fish conspiracies and shitty schools.

I'm fine, really I am. I know I've been whinging alot lately, what with the arm and the jaw and the dead fish. But over the past week, most of that has been resolved. My arm has almost straightened out and I'm going to the physiotherapist this morning for some ultra-sound treatment. It's going to be stiff for a while, but I can handle that. My jaw is starting to relax and come good, for which I am very pleased. Better still, the pain that made it feel like I'd been kicked in the face with a pair of Doc Martins, has subsided. The doctor told me last week just to relax and it will come good. He was right and I was just panicking like an idiot. I can't open wide enough to bite down on a hamburger yet, but that's not a bad thing, not at all. I'm sure I'll be eating hamburgers by the end of the month. Hmmm - maybe that's a bad thing.

The fish conspiracies are over. I think the it was the girl fish's fault. She killed all the other fish so that she could find the boy that she wanted to have children with - yes, there are baby fish in the tank and really, I don't know how they got there because I didn't ever see any eggs. Go figure? Are fish eggs so tiny that we wouldn't even see them? We look into that thing every single day and didn't see anything that remotely resembled fish eggs. Maybe our fish are special - maybe these are live birth fish - you know like a shark or a dolphin! Or maybe, because I was looking for something that resembles caviar, I completely missed it. Who knows? I don't. Whatever. The little buggers keep appearing and currently number 6. Everyday there are a couple more. Soon we will have more fish than we know what to do with. This one has ex really stumped (again) because he can't figure it out either. It's like the fish are messing with his mind... :) - HAH! I love it.

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The kids have exams this week. It's stressful for the kids and they do worry about their results. My son's maths teacher has said that if his students get a low mark, he will beat them. If he touches my son, I'll have more than words to say. I'll go to the principal and tell them that they are not to beat my kids under any circumstances. I'm sick of the threat hanging above the kids' heads. Although it's not illegal to cane kids here, it's not recommended either. Many teachers and parents disagree with the policy to cane, but many others endorse it and even tell the teachers "if he's naughty, give him a beating." They don't see anything wrong with it. But I personally hate the thought of a teacher, one who is supposed to nurture and motivate children, thinking that beating kids is the right and only way to go.

Last year for the first few weeks of school my daughter was coming home from school almost every day and telling me that the teacher had given her a beating (which comprises of a smack on the palm with a ruler or cane). The stress my daughter was experiencing because of this caused her to become more forgetful and her academic performance was dropping. Her enthusiasm for learning at school has dwindled to almost nothing and she resents the teachers instead of respecting them. It's so not what I wanted for my children's education.

This year is better because she has different teachers. But for every teacher who carries and uses a cane on the kids, there's potential for it to go out of control. Just recently, a teacher was charged with child abuse after he caned and injured a child. I read the education section in the newspaper and every few months this issue comes up. There's a debate about whether caning kids leads to control or not. It's a dicey issue. I know my own son behaves himself in school because he knows that if he doesn't, he'll get a beating. But I wonder whether he would really be naughty anyway. And of course, I know as a teacher, that there are wonderful ways to get children to behave themselves. As every week goes by, I am more and more dissatisfied with this system and am more and more motivated to get them home for their remaining school years.

Two days ago my son had a tummy virus that decided to assert itself at school. Result was that the teacher had him call me and ask to be picked up which I duly did. I found him walking around the school looking for me, covered in smeared, semi-washed-off vomit, holding his puke covered book. They didn't tell him to wait at the office and no-one was with him. I was not happy. He doesn't seem traumatised by it but I have to admit, I was a little. My poor gorgeous boy, wandering around like that. I'm thinking about writing to the school, but again, my passive nature doesn't want to cause trouble. Still, they are my kids and I need to stick up for them, even if it makes me uncomfortable. This is the second issue this week that I've felt the need to approach the school. The other one is the way my son is being taught (or not taught, as it turns out) maths. In his work book he'd made some really obvious errors with his subtraction problems and the teacher hadn't picked it up because he gets the kids to correct their own work while he calls out the answers. My son got almost all of the problems wrong because he was using the wrong method but of course the teacher didn't notice. If I hadn't picked it up myself, my son would have gotten a lot wrong in today's maths exam. Makes me want to home school both of them (or yes, pick them up and take them home). I must make sure to look at his books more often, so this doesn't happen again.


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Ex has done that thing he does when he's out of money and it's sent me into a semi spin. I thought he'd solved his income problem. Apparently not. I gave him a statement that showed him how much money he's actually borrowed (from our cc account). He didn't seem bothered by it. Perhaps he knows something I don't. I hope so. Please universe, let this man come to his senses and either get some steady work OR let us go home. And I don't say this to worry you - I still earn a little money. We are not starving or deprived in anyway, I just think it's the wrong way to go about things.