I want to become a teacher

I want to become a teacher.

In many ways I enjoy learning new things so that I can teach it to others around me. I always am rattling off trivial facts that people around me don’t know. I enjoy explaining how things work, and taking people through ideas. Using what little I know about finances and economics, I have recently been explaining how the financial system works and a bit of the politics at play currently.

Maybe having the teaching taken away from me when I was working as a Political Organiser, was what made me start not liking the job. Because while in Australia I got to teach very regularly, be it showing the new guy what we did, to giving classes on history, on the science of the ideas we were fighting for and against. It was something that drove me, and I loved it at the time, be it getting up and giving a formal class, or just explaining a point of view fully.

In many ways too, it was what I left High School wanting to become. I should had applied for a scholarship to teach, but wasn’t confident. I chose a Science degree because I knew that adding a year for a teaching diploma made me a High School Teacher.

So my career plan at the moment stands, that I want to get debt free, and have a bit of a nest of cash so I can go through University in four years time. I know teachers actually earn a little bit less than me at the moment. So I am also thinking I should look into Open University or something to get a degree that way while I am still in the Navy getting good pay. Maybe just doing an arts degree in History so I just finish that off and then do a Grad. Diploma of Teaching, would be optimal. Though if I get posted somewhere (what is likely) I will have a hard time completing a distance education course (though it may still be possible).

For putting me onto this course of thinking, I blame Wade who the other day on the phone asked me about my career plans. I admitted to him on the phone if the work keeps as easy as it as now in the Navy, I will find it hard to leave…

The ecological disaster in my backyard

Yesterday I discovered a collapsed part in my garden, and on probing it I discovered a hollowed area about a meter in length with about thirty to forty centimeters of soil above it (that was held in part by some tree roots).

Strange I thought, and shoveled some soil from an unused garden bed to fill in the area, figuring it was most likely a hole dug by a dog that was covered over by the previous tenant. Or maybe where a pipe that had been removed leaving the meter long void.
But then this morning I noticed a huge sunken hole where I had filled in. And took a look around thinking to find out what caused it. Maybe it was an animal digging it? But then noticed the grass near it had no soil under it too. I had a water problem. Water was washing away the soil in the corner of the garden, and trying to fill the corner of my backyard like the Colorado River finding a way to fill the Salton Sea (on a much much much smaller scale).

So I searched around for a sprinkler head or something near by what would be the cause. I found the plug first, then an o-ring. Both had been washed into the hole by the water. I then found the uncapped sprinkler, still surrounded by some dirt and grass, almost not connected to the wash out a short few centimeters away.

I put the o-ring and cap back into the sprinkler, but knew that it wouldn’t stop the flow of water because the sprinkler had no head. The sprinkler with plug in was just a jet nozzle to cause more soil to be washed out. So I ended up digging around the sprinkler (using my hose to flush out a lot of the loose soil actually) and using duct tape and some plastic I covered the end.
I had at first thought to just put a rock on top of the sprinkler, but then figured the water damage would just seep from there. So to finish of the disaster area, I put down some broken cement and rocks that litter another corner of my backyard to bulk up the soil in the area (that I don’t really like to mow anyway) and then put more soil down to replace the lost stuff and level it out a little.

It was lucky, because yesterday I was thinking about planting something there and making it a small vegetable plot (with carrots, corn or something equally as easy to grow there). If I had planted that yesterday I would be now without a garden, as the seeds would had been washed away!

But I figure I’ll have to wait another day or maybe two to make sure that the sprinkler is capped properly (the sprinkler turns on every second day at about 5 am I think). I remember having to cap the sprinklers hose in the front yard that actually was spewing water onto the footpath and stopping the sprinklers giving out much of a spray. That was a duct tape and then bury.

(Note: I would had drawn some pictures, but my Mac doesn’t have a drawing program on it.)