Passport

Drove to Lombok from Sumbawa in my car at the weekend, which is quite a feat of endurance. I left my house in Sumbawa at 3.30 pm on Friday afternoon and arrived at the hotel in Mataram, Lombok about 10 pm. It's about 75 kilometres from my house to Pototano, which is where the car ferry leaves for Lombok. The ferry takes about two hours to make the crossing. Then another hour and a half drive across Lombok to the city of Mataram, another 70 or so kilometres. Driving across Lombok was the scary bit. It was dark. What with motorcyclists, cidomos, people sitting on the edge of the road, crazy taxi drivers and such, it wasn't a pleasant experience. Indonesian drivers have a completely different code of driving that is quite alarming and different for us from Australia. They don't check for oncoming traffic, they just enter the road without looking and other rather interesting motoring idiosyncrasies. But it was al made worthwhile for two reasons. I met a man from Indonesian immigration who says he can make an Indonesian passport for Oliver, my son. I have been trying in one way or another to procure some official documentation in the form of a passport for him for the past six and a half years. Maybe this time! I will know next week as I have to take Oliver back to have his photograph taken at immigration and the passport will be issued the same day. I am so excited that after all this time maybe he will finally have his own passport. When I asked him where he wanted to go he said, "New York." I will take him there too this holiday if the passport actually happens. The other reason visiting Lombok was interesting and rewarding is a separate story.

Boys Reading

During the vacation all the teaching staff of the school where I work went to the EARCOS conference in Bangkok. I have been there before for previous conferences but this was the best one by far. The workshops I attended were all good but one stood out as significant. While I wouldn’t say it was life changing – it came close. Titled, If You Want Boys To Read Give Them Blood & Thunder! In a nutshell it was about why boys don’t want to read. They don’t bother because the educational community has sanitised the literature we give children so that it is free of any blood and guts whatsoever. The example was used of, Curious George by H.A. Rey, and how when it was first published the character of George was fearless. Over twenty years the same character developed into a scared wimp. When I think back over my teaching career I can think of many examples as a teacher and witnessing other teachers censoring the material children were exposed to. We rejected certain materials as inappropriate. When choosing literature it wasn’t that difficult. The books chosen for libraries have always reflected certain values and tastes and I cannot think of many titles, especially picture books that contain any sort of violence. The presenter illuminated something that I have discovered from raising a son. Despite my best attempts to keep weapons, war and violence from him he naturally craves just those things. He has never owned a toy gun but screams about the house brandishing a stack of cubes in the shape of one. At this workshop it was stated that boys have natural preferences for external conflict and they relish in it. Whether it is in stories or games or videos it doesn’t matter. The children’s literature community and book publishers certainly don’t understand this but the video game designers do. They give boys what they want. I intend to give my son the same. I am not going to rush out and buy him a toy gun but the next time I am tempted to make a judgement about a book or game based on my previous ideas I will stop and look at it in this newfound framework.

Exercising

My resolution to blog everyday hasn't happened but I am going to try and change that. My first blog since the end of February! I have made a few changes in other areas of my life and will try to incorporate daily blogging into that new regime. I used to be addicted to regular gym workouts when I lived in Tasmania. I would religiously train at least three times a week by doing some weights and some sort of aerobics class depending on what was then being bandied about as the latest and best exercise. I remember doing step classes where one would leap over and on a low box to music while watching the instructor manoeuvre through a carefully choreographed routine. Sometimes I could keep up and do all the moves and sometimes I was a tangle of legas and arms. But it was fun. So this week I returned to the gym here at the school and did a workout. Ten minutes on the exercise bike and a program of weights. I am sore now though. I plan to do two sessions per week and will swim once or twice a week too. It has taken so long to get motivated to actually go and I have planned on doing it for ages but once you go the addiction sets in and I am looking forward to my next workout!