Questions about religion
I could write about how I’m still tired, how I’m sick of taking medication, concern for whether my brain is damaged, how I sometimes miss being in hospital and how if we don’t get employed early in the...
View ArticleSummer Reading 2014
I have been reading short stories. I have a collection of short stories by Shirley Jackson, and her ‘momoir’, published in 1953, ‘Life Among the Savages’, pioneering this style of fun housewifely...
View ArticleAnd so the year begins
Only now because the year doesn’t really begin until the kids go back to school and the weekly schedule emerges and the calendar fills once more.It’s a bit of a shock. We’ve spent January sleeping in,...
View ArticleI want to go off my medication
The one that switches off the leukaemia. The one that costs $5000 full price. The one that is my insurance policy.I'm sick of feeling nauseas and tired. I'm sick of bone pain. I'm sick of feeling like...
View ArticleTalking to children about leukaemia
This week my daughter's primary school is having a 'Giving Back to the Community Week'. As part of that they're having a Crazy Hair Day to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation. I offered to give a...
View ArticleMotherhood and Literature
This is what I'd like to be working on rather than writing my uni assignments. I wish I could go. Parking this here for when I get around to doing that PhD. By then, the papers from the conference will...
View ArticleTiredness
I’ve been tired for about eighteen months now. I read an article about Arianna Huffington and her collapse from overwork. She talked about how a lot of people are sleep deprived. Although I’m not sleep...
View ArticleThe way education is going
It’s been interesting to be involved with two high schools introducing Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). The program initiated under Kevin Rudd as an enticement for votes, that all public school students...
View ArticleAll Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenting, by Jennifer Senior
This is the book commissioned after the publication of her New York magazine article a few years ago. If you haven’t been keeping up with all the books published in the last dozen or so years about...
View ArticleBook your babysitters - Mamapalooza is coming!
Mamapalooza is on in May. Make your plans now to come along. Support mothers in the creative and performing arts. Support a broader depiction of mothering in our culture, and join the conversation....
View ArticleCultural Diversity in Education
I’ve just done a unit of study on cultural diversity in education. Because I’m an external student I didn’t get to discuss all the interesting issues I wanted to talk about, so I’m raising them...
View ArticleWriting on mothering/motherhood - a review in LRB
An article here by Jacqueline Rose, about mothers, published in the London Review of Books. It’s a long article, covering a number of texts, but worthwhile. Here are some excerpts. There was a time...
View ArticleWomen in Sydney Theatre
There’s been some controversy lately about gender in theatre. A production of Oleanna in the US, a play written for a man (the uni lecturer) and a women (the student) was staged with two males in the...
View ArticleTeaching Feminism
With the despairing conversations resulting from the tumblr posts on Women Against Feminism, there has been raised the suggestion that feminism needs to be taught. Many groups have been compiling...
View ArticleI have a passion for using the correct word*
I’ve already had my rant about the overuse of the word ‘grab’.I also take issue with the use of the word ‘nightmare’. Too often I’ve heard people say things like ‘the renovation is such a nightmare!’....
View ArticleWe need to talk about god.
I was raised a Catholic, but I’ve been an atheist for a long time; about 35 years. As a single person, and before having children, I didn’t really have cause to think much more about religion. I...
View ArticleThe 'true meaning of Christmas', and the facts
Christians will tell you they know the ‘true meaning of Christmas’. Here are the facts about Christmas.The Jesus StoryThere were more than four gospels written about Jesus. The four that are in the New...
View ArticleA tale of three schools
I did some fundraising recently for one of my kid's schools. Lets call it school A. I approached businesses for donations we could give as prizes for our Trivia Night. It was fun. Very sociable. People...
View ArticleOpting in and opting out
I'm sick of opting out.Ask me what I want to opt into.I don't want to opt out of religious celebrations at public schools. I want them to just not be on. Do your religious celebrations in your own...
View ArticleRemoving SRI in Victoria and SRE in NSW
This is what is happening to Special Religious Instruction (SRI) in Victoria and Special Religious Education (SRE) in NSW.In Victoria the rules around SRI have changed. Schools now have to provide more...
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