Four minutes

The German movie.

Life is not about the four minutes on stage.

It is the practice behind, it is the time shared.

It is the knowledge imparted.

My aunt says I don't know what hardship is.

I'll give her that.

Time to go revise memory.

Snape

Do I still have Snape thoughts?

Yes.

I may be occassionally lashing out. 

Telling the students, the occassional spliff is a good thing, particularly when your're pissed off.

Sometimes I tell them, life is shit and no body's ever going to give you your due so you might as well break windscreens and slash tyres.

This is the residue left from the whole bizarre experience.

My sensitisation to being a young man with too dark skin, has left me angry with no social context of my own.

Those memories are formed from that perspective and for better or worse will remain as they are. 

So... what to do with myself.... 

Tell the kids, drop some dead rats from the walkway over the highway and watch some cars go into the ditch.

Why the jail am I doing this ?

intrinsic goal orientation is the degree to which students perceive themselves to be participating in a learning task for reasons such as challenge, curiosity, and mastery

An intrinsically motivated student is likely to display autonomy and employ self-initiated exploratory strategies.
 
By contrast, for a student high in extrinsic goal orientation, engaging in a
learning task is the means to an end. 

An extrinsically motivated student seeks approval and external signs of worth and is more likely to ask procedural questions than content-enhancing questions (Sansone & Smith, 2000).
 
Vallerand and Bissonnette (1992) assessed intrinsic and extrinsic motivational
styles as predictors of behavioral persistence in college students. They found that
students who persisted in their studies had higher initial levels of intrinsic motivation
toward academic activities in general than did students who dropped out,
whereas extrinsic motivation did not predict persistence.

In other words, it appears that nontraditional students maintain a higher
threshold of intrinsic motivation to learn with an accompanying increase in positive
affect. Younger students do not report the same degree of need to enjoy the
educational process to persist within the system as do older students.

............

Enough gobblegook.

I want.... I want ...

Or I'll just let her say it.

Calendar year

My mother died on a monday. Calendar of 1998 is same as this year.

Today is the day I returned to Trinidad.

I remember all these people being here when I arrived. I didn't want to see any of them.

From then, ... I have felt homeless.

Home isn't just a place to sleep or a building.

Home is more than that.

Home is a place in your heart you feel proud of and work you are happy to do.

Have I found a home as yet?

No, but I have certainly been searching.

So is there a place for me out there?

Maybe/ maybe not.

Either way.... I don't have any regrets to date.

Tomorrow is another day, come what may.

Viekevie Letter

What does a teacher tell a gay child?

What does a gay teacher tell a gay child?

.... I've been through self-harm,

I've had gay friends have parents tell them they should burn in hell.

And I ...

" The only queer people are those who don't love anybody" - Rita Mae Brown

Then they see headlines of lesbian shame.

Being gay is only one facet of my identity, even though I would say it has caused a disproportionate amount of anguish.

Including scars on my breasts, self inflicted, which I never thought could been seen as beautiful. Except someone did.

My mother died of breast cancer and for a long time, I wanted to get a mastectomy, to get rid of the part of the body that had betrayed the organism.

Some part of me still wants that. To die soon, quickly. Killed by a bus or something.

To not be betrayed, by my reflection.

Gestalt - the whole is more than the sum of the parts

Education

I am a teacher.

But I am a teacher who spent her teenage years listening to this


We don't need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

We don't need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

And I believe in.








Therefore, if an 11 year old boy says he wants to be a snow cone man because it is the only thing he looks forward to in school.

I will tell him that is a good life ambition.

A Tribute to my mother

This past year, has been .... weird.

The best word for it is just plain weird.

But this time last year, the anniversary of her death.

I asked myself, who was my mother?

And today,... a lot like me.

But there is one difference. Circumstance.

My mother was able to bring out the best in me.

She is very instrumental in shaping the woman I have become.

But she couldn't do this.

Eleven systems, biochemically integrated.

RUN MR SLICED

Respiration
Urinary
Nevous
Muscular
Reproduction
Skeletal
Lymphatic
Integumentary ( fancy word for skin)
Cardiovascular
Endocrine
Digestive

There comes a time, when the child must admit that she has superceded the parent.

Blood Brothers, which ends ...

Mrs Johnstone
Mickey. Don't shoot Eddie. He's your
Brother. You had a twin brother. I couldn't
afford to keep both of you. His mother
couldn't have kids. I agreed to give one of you away!

Mickey
You! You! Why Didn't You Give Me Away Mam!
I Could Have Been. I could have been HIM! No!

Narrator
And Do We Blame Superstition For What Came To Pass?
Or Could It Be What We Have Come To Know As Class?

The one change, people who know me for years have all commented on, is the marked respect for my ancestors, I now relate.

The sad things is ... these kids... the 'attitude', ' behaviour problem kids'.

Don't realise.

I come from a grandmother who got pregnant at 14 from a first cousin.
If that's not incest, I don't know what is.

My aunt got beaten so badly she couldn't walk.

And in seventy years, two generations.

The child is a national scholarship winner.

If I have ever believed that you are a product of your environment.
And if we want any chance of building a nation.

It's time to show others the path out of this muck.

If only because, my generational line ends with me.

Blood Brothers

Take A Letter Miss Jones lyrics

MR. LYONS
Take a letter, Miss Jones.
Quote...I regret to inform you
That owing to circumstances
Quite beyond our control
It's a premature retirement
For those surplus to requirement
I'm afraid it's a sign of the time, Miss Jones.

MR. LYONS/MISS JONES
An unfortunate sign of the times

MR. LYONS
Take a letter, Miss Jones,
Due to the world situation
The shrinking pound, the global slump

MISS JONES
And the price of oil

MR. LYONS
I'm afraid we must fire you
We no longer require you
It's just another
Sign of the times, Miss Jones,

MR. LYONS/MISS JONES
A most miserable sign of the times

MR. LYONS
Take a letter, Miss Jones:
My dear Miss Jones, we'd like to thank you
Many years of spendid service
Et cetera blah blah blah
You've been a perfect puppet
Yes that's right, Miss Jones, you've got it
It's just another sign of the times,
Miss Jones, it's
Just another sign of the

DOLEITES
Dry your eyes, Miss Jones
It's not as bad as it seems
You get used to being idle
In a year or two
Unemployment's such a pleasure
These days, we call it leisure
It's just another sign of the times,
Miss Jones, it's
Just another sign of the times

NARRATOR
There's a young man on the street, Miss Jones
He's walkin' round in circles,
He's old before his time
But still too young to know.
Don't look at him, don't cry though
This living on the giro
Is only a sign of the times, Miss Jones,
It's just another sign of the times

DOLEITES
Miss Jones,
It's just another sign of the times...