Magic Elves?

'Andy, there's a new bike outside, come and see!' Nathan and I tried to get Andrew's attention away from the paper. 'What?' He asked. 'There's a new bike, somebody replaced your bike with a new one.'
The family walked out to see the phenomenon. Andy's bike had been stolen a couple of days earlier. On the bike rack was a rusty, black Avanti. There was a new bike seat cover on the seat.
On the tyres was pieces of cut grass and dead leaves. We were standing there making comments when Andy said, 'Where's Lydia's bike?' I made a kind of stifled sound and looked at the new bike. When I had left my bike there after work I had left it in the same place that this bike now possessed. I looked round the drive way. Realization dawned. 'This is insane.' I declared. 'Why would anyone, if they wanted to steal a bike, replace it with this bike? This is two bikes gone now.'

Good question. 'The person who took it was probably drunk.' Andy said with conviction.
Nat voiced what I felt, ' A drunk person would more likely just steal the thing, not leave you with another bike.'
Were there aliens around? Or maybe some magic elves?
Walking is good for you I supose.

Social Engineering

There is a lot of negative feeling towards Sue Bradford's bill. That states the obvious, but from that I made a conclusion: the media, the Press and Parliament failed to change the country's long - standing morals and values. The Press tried to change general thought. For months before Sue Bradford's bill was known about, they had articles on the front page and front pages about child abuse and child death rates. They tried to create a feeling of shame in their readers minds for our country's child death rates. I believe they knew about the proposed bill, and that they tried to prime us for what was coming. They were not prepared for the response the people gave them.
Their scheme failed.

Even when the MPs knew that 80% + of the New Zealand public were against the bill going through, they side-stepped us and in reply to our emails to them, gave us a long list of people and organisations that were for the bill. Then they told us that if those persons were for the bill then the bill must be a good thing.

When that and other stratagies didn't work and the general public were still against the bill,
they quickly drafted an amendment which was almost identical to the original bill and was vague as to what parents would be prosecuted for.

Our country is (or is suposed to be) a democracy. The Labour and National party do not work with those principles. Helen Clark and John Key made the members in their partys vote for the bill. If the members in Parliament are not allowed a consience vote, what is the point of a democracy, and why are we as citezens allowed a consience vote? They put the amendment through as quickly as they were legally able to. They did not think about the consequences. They did not consider 80% + of New Zealanders opinions. For some reason they thought that their few parlimentarians knew more than the majority of four million people.

Prospective Teacher?

'How on earth did they get me into this?' I asked myself as I biked to Merrin School. My thoughts preocupied, I only just rememberd to indicate around the corner. Dad was teaching at Merrin that day and had come home for lunch. He was talking to Mum about a Spanish class he was taking that afternoon, asking her to be a guest speaker... Dad doesn't know Spanish, but Mum, me, and Nathan are doing a Spanish course at Tech... Mum was busy that afternoon and refused. I had walked in the door for lunch and Andy spotted me. 'Why doesn't Lydia do it?' He queried. 'Do what?' And Dad explained. 'But I couldn't teach your class, I don't know how!' You know Spanish, though, and you're my daughter, so of course you can.' He said calmly. The rest of the family got in on it and told me that I should do it. Eventually I didn't have any excuses left, so I agreed and ate lunch. I got the Spanish dictionary and added to my list of nouns, then picked up my music books, the dictionary and a pencil and put them in a bag. As Andy and I biked, I planned what to teach them with growing nervousness.

Andy left me outside Merrin School, and as I biked in I spotted Dad walking towards room 9.
I parked the bike by the chair outside the room, and entered. Probably an ordinairy classroom, but I hadn't stepped into a classroom since I was five and so I found it formidable.
Dad herded the kids out of the room for five while I wrote up the nouns on the board, cut up some paper and found cellotape. The kids came back in and sat down and Dad did crowd control. Then Dad got me to introduce myself. 'Hola, mi nombre es Lydia,' There was an expectant pause. I waved my hands about, 'Well, aren't you going to say hello?' There was a mixed reply of Holas and hellos.

Then I got started for the onslaught. 'Ok, have a look at this list of nouns here.' I pointed to the white board. 'You can see that there is the Spanish word for the object, and also the English. Now what you do is, write a Spanish word on the front of a peice of paper, and the English on the back. Then put a bit of tape on it,' I demonstrated. ' Then you stick it on the appropriate objects. Got it? And Dad, could you chop some more paper?' My hands shook a little, I was still nervous.
There was a lot of whispering at this point, the kids hadn't known that Mr. Moore was my Dad.
They rushed forward, grabbed bits of paper and tape and wrote on them.
After they had finished I told them to sit down...with what I hoped was an authorative tone.
Then they laughed when I showed them the tag on the front of Dad's jacket: Padre...father.

Now what am I going to do with them, I asked myself inwardly. 'Right, now we're going to go through this list, and you guys repeat them after me, ok?' We went through it and after we had I made them do it again, while rubbing out some of the letters so that they had to remember the words.

We had finished and I didn't have anything else. 'It looks like we'v still got some time, Lydia, do you have anything else you can show us?' Of course I did.
'If you were in Spain, and you went to the supermarket, this is what you would tell someone,' I said, looking at my Spanish book. Fui al supermercardo al compre.... I went to the supermarket and I bought....

I turned round. 'What would you buy if you went to the supermarket?' The hands went up. My Spanish vocabulary is limited, so I said: 'Like, something to drink?' I pointed to a boy. 'Yes?'
'Alchol.' A round of supressed giggles. 'Well, yes, wine, for instance, I don't drink alchol but some people do.' Another round of laughter. Vino... Wine. Cheries, asparrogos, chicken, tea and pork, the list went on. 'I think we'll have to stop you, Lydia,' said Dad, ' it's actually a bit late and I didn't notice.' The clock said five past two. 'But what about a round of applause for our guest here!'

I was going out the door and a boy passing me said, ' Hasta la vista!' 'Hasta la vista!' I said.

'Hey, there's a bed over there!' My brother Andy pointed to a wooden frame on the grass by the side of Cutts road. 'Go back Dad, It's probably free.' Dad did a sweet U turn, drove around the roundabout and skidded the brakes as he neared the frame. 'Look, there's a sign on it.' Andy said. 'Get out and see if it's a free sign.' Dad suggested. We hopped out, inspected the damp sign (the bed and the sign had been out in the rain) had a quick squiz at the bed. It seemed ok as beds go. I wondered why the people were just throwing the thing away, they could have made some money on it. 'I'll bet we could make some easy cash on this thing.' I said. Andy was looking keen as he does when he knows there is money in a project. 'Come on Dad, let's carry the thing home.' Dad looked somewhat skeptical. Dad would rather be seen dead than carry a large, free bed home with his son at 9:30 at night.

I had no such qualms, however, so Andy and I picked up the bed and we walked home with it. We walked with the thing for a while and then Andy put his side down at the start of the entrance to Crosby park. He picked it up easily, pushed the massive frame onto his back and carried it with his hands under it.

The moon shone out and in front of us was this shadow that looked like Jacob and his ladder, kind of eerie. 'I'm making it my challenge to carry the bed home by myself.' Andy puffed a little as he said this. I am fairly used to doing strange and unusual things, but I had to wonder what the guy who passed us thought.

Andy, me and the bed got home in one piece. Who said we were ordinary people?

N.B. We got $80 dollars for the bed