Stargirl

You should read it. It's a good book.

Didn't go into school until 10:00 this morning because wasn't feeling fantastic. Haven't really done much so far, but am rostered to tell the Grade 1s all about seahorses this afternoon. Ah well. They can't tell if I'm winging it.

Finally finished the skirt last night. If I ever get around to firstly taking photos, and then putting them up, it's red and white. Either Zo or I could be wearing it. Probably Zo, it has flowers on it which is a little too girly for me. Haha.

Yeah. Maybe I'll add more to this update later. Or maybe not. I don't know what it is about Wednesdays. Seems to be the low point of every week.

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Went to the Grade 1s just before hometime, hoping they'd forgotten I'd promised to tell them the seahorse talk. But of course I had to show up to cover my bases - if one has said to a bunch of little kiddies that one will show up, one must indeed. Sadly, their memories suddenly become better when heightened by enthusiasm, and as soon as I walked into the room there were shouts of "Miss Phillips!" "Miss Phillips has come to tell us about seashorses!" etc. Me giving them big smiles. My thinking 'Damn'. Nah, it's fun teaching them, and they get so caught up in what I'm telling them. I'm always happy to encourage such interest in animals.

So as I may have mentioned, seahorses are not an area of specialist knowledge for me. I drew them a big picture on the board and went over some basic facts. I'm learning to let them lead me though. I was asking them about what the purpose of the curled tail is, and one of the girls answered that it was to hold onto seaweed so the current wouldn't wash him away. Which was a bit too complex for some of the others so we got onto a discussion about currents and how if the water moved <-- this way, the seahorse would be pushed <-- this way too...
Artemis: "Like if you're playing in the waves on the beach!"
Alia: "Our house is only five miles from the beach"
Edison: "We're even closer, you just have to walk outside"
Jordan: "This one time I was at the beach and I found a clam and my Dad helped me open it with a rock because we bashed it like this *demonstrates with fist into hand* and then we got it open and..."
Miss Phillips: "So which way would the seahorse be pushed if the current was going --> that way?"*
...and from there together came to the conclusion that by holding on with his tail, the seahorse could stay X here when the current moved <-- --> either way. (By this stage my diagram was covered in lots of blue squiggly lines denoting water direction and would have made little sense to a newcomer to the room). Then we got onto reproduction. Haha. I asked the class to tell me who has the babies for humans. Puzzled looks.
"Who has the babies in a people family?"
"The Mummy!"
"But who do you think has the babies in a seahorse family?"
"The Daddy!"
They were absolutely delighted to find this out.
I was absolutely delighted that things were going so well. But of course, little kids have big questions.
"Why?"
Thankfully, Phoebe saved me from having to answer this one.
"So that the Mummy can have a rest and swim round with no kids to look after and nothing to do all day"
Priceless.
I vaguely explained the physiological logistics of this, before realising that I was out of facts and they were amazingly not out of attention. Right. Frantic scanning of brain for more information. Looked over at Miss K for permission to end the mini-lesson. Zoe grinned nastily and refused to rescue me. Apparently there was another seven or eight minutes of class time I was meant to use up.
In desperation, I started an analysis of the differences between seahorses and seadragons, given that we'd been talking about species being related to each other last time. This instantly caught the attention of all the boys simply because of the 'dragon' part. In fact, it worked really well - we then got talking about camouflage because I drew a picture of a seadragon in green marker, and added all the leafy growths coming off the body, then drew green seaweed all over it. I was quite proud of how well it conveyed the concept, and they all understood it. Ok. Don't remember anymore, I'm writing this from a day ago perspective** and that's long enough for me to have lost any further detail.

Uhm... afterschool walked with Zoe down the road to get bananas. Yay! I'd already finished the last lot she picked up. Bananas are now my staple here, rather than any grain. It's so different, just five minutes from our place and the whole scene has changed. Will describe it later...

Sandwiches for dinner again. Luckily, because we found it so funny the first time it remains terribly funny and therefore remains edible.

*Smooth diversionary tactic
**Probably noticeable due to the willingness to expand. Clearly wasn't there when I first started this post.