It is expensive to study

in another country. I know. I have done it. It is not easy.

It was easier for me than it was for many other students. I went from one English speaking country to another, to one culture which was very much like the one I had left. I could walk into the supermarket and find familiar items, even familiar brands. 

Supporting myself was relatively easy. I tutored. I did not need to try and find a job in a fast food outlet or as a cleaner. Well, realistically I could not have done those things. Tutoring was about all I could do and I knew I was lucky to be able to do it. Later I had a job looking after a small library. I did more tutoring and supervision.

Most students I have tutored have been students from other cultures. For many of them English has been a second or even third language. They have varied greatly in ability. Some have been outstanding, others less so...and a few should not have been here at all.

It will be interesting to see then whether the twenty-five percent rise in student visa fees has any effect on the numbers applying or their motivation for doing so. A staff member at one of our universities has expressed concern about this.

"We are too dependent on those students," he told me yesterday. "They bring the money in and, so far, it has kept me in a job but is it a good thing?"

He is a member of staff at the "new" university. This is the university which is the amalgamation of two of the three we had in this state. It took a long time to recognise the population here cannot, even with the large number of students from other countries. support three universities. 

I have long been of the view that there are subjects and courses taught there which could be better taught in TAFE (technical and further education) colleges. There are practical subjects which are now "degree" courses. It seems everyone needs a degree now. It is quite unlike the teaching, nursing and farming courses my fellow students went into from school. I found the "handbook" for the time I was at teacher training college recently. It was interesting but it made me realise that most students went out into schools as teachers after just two years. Somehow they managed to teach and many of them did a very good job of it. I rather doubt that the new teachers going into schools are doing a better job simply because they now train for twice as long and have letters after their names. They actually spend less time in the classroom than we did. 

I wonder what we are really teaching people and what the students coming in from other countries are actually learning. Are we giving them value for the money they spend? Is the standard really high enough? Looking at some essays I doubt it. I know some students will be given a pass mark because the person marking the essay will not be permitted to do otherwise. I have even been told, "Just get them to pass something in that looks as if they may have written it."  

Will there be even more of that now the fees have risen? Is this what needs to happen to keep the universities open and all those compulsory units of "indigenous", "gender", environmental", "gene therapy" and other "correct" issue courses taught? I am not sure it is going to work - or will there still be students who will find ways around it all in order to actually learn?   

Another "renewable energy" company has

gone bust in this state. The company apparently had four solar "farms" and one wind "farm". 

I am wondering how many more such companies are going to fail before we come to terms with how much "renewables" cost. How many people believe that, once the solar panels or wind turbine is there, renewable energy is "free"?

It is not free of course. There are costs associated with what is called "renewable" energy. 

There were some solar panels on the house I last lived in. There are no solar panels on this group of units.  There is no way they can be put on our shared roofing.  Would I want them there?

The solar panels on the house were used to heat the hot water. There was electrical back up when the sun did not shine. My BIL, an engineer, had calculated that the panels would be cost effective. Over the time they were there they made a miniscule profit (less than one percent) but only because my BIL was the one who could climb up to check on them whenever there was a hail storm. He would also clean them on a schedule known only to him. They were not something you simply put in place and then left.

Were they the "environmentally responsible" option? The reality is they were not. Without the work done by my BIL they would have cost more and none of the calculations we did took into account the cost to the environment of actually producing, transporting, installing the panels and more. I am left wondering about that.

A couple of days ago one of the very active environmental advocates was telling me gleefully how they had to close down a nuclear reactor in France. The weather was too hot according to him. For him it was proof that nuclear was not the answer.

I do not know if nuclear is the answer or not. (I do think we should be doing much more research into fusion rather than fission.) What I do know is that Europe in general is not used to very high temperatures. They last had a really hot summer about fifty years ago. One summer of very hot weather since then does not "prove" climate change. There is evidence to suggest summers were much warmer several hundred years ago.  Winters were colder too.  Houses are not built for extreme heat...or cold. 

There is also evidence that solar panels and wind turbines are vulnerable to weather events. Advocates for renewable energy claim that events like severe hailstorms which damage the panels or tornadoes which flatten the turbines are evidence of climate change. Are they really? Did we never have such events prior to monitoring climate change? How much environmental damage was caused manufacturing the panels and turbines before they were installed to "save" the planet?

It takes far more water and energy to produce one cup of "almond milk" than it does to produce one cup of milk but we keep being told that the "farm" producing the almond milk is the environmentally responsible answer. Is it?

I am not sure it is...but it might help if we planted more trees. 

   

A "canteen Christian"?

 Someone I do not know muttered this to me as we passed the stand which sometimes appears outside the local shopping centre. There are generally two people standing there with it and there is "literature" about "free Bible study classes" and "the Coming" and more. 

The person who spoke to me moved on rapidly. He may have been embarrassed at actually having said anything at all. That he had said anything was interesting but not that unusual. People I do know find those standing there everything from an annoyance to sad. I know of nobody who actually supports them or has engaged them in more than the briefest of conversation. What conversation there is may be polite but it is usually an irritated, "Not interested" or "I go to church" from the older passers by to, "Don't believe any of that" from younger people.

I pedal past and say nothing. For some reason they have never approached me or attempted to speak to me. I suspect they may think I am a very slow learner. It is a mistake which has been made more than once in my life...or perhaps I really am a slow learner. 

Yesterday I just pedalled around the corner, parked in my usual spot, had a short conversation with the dog shivering in the cold and went inside. I did what I needed to do and, as I was doing it, I thought about the two people standing outside in the cold. They were determined I suppose. I cannot imagine people were queuing up to talk to them or that they were bringing people in to their brand of Christianity. They must get some I suppose or they would not do what they do. 

But the term "canteen Christian" stayed with me. I have often heard the term "rice Christian" - someone who attends church and believes (or believes they believe) in order to eat, or perhaps do not believe at all but attendance means food and companionship.  What then is a "canteen Christian"? 

I thought about canteens and the more modern "food courts", the places where you can go in and pick and choose what you want to eat. Is that what the passerby meant? I am not sure it is. I suspect it was more "they believe they can hand you a meal on a plate and tell you this is all you need in order to survive". 

I also suspect they are saying "We are not giving you a choice. We are telling you this is what you need to eat. You do not need anything else."

I am not sure belief in anything works that way.  

 

 

"The road is too narrow for

it to have a cycle path," Middle Cat commented when I told her I had been asked to fill out the "survey" by the local council.

The local council is looking at extending the "cycle paths" in the local area. This means the roads where cyclists have dedicated lanes of use at least for part of the day.

The street I now live in leads directly to the local primary school. The next street parallel to it does too but it is much less used because people turn naturally at the roundabout and come down this street. Before and after school this street is very busy. I try to avoid being out at that time. 

Yes, I could try and stay on the footpath. It is legal to do that. The problem is that the footpath is not in good repair. There is growth along it which makes it almost impossible to get past if you are a tricycle rider, wheelchair user or pram pusher. 

The road is narrow. There are often cars parked on either side and that can mean cars having to stop and give way to an oncoming car. 

Some weeks ago the new occupant in the next unit had her boyfriend move in with her. He wanted to use my car parking space. I was not using it so why should he not be able to use it? 

I said "No." I was not being unduly difficult. I had allowed the policeman who was there at the beginning to use it occasionally. The next resident asked a couple of times when her father had knee surgery and needed to stay overnight. Apart from that it is used by people who come to see me. Middle Cat used it yesterday when she brought in some milk for me. (It was pouring rain and she had used her car to get them milk and bread as well.) My friend W... parks there when she visits. She will be 90 in August and uses a walker. It has been used by someone bringing someone else who uses a walker. Workmen use it occasionally and I have accepted that as necessary.

This time however the boyfriend wanted to park his work van permanently in my space. (His girlfriend has her own car.)  It did not seem right to me. He is not supposed to be living there anyway.

So, he parks on the street of course. He parks along with some cars that are there all day. Their owners have gone off to work at the shopping centre and parked as close as they can without breaking the two hour limit. It all adds to the problems. 

I would like a cycle path along the street. I know some parents of primary school children who would like it too. I also know it is not a practical solution. 

Before I finish filling the form out I think I need to speak to my friend J... He is still doing battle with the council over the "solution" they put in place with the railway crossing. The solution he offered was both simple and cheap. They went with something incredibly complex and very expensive. I am sure he can come up with a similar solution for this street...and that they might well ignore that too. Why are they asking for feedback?   

Whatever happened to "eccentricity"?

I am sure you know the sort of thing I mean. The adult who insists on only wearing a tie and socks in matching colours or only one shade of lipstick, the child who insists on counting the number of peas on the plate before eating them, the person who gets anxious if someone else sits in "their" seat on the bus and the person who checks all the locks twice - are they all "autistic"? 

There is an article in this morning's paper saying autism in this country is diagnosed at three times the global average...and that this is not necessarily a good thing. I have to agree. I would also agree that the National Disability Insurance Scheme and, once diagnosed, readily available money has been part of the problem.

Let me be quite clear about all this. Severe and profound autism is disabling. It can be severely and profoundly disabling. People with the condition need help. Their families and carers need help handling them. Some cannot dress themselves. They will only eat certain foods in a certain order and only if they are in certain positions on the plate. They will never hold a conversation with anyone.

At the other end of the scale the boy I went to school with who insisted on writing with only a pencil was not autistic. He admitted to me much later in life that he was afraid of making mistakes. You could rub a pencil mark out. You could not rub out pen marks. 

It is quite likely he would now be regarded as "autistic". There would be efforts to "encourage" him to use a pen, to do things differently. He might have ended up feeling less comfortable. In the year I knew him his teacher simply recognised an unhappy, uncertain little boy whose work with a pencil was slightly above average. He liked things to be precise. He ended up working as a draftsman but he never married and never learned to drive. He lived alone in a house where nothing was out of place and he kept his geometric garden immaculate. At his funeral his neighbours spoke of his eccentricity but also of his generosity with garden produce, the way he would mow the lawn for the elderly woman across the street and more. His immediate neighbour actually said to me, "I suppose that's what they call autistic now but really he was just what my dad would called a bit eccentric."

I know other people who are a "bit eccentric". I do not see them as "autistic". If we must label people then I will reserve it for the boy who looks perfectly normal but does not speak and will not use the lift. He will not eat some foods and only eats some foods on some occasions. He can also build complex Lego kits - the type they use for university students.  

I know "autism" is not a single issue. It is a complex range of issues and there are degrees of complexity within those issues. I just do not like the idea that some of the quirky little things which make us different and interesting and add to our interactions with each other are being labelled this way. 

Do we want everyone to be the same?  

Penelope Keith added a phrase to

our family's repertoire of insider jokes. She does not say it herself but her expression as it is said tells us so much. As the snobby Margot in "The Good Life" she is trying to clean up after her neighbour Barbara (Felicity Kendal). She has put down newspapers and brought out the vacuum cleaner in an effort to keep things immaculate and Barbara says, "You missed a bit."  Now, if anyone leaves something behind when clearing up we are likely to say "You missed a bit." We understand the joke but it has to be explained to other people. It is just one of those little oddities that occur in our family that have come from the outside.

Her death has left me wondering how many other families have been influenced by her superb acting.  Anyone can say the lines but saying them with meaning and that all important ability to do it at precisely the right moment is rare.  She was exactly right for that "snobbishness" but apparently not in the least bit snobbish herself. Her marriage to a policeman lasted, something of a rarity in the world of acting. That surely says a great deal about her as a person.

I have never had any desire to be on stage. The thought of having to so thoroughly immerse myself in being someone else is one I actually find genuinely frightening. I hope I could still learn the lines but I very much doubt I could say them. How do they do it? It is something I would like to have asked her, would like to ask someone like Dame Judi Dench, would like to have asked Dame Maggie Smith.  To my mind they are and were people who could really act. It is a rare gift, but one which would have to be worked at all the time. I am absolutely certain it would not be easy. 

I suspect I would have liked Dame Penelope if I had ever met her. It leaves just Dame Judi Dench, another apparently gracious lady, of the four "great dames". It has been a great privilege to "know" them. 

 

 

Please do not tax education

or the books which help to do it.

There is apparently a robust discussion going on in Upover at present. Their government introduced VAT or "value added tax" into their fee paying schools. The discussion revolves around whether they were right to do this, whether it has brought in any money, what the effect is on the overall school system and more. Those who oppose any form of "private" education - oddly known as "public" by some - think this has been desirable. Others do not.

We have the same sort of discussion here. It comes on every time there is any tax payer money spent on the fee paying system. There are people who strongly oppose spending any money on the "private" school system, so much so there have been serious attempts to ban it altogether.

I went to both public and fee paying schools. My parents worked in the public system and it was natural that this was where I and my siblings should go. Then, in my last year, it was no longer possible to do that. The school I was attending, the one the Senior Cat was principal of, could no longer cater for me. It could no longer cater for anyone who wanted to complete their secondary education. This was just the way things worked in rural areas. Students who wanted to go on had to move on. 

There was a choice of course. You could head to the nearest school which taught what you needed or you could go further afield to the capital city. Going to the nearest school might be two or more hours away so your parents might find someone willing to take in a "weekly" boarder, often a relative. The school would almost certainly still have a limited range of subjects and facilities simply because it would be a "country" school.  Or you could head off to the capital city. Boarding with a family might still be an option but it was much more difficult to find. Boarding school was the answer for many families. It still is.  We could do away with all this I suppose and have state run boarding houses for students from outlying areas like they do in Shetland but is that really the answer? 

The real issue however is should those who are already being taxed pay additional tax because of the choice they make to educate their young?  Most people would see that as wrong. I see it as wrong. I see it as wrong because I do not believe you should tax education. It is education which leads to employment which leads to paying taxes and a better standard of living for everyone. Education provides the services we need. 

I know not everyone will agree. There will still be people who say adding VAT to school fees is the right thing to do. 

Will they also argue that adding VAT to books is the right thing to do? Is it right to tax people who want to read? That is what happens here. There is our equivalent of VAT, the GST (goods and services tax), on books. It is something which should never have happened. Those who do not buy books do not see this as a problem of course. They do not see it as taxing knowledge. They simply shrug and say, "If you want to read..." 

I do not see reading in the same way as I see going to a football match. If I buy a book for myself then I potentially have that book for as long as I need it. The football match is over in a few hours and most of it, if not all, is forgotten a few months later. Information inside a book, or just the story itself, can remain with you forever. 

Education, including all means of accessing it, should surely not be subject to additional forms of tax? No doubt the topic will be back under robust debate when the next budget is being handed down.