Living Life Twice

My final March Slice of Life Story Challenge piece finds me at the supermarket. I called in to pick up some milk, breakfast cereal and bananas. As I made my way through the ailses I was struck by the following realization... I am increasingly of the view that people should have to pass a driving test to operate a supermarket trolley. There should be on the spot fines for blocking the aisle, and sudden un-announced u –turns should be banned. It is challenging enough to operate a trolley with the obligatory wobbly wheel without decision challenged individuals obstructing your access to the fruit and veg section while they prop and ponder over heaven knows what. I don’t resent having to gather food in this manner. I view it as a highly evolved form of hunting and gathering that has mercifully eliminated the need to set traps and snares, or fire arrows. That is evolution at its best. No, what upsets me about the supermarket trolley bash is the consumer who enters the food gathering enviro...

Whilst browsing our recipe book collection searching for culinary inspiration, I stumbled across an entry in Bill Grainger’s foodies book ‘ Holidays’ Below the recipe for Tagliatelle with fresh peas and lemon, Bill extols the value of fresh peas. ‘Fresh peas are so wonderfully evocative of spring and another ingredient we seem to bypass in our modern lives. In an ideal world, we’d all spend half an hour a week on the back doorstep, shelling peas.’ This simple observation set me to thinking of a simpler time before frozen and processed foods made us lazy. I vividly recall as a boy watching my mother sit with a generous pile of peas in her lap and patiently work through the process of shelling them into a saucepan. She would split open the pod before running her thumb along the length of the pod and directing the firm, green contents into the nearby container. Whenever my Nana visited, it never took long before she was drafted into the pea shelling process as well. There was something ca...

My mind is on topic choice this morning because nothing influences a child’s attitude to writing more than the choice of topic. If the child is given control over topic choice and if the teacher displays genuine interest in that choice, then there’s usually no limit to the effort the young writer will make. Young writers who are given this power soon develop confidence in choosing appropriate topics for their writing. They are engaged in thinking and preparing for the writing that follows. Sometimes I hear teachers say, ‘They’re not good at choosing something to write about.” The logical starting point is, ‘What can you do to assist them to improve this aspect of their writing? Actively teaching the inexperienced writer to make good choices, showing them how to identify a suitable focus for their writing, and harvesting ideas are good places to begin. Teacher modelling is critical to students making improved topic choices. They need to see us in action! They need to see how we narrow...

Sitting on the back deck in the mid morning light of an autumn day my thoughts land on the idea of enjoying a cup of tea. The sun is slowly warming to its task. By mid afternoon it will bring soothing warmth to my shoulders. Right now the air is still crisp after a rather cool night. Remnants of dew linger on the timber deck. This is the pattern of autumn days. Cool nights followed by days of clear blue skies and mild sunshine. My choice of tea fluctuates between Earl Grey and Green tea these days. I take it black with no sugar. I like to share a cup of tea. I rarely drink tea alone. Drinking tea is a social event. We sit and ruminate. We plan action and solve problems. We review. We speculate. Tea helps a conversation flow it seems. When I was growing up it seemed there was only black tea and you chose between two brands- Robur and Bushells. Now there are so many tea choices. We even have a dedicated tea shop in town. It is there that I learned of white tea which is tea harvested from...

This is writing like no other writing we do! It’s artificial, strange, and yet we owe it to our students to teach them how to deal with it. If we treat it as a genre study, it can be dealt with more effectively! The following ideas are presented in no particular order. I am offering them as suggestions. It is aimed at providing students with essential understandings for dealing with this abnormal writing situation. I am not advocating 'test prep' as I have too often seen it practiced. I am suggesting that we teach these strategies in the normal course of writer's worskshop. Provide plenty of opportunity to write Continue to encourage talk as a pre-writing prompt. It encourages thinking, and while students do not get to discuss their writing intentions under the test writing conditions, we certainly need them to activate their thinking around an idea for writing, so talk will facilitate this action. On the day of the test, this action will hopefully take place in their ...

On Saturday mornings a magazine comes with the newspaper that is delivered to my door. The magazine contains a variety of topical articles, some engaging, some merely page fillers. However, it also contains a regular feature entitled, Your Time Starts Now. This involves a different person answering a series of pre determined questions each week. I always look forward to reading their responses. I am naturally curious about their experiences in life. I often find myself wondering, how would I respond ? How my answers might differ or equate to those printed before me. So today, I put myself to the task of responding to the questions posed. My earliest memory: Watching my mother go to hospital in a taxi just prior to the birth of my sister and wondering if she would ever come back. Months earlier, my dog, Buster went to the dog hospital (as my parents put it) and never returned! My favourite gadget is: My Ipod, nothing else holds a tune to it! Although, I am becoming very attached to ...

Photographs trigger memories. I had this clearly illustrated yesterday when a photograph of our old Brooklyn apartment flashed across my computer screen. –I use my picture library as a screen saver and when I walked back into the study there it was –the old Brownstone fourth floor walk up apartment in all its faded glory. For some unaccountable reason, the first thing I thought of was the mouse who lived with us for a while. I had an instant mouse mind movie… I had never seen a mouse in a dishwasher before. Not until the screaming of my dear wife Vicki, drew me to the kitchen in our new apartment. She ran from the kitchen screaming, “There’s a mouse in the dishwasher! Quick do something!” So I did. I went and had a look for myself. I opened the dishwasher ghingerly and there staring back at me was a tiny mouse. I almost said hi and then remembered that I was dealing with a rodent. Our eye contact was fleeting –literally a few seconds. The mouse scurried away in a flash and though I sea...

Last evening I had dinner with the Governor of Victoria. Well, in actual fact more than three hundred people dined with the Governor, but he was at the next table. We had gathered together to raise funds and awareness of ovarian cancer. The aim of the evening was to raise funds for much needed research into this mystifying disease. Each year around the world, 200, 000 new cases of ovarian cancer are reported. Of these, 75% are initially reported in the advanced stages of the disease. This is the baffling challenge faced by science. The symptoms of the disease do not make themselves immediately apparent and subsequently go undetected until they are advanced. Ovarian cancer is a disease that is not respectful of age, so women of all ages are susceptible. I was struck by relatively young age of some of the women afflicted by this disease. A global challenge is under way discover more about this mysterious cancer. It is re-assuring to know that contributing in this small way may assist tho...

Legendary rock band, The Who have arrived in Melbourne to play a one off concert as part of the Melbourne Formula One Grand Prix racing circus. I have never been a fan of Formula One racing. It does nothing for me and it costs taxpayers money to stage it. It takes over city streets and is environmentally unsustainable. On the other hand I have always loved the music of The Who . As a teenager I loved the teen anthem, My Generation and the lyric line of Substitute fired my imagination every time it played out. "You think we look pretty good together You think my shoes are made of leather..." The first time The Who toured performed in Australia they performed at Festival Hall in Melbourne. Festival Hall was little more than a glorified barn and the acoustics were not state of the art as they are today. As a teenager, I thought the concert was amazing. The so...

Writing ideas swirl round in my head. I live with them for days and sometimes weeks before they emerge on the page. I frequently wake up thinking about the possible shape of my writing for that day. I woke up thinking about my writing this morning. Later in the morning over a welcome cappuccino, I even talked about it –further sorting out took place. -Rehearsal for the writing to follow. I understand rehearsal is critical to my writing. I embrace it. I know it assists me to clarify my ideas; find my direction. Playing with words and ideas in the head is such an important part of the writing process. Think of it like a tumble drier with thoughts and ideas rolling around and around until they are ready to be taken out. Mind you there are times when all that emerges is a single sock of an idea –along with a bit of fluff attached. It looks and feels incomplete. It is writing in need of further consideration. But that’s okay; it may just require further shaping to align the mind’s vision wi...