You get lots of random stuff going through your head and past your eyes when you have nothing left to read!! Even the best prize-winning books cannot cope with being re-read ad nauseum.
So ...
Random stuff 1: In the middle of some Malagasy songfest the other night there was suddenly a
clip from a Simon and Garfunkel concert (the one they got back together
for). They claimed that when they were young they idolised the Everly
Bros. and tried to sound just like them. Then (to thunderous
applause and standing ovations) on came The Everly Bros (much older, greyer and
fatter but...). They then sang two songs. This would be the point: I
KNEW EVERY WORD OF BOTH SONGS AND SANG ALONG FLAWLESSLY (not necessarily
tunefully but without a single mistake). Sad huh?
Random stuff 2: Something triggered a memory of my childhood when I was living out in the bush (yes the place with no electricity). We were going somewhere special and so my great-aunt put my hair up in rag curls. Now you have to understand just what this means: Take a length of cloth about an inch wide and three times the length of your hair. Get the poor child (whose hair you are doing) to hold one end at their scalp. Wet the hank of hair in sugarwater and wind it very tightly around the rag. Then wind the rest of the rag back up the spiral around the hair (this must be done very very tightly). Tie the two ends together at the top. When you undo these (when the hair is dry you have multitudes of ringlets all over your head (shades of Scarlett O'Hara). Now the point is they are very painful, you cannot sleep with these lumpy things all over your head and you have to wait for them to be dry.
So ... there I am as a small girl with a head full of rag curls. But the other kids (boys) were playing under the sprinkler (we had dam or bore water) and I wanted to play but was told that I wouldn't look pretty (i.e. have curly hair) if I went under the sprinkler. So I played under the sprinkler with my head stuck out (I can still feel what that was like). Needless to say - not stuck out far enough and when we were getting ready for the big deal I had half a head of beautiful ringlets and half the dead straight 'real me' hair. I decided then and there that there were some prices too high to pay for beauty. It was the beginning of my feminist stance.
Random stuff 3: Last week an ex-student from Darwin days contacted me on FB and thanked me for "creating so many amazing childhood memories for me" . Now I am here to tell you that this almost NEVER happens - so I was completely blown away to get this and really moved by her thoughtfulness. Then I remembered another incident where the grandfather (guardian) of a boy that I taught came and told me how much I had changed the boy's life and how grateful he was yardy yardy. My principal at the time said "Did you get it in writing? Frame it - it happens once in a lifetime" I didn't then but I am tempted to now (frame it I mean). I have been very lucky in having people gracious enough to make these comments.
Random stuff 4: On Malagasy TV they show the old Zorro serial type shows (what used to be shown at the Saturday arvo matinees. There was always heaps of noise at those matinees and I have just discovered why Zorro was so popular. It is in French when I see it here, but quite frankly it doesn't matter. It is all action and the dialogue really doesn't count at all. In a matinee full of screaming kids ... no wonder it was a hit!
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