School
Brrrrrrriiiiiing. School's back in. Today, something went wrong in just about every single lesson I had. Actually, the lesson where I was winging it the most actually went the best. But after that I had based my entire lesson around a DVD that ended up having an invisible scratch in it and refused to play, some teacher who I shall not name STOLE the resource I'd spent hours making in the holidays and generously said, 'Hey - you can use it this period, I don't need it til after lunch' (and then he left it in his folder all day) and I forgot to photocopy something crucial.
All up, I had to jog (literally) back to the staffroom during three out of four of my classes to get back-up stuff. Good exercise and nice gossipping time for the kids, I guess.....
I got given a chocolate frog in the staff meeting by our DP in recognition of the work we've been doing on the magazine already. That was nice :) I am easily bribed!
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Film Noir
I am teaching this to my media class as a genre. I am learning new terms like 'hard-boiled detective' and 'chiaroscuro lighting'. If anyone has any great theories of why film noir reflects the society it was produced in .... I will give you a chocolate fish for sharing that information with me!
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Driving
I'm still doin' it. Drove to school for the first morning today. I went the easy-way, using the lights. I discovered this is a painfully slow route. I might try the hard-way tomorrow and merge at the tunnel.... eeeeeek. I also made myself drive the hard-way to and from netball today (it was 9.40..... I had the road to myself, baby). I tailed Morgan home down Hanson St in my as-yet-to-be-named car. I tend to call it by its number plate so far - my little DCW. Got a ring to it....
Did I mention I left my lights on at school last week and got a flat battery..... luckily Glenn works down the hill at Nissan and came and gave me a jump-start...... He'll hold that over my head for the next six months any time he wants to 'borrow' my milk/soap/washing-powder/pudding/money etc.
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Netball
I liked tonight's game. I think that rookie ref is getting better, and I quite like the tone he runs the game with. He's firm but has a sense of humour. I liked watching Fish's battle with the fiesty pushy girl. She does good in those battles. I think she is always in the right.
The leapy Aussie guy annoyed me. He talked too much. He pointed out to me that I'd winded him when we collided. Get hard, mate. I wouldn't have mentioned it if it was me. I kinda tripped him over by mistake too. That's what you get for being leapy and annoying. I deal to you!
Aaron has potential, once he gets over the desire to jump and gets in that zen-like state where you wait the three seconds before you shoot. It's hard to get used to not shooting it straight away, as a basketballer. Good passer though - I like playing with people who have nice cross-court vision.
Ken was good. He didn't have any bad phases that I can remember. Praise be.
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New Flatmates
So far so good. They seem nice. Probably a bit more rugga-bugga than me, but they're girls. And Kate watches trashy TV too! I have a partner is slothness! Matt is keeping up his good form in Kiwi Idol. GO THE LEVIN BOY! If he makes the final two, I might even give him a vote. That would be a first for me, voting on a TV show. Possibly not a proud moment..... but all Levin has at the moment is the giant market gardener and Carlos Spencer...... We need more.
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Inconvenient Truth
The principal at the school I teach at liked the film so much that she wants to shout the entire student body to go watch it as a group (not sure where the money would come from in the budget). Nice idea. I don't know if it will get past all the cranky old teachers who balk at losing their seniors for a period. But she is a stubborn old dame once she sets her mind to something. I'm rooting for her! Field Trips are Fun!
6 comments:
I *am* always right! Thanks for noticing. I'm still pissed off at that stoopid girl.
She was really really stupid. She needs to play basketball - you're ALLOWED to push people out of position in that sport.
She's seriously misled on the rules of the sport. I think the ref started calling it your way for the most part after that.....
Well, first off, you might want to look at some of the original films -- Rififi is an excellent French example: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048021/
(I've got a copy if you'd like to take a squizz.)
Off the top of my head -- the originals are post-war (late 40s into 50s), and many of them come from the hard-boiled detective/crime fiction popular at the time. They're mostly low-budget B-movies, and were in many ways a contrast to the A-level ones -- they had a license to be darker, grittier and more cynical, and to sail closer to what the censors would allow.
The post-war period was probably really hard for a lot of people; women were expected to give up the jobs they'd been doing for returning servicemen, soldiers were expected to just go from a life of boredom, fear and adrenaline to "normal" with no support, and people had been promised that the future should be like what they remembered the golden pre-war period was like, but more prosperous. (There was also the growing Cold War paranoia, and the "Leave it to Beaver" idealized society shown in most media.)
To people who's lives were more complicated than the brightly-lit, technicolour world presented in the mainstream media, the ambiguity of film noir woulld have felt more real, while the cynically witty banter, sexy dames and sense of "real" danger would have made it more exciting.
It looks like there's an interesting article on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir
I've got a bunch of films I could lend you, and I suspect that you can get more sense out of me in person. :)
Really? Yay I'd be good at that. Except for being only 5 foot 5 tall :(
I would have had much more 4th quarter ball had I not been illegally blocked by silly girl and 'The umpire won't call it so I'm going to cheat' talky D.
After another great block/foul I heard him "Oooh great D" the girl, to which I said 'Umm, not really'.
Still we spanked them so it's OK. I liked how we upped the ante every quarter. We held our own in the 1st, you and I destroyed their defence in the 2nd, Morgue started hitting 2's in the 3rd, as well as Michelle hitting everything within reach, Aaron grabbing everything he could, and we continued in the 4th, steamrollering their cheaty defence while Ken and Fishy dominated the other end.
It was fun, especially after last week, and the utterly mediocre game I filled in for at Petone earlier in the evening.
If you want a film noir that really reflects the society it was produced in, you should check out 'Stray Dog' ('Nora Inu') by Akira Kurosawa. It was made, and set, in Tokyo 1949, and it shows. Not least in the amazing 8-minute stake-out scene where the rookie cop wanders through the (black) market district, where they took a tip from documentary and just filmed the actual district.
Actually, even if you don't want to watch a film noir that etc etc, I'm still going to tell you to check it out. Check it out! Or failing you, I'm sure I can convince Svend to...
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