With the rain continuing outside and the chance of me getting time to write an update in the next three weeks extremely unlikely (due to my last teaching round placement), thought I'd make use of cold Sunday afternoon to bring you up to speed….
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I managed to survive the excursion to
Scienceworks with what ended up being 67 Grade Two children. Gemma, a friend from Uni who's a year ahead of me and is already out teaching, had the misfortune of two other teachers in her year level both getting sick the week of the excursion, so was desperately seeking the services of anybody who would help out. Only by pure fluke I happened to have that day free, so made myself available.
So, off we trekked with our day packed full of activity. First stop was the education centre at Scienceworks where we learnt all about different basic machines (levers, pulleys, wedges, planes etc…). I use the term "learnt" quite loosely as the education officer taking the session seemed to be teaching at a Year 11 Physics level, so as you can imagine most the kids (and teachers) tunned out quite quickly… He did try to rescue the situation with what was the worst attempt at humour I'd ever seen; going well over the kids heads and only made the adults in attendance groan
Next stop was this household display where we learnt all about science in our kitchen; focusing on how different food items in the kitchen were acids or bases The lady who took this session was far more interesting
Finally, as the rain began to fall, we raced from Scienceworks down to the Yarra River for our river cruse back to the train station. The kids and the adults both enjoyed the experience - looking at landmarks such as the WestGate & Bolte Bridge as well as all the ships and the docks and different industries along the river.
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8th August was the
Ronald McDonald House Charities Annual Gala Ball so I and a team of people from work headed off to the Palladium Room at Crown Casino to volunteer for the night. For the past three years, this is something that I've volunteered for and had a fantastic time each year.
Last year I got lost driving to the Casino…and managed to do the same thing again this year !
We were assigned the task of selling raffle tickets this year, which involved us wondering around to designated tables and asking people if they would like to buy a ticket. We managed to sell just under 3 books, which was quite a good effort when you consider the fact that each ticket is $25.00 each.
Being ticket sellers we were lucky enough to be inside the actually ball and be close to all the action. Vanessa Amorisi was the entertainment for the evening so were privileged enough to hear her belt out a few numbers. Very impressive…
In return for our services, we were given free admission to the nightclubs within the casino, so when the ball wound up around just after midnight, we all wondered down there for a few drinks before heading home….
….however, Melbourne Winter Sleep out was on that night also, so after driving back from the Casino to Frankston I dropped into the Youth Resource Centre to catch up with the team who were crashing there for the night. A few cups of coffee and a movie later, I managed to stumble into bed sometime around 5:00am.
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Uni Open Day was on the 2nd August so I made my services available for tours of the campus and information regarding education courses (and with the free beanie, t-shirt and excellent pay rate they were offering, who wouldn't ?!?). It was very interesting seeing the diversity of people who came through the doors interested about education and teaching and general. Lots of interesting questions about what the course involved, how much teaching experience was offered, what the lecturestutorialscampus was like…etc..etc.. which were quite easy to answer, however the more challenging questions like international mature age students with various degrees already completed wanting to complete the course at a different campus with components via correspondence were quickly palmed off to the professionals.
We also setup a small cake stall to raise money to pay for the musical. A very impressive selection of baked goodies were prepared by the numerous people involved, with most of the items selling out in a just a few hours…leaving us with a nice small sum of money !
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Nick Moraitis was in Melbourne this week and I had the privileged pleasure of meeting up with him on Friday.
We agreed to meet at the steps of Flinders Street. We walked over to
Federation Square and caught up. I just had a coffee whilst Nick hadn't eaten for the good part of the day, grabbed a coffee and soup. He only realised after he ordered that he didn't like coffee anymore (hopefully that dispels the Starbucks rumour !) and ended up getting and orange juice. So, we sat and Nick filled me in on the work he'd been doing with the UN and also back with TIG in Toronto...and also gave me some very funky TIG stickers !
We had only begin to get into the conversation when Nick realised he had another appointment at 3:30pm. Nick extended an invitation for me to tag along to the next meeting he had with a girl called Charlotte who was looking at doing some further research for a degree she was undertaking at uni relating to information technology and how she might be able to use aspects of TakingITGlobal to investigate. We met up with her just after 3:30pm at a building on Swanson Street called Curtain House and headed inside to a very trendy restaurantbar and spent the next 2½ hours talking about all things TIGgy. Nick kept us both mesmerised with stories and information about TIG and whipped out his laptop showing us various powerpoint presentations and documents on a range of topics. The conversation was so interesting that I had become totally oblivious to the fact that the entire place was now full of people !
We parted company just after 6:30pm and I left with this warm, good feeling inside; the kind of feeling that makes you think you can take on the world. I'd always imagined what it would be like to meet this amazing person who has achieved so much - and yet is still the same age as me. I left with my thoughts affirmed and also that that this person who never seems to stop working does have a very real human component to him.
There is an interesting story associated with me travelling to the city to catch up with Nick. I live in Frankston which is about 40km (25 miles) SE of Melbourne. I have driven in the city once or twice before but it isn't something I am extremely comfortable about doing, so decided to take a train to the city. Whilst I am a student, in order to obtain a student concession ticket, you need to purchase a concession card. For the amount of times I travel on public transport in a year, it's hardly worth it. Melbourne's public transport system is divided up into three different zones; Zone 1 being the closest to the city, whilst Zone 3 being furthest away. Frankston is situated in Zone 3, meaning that you have to pay the highest price ($11.40) if you want to travel to the city. However, if you drive to Carrum, which is about 5 minutes away, you are in Zone 2, which costs $8.50 meaning you save just under $3.00 on your ticket. Being the poor university student that I am, the idea of saving even $3.00 was quite attractive, so I chose to drive that extra 5 minutes and save my pennies. Buying a ticket is now an automated process and if you have no idea what your doing (like I did), selecting the appropriate ticket can be a bit of a challenge. Silly me ended up buying a ticket as if I was travelling backwards to Frankston (Zone 2 & 3); not towards the city (Zone 1 & 2) like I wanted. So imagine my embarrassment when I arrive at the barricades at Flinders Street Station, wondering why the display screen was stating that my ticket was invalid. Heading over the official at the barricades, I informed him of my situation, who kindly let me through to purchase another ticket. Seeing I already had a ticket for the other 3 zones, I figured I would just buy a 2 hour ticket for Zone 1 (the zone I wasn't covered for) for $2.70 and buy another one on the way home.
Now, you'd think after all of that my problems would be over....but you'd be mistaken...
After 6pm, a 2 hour ticket is valid until the end of that day, so the ticket that I had earlier purchased would have been valid for me to travel home. However, I didn't realise this until I had already purchased another ticket for the ride home. Another unnecessary $2.70 gone.
So, what was supposed to cost $8.50 cost me $13.90. So, my simple attempt to save $3.00 ended up costing me an $5.40 (that's assuming I've done my maths right) Maybe next time if I want to save money I should walk.
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Till the next exciting installment....
P.S: Photos of the above events coming soon...as soon as I finish and develop the film !!!
