Zulu love letter assignment (Diamanté poem): Genealogy

                                                                           birth

                                                                      wet, sacred

                                                        expanding, stretching, reaching

                                       boy (who is) son (who is) brother (who becomes) man

                                                  man                            graduate, caregiver, activist, leader

                                             naive, bright                             burning healing hoping

                                   reading, thinking, playing                         fierce and loyal

                             graduate, logician, soldier, hermit                         woman

                          iron and leather, envelope and shield                         wife

                                teaching, showing, carrying                           soft and fragile

                                         classic strong                          enlightening, strengthening, loving

                                              husband                         the earth, his hearth, crystal and flower

                                       gentle, protective                        life-giving, defending, guiding

                              reviving, supporting, believing                 beautiful though embattled

                          provider, champion, guardian, father                        mother

                                              firstborn                              rebel princess, survivor, genius

                                       fierce but hidden                             singing, laughing, crying

                                   striving, shining, lying                             depressed, blessed

                                poet, writer, leader, faggot                                    sister

Photo day!!

It was Photo Day at school today... this still (since my days) seems to mean chaos in the classroom, and fun everywhere else. Learners are expected to be everywhere at any time of the day, to appear in class photos, team photos, individual photos... you get the idea.

Funnily enough the drama kids wanted me in their photo! Badly enough to petition the principal :0)

I loved it, of course, even though it felt strange to sit in on a group's Year Photograph after only being around for four weeks, and full knowing that practicum will be over in another four weeks' time.

But no matter how I declined, there was no getting out of it after they came back with the principal's blessings. Here's an iPhone photo taken at the same time as the official photo:

I [heart] U too!

The learners at this school are amazing kids – and they are barging their way straight into my heart...

Back to academia:
Days like today are very tricky when you're trying to teach your lessons despite the mad-hattery around you. I suspect a better way to go about it, is to channel the excitement and turn the chaos into a learning experience in itself. Orals or creative writing projects could transform the lesson into something the carry with them whilst changing uniforms, posing with different teams and classes and just generally having a wildfire day.

For the love of our children

Today just blew my heart wide open...

My Grade 8 learners (similes-and-metaphors class the day before yesterday) read the poems they wrote aloud in class today. Each and every one of them - even the shy and immovable ones! And boy did they write the most amazing little pieces!! Each tiny poem crept straight into my heart.

And then came one about me, and it was so sweet I welled up like the Titanic. The second one about me nearly had me crying with joy!

I just wanted to hug each and every one of those shining, joyful little souls.

(EFAL learners, so forgive all the errors and see the intent.)

New

staring at a full moon
spilling over crashing waves
spraying foam in shining eyes
staring at a full moon
- MOSSEL BAY, 27 NOV 2012

It Isn't Your Town - It's You

Compliments Worth County Times

Grant City, Missouri

If you want to live in the kind of town

Like the kind of town you like,

You needn't slip your clothes in a grip

And start on a long, long hike.

You'll only find what you left behind,

For there's nothing that's really new.

It's a knock at yourself when you knock your town.

It isn't your town - it's you!

Real towns are not made by men afraid

Lest somebody else gets ahead.

When everyone works and nobody shirks

You can raise a town from the dead.

And if while you make your personal stake

Your neighbor can make one, too,

Your town will be what you want to see.

It isn't your town - it's YOU!

Happy Frabjous Day!

Jabberwocky

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mumsy were the borow groves,
And the mome rats out grabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

from Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There - Lewis Carroll (1872).

flickering

oh were i a dying man
who had no need of your forevers
but was at peace with merely
being liked

then would i drink the
love of light and
ne'er be afraid of all
of beauty's eventual end

but lo! i am a living man
who needs but hear a whisper...