The last few days I've been mulling over the general feeling that, as I get older, everything becomes more faded and bland.  I don't feel half so strongly as I used to about people, ideals... everything.  It's been a while since I felt that fangirl "squee" feeling, definitely.  And as for people that I care about, I feel like that group is ( Read more... )

Things are much better.  I think the emo from the last entry was mostly just stress.  I had a mountain of work to do this week and, now that I have gotten through it all, I feel lighter ( Read more... )

Man, I totally had a career-affirming moment today that was just awesome.  More than a moment, really.  Actually it was 35 minutes of career-affirming awesome.  One of my students gave an intense 35 minute long presentation (it only had to be 5-10 minutes) on her research project on AAVE that was so thoroughly researched and well explained and ( Read more... )

One of my students, a very intelligent, high-achieving Year 11 girl who is not homophobic and has gay friends is utterly convinced that saying "that's gay" to mean "that sucks" is not offensive.  I have challenged her to find twenty young GLBT people who believe it's fine to use "gay" in that sense, and as part of the challenge, I'm also finding ( Read more... )

I was pleased to learn today that English Language (the linguistics-based subject I teach) apparently has "protected status" on the new Australian National Curriculum! That means that it's protected from being axed or changed and is recognised as a subject with an outstanding curriculum that they want to keep. I am very pleased about this, obvs ( Read more... )