So I've bitten the bullet and started driving in earnest. We don't drive that much usually; I tram to work, dave trams or bikes to work, and the kids bike/skateboard/scooter to school. I even take the tram to the dentist/doctor/dry cleaner, etc.
But I will have to drive when I go to Sydney next week for work, so I figured I'd better get cracking. I drove by myself to the supermarket today. Only a 10 minute drive (if that), but Dave forgot to remind me about hook turns. In Melbourne, you make a right hand turn from the left lane sometimes, because of trams. I knew this, but didn't actually know how to do it. So on the way home, I was watching the oncoming traffic when I had a green light, and when it passed, I went to turn right from the left hand lane. But I forgot about the cars on my side, oops. Fortunately, I didn't crash. And then I got home and found out (thank you google) that you actually turn right from the left lane AFTER your light turns red. For real! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_turn). Never would have figured that out...
Then I drove dave to the airport. I did pretty well and on the way home, even stopped off at a new mall so Casey could get a Nerf gun. (In the entire mall -- which included Target AND Kmart, there was only 1 nerf gun!!). And then found my way back onto the freeway and back toward the city. I didn't even make any wrong turns -- just had to cut across 3 lanes of traffic at one point...
It is so weird -- the signs are unfamiliar so I don't process them quickly, there are no big street signs, the traffic lights aren't where I expect them, and I forget things -- like all freeway exits are on the left, not the right. On the good side, things here are so much smaller that all malls have signs starting on freeways.
I also drove to a friends house for lunch yesterday; our first invite to a meal at a school friends' house. They were great -- he is an engineer/business academic, and she is very funny and so we had a great time. Stayed for 4 hours! Rose, the mum, even said she'd come to the city to meet me for lunch!
Ripley must play webkinz now, gotta go.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
School, Kids, Daily life
So our feelings about how we are doing seem to revolve largely around the kids -- are they happy? do they have friends? is school going ok? All very stressful, because we want them happy. Casey hates after school care -- and I can't really blame him. Most kids his age don't go, and the few who do, play cricket the whole time. This would be ok, but since he's never played, Casey isn't very good at cricket, and some of the kids have made fun of him. Waah! So hard to hear. I picked him up yesterday, and he was sitting by himself doing nothing. I know he should play to have fun, but it must be hard to play a sport everyone has played since they were 5 years old. And the kids here are SO into sports activities -- EVERY kid in Casey's class but one (hippie parents) plays on a sport team. The school even has kids anounce their team scores at an assembly for the whole school on Mondays and Fridays! So we're not sure where we fit into that.
Casey says he is up for trying to go home himself (Ripley is happy to do crafts at daycare) -- it is a 3 minute bike ride, crossing no roads. As it is, I give him my keys when I get to school, and he goes home himself, and Rip and I follow a few minutes later. He says he is comfortable spending 15-30 minutes alone, so that should give me enough time to get home. We'll see. We are also looking into a babysitter to watch the kids for an hour or two some weekdays. We'll be happy when we have a settled schedule!
That aside, Casey seems to have made a bunch of friends, who are very nice. We've set up an every-other week standing playdate with one friend. Ripley balked on a playdate yesterday -- she only wanted the friend to come over, so we'll see how that goes. Then, she decided another friend is "mean", because she told Ripley she didn't want to go to the bathroom with her, she was playing a game. Ookay. We're working on it.
The week's big activity was Jazz in the Park: a giant fundraiser/party for the kids' school. A very nice band played swing/jazz/oldies, and there were food stands, cakes, etc. to buy. I gave each kid $6 to buy stuff, but then it was $2 donation to get in, and $4 for a ride on a (very teeny) bounce house (or bouncy castle, as they say here). A cookie was $1. So I wound up spending much more -- about $50. Of course, there was wine, and even bottles of champagne (a mere $20!). It was fun, we knew enough people to talk to, but also exhausting meeting people constantly.
Dave goes to Canberra on Sunday, so I'll actually have to drive to pick Casey up at a playdate -- ack! We barely drive -- we tram (or dave bikes) to work, bike to get the kids, I stop at the market on the tram stop. Wow! I suppose once a week we'll drive to the big supermarket...
Funniest comment of the week: Yesterday, when we woke up, it was raining. Ripley asked, "Does this mean school is canceled?"
Casey says he is up for trying to go home himself (Ripley is happy to do crafts at daycare) -- it is a 3 minute bike ride, crossing no roads. As it is, I give him my keys when I get to school, and he goes home himself, and Rip and I follow a few minutes later. He says he is comfortable spending 15-30 minutes alone, so that should give me enough time to get home. We'll see. We are also looking into a babysitter to watch the kids for an hour or two some weekdays. We'll be happy when we have a settled schedule!
That aside, Casey seems to have made a bunch of friends, who are very nice. We've set up an every-other week standing playdate with one friend. Ripley balked on a playdate yesterday -- she only wanted the friend to come over, so we'll see how that goes. Then, she decided another friend is "mean", because she told Ripley she didn't want to go to the bathroom with her, she was playing a game. Ookay. We're working on it.
The week's big activity was Jazz in the Park: a giant fundraiser/party for the kids' school. A very nice band played swing/jazz/oldies, and there were food stands, cakes, etc. to buy. I gave each kid $6 to buy stuff, but then it was $2 donation to get in, and $4 for a ride on a (very teeny) bounce house (or bouncy castle, as they say here). A cookie was $1. So I wound up spending much more -- about $50. Of course, there was wine, and even bottles of champagne (a mere $20!). It was fun, we knew enough people to talk to, but also exhausting meeting people constantly.
Dave goes to Canberra on Sunday, so I'll actually have to drive to pick Casey up at a playdate -- ack! We barely drive -- we tram (or dave bikes) to work, bike to get the kids, I stop at the market on the tram stop. Wow! I suppose once a week we'll drive to the big supermarket...
Funniest comment of the week: Yesterday, when we woke up, it was raining. Ripley asked, "Does this mean school is canceled?"
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Musing on the mutability of tests
Casey signed up for this online math game program that they use here in Australia (http://www.mathletics.com.au/). It is a clunky interface, but he likes it (and Ripley begged to join as well). We always talk about how test taking is a poor substitute for actual learning, but watching him answer questions really made me realize exactly how tests can often measure more about how well a kid understands the test than their actual knowledge:
Casey had to shade 3/4 of a figure. He thought he was supposed to leave 3/4 of the figure the original color, as shading on the green he colored 1/4 of it -- he understood 3/4 fine, but not what shading it meant. Now he apparently doesn't understand regular fractions, the test tells us.
Casey had to round numbers off to the nearest hundred. The numbers were in the thousands, but he didn't realize that you had to rewrite the whole number, not just the hundreds part (e.g.: 5433 became 400, not 5400). So the test says he doesn't know rounding.
Casey didn't know what the word "descending" meant, so he didn't know what order to put numbers in. Now the test tells us he doesn't know which numbers are bigger than others.
In all of these occasions: once told what to do, Casey got every problem correct. So does this test actually test math skills or something else? To me, what he was supposed to do seemed obvious, but to him, it obviously wasn't. Just like the kids are missing really basic language cues in a new country (e.g.: Rip had no idea what to do when her teacher said to "queue up"), I think you need to learn a whole language of test taking. If you want to take tests, that is.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Domesticity and Bitchiness
Today is a day at home, catching up on things. So far, I baked the kids blueberry muffins for breakfast, dropped them off, had a coffee, got a haircut, stopped at the supermarket (all but the muffins on my bike, while carrying Casey's ripstick!), cooked beans, made banana bread (too many ripe bananas due to the heat) and sent work emails. All very exciting. Normally I'm not so domestic.
I am enjoying being able to bike to a million places. It is convenient for their to be mini-supermarkets in every direction, so I can just grab stuff when I drop the kids or whatever. Even the post office is just a 5 minute ride away.
Both kids had playdates yesterday, and then we walked/scootered to meet the parents of one of the friends for dinner. She and Casey had played club penguin all day.
Casey remains rather unimpressed by the school, but seems to be having fun. He says the work is all easy (who knows), but is mostly amazed at how mean the kids are. They have a goofy traffic light system in the class -- once you pass red (3 infractions) a note goes home to parents. He says half the class is on yellow all day. He also thought it wasn't fair that a friend who was explaining something to him got in trouble. Mostly, he has a really witty and dead-on analysis of the kids' misbehavior. He says that no one takes the traffic light seriously, and that the kids step on other kids' hands as they go to move their clothespin off of green on the traffic light, which causes more disruption than what they got in trouble for! Needless to say, Casey has a high standard of comparison with Farm School.
On the other hand, he did really enjoy writing Haikus this week, and compared to his friends, (who wrote things like: La la la la la/La la la la la la la/La la la la la), he wrote these lovely things about birds flying and trees waving in the breeze! Who knew!
Ripley is enjoying school, though she too isn't feeling that challenged at the moment. She was also shocked by some changes: When the kids were writing a story, they just said what words they wanted to use, and the teacher wrote all the words on the blackboard for them to copy. Ripley was shocked, and insisted on not looking at the board and brainrobbing herself. It did make us realize, when you see the different kids' work on the walls, that kids can look like they are doing really good writing, when in reality, they just know how to copy letters!
They also have a home reading program for Ripley's age: every night, she brings home a book from a pre-selected pile (she is "dark blue" level) and has to read it and then we have to sign off that she read it. She's enjoying the responsibility, but not thrilled with having to pick from the small pile of only those (pathetically outdated) books.
The state of Victoria has a premier's reading challenge (http://www.education.vic.gov.au/prc/ ) that the kids might do at school. Basically they have to read a bunch of books by August and they get a certificate (not even any trashy prizes, like the libraries at home do!). Unfortunately, the books are those on a required reading list. It's a pretty big list, at least, but still, I find it odd to compile a giant list of required books -- why not let kids just read? And then, the first book I tried to find on the list (thinking it might give us a good idea of books in Australia) is not available from any bookstore. oookay. And books like Animalia (a picture book Ripley outgrew) is on Casey's list, much to his amusement!
What did annoy me significantly today is that both kids' teachers have said that they aren't sure how to place the kids in reading/math level groups (which is apparently where there will be for the rest of their lives!), cause they dont' know them well enough in two weeks. Fair enough, except that neither one had any idea that we'd provided any information from their old school! !!??? (Which is TONS of information that Nancy and Dana worked really hard on!!)
Apparently, the principal just kept everything we gave them "in her [not the kids'] files." And when Casey's teacher asked to see it, the principal said it will take her a few days to "lay her hands on it."
Ok, so maybe I'm naiive and spoiled by FS, but come on! Why wouldn't this information be put in the kids' cumulative files? If the principal was going to circular file it, why not just tell us to keep it until we met with teachers? Anyway, hopefully she'll find it by the end of the week, and the kids won't have to be moved around too much (mostly Casey, I think it is less of an issue for Ripley). Needless to say, I think today is a frustration-with-school day.
I am enjoying being able to bike to a million places. It is convenient for their to be mini-supermarkets in every direction, so I can just grab stuff when I drop the kids or whatever. Even the post office is just a 5 minute ride away.
Both kids had playdates yesterday, and then we walked/scootered to meet the parents of one of the friends for dinner. She and Casey had played club penguin all day.
Casey remains rather unimpressed by the school, but seems to be having fun. He says the work is all easy (who knows), but is mostly amazed at how mean the kids are. They have a goofy traffic light system in the class -- once you pass red (3 infractions) a note goes home to parents. He says half the class is on yellow all day. He also thought it wasn't fair that a friend who was explaining something to him got in trouble. Mostly, he has a really witty and dead-on analysis of the kids' misbehavior. He says that no one takes the traffic light seriously, and that the kids step on other kids' hands as they go to move their clothespin off of green on the traffic light, which causes more disruption than what they got in trouble for! Needless to say, Casey has a high standard of comparison with Farm School.
On the other hand, he did really enjoy writing Haikus this week, and compared to his friends, (who wrote things like: La la la la la/La la la la la la la/La la la la la), he wrote these lovely things about birds flying and trees waving in the breeze! Who knew!
Ripley is enjoying school, though she too isn't feeling that challenged at the moment. She was also shocked by some changes: When the kids were writing a story, they just said what words they wanted to use, and the teacher wrote all the words on the blackboard for them to copy. Ripley was shocked, and insisted on not looking at the board and brainrobbing herself. It did make us realize, when you see the different kids' work on the walls, that kids can look like they are doing really good writing, when in reality, they just know how to copy letters!
They also have a home reading program for Ripley's age: every night, she brings home a book from a pre-selected pile (she is "dark blue" level) and has to read it and then we have to sign off that she read it. She's enjoying the responsibility, but not thrilled with having to pick from the small pile of only those (pathetically outdated) books.
The state of Victoria has a premier's reading challenge (http://www.education.vic.gov.au/prc/ ) that the kids might do at school. Basically they have to read a bunch of books by August and they get a certificate (not even any trashy prizes, like the libraries at home do!). Unfortunately, the books are those on a required reading list. It's a pretty big list, at least, but still, I find it odd to compile a giant list of required books -- why not let kids just read? And then, the first book I tried to find on the list (thinking it might give us a good idea of books in Australia) is not available from any bookstore. oookay. And books like Animalia (a picture book Ripley outgrew) is on Casey's list, much to his amusement!
What did annoy me significantly today is that both kids' teachers have said that they aren't sure how to place the kids in reading/math level groups (which is apparently where there will be for the rest of their lives!), cause they dont' know them well enough in two weeks. Fair enough, except that neither one had any idea that we'd provided any information from their old school! !!??? (Which is TONS of information that Nancy and Dana worked really hard on!!)
Apparently, the principal just kept everything we gave them "in her [not the kids'] files." And when Casey's teacher asked to see it, the principal said it will take her a few days to "lay her hands on it."
Ok, so maybe I'm naiive and spoiled by FS, but come on! Why wouldn't this information be put in the kids' cumulative files? If the principal was going to circular file it, why not just tell us to keep it until we met with teachers? Anyway, hopefully she'll find it by the end of the week, and the kids won't have to be moved around too much (mostly Casey, I think it is less of an issue for Ripley). Needless to say, I think today is a frustration-with-school day.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Trying again
Ok, it has been SO long since I've blogged, I doubt anyone is still checking in, but here goes with lowered expectations.
My morning: woke up early cause we accidentally left the window open, and since we face the street, heard the early morning work traffic. Decided to go in early and leave dave to take the kids in -- which involves a 4 minute bike ride through a lovely park. I usually love taking them in -- we all cruise over the tram tracks on our bikes (my new beach cruiser, that is a total oddity here -- I think it was imported from CA, at twice the price, of course), and chat as we bike. Ripley sometimes has trouble staying in a straight line so we're careful to give her lots of distance. Then the kids ride into the school yard, park their bikes and drop their backpacks in a line for each class in the courtyard. With 300+ kids, that's a big mess of backpacks.
At any rate, where was I? OH yeah, I didn't take the kids to school this morning. Instead, they walked me to the tram at 8am, and as we walked (30 seconds, if that, to the stop), I said, "I always walk fast here in case one is about to come, so I don't miss it," and at that moment, one pulled up! Casey said, "RUN!" so I did, with the kids running after me, and just squeezed onto the tram (I've discovered 8am seems to be the busiest time) with the kids yelling "Bye Mommy!" and people smiling at them waving furiously to me.
A nice way to start the morning. Despite the older man who was a few days past his sell by date right next to me -- with arms raised to hold onto the tram loops, you can really tell who needs a shower.
Now I'm at work, had a nice chat with Kay, and going to try to get some serious work done -- I'm hoping to get research done this week. For the first time in MONTHS. Then, both kids have playdates this afternoon and I'm on pickup -- with a quick stop at the covered market on the tramride home for dinner, fruit, snacks, etc. Isn't my life exciting?
My morning: woke up early cause we accidentally left the window open, and since we face the street, heard the early morning work traffic. Decided to go in early and leave dave to take the kids in -- which involves a 4 minute bike ride through a lovely park. I usually love taking them in -- we all cruise over the tram tracks on our bikes (my new beach cruiser, that is a total oddity here -- I think it was imported from CA, at twice the price, of course), and chat as we bike. Ripley sometimes has trouble staying in a straight line so we're careful to give her lots of distance. Then the kids ride into the school yard, park their bikes and drop their backpacks in a line for each class in the courtyard. With 300+ kids, that's a big mess of backpacks.
At any rate, where was I? OH yeah, I didn't take the kids to school this morning. Instead, they walked me to the tram at 8am, and as we walked (30 seconds, if that, to the stop), I said, "I always walk fast here in case one is about to come, so I don't miss it," and at that moment, one pulled up! Casey said, "RUN!" so I did, with the kids running after me, and just squeezed onto the tram (I've discovered 8am seems to be the busiest time) with the kids yelling "Bye Mommy!" and people smiling at them waving furiously to me.
A nice way to start the morning. Despite the older man who was a few days past his sell by date right next to me -- with arms raised to hold onto the tram loops, you can really tell who needs a shower.
Now I'm at work, had a nice chat with Kay, and going to try to get some serious work done -- I'm hoping to get research done this week. For the first time in MONTHS. Then, both kids have playdates this afternoon and I'm on pickup -- with a quick stop at the covered market on the tramride home for dinner, fruit, snacks, etc. Isn't my life exciting?
Friday, January 9, 2009
Markets
The sushi is very different: you buy individual uncut rolls -- and while some is the same, lots is very different. Here we have a "Super California" roll (on top), a veggie roll (with fried bean curd -- lower left); a seafood special (lower right) and a Teriyaki Beef! They do lots of sushi with cooked meat -- or with tuna salad and things like that! Definitely takes some getting used to, but Casey loves the seafood ones.
Ripley really enjoying the Hawaiian (pineapple and strips of fried ham) pizza from the market.
Casey showing off a mango as big as his head!
We spent the morning at the South Melbourne Market. It makes our local farmer's market look teeny. It's a permanent covered market, a few tram stops away. I drove us there today, since we all went. Drove in my first roundabout, and only tried to turn into the wrong side of the street once!
The market is huge -- tons of clothes, junk, etc. But you go there for the food. Dozens of fruit/veg places -- we've only gone to a few so far. Check out the enormous mango we bought! They also have lots of meat places, but since I don't recognize half the offerings, we've skipped that. They have dim sum (called yum cha here), asisan supermarkets, and lots of delis.
Tomorrow, I might take the tram back to get some seafood -- we didn't manage to find the seafood places this time. Since I've got a monthly tram card, I can ride the tram whenever -- very convenient! Ripley got some Hawaiian pizza for lunch, so she was in heaven. Casey spent the time taking pictures of us on Dave's cell phone (having mastered my old one, he's moved on to mastering Dave's -- he keeps asking if he can make a video call -- didn't even know that was possible!).
BONUS MATERIAL:
If you are really bored, you can track where we go at these websites:
- South Melbourne Market: http://www.southmelbournemarket.com.au/
- St. Kilda Art and Craft Market: http://www.esplanademarket.com/index.php
Catching up
Path right by our house, on the street, next to the sidewalk!
Interesting houses on our street
Our local shops (complete with "Penny Farthing Cycles")
Another interesting house just down the road.
We've finally settled into the house -- cleaners came today, so it is finally clean. We love it, but it was pretty scuzzy. The baseboards were all filthy, there were cobwebs, unidentifiable stains on cabinets, etc. Now it feels much better now seeing smears everywhere -- and we can see much better out of cleaned glass!
One of the things I like best about being here is being in a city where everything is accessible. Australians are really into local little shops, so we can walk to two sets of shops very easily (and a 3rd on a longer walk). There is a post office, mini-supermarket, hair dresser, news agent, and a couple of restaurants and cafes and the local library. (We got Indian takeaway tonight from there that was very yummy.) The shops in the other direction is a big street, with lots of restaurants (including the kids' current favorite, an Italian place that's been around for years), shops, bakeries, etc. It is also where the kids' school is, so I see us doing some daily shopping at the little supermarket there too.
The other day, Ripley biked and I walked to return library books, then stopped to buy a drink for Casey, who was playing basketball at the park behind our house. Since it stays light until 9pm or later, we have lots of after-dinner playtime.
Above are some pics from my walk one morning -- even though our house is pretty character-less, there are lots of cool old Victorians on our street. And our little shops are pretty cute as well! Finally, despite us being a main road, there is a wooded path back to our house from the shops! All in all, a 10 minute walk with plenty of entertainment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)