Well we all knew it was coming. Today’s lesson was CH (chick, punch, check etc) and this picture was the one that confused us.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to access the answer booklet so I haven’t been able to cheat like I did last time and find out once I got home. I honestly don’t know what the heck this is. A man. In a hat. With a whistle. In front of a game of noughts and crosses.

To go from bad to worse, this could well be part of the “No, this does not involve the CH sound” group, so it coud be absolutely ANYTHING!

Ideas?

Ok. Seriously. I am completely out of ideas for Music Monday. I have posted all my favourite songs, and all the songs I’ve come across on blogs that I have discovered that I like, so I need some help.

I need you, my lovely blog readers, to tell me your favourite song/s! I’m pretty much open to anything, except for songs with overly offensive lyrics or themes. I’ll probably feature most/all of your suggestions as Music Mondays at some point, so they have to be suitable for what I consider to be a PG-rated blog.

It’d help a lot if you could give me links to Youtube videos of these songs, but if you can’t, don’t worry, I’ll find it myself!

So…what’s your favourite song!?

I had an audition today, for a variety show with the same company I’m currently doing Oliver Twist with. I don’t know much about the show yet, mostly because not much has been decided, since the director was waiting to see what kind of people auditioned for it before deciding exactly what to do, which makes a lot of sense!

In other news, I bought a book today. The one pictured at left. I’ve been working on my uni assignment and so I haven’t read it yet, so I can’t write about it, but for those who are interested, here’s the book’s blurb (in image form to prevent it showing on Google)…

I’ve read other books by Fleur Beale before, and she’s quite a well-known author here in NZ, so I’m quite curious to see her take on this situation! For those of you who are wondering why the blurb is an image instead of just typed; it’s a long story. I visited this group about this time last year, and when I got back I posted a blog entry about them, writing about the experience and the things I had observed, and learned from the Q&A sessions we participated in.

Unfortunately the group did not appreciate this, and upon locating my website via what I suspect to be a Google Blog Alert email, contacted my lecturer telling him to tell me to remove what I had written. I was astounded by this. So astounded in fact, that I complied. Later on, having thought about it some more, I came to wish that I hadn’t taken it down. I still don’t think what I did was wrong.

Either way, this is the blog I posted at the time, explaining what had happened, and, in case you think this whole situation is so crazy that I made it up, it seems I’m not the only person who has fallen foul of this particular group. Shops stocking the book have had some problems too.

Yup. Should be some interesting reading.

This post is mostly for readers from New Zealand or Australia, but for anyone else still interested, the RSA has some good info about what ANZAC Day stands for.

Anyway! Because I am a leader within Girl Guiding NZ, I went to an ANZAC memorial service this morning. Along with the usual service content of prayers, hymns, poetry and wreath-laying, I spotted a few people wearing medals and various decorations that I assume belonged to their fathers/grandfathers.

Both of my grandfathers were war veterans, and I know mum has her father’s medals, which were left to her when he passed away in 1995. After we left the service, I asked her what she thought of the people who wore the things they had inherited, and whether or not she would ever consider doing so in memory of her father.

She said she wasn’t sure, and that although she understood that it was being done as a symbol of pride in their relatives, and she didn’t think her father would have objected to her wearing his, she didn’t know that she had the “right” to wear them or that it would feel appropriate.

When we got home, her younger sister phoned, and I asked her the same question. Obviously she doesn’t have the medals in her possession, but she said that even if she did have them, she definitely wouldn’t wear them since she wouldn’t feel like they were really hers to wear.

I also thought about what I’d do. Although I don’t typically attend ANZAC services (this year was the first year I have been, since I was a kid going as a Pippin and Brownie myself) I don’t think I would wear them if I did go. Although I certainly respect my “Poppa”, acknowledge the things he did and don’t think he would mind my wearing them, I don’t think it would feel right, especially since I was really young when he died and we never discussed the war or anything related to it. He lived in Dunedin so we never went to ANZAC services together. If we had, and it was our “thing”, perhaps I would feel differently.

I am aware, however, that the people I saw today are entitled to feel differently. I don’t know their family circumstances. Who knows, the veterans themselves might have asked their children or grandchildren to wear the medals to services on their behalf once they died or became too frail to attend in person, in which case it is obviously perfectly acceptable.

Either way, I’m interested in what other people think (as always), is this appropriate or not?

This morning I went outside to discover that while I was in the shower, the painters had already been hard at work painting the patio doors. I knew this was going to happen, and had planned to take proper Before and After photos as part of P365, but unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough and they were already painted before I got the chance, so instead of a proper Before photo, I had to dig up what I was surprised to find was the ONLY photo on my harddrive in which you can see the bits that used to be green! The side of the door on the right and the lighter green bit above the doors.

Isn’t it funny that they’d been green for 30+ years, and yet nobody had thought to take a photo of something so unexciting? Although oddly I did think to take a photo of balloons!? o.O