Comments

• 07/06/2008 @ 09:16 unionmaid said

  

  Gosh I hope we don't get into trouble with the "bosses" for being inappropriate.

  But can you believe I was so thick I actually said, Well sister that won't work because my father won't allow the yellow pages in the house - he thinks they are a waste of paper - and she snorted so hard she kind of honked. I told my father that night and he just said "stupid woman" Then he asked me what I thought she meant and when he told me I was even more worried as she was our biology teacher!!!!!! It was all my father could do to convince me not to continue the conversation with her about the impossibilities of her concerns. And this was me?

• 07/06/2008 @ 09:24 roze said

  

  When i was 14 our biology teacher was showing us slides of what she described - whilst blushing - as the female and male reproductive organs which she had drawn and covered in little dots. I said 'Hey look spotted dick" and was promptly evicted into the corridor to stand for the rest of the lesson.

  Also reminds me of my mum's story of her naivety at 18 when a man at the bus stop said 'I've got six inches here for you" and she asked 'Six inches of what?"

  Oh my, I have such a funny image in my head of a convent sex education class with all these girls being asked to practice sitting on yellow pages. Turns lessons on deportment on their head!

• 07/06/2008 @ 10:47 cate said

  

  You've both had me rolling around laughing!!

  Brought back memory of the time many years ago when I had been rummaging in my parents room and came across a packet of condoms. Being utterly clueless I put one over the bandaid that was on my thumb and proudly went to show the family how I had found a way of keeping it bandaids dry.

  I remember this funny look on mum's face and my grandmother all but collapsing with laughter and some explanation as what it was -not what it was actually for of course. They both praised me for my practical idea for its use. Years later the penny dropped . Strangely the next time I needed water proofing for my bandaid the packet had disappeared. :)

• 07/06/2008 @ 18:28 unionmaid said

  

  What is spotted dick? It would come up in english readers from time to time and we used to laugh about the problems of english boys. I have always wondered why an Australian Commedian hasn't picked it up.

  Ah I remember the times of embarassing teachers - not only the nuns and being sent from the room or having to rake the bloody hockey field as a punnishment,

  Once this happened because a nun in year 9 claimed that nice girls shouldn't use tampons and that it would affect one's virginity. Good grief - the poor woman was certainly cloistered mentally and found it difficult with me taking up the discussion and worse I got all the girls who were using tampons to self identify and then I remember one girl wasn't allowed to because her mother didn't think they were "nice" - but she was happy the next month because her mum changed her mind.

  Thank goodness the times change.

  Lucy and her friends are horrified that they have to do a programme called Interrelate - where they get to draw penises and vaginas free hand and label the various parts. Apparently these are the quietest classes of the year and it is too much information. It must be so much better than the cartoon of where babies come from that Sr Mary Patria showed us - and left the lights on in case we were distressed! Oh I am laughing too much now.

  UM xx

• 08/06/2008 @ 02:31 cate said

  

  Now don't laugh Roze because I know I'm probably wrong- but is spotted dick some perverse english dessert -the raisins are the spots ?

  Have you ever delighted in this delicacy ? Do share the experience and any recipe you may tucked away.

  Cate lol

• 08/06/2008 @ 09:04 roze said

  

  Correct - i have never actually eaten one (dessert form). I am hopeless at desserts as i don't like sweet food. However, i believe spotted dick to be sponge with raisins usually served with that other great English delicacy - custard (oh yum!). Just for my Aussie mates i am going to go on a search for the definitive recipe - and then can we have bricks on the results please? Rx

• 08/06/2008 @ 09:08 unionmaid said

  

  Oh I have just posted on my current need for a baked custard. I got all of your sweet taste buds roze - I think it is necessary to skip mains and go straight to desert at least once a week!

• 08/06/2008 @ 11:32 cate said

  

  Three cheers for apple crumble (with custard) Cate xxx

• 08/06/2008 @ 11:54 Mebenji said

  

  OOOOO I did miss out on some fun by attending public schools! I mostly had problems just convincing them my father said we could choose a religion or if we wanted, not have a religion at all. In MY day (just one sign of getting old) we were expected to attend the religious instructions class corresponding to our parents' religion. Atheism was not an option! I did do the rounds of most of them on offer - & wondered why I was bothering, not believing in any of it. Only so I wouldn't get into trouble if I was found not within a classroom at that hour. Eventually myself, some others, and the Jehovah Witnesses, (no one taught that religion) were rounded up into the parade ground. Sat around doing nothing much. Some friends got together and talked amongst themselves. I was still singing at every slight opportunity, so that's what I did, strolled around singing. I would rather that we'd been allowed into the library at those times. Asked but was refused.

  -Mebenji.

• 08/06/2008 @ 12:30 unionmaid said

  

  Oh I wouldn't have given up my three years at a convent school for anything - a totally mixed bag - but at least I am literate in general religion - well not hinduism - I don't know where I was during that - but I was a non leather wearing, non meat eater by the time I was 13.

  Now in terms of religious instruction - in Year 12 word got out that one of the ministers told his group that he had worked on the missions and the problem with black people was that it kept rubbing off their skins and marking the school furniture. That was only time I tried for a transfer from RC to that denomination and he was quite excited until I told him I wanted to be a direct witness to his racism and report him to the Board of Education. He really did not care for me after that - such a good man filled with loving human kindness (bleeerrhhghgh)

  These days my kids can change their elections at any time. My daughter has returned to ethics having had a voluntary stint in a christian stream - all those deaths a couple of years ago I think. She left on the basis of rudeness by the leader - she is quite fond of the word hypocritical.