Houses in Demand

House prices in the Western World (and Australia especially) are rising and many citizens of all classes are forced to rent out two or more rooms. In fact, charities are finding it difficult to provide aid as the number of homeless Australians begins to rise.

I can only add on a cynical note that I would have thought that we had enough builders down under to provide homes not only for Australians, but to meet the housing requirements of a dozen third-world countries.

Many citizens choose building as an occupation, so I'm rather taken aback by the limited amount of houses. I suppose one must also consider that we are a relatively new country, and that many refugees come here. Unfortunately, our country isn't able to support a large population. Another very interesting snippet is one I discovered on this BBC News Article, Property viewed 'safer than cash':

"A majority of British people believe buying property is now a safer place to put their money than saving with a bank or building society."

Houses prices are indeed constantly rising, and those who buy and rent out homes can find themselves making a tidy little profit. However, to find the money for simple accommodation is the most difficult part. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare said 1.7 million people were in "housing stress" in 2004, spending more than 30 per cent of their income on accommodation.

Picture Source:
Mandurah Holiday House in Western Australia
Related Articles:
The Age: House Prices 'Worlds Highest'
BBC News Article: Property viewed 'safer than cash':

Quote

I think a lot of the Western Worlds' problems come down to simply not caring. Poor education, bad values, new-age parenting and media influences contribute to our obvious deevolution.
-Julia Borsos, author of Something is Wrong



Post a Comment

Please Ignore Me, Teacher

You may be confused by the title of this post, "Please Ignore Me, Teacher". It is what goes through my head (and most like my friends') when I'm sitting in class with my arm aching in the air, waiting to be addressed by the teacher. One of the most exasperating experiences in the regular school classroom for me is waiting for the teacher to come and help me. So I sit there beside my friends, arm stretched out into the air for minutes on hand, which - pardon my complaining - can be quite agonising when the brain is ticking over a tricky questing worriedly.

I used to fume and mumble that the teachers were blind, deaf bats. Which they aren't, really, just poor souls given the important task of educating the future generation, which not only pays little, but causes a large amount of stress and often results in much abuse from students taken quietly. I'll be interviewing teachers in the future and commenting on how they are coping with the working conditions in a later post...

Getting back on topic with requesting help from a teacher, the most irritating thing that I notice is that being in the classroom is like surviving in the wilderness: the strongest survives. Do pardon my exaggeration, for I simply mean that the loudest wins. The group of boys who bellow the loudest or the girls that can squawk at the highest possible pitch receive the attention.

The teacher nearly always immediately addresses the loudest party of pupils, leaving us to wait for a further 10 minutes. This is understandable, you say? Why, of course it is! But it does get worse, I assure you: these loud parties don't merely converse with the teacher about the problem and leave it at that, oh no... they spend lots of precious time wailing about why they have to do work. The horrifying thing I find is that the teacher then responds to the students, spending much time giving a pep talk on why it is important to learn, when the students are obviously waiting for the first opportunity to butt in with a comment and are not even half listening to the advice.

Even the most respectable and no-nonsense teachers fall prey to these fools that waste not only their time, but other peoples'... they waste the time of people like me, who are there to learn. All I want is simple, clean information with speedy help available, especially since the knowledgeable internet database is so readily denied of us.

It is a habit of my friend and I to help each other out. That is, if my friend had a problem and I could not help her, I would help her by raising my hand to alert the teacher. A larger show of hands appears to increase the rate of a teacher coming over to help us, and I simply direct him/her to my friend. It works vice versa, too. We are trying to gain the help we feel that we deserve, not by imitating foghorns, but by a method that gives the teacher less opportunity to accidentally ignore or postpone the moment when he/she addresses us. My friend and I, we are of the quiet sort who, if you don't mind me saying, are quiet and strive to be well-mannered and polite to teachers, and not to call out loudly when others are working.

God knows the teachers have enough to be getting on with, but this post is dedicated to the demands of the average students who wants to learn, but is ignored because the teacher's attention is required elsewhere... such as making small talk; discussing sports day during maths class is just one minor example. It gets worse when many teachers have the inability to control a class and prominent troublemakers.

So next time I need help, Please Ignore Me, Teacher. Don't say you'll come and help me in a just a moment, and then forget. Instead, lecture me on being independent and let me figure the problem out myself, because I should certainly not fall into the habit of relying on you to explain it to me!

Thank you for reading,
Feel free to share your opinion:
Post a Comment

Bullying Topped With a Criminal Charge

In truth, this kids-will-be-kids attitude was taken up by schools not so long ago, which basically advise students to ignore the problem. It sometimes even accused the victim of being just as responsible for the issue as the bully! This I've seen in first-hand experience, and I can assure you that it leads the victim feeling without a hope in the world.

What a ridiculously misleading quote. "Kids will be kids"? Well, I say: A bah humbug to you, too!

I have seen bullying from a little tyke who got off the hook for over a year - and to this day, continues to bully one of my close friends. Despite many complaints, including formal meetings and discussions, the school staff did not give anything more than one brief suspension. The case carried on for over a year, and finally we approached other teachers, the assistant principal and really kicked up the dust. My friend was not going to stand for it, and I was relieved, because I knew that the ruddy blighter (our age) was causing her a lot of grief. In the end, we found out from a sincere teacher that the reason the bully couldn't be expelled was that his mother was a former teacher at our school, and she would have threatened the school with God knows what!

The situation appears to have quietened down a tad, but I want to announce that in such a situation, there are methods to deal with a bully. The abuse that my friend suffered from was of the verbal kind and my former English teacher from America mentioned that if a tormentor does not stop his/her behaviour after three warnings, the victim may alert the police. In this case, my friend could basically give the bully a criminal record with her parents permission; he would be denied a life that he almost destroyed: a life in which exist many choices, where one can pursue any career that they wish to.

I'll say this much, if he keeps this riot up, it is within my friend's power to arrange for his chances of being accepted into the air force to become obsolete. And really, I personally don't want to see a rascal like that armed with a fighter pilot.

Post a Comment