Last night months of hard work finally paid off, with the Haileybury Year 12 Boys Formal. Overall it was a good night, with Dale the DJ providing some classics. A quick mention has to go to Pat who I think sat down for maybe a whole ten minutes throughout the night, he was absolutely crazy (and without drugs too!!). I ended up getting home at about 4:00am (after waiting 45 minutes for a taxi) after I got sick of the after party ( I was way too tired and Pat was boring). A very quick mention must also got to Mr. Fernandez and Mrs. Fraser-Jones who were doing some awesome dancing on the dance floor, however even they couldn’t compete with Pats moves.

One of the things that I wanted to do before I die is have a money fight. Well today I got to do that, we got to throw $18,000 in cash around the room, and I had the pleasure of throwing thousands of dollars at our school captain. The money was all the money that has been paid by students for the formal, and we had the pleasure of counting it all and making sure it all added up (and throwing it at each other). In other news the formal is going as planned and is looking ready for Friday night, it’s going to be awesome guys.

If you haven’t bought your tickets I urge you all too tomorrow, it’s $140 per couple.

Unfortunately last night my Great-Grandmother passed away, aged 86. She was born in Cramlington, Northumberland, England, United Kingdom on 26/07/1920 and passed away peacefully in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 22/03/2007. She trained and worked as a nurse, before emigrating to Australia in the 60’s. She married Robert William Woods (1918-1990) and had one daughter, Sylvia Woods (1939-). She was affectionately called ‘Nanna Whiskey’ after her beloved cat “Whiskey”. She is survived by her daughter Sylvia, grandchildren Andrea & Stuart and great-grandchildren Tim, Matthew, James, Tayler, Amelia & Elizabeth.

I found out she passed away last night, and the funeral is next Wednesday. Unfortunately she spent the last 15 years of her life in a nursing home as her health slowly deteriorated. While I cannot remember much of her when she was young and in good health, what I do remember will last a lifetime.

It may surprise you to read that our wonderful school captain, Sahil Shekhar reads my humble blog. The first comment he made to me about it was “why am I not on it?” so here’s an ego booster; an entire post.

Sahil attended the Newlands precinct where it quickly became clear that he had leadership potential. He excelled in academics, as well as extra-curricular activities. The Head of Newlands describes him as an excellent student and a credit to the Newlands precinct. When he arrived at the Senior School it quickly became clear that he would one day (in 2007) be School Captain. Sahil is a member of the Touch team (this is the only negative thing I can say about him), and is a kind and conscientious student who is always willing to volunteer his time and integrity to help others out. Overall a top bloke, who’s only weakness is he cares too much. If you ever seem around the school, say hi, or buy him a drink. If you see him out on the town buy him a drink, hell who knows he may even shout you a round!

Sahil, I salute you.

My travels between school and home are usually boring and rather non-eventful. They usually involve some conversations with Pat and a lot of money spent on pointless sms’s, phone calls and the occasional mms. Today however was rather different with a Haileybury Year 11 student being mugged at the station. The student is alright, and the actual mugging was rather uneventful, the thieves only managed to escape with about $3.50 worth of coins after the student convinced the muggers to give his iPod back.

In other news the formal is coming up, so everyone buy your tickets ASAP as we will stop selling them on Friday.

There are a number of things that piss me off about our school, and it seems this week I have encountered all of them. As you are all probably aware everyone; administration, teachers, students and even IT techs are ridiculously busy. Hence why I always try and go out of my way to make things just a little easier for everyone else, and in return I ask that they pay the same courtesy to me.

However this last week (actually the last 2 days) nearly every staff member I deal with has pissed me off, this is basically through their inability to perform the job that they get paid to do.

For example when I send an email with a query or instruction, I can reasonably expect a response within 7 days. So here I am wondering why an email that has been sent on the 8th December, re-sent on the 27th January and again sent on the 14th and 28th February is yet to receive a response, now of course there is an easy way to deal with this and that is simply refer it to the principal.

I could also reasonably expect that if a point of contact for a certain department or area within the school changes, that I am notified of this so that I do not waste my time trying to contact that staff member (why the staff member didn’t email me back and say they no longer handled this area is beyond me). I was of course not notified of this until today when I found out by asking a senior member of staff. This has been referred to a Vice-Principal.

I could also reasonably expect that any policy changes that are made that directly effect myself or the work I do is passed onto me. I do not appreciate being told two weeks before the end of term that things are going to be done a different (and more time consuming) way this year. This has been referred to the Principal.

Also if a staff member takes actions that I believe have not been what I requested and have not been told about (I discovered it) then I would expect that the particular staff member in question fix this issue if I request it, but of course I have to go through the usual bureaucratic nonsense. This has been referred to a Vice-Principal.

And finally I beleive I could also reasonably expect to be told I have to turn up to events before the actual day, I really don’t find it all that difficult to give the school at least a weeks notice if I am unable to be somewhere, so why can’t they at least give me 24 hours. This has been referred to Head of Precinct.

Basically as you see that I am so fed up with being stuffed around that I have taken the step to make complaints about all of them to the people that can actually make a difference. I of course am realistic and know that the majority of the problems that I have highlighted will never be fixed, or will only be fixed for a short period. However I am confident that all matters referred to the Principal will be dealt with as he made it clear last year that if it continued to happen then he would like to be contacted and would of course take action. Sorry about the long post but I feel that I had to get that off my chest.

Sorry about the lack of posts but I have been unable to find any amount of spare time (until now) in which I have been able to write a post. Anyway the last week has been relatively unventful, however endless piles of paperwork, emails, meetings and complaints have ensured that I haven’t been able to do anything but school related tasks all week. They didn’t even give me my public holiday on Monday as I had to come into school to take photos of the Year 10 play full dress rehearsal.

This coming week is most likely going to be just as busy with the Year 12 formal (which I’m helping organise) being less than two weeks away. Don’t forget to buy your tickets, they are $140 per couple (or $70 for a single) and a late fee of $10 per couple will be charged at some point this week (sorry can’t remember the day). Staff are welcome to attend (for $30 each I think).

Also the graduation power point is well on its way, I’ve created it and added everyones names and some photos. Your probably wondering why I’m doing the graduation slide show in March and the answer is I don’t want a repeat of last year where it was still being finished off 45 minutes before graduation. Hope you all had a good school free weekend.

Well it has been an exciting and tiring long weekend so far. Yesterday after going to school in the morning I headed into the city to spend 4 hours walking around with Luke listening to him complaining about how he hadn’t bought anything yet. In the end he ended up buying some DVD thing. Overall it was a fairly good day, and I got to visit some stores that I had never (and will never again) step foot in, including some comic book store and minotaur (I hope I spelt it right). James Lescohier managed to piss me off buy eating all my KFC chips which are my favourite part of the meal.

After my city adventure I was then dragged along to my grandmothers to have dinner, what really pissed me off is the fact that I went all the way home and then had to head into Toorak which was really annoying (I only live in Murrumbeena but it was still an inconvenience). Today I have done absolutely nothing, but my parents did go to some small country town I have never heard of to visit some market that “rivals Red Hill market” (what ever the hell that means).

Also tomorrow I will be heading down to school to take photos of the Year 10 play (they don’t even give me long weekends) which sucks but then again it’s not like I have a life (at least according to the school).

Due to me getting a new phone I forgot to mention another major thing that happened on the weekend. Our tyrannical 3 Zone transport system became two zones, so how does this affect me your asking, well the answer is not at all except for the fact that my tax dollars are paying for some nice new transport maps, but apart from that I receive absolutely no benefit. Oh well.

As many of you are aware I lost my phone last Monday on the bus, and subsequently had to spend the whole week without a mobile (well I actually spent more on Pat’s mobile than what I usually do on mine). So yesterday I headed up to the Three shop with my parents and we signed up for the $29 Cap. So I now have a new phone, which is a Nokia 6288 and $130 worth of calls each month (plus an extra $70 dollars so I can talk to Pat and Luke who are both on 3). I’ve always been skeptical about Nokia’s but I must admit this is an awesome phone. Also in other news Zeya (the lost white fluffy dog) is now up in Sydney with my brother.