Yadda Yadda Yadda

Still no word on jobs. Living in limbo...

Gah! I might have to move interstate in 5 days and start a new job 2 days after that! I got a call from the Principal of Stuart High School in Whyalla, South Australia this morning saying they want me for an English/Maths position. Stuart High is a middle school, years 8 - 10. They've had increased enrollments this year so they need an extra teacher. They are waiting for confirmation of numbers, and if they have enough they'll hire me! I might actually have a job!

These last few weeks have been a little stressful as I thought I'd have a teaching job by now. I really thought I'd be able to get a job and it's been so hard. Anyone who thinks there is a teacher shortage is way off the mark. There hasn't been a teacher shortage for years, it's hard to get a teaching job.

I can't get one in Melbourne at all, so I branched out with the Whyalla jobs and it seems something might come of it! I won't know until Friday, but it certainly sounds promising! It's such a big move in such a short time! I'd really rather more than 1 day to prepare for such a huge job I very little about, but I guess I'll have to do what I can. The first couple of weeks may be a good time to buy stocks in energy drinks...

Well it's that time of year again. Triple J's Hottest 100 goes out on Australia Day (Jan 26), but voting is now! So here is my top 10 for this year:

ARTIST Song

BERTIE BLACKMAN Black Cats
BLUEJUICE Broken Leg
BOB EVANS Power Of Speech
GOSSIP, THE Heavy Cross
LISA MITCHELL Coin Laundry
MUMFORD & SONS Little Lion Man
MUSE Uprising
PAUL DEMPSEY Fast Friends
REGINA SPEKTOR Laughing With
WASHINGTON How To Tame Lions

Here is the link if you'd like to check out this year's list for yourself.

If you've already voted, what did you vote for?

If you haven't heard of Dr. Horrible, you haven't lived!
It's a 3 part web series by the genius Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly) starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion & Felicia Day. All up it goes for about 40 minutes. It's a musical comedy about heroes and villains and life, in it's fantastic triumphs, terrible lows, and menial details. It's absolutely hilarious and I can't recommend it highly enough!



Harris stars as Dr. Horrible, an upcoming villain whose arch nemesis is Fillion, the arrogant, cheesy Captain Hammer. Felicia Day plays the lovely lady caught between the two, fighting for her affections.

It's just hilarious and very well done. Not only is the acting great and the story fantastic, but the music is amazing! The stars can really sing and the songs themselves are brilliant. I bought the soundtrack and haven't stopped listening to it!

Make sure you watch Dr. Horrible if you haven't already! You can get it form iTunes, or buy the DVD from Amazon. Although I own the show from iTunes, I'm going to get the DVD because it comes with a commentary track, which is also a musical! I've been told it's almost better than the show itself! I can't wait to get it!

Hello to anyone who still read this.
I hope you have a wonderful and safe and prosperous and adventurous and exciting new year!
Much love to you all!
I hope you don't feel like this tomorrow.

It's Christmas time! Yay!
Tonight my family swapped presents. Yes, I know it's not Christmas yet, but we're all heading off to Whyalla, SA and for the first time my brother Luke isn't coming with us. It's going to be so weird having Christmas without him.
So presents I hear you ask?
Here is what I got so far.



In case you can't tell what everything is, from left to right:
Jane Kennedy's cook book, curb your enthusiasm season 4, Paul Dempsey's album, Pushing Daisies season 1, the first volume of the 'Glee' soundtrack, and a book by Dr Karl. Yay! I love all of them!

I probably won't blog again before Christmas, so let me take this opportunity to tell anyone who still reads my blog that I wish you a truly wonderful Christmas filled with life the way it was meant to be.

Has anyone seen the tv show 'Pushing Daisies'? I want to know what it's like. Is every episode a musical? It looks pretty awesome from what I've seen, but I've only seen a few clips on YouTube. Fill me in!

How cool is this?

I rediscovered this song recently.
Oh how I love it!

You want some giggles? Here they are!

I went to my 10 year high school reunion on Saturday night.
And it was absolutely fantastic!
I'm so glad it turned out so well. Because, I'm the one who organised it! And if it had gone bad then I'm sure people would have blamed me! But everyone seemed to have a great night and I've had a lot of positive feedback about how great the night was.
There were no weird dynamics, it was just people catching up with each other. I was so pleased. Everyone said they were so nervous, for a variety of reasons, but once we were there, all the old high school rubbish was such a non issue, and people just enjoyed themselves.
If you want to see photos from the night you can go here and check them out. There were too many to post, and frankly I'm lazy.

On Monday night Luke & I went to Readings in Carlton to hear Tony Martin do a reading of his new book A Nest of Occasionals. It was absolutely brilliant! Tony is not only very intelligent, but friendly and hilarious! His new book is a collection of stories that have happened to him over the years. He is a very gifted writer and the biggest nerd of all! In a good way of course. He also did a Q&A section at the end which was just wonderful. It was so good to be able to ask him heaps of questions we all wanted to know the answers to. Unfortunately he's been out of the media (largely) for the last 18 months or so (minus about 2 months) so there was lots to ask! Here are some photos from the event.

We also went dressed in capes! Well, bath-towels swirled around our necks anyway. It's a joke from the best radio show of all time, 'Get This' which Tony ran from 2006 - 2007, which he was axed for being too successful. Go figure. Anyway, one of the things they did was Capril. It's just a month where you wear a cape around for no other reason than it's Capril. So as a homage to Get This, we went caped! Got us some extra attention from Tony anyway :)



Hanging out with Tony Martin!


Luke hanging out with Tony.


Reading some of his book.


Reading some of his book.


Thanks for taking this awesome photo Luke...


More reading.


More reading.


Luke & I, capes donned!


He signed my book! The new one he just released.


He signed my other book! The first one of his I bought.

This is from an email about human trafficking and the chocolate industry. Good practical ways to do something and stand up for those with no voice!





The good news is that Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate bar in Australia will be Fairtrade as of Easter 2010! This means that there will be a significant increase in the sales of Fairtrade cocoa produced by farmers in Ghana. Fairtrade cocoa sales will increase for existing Fairtrade farming groups as well as opening up opportunities for thousands more farmers to benefit from the Fairtrade system.

Cadbury is the first mainstream chocolate company to announce that it will use Fairtrade certified cocoa for a main product line in Australia. Fairtrade certification sets standards by which the farmers growing the cocoa get a decent price for their produce and that exploited child labour is not involved.

Mars had previously announced that all of the cocoa it uses in its chocolate products will be certified as free of the involvement of trafficked people and slave-like labour by 2020 .

The bad news is by comparison to Cadbury and Mars companies such as Nestle have been unwilling to take adequate steps to address the exploitation of children on the cocoa farms and plantations.

Please write to Cadbury using the address below or through their on-line customer feedback at http://www.cadbury.com.au/Feedback.aspx:

Mark Callaghan
Managing Director Confectionary
Cadbury Schweppes Australia and New Zealand
PO Box 6134
St Kilda Road Central
Victoria 8008

Points to make in your letter or e-mail:
- Welcome the joint announcement of Cadbury and Fairtrade Labelling Australia and New Zealand that Cadbury Dairy Milk will achieve Fairtrade Certification in Australia by Easter 2010.
- Note that this will have the very positive outcome of significantly increasing sales of cocoa under Fairtrade terms for cocoa farmers in Ghana.
- Note that with this announcement Cadbury is leading action amongst the large chocolate manufacturers in Australia to address exploited child labour in the production of cocoa in West Africa.
- Request that Cadbury announce a timeline by which each of its product lines that contain cocoa will use only Fairtrade certified cocoa.

What you can do to turn the bad news into good news.

I left my copy of "Lolly Scramble" by Tony Martin on the plane a couple of weeks ago. Turns out someone stole it and I'm never getting it back. Sad face.

Go me! I have over 600 now!

Got a reply from my local MP about my letter I sent off (see last entry). Nice to have a personal reply, but it's not enough. I'm writing back. Here is my second letter:




Dear Ms. Macklin,

Thank you so much for writing back to me. I appreciate you taking the time. I understand that Labor is doing some good work in the area of fair trade and human rights. I applaud the government for taking measures to help see that all people have their basic rights met.

However, I don’t think the government is doing enough. We are a hugely resourced country, and therefore have the responsibility to help those less fortunate than ourselves. This goes for our own citizens as well as those overseas. I realise it’s not simply a matter of changing laws overnight to make this so. I know it is infinitely more complicated. There is personal responsibility involved as well as government intervention.

Your letter of reply did not address my main concern about trade issues. We still import countless products that ensure people are trapped in a cycle of poverty. This is equal to slavery. There is no excuse for this when we can redirect our resources to products that don’t abuse human rights. Once again I realise this is not a straight forward issue, but it is one that we need to address and act on! Complicated does not mean impossible.

Why do we continue to support multinational corporations that produce goods through ‘sweat shops’ and slave labour? Just because we aren’t the ones doing it, doesn’t remove our responsibility. We are responsible for the money we give to these corporations that encourages them to continue exploiting their workers. I wouldn’t wish those conditions on anyone and I am hugely concerned that as a country we endorse it through our actions.

We must do something about our endorsement of this behaviour. We must stand up for human rights and fair trade! We may not endorse the behaviour with our words, but our actions say otherwise. Something must be done!

Once again, Thank you for taking the time to read my letter. I hope it will drive you to positive action.

Megan Orrin

This is something I have written. I would love it if everyone could either send their own version, or just cut and paste mine and put your name on the end. I think this is very important.

Go here to email the PM

I also sent it to Simon Crean the minister for trade.

Go here to email Simon Crean

However, we all know that a written letter is worth more than an email. I urge you to do both. It will take you all of 30 seconds.

The Hon Kevin Rudd MP

Prime Minister

Parliament House

CANBERRA ACT 2600




To The Honourable Kevin Rudd,

I am writing to you as a concerned citizen. In this time of increasing social awareness, specifically in the area of fair trade, I think it’s time that the Government stepped in and made some serious changes.

You are a representative of the people, and there had been a huge increase in the public interest of fair trade products. As a country we import countless products that exploit the poorest of the poor who are unable to advocate and stand up for themselves. This is unacceptable. The abolition of slavery was founded on these same principles. We wouldn’t dare endorse slavery in this country, so why do we support it through our trade practices? We freely import products that keep people in a cycle of poverty. This is unacceptable.

You may say I should choose to purchase things that are fair trade, but as a Government it is your responsibility to oversee our country’s conscience. We don’t allow people to have slaves if they so choose, so why do we allow people to buy products that effectively keep people in conditions that amount to slavery? Why is this part of our trade policy, supporting these conditions? There is nothing acceptable about this. There is no reason for companies to continue to exploit these workers other than greed and financial gain. People are always more important than money. Always.

This issue is particularly poignant for coffee and chocolate products. Even though things are starting to change, I still see it as the Government’s role to be involved.

Having said all this, I do realise it is a complicated issue. I know that there is no solution that will not be met with immense opposition. But did that stop those campaigning for the abolition of slavery? Should it stop us? I say no. And as the representative of the people, it is your role to ensure that our country is run with integrity, and that our trade practices are not something to be ashamed of.

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter. I hope it will drive you to positive action.

Megan Orrin

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