Insanity. Not footbag related but I thought I'd post it anyway.
My mum is a humanities teacher at a local high school. She has been teaching for a while now. Obviously there are students she doesn't get on well for whatever reason - I'm sure everybody have teachers they don't like. Obviously the best reaction is to try and behave in a mature manner around those teachers and work hard - that's basically what I did and I never had any serious problems with teachers. However for lots of kids I know they don't grow up as quickly as I did and they end up doing stupid things.
In the same street we live in are two girls who my mum taught. I don't know their side of the story but from all accounts they were silly little girls who didn't want to be in school at all. Anyway it's safe to say that they didn't get on well with my Mum. About a year ago they had a party or something and two boys who were friends of theirs rocked our roof. No damage was done but my step dad called the police and got a cop to come around and scare the kids. It worked (I played in a cricket team for a while made up almost completely of police including a guy who was the top policeman in the state - so we have a good relationship with police - even though politically I have a lot of problems with them - I like all the police I have met outside their job

).
Anyway since then as far as I know there has been no contact with this family down the street. Then on new years eve - the father of the girl and some of his friends assulted my step dad and tried to throw him in a river - they then followed him home and punched a hole through the front door.
Of course I was away for all this time - but I must say it is freaky to come home and find that the front door has a hole in it and lots of blood (from where the guy cut himself - it's actually hard to punch through stain glass.
It's a little scary too - but the guy in question is being charged with serious assult, criminal damage and tresspass - and there is a moderate chance he'll be sent to jail!
It's puts a lot of pressure on my morals - because ideally I am opposed to jail - but of course I'm opposed to criminals being let go too - so I think jail is a better option than dropping the charges. I've always said that I think people who commit crimes do so for a reason and that demonising them achieves nothing - but you need to address the problem instead. I still feel like that - which is good I think - I think this guy has some serious problems - probably ignorance or stupidity are the main ones but who knows - I don't think I've ever spoken to him - except maybe a "g'day" or something while walking past him.
I just can't understand how you could do something so serious over a matter of either the wife of the person not liking your child or a policeman coming around and telling off some kids for throwing rocks on your house. Like those aren't things I can imagine punching somebody over. Especially when the whole school thing happened about 3 years ago and the kids have now finished school. It just seems so ridiculous.
I remember in a arguement a while back about gun laws - that Nathen O. mentioned that since Australia implemented our harsher gun laws assault rates have risen dramatically. Throwing my step dad over a 20 meter bridge into ice cold water in the middle of the night would have almost certainly killed him with his heart - I am so glad we do have the gun laws we do have or I am sure it would have been much more serious.
Ok anyway some other stuff - I went to the movies last night with my brother, a close friend and his girlfriend. His girlfriend is a girl I went to school with for 5 years - she's really cool. Anyway I found out she has some serious heart problems - which is scary and sucks. Then I got a lift home with her today from my brothers place and halfway on the trip she got a call to let her know that a Finnish exchange student who is staying with her's grandmother just died suddenly - and apparantly the grandmother was the gaurdian of this girl - so it was pretty tragic. The other person in the car was her cousin who works in China and had some cool stories. She works as an english teacher and has adopted two chinese girls as well - and it all sounded really cool. Oh she was a Christian too - and works at a christian missionary school in China. I'm glad I'm not very vocal about my opinions on issues when I meet new people - because she asked what things worry Laura and I - and I almost said something that I think lots of Christians would find fairly offensive (about the growing relationship between politics and religion and the death of secularity) - but luckily I held my tongue and went for more broad comments about politics in general. (I didn't know she was a Christian at that time). Anyway it's very sad about the Finnish girl's grandmother.
Oh I got a Patris bag today - actually it probably arrived a while ago but I got home today - which is really cool. It's an awesome design - not a soccer design - hard to explain - I'll take some photos later. It's slightly lighter than what I'm used to but it feels great - the stitching is really pro as well - one of the best stitched bags I think I've seen. It's really good.
Also my material finally arrived!!

So I'm going to spend the next few days making bags. I got so much - um 6 1/4 yards - so I will be in material for ages! (I wasn't quite sure how much a yard was or how long 40 inches (or whatever the length is) - although I had a rough idea - I underestimated so that I would definitly have enough.
So these are the bags I have to make:
James Hermey
Patris
Ryan Thomass
Oliver Adams
2 more bags for testing
and then I'll be able to make bags for people! - exciting!!
Oh one more thing - I have started reading "The Great Shark Hunt" - by Hunter S Thompson - a collection of essays he wrote in the 70s - including the essays that "Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas" are based on. Fucking insanity!! - Just like the start of this post - he is one crazy person. Seriously - the movie doesn't do him justice at all.
Anyway Peace and Love
Jeremy
Oh yeah and the coins never got counted - but the other performers who are used to feeling lots of coins etc estimate that we raised $3500 - which is an awesome achievement and it feels so good to have done something for the aid effort. I was also on TV on three different channels yesterday and in the local paper: "The Mercury" - so that was cool too!