The Times, They Are A-Changin'

Come gather 'round, people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown,
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone;
If your time to you is worth saving
Then you'd better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone
For the times, they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics who prophesise with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again,
But don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'.
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times, they are a-changin'.

Come Senators, Congressmen, please heed the call:
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
For he who gets hurt will be he who has stalled,
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times, they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticise what you can't understand:
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command,
Your old road is rapily agin'.
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times, they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast:
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past,
The order is rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now will later be last
For the times, they are a-changin'.

Today was one with more reflection over the past than usual.

Following an average day (swimming then school), I headed off to the State Library to see what they had on the My Lai massacre (HEX). With that accomplished (for the record, they didn't have much of what I was looking for - but then they never do... Fisher Library all the way!!) I was in the city with nothing to do. And since it was a wednesday, I decided it would be an idea to drop into SCC (Sydney Children's Choir) for a visit.

With the annual Christmas choral extravaganza taking place in a week, rehearsal was fully in swing. During the first half I helped the supervisors sort the red choral robes (so unspeakably bad, but yet so good - it's kind of like Stockholm Syndrome: you find yourself inexplicably attached to them) into height order so as to facilitate the allocation thereof.

As the allocation took place, I had an opportunity to chat with choristers whom I hadn't seen since the choir's 21st anniversary concert back in late june. Sitting in on the rehearsal for part of the second half showed me how much had changed in the 18 or so months since I aged out of the SCC - there were new kids everywhere, all the male soprani I remember were now off in the marvellous magical land of Alto 2 (guess which section I was section leader of back in the day...), and about to leave because they no longer really qualified as trebles... It was somewhat depressing. It made me feel old, and I thoroughly dislike feeling old.

I then happened to spot an old friend waiting outside the rehearsal room (Vox, the Sydney Philarmonia's youth choir has rehearsals wednesday evenings after SCC), and so I exited for a chat (but not after Lyn (our fearsome and awe inspiring conductor) noticed me and had everyone say hello... I love getting the alumna treatment).

Angus and I started in the SCC back in 1999 when we were in kindergarten, and both about two feet tall and blond. Now of course, he's still blond and significantly taller, and I'm still stunted and short... And my marvellous Jew-fro is gone... But seriously. He knew me back when I did things like turn up to a rehearsal and announce loudly, and in a tone of indignant socialism "Did you know that they're putting a GST on breast pumps?!" (In my defence, I was five or six. This of course didn't stop Lyn bringing that little anecdote up at the 21st anniversary concert... Luckily she didn't name me. It was only after that I found out she was talking about me. I must say I had completely repressed that gem of a memory). Good times... Good times.

It was great remembering the old days of Opera House christmas concerts with the horrid red robes and the nauseatingly kitschy electric candles we all had to make us all look angelic and such... the days when supervisors stood waiting in the wings to drag the bodies of the choristers who passed out from heatstroke off the stage... back in the day where there were only seven choirs in the SCC structure... as compared with the current 20 or so.

It made me realise just how much I miss being part of choir. Bloody expletiving HSC.

And then this evening, whilst on facebook, I was facebook chatting with one of my friends from my latest hospital stint, and the following was said:
Kelsey: ADELA I thought of that song the other day
You know the times are changing song
And almost cried because I realised how much I missed you

She was referring to Bob Dylan's "The Times, They Are A-Changin'" which I spent a lot of time singing whilst we were stuck in hospital (I had a ukelele with me, and I had a repertoire of about six songs... stuff got repeated.), and even ended up calligraphising on a 2 metre piece of paper which now hangs above the door in the classroom (hospital sucks, and it helps to have a reminder that everything is transient, including medical incarceration).

And to be honest, the song affects me the same way. Every time it comes up on my ipod, I remember all the girls I spent 8 weeks living with and how much I miss them.
It also reminded me of just how quickly things change. Change is scary and unfamiliar. To be honest, I wish everything would just stay the same.

I wish I were still a cute little blond six-year-old with socialist tendencies, I wish my blood still did what it was meant to, and most of all, I wish my dad were still alive. The times, they are a-changin', but I really wish they weren't.

The Week

For a while now, Mr Morrison has been slightly glittery. This is because he has been marking year 7 assignments, and such assignments are outstanding in nothing other than sheer sparkliness.
We’d been making jokes about his glitteriness for a while when he eventually said “Every day I fly to school and I just need a little sprinkling of fairy dust. Are you happy?”
We were. Astoundingly so.

Later in the lesson, we were discussing History Extension major work essays.
Mr Morrison: I once had to write a 4000 word essay in German in one night.
Monica: Go on…
Mr Morrison: That was the climax of the story.
Me: Why did you leave it to the last minute? Were you out partying with Alex?
Mr Morrison: Yes.
Much lols following that. Alex was Mr Morrison’s hard-partying roommate when he was at uni in Vienna. Any story involving Alex generally turns out to be an interesting one.

Whilst translating us some Cicero
Mersini: I can’t spell today.
Mr Morrison: T. O. D. A. Y
Me: But… oooooh. Right. I didn’t think there was a T in ‘defence’

Mr Morrison: opportere
Mersini: That just makes me hungry.
Me: Why would indirect statements make you hungry?
(you can tell I was really concentrating that lesson)
Sophia: indirect STEAKments.

As I stated back in the holidays, our class spent a day trying to translate the Cicero. We got a bit unmotivated towards the end, as can be seen by our marvellous translation of a certain sentence as read out by Monica.
“Which you do not make to/against the strong military, but the way which you keep the hands off the other money.”
The actual translation goes something like this:
‘That it is necessary to be proved by you not that you did well in military affairs but how you kept your hands from other people’s money.’

Now onto history extension, where we are learning about the historicity of Jesus. We’re watching a documentary from the PBS during which Dominic Crossan expresses numerous opinions regarding Jesus and the like. One of the better ones was:
“That’s the terrible price of an apocalypse. There’s going to be an awful lot of dead people.”

And now to modern history where we had just begun the study of Nazi foreign policy. First, my definition of war: war is foreign policy carried out on foreign soil.

Mr Sheldrick drew a marvellous diagram explaining Nazi foreign policy. Here it is, along with his accompanying commentary.
To start with, he drew this.

The small thingy in the middle is Britain, sans Ireland and a large proportion of Wales.
The big thingy towards the right is Europe, lacking all of Spain and Portugal, The Netherlands, Scandinavia, the Mediterranean…

Then he added this

The shaded bit is central/eastern Europe. Germany, Poland, Austria, Hungary, the assorted other nations which are now predominantly post-communist something-stan, or alternately have a civil war or coup every ten or so years. But anyway.
Because when you control central Europe, you can

Branch out and ultimately control all of Europe. And when you control Europe…

…you control the world.
Yes. The smiley face was on the board.

Then there was English.
Mr Turner: Have you heard of Immanuel Kant?
Me (under my breath because I was boycotting class participation): Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimmanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable, Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could drink you under the table. Nietzsche, Nietzsche was (etc. the philosopher’s drinking song c/o Monty Python)

Later that lesson I was bored. So I put my copy of Frankenstein open on my head.
Yvette: Frankenhat.

FRANKENHAT The one function of a copy of Frankenstein. Sun protection.

The next day in Latin Extension:
Mr Morrison: How did you go in the Easter Show? I forgot to ask you that.
Me: I was disqualified for inappropriate mounting.
Mr Morrison then laughed until he was incredibly red. It took us all a while to cotton on to what he was laughing about, because generally we’re the ones who pick up on it, not him. So that was some unexpected of our normal roles.

A few minutes later, Mr Morrison wrote something on the whiteboard.
Sophia: Is that a new marker?
Mr Morrison: It may be.
Oh the banality…or is it banalité…I never know…is it like naiveté…is it anglicised…oh well.

We were translating Horace I.5 in which Horace is bitching about the guy Pyrrha dumped him for.
Mr Morrison: He’s someone a bit effeminate. Maybe someone who’s into a bit of manscaping.
If there’s one thing guaranteed to make things weird, it’s your teacher talking about manscaping.

And later, whilst making style notes:
Mr Morrison: Black is a word with evil connotations.
Me: Sir, are you being a white supremacist?
Mr Morrison: Yes
Me: picks up pen
Mr Morrison: Don’t write that down.
Disclaimer: Mr Morrison is not a white supremacist.

And today in English:
We’re learning about Frankenstein and there’s a lot of crap regarding the supremacy of nature and such tree-hugging pseudo-bohemianism.
Alagu: When Victor and the monster die in the frozen north, it’s as if nature wins.
Mr Turner: And what gender is nature portrayed as?
Alagu: Female.
Mr Turner: So the women win in the end.
(He was making a point).
Me (to Yvette): well if nature is a woman, then the arctic would be a frigid bitch. Thus in the end, it’s the frigid bitches who win.

Later:
Mr Turner: Are women passive or active in the book?
All: Passive.
Me (to Yvette): Passive like a gerund.
Yvette: Don’t make grammar jokes at me.

We were also given a handout compiled my Mr Morris (an English teaching deputy principal) which dealt with Frankenstein and Bladerunner.
Mr Morris’ handout: [Tyrell] builds [the replicants] well…but in an act of mean spiritedness, they are given a lifespan of 4 years.
Yvette (to me): That’s wrong. He did it because after the 4 years they’d grow emotions.
Me (to Yvette): Especially because most of them were created to be sex slaves. The last thing you want is a sex slave with emotions.
Yvette: Damn right.

And back to class discussion of Frankenstein:
Mr Turner (about the De Lacey family): Boring bunch of Bourgeois vegetarians.
Yvette (to me): Better than being a bunch of cheese eating surrender monkeys.
I lolled at that (internally). I found that lovely term for the French in a book the title of which I have since forgotten. But it’s a good description.

And then after school, I went to Hurstville with Monica, Sophia, Elsa and Hilary. We were drinking EasyWay (which is a curious product…)
Monica’s had pearls in it.
Monica: Oh My God! I can’t get this fucking ball!

And later, Sophia choked on her easy way.
Me: What happened?
Sophia: I sucked too hard.

Sigh

Today I finished reading Kristin Ross' 'May '68 and its Afterlives'. It was a good book, if you're into sociopolitical history.

I was reading it for Extension History.

I only complain about this because now I have to read two books which are in french. Apparently, they haven't been translated into english, so I'm on my own.

I'll manage, but still. Why did I choose such a mother-expletivingly difficult topic.

I'll tell you - because I'm an idiot.

And also on the topic of HEX, on tuesday, we're going to be discussing Jews for Jesus. I am so pumped for a religious smackdown.

Watch the ANZAC day parade. I'm the girl in a purple cape with a sousaphone.

I'm listening to 'Wo Bist Du' by Rammstein.
It's lovely.

HATEHATEHATEHATEHATE

I just spent a few hours reading microfilms at the marvellous Fisher Library. It was horrible.

Le Monde's films are blurry. The microfilm readers are from the eighties which means it may not be the LM which is blurry. It could just be the old monitor.

And the SMH in 1968 was so unspeakably chauvinistic. That's why my facebook status currently reads: Adela Greenbaumis at that lovely stage when she feels like STRANGLING THE 1968 EDITOR OF THE SMH USING HIS OWN NO DOUBT RATHER DRAB CHAUVINISTIC NECKTIE.

I usually never use caps, but this occasion deserved an entire rant in caps lock.

Did you know that the Sydney Morning Herald in 1968 had a church section, a mail order bride section and a section about 'parties' for young people(and the cynical inverted commas are there on purpose), including an inset about how girls could do their hair in order to stay at the height of fashion, but no world section.

You wouldn't think that they'd manage to devote a good twenty pages of news to the Vietnam War, and you'd be right.

Throughout May 68, there was always one article about the world's first heart translplant per day in order to alleviate all the doom gloom and excessive boredom of 19 3/4 pages of whining about 'Nam.

Which was followed by (I kid you not) a 40 page sport section.

Ethics

For my extension history research, I need some books which are somewhat off the beaten track. Generally because they're in French.

Luckily, my mother, as an academic at the University of Sydney, has access to the University of Sydney libraries. Which are big.

Fisher alone is HUUUUUUUGE.

Unfortunately, some of the books and articles I need are so far off the beaten track that not even Fisher in its magnitude has it.

This is when the joys of inter-library loans becomes evident.

All I need to do is fill out a form online (whilst pretending to be my mother because I'm using her card) which means I can request any book in existence, and they'll probably be able to locate it. At which point I turn up to Fisher library and pick it up.

This means I can get an obscure book generally available only in France, and thus read it and use it as a source.

I had just requested numerous books and an article from TIME magazine when I received a call from Fisher (I was using my mum's office while she took my younger sister to the dentist and orthodontist). In this call, the librarian enquired as to the language of one of the books I was requesting.

I than lied through my teeth in order to get the librarian to believe that I was requesting the books at the request of my mother, because otherwise I would be misappropriating University resources, and that would be unethical. It would also be unethical for him to allow it, which would thoroughly derail my research.

I am amazed by the level to which I can justify my own lack of ethics.

I'd be well suited for politics. Or public relations...

A Bit of a Heads Up

In Extension History this year, I will be learning about the historicity of Jesus (i.e. how the current religious and social concept of Jesus came to be).

My History teacher started us off with a blog post on his blog rearview2010.blogspot.com to get the ball rolling on the Jesus debate.

Once school restarts and we start learning, I'll keep this blog updated with the best of the inevitable theoretical religious debate.

Because there's nothing better than a debate on religious theory. Especially when your class comprises of all varieties of Christian, as well as an atheist who was brought up Jewish (me).

This should prove to be good.

Real Highland Men

Yesterday, I felt disgustingly motivated, so I decided to write the letter I'm sending off to Daniel Cohn-Bendit asking for his input for my History Extension work.

So as to ensure that I'd get everything into the letter when I did it in French, I wrote it en English. It was shorter than I had expected. I'll devote my next post to the nuances of translation.

I then sat at the kitchen table (my desk being too small) with some Metallica playing in the background, with Cassel's French/English dictionary (which isn't as good as their Latin/English dictionary, but it's geed enough) and a Bescherelle.

I got as far as the first clause before I needed to crack a dictionary.

I was partially through the translation when one of the mothers from the ballet school my sisters attend came to look at the second hand ballet shoes (the school runs a business of second hand ballet, tap, character and jazz shoes), because as it turns out, her daughter has an eisteddfod on Monday morning, and she only just realised that her daughter didn't have shoes.

Who doesn't realise that until it's Easter Saturday and you won't be able to buy a pair?

I then procrastinated by reorganising all of the shoes. As it turns out there were six ballet shoes in there lacking pairs. That was unexpected.

I then went back to translating, only for the same mother to come back looking to buy a pair of ballet tights (we run an import business getting them from the USA) because as it turns out her daughter didn't have a pair of them either. Good god, woman!

Eventually I finished the translation. My grammar's fantastic - I didn't need the Bescherelle at all. I just need to revamp my vocab.

And then, since it was a Saturday evening, I decided to watch one of my favourite shows: Hamish Macbeth.

It's brilliant, because it's Scottish cop quasi-comedy.

The episode starts with Shinty training.

Shinty is a traditional Scots game which takes the premise of hockey, combines it with the violence of Lacrosse, and is played using a baseball.

It looks like fun.

Anyway, one of the players gets mildly injured, and the coach tells him to toughen up, because "In my day, we'd pray through the pain barrier."

About a minute or so later, the coach is talking to a woman of a certain age (although the coach is also of a certain age, so it's all good), and the coach's son, who is on the Lochdubn Shinty team asks one of his team mates if he reckons his father's cracking on to her.

The team mate then says "I doubt it. She wears knitted ties."

There's a slight pause before Lachlan Jr (referred to as Wee Lachie) realises the implication of this.

We then see spies from the rival team, dressed in a mildly hopeless approximation of a Marine scout sniper suit made for the wilds of Scotland.

We then see Hamish's wee West Highland Terrier, who is the most ridiculously adorable dog, and who goes by the name of Jock.

My cat then sat on my shoulder, only to fall off when I cracked up at the sight of the Lochdubn cheerleading squad, the median age of which was 40.

It's now the day of the game, and practically the entire town get onto the town bus, including jock, who is wearing the town tartan. Because in Lochdubn they have a town tartan.

Robert Carlyle is smoking in every second scene. Including on the bus. Because that's the kind of thing which goes on in the mid 90s.

Wee Lachie then asks Hamish about the significance of knitted ties. Hamish responds with the somewhat philosophical statement of "There might be snow on the roof, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a fire in the grate, Lachie boy."

Lachie and Hamish then have a debate on the metaphysical implications of knitted ties.

We enter a clubhouse replete with kilted highland men. This is why I like the show.

Cut to the Lochdubn dressing room, which is full of good looking shirtless highland men.

We then get the vibe that the woman who's been distracting the coach (not the knitted tie lady) is an enemy agent...

Hamish then finds the referee tied up in a closet in his underwear. Hamish gives him a sippee cup full of brandy, and leaves him there.

Cut to the game. There's no ref, and so instead of Dunbacken (the other team) sending one of their men as the ref, Hamish the sheriff, who just so happens to have a set of kit, agrees to ref.

Hamish as it turns out, has impressive cardiovascular health for someone who smokes as much as he does. Meanwhile, Lochdubn is being soundly beaten.

The Lochdubn goalie gets knocked out, and thankfully it's half time.

Hamish tells Lachlan Sr about his enemy agent girlfriend. Odds for Lochdubn hit 20:1, and suddenly the townsfolk of Lochdubn start betting.

Lachie Jr, who had previously quit the team, comes back to play. And then, a military helicopter fries over the ridge and lands on the field.

That was somewhat unexpected.

A greatly mulleted man the jumps out to play for Lochdubn. He seems to be a big deal.

'Simply The Best' starts playing as mullet man starts taking off his fluorescent orange jumpsuit in slow motion to reveal his team uniform and him in all his hairy glory.

highland drums and bagpipes start playing in the background.

The mulleted man, wearing a headband which reads 'Wild Thing', scores a goal almost instantaneously.

Lochdubn now gets to 4-2.

Full time is called at 4 all. My cat is sitting on me.

We then get a close up of the kilt clad backside of a baddie, who is for some inexplicable reason, happy.

Slomo psychodramatic penalty shootout. Dunbacken don't score.
Lochdubn...

Play is stopped because mullet man apparently wasn't born in Lochdubn. But since his mother, the knitted tie lady, is, he's still eligible to play.

By now I'm getting the feeling that there's a rather intense backstory that I'm missing, but whatever.

Lochdubn scores.

Lochdubn have won a Shinty match against Dunbacken for the first time in 20 years.

A photo of the Lochdubnians is taken with Jock at the front. Because he's fluffy and adorable.

We finish with a scenic shot of the town bus heading home as the helicopter flies off into the distance. All is well again in Lochdubn.

And according to the credits, it's actually filmed in Lochdubn. That's cool.