Being in Griffith (part 7)

• It's raining this morning. After one month I'm becoming a country person and getting happy about rain. I am looking out of the window of the staff room now and actually seeing rain drops. I have year 10 first period - let's hope most of them decide to stay in bed.
• Ross Gittins examines the issue of "incentive pay" for teachers. I think he's right - mostly. I suppose it would be nice for teachers to get pay deals that are more in tune with other professionals, but I think it would be better if money was spent on incentive for students to perform well at school. Many teenagers do not see how important education is - in many cases they just cannot because their intellectual development means that they do not assign value to the work they do at school. I see this every day (especially with my year 10 class) - it is hard to convince students that there are intrinsic and long-term rewards for good behaviour and hard work at school when their minds can only focus on the extrinsic and the short-term.
• SMH reports on the growth of Linux - especially Ubuntu amongst low-end users. 2007 will not be "the year of Linux", but I think that the coming economic readjustment will force many cash-strapped, low-end users into seriously considering Linux. As for me, I am just annoyed that I have to endure using Microsoft here at school - and I'm a KDE fan rather than Gnome, which means I'm a Kubuntu fan, not a Ubuntu fan.
• Steve Irwin - what can I say? I never watched the guy's shows and I found him plain annoying. He was a media darling overseas because of his stereotypical "Aussie" behaviour. I didn't shed a tear when he died, but I suppose it is a reminder that death comes to us all.