Its Friday morning - Elli and Ken are at work, Emily's at school, Rachael is in bed ( I have not seen her, only heard a few weak words to Mom) and Mom and I have finished breakfast on another nice Queensland day. Showers are predicted for the next week so we have a mix of sun and clouds with temp in the upper 80s with a breeze - very nice.
Last night Mom and I went to the Hillbrook school wide celebration of the year, i.e awards for acheivement, effort, and commitment for all the classes. It was held at the Anglican Cathedral - an impressive gothic structure completed a few yars ago. It confirms that the great gothic cathedrals are great for vocal music - the school choirs did two numbers that were very nice, one accompanied by powerful drums and trumpets - but not for speaking. When the first ones were built the Mass was said in Latin which few understood and often chanted. Even with the latest technology, the acoustics were awful - I came out with stressed shoulders from straining to understand. Fortunately, most of the ceremony was devoted to names being called out and students walking up to get awards. That was easy - just looking. They had a TV screen inplace of the altar and several cameras trained on the recipients. What a contrast between the beautiful dresses and careful grooming of the girls and the grubbiness of most of the boys. Occasionally boys wore kahki slacks and a white dress shirt, a few times with tie, but most were in t-shirts, jeans, a few shorts, and very sloppy. My sexist reactions were negative and I would have them all in school uniform if that is the way young men dress for an evening of celebration - I see it as a sexist put down of the girls reflecting an attitude of, "Its their role to dress up and look nice for me but I can do anything - no need to show the girls, or anyone else, any respect - I can do whatever I want." I'm gald to see Matt has a 'preppy' wardrobe - it may be just as sexist but he does have a nice style of dress for many occasions. Enough from the old generation on that.
There were two talks - the head gave an interesting but totally inappropriate, too long speech on passion and its role in success. One clever point at the end compared fast food chains - conformity, identical food world wide, same logos, etc. with the Michelin Restaurant Guide which sets out criteria for excellence and then encourages individuality and passion in each restaurant in a competition to achieve Michelin's famous and prized four star status. The highlight of the evening were three speakers - an Aussie that worked to get street kids in Hanoi off the streets and two women -20 year olds - who had been rescued and were now passionately following an education - inspiring,
With all the turmoil of the night before and the day and the need to have someone stay with Rachael, Elli and Ken decided not to go after Emily announced she had two assignments to complete and did not want to attend. She had been saying that since we arrived but we assumed she would come with us but the undone homework trumped attendance at the celebration. For us it was a treat seeing Hillbrook on display. They have the ceremony down well but no one can rein in the Head - the result instead of ending at the scheduled 9, we left at 9:30 -with still two things to come but Ken was going to pick us up at the train station. He had driven us in which was such a help.
We'll keep you posted on the next developments. We'll go to graduation even if Rachael isn't able. She sure looked awful last night and the cloudy area on her lung looks huge to me although it isn't very dark - from a medic's view I recall the very dark spots are the most dangerous.
Love to all. Enjoy the Boulder snow. Hope our leaves were raked but if not, they can be done when the snow melts. We did make arrangement for it to be done by Recession Yard Work. Also, Keith Donohue and Karen had a baby girl on Nov. 4th so hopefully he can get to the deck building after mid-month.
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