Made an interesting observation yesterday in a conversation with friends about Santa and whether to have santa or not. I noticed that there were a lot more people on the side of no or at least could understand that than there would have been a few years ago even. Before most people would've just said oh don't be silly or something along those lines. So it was interesting to see that that is starting to change and people are deciding not to have santa. It wouldn't be any noticable impact yet but it seems that there is starting to be a decline in santa. Last year I knew 1 or 2 families that didn't do santa but this year it's about 5 or more plus I know several others who don't have children yet but say they won't have santa either. The predominant reason for it is the stranger danger contradiction of santa. Like that you teach your kids that they shouldn't talk to strangers and not to take stuff from them but then santa is a stranger who we then tell them to talk to and take stuff from. Other reasons though not as big are religious and the comercialisation of christmas aspect of santa. Anyway it's just what I've noticed around here don't know what it's like everywhere else but thought it was interesting.

Book 12
I read this one really quickly and thought it was a great novel. This is the first Koontz book I've read a friend recommended him to me and I'm so glad she did. I'm trying to get hold of some of his others so if anyone has recomendations let me know. Anyway this book is about a guy that works at the local tavern and when he leaves work he finds a note left on his windshield that gives him a choice. He can go to the police and an elderly woman active in charity work will die or not and a pretty school teacher will die. He of course thinks its a joke and ignores it. The notes continue to come and the things they say happen. The deadlines get shorter and shorter and the person he loves most is threatened and he has to do all he can to protect her and find the killer.

I also read C is for Corpse by Sue Grafton and am currently reading the nanny diaries.

I am going to be buying a new piano in the next week or so hopefully. It will be a digital one. I'll grab a link to the one I'm thinking of getting. I'll talk to me piano teacher on monday about it and see what she thinks and presuming that it is okay I'll buy it during the week. I've been saving up for it over the summer.

http://www.yamahamusic.com.au/products/musicalinstruments/ydp/ydp-131.asp - This one is cheaper and I can afford it now but from the specs (at least the ones that I care about) this one is better than the more expensive one. The other one is this http://www.roland.com/products/en/RP101/specs.html

Work has been going well I made a lot over the summer which is good. The overnight went well though I discovered I can be really jumpy when I'm responsible for children at night and am sleeping in a house I'm not used to. I ended up getting sleep in hour blocks before I'd wake up from some noise or one of the kids had woken. School is back and my other families are back from holidays now and I'm taking them again. This week is busy because everyone is back but should settle down again. March seems to be a busy time though not sure why that is. I have one other new family (can't remember if I mentioned them before) and they are really good and it has a lot of potential opportunities. I do a Tuesday night and usually a weekend night/day for them each week so that is good. We get along well. The kid is a 17mo old girl and she's really easy to look after. They travel a lot and affter I've worked for them for a while they are looking at taking me with them. Obviously not until I'm pretty comfortable with them and vice versa cos I'll be with them most of the time.

Okay well results came out yesterday for all those that care I'll post them up - Prac turned out to be a pass

My Grade Report > Semester 2 - 2007 > Undergraduate > The University of Newcastle
Course	Class Name	Official Grade	Grade Input	Units
EDST 1200	Soc & Environ Studies Curic	C	72	10.00
EDST 2060	Professional Experience 2	UP	UP	10.00
EDST 3070	Early Childhood Literacies	C	69	10.00
EDST 3080	Prog Devel & Evaluation	C	65	10.00

C is credit
UP is ungraded pass - pracs aren't graded they are just pass/fail
My marks are usually a little higher but I haven't done as bad as I thought and I slacked off a lot this year.

So I'll continue with the normal progression for next year except for internship which I obviously can't do until I do prac 3 which will be in 2nd semester next year. I was thinking I could try and negotiate to do prac in semester one and internship in 2 but I think it will be too much and the semester one subjects are quite busy. It means I'll graduate a year later but oh well. They might let me do my internship in semester 1 2009 so I can graduate in July instead of waiting til Feb 2010. It doesn't really matter though I'll just get a nanny job or something for the first half of 2009 and then do internship in the second half. Though it means that I'll only be part time which I think messes up stuff for Dad or mum with centrelink but not sure. It will only be a year so I guess from end of next year I'll just stop being a dependent.

Well it's time for NTE again. So I will be away from now until the 9th. My mission team this year is going to Harrington Park so that will be different to Orange. I'm leading the youth group while we're there so that will be interesting. Anyhow not that anyone much cares but wanted to let you know.

Okay well it was my birthday last Friday. I was at my church camp for the weekend. I had a great time. We had a chocolate cake which was really nice. I ate the piece with my name on it but then realised that my name when written on cake is actually long and it was a big cake anyway so I was like oh I can't eat it all. So I saved it and finished it on saturday.

I got lots of presents which is something I'm not used to.
I got a new bag which is really nice. I've been meaning to get a new one so that's good.
A sun catcher which has a bible verse on it - it's pretty and has butterflies and flowers on it.
A koorong gift card (the christian book shop around here)
A book with pictures and Bible verse it's really pretty to and I love it
A bath/shower gift pack
A gift card for dymocks (a book shop)
A note book
and some money.

So that was really good. I'm going out soon to use the koorong card and maybe the dymocks one if I can get there.

These actually came back last week but I don't think I mentioned it here. Most likely because I was upset about them. For no logical reason of course because I did really well. I was just annoyed at myself for thinking that AMEB would actually give me the distinction mark even when every other time they've always found something stupid to pull me up for. Why would it be any different this time. Anyway I got 93 by the way. 96 is a distinction. The mark I am annoyed about is in the definitions part where what I wrote was exactly right except I had a comma and not brackets but it still made sense and it was the exact words from the book except that I had , forced instead of (forced). Ah so annoying. The other ones were more legitimate one was my melody writing which is the one part I seem to have problems with. The other was a tricky turnary pattern where the repeat had only about four notes the same as the first. Like how am I meant to spot that. In fact I did but I said binary because the rest of it was so different.

Well today marks 5 years since the Bali bombing. I can still remember that day and the days after finding out about it and trying to find out about friends who we hadn't heard from yet. I had a Japanese exchange student over (who I'd be going to stay with in a couple of months) and we'd gone away for a couple of days and so I didn't hear about it straight away I heard on the radio as we came back and from phone calls from others. I remember being at church that weekend and all of us teen were huddled in the back corner after church talking about it and asking if anyone had heard from our friends yet - no one had then but it was mostly family they were doing and so we had to wait to get word from the family. Anyway our friends were okay (as in alive) and we heard from them a few days later.

I just wanted to do a post so that it's remembered and because to me this one is more significant the september 11 but it seems Bali is so much easily forgotten. I can't remember the numbers I think it was about 200 dead all up and 88 Australian.