Sunny Breaks

The news was that I got a new laptop – I’ll save saying anything about it til I’ve given it a good spin, save that a) having trouble getting the Linux to connect to the internet and b) I got a Sony specifically to subtly erk my co-workers who have patriotic delusions that if they buy a samsung or LG/IBM mixo, it benefits the nation. And therefore, buying a sony directly benefits the electronic ‘opposition’. They’re actually given laptops—most are LG but some of the newer are fujitsu, which doesn’t make sense because that japanese.

Corporal punishment is something that is still top of the pops here. There was a couple of situations that I saw happen earlier in the year that were so severe that it went into the too-hard basket. I didn’t want to write about it here because I couldn’t decide if it was my cultural supremacy kicking in and saying—I am better than them because I don’t think that’s right.
They turned out to be isolated incidents, and all other whacking or pinching I’ve seen since then has been of a much more compassionate variety.

In fact I’ve turned right around on it.
One of the women teachers, surnamed ‘Oh’, in the smaller staffroom here has something of a hankering for discipline. Most afternoons she pulls in two or three grade 3 girls, that is – year nines, that is 16y.o.s – that is 15y.o.s. She makes them face the wall—and hold on to it, then she whacks them on the bare shins or bum with a cane. They go, “Oh!” in slight pain – but mostly surprise.

My digikamera has a motion-pic function. There is places on the net that’d pay money for that kind of footage. I really should take the initiative a bit more.