Group writing project update.

A few days ago I put out a hook about identity.

I got a couple of responses, Greg and Kris writes about his diverse American upbringing and his roots on the west coast.

The wobbly spaghetti lady writes a heartening piece about the epedemic that is Facebook.

Thank you both for your thoughts and the time you took to write.

I'm still thinking on my response.

kite

1. You spend a very windy day at the beach flying a kite.

2. You remember how brilliant kite flying is, go online, do some research and buy an entry level stunt kite.

3. It arrives, defying the postal strike.

4. Where's the bloody wind?

Democracy in action

This evening, through a mixture of circumstance and someone else's bad luck and ill health, I was quietly thrust into a position of quite large responsibility.

For about 45 minutes all eyes were upon me. It was my job, as Senior Teacher and representative of the school, to publicly count the votes for the Board of Governors election. Two positons, Four candidates (one an incumbent).

If you'd have told me beforehand, I'd have said something along the lines of "no hassle!"

Stand in front of a silent, scrutineery room and count votes.

Then announce the results.

Without smiling.

Even though you really, REALLY, want to!

I actually felt very proud.

Group writing project

From time to time, blogs such as Tillerman invite readers to contribute by way of Group writing projects.

Here's mine.

Today I was on a bus full of kids from my school. It's a small village school with a great sense of community and a good identity. We have a catchy, unusual nickname and lots of people all around know us by that. Many of the kids live in the village, a few others live very nearby.

Some of the kids started singing the old school trip/football ground favourite "Shall we tell them?"

"Shall we tell them?
Shall we tell them?

Who we are?
Who we are?

We are -insert name of neighbourhood/village/town/city/nation etc here
We are -insert name of neighbourhood/village/town/city/nation etc here

Mighty, mighty -insert name of neighbourhood/village/town/city/nation etc here"

So you can see, the journey was noisy and fun, along with the farting noises and punching between the seats we had a good time.

The thing that intruiged me, and got me thinking about this post was this.

Every time the kids got to the bit "We are......" They responded with a variety of different places.  Twentyfive kids on the bus and about half of them identified with some other place. Such vocal identifications then sparked internecine yelling with other kids who 'hated' that particular place. Most kids chose a bunch of places for some good reasons (oh yes, we heard all the logical and not so logical arguments) and then it got silly (it always does, and then there are tears).

I began thinking about identity and rivalry. How even in a school that is a tight and friendly community this banter still exists, is alive and kicking. It made me smile.

I got to thinking about my own identity.

Multiple identities.
Conflicting identities.

And the rivalries that exist alongside those identities.

OK. Bear with me.

I want to hear about an aspect of your cultural identity and to counterpoint that, an aspect of the rivalry with another group that surely must, by definition,  exist alongside it.


It might be anything, A city fan writing about United, A Tory writing about Labour. A boy writing about a girl. The subject warrants some discussion, well I think so anyway.

If you feel so inclined, blog it, but please drop me a line so I can read them.

Thanks.

Betting

OK, here's the deal.

On October 27th we should be finding out the gender of the twins.

We are still hoping for two happy, healthy babies and are only finding out genders in order to aid forward planning.

So... PLACE YOUR BETS!!

Boy/Boy  7-1 

Boy/Girl 2-1 fav

Girl/Girl 4-1 (call it a hunch)

OK. Tell me what you think!

Be kind

That's all I want to say.