All alone

Have you ever felt that you were strange and that you were all alone?

The good news is that you probably aren't the strange one. You just need to look for other people like yourself.

SInce rebuilding my car I have not been surprised by the negative reaction that I have received. I'm not surprised because those very same people have been negative about it all along. Comments that include references to mid-life crises, environmental vandalism, self-absorption and penis envy have been common.

Last night I responded to an ad for people who share an enthusiasm for similar cars. I met seven of the most wonderful people, of differing ages, from all walks of life. We talked about cars and other things, shared many alughs and are moving towards a club idea, where we can go on runs and involve our families. Then, they can share our enthusiasm, but perhaps on a different level.

I don't feel alone in this interest now. Those people who were negative don't get why you do things. Probably because anything outside of their limited range of approved interests and ideas isn't worhty of consideration. And neither are they.

Cheers

New ISP

Don't you just love changing ISPs? (Please note that I didn't use a pet hate of mine, and put "ISP's". We all pet hates - no doubt my typos drive people crazy. Sorry.)

The newness of something? The increased speed?

But then, it sinks in ... I have to let people know of my change in email. My web site will have to be re-posted and all the links changed...

Still, It will keep me out of mischief for a while!

Cheers

Carplete

After 6 months, lots of cash, patience, anger and tinkering, the rebuild on my 36 year old car is pretty much done.

Until next time.

If you'd like to see more:

http://users.bigpond.net.au/nobles1/xwpage.htm

Some minor details remian, but they're, well, minor.

Welcome Back

You've been away for quite a while,
Substances in your brain,
Strangely, I don't know you,
But I missed you just the same.
You've underlined my experiences,
Defined part of my life,
Your messages resonated often,
Through happiness and through strife.
I've only ever seen you once,
You didn't notice me,
I hung upon every word you offered,
Through your eyes I could see.
I've danced to your gravelled voice,
Your songs I've often sung,
Your career I have tracked with interest,
It seemed over when just begun.
Now your back in all your glory,
Your style seems immune to time.
Maybe your heart is anchored in,
A more simple time.
Before rap shrieked its obscenity,
Before techno raped our ears,
Before all that other plastic,
Ran out all those plastic rears.
Welcome back, and good will,
May everything go well,
I hope there's more like me,
So the plastic can go to Hell.

Access to my site, no, not this one

Recently I heard that,
The internet was a refuge,
For the lunatics and the idiots,
And those obsessed with subterfuge.
So, I checked on my web tracker,
Seeking stats upon my site,
And how people found it,
The results were out of sight.
The first was "only cheers",
This I can understand,
"Cheers" is a word I often use,
As "goodbye" is far more bland.
But "feasting on bubes" was worrisome,
Of it I have no comprehension,
But if it's what I think it is,
The person needs home detention.
A search for "guitar sheet music",
Now, that's a great link,
It shows my artistic side,
A compliment, I think.
Hang on - "compulsive liar poem"?
My character is now slurred,
The line between "artistic" and the truth,
Is being rather blurred.
Then "middle aged fat bastard",
It let me rather sore,
The internet isn't for idiots,
It's the truth and nothing more.

Cheers

Cannibals

A large corporation recently hired several cannibals.

"You are all part of our team now", said the HR rep during the welcoming briefing. You get all the usual benefits and you can go to the cafeteria for something to eat, but please......... don't eat any of the employees".

The cannibals promised they would not. Four weeks later their boss remarked, "You're all working very hard and I'm satisfied with your work. However, one of our secretaries has disappeared. Do any of you know what happened to her?"

The cannibals all shook their heads "No".

After the boss had left, the leader of the cannibals said to the others, "Which one of you idiots ate the secretary?" A hand rose hesitantly. "You fool!" the leader continued.

"For four weeks we've been eating managers and no one noticed anything. But NOOOooo, you had to go and eat someone who actually does something!!!"

Courting

These are from a book called Disorder in the Court: Great Fractured Moments in Courtroom History and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters, who had the torment if staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.

Q: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
A: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
Q: Can you describe the individual?
A: He was about medium height and had a beard.
Q: Was this a male, or a female?

New definitions

The Washington Post's Style Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are this year's winners:
1. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops
bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows
little sign of breaking down in the near future.
2. Foreploy (v): Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose
of winning on.
3. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the
subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
4. Giraffiti (n): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
5. Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the
person who doesn't get it.
6. Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
7. Hipatitis (n): Terminal coolness.

Time limits

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Kindness

"The value of kindness cannot be measured in human terms. An act of kindness enriches the heart of both the giver and the receiver. People who have received a little act of kindness so small as a grain from another, tasted it and then, even if they receive an unkind act or word bigger than a palm tree, when they think of that little grain of kindness, the palm tree of unkindness will disappear. So powerful is the act of kindness. Let us plant it in the centre of our hearts." Author:Br. Arockiam

Want to be a better leader?

Pamela Macklin, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Curriculum Corporation asks the following…
What do education leaders need more of in our current environment to make them more effective? She says….

1. Leaders must be angry.
My first new leadership rule is perhaps slightly unconventional. To be a great leader, you probably should spend quite a bit of time being angry. Whether in business, the community or education, many of the great inspirational leaders are completely dissatisfied with mediocrity, injustice, poor performance or dysfunction in their environment. What sets them apart from lesser leadership candidates is that they capitalise on their anger in a positive way. I'm sure we can all think of great leaders who are outstanding at being angry and following through by doing something about it. Anger doesn't translate to aggressive behaviour. Great leaders, such as Nelson Mandela, harness and use their anger to inspire others and produce positive social outcomes. But we don't all have to be Mandela..
Great leaders aren't satisfied with mediocrity or second best. They have a sense of urgency that inspires them and others to improve the achievements of those around them. So, if you have a tendency towards too much complacency and self-satisfaction, you're probably not great leadership material.

2. Leaders must unleash passion.
Again, this may appear a little unconventional, or perhaps even worrying. Passion is a concern to some people, because it seems a bit too affective or personality-based to be achievable, and is perhaps difficult to teach. But if you care deeply about education and want to achieve great results, you do have an underlying passion for teaching and learning. And the research tells us that such a passion must be demonstrated to support a high-achieving climate.
But there's another equally important angle to this passion thing. Some of the best principals I've ever seen have the gift of encouraging teachers to indulge their passions in the course of their teaching where they know that it will not only enthuse, but improve student learning as well. Such principals are not threatened by people working in ways that are slightly outside the mainstream and indulging their creativity. They know that being driven to learn by the passionate pursuit of an interest can be contagious and stimulating.

3. Leaders must be tough performance managers.
Creating the environment in which people can be their best is one of the most important tasks of the leader. Effective teachers can have a much greater impact on student achievement than previously thought….leaders have to be very tough about performance management to achieve great results. That doesn't necessarily mean being punitive and critical. More importantly, principals have to be tough on themselves, and strive hard to develop the key emotional intelligence (EI) attributes – self-awareness, self-management and social awareness.
This has not yet been widely embraced by the education community, but developing EI skills is essential for leaders who need to improve the performance of their staff by having the most effective professional relationship with them.
Such an effective relationship includes being clear about goals and responsibilities, identifying strengths and weaknesses, working with teachers to identify ways to improve performance, giving regular feedback, providing internal and external professional learning opportunities, and not accepting poor performance. Performance management is hard work, time-consuming and something many people would rather avoid. If you can't do it well, however, you probably shouldn't be running a school, or anything else for that matter.

4. Leaders must be Pollyannas.
Forget about those fairly uninspiring assertions that principals must have a good sense of humour and stay calm when confronted with difficulties. The Pollyanna rule is that leaders must be able to energise others with their boundless optimism and high expectations, which more often than not becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Optimistic leaders retain a positive viewpoint almost all of the time and can be relied on to put an 'opportunity' spin on anything that happens, and are highly adaptive.
Relentless optimism is essential to lead people in an environment which is complex, dynamic and requires us to be continually adaptive. Such leaders have confidence, tenacity, see challenges as problems to be solved and get on with the job.
Tom Peters puts a related point in a really simple way: 'Leaders show up'. Leaders are there. They keep on keeping on. By their very presence, they inspire others to stay the course. Leaders must be there for people, and be so relentlessly optimistic and positive that they need to be hosed down regularly. The ripple effect of such optimism is a very powerful driver of improvement.

5. Leaders must have strength of character.
Leaders don't have to be charismatic. We don't have to look too far in Australian public life to see that many of the powerful people in our society are indeed a charm-free zone. However, even a dull person can lead well if they are able to convey a strong moral purpose and an unwavering attachment to a strong set of values and beliefs.
The phrase 'walk the talk' is a bit overused, but it encapsulates neatly what is important for leaders to do. For leaders to be seen as honest, trustworthy, having integrity and all the other attributes that are a must for any worthy leader, they can't be making pronouncements from their desk.
They must demonstrate the way in which they live by these values in all their interactions with members of the school community. Leaders are also the ones that make the tough decisions that are not always popular. This can be hard work and it also requires large amounts of emotional intelligence, particularly the capacity to be reflective, self-aware and consciously manage self-development.
We must focus on leadership for the future. If we build on the old wisdom, along with the energetic application of these five new leadership rules, we'll have a much greater chance of achieving success for our students.
As successful leaders know, 'Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management

Stress Management

We can't eliminate stress, but there are ways to manage it. The following 10 tips can help you reduce your overall stress and ease specific sources of anxiety.

1. Maintain a sense of personal power. A study of high-pressure work environments by Essi, a San Francisco research firm, shows one factor that predicts which employees would become ill and which stayed healthy: people's perception of their personal power or lack of it. Personal power is defined as how much control you feel you have over your life, your ability to function and express yourself. Ideally, your work environment will be an organization where colleagues and superiors listen to your problems and solutions and you're consulted when your role is redesigned, given the resources and information needed to perform the job and can contribute your ideas.

2. Practice effective communication. Communication is essential for preventing and easing tensions. Whether you head a team or are a team of one, how effective you are at communication depends on how well you understand others' verbal and nonverbal messages. Pay attention to co-workers' gestures, tone of voice and posture.

3. Develop good working relationships. Trust, respect, understanding and compassion are necessary in any relationship. Co-workers have to function as a team and reach a common goal. But they often focus all their attention on their tasks and very little on how they treat each other.Good work relationships will relieve stress and can buffer you from other stresses. Spend five minutes of each hour considering how to get along with your co-workers.
4.Be flexible. Recognize and accept that things change. If you need to hold on tightly to the status quo, you need to loosen up. Think of your organization as a space ship. It's constantly correcting its course "to go where no man has gone before" in the marketplace. You have to change with it. Be proactive. You're in a better position to manoeuvre if you are primed and ready.

5.Manage your anger. When you feel a surge of anger rising, back off and leave the scene as soon as you can. Repeat in your mind: "let go" or "relax." Breathe deeply until you feel your tension leave. Ask what's the real reason for my anger? Gain perspective and plan your next step. Practice what you'll say and how you'll say it. Make sure you're calm and in control of your emotions. Approach the person with a win-win attitude and desire to resolve the problem and have a good working relationship.

6.Have realistic expectations. Don't set yourself up for disappointment or put yourself on an emotional roller coaster. Try to be optimistic and realistic at the same time. This outlook doesn't mean you shouldn't have desires or expectations. Just make sure you're not always longing for the impossible.

7. Adjust your attitude. Your attitude--how you make others feel about you and how you make them feel about themselves--can make or break your future. How's your attitude? Do you complain the moment something doesn't suit you, or do you take things in stride? Try to see yourself through the eyes of others. Do you make others happy or miserable? If you need to, make an attitude adjustment.

8.Tie up loose ends. Not being able to finish a task can be unsettling to those who like to shut doors and end sentences with a period. Most people need some kind of closure on projects, even the little ones. If you're on a treadmill where you're always beginning new tasks before finishing old ones, make a list of what's left hanging. This exercise can make projects seem more manageable. How can you structure your time to tie up those loose ends?

9.Take time to revive. People aren't built like machines. They can't run with their engines revved up continuously. Eventually they wear out. That's why there are coffee and lunch breaks. It's long been recognized that people need to take a little time off every few hours to revive. They return to their tasks with renewed enthusiasm. If you can, try not to take work home. Every now and then a project may take some extra time, but work shouldn't be devouring your life.

School leadership

Because leaders matter and because as Gandhi put it, "We must become the change we seek in the world," the most powerful forms of leadership development will produce leaders who possess deep understanding, act from a core of clearly expressed and enabling beliefs and assumptions, and align their daily actions with those understandings. That is the type of leadership that creates high-performing cultures and outstanding teaching in all classrooms.

So, how do we all continue to look for new ways of doing things in our school that may be more efficient, more creative, to achieve greater outcomes, or just grow our school as an organisation….

Identify Time-Suckers

Cutting wasted time from your day is like cutting extra calories from your diet. First identify where the time is going. Commit to keeping an accurate record (down to 5-minute increments) of your schedule for one week.

Be specific. Instead of labeling 3 hours as "office work," list how long you were on the phone versus writing memos/newsletters/letters/submissions. At the end of the week, total the categories.

Just knowing how much time you’re spending on e-mail, phone calls, staff problems does help. Your goal is to spend less time at work and to work more efficiently. You can’t eliminate them completely; just minimize them. For example, check your e-mail hourly instead of every 5 minutes. Little changes make a big difference.

Change, according to Fullan

Change in our own perspectives on leadership, according to Fullen, Dean of Educational Studies at the University of Toronto, is what’s worth fighting for: "not system change, not change in others around us, but change in ourselves."

His ten guidelines—all working together to create his prescription for individual action are listed below:
Avoid "if only" statements, externalizing the blame and other forms of wishful thinking.
Start small, think big. Don’t over-plan or over-manage.
Focus on fundamentals: curriculum, instruction, assessment, professional culture.
Practice fearlessness and other forms of risk taking.
Embrace diversity and resistance while empowering others.
Build a vision in relation to both goals and change processes.
Decide what you are not going to do.
Build allies.
Know when to be cautious.
Give up the search for the "silver bullet."

He says we need this in order to survive as new demands appear daily for accountability, teacher appraisal, program initiatives—you name it. Meanwhile, not one "old" responsibility goes away. When asked, "Do you think the principal can effectively fulfill all the responsibilities assigned to him/her?" 91% of US principals responded, "No." Why are we not surprised? But that dark point is exactly where hope begins to shine, Fullen argues. "There is no point in lamenting the fact that the system is unreasonable, and no percentage in waiting around for it to become more reasonable. It won’t." He says that true school leaders will reframe their role to design continuous learning for everyone in the school organization.

Our current restructuring brings with it challenges for us all. Scott Arbuthot, who will be known to many of you who have completed the Strategic Leaders program says:

During and following "restructuring," effort is needed to build relationships and understanding (connectivity). The biological equivalent is a living system being able to feel/know all parts of itself. The mental-emotional health equivalent is self awareness - knowing all parts of ourselves. The post-restructure state of (various levels of disconnection) people being required to work together without knowing each other means "things get worse before they get better". For some (normally those not promoted) the post-restructure state of disconnect also has various senses of loss, abandonment and abuse. These states do not typically motivate people into new relationship building, especially across imposed hierarchies. The list of restructure-based cultural damage is long and sad. Restructuring was described in 1995 by one of it's most famous inventors, Thomas Davenport, to be "the last gasp of industrial age management". Until this metaphorical gasp is over, those of us working in and with restructured organisations are charged with picking ourselves up and leading the recovery.

Recovering from restructuring is "consultant-speak" for relationship building. It does not have to be clever or formal or even authorised! Just get on with the business of enabling the business through relationships - helping people know each other, know they can be themselves with each other, have real and/or tough conversations, be human/less than perfect, tell the truth, be cranky, be proud, ask for help. You know, the stuff that makes all the difference - not the org chart de jour. As leaders in post restructure recovery, our role is to facilitate the relationship building of others as well as ourselves. What relationships do we need to "just" complete our roles? What extra connectivity can we build in addition to that (so we are able to initiate useful change)?

So, for all of us, let’s remember in the coming months that….
1) Connectivity aids recovery from restructuring.
2) More than functional levels of connectivity are required.
3) Authenticity supports better connectivity.

The language of relational connectivity, authenticity and cultural emergence is notably absent from most discussions about organizational restructuring. This language and the more developed levels of awareness it comes from are, however, on the increase. People are craving and demanding more meaningful and fulfilling work, working environments and working relationships.

Just as we discovered and learned about ecosystems by polluting them, we are also discovering the nature of organizational cultures by violating them. There are more reasons for the failure of restructuring than those narrated here. Resultantly, there is also more to be learned. Greater than functional connectivity is increasingly being recognised as a strong indicator of organizational health.

Connectivity is chaotic, unpredictable, irreversible and uncontrollable. Working to stimulate connectivity requires leaders with emotional maturity and a strong personal responsibility for their own influential behaviours. It’s no wonder the far simpler task of restructuring was so seductive.

Let the real work begin.

CIRCUMAGGRAVATION

CIRCUMAGGRAVATION – A condition in which students are compelled to take the most circuitous route possible to the pencil sharpener or the waste basket in order to bother as many of their classmates as possible. Early onset circumaggravation can be seen in preschoolers who can’t stop running in circles around the Play-Doh table.

Travelling with children these holidays?

Pack an Activity Bag
Dreading the idea of trying to keep your children from arguing for hours in the car? Divert your children's attention by filling a bag with crayons, paper for drawing, books, snacks, drinks, puzzle books, a deck of playing cards, stickers, etc. Make one bag for each child and let them choose what to put in it. If bickering starts, use your bag of tricks to calm things down.

Divide and Conquer
As delightful as it is to imagine that children could sit together quietly in the back seat while you and your partner catch up on things in the front, sometimes an alternate seating plan helps order to ensure family peace. Change places each time you make a stop (and switch adult drivers) so that everyone gets a different seat for the next part of the trip. With a new perspective and a little space between them, children may forget their antsiness.

Make Frequent Stops
As adults, we often try to push through the journey in order to start having fun at our final destination. But if the process of getting there adds tension, then is the pushing really worth it? Kids (and adults) can only stay confined for a relatively short amount of time. So, if tempers are escalating, consider taking frequent stops to stretch, run around, and expend some of that energy in a positive way. By mapping out the stopping points ahead of time, you can answer ''Are we there yet?'' with a simple ''No, but we are going to be stopping in about ten minutes and then we can have a picnic/play tag/eat an ice cream/ (fill in what works for your children).''

Play Games
From finding license plates for different states to creating phrases from license plate letters to alphabet and memory games, one of the best ways to relieve tension between siblings is to work collaboratively on a family game. For as long as you can stand playing or singing songs, this method usually works to change the mood.

Tune Out
Sometimes the best activity is for one child to wear a set of headphones and quietly listen to what she wants to hear. Whether enjoying music or taped stories, your child can calm down and then rejoin the family in a better mood. Investing in a cassette player with headphones or a walkman, with spare batteries, can make a trip much more harmonious for all.

Your Age By Chocolate Math...

It takes less than a minute.
Work this out as you read.
Be sure you don'tread the bottom until you've worked it out!
This is not one of those wasteof time things, it's fun.

1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like tohave chocolate. (more than once but less than 10)...
2. Multiply this number by 2 (Just to be bold)...
3. Add 5.
4. Multiply it by 50 I'll wait while you get the calculator...
5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1755...If you haven't, add 1754...
6. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born...You should have a three digit number.The first digit of this was your original number (i.e., how many times you want to have chocolate each week).The next two numbers are...YOUR AGE!!! (OH YES, IT IS!!!)THIS IS THE ONLY YEAR (2005) IT WILL EVER WORK.

Great Truths

GREAT TRUTHS THAT LITTLE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED:
1) No matter how hard you try, you can't baptise cats.
2) When your Mum is mad at your Dad, don't let her brush your hair.
3) If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second person.
4) Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.
5) You can't trust dogs to watch your food.6) Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
7) Never hold a Dust-Buster and a cat at the same time.
8) You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.
9) Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.
10) The best place to be when you're sad is Grandpa's lap.

GREAT TRUTHS THAT ADULTS HAVE LEARNED:
1) Raising teenagers is like nailing jelly to a tree.
2) Wrinkles don't hurt.
3) Families are like fudge...mostly sweet, with a few nuts.
4) Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
5) Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
6) Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fibre, not the toy.

GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT GROWING OLD
1) Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.
2) Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.
3) When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while you're down there.
4) You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.
5) It's frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.
6) Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.
7) Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.