Transfixed

In an experiment, if you change all the variables at once, you have no way of knowing which one is causing the result. Maybe isolating direct causes though, is mostly for a problem solving season. When the results are good there is no urgency to chase down culprits.

My physics students, I think there are six of them now, have each carefully constructed a pendulum. They varied the length today and measured how long five full swings took. On Friday they'll see what changing the mass does, and hopefully have time to try a few different amplitudes as well. I have greatly enjoyed watching their faces as they watch the swinging mass. The first really useful clock, that vaulted Galileo into trouble and notoriety, visibly fascinates them.

Yesterday I was worried about my own two kids older and their first day of school. And I was worried about me surviving a day with five different groups in five periods. Prayer and fitful sleep were followed by my first journey into school driving the car by myself. It involved several roundabouts on the road, three of which I took the wrong exit on, and all three ended me up in mall parking lots. I was so early for work that there was a gate locked across the parking lot entrance. Little did I know that the same key that opened my classrooms would have worked on it. So I parked and steeled my nerves with a loud dose of Mumford and Sons. I took them into my class as well and their choral anthems, wailing banjos and redemptive lyrics got me on a great footing for an adrenaline packed and successful teaching day. My kids, back in Titahi Bay, did even better than I did. They had won face paint, the affection of friends and teachers and many brash scrapes on elbow and under chin. The wounds came from a bush called "the Booby Trap Tree".

After dinner we actually had to go back to the school to see this wonderful plant, as amazing as a pendulum, but a lot harder to describe. This bush was just under two metres tall, but perhaps 25 m in circumference. From the outside you could see mostly a dense net of fragrant coniferous foliage woven with some very twisted but strong wood branches.  Closer to the ground, at the bottom of the hill on which it stood, you could see that hundreds of kid-hours had hollowed out the underneath. Decades of recess play had worn some of the bigger limbs smooth, and pounded out paths and tunnels. To unleash the glory of the trap, you clamber over the top, and know for certain that you are going to fall awkwardly through into the tunnels beneath. But when and where will you puncture the roof? The top looks solid enough, but some parts can JUST barely hold a kid, and some can't. So as hard as you are working to imagine this thing, imagine harder and put 20 kids in the caves below, and 10 on top, constantly surprised as to when and where and how they will land on top of their friends. Needless to say, on any Canadian playground this thing would have gotten the chainsaw decades ago, but at St. Pius X it is an imperious piece of playground equipment, defying its more expensive rivals to be anywhere near as fun.

The learning curve at Porirua College has been steep and pleasant like many of the hikes around here. Every one of my colleagues is a patient help as I navigate the physical buildings,  the computerized data systems, the culture of the students and the NZ standardized evaluation procedures. Its a small staff, but we work in even smaller groups often alternating between planning with the science department and the house. The house is a subgroup of the school. Each one has a building, a quarter of the students, a colour and a team of teachers from across subject areas. I teach science for the Kenepuru house, proudly blue, and on display for you below.

Meetings are incredibly frequent which is ideal for someone in my position.

From the moment we glimpsed New Zealand the stimulation to each and every member of the family has been a palpable blessing. Its good to know wonder freshly, and to see it not only in the eyes of children but to really feel it personally. On Saturday I went out late at night to see the stars, navigating a grassy climbing path perilously close to a cliff and soaking in the indulgent freedom of a 360 degree panoramic sky view. The romance of it all for me was only enhanced when I saw two ancient locals stumbling towards me once I returned to civilization. It seems the Mariner Pub had turned them out just after 10 and they were attempting to jump up and reach tree branches high enough for men half their age to have no business attempting. Then they saw me, and stopped giggling to say "Should we let 'im pass or should we kick 'is @#" ???

I told them that there was precious little to kick and they immediately latched onto my foreigners accent and asked if I had brought any beer from Canada for them. "You've already had yours lads!" I said. Titahi Bay, born and raised and great at shaking hands those fellas.

Tomorrow is Waitangi Day, a first opportunity to celebrate the treaty between Maori and the Queen, and so I feel there is enough breathing space to halt the adventures long enough tonight to type in a tiny fraction of what they have been to me and to us.