Desperate times?

A 19-year-old Kiwi university student is offering up her virginity by tender to the highest bidder on a newly started NZ auction website.

Under the heading "Relationship For Sale" in the personal section, "Unigirl" is putting herself on the block and offering up her innocence on the I Need website which is run by two Waikato men.

See the ad in a new window here.

Unigirl says she is attractive and desperate for money to pay ongoing university fees. She says she is fit, healthy, with a trim physique and has "no medical conditions of any nature".

Who knows whether the ad is genuine or whether it’s some kind of stunt by the website owners but if it’s real I hope she’s factored in that as prostitution is legal here in NZ the IRD would no doubt expect their tax cut out of anything she makes.

 

Sad? Just plain dumb? Either way, surely an interest free student loan would be far simpler?

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AWOL

I’ve had a load of stuff going on and have been incredibly slack about posting here and about visiting my regular haunts. Work is chaos, I’m doing 12 hour days plus I’ve had a log jam of assignments to plough through - I’m a terrible student and I had let myself fall behind. Rory starts his final year of high school tomorrow so we’ve had to get ourselves organised for that as well.

Don’t worry too much though ma peeps, we’ve got a lovely long weekend coming up so that’ll give me some breathing space. Soon I’ll be back posting inanities again for your reading torture pleasure.

*EDIT* Just noticed by counter widget in my sidebar; I’m new again!

 

 

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Making a difference

Here’s my contribution towards Lori’s latest writer’s challenge. The subject matter this time around is;

Teachers Who’ve Made a Difference

I imagine that when a person decides to become a school teacher it’s a conscious choice, a vocation even, certainly not a career decision made lightly. We all know the difference that a good or bad teacher can make to an impressionable mind and I like to think that even the worst teacher started out with the best of intentions.

Saying that, my very first teacher in New Zealand was a shocker. I get that my five and a half year old brain might not be the most reliable source of information but the memories have stuck with me now for nearly 40 years and that must attest to some veracity.  Her name was Sister I* and she was 70 if she was a day. She got her kicks having the whole class make fun of my Irish accent. I recall being made to stand up on my desk and say the alphabet over and over and getting a whack with a ruler whenever a hint of accent crept in to my pronunciation. I didn’t tell my parents until many years later why my accent disappeared so quickly when we came back to NZ.

I was a good student as a child. I worked hard, desperate for the validation that good grades brought. I was lucky too I guess that I was an all rounder as a kid; I was athletic – good at almost any sport I tried – and I found school work unproblematic on the whole. That combination ensured primary and intermediate school was a relatively easy ride – lots of friends and mostly indulgent teachers. I had lots of male teachers in those formative years and I still believe that generally speaking men make the best teachers – less structured, more going with the flow. No offence intended to any female teachers who might be reading.

My favourite teacher from that period was the wonderful Mr A. By the time I knew him he was an old man and a widower. He was a fabulous teacher; he was unhurried; patient and kind and for the first time I truly understood that I was entitled to my own opinion. He made us laugh every single day but taught us to challenge what we read and heard; it was my first exposure to critical thinking.

Then I went to high school and everything changed.

To be fair, it wasn’t the fault of my teachers that things started to go wrong. In fact Mr B tried very hard to keep me engaged in the learning process but by the time I hit 15, I was failing his class (maths) and barely passing anything else. I then started skipping class until I was missing most lessons every day.

Somehow though I continued to scrape through with barely acceptable grades until my senior year at school when I was unexpectedly captivated by climatology and the hydrological cycle as shared by Ms M in geography class. She inspired me and suddenly I was attending all my classes again and actually rediscovering the joy of learning. She was an older woman who appreciated that at our age we had a choice about whether we went to school each day or not. She infused every class with visual aids to help communicate the subject. She’d travelled widely and had collected a vast library of photographs to help illustrate her point and she was all for laughter and fun and games in her classroom. Above all others, Ms M was the teacher who re-energised me with the wonder of learning. I’m eternally grateful as to this day I have never lost that joy.

*Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

While we’re at it

Over the last couple of days both the gentlemanly scholar known to his nearest and dearest as The Plashing Vole and the intellectually formidable (and still inexplicably single) Intelliwench have ranted about incorrect usage of the humble apostrophe. All well and good (and as I admitted sheepishly on the wench’s site, I have been known to get the fussy little bugger wrong on occasion) but I have a blunter (or should that be more blunt?) axe to grind.

Who’s heard or read something like these recently?

• I would of made breakfast if I could of gotten out of bed
• I should of known better that to of asked you

It’s one thing hearing these words come out of someone’s mouth but seeing it written down makes the offence so much more inexcusable. It’s the difference between careless and clueless.

Spending five minutes reading comments on YouTube affects me like fingernails dragged down a blackboard. I advocate the return of public flogging for such blatant crimes against grammar and don’t even get me started on the they’re/their/there issue.

Now before I sign off can I make one point clear? This post does not give anyone licence to henceforth critique the grammar in my posts. I’m not one of your students Vole - I’m a giver not a taker.

Keeping our heads above water

New Zealand has shocking drowning statistics every summer. Kiwis (and our visitors) are far too casual when swimming from our highly tidal beaches with swift currents and fearsome rips.

Piha, west coast black sand beach, north Auckland. Photo from Wikipedia.

Water Safety New Zealand states that on average 119 people drown in New Zealand waters every year. Only road crashes kill more people accidently. There is a chilling physiological explanation of the drowning process there too if anyone has a morbid curiosity.

All major beaches in New Zealand are patrolled by surf lifesavers through summer but on any given day you’ll see most people swimming well away from the patrolled areas – I think it’s got something to do with the fact that we don’t like being told what to do. The lifesavers do an admirable job of keeping an eye on the whole beach and mostly they’re successful but they’re fighting an uphill battle; we New Zealanders think we’re indestructible because we grew up swimming in the sea.

In the last two days a grandfather and a father have drowned in two separate incidents when they were trying (successfully) to save young children swimming with them. In both cases some foresight about the conditions might easily have prevented them getting into trouble. A teen also drowned jumping from a waterfall.Photo from throng.co.nz 

What’s really sad is that our visitors die too. Our beaches are beautiful and look harmless so people just run into the water at the closest spot to their towels and umbrella rather than checking out where the rips are. I was pleased to see yesterday when I was at Piha beach that there were lifesavers handing out pamphlets in different languages explaining about currents and rips and what swimmers should look for before choosing where to swim.

New Zealand beaches are safe as long as we’re all sensible, know what to look for, supervise our kids PROPERLY (always use flippers with boogie boards) and stay out of the water after drinking. With little children always head to the safer east coast Auckland beaches. Maraetai, east coast inner harbour, Auckland (15 minutes drive east from my place)

EDIT: I just did some research and found that Australia’s latest figures (the year to June 2009) make our figures look even worse. Australia lost 302 people to drowning in that year when of course their population is more than 5 times ours (4m here vs 21m there).

I also note that another person (35 year old male) is missing and now presumed drowned from Piha at about the time I was publishing this post yesterday.

Even more about me

I nicked this from Daniels blog over at The Pursuit of What Matters to Me. Thanks Daniel. Feel free to join in anyone who wants to.

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1. Do you have any tertiary qualification?
Yes I have. I also continue to struggle along with study – it’s a never ending process.

2. What was the amount of your last electric bill?
NZ$63 for a months worth of power. Not sure how this compares but this is considered a very modest bill here especially as I don’t have gas as well – I’m tight as all hell with regards power usage.

3. Do you have life insurance?
Yes (single mother and all that).

4. How many hours per week do you work?
Around 45-50.

5. Have you ever attended a Toastmasters event?
No.

6. Favourite place to attend Happy Hour?
Nowhere these days. Occasionally I meet a girlfriend after work for a wine but that is few and far between these days. 

7. How far is your commute to work each day?
When I am working in Auckland my travel is only 15 minutes each way but on the once or twice weekly days working in our capital city, Wellington, the commute is about 2 hours each way – yuck!!!

8. What time do you get up every morning for work?
We’re up at around 6am to get to Rory’s school bus at 7.10am. I then head straight to work so am there by 7.30am most days.

9. What is your definition of sleeping in late?
On a Saturday I can sleep and then doze until almost midday if there’s nothing I have to get up for. 

10. Do you check your cholesterol on a yearly basis?
Yes along with all the other checks that are deemed necessary.

11. How large was your first cell phone?
Not that big as I was fairly late to the cell phone game. Only flash businessmen or ‘out and about’ types like trades or sales people, had the bricks here in NZ. My first cell phone was in the 2G era, it was a Nokia that I got in about 1995 or 1996 I think.

12. Does your employer provide good health insurance?
No, that’s not something employers do here as we have a public health service that covers all New Zealanders. It’s not that great but it’s free.

13. Did you use the Internet to write a research paper?
When I was at university there was no such thing as the internet, well as far as I was aware of anyway.

14. Have you attended a High School reunion?
Yes. Had a few laughs but I think I’ll leave it there. Anyone I still like I am in contact with anyway so no further need.

15. How many jobs have you held in your career? 
I have had about 10 jobs over the years.

16. Have you ever been fired or laid off from a job?
No.

17. What is your favourite drink?
Jim Beam and Zero Coke in a tall glass with lots of ice. Yummmmm.

18. What’s the most expensive bottle of wine that you’ve bought?
Not much. I buy inexpensive wine – I don’t have a snobby palate.

19. Have you been divorced?
Nope.

20. How old were you when you stopped getting ID-ed for alcohol?
In my early 20s if I remember rightly.

21. Favourite casino?
None. Hate the places, they reek of desperation.

22. Are you happier now than you were in high school?
Yes and No. High school was great carefree fun but now is cool too.

23. Did you ever have a Hypercolor shirt?
Yes I had a yellow/green one though I didn’t wear it much. It always seemed a bit weird wearing a shirt that clearly showed that you were hottest under your arms and boobs.

24. Do you remember when Michael Jackson was black and was attracted to older people?
I remember him as black, yes.

25. Do you remember when MTV actually played music videos?
No we didn’t have MTV in NZ until after it had gone to shit.

26. Have you had a will made?
Yes, within a month of Rory being born. Updated twice since then.

27. What music was in your cd/cassette player when you were 16?
It was a cassette player and it was Patti Smith, The Clash, Led Zeppelin and Simon and Garfunkel.

28. Favourite fancy/upscale restaurant?
Don’t have one. My favourite eateries are cheap and cheerful local Thai places.

29. Where were you when you found out about 9-11?
My clock radio went off at around 6.00am as usual on the morning of 12 September but the morning DJ crew I wake to each day were talking about something serious instead of the usual joking around. I got up and turned on the TV and was horrified.

30. Do you have any children yet?
Yes, one.

An oldie but a goodie

Sigh, pretty but oh so dumb. Watch the host guy try not to laugh.