Good day, 2013.

Hello peoples. Hello 2013.

It seems like yesterday I was watching Pet Shop Boys from the comfort of my living room and ringing in 2012 and now, as with every one before it, the year has slipped away.

It was a year like every other year before it. Day followed night, night followed day, weekends fitted neatly at the end of sometimes overly long weeks. 366 days. (I suppose we don't see that every year.)

It was a year where we musically looked towards South Korea. (Didn't see that one coming.) It won't happen again, of this I am certain.
It was a year when we were uncertain about our Earth's fate, although I don't think too many of us were completely petrified.

For me, it was the year I lost my beautiful boy, Ruslan. This was a lowlight and I still miss him. But, as is always the case, the sun shines again and we continue to carry on and look forward.

It was also a rough year for me at work. For the first half of the year, anyway. Things definately improved over the second half, for which I am thankful. I am positive about the coming year. But I am not ready to broach it just yet. A few more weeks off first.
Work is made more bearable by the people you surround yourselves with whilst you are there. I work with some fantastic people, in my classroom and within the wider school community. People who work in tandem with me professionally. More importantly, people who care about how I feel on any given day. I hope I provide the same daily and emotional support to them as I feel that I receive.
Of course, that is not everyone and you will never get on with everybody. Specific mention to the newest colleague with whom I interact on a regular basis. With cake pops.

PS Cake Pops and chocolate are on the banned list for a time, while I try to get to the bottom of my breathing issues. They crop up and irritate me off and on and hopefully I can control them more this year.

I have shared time with some very special and important friends over the year and shared in their highs and lows. I hope this continues for many years. Looking forward to September 2013 Baltic Cruise and hope we have some more takers/ partakers!

New Year's Eve was spent at a Nepalese restaurant in Newtown. Not something I can say I have ever done before. It was fantastic. Enjoyed some great food and wonderful company. Intelligent conversation and amusing anecdotes. I feel grateful that I have connections and friendships in a variety of areas and they fulfil my life.

Thanks everybody.
Happy New Year.

Jacintha, Pranks and Bullying....

The 2 Day FM Jacintha Saldanha incident has turned into an enormous mess. An enormous, horrible, needless mess. Thousands of kilometres away, and without any relationship to anyone involved, I have burst into tears about it several times. This may say more about my current mental state than anything else, but it is still a terrible incident that brings to light the practices of radio that continue to poke fun at innocent people.

It is seen as "innocent fun" on radio.
But it is often seen as "innocent fun" at school, in class or the playground as well. There are rarely consequences quite as serious as this weekend's incident, but they are scarring emotionally.

I work with students who are in the firing line for "innocent fun" all the time. Year 2 girls who encourage my students to pick their noses, then getting people to watch and laugh. Or who throw a basketball on the roof, knowing that one of my students will climb up there to retrieve it; to do "the right thing". These things are funny for juvenile minds. They are abhorrent to me, but they are part of being a child I suppose. I crack down on the behaviour, but I am only one person.

But where do children learn pranks? Their parents. And.... the media.
And the media needs to start being a little more responsible for the messages they are passing onto people.

Anyway, who exactly finds prank calls funny? I find them cringeworthy and often offensive.

Yes. They have been around for decades.
No. That doesn't make it ok.

Pranks do not take into account the psychological and emotional state of the victim. And there is no justifiable apology when something goes wrong. Because it should not happen in the first place.

In this case, there are several other questions worth asking...

1. How would these 2 Dj's (and everyone involved) have felt if they were put through and found out there had been a miscarriage? Would it have been funny then?
2. Has ANYONE thought about what Prince William has been through? Is it not enough that his mother was hounded by the media; her every move scrutinised and her death horrible, as well as horribly televised? Does he need for his wife's condition to be used as a joke as well?

Sure. He gets a lot of perks in his position of birth.
But he actually never asked for it.

Kim Kardashian asked for it.
Lindsay Lohan asked for it.

To an extent, Kate has asked for it, in that she went into her marriage knowing her privacy was over. But William. Does he need this? For his child to be born in the dark shadow of another needless death.

Some people are questioning the nurse's mental state before the incident. I am not. Maybe she was highly strung. It is a stressful job.
But I do not doubt for one second, that being placed in a position looking after a member of the Royal Family, comes with it some enormous stress. Stress that none of us will ever understand. To then be pranked and, let's face it, ridiculed WORLD WIDE... would you cope with it?
I wouldn't.
The shame that woman would have felt. What a low and horrible few days she must have experienced. Not to mention the treatment she would have received at work, no matter how much the hospital claims that "no action was taken." Rubbish! She would have been at least spoken to about being "foolish" if not worse.

This incident should make many people think. Hopefully it makes everybody think. There is a fine line between "harmless fun" and bullying. There is a fine line between humour and tragedy. And we do not know what the consequences of our actions are until they happen.

One last note: those dj's will be back soon enough. Nothing surer. We will know what they are made of the next time they are asked to make a prank call.
I watched the Current Affair interview tonight. I think they were well trained to answer the questions. But I do not think they answered honestly. They "wanted to be hung up on?" They were "not proud of their coup?" That's why the clip was played over and over all week.

I hope this stuff is over.