Well, since I have people asking, and I'm not so busy, I can actually write some things down without worrying at all.

Ah, freedom.

It's not what it's all cracked up to be, especially if you're heavily involved with other stuff in the real world.

Again, my apologies for not posting, but between the messes that are the 2004 Uni Games for Archery, and the MTeach, I haven't been in too much of a mood to write much.

But as things are now a lot better, I think I can.

Firstly, to answer the MTeach question.
Why did I drop out of Uni?

Well, technically, I haven't dropped out. But I have withdrawn my subjects for next semester, which makes me officially disenrolled from the university degree program.

Why? Well, there were several reasons I guess.

1) The biggest problem that I was having was my personal attention span. Since none of you have ever had classes with me (not even Luke), and have never seen me in lecutures and tutorials that did not interest me, would have never seen my fall asleep in 2 minutes flat, only to wake up 5 minutes before the end of the class.

The rate and frequency of this happening in the MTeach was around 80%.

What does this tell me? My mind and body is not interested in the dry and dull lecture materials presented to us in the Transmission teaching that they were so vocally against.

I felt that I was not giving my entire effort into doing this, and because of this, it would not make me into a good teacher if my attention span wasn't interested in what I would need to know and learn about to become the decent teacher I would like to be.

And of course, if I was at school, and the kids are giving dry presentations, how would they feel and react if the teacher was sleeping?! Not even a good idea for purpose of classrooom management.

2) The school environment.

It is truely scary what the schoolgrounds have degenerated to. From everything that we have been taught and exposed to, I have concluded that it is actually safer in Iraq than in a schoolground.
A highschool though, not a primary school.

Why? In Iraq, at least you know you're going to get shot at, and you're prepared for it, you're combat trained in some sense, and can actually protect yourself in some capacity.

In a school, it's a physical, mental and political minefield. You touch a kid, oops, child sex charges permanently on your record regardless if you are found innocent. You say a comment about something, oops, taken out of context misunderstanding leads to defamation and child abuse (of the mental kind), and well, the politics of a school, within it, outside it, and from kids who have powerful parents.

Truely something I do not think I am prepared enough to enter. I fear that I may snap and cause injury. To me, to them, to the school, to the furniture. I don't know, but it is way too tight an environment for someone who can be very conscious of their actions to survive in.

There is practically no protection for teachers either at this point in time. If a kid that you have never taught, never seen, and never touched, rings up the Department of Community Services (DoCS) and says "Mr X has abused me"
*BANG* A ton of bricks instantly falls on the poor unsuspecting Mr X's head...

And sadly, it has happened in the past, and probably will also happen in the future. Even sadder still, there has been two known cases where the false allegations were in spite from 15 year old girls against a male teacher, and a year after his name was cleared in court, he commited suicide because people from the community still looked and treated him as if he was guilty, because they did not belive the courts.

Quite tragic and dangerous.

Now, I did enjoy quite a lot of it, and I think if that was all we had to face out there, then I would be quite happy and able to continue but these things really do give me some grief.

Originally, I had doubts, and left it, as I know that things can worry, but they are not serious worries.
But, I was on the phone with James (from Brisbane), and he said to me probably one of the best bits of advice coming from him (he's actually quite wise, but not always intelligent or right, especially since he has been the Finance Manager of a very large mining shire in QLD for two years after a 6 week crash course in Finance). James said that I should let it be, but if it was a continual worry for longer than a few weeks, then I should seriously consider changing my paths. In the long run, it may not be worth it if I was to push on and be a unhappy teacher, and waste my time and efforts to something I did not like or enjoy.

And so, I left it. And a month later, I still had the same problems. And I discussed with my parents who said practically the same thing.

And so I decided to withdraw from the course.

Since it was so late in the semester to withdraw my semester 1 subjects, I actually completed as much of the assesment tasks I had (as I had little motivation left to do the course by then already before I withdrew)and handed them in. The last peice was due yesterday, and so, it's all over.

Now, I'm looking for work, but so far I'm not too worried, as my main priority is trying to pull off a successful first hosting of the Uni Games for archery in two weeks.

If you're around in Sydney on the 5th and 6th July, come to St Pauls College Oval (Not St John's College, not St Andrews College!!!!) and watch some uni level archery from the Novices, to the 22nd ranked archer in Australia, and the National Champion and record holder do some shooting.

I think that's enough for tonight.