Week Eight Term Four

The Arts Centre Melbourne.

The Playhouse Theartre.

The conclusion of El Kid.

Aboriginal art in the foyer.

A room with a mural wall of illuminated marbles.

The main Theatre with the second largest stage in the world.

Time is flying by! Only four weeks left of school! I just booked a three day return visit to Tasmania to do a couple of hikes I missed, and a canyon tour at Cradle Mountain, before I take a two week driving trip up the east coast from Melbourne to Brisbane, from where I will fly home on January 7th.

This was a pretty quiet week at school. The kids are trying to finish up a couple of assignments before the end of the year.

On Thursday, all the grade three and four classes went on an excursion to the Art Centre Melbourne. This is a complex of theatres, some indoors, some underground and a couple outside. The classes were split into two groups. Our group saw an operatic theatre production based on the story of the Billy Goats Gruff, called El Kidd, in the Playhouse Theatre. This is an intimate theatre holding 884 people. The play was aimed at young children and included, along with the singing and story telling, some humour that the kids appreciated. The costumes were bright and colourful and the actors were great.

After the performance we ate our lunches in the foyer before we had a tour of the rest of the facility. Our tour guide gave us some history of the place and showed us some of the aboriginal art that is housed here and took us to two other theatres. The largest one is called the State Theatre and can accommodate any production, as it has the second largest stage in the world. When we went in the crew were working on the false roof that hangs over the production as part of it fell the night before during a performance of Wagner's Ring Cycle (the opera is performed over four nights and each night is about 6 to 7 hours long!). We also went into a hall where they host parties or events. One large wall was covered with an illuminated mural made from marbles and other objects. The ceiling was mirrored and reflected the wall and the floor was marble.

That night I went swimming again at a different pool. Here the lanes were only 25 metres instead of 50, which made me feel like I was faster and getting somewhere.

At briefing Friday morning Amanda (the principal) explained that the merging of the regular Victorian half of the school with the French 'private school' half has finally been completed successfully. The final step was a vote by the 300 French families who run the French section and employ the French teachers.

Later in the morning I ran into Amanda in the hall and she asked me if I had heard the great news and then remembered I had been at the briefing. She was obviously delighted and told me some of the history. The French section has been at the school for eighteen years and the Victorian Department of Education wasn't happy with the appearance of a private school in a regular one. It is like a private school because the parents pay an extra fee of $4000 for their child to attend and the fact that half of the school year is taught in French with the French curriculum. She explained that for the two years she has been the principal the merge has consumed a large chunk of her time and she is happy to put it behind her so that she can focus on the whole school. This was the longest that Amanda had talked to me all year.

I also talked to my teaching partner, Claire, who is paid by the parent council. She explained that all the French teachers are happy because the are now employed by Australia and they have those benefits. So it appears that everyone is happy.

On Friday, after school I drove for 5 hours to the town of Buchan in eastern Victoria, to stay at a farmhouse. It is owned by a sister of one of our CRT's (supply teachers). Trish used to work at our school until she retired a couple of years ago. She told me about her sister's farmhouse and I had tried to book it a couple of times before but without success. I wanted to revisit the Great Alpine Road that I saw during the winter so that I could see it green instead of white. And since Buchan is in same general area, I decided this was a way to kill two birds with one drive.

The last couple of hours I drove in the dark along some secondary highways and really had no idea where I was going or what the area looked like. I drove through some forested areas and hoped not to see any wombats or kangaroo or wallabies. All three of these animals are active at night and can do major damage to your car. I arrived at 11:00 and was met by Trish's sister Mary. She gave me a quick tour and said she'd see me in the morning. Mary and her husband Dennis live on the adjoining farm. The farm house was built in the 1960's and is very rustic. It has four bedrooms (two with double beds and two with twins) a livingroom, kitchen and a bathroom. It was very clean and neat and the bathroom had been remodeled. The kitchen contained a dishwasher and a stove but also had an old wood burning oven. I had the pace to myself!

Outside it was very dark and eerily quiet except for a few bugs. I went to bed eager to see the farm in the daylight.