Friday Australian poem #12a

We couldn’t have a #13, could we? In fact if you check “Men in Green” again you will find a revised version. There had been an overlap last week between my role as an English tutor and that poem; I have a coachee, John, who was born in Shanghai in 1995. I had happened to bring an anthology to tuition and he had been given the task at school of finding a ballad or story poem to learn and recite. (I am glad some English classes still do this.) So we settled on “Men in Green” which he rather liked. I gave him a bit of context for it, and last week and yesterday we talked about it — among other things such as vocabulary and grammar exercises. (He has only been speaking English for about three years.)

Don’t cry for me…

…Argentina. The truth is I never booked accommodation in Buenos Aires before, but I did last night… Or M did. He’s off this morning. Me, I have a full day of HSC coachees coming up.

Not a hypertext

While I carefully husband my remaining megabytes (renewed 24 September) I will be writing entries that are not hypertexts. My typical entry has been a hypertext, and that I think is fair enough. After all, I am writing in a hypertextual medium, even if few take advantage of that hypertextuality by following the links. You may get a bit of reflection in the next few days about blogging, none of which will pretend to any authority, though I have been nattering on the Net for a while now.

Last entry I was astounded myself by that figure of 2000+ posts, even if they are spread across three blogs and represent over two years — longer, in fact, for some entries on the English/ESL blog and the Big Archive. Still, that is two or three — sometimes more — posts a day. Many of the posts are short, of course, often no more than a link to something that took my fancy and a quick comment. Other posts, the ones I once called “Topsy posts”, have just grown and grown, sometimes quarelling with feedback, sometimes quarelling with myself, sometimes refining and expanding, and sometimes going way past what is reasonable for my very patient readers.

So that is what you can expect: a few almost link-free entries, all composed offline on Windows Live Writer, which I thoroughly recommend you try — it’s free — then quickly spurted up to the blog.

Speaking of coachees

This talented young man was one last year… Take time to play it if you can: he is very good!

Look over my shoulder…

Some may be interested to watch An essay in progress: HSC Module A — “Brave New World” and “Blade Runner”. It really is ongoing. Quite an impressive coachee, this one, born in Yunnan Province, China, in 1990.

What I did on APEC Saturday

8 to 10 am

The Juice & Java reopened today so the very first thing I did was browse The Australian over a coffee and bagel. That led to an entry on Journalspace. OK, then to coaching.

A helicopter seemed to be following me down Elizabeth Street. Perhaps it was watching developments in the small park between Central and Chinatown where some Vietnamese-Australians were setting up their protest against the current Vietnamese regime. Fewer people than usual were making their way to Paddy’s Market. I saw a couple of anti-war protesters on bicycles heading deeper into the city.

Three hours later

After battling with Paper 2 HSC questions on King Lear, Hamlet & Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Cloudstreet, and Brave New World and Blade Runner, I await a new coachee. Outside they seem to be playing with the new security siren system. I saw an Aboriginal woman carrying the Aboriginal and Vietnamese flags. I saw an anti-Bush protester wearing a Swans scarf…

Very quiet here in Chinatown. Easy to find a table in Gloria Jean’s.

2 pm

The new coachee, by way of contrast, is in Year 6, of Shanghainese background but born in Australia. He is sitting in front of me now writing my patent generic English test.

Outside a few more protesters seem to be making their way towards the action. They all look terribly innocent, even  normal. They will no doubt fail the TV news test then…