I spent the weekend in Ballarat. My brother was married on Friday there and we spent the weekend, since we were there. It was a great family occasion. I feel pretty blessed by my large extended family. I was chatting to my cousin and a brother at one stage of the night and we all agreed we were pretty lucky in the family department. Our family gets together and has a good time. The wedding was very beautiful and I was proud of my brother and his wife and the way they expressed their committment to each other with such love and pleasure.
I haven’t been to Ballarat for a long time. In fact I think it was an excursion when I was doing my HSC (contemporary VCE or Year 12). I don’t remember much about my previous visits and I enjoyed seeing Ballarat now. It had a spacious and gracious feel to it. The old houses are distinctive and individual and the streets are wide.
We enjoyed the place we stayed at and visited the Botanical Gardens on the Sunday before heading home. I will put some video’s up on revver. I took mainly videos of the sculptures in the park.
Epic 2014
If you are interested in the future of media and or the history of the Internet, this little 8 minute clip Epic 2014, is a very interesting and thought provoking watch. I have always loved the ‘future history’genre although I find it difficult to find material.
I remember in the late 80’s I had this book called ‘The Third Millennium:A History of the World:AD 2000-3000’ by Brian Stableford and David Langford. I loved it and read it cover to cover. It inspired many ideas for me and some of the future I eagerly awaited, just as I did for the Internet to get how I knew it would. I remember being on Compuserve which was all American almost and I felt like a lone Aussie, plodding along looking for the diversity of a global community. Not that I didn’t like learning about America and americans, but I knew one day it would be like it is now.
This little clip however has a much smaller scale than the Millennium of the book, but still food for thought and interesting.
Families feature in Latest YA reads
I finished reading Chasing Charlie Duskinby Cath Crowley last night. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I like her voice. It is real. She captures the anguish of teenagers well and their realities and realisations, without making it too ‘adult’. It was also about grief and the loss of a parent as with Will by Maria Boyd. I loved her Gracie Faltrain character and recommend The Life and Times of Gracie Faltrain. Cath Crowley went to our school so I am always recommending her books to our kids. They are highly recommended by the students.
Lost Property by James Moloney was another book that was an honour book for the Childrens Book Council awards and it was great. My son (16)has also read it and he loved it too. James Moloney is getting better and better. I still love teaching ‘A Bridge to Wisemans Cove’ to my year 8’s. I think Lost Property is definately as was ‘No Worries’ for older readers.
The thing I loved most about these two books is that they showed how important families are to young people. So often I hear that teenagers are only interested in their friends and that their families are no longer important to them. I know my own children spend a lot less time at home now they have become ‘teenagers’, but young people really value their families. I think that is the biggest lesson I have learnt or realisation I have had becoming a teacher.