Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Tamsyning (or how a failed blog blogged about failure)

So my Dad, he's a teacher here in Tasmania - won't say which school, but it's quite a new age hippy private school, run by new age hippies, and my Dad, even though once upon a sunbeam he had long hair and looked a bit like Jesus (the messiah, not that bloke John Cena squashed at Armageddon in 2004) is very much a beat them until they shut up kind of teacher. As a result, he's been pretty marginalised at his school and shut out of policy decisions - and this school, to be blunt, has pretty much eliminated failure as an option - maybe Tamsyning sounds better? If a kid doesn't want to learn, the teacher has to accept that, and let the kid sit and, I dunno, draw a cartoon pig or something. If they fail, there's no punishment. Brilliantly, there's also a kid at this school that has selective mute syndrome - which is amazing, but apparently the kid can read their essay, but selective muteness kicks in after that and they can't answer questions about their essay. I would have massively kicked arse at that school - sure, when I left, I would have had no clue about the real world, but hey, I did that anyway, might as well have spent some time in the park smoking and blaming the teacher for my failures. So I should probably apologize to Tamsyn Lewis, to Josh Fraser and Shane Woewodin, to Mick Malthouse, to Rhyce Shaw and to Chris Tarrant. They aren't all big massive failures, because failure doesn't exist anymore according to this school. They'd even think Jason Laycock was a ruckman...well, if he doesn't want to chase and tackle, the coach should just accept it...

My school in Burnie was at the forefront of arty schooldom- I know because even though I was a maths prodigy (I had hair like Keith and everything...is that joke dated now?) majoring in the long lost art of footy maths (don't ask), I think they were pretty concerned that I couldn't draw or play bootball or play a Peter Coombe song on the piano. We were quite an arty school, and a little bit pretensious, what with all the Easter Bunny footprints and special excursions to farms (I have a memory of falling off a horse, but that might be made up) but at least we still had the concept of good old fashioned failure, even if it was just something simple like failing to get your lunch order bag in on time and failing to get a tasty saveloy or your pick of Big Ms. The first time I ever really failed in life, we played a game which was akin to Blankety Blanks, only with spelling. So the teacher would read out a sentence like "the opposite of up is..." and we had to write "down" on a little mini blackboard and then turn it round to show everyone and first person to show the word spelle...OK, so not the most riveting game in the world, but it was raining, she couldn't just send us outside to run around in the puddles. Now, because I was a bit of a child prodigy (I had hai...oh, done that one) everyone expected me to win, but, as I've mentioned before, I had really, really bad handwriting, and couldn't write the word "down" with any kind of speed or alacrity, in fact, my handwriting still isn't pen licence quality now I think about it, never mind trying to write quickly with chalk (apparently chalk is banned in schools now as well, they've got chalk lite). So, much to the surprise of everyone, I lost to that pretty blonde girl I mentioned before that I could have pashed under the monkey bars in the summer of 89 (when we didn't have no Internet) - and I pretty much threw a massive wobbly and temper tantrum. I'd lost at footy maths before, I'd obviously always been madly rubbish at sports, I'd even came second in a spelling test, but this was an absolute Tamsyn of a failure, almost a dead last placing in something academic for the first time in my life. I didn't know how to handle it, and I could only take solace in the fact that the next day was the annual rolling down the hill in a big mad fashion competition, and I could redeem myself. However, for that night, I was very much alone, just me and my Whiplash He-man figure, and the miserable sense of failure, soundtracked to the theme song of Punky Brewster and lit by a Gloworm nightlight...

Of course, I'd love to say this taught me to be more resillient, braver, more determined and started a lifetime of fighting back, and some "The Don" style backs against the wall resillience (that's Don Bradman, not the Mafia), but, well, it didn't. I was especially lazy in my teenage years, and spent many a day hanging outside in front of that weird store in Burnie where the guy would always ask you what was wrong with your face if you had a spot or whatever (I broke my nose and he went "What's with the schnoz" when I went in to buy a can of Cherry Coke once) where you would stand smoking and pretending that you were way cooler than stupid old Burnie and it's sheer lameness. Hey, you were cool, you listened to Garbage! Anyway, this one day, we had to do school cross country - given how I feel about local communities and how proud I am when they pull together in a time of crisis, it's weird I didn't apply the same standards to myself. School cross country is obviously supposed to teach you character, but it's just a good way to have a day off, like swimming carnivals (so not good if you aren't hot) and athletics carnivals (here's a tip, hit on the female javelin throwers or long jumpers - the javvers are usually quite hot before they find steroids, and not snobby like runners) - and besides, I didn't care about my school the way that I cared about my local community - for one thing, no one in my community ever gave me detention or told me my English project wasn't very good. Anyway, obviously there was no way I was going to spend my time doing 17 laps of Burnie in the freezing cold just to please some dickhead PE teacher, so I headed straight to the weird shop, smoked some pot and spoke a fair bit about, like, what would happen if, like, time just, like stood still and who would, like, win a fight between Yoda and Darryl Somers...OK, so I was a bad stoner, but the point is, instead of digging deep and bravely battling over the finish line to a massive round of applause (which NEVER happens, no hot chick wants to go out with the guy in 23rd) I waited what I thought was a decent length of time, and then sort of jogamled (my stoner mates thought it was funny to like mash jogging and ambling together, hilarious isn't it) over the finish line...in 6th place. Yes, I had actually misjudged the finishing time, and came within one place of making the state cross country team (and obviously, I say smoked pot to make myself seem a bit cooler - I really ate some Freddo frogs, looked really dorky and drank a Caramel Big M and talked about what happened to the Egg Flip Big M to general indifference...)

However, I am relatively untouched by failure by modern standards. At least I can chalk up my ugly stint at university down to youthful naivety and rebellion (or I could if I'd left the house once in a while) - however, I leave behind no broken marriages, no children confused and hateful of me, and no pets mistreated (other than a goldfish that didn't make it back from the Burnie show alive) and I have never been sacked for fraudulent incompetence or deception, and only once have I been in jail (on a school trip as an example of what might happen if you strayed). One time, I saw a completely failing life fall apart in front of me - I went to an RSL to watch Collingwood and Richmond, and in the carpark after the game, I saw a man and woman, arguing over one thing that on it's own wasn't much, maybe a coffee that was weak or a failure to get the babysitter booked, but there was an argument, in pouring rain while everyone watched, angry faces reflected in glistening puddles - and then, the argument just ended, because the marriage was too far gone to fight for, too far over to try and care for - they pretty much gave in on their marriage, and she drove home and he was left crumpled and broken sitting in a gutter, getting soaked in his tuxedo - it was an epic moment of human failure, of human weakness, of absolute disappointment and misery. I would have loved to have said something comforting, but there's nothing I could say to man who not only lost his wife of 30 years, but also had it happen in the car park of a miserable RSL in front of bored slappers, a couple of disgruntled kick a man when he's down veterans, some whining kids and someone who was loudly and drunkenly telling everyone how Collingwood would be better if Steve McKee was hit by a bus (guess who that was?). All we could do was leave him to pick up his life, one day at a time, or at least pick up one of the bored 50 somethings playing poker machines and waiting for happy hour... 

Compared to that, my level of Tamsyning is quite small...

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