestions. You could help me use this blog for good instead of evil. ;) How big a distraction is technology for you or your children?How do you master it? 

que cherchez-vous ?

“L’homme est fou par ce qu’il cherche, et grand par ce qu’il trouve”

-Paul Valéry 

 I read this quote today and have been pondering it ever since. If we are considered insane for seeking grand things but great if we finally find these things, what does that say about our dreams and dreaming them? What about those who seek the seemingly impossible? Are they insane or are we for not trying? 

What is it you seek? 

Like a ‘Sorry’ in the Sky

So we’re sitting around the table tonight and discussion turns to the enormous ‘sorry’ that was written across the sky on Australia Day. The ‘sorry’ story made the headlines briefly and was removed abruptly, as if it had just evaporated into thin air. It’s rather symbolic really.

 

You see, saying ‘sorry’ has been a matter of contention in Australian culture for quite a few years now.  Many Australians have thought that saying ‘sorry’ to the Aboriginal people would be beneficial, would aid reconciliation. However, some of our population, indeed our last Prime Minister, John Howard, thought that there was no point in saying ‘sorry’. Their argument went along the lines of, “well we didn’t kill your family, steal your children, give you grog or keep you uneducated so why should we apologise for things that the generations/governments before us were responsible for? Why should we say sorry?” In my opinion, we have a lot to say sorry for: invasion, the stolen generations, inequality in health and education, deaths in custody, the introduction of alcohol…and I could go on. These things still affect the Aboriginal people of Australia today, regardless of who instigated them. 

 

Kevin Rudd has stated that he will say ‘sorry’ on the 12th February 2008, so long as there are no legal ramifications – which, by the way, there aren’t. Saying ‘sorry’ has no real consequences. We don’t have to give land back, reunite families, offer equitable access to health or education, or provide rehabilitation. There will be no compensation – which is lucky for how would we ever compensate for these life-shattering losses anyway? -  Isn’t that great. Ha! A sorry without consequence.

 

As my dad said rather facetiously, “We can say sorry and Cathy Freeman can carry the Aboriginal flag if she wants…as long as she carries the one emblazoned with the Union Jack as well. Archie Roach can sing from time to time…we kinda like his tunes – he’s a good Aussie.”

 

Let’s say sorry, what can we lose?

 

Today I’ve been reading Saussure in preparation for teaching this year. You probably know Saussure, he was the French guy who revolutionised the study of linguistics. He was of the view that language was a system that consisted of a signifier (the word or sound) and a sign (the object to which the signifier referred). The signifier never was the sign. For example you don’t get much of a sense of what a dog is by reading or hearing the word ‘dog’ in isolation to the object to which it refers. ‘Dog’ doesn’t tell you anything about what it is to be a dog. In this way language is arbitrary. But Saussure argued that it is this very arbitrariness of language that makes it so important to use language correctly. If I start calling a dog a ‘dooshka’ communication is going to be limited, hindered because you will not know what I am talking about.

 

All this, and the discussion of the significance, or lack thereof, of saying ‘sorry’ has left me with this question: what does ‘sorry’ actually mean? To us? To the Aboriginal people? Because if it means “sorry bad stuff happened to you, but it wasn’t our fault and we’re not doing anything about it,” then I’m mad about that. What kind of sorry is that? What does it signify? What is its sign? And what does it say about our culture when our most potent words are emptied of meaning? I want to know exactly what kind of ‘sorry’ we’re offering before I start applauding politicians on the 12^th Feb. How will a ‘sorry’ aid communication between disparate people if we don’t have a clear understanding of what ‘sorry’ means?

 

I know I’m sorry. Sorry I belong to such a racist and discriminatory society that is afraid to speak meaningfully into the hurting lives of its citizens – even if they were only recognised as citizens of their own country in 1967.  Sorry we don’t have a language to express what we mean. Sorry our words are empty. Sorry I fear our ‘sorry’ will evaporate into the ether like the words that appeared in the sky so briefly on Australia Day, or Survival Day – the day we are supposed to celebrate the tenacious endurance of a race that our ancestors tried to erase like an inappropriate news story.

 

On the upside: It will be so nice of us to make Aboriginal people “full participants” of society…after over 200 years of abuse and deprivation!

 

[end rant]

 

I’m still mad.

Thanks if you stayed with me through that.

 If you’re still game, here’s a question:

What does ’sorry’ mean and what should ’sorry’ look and sound like? 

Yesterday…

Watching the Tall Ships Race.

Sydney Harbour, 26th Jan 2008

 

It was swell.

Just when the temperature finally heats up, all Sydney beaches are most miserably closed! It’s just not right! It’s just not summer! High winds in Queensland have severely affected Sydney beaches. The news reports that all beaches from Queensland to Sydney are closed! 

 This is completely bad news for my beach faring family! So far this season we have cancelled a couple of trips down to the beach due to the rough surf and hazardous conditions. We have sensibly resisted the powerful urge to swim in the unrelenting heat, till now.  Today we finally succumbed.   

My brother took the boys to see the first day of the second test at the SCG while I met up with a friend. It was a hot day. So hot that you couldn’t sit in your car for a minute without the aircon on. So hot that your clothes stuck to your skin, the air felt thick around you and sapped your mind of rational thought. Perhaps that’s why the promise of cool water was too much to resist. By 4:30 we had all found our way to Bronte.   (Photos of Bronte here).   

 The beach was mush. Most of it was white water. Churning white water frothing on the surface hiding the terrible undertow. The beach was closed. I had walked down earlier in the day and had checked out the state of the surf. The beach was certainly too dangerous to swim in. Despite the hot day, no one was in the water. Actually, when I say “no one was in the water”, I mean no one was in the surf. Some people were paddling in the areas that were protected by the rocks. However the tow there was still quite strong and most people only went in up to their knees. The dangerous surf sign was up and the flags were down.*sigh*However, the Ocean Pool was open! 

Waves periodically crashed over the walls turning the usually calm lap pool into a wave pool but it was safe. I walked down the steps and dipped my toes into the water expecting it to be refreshing but warm. It might as well have been ice. The water was sooooo cooooold but so enticing.   

 As I said, by 4:30 we were all at the Ocean Pool and while it took us some time to jump in, once we were in it was divine! Oh how I love the sea! We swam across the pool and climbed up onto the wall closest to the surf. Holding onto the ropes we braced ourselves for the crashing waves that splashed a spangled shower of salt and bubbles over our heads and into the pool. While the waves were of a frightening size they were not as strong as I expected them to be once they reached us having lost a lot of their power on the rocks (they would push you into the water if you were not holding on but were not strong enough to pull you free of your grip on the rope). Thus we spent the afternoon splashing but mostly being splashed by the beautiful ocean. [Ooh! and I just found out Rebecca's theme for the month is weather! I guess now I can safely confess to having a few weather widgets on my dashboard! ] 

Happy New Year!!!

NYE Fireworks Sydney 2008 ptI

 

These are the fireworks I would have watched had I stayed awake. Oops.We had a very nice family celebration at home, eating delicious food, waving sparklers and watching the 9pm Sydney fireworks. After desert it was bedtime for little men and a tired mama fell asleep next to them. It was a nice way to usher in the New Year in my opinion. Happy New Year all! May 2008 be a year in which you grow in your love for God and those around you!! Love to all! 

 

NYE Fireworks, Sydney 2008, ptII

11238 points + 1 Ambulance = …

…so much fun!!! 
 I am loving this game! Let me know what your high score is.  HT: Rebecca [She knows where all the fun  stuff is!]