Wow. So, it’s been quite a while since I last updated this blog. And I’d love to say that I had a really good excuse for why. But I don’t, really. I just got busy-busier-busiest and never got around to it. And I decided today that since I was taking some time for me, I owed it to all those of you who actually bother following this and stopping by that I need to post a lengthier update.
So what’s been going on, you ask?

Well, let’s see:

Back LAST school holidays, I took a group of 14 boys to the Philippines for just over 3 weeks. It’s a very intense trip for the boys and whoever accompanies them. We spend a day or so in Manila doing a little sight-seeing, then we head to a slum just outside Manila for a week of building houses with Gawad Kalinga, a group dedicated to doing the right thing. Then it’s off to an orphanage for about 4 days, up to a mountain village for 4 days and then 4 days in Muntinlupa prison; a prison of 20,000 inmates and about 3,000 guards. You do the math. When we’re in prison, we spend two days in a youth detention facility, a day in medium security and a day in maximum security. It’s pretty amazing. I was a little edgy about the whole “Yeah, we’re taking your son into a maximum security detention facility. In the Philippines. No, I’m not kidding” thing before we got there. But the rector here, who runs the trip loves the prison and is, in turn, loved by all there. So we were probably safer there than just about anywhere else on the trip. And there were no serious incidents; a couple cases of dysentery, some food poisoning. Those were our most serious medical incidents. I was fine through the whole thing until…
About 36 hours after we got back to Sydney I got sick. I don’t know if it was something I ate just before leaving the PI or it was a hideous flu carried to Sydney by World Youth Day pilgrims (I was in the PI during WYD.) Either way, I went down. Hard. For two weeks. In retrospect, I believe that it was a perfect storm of a helluva cold and traveler’s gut. But every time I thought, “Well, I’ve rounded the corner,“ it started up again. Tenacious doesn’t begin to describe it. It got so bad, I finally asked someone to take me to the doctor. Now, for those of you who know me, you know how serious it was if I was seeking the care of a physician. Whether it was the antibiotics prescribed, or it was just done with me, it doesn’t matter. It ended and I was happy.
Which, I never took a day off in there from school, so I was teaching while I was ill and that should give you some idea of how busy I was and continue to be at St. Aloysius.
Term 3 absolutely FLEW by. Class-class-class-assembly-class-sport-class-cadets. Rinse and repeat. It was just one of those kind of terms. At least the learning curve has eased a bit as I get my ‘teacher’s legs’ back under me and I’ve begun to understand more of the Antipodal education system. Which, by the way, it seems that I have cracked the code on admissions to Notre Dame, a Catholic college at Sydney University and I’ll be starting a Masters in Ed/Diploma of Ed (a fancy term for a masters with a teaching certificate as near as I can tell) and I’ll be starting that program in the fall (Jan/Feb, here). So that’s a big woot. I’m hopeful I’ll be given advanced standing because of all the Graduate work I’ve done previously and be able to knock that degree out in one year. That would be a bonus.



So, our school holidays started two weeks ago and are almost over (wha….? Where’d they go?) As we started to shut down for the holidays we fare welled our Year 12 (Seniors) who will now only return to the school to do their HSC (High School Certificate) Exams which will control: A) Which universities they are admitted to and B) What they are allowed to study there. Yes, you read that correctly. Your course of studies is limited here by how well you do on exams at the end of secondary education. Talk about a little pressure to put on some kids… So we had Valete (farewell) festivities for a few days, the Year 12s acted like idiots for a few days (pranks, and nothing really clever or original, I thought. Only destructive and vandalistic. My respect for them dropped markedly in those last days.) Then I went off on Cadet Bivouac (camp) out on a military range a few hours north of Sydney. Which gave me a chance to walk in the bush and watch the boys do their cadets thing. The funniest part, for me, was watching the Year 7 Cadets on their first camp. Now, understand that most of these boys are urban dwellers from parts of Sydney. Many of them have never been further than about a meter from pavement their whole lives. When you go out to the bush, the sounds of cars disappear and are replaced by…what I consider…nature sounds. For boys of about 12 who have never heard them before, and never been somewhere where there are no streetlights, it can be a scary experience. For me, it was immensely amusing. Especially when you convince them that kangaroos really are carnivorous and that if you leave your fee outside their tents at night, they will nibble them off. A few bumps and bruises, a major bloody nose a few cases of stomachaches, brought on by major sugar overdoses were about the only trauma suffered. Other than a couple cases of major “I wanna go HOME!” home sickness (they stayed and had a ball) it was all good times. And the cadet unit does some need things too. Rappelling (abseiling here), land navigation, archery, and…hovercrafting. Yes, the unit has 3 hovercraft that were designed and fabricated by one of the teachers at school and they are very impressive in action. The boys drive them out on the lake near where we are camped. They don’t move fast but they do skim water and land on a cushion of air. At least as impressive is the cooking that a team of fathers does for the duration of the camp. About 12 dads cooking up a storm. Seriously, there is something just…wrong…with having a choice of 3 different entrees for dinner each night. It goes against the whole point of going to the woods somehow. My suggestion that we ‘eat what we catch’ was met with disdain. So we didn’t.

Following cadets I went to New Zealand for a few days to meet with Bishop Pat Dunn, his education delegate and the group of people there who so desperately want a Jesuit school in Auckland. It was a really good trip for a whole variety of reasons. Not the least of which is that it helped to remind me of why I do what I’m doing here in Australia. I’ve really come to love Australia a great deal. But my heart and real home will always be in New Zealand. It’s just…the air, the people…everything there make it easy for me to feel like I know what I’m doing and that that is what I’m supposed to be doing. It was brief. All too brief. Long story short, things are going well there and we’re probably about 4-5 years from getting the doors open on the school. Some people seem to think that this is a long time. Clearly anyone who thinks that has never worked through a Ministry of Education that funds the construction and upkeep and teacher’s salaries of a school. In New Zealand. But things are going well, overall. Kia Kaha, Aoeteroa.
I got back from New Zealand on Sunday night at 10pm. On Monday I was off for 4 days on a Kairos retreat with some Year 11 boys. As always Kairos/Encounters are wonderful, grace-filled things that will keep you up to 4am at least one night and draw a group of people much, much closer to God. And this one was no exception. Good stuff.

I got back from that on Thursday night and yesterday I went to the physiotherapist for a nagging shoulder injury. Get this; two years in a paratrooper division, four in Special Forces, two combat tours in Afghanistan, and what is it that nearly incapacitates me? Writing report cards. A couple of weeks before school was out, I spent three days at my desk writing reports and comments for report cards. And on the fourth day, my left arm was practically useless. Thinking I had just tweaked it in the weight room, I kept on for about a week before it became too bad for me to handle with just Motrin and stretching. Luckily, I ran in to an Old Boy (alumnus) of the school who runs a physiotherapist business who has done marvels on my shoulder using a traditional treatment of Chinese medicine called GuaSha. So following a follow up which left me looking contused and like I’d been attacked by a giant squid, what is the logical thing to do? Go to the beach of course. So I’m up here at Newport for a day or so. I watched a couple of movies last night, fixed myself some pasta, slept next to an open window facing the beach so I could hear the surf all night, went for a cold morning fin, and, as I was writing earlier today, I watched from the house as two dolphins played out in front of the house. That’s what I’ve really needed. I’ve also spent some time catching up on the Black Death and Feudal Japan since I’m picking up a Year 8 History class and I have to do a 2-week unit on the Black Death and spend the rest of the Term (about 5 weeks) on Feudal Japan. The Feudal Japan thing will be easy, but I had to do some digging (which has been very informative) about the Black Death. That was a crazy couple years, it looks like.

I am also preparing to coach basketball. No, you’re right, I don’t know anything about basketball. Aside from lots and lots of pickup ball I don’t know much about it. But I’ve watched Coach Carter with Samuel L. Jackson and, I have been told, I have the ultimate weapon which will strike fear into the hearts of our opponents: An American Accent. So you need to pray for the 10 D & E teams since they will be my experimentees teams. I may not be able to teach them a lot about basketball, but I can guarantee they will be the team in the best shape on the court. Physical conditioning I can do. And my sister generously sent me 4 books about coaching and drills. One of which is “The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Coaching Youth Basketball.” So I’m covered.

That’s about it for now, but for those of you who want a couple of recommendations, keep on reading my:

RANTS AND RAVES
In an unconventional thing, for me, I want to recommend a couple things to readers. First, I want to recommend The Gaslight Anthem, a New Jersey punk band. Although, if you’re thinking Mohawks and screaming in to the mic, I suggest you reconsider. They cite among their influences, fellow Jersey Boy Bruce Springsteen. And, in my opinion, the influence is all too obvious. They sound like a young, a very young Bruce, circa The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle. They’re really, really good. You can, for now, skip their first album (Sink or Swim) and go back later if you want, but for now, run, do not walk (or go to iTunes, I don’t care) and download The ’59 Sound. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. My favorite tracks include: Miles Davis and the Cool with its heavy syncopation and brilliant lyrics and Here’s Looking At You Kid with it’s Western-tinged guitars and lonely-hearts club lyrics.

I also want to recommend Lars and the Real Girl, which I finally just got around to watching. It got all these really incredible reviews last year and I was skeptical about a movie which features a sex doll as a co-star, thinking it would be something in the mold of American Pie, but it really wasn’t. On the contrary it was a quite little comedy set against the backdrop of a mid-west winter and it’s the story of a man learning to love and engage his world. The acting is top notch, with Ryan Gosling giving a great performance as the title character. Paul Schneider is brilliant too as his brother who both loves and is frightened by his brother’s behavior and feels somewhat responsible. Rush out and rent it right now.