The Future

I met my form class for 2008 today.

A bunch of us teachers walked across the field out the back of the high school at 9.00am to the intermediate and into their school hall. After awhile a group of kids came in. Maybe 100 to 150 or so.

While the kids were all sitting on the floor, chatting, waiting to be told what to do, tugging at sleeves, watching this clutch of new teachers carefully, I thought: "this is New Zealand. Sitting in front of me is the future. Sitting in front of me are the middle-class drudges, the lives of the parties, the prisoners, the athletes, the cleaners, the executives, the geriatrics and the car crashes of the next 80 years in New Zealand". It was sobering and exciting.

You're handed an incredible responsibility as a teacher and as a parent. I hope I can do my best for them. For her.

Party!

Eleanor had her first birthday party yesterday. It was a 'pink' party - pink food, pink bubbly, pink decorations, and a pink(ish) outfit for the birthday girl. (Not sure what I was thinking there, as I generally don't dress her in pink all the time, but it was lovely, and everyone had a great time.)

We decided that our family would be enough for this first party - so we had Granny Wendy, Gram Margaret, Grandad Jim, Aunty Maryanne and Ethan, and Uncle Joe and Aunty Mandy there. All the attention was on Eleanor of course!

She loved helping to unwrap her presents, and got straight down to the serious business of testing them out and playing with them all.

It is hard to believe that our little girl is one already, and amazing to reflect on all the milestones she has reached over the last year. Ever the energetic little monkey, Eleanor is walking, dancing, constantly chatting away, and into just everything.

I decided months ago on a recipe for The Birthday Cake, which actually was cupcakes rather than one big cake. I had so much fun making all the sugar rosebuds, and then got into a big hot flap on Friday doing the actual baking... The end result was perfect - and we will remember them, even if Eleanor doesn't.

We are looking forward to all the exciting developments in store for us over the next year... and to sharing some of them with you on this site.

Look Homeward, Angel

Sometimes, pulling himself abreast the high walls of his crib, he glanced down dizzily at the patterns of the carpet far below; the world swam in and out of his mind like a tide, now printing its whole sharp picture for an instant, again ebbing out dimly and sleepily, while he pieced the puzzle of sensation together bit by bit, seeing only the dancing fire-sheen on the poker, hearing then the elfin chuckle of the sun-warm hens, somewhere beyond in a distant and enchanted world. Again, he heard the their morning-wakeful crowing clear and loud, suddenly becoming a substantial and alert citizen of life; or, going and coming in alternate waves of fantasy and fact, he heard the loud, faery thunder of Daisey's parlour music.

He would crawl on the vast design of the carpet, his eyes intent upon the great wooden blocks piled chaotically on the floor. All the letters of the alphabet, in bright multi-coloured carving, were engraved upon them. Holding them clumsily in his tiny hands, he studied for hours the symbols of speech, knowing that he had here the stones of the temple of language and striving desperately to find the key that would draw order and intelligence from the anarchy. Great voices soared far above him, vast shapes came and went, lifting him to dizzy heights, depositing him with exhaustless strength.

Thomas Wolfe

Look Homeward, Angel

Eleanor and Megan perform a selection of scenes from Macbeth

Macbeth finally murders Duncan. Lady Macbeth is jubilant.

Macbeth begins to get spooked. Lady Macbeth goes to wash her hands (again).

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth begin to suspect that their plans won't pan out as expected.

Eleanor

As I got older I got cockier. I started to think that I knew stuff. Turns out I didn't know anything. I've taken my lessons this year from Eleanor. She turned one today.

Lessons:

• Even though I'm a misanthropist with a pessimistic view of human nature I learned that one of the first things we find out how to do after we're born is smile and laugh.
  


• We take things for granted about being human. You have to learn how to do everything. You have to learn that you exist, that your hands are your hands, that you can move them, that you can do things with them. Every single one of us walking around, so sure of ourselves, so confident in our gestures and expressions, began not even knowing that we existed.
  


• And I learned what unconditional love is.

Happy birthday, Eleanor.

(Originally posted 20 November)