2024 Week 38: Zoomin’ through the week!

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking (via ZOOM) to the Year 10 students of the French International school JMG Le Clezio, in Port Vila, VANUATU.

The school has recently opened a French International Baccalaureate with an Australian studies theme, and their teacher Marik is helping her students discover Australian literature.

As part of their studies the students have read DON’T CALL ME ISHMAEL and it was great to be able to talk to them directly about how I came to write the story and to answer all their terrific questions.

They were such a lovely group. (Although I was a bit worried when I misheard one of their questions as, ‘Do you eat a lot?’ My first thought was, ‘Wow. Is it that obvious?’ Luckily I was quickly informed that the actual question had been, ‘Do you read a lot?’ Phew! Much better.)

One question I couldn’t answer was why the French translation of the book has the title in French as Call Me Ishmael rather than Don’t Call Me Ishmael. They thought I must have approved it but I actually wasn’t aware of the cover until after it was published. I still have no idea why they used that as the title.

At the end of the session I tried (not very successfully as it turned out) to take a selfie with the class. If you have good eyes you might be able to see them waving inside that little red circle in the shot below on the right.

Meanwhile … during the time I was busy Zooming to Vanuatu, this is what was happening to our backyard lawn.

OUT with the old and dying and IN with the new! For a while there our resident peewee (magpie-lark) was very concerned about where all the grass had gone!

In other much more minor news …

My wife and I went for walk to stretch our legs. (Boom! Tish!)

We also went to a local cafe (Corn Street in Ashgrove) to stretch our stomachs.

I removed this bracket from one of our walls – much to its apparent horror.

I read and enjoyed this book.

I stood here for ages trying to make up my mind which of those two instructions I should follow. (Look closely down the bottom.)

I took this incredible photo!

(For those familiar with famous Australian musician, drummer and producer G-FLIP, this is them at the Virgin Lounge in Melbourne. Or it would have been if that clown in the centre of the shot hadn’t blundered in front of them just as I was about to sneakily take their picture! See that cap peak just poking out behind him and that hand holding that coffee cup? That’s G-FLIP! No, really it is. Seriously.)

I have no idea why the Paparazzi have never invited me to join their ranks? Jealousy I assume.