The First Fleet and Oliver!

The Noodle, as stated in an earlier post, is studying the First Fleet this term at school. They are taking a social history approach, and researching conditions that children lived in in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Approximately.

One of the ways in which they are doing this is by watching excerpts from Oliver! The Noodle has been quite harrowed by the terribleness of childhood in Oliver! Despite all the singing. They have also been read a bit of one of my all-time favourite books, Midnight is a Place by Joan Aiken. The husband has now acquired a copy and the Noodle has dived on in. I reckon other books on the reading list for him on the home front are going to be Harding's Luck and The House of Arden by E Nesbit and A Country Child by Alison Uttley. If he gets that far. I know that they are both about late 19th century and early 20th century childhood, but I don't want him thinking it's all pick pocketing and gruel. Just lots of it.

Finally, I feel like my years dedicated to children's literature are proving useful to another human being.

And hopefully next week I am meeting up with some people who run a books for foster children program here in the ACT to see if I can help them at all. It's probably not a great time, what with the full-time work, part-time study and trying to be a decent parent commitments, but I feel a bit sick of not doing anything that isn't just for me and my immediates. Fingers crossed that there is something I can do to help.

'She is no longer "good" at writing'

Jenny Davidson linking to Rachel Cusk in the Guardian.

In which the Noodle discovers Get Smart

'The cone of silence is enough laughs for a whole episode', he says. But oh he laughs many more times than that.

For myself, I am surprised to find that 99 simpers at Max. In my memory she was the tough and clever one who saved the day, and I idolised her as a child and wanted to be just like her when I grew up. I realise now where my desire for straight dark hair comes from. It's a little disconcerting to see her being tough and clever, but also subservient and breathless.

First day of school

First day of school, with the bag full of stationery and the body full of nerves. Chaos. Kids everywhere, desperate to catch up with each other and teachers desperate to tell them what to do and where to go and to be QUIET please.

It's Grade 3. It's First Fleet again, the Noodle tells me. He tells me there was a 114 question survey to determine everyone's learning style. He told his teacher about his neuropathy. In front of every other kid in the class during circle time when they had to say something about themselves. He told a new kid about his eye, and told us how sick he is of people asking about it.

There will be science, and footy clinic and tomorrow he finds out who he will sit next for the rest of the term.

First day of school. 4 down, 8 to go.

Books in the post

My law textbooks arrived today, representing a considerable investment in money (which equals time, as you well know).

I have that great classic, Laying Down the Law, but the newest edition is lacking the cheesy cartoons on the cover and it also looks a lot bigger than it did when I was but a baby bookseller*. I have the Butterworths Concise Legal Dictionary. Which will be useful come what may, because I work with so many lawyers and one must at least make a genuine effort to understand what it is they are trying to say.

I also have Law of Contract and Principles of Administrative Law. I fear my heart does not thrill in any harplike metaphorical kind of way to contract law, but it may surprise me (and not in a drop bear kind of a way, I hope). I do quite heart the admin law, as far as I have come across it in my public servanty life. I am not intending to be a lawyer at the finish of all this studying, so I can avoid things like torts (but not tortes, since it seems there are many cafes and other food-type outlets on campus). But I do hope to be a bit more informed and lawyer-friendly, so my mouth does not gap open and catch flies when faced by statutory interpretation.

I have one more free weekend before the study starts, and then lots of reading writing and ridiculousing.


*I started being a bookseller twenty years ago. I find this alarming. It was at RMIT, which is not alarming.

Lord Sunday, by Garth NIx

The Noodle has his hands on Lord Sunday, the final in the Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix.

We had to interrupt his reading for dinner, and I don't think we would have been able to do it successfully if dinner was not spag bol (although pizza probably would have worked). The Noodle has always been a keen reader and he has always had favourites that inhabit his imagination, but this is something else. I don't know how anything is ever, ever, ever going to live up to this reading experience. I think it may be the pinnacle of his life.

I have to wait until post-Noodle bed time to get my hands on it. Curses.

Whining

I am feeling very whiny and complainy and at the same time very intolerant of other people's whiny behaviour at the moment. In fact, I hate nearly everyone.

This is largely because I have had no coffee for three and a half days. So either the withdrawal is very nasty, or caffeine covers up a very high level of misanthropy. I'll tell you which in a few more days.