B is for Benjamin

One of the most vivid memories from my childhood comes from when I was just starting to learn to write. I was in Year 0 at Scot's, which I have previously talked about, and there we did fairly standard things such as learning to read and write. To assist us in this process, there were little books- for individual letters and for 'blends' as well. I recall very clearly one day we got a book with the letter b on the front, and I picked it up and began to trace the letter with my finger. 


Fairly straightforward, yes? To my absolute shock, I was told that I was doing it wrong. How could my perception of anything in the world be wrong? I was 5 years old after all! I remember other kids agreeing with the teacher, but I was adamant that it should be done the way I wanted. To explain this accurately, I will demonstrate this with the aid of diagrams- though it isn't as easy as you think to replicate handwriting on a computer!


This is a simple demonstration of the 'normal' way of writing a lower-case b. It goes from top to bottom, then loops around to meet somewhere near the bottom. This can often result in getting that little 'stalk' at the bottom, unlike these nice computerised b's which meet up quite neatly. Anyway this was not at all how I thought the letter should be drawn. This method did not seem obvious at first glance and my mind decided on the simplest way of going about it.

This was how, on that very first day, I traced the letter with my finger. Down and around, just like that. Seems pretty simple huh? That's what I thought and I refused to believe that I should do it the other, more complicated way. From then on as I learned to write, I would always write my b's in this way. It was especially important for me, since my name starts with one! Now almost 15 years later, I still write the letter b this way. Not one of my teachers ever managed to make me change the way I write them, which I still believe is better and will defend on my life!

The left is much nicer!

When it comes to the capital B, it is practically the same for be except you add a second loop. Very simple, good conservation of energy. I can't even say how you're 'supposed' to write that one; I guess that it would start at the bottom and then loop downwards. Very messy. If you did it that way, you could easily turn the top into one giant loop, instead of having a nice corner in the top left. My way is much better and neater (when I am writing neatly that is) so I recommend it to you!



What about other letters? As far as I know I write those normally, it's just this b that is special to me. The lower-case d is like the b but backwards; however I never really thought about it until I was much older so I just did it the 'normal' way which unfortunately gives it that ugly stalk. For some reason, I think because of what happened on that one day and my stubbornness, I will always write my b's differently. It says a lot about the sort of person I am! I have already said a bit about teaching handwriting at school, it is a subject that really gets me worked up- probably because I have had to defend myself since day one. Whatever the case, I think mine is better and I will stick to it.

My Life In Sport: The Bowl-Off

Gone too soon

Saturday February 17, 2006. The previous evening, New Zealand had played the West Indies at Eden park in a memorable Twenty20 International. The Blackcaps, bedecked in retro beige gear, bowled extremely well to restrict the West Indies to 126. Shane Bond bowled the most economical spell at that level to date, 4-0-15-2. Chris Cairns, in his last game for New Zealand, didn't take a wicket but pulled off a very good run out. The pitch was low and slow, assisting slow bowlers such as Styris and Patel. When our turn to bat came around, the West Indies, formerly known for their fast bowling prowess, turned to the dibbly-dobbly mediums of Bravo, Smith and Gayle to choke our batting. Vincent batted well at the top, but lacked support; the slow nature of the pitch saw 5 of the 8 dismissals bowled, several played on by the batsmen. The situation looked grim, but up stepped James Franklin and Shane bond. Needing 16 runs off the final over, Franklin smote a six high and wide over midwicket. The final ball left Bond on strike, 5 to win. Bond stepped to leg and fired the ball over cover- everyone held their breath as they watched it fly towards the boundary- only to pitch just short. 4 runs, a tie. Tony Cozier, bless his soul, proclaimed the Windies had won, but that's typical of him!

The first and only time
Scott Styris gets airborne!

Everyone blinked a few times and wondered what had happened; it seemed as though Cairns was the only one (except me of course) that knew a bowl-off would follow. He started practising his bowling action in a very obvious way to demonstrate he knew that, but that's typical of him! Anyway, what followed was both intense and farcical. Bowler upon bowler stepped up and failed to hit the target- until of course Bond once again came to the party and hit not only once, but both times. Styris stepped up, needing one hit to secure the win and, though it took some time to reach the other end, his gentle dobble sure enough castled the stumps. But of course you don't need me to tell you all this; that's only the background to my story. 

As I said before, my story is set the following day. Fresh from the previous night's excitement, my cricket team met another school (maybe St Peter's or the like) in a one day game at King's. Our team was an eclectic bunch of players; some were reasonably good but had missed out on 5A; others were there more for the social side of it; others weren't very good at all but needed a summer sport. And then there was me- very fresh, eager, well-meaning but completely and utterly hopeless at the game. I couldn't bat to save myself, couldn't catch a cold, was incredibly unfit and was rubbish at bowling, though I thought differently of myself! Needless to say, I never got to bowl and very rarely batted. Don't think this is one of those 'but look how good I became' stories because I'm just as bad now!

Anyway, the game itself wasn't very memorable. We bowled first, dimissed them cheaply and our openers got most if not all of the runs. However the game was much more memorable for two reasons; firstly, we were playing on the school's number one oval. This was when the oval at King's was where the new hockey turf now is. For a bunch of year 10 kids, it was quite an honour to be playing on this hallowed turf. More than that, for a few of us it was the first time we got to play on grass. We even got to use the changing rooms! It's quite cool now to say that I played on that oval when 1st XI players today will never get to. Of course, my life in sport has taken me to further and more renowned fields, though that is another story.

It would have looked pretty much like this!

Secondly, since you're probably wondering how this links into my introduction, I should tell you now that the most memorable thing about that day was that we decided to have our own bowl-off. The game had finished a bit early and we all were really caught up on the idea so we managed to convince the coaches, who really didn't care all that much. No one knew the exact rules, but we pretty much went about it the way they had done the night before on tv. As you can imagine, since international bowlers could hardly hit the stumps, we struggled to get it even near the sticks. Our best 5 bowlers bowled first- I was a long way down the pecking order- and I think maybe one person managed to hit on each side. Anyway, this went on for a while with little succes, until we went one behind. By this stage everyone was getting a go, so I got a turn for once! I moved in, ran up and tried to bowl as normally as possible- and sure enough the ball hit the stumps.

I was perhaps less subdued!

I remember being quite happy about this! I might have celebrated in some strange way but I just remember the happiness of actually achieving something. My strike leveled the scores; more attempts went and no one hit. Finally, somehow we decided to have a sudden death bowl between the best bowlers from each side- or should I say, the ones that had managed to hit- which meant me! Basically we were to keep going until one hit and the other missed. Up I stepped and on my first or second effort, I got one pretty much on line with off-stump, only to see it seam away off the pitch and shave past the stump. I may be exaggerating but that's certainly how I seem to remember it. That seemed to throw me unfortunately, and my next effort was quite wide; then my opponent hit with a rather lucky delivery as I recall, but fair's fair, he won. 

Though we lost the bowl-off, no one could really blame me since I had actually managed to hit the things, plus we had won the game anyway so no one really minded.  I was still really proud of being involved if nothing else and this was basically one of the few high points in my sports career. Ironically my mother had been neraby at the time but managed to miss seeing me bowl- which reminds me of another sporting highlight, my super catch- but that's for another day.

Dear Computer,

You and I have been through a lot; a little while ago we had our three year anniversary. In our time together we have learned and explored many new things; listened to new songs; met new friends and so much more. We've spent many nights together and you even came to school with me. We played games during class, watched movies in study periods and continually beat the school's attempts to block websites! Going on you is often the last thing I do before I go to sleep and the first when I wake up. 

Together we experienced the growth of the Facebook movement following the decline of Bebo. Old friends kept in touch and new friends came along. We waded through streams of emails, work-related or casual. We watched news of now-famous events appear as they unfolded on the other side of the world. You were always there to help me find the most trivial bit of information. 

We've written a lot of stuff together; school essays, university assignments, stories, poems, CVs and even these blog posts. We have spent hours trawling the depths of the internet for information, research and answers. We have read comics, looked at funny pictures, found funny videos and articles. You saved and stored so many pictures and clips for me, always ready to share them another time. 

We've followed a lot of sport together, be it Cricket, Football, Rugby, League or many others. Not only did we follow the sports, we watched highlights, read articles, looked up statistics, learned of breaking news and experienced the highs and lows of the fates of our fantasy teams. 

But then the other night you decided that you would jeopardise our relationship. You told me your battery was low, so I plugged you in for a while. Half an hour later, I went and got you again, and after ten minutes you said your battery was empty again. I was worried and upon charging you up again, I discovered that you will now only last 20 minutes without power. This makes me very sad and you know it.

This leaves me with three options, none of which is particularly appealing. First, I can try to live with you as you are, plugging you in pretty much all the time. I only really use you at home so I could come to live with that. Secondly, I could buy a new battery. This would be costly however, somewhere between $100-200. It's not that I don't appreciate you, but it's really a bit much to spend on you now. 

Finally, I could get a new computer. I know you will feel betrayed by the idea, but we must understand that what we have cannot realistically last forever. One day, I will move on to something a little younger and smarter, with a few more tricks. The question is when will this happen and what will I get? Should I wait and get a better one or a cheaper one? Or is it time to move on now? 

Well, I know what you would want me to do, but I just don't want to decide right now. I think I will wait and see how life goes as it is and look at it again a little later. I'm sure you didn't mean it, let's try and patch things up ok? Thank you my friend.

With love,
Ben 

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Train Of The Damned

This year I have been lucky enough to have a law tutorial every Tuesday morning at 8am; for someone who takes over an hour to get from his house to university, the thought of this is quite distressing. However, I save myself half an hour every morning by hitching a ride to Remuera with my mother and then catching the train from there. This is not as easy as it sounds, however. 


The train I catch arrives at around 7:20, though it can be early or late, whichever is the opposite of the one which applies to me. We leave home at around 7am and the traffic is usually moderate to heavy. The great thing about the trip is, if we are running late, the train actually overtakes us and we have to catch it up. It's not quite a movie chase scene but driving along the motorway next to the train can be rather dramatic! 


Normally the train passes us by Ellerslie, but each time it has to stop it loses valuable time in the chase. On the motorway, merging traffic at on-ramps significantly slows down our progress, but once we get past the Greenlane on-ramp, we can zip into the left lane which goes all the way to the Market Road off-ramp. Hopefully we will be back in front of the train by this stage, because it's not just as simple as getting to the station before the train. I have to get out of the car!


This operation can only be described with the help of a diagram, which I have included here (click to enlarge). Coming off the motorway, there are several options but most of these are only viable if there is no traffic around. The safest of these is to go around the corner, past the next set of lights and then pull over there. However, this then requires me to go a long way back to the station, including crossing in front of the cars coming off the motorway. This is not ideal if in a hurry. The next option is to turn the corner and hope the next set of lights goes red, so I can safely hop out there and easily walk to the station. This is rare however. 


The most dangerous option is to get out at the very first set of lights, cross to the left side of the on-ramp, cross the left flowing lane and then the right flowing lane of the road and down to the train. This is a very direct route, for the times when I really am in a hurry. And yes, I have successfully completed this manoeuvre, the only time I tried. It was fairly impressive, I managed to cross all three lanes without having to wait for traffic and got to the train with time to spare. Of course, if I miss the train, I have no idea how I would get to university. The next one is half an hour away and who knows about buses? I keep meaning to check just in case, but never do.


Anyway, that's just getting to the train; the train itself is another story. It is usually almost full by the time it reaches Remuera, that is to say all the seats taken up with a few people standing. What is most remarkable is the atmosphere; it's like a ghost train, filled with the souls of the damned condemn to ride this journey forever. In a way of course they are, though they get the weekends off. It is very strange though, because I have never felt this feeling on any other train but it is regularly the same on this one. It is deathly quiet on board and it seems like pairs of eyes are boring into your skull while you are looking away. I wonder if these people, most of whom will have been on board for some time now, resent the fact that I only have a short trip on board? Whatever it is, it's pretty creepy! 


So every Tuesday morning I make my mad dash to the station to board the train of the damned. Thankfully the journey is only about ten minutes; I'm normally a bit afraid to sit down in case they take me and never let me leave. It is with a sigh of relief that is disembark at Britomart when the train arrives, normally far too early for my tutorial so I end up sitting around for ever. Maybe the early morning start and the fatigue of university life makes me imagine these things? Or maybe this a localised recurring phenomenon, which threatens my life on a weekly basis only for me to thwart it? To be honest, I'm probably more likely to be hit by a car on the way to the station. But that's just life!

The Saddest Dishwasher You'll Ever See

We humans love anthropomorphizing everyday inanimate things;this came to mind recently when our appliances decided to play up. First, one morning last week I opened the dishwasher and pulled out the bottom draw. Something in the machine gave a loud crack and then the MACHINE TURNED ON!! I quickly closed the door and tried to press the power button to turn it off, but IT WASN'T ON!! So I switched it off at the wall and retreated to a safe distance to recover.

After that, the machine decided it would work again, but the mechanism that helps lower the door is stuffed. What we don't realise is that the door of the machine is actually very heavy, but it the mechanism makes sure the door comes down gently. With this broken, our door now drops down much faster than usual and slams into your shins. Lovely. Despite this happening several times, I kept forgetting; I was getting sore shins, so I decided to put a note on it to remind everyone. Here is what I made: 

I put the sad face on for comedic purposes, but since then every time I look at the dishwasher I actually think it is sad, because it needs fixing! This seems rather irrational, yet it is a very human thing to do! I could have written "I will smash your legs!" and put an angry face; then I would find the machine menacing! The initial traumatic experience gave the machine an almost haunted feeling. All of these are examples of anthropomorphism. On reflection, this is not a one off occurrence; on the contrary, we do it all the time!

Just today I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom, while the dryer was on in the background. As I was brushing away, the door suddenly popped open. I was quite shocked by this, and began to think it was out to get me. This is, after all, not something it should be doing, but it's not like the machine had suddenly developed consciousness and was beginning its conquest of the world, starting with me.

Though some of this can blamed on my watching far too many horror/science-fiction movies as a child, it seems part of a much larger phenomenon. It's one thing for people to treat animals as other people; it's another thing to think your alarm clock or your tv is one! I would say that we develop relationships with objects which form a consistent presence in our life; we love consistency, change is bad. In this way we develop emotions for and transpose them upon objects for this very reason. Anyway, what would I know? I'm scared of a dishwasher!

How Could You Stay Mad At That?

A New Millennium- For Everyone But Me

The last edition recalled the most hectic year of my school life, attending 3 schools in just over half a year. 2000 was a year of comparatively little change and for that reason it was much more beneficial and productive. The year began with celebrations for the new millennium; however in our house, my father made sure we didn't share the sentiment since the real millennium didn't start until the end of the 2000th year. Of course. He also instilled in us a great skepticism of the whole 'Y2K' rubbish. Turns out we were right! Now, back to school life.

Year 4- Owairoa

Getting A Little Chubby!

I was lucky enough to have a fantastic teacher that year- Simon Jones. No, no the Welsh cricketer who spearheaded England's Ashes win in 2005. Way better! He was only in his early 20s but he instilled in us a great enthusiasm and passion for learning. He was definitely my best teacher at Primary school. In a strange twist of fate, he now is teaching at the same school as my mother. I went to visit him last year and found he hadn't changed much- he had the same enthusiasm for teaching kids, plus he didn't seem to have aged half as much as I. I was only 8 I guess! 

Our room was number 32, which was up the top of the school; outside was a large concrete area with a shade cloth and next to that our own field. It was quite cool because it felt like our year group was separate from the rest of the school and we had our own area to ourselves. I remember playing soccer on the field once and missing the ball when I went to kick it- I told some guy this was because one of my legs was shorter than the other and he believed me!   

One of the best things about that year was that we studied some cool topics and in quite a lot of detail. The most interesting of these by far was Ancient Egypt; we learnt about mummys and pyramids and lots of things children that age find fascinating and I was no exception to that. We also got to go to the then-new IMAX to watch a film about Egypt in 3D, though I don't remember much of it being in 3D! I think we got to watch the Simpsons clip in 3D too, which was a bit more interesting to be honest. But the whole Egypt topic was cool and I developed a keen interest in the area which has since passed.

A 'Yoghurt Bear' Prodcut

Another cool thing was that we not only learnt about famous artists but linked that into our art sessions by trying to emulate their styles and subjects. A really neat project we did was making yoghurt! We got to design our own brands and pots for it, then make it in class! My one was called 'Molten Lava' and the pot had picture of a volcano erupting; next to this things like a tree and car on fire, as well as a man on fire with a speech bubble saying "ahhh!" The yoghurt was made with red food colouring, hundreds & thousands, chocolate hail and one M&M mini. It was quite nice from memory!


The biggest event of the year came about when the school became the largest primary school in the country; this was mainly because the Principal ran the school like a business and tried to fill it with as many overseas homestays as possible. When the roll hit 1300, we became the biggest and as a result, tv show What Now? came to the school- to cover us all in 'gunge'. We all got changed into mufti, went out onto the field and they sprayed us all with the hose from a fire truck. That was a cool day! I was annoyed though because I didn't get home in time to watch the show on tv and it wasn't put on to tape. Typical!

Memories of Room 32

Another cool school event involved us all getting a balloon and attaching our details, then letting them all go. I think the point was to get people to respond by email, though I'm not sure how well it went down! We were lucky that year to have two major sports events to cover in class; the America's cup was big because it was local and we were really good back then. We got to listen to some commentary in class from memory too. Also that year were the Sydney Olympics, about which we did a whole topic. Apparently the one event I wanted to be in was fencing because "I like the idea"  of people fighting with swords. Of course now I know its rather pretentious, but I was only young! 

The big craze to hit the school that year was crazy bones; this was yet another opportunity to deprive parents of their money in exchange for worthless pieces of plastic. For once however, my parents obliged and bought me some! They were pretty cool- most of the attraction was the pokemon principle, that you wanted to collect all of them and each new packet would bring excitement at the thought of what you might get. People would begin to say that one was 'rare' or another one was 'special,' and if you had one of these it would raise you to god-like status. Also there were extra special shiny/sparkly ones. No one actually played the 'game' you were supposed to play with them, everyone just wanted to look at them and trade. That pretty much sums up kids of that age and generation- ignore the instructions, do what you want!

I'm rather portly by this stage!

Year 5- Owairoa

Miss Hibbert;

In 2001 I was in a combined year 5 and 6 class; my teacher was Miss Hibbert, who was also quite young and also by a strange coincidence later worked at my mother's school. She was quite nice, if a little inexperienced. The year was very much more of the same; studying topics, learning spelling and maths etc. I think I probably got a bit sick of this! I remember after school I would walk to my grandmother's house and she would give me biscuits and an apple; then I would quickly do the day's homework, practise my spelling words and then watch tv until I was picked up. Because of that, I hardly had to do any work when I got home.

The View From The Camp

That year was the first proper school camp I went one and like all the others it was a fairly hard week for me. The camp was a 'bible camp' at Raglan, though there really wasn't much religion involved. It was set high above the beach, with a very steep bushy drop down which could only be navigated by a long and torturous path. I hated doing all the physical activities, I was very overweight at the time. I didn't particularly like the people and got stuck in a dumb bunk group, so that sucked! That year the in-thing was wearing boxer shorts and low riding, and despite everyone else's best efforts I couldn't be forced to do this myself. I was very unhappy at the time so I didn't enjoy the camp at all. Probably the best part was going to Candy Land on the way there, and even that was disappointing!

A Few Too Many Pies!

That year I was also involved in a few out-of-class activities; I was a librarian, which I rather enjoyed. I remember turning up to the photograph for librarians without my shoes, so I got to sit in the front middle with my feet behind the sign. They didn't put the photo in the yearbook- the one time I get a good seat! I was also in this group which had to read a list of books by NZ authors and then compete in a inter-school quiz. I didn't read them all in the end, most of them weren't very good, and only two people were chosen for the quiz. Bit of a waste of time really. I was also chosen for a group which worked with this random guy to design an ad for some competition; we had a few sessions without much success, but then he stopped coming and we sort of forgot about it and never heard of it again. That was really weird!


One of my biggest bugbears about Primary school is the way they teach handwriting; early on its fine, getting you to the point where you can fairly accurately print letters on the line. Then what do they do? They mess it up! First they make you put stupid flicks on the letters, then they make you link them in a ridiculous way and then they make you slope them! All of this to get a 'pen licence'. Well as you can imagine, I was having none of that. By the end of year 5 my teacher wrote on my report: "Benjamin is developing his own personal style of handwriting... he has decided not to link his letters and advance to a pen licence." Damn right I did! I just don't understand why it was such a bad thing to write the letters normally! Needless to say, the only C for effort and the only 3+ rating (1 was the best) I received was in Handwriting. 

One of the lasting memories that year was the September 11 attacks; I'm sure everyone has their own particular memory of it and what they did. For my part, I thought it would be a good idea to make a power-point presentation about it to show to the class. It had some hastily gathered facts from the internet and some clip art pictures- and I think even some of those transition sounds which are like little explosions. I don't think I could quite grasp the enormity of the event at the time! 

I had a few friends that year, I seemed to get along ok though some of my teacher's comments, such as "Ben needs to develop an understanding and appreciation for the views and beliefs of others" might suggest otherwise. Then again, that one hasn't changed very much since! One of the guys in my class was from deeply religious family and I remember going to his birthday party; we had fish and chips and got to watch a video about Jesus. Oh joy! It was rather amusing though to tell the truth!

This was the last class of mine with girls in it for 5 years!

In the next intsallment...

That, probably to your surprise, concludes this nostalgic journey through my primary education; for me, it has been interesting to look back at old work, and I'm sure for everyone there are elements they can relate to. 2001 was my final year at Owairoa; since I had been in a Year 5 & 6 class and had been doing mostly Year 6 work, it seemed pointless to repeat the year again. I sat the entrance tests for St Kents, where my father now worked, and came out of it with a scholarship for Year 7. So without much hesitation, I was off to the Intermediate Department at St Kents in 2002.  
To be continued...

Standard 1, But Not As We Know It

Howick Primary 

As promised last time, I will pick up the story of my scholastic adventures in 1999. My family moved to Auckland rather suddenly and my father, for the only time in my life, was not teaching. We moved into my Grandmother's house in Howick, so I started school at Howick Primary, just down the road where my father had himself gone to school. This was not, however, as rosy and idyllic as it may seem. As I mentioned before I had been in a J2/St1 class the year before and was really doing all the St1 work from what I am told. However, when I came to Howick Primary, I was put into a Year 3 class- yes from now on school was Years 1-13- but the work was really just the stuff I had done in St1. So my parents weren't happy about that and my stay was destined to be short.

While I was there, I was in a class with Mrs Coker, who is apparently still teaching there. I remember her name because of this game we had to play on the first day of class; we sat in a circle and threw a little soft toy gecko to someone else and called out their name as we did. Simple enough? Ah, but I didn't know anyone since I was new to the school; when the thing landed with me (I'm not sure how I got it unless I had been introduced or something?) I was stuck with no escape. My brain, instead of trying to remember names previously called out, had a stroke of genius. I threw the thing to Mrs Coker and called out her name! Genius! As I see it now, it must have looked a little pathetic, but it was a small triumph over social adversity for me at the time!

I don't remember too much about the class since it was a short stay; however I do remember there were quite a few kids in my class with slavic names, like Yuri etc. There was one particular guy who had really chubby cheeks, the sort old grandmas would pinch; several years later, this was the image that came into my mind when reading about Neville in Harry Potter. The one in the film was a bit disappointing because he just wasn't as fitting as this kid! Notice also in the photo that it looks like he is holding a cricket ball!


Another lasting memory concerns that godforsaken travesty of a rule that schools have, that you couldn't go in the sun at lunch time unless you had a hat. What happens when you forget your hat? Tough luck, there goes your lunch time. I remember this happening one day and, desperate to be allowed to roam around, I ran over to the library and tried to make a hat out of paper. Needless to say, I failed, though I think I just spent the rest of the lunchtime in the library. 

Other recollections include: when we got stationery, they came with these crayon pens which were weird and different, but I never used them again! The school had dumb houses, they were named Red, Blue, Green etc. How dumb is that? We had a school trip to Kelly Tarltons- we were doing a unit on fish, how exciting! We were lucky enough to get a trip to the airport, too. By all accounts, the highlights were the playground and some lego displays. 

Also in that brief time I was there, the school had refurbished its pool and had a grand opening ceremony which now seems rather pathetic! Our class had one computer and it had some cool games; one was a typical maths one where you were some character who progressed through levels by doing maths, but the other was one of those glider ones where you controlled like a paper plane and flew through houses. I'm not sure how that was educational.


One of my most traumatic memories was being pushed off the top of the playground; there was this slide which was just two poles I think, and I was getting ready to go on it when someone decided I was too slow and pushed me. Needless to say I missed the poles and fell to the earth with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Well, the former at least. Anyway the worst bit was the guy who pushed me never got in trouble!! Another traumatic event was when I was hit in the eye by one of those spiky things that fall off those trees, which people love to throw about. I ended up with conjunctivitis and had to have eye-drops every day. In a strange way, this pervaded by school work, as can be seen by this picture (click to enlarge- note I had not learnt how to spell the word!).


These pieces of work from the time are quite funny; the one on the left certainly shows how candid your mind can be when you are a kid. If you click to enlarge it, you will see the rather stubborn and straightforward answer to the final question. I have many times since wanted to put that answer on pieces of work with dumb questions; I don't think I would get a sticker for doing that now! Also I have no idea how a book called "Duckling" would be about someone wanting a puppy, or who 'Dick King-Smith' was, though in another thing it had 'Duck King-Smith' so who knows? I was only 7!  

Here's another one, for a book called 'Thingummyrobet.' This name is a nice example of how children write what they think they hear, no matter what it looks like! I especially like the way he is 'short-tempered,' because 'it says in the book' which didn't actually exist! Dick-King Smith also makes another appearance.

Owairoa Primary- Year 3 

As I intimated before, my time at Howick Primary was brief; my parents weren't happy with the place for many reasons and our neighbours recommended nearby Owairoa Primary, where they had recently sent their son. My parents looked into it and halfway through the year, I moved schools. These sorts of transitions are never easy; you lose a lot of people you know and get stuck with a class where everyone has already settled comfortably and you are a stranger.

I was put into Room 28 with Mrs Henderson at Owairoa; I don't remember much about her because it was a shortened year, but she seemed ok. One of the saddest things for me was that she had been reading the class a book throughout the year and when I joined they were already halfway through so I didn't really understand it! I can't for the life of me remember what it was though. 

One of the great things about that class was the computers; yes our class had several computers and they were fascinating and magical, but we didn't get to use them that much. This was mainly because they had games on them everyone wanted to play; these were educational games though, like Maths Blaster and the Encarta mind-maze game, with all the trivia questions. If you were a child of the 90's, it's almost guaranteed you will have played that game. You didn't feel like you were learning if it was a computer game! Everyone went on it, but no one knew any of the answers so it was just whoever guessed best or could remember old questions. And you never had time to get that far because time was so limited! 

We did square dancing for class aerobics, how cool was that? We went on a couple of field trips after I arrived; one was to see Auckland's volcanoes, which was pretty cool. We went to the nice ones like Mt Eden and Mt Wellington which didn't require any climbing, but according to a report I wrote, they made us walk up One Tree Hill- not everyone made it! Also apparently some parent decided they would walk down into the crater of Mt Eden but were told off. I find the very matter-of-fact way I reported this quite amusing!

We also had a class trip to Motat though it wasn't great because it was raining. There were a lot of boring things for an 8 year old, especially the Victorian village. The one cool thing was they had a big k'nex room where you could make all sorts of things and they gave you challenges. That was really fun but we didn't get to spend enough time and I always wanted to do it again but never did! The mirror maze was pretty cool too and we did get to ride the tram.

It was also that year that my lifelong hatred of the Cross Country began; at Scots I had managed to avoid it the previous year through sickness, but not this year. I remember one year at Owairoa praying that it would rain and doing rain dances, and it did actually rain but they had it anyway. Another event that year was a class play, based on a Japanese story we had done in class, the Badger and the Magic fan. I played one of the 'thinkers' with the imaginative costume of an ice cream container on my head with a question mark drawn on it. That's all I remember of that!

I did make one friend that year, who was unfortunately a little mad. You can see him in the photo below; he hardly needs pointing out, but for liability reasons I won't name him! You can tell I'm a lawyer. He was an ok guy though and we had some fun so no worries there! I'm sure he's perfectly normal now. One final funny thing to note- I found a class survey I did that year about what people would like for christmas. Of the 20 students surveyed, 7 wanted a gameboy or something pokemon related; 4 wanted a furby; 4 wanted a playstation or a computer; 3 wanted bikes or toy cars and the other two were girls and wanted shoes! I thought that was fairly representative of the children of 1999.

Next time...

It is the year 2000; the millennium has dawned for everyone, except my family. I embark upon my first full year at Owairoa, which proves to be one of the most rewarding and educational years in my life. Tune in next time to hear about my adventures in Year 4!

A Paedagogical Catalogue Of Homeric Proportions

The Early Years

I am undertaking what is probably a large, complicated and completely unnecessary task, the enormity of which I have likely grossly underestimated. Sounds like the perfect thing to do during a holiday! What I have in mind is to devise a catalogue of all the classes I have been in and the teachers I have had (who were in any way memorable). I say at the outset that I do no intend to defame, slander or libel anyone in the process; that being said, not everything I say will be complimentary but that is life! I thought a chronological approach would be best, so we begin with my first steps, literally, into the New Zealand education system. 

Capital City Pre-School

I have absolutely no recollection of the staff at pre-school; I have seen the odd photo from then so I think it was taken by a lady (or maybe two?) but as I say, nothing that sticks in the memory. I was at pre-school for quite a while because my birthday was after the cut off date for that year. It was called Capital City Pre-School, which if you hadn't worked it out, means that I was in Wellington at the time! I remember having 'sleep time' on mattresses when they would play soothing music. At the end of 1995, my first year, I was the possum in the Preschool production of 'Kiwi Stew.'  still have photos of me in the costume- potentially embarrassing 21st material! Also from what my father had told me, he came in at the end of year dressed as Santa. He must have been very convincing (not too hard to imagine!) because I didn't realise it was him despite him apparently dropping several hints. Ah to be young and innocent!

Scot's College- Year 0

From Preschool I went into a year 0 class at Scot's College, which went from Year 0 to Year 13. But back then it was still J1 and Form 7 etc! I remember going there for some reason before I started; I was in my preschool uniform and decided it would be fun to run down one of the corridors at morning tea. I remember being chased by someone who pulled me by the sleeve which stretched a bit. Then I had to go and sit in the naughty corner in the classroom, looking at some dumb pattern on the wall. That was the first and last time I messed around at school! 

A Dead Ringer

Anyway I started in the Year 0 in 1996 when I turned 5; I remember learning about letters (there is a long story about that I will tell later) and 'blends,' which to this day I have never heard of again. They were things like bl, fr, pr, br etc etc. I have no idea why that has stuck with me. That class was taken by this woman who reminded me of Velma from Scooby Doo. She had a similar haircut and the big round glasses. Our class was small and we were sort of stuck out the back of the J1/2 class, which my brother was in at the time. Looking back I wonder how that ever worked!

J1 (Year 1)

In 1997 I started my first full year at Scots in J1 as it was then- year 1 now. As I said before, these classes were all a bit jumbled together; J1 and J2 were all in the same boat, and you progressed on your work at your own rate. We had those special reading books, colour-coded and everything. What times! Our class had the ultimate, archetypal batty old woman for a teacher. Her name was Mrs Morrison; she had grey hair and wrinkled skin and was fairly batty. In one corner of the class was 'the mat,' where we would all sit with our arms folded in the correct way, and so on, I'm sure you all know the story! We also had these old wooden desks with ink wells; I never really worked out why they were there until I was older. 


I don't remember too much from that first year; by all accounts I progressed pretty quickly. I have a picture I drew once with me and my red reading book! I remember having to do P.E. back then and hating it. Of the few remaining relics from that year I have a book with the tedious results of writing every letter 20 times; a letter from the British government which was in reply to a letter our class sent in sympathy for the passing of Diana; and this class photo, with both teachers. When I found it, I was very pleased to see how accurate my memory was as to the descriptions of them!

J2/Standard 1 (Year 2/3)

1998 started in much the same fashion as the previous one since it was a grouped class. A little way into the year however, my life changed suddenly (at least that's how it seemed to me). I, along with one or two others, was asked to join the Standard 1 class (the year above). This was the most dramatic of changes. I still remember it very clearly; I though I was in trouble when I was asked to stand up, but instead we were told to go through to the next room. There was a door joining the two in the back corner which was very rarely used.

Going through there added to the surreal nature of the event. What I found on the other side was the complete opposite of everything I had experienced so far. The teacher, Mz Wescott, was young and friendly and the classroom seemed so new! Instead of the creaky old desks, we had these tote trays which you would slide under the desk. Very space-age. When we got into the class we were told what was going on and it all seemed a bit much to take in at once! The first thing I did in the class was a maths exercise, colouring something in from memory! Anyway, that year was fantastic for me, the challenge of stepping up a year really pushed me.

Our teacher was fantastic, very friendly and helpful; she liked the Spice Girls and would often play them; she would give students points for things, and you would get little certificates and everything. I still have a folder with all of them in it. We got to play fun games in P.E. and learning seemed to be much more fun in general. 

I even won an art competition; I have no idea how, but for the school Gala we all had to paint something and mine was chosen as being good! I got a special reward for it, a voucher for the tuck shop, but of course my parents said that if I used it I wouldn't get to keep it so I never did. In hindsight I guess I still have it as proof that I was once in some way slightly artistic!

On digging up some of my old books, I have remembered several other interesting/funny stories from this year! Early in the year we took a class trip to see a Festival Of Arts show called 'Puppy Love.' I have no memory of the show, but  I do remember that afterwards we all got hot chocolates with a marshmallow shaped like a bone! We also had a class trip to the 'Flying Fruit Fly Circus' at the Micheal Fowler Centre; all I remember was waiting around forever, which according to my homework book, was because a light had exploded before the performance! While we waited I remember we came up with silly versions of the Popeye song. 

Another memory, typical of my childhood, was of Book Week, where we all had to come to school one day dressed as a character from a book we had recently read. I was reading James and the Giant Peach, which had plenty of interesting characters to choose from. After much deliberation at home, it was decided that it was too difficult to make a costume for any of the characters. Instead, I could go as one of the 'Cloud Men' from the book, which meant me in a sheet with holes for the eyes and mouth. As you can tell from the drawing I made of it in my homework book, I was proud of it too. I think it was marked 'excellent' because there wasn't much to draw!


Finally, I came across a cool thing in my work book; for a homework exercise, we had to cut out bits from the paper and stick them in. One of these had to be a cricket article, and there preserved is an article previewing the first test against Sri Lanka in May 1998. This article has to points of interest: firstly, it has Craig McMillan talking about how the players, and especially he, were going to take the attack to Murali early on to take him out of the attack. So I looked up the scorecard and there in the first innings of the match was CD McMillan, lbw b Muralitharan for 0 off 4 balls. Murali finished with a five-for. Good one Macca. Though I must point out he cracked 142 in the second innings helping us to an historic win, though that is just typical of him.

Secondly, at the very end of the article it notes the umpires for the match; though his name is spelled incorrectly, there is none other than Rudi Koertsen. When I was 5 years old, cutting this out of the newspaper, I never would have dreamed that one day I would be out on the field umpiring with him. It was quite an amazing revelation for me when I saw that!

Still To Come...

1998 marked my final year in Wellington, as our family moved back to Auckland, though I really had no idea why at the time. That brings to a close this first segment of my school-days recollections, tune in next time for my adventures at primary school in Auckland!

OCDmon, iTunes you!

As I said in my last post, I had actually intended to write about another of my OCD tendencies but I ran out of space, so I decided it deserved its own post. On reflection, writing about things you obsess about often requires a lot more space than you first think! Having established numbers are a big deal to me, I must point out that I'm not a maths guy. I don't want you to get that idea from these posts (or the mathematical reference in the blog name)! But numbers can be interesting when related to real life things and I tend to obsess with these. The best example is probably my relationship with music via iTunes.

iTunes provides users with a handy database-like format with the ability to classify, rate and organise your music. It also has the additional feature of telling you how many times you listen to each song. Pretty cool, yes? You don't know the half of it! Add my brain to the mix and you have an obsession with the play count feature; this started off as a general interest in seeing the results of behaviour, but soon the behaviour changed to induce the results. What I mean is that instead of looking at the numbers every now and then out of interest, I began listening to songs just to make sure their play count was high enough. A little OCD, yes? It goes on..

I quickly discovered how long you had to listen to every song to register as a play, normally around 7 seconds before the end, depending on the length. Now because of this, I cannot physically bring myself to skip to the next song if the current song is only halfway through. I either have to wait it out, or if I am really desperate, fast-forward the song until it has reached the end and it registers as having played. Some songs I edit so that the end time comes sooner, meaning I don't have to listen to long instrumental endings and the like. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but before I go further some things need expanding upon.

I listen to music mostly through my iPod, less frequently on my computer (especially since its speakers don't work). I am in the peculiar position that I had an iPod before I had my computer, so originally I only had music off someone else's. I can remember listening to the whole thing on shuffle in one night, and trying to guess which song would be the last one. Needless to say I have a few more songs than I did then. My iPod is still only 4gb so I do have a few songs, but probably not that many compared to most people! But that is fine for me because with music I tend to listen only to songs that I like, and if I don't like a song it is cut from my library. I don't often upload entire CDs so my whole library is not that much bigger than my iPod. The fact that I have under 1000 songs makes it easier to keep track statistically.

Which gets me to the actual stats; when looking at my whole library, half of my songs have 10 plays or fewer. My iPod has about half under 15. I have 76 songs I have listened to 50 times or more; 39 over 75; 19 in the hundreds club and 4 over 150. My most listened to song is The Longest Time by Billy Joel, with 178 plays so far, though I don't listen to it much anymore! Almost my entire top 25 most played songs comprise songs by Billy Joel, Rockapella or from Grads CDs. I'm sure my taste in music may differ to others but I don't mind! I have two songs added only last year with 70 plays; 42 is the most for one added in 2010. It's not that easy getting a high play count, but it means a lot to me!

The Hundred Plus Club!

My arrangement of my iTunes library is also peculiar; I normally keep the database organised by date added, with the most recent songs first. This is because I tend to add music in clumps, then listen to that particular group of songs until they are old. By that stage, I can listen to older ones or add some new songs, though I rarely intentionally set out to find new music, it just sort of happens! And I don't listen to much modern music, unless there's a catchy tune that I happen to hear. Because I listen to a sport station on the radio instead of a music channel, I don't get much exposure to new stuff. But that's probably a blessing!

That's a lot of
Smart Playlists!

To augment this however I also have many playlists, but not your usual playlists. You see one day I discovered how Smart Playlists work and well.. the obsession grew. I currently have 13 of these; most of these are playlists with the 25 songs from a period of time with the highest play count. Told you it was strange, but I bet you didn't expect me to tell you that these time periods are organised by cricket season? Well they are. The 2010 season is nearly over and soon I will have to make 2010/11. These go from the start of March to the start of October and vice versa. Pretty weird? Well that's how I roll. Haha.


To ensure that I have all the music I want on my iPod I sync it off a specific playlist. Why and how this happened will confirm how OCD I am about this. I started with the whole library synced onto the iPod but it became too big. So then I made it only sync the ones with the box ticked. All good but I didn't like this because on my computer it wouldn't play the unticked songs when playing the library. Then I realised I couldn't organise the library by whether the songs were ticked or not. So did I just manually organise the iPod instead, which would have been fairly simple? No I decided I would listen to every song on my iPod alphabetically; ok I know you think I'm nuts but hear me out. Once I had finished, I would sync to my library on my computer which I hadn't used since I started on the iPod. Then I would organise the library on my computer by last played and presto! there would be all the songs on my iPod nicely arranged, which I would then just drop into a playlist and sync to that.

As it turned out, listening to your whole iPod takes a long time. A looooong time. When it says like 1.2 days, that means 1.2 days NON STOP listening. When you listen to your iPod mainly walking to and from uni, this takes a while. It took me several weeks. But I also did it to see how interesting it would be. So was it? No not really, it wasn't that great especially when you had albums that needed listening to in an order which had no relation to the alphabet! But now I have my playlist, and I put that in order of most recently added so I can listen to my music that way!

I also have another playlist which is the 25 most recently added songs; this was ok to start with but once I was limiting the songs on the iPod this needed to be cut back to songs with ratings over 4 stars. Oh yes ratings, there is another part of this whole OCD thing. I take this quite seriously, and all 935 songs have been specifically rated- 5 stars is the best songs which I will always listen to; 4 stars is good songs which I will normally listen to; 3 stars is songs which are ok or catchy and might listen to if I'm in the mood; 2 stars are songs which I will almost never listen to but can't bring myself to delete and 1 star means it is either not an actual song or it is so bad it is funny enough to keep. I only put songs with 3 stars or more on my iPod. I have recently discovered the code to activate half stars, but the enormity of the task of reclassifying the entire library has meant that I have not yet used this very much. Also my iPod doesn't seem to register them so its not that great.

Like all things in life, my interest in songs changes over time and no rating is set in stone. Also some songs which I used to listen to a lot are now skipped every time, but they remain high in the play count. This makes me wish I could have more statistical options such as play count divided by length of time in the library and play counts within the last year for example. Also, I would look at Skip Count but I have no idea what that's on about; it may be something to do with using an iPod but this thing is messed up! Some of my songs have been skipped OVER A THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED TIMES! Seriously, whats up with that? A lot of them have square numbers like 144 and 1024 but then some have counts which are one or two numbers off a square number so who knows? I tried to work it out once by resetting the count and I think it only messed up once I synced with my iPod so it's probably something there. If anyone knows any better, let me know!

All these songs were
added in one minute!

I like to have my iTunes all on the one screen so I only have as many columns as can fit without having to scroll to the side- it looks really ugly when you have to do that. So I have the Name, Time, Artist, Album, Rating, ‘Plays’ and Date Added. Pretty simple and complex AND it conforms to by obsessive needs! Also, I hate how when you click on album it can change to Album by Year and other crap that I DON'T WANT! If I wanted that, I would have chosen it as a separate column thank you very much! Also, when did they change Play Count and Skip Count to ‘Plays’ and ‘Skips’? Why was I not informed?!? That brings up another annoying things, the new iTunes 10 doesn't work with OS 10.4! Bastards! Oh well it was inevitable.. which reminds me of another thing, my auto-update thingy died. It died some time ago. That or all of my software is completely up-to-date and doesn't need any corrections because it is the pinnacle of technological achievement. Somehow I doubt that, however nice it would be. Also, I use Opera and the current update 10.6 sucks like hell and jams and I keep installing it and then replacing it with an old 10.10 version because its so much better!


Oh and the most OCD thing of all? Every single word in my iTunes database MUST start with a capital letter. I cannot stand having a lower case word as the name of a song or the artist! I have to keep close track of this when uploading large amounts of songs and I periodically do a sweep of the database to ensure there are none lurking around.

On a slightly related point, I think earphones are such a rip off these days! I bought a cheap $9 pair this year and they lasted longer than any other pair they had. Tip to everyone: don't go for the flash looking one with weird rubber bits, they will fall off quickly or just annoy you and stop the sound. And don't worry about ‘sound-enhancing' rubbish, it rarely makes a difference. If you don't want to buy a seriously good quality pair, do that but they will set you back a great deal! I'll take my $9 pair any day!

Well this post is getting very ranty! It has moved away somewhat from my OCD tendencies to a general rant about things I don't like about technology. I love the delicious irony that I am doing this on my computer with said technology, but it somewhat dissolves when you consider that I had to write this in Pages because the internet was playing up and I couldn't rely on it. And don't get me started on Pages vs MS Word. And don't get me started on people who are brainwashed by Windows into thinking Apple people are dumb! If you thought this was a rant... just you wait!

P.S. I could write a whole new post about the way I arrange movies in iTunes. Maybe I will. Mwahahahaha!

There's A Little Bit Of OCD In All Of Us...

Everyone has one or two little things they like to obsess about; some have more than others but the point is, it's not a rare thing. We all have something we have to do in a particular way or something that has to be organised exactly how we like it. 

One of the things I tend to get caught up in is statistics; I'm really not into maths, but still numbers are very important to me. It's one of the reasons I love the game of cricket- there is just the right balance between stats and the actual game. Other sports can have statistics which don't really tell you much, such as Golf, while others have just far too many- not surprisingly these are mainly American sports like Baseball and NFL. The Americans tend to compartmentalise every aspect of a sport and then develop statistics for it. It's one of the (many) peculiar quirks of that great society.

Cricket is not so bad; for instance, you don't record stats for misfields, dropped catches, bowling long hops or wafts outside off stump. That would just be nauseating! In general though, there is a good range of stats for the game which a lot of thought and opinions can be based around, though it is not the be all and end all.
So how do I obsess about this in particular? Well if you are familiar with cricinfo, you will realise the opportunity to immerse oneself in stats and databases is huge. I like to see every opportunity in a game to break some record or other, or to boost averages or tallies etc. Further, in tight right chases in ODIs, the equations become quite interesting but very mathematical! I enjoy working out the different permutations of every ball, it increases the drama of the game. 

Also, I have alway enjoyed playing cricket video games simply because you can manipulate the game to formulate different statistics. For me this is very important, and I often keep note of particular scorecards which are interesting. Recently I completed a full World Cup on Cricket 2005, playing every game and trying to set new records. The fun part is that the human element of the game combined with the statistical element makes it a challenge. Sometimes though I just enjoy using the games for their scorecard generators, seeing how they work through things and to what extent their depth goes. I must admit the EA cricket one is very good though there are some elements I wish I could change.. but alas! Ok this is sounding a bit sad so I will move on!

The point I'm getting at, as you can see, is that my mind particularly likes combinations of numbers and their implications for real life. So I don't play video games because I have no life, it's because it's mentally stimulating. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I had originally intended to talk about another of my OCD tendencies, but I will make a new post dedicated to that. As you can see, if you are obsessed about something, you can go on about it for a long time!