After receiving my Monash “enrolment” package I decided to begin the whole enrolment process. So after creating my Novell account I began to see if I could complete the rest of the enrolment process which unfortunately it seems like I can’t until tomorrow or something like that. In other news the Year 12 magazine seems to be going at a very slow pace with very little done over the last few days, I hope we can get a bit done today and over the next week before all the staff get here.

Well 2007 has finally ended and what a year it has been. It amazes me just how fast 2007 went, it seems like it was only yesterday that I was recapping 2006. So here’s what happened in my life in 2007.

• Turned 18 (probably the biggest thing to happen)
• Subsequently went to Crown and a great time was had by all (you all know the story)
• Got my license (again a very big thing)
• Began, and successfully completed Year 12
• Graduated from Haileybury.
• Went to the Year 12 Formal
• My Great Grandmother passed away
• Had a fantastic year as a School Prefect and Vice Captain of Editorial
• Bought an iPod (who’d of thought!)
• Also bought a GPS (yeah I know it was only a couple of days ago but it was a highlight of 2007)
• Went to the Boxing Day Test
• Drastically improved this blog by getting a domain name, a host and moving it to the Wordpress platform
• Went to Sydney to visit my brother and see the city (twice)
• Went down to Phillip Island for ’schoolies’
• Saw the school play ‘Inheritance’
• Saw the school musical ‘Fame’
• Saw the Castlefield musical “A High School Musical” (Luke also went to see it as he “received” tickets for his birthday)
• Applied for University, and received my VCE results.

So that’s 2007 in review, I wish everyone a happy new year and I look forward to recapping what I hope will be a wonderful 2008.

This morning I headed into our Brighton campus to take photos of the new Senior School they have there. It’s quite a nice building and certainly much better than many of the other run down Castlefield buildings. I managed to get a few good photos although the weather was against me. I was surprised to learn that only 11 boys chose to stay at Castlefield which was quite odd, especially compared to Edrington where the vast majority stayed, although I certainly think that those that made the move made the right decision as Senior School (Keysborough) is a great place to be. Watto was his usual self, cracking lame jokes and failing to wear matching pants and jacket. Now tomorrow I will be heading to our friends down in Berwick before coming back up to Senior School and after all that my marketing run will be over.

Today was one of those very interesting days that ensured I didn’t have a moment of free time (except for the time I spent at the cafe). After the usual mundane double math, I headed over to the office to ask scotty to pay for something. In the end he did which was good as I wasn’t expecting him to go for it.

I then headed to the hall only to discover that certain staff had decided that the only “usable” computer in the school was now to be only used by those ” that need to be using it”. So I went and hassled some other staff to convince them to provide an Editorial computer where we can actually sort through the photos without students constantly coming up to us and asking for a copy (the answer to that question is absolutely no), anyway in short lawso said that if I can find a spot and the money then yeah not a problem but until then I will have to resort to using his computer or another private computer.

So I then went and bitched to IT, which later led to me having to apologise to IT. After that I cracked the shits with a certain junior precinct and then went to PD, of which I spent the entire time sitting there bored. During lunch I had a high powered leadership meeting which was were I was told to apologise to IT and then spent the rest of the time sitting at the cafe contemplating how in the world I could get a copy of a completed maths assignment to cheat off (Luke initially promised one but then disappeared for the rest of the day).

Finally after many months I’ve actually managed to have a quite weekend, with all the usual busyness of course. On Saturday I went down to school and took photos of sport. After that however I went home and simply watched some DVD’s I have been meaning to watch and overall just relaxed. Unfortunately my next few (about eight) weekends aren’t going to be so quiet as I try and cram as much in before the holidays. Also my brothers dog (Attilla) won some award at a dog show yesterday, best in breed or something like that. I wasn’t even aware he entered his dogs in shows but hey, everyone has there little quirky traits (not as bad as dog shows though).

I got home at about 5:45pm today and spent until 8:30pm sending emails. The recipients have ranged from Vice-Principals to the Director of the OHA. Basically my time is being consumed by school work (not the academic kind) with everyone requiring confirmation, or clarification or approval for something. I also managed to get out of turning up to the Autumn Sports Presentation Night which is good because those sport nights have to be one of the most boring events known to man (Speech Nights are worse however).

Anyway on Saturday I headed down to Keysborough and took some photos of Firsts Soccer (they lost), Firsts Hockey (they lost), Firsts Football (they lost), Firsts Rugby (they lost) and Firsts Netball (they won!!). Overall it wasn’t an overly exciting day with the usual awesome photos on my behalf. Even Lawson was impressed with my soccer photos, which is unusual for him.

The upcoming week will feature a SAC, two Haileybury Online presentations (yay!!!) and some more sports photos. In some slightly more exciting news, in a couple of weeks I will be visiting Castlefield for a day which is good as I always enjoy going to visit our Brighton friends.

Also someone asked me the other day why I bother updating this thing, and the answer is because if I don’t I get these nagging people asking me to update it. I even receive emails from people asking me to update it (seriously people, get a life of your own, I don’t even find mine all that exciting so I don’t know how you possibly could).

Tonight was a busy night at school, with the Aerobics & Dance Display Night, and the subject info night as well. I of course as usual took photos of both. I was a little disappointed with the Aerobics photos but they are usable though so thats alright. After the display night we headed up to Springvale and had dinner which was nice and then of course drove home and I have subsequently spent hours touching up photos.

On Friday I went and saw the school play, Inheritance. I must say It was brilliant, a big improvement over last year’s Romeo & Juliet (which just went on and on and on). On the technical side everything went off without a hitch (to the best of the audiences knowledge). Overall it was a brilliant night, however I did have to stand up during the second act as those damn black chairs are impossible to sit in for more than an hour.

On Saturday I had the usual job of taking photos of sport which was pretty boring. However we have now covered Boys and Girls Firsts Soccer as well as Boys Hockey and Martial Arts. After sport I headed home, and then went up to Chadstone. I ended up buying Frasier Season 5 on DVD (I already had 1-4) and picked up a couple of politics and foreign policy magazines from Borders.

On another note it is my brothers 26th birthday today, he’s enjoying his new job up at Sydney and says it’s much better than his boring, stressful one in Melbourne. He ended up getting a gift voucher from Mum to buy some furniture for his new house, and managed to win $7 on a scratchie I put in his card (He usually never wins a thing). Anyway I’m now sitting here watching National Lampoons European Vacation on Foxtel.

Today was an extremely busy day, as I needed to see some people about work which was pretty boring and overall pointless (at least I get paid ). I then spent about 30 minutes on hold for Telstra’s business support to fix up a billing issue, they tried to blame me and it was only when I challenged this they admitted that it was their fault. After my Telstra dose I headed down to school to offer my moral support to all the technical crew (I didn’t actually do anything technical related), but I managed to speak to Ms. Hill which was good. After “helping” at school I then headed into JB Hi-Fi to pick up a MiniSD card for my phone, I managed to get a 1Gb Sandisk for $29 (got it reduced from $33 ). After reveling in my awesome bargaining power and the $4 I saved I then made my way to Caulfield and had lunch (at 3:30pm). I then spent the rest of the afternoon getting prices for the Nokia N95 (for my boss), anyway it will cost a small fortune (about $1250) but that’s the phone he wants so that’s the phone he will get (he reminds me of a certain principal I know ). I’m now sitting down watching the football (Collingwood Vs Richmond), I was going to go but decided that I really can’t be bothered.

Also another note to a certain Connex cynic who shall remain nameless (his blog can be found at http://www.jamesx.net), I caught 5 trains today, and they were all on time (one was 2 minutes late to be accurate). The buses however were a different story (both of them more than 10 minutes late).

Also this is post #98

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.