|
|
| Rosehill College 1993-1998 |
| The Return | I had been retired for over two years and wasn't looking for a job. Saw in paper that Rosehill wanted a computer technician. A short walk to work and short hours. What the heck, I applied and got the job starting in March 1993 (13 years after I had left). | |
| The Interview | Mar 16, 1993. Went to Rosehill and Des showed me around. Everywhere we went I ran into someone I knew: Sue Baker, Janine Halliday, Perry Cunningham, Irene Bell. Robson joined us - we agreed on $11.50/hr and the job was mine. | |
| The First Day | Apr 1, 1993. Keys from Don Rolle, pay paperwork with Anne Fawcett, then morning tea where Des introduced me to the staff. Sat with Lendrum. First cry for help was from Mike Williams and his careers computers. Began the big cleanup in the office which I share with Nick duFresne. Des gave me a few jobs and I was in business. He also gave me a Mac lesson. | |
| The Second Day | Apr 2, 1993. I stocked up at Resource room (Diane Brown) and stationery room (now at far end of S-block). Poor Julie Green has trouble finding volunteers. Brought a ribbon to the Mac room and ran into Ne for the first time. I had to stop game playing at lunch and immediately became the "enemy". After school I tried to replace a floppy drive and couldn't so I took the faulty one apart and it was just a piece of metal that a student had stuck into it. | |
| The Office I | The computer stuff was kept in a teacher's room upper level of B-Block. It was a total mess. Des had a student refilling ink cartridges and I soon put an end to that. It took me the whole year to get the place organized. | |
| The Nick | The "Office" was also Nick DuFresne's office. He was a former engineer who was teaching maths. So we kind of got to know each other over that first year. | |
| The No Play | Apr 21, 1993. First "get tough" day. Locked the rooms at interval and first 20 minutes of lunch and NO GAMES! | |
| The SAC | Apr 22, 1993. Into South Auckland Computers for the first time and met Dale. | |
| The Vs I | Jul 6, 1993. Me versus students: Glued restart buttons (so students can't quickly hide what they are doing). Glued the mouse ball covers so they can't be removed. | |
| The Mix Up | One lunch time I had to kick out what I thought were 7th Formers. Turned out that the three young ladies were teachers!!! | |
| The Library | In 1993 Kathy Sanders was library assistant at Papakura High. I helped her make up a CV and she got the job for Librarian at Rosehill. | |
| The Audit | School was being audited and I needed to be "sighted" as proof that I really exist for the payroll. So I asked how she knew I was who I said I was. | |
| The Hamper | Sept 30, 1993. Everyone was all excited to see me when I got to school and I "had" to see Nola Dougall right away... I had won the smaller hamper at the fashion show last night. So I had Gail pick me up after school. Nice $8 wicker basket, bottle of wine, orange juice, pop and food... (around $150 worth). Kathy S called to say that she had won the larger basket. |  |
| The Fire | Dec 12, 1993. Over night someone burned B-Block down. | |
| The BOG | Jan 27, 1994. School with Ne to work on computers. Tom Robson was showing them to the Board of Governors president, Jane Papesch, and he was impressed that we knew each other. | |
| The Internet | Apr 28, 1994. Put a new I/O card in and got the modem going and we now have Internet at school. Only text based and that pretty much meant just email. | |
| The Showdown | Jun 20, 1994. Dick Smith catalogue was put into my pigeon hole and Des kiddingly said I was trying usurp his power and everyone in the Student Office stopped and stared at us. I told him it was probably because I wear ties more often than he does. | |
| The Showdown | Jul 30, 1994. To Bob and Diane Brown's for a meals with Sanders, Joyce Dunning, Janine and Jim. From there to Rosehill for TP with Mary Benson joining our team. We won the warm up round - Word Play and got cookies as our reward. We were in the running for the first three rounds, but bombed in sports. Teachers table won and we were 10th out of 27 teams. I figured out that Julie Green is married to Graeme Green of basketball days. | |
| The Seminar | Sept 12, 1994. Des was good to me and had me attend a two day Power Windows seminar at Quality Motel on Campbell Rd with 59 others. Given by an American who had flown in for it. Pretty ho-hum stuff as he covered basics and went off the subject a lot. However, the lunch was excellent. I sat with a justice department pyschologist and two others. | |
| The Article | Sept 14, 1994. There was an article about me returning in the 1993 school magazine. And, of course, it had facts muddled up. | |
| The Accountants | Anne Fawcett was there when I started. Denice Hastie replaced her on 7 Apr 1994. The accountant's office held the safe. I eventually convinced Des and Denice that our master program disks should be kept there. So she got to see me often and soon became friendly. She was also in charge of Adult Eductaion and talked me into doing courses on computing. When she left her replacement was Karen Berhow, from Manurewa. | |
| The Babe | Nov 4, 1994. Kathryn from IPC out to talk about networking rooms. She knew absolutely nothing, but was a looker and had Rolle charmed, so we wasted an hour talking to her. | |
| The RSA | Dec 9, 1994. Couple hours at school then RSA for staff meal. Sat with George Leigh and Nick who offered use his bach near Whangamata. Over the summer he was taking his boat to Nelson and was worried about the plantings surviving. Without seeing the place I volunteered and that is how we became regular users of his Opoutere property. | |
| The Helper | Feb 1995-6. Scott Pagett was a boy who didn't follow school rules too well, but seemed to be willingly to do chores for me. | |
| The Resignation | Apr 7, 1995. Robson announced his resignation. There were rumours about his marriage and that he was buying a flower business on the East Coast. | |
| The Internet | May 19, 1995. Logged on and used School's Network for the first time INTERNET!!!! | |
| The Dummy | Oct 5, 1995. Steven Colville (student helper) formatted T28 C: drive. He thinks he knows stuff but he is so thick. | |
| The Druggies | Aug 30 1996. I spotted a couple thugs lurking about so Des and I asked them to leave. But they returned. Bali and I chased them through Intermediate grounds. Finally a third time Bali, Lynch and a few other teachers got them. | |
| The SkyTower | Oct 23, 1996. Roy brought me along to a Windows NT talk and Arche Technologies show at the Skytower. Met Gary, boss at Arche. Treated me like a big shot as Rosehill buys the most computers from them. | |
| The Girl | Jan 31, 1997. There is gang that hangs outside the B-Block door and I kid with them. Today Julie (5th form) said she was schizofrenic so I said: "that makes four of us, we should go on a double date". | |
| The Document | Feb 4, 1997. Made up a Computing Services page for staff handbook. | |
| The Doug | Feb 21, 1997. Douglas Shanks began as a helper. His mother insists on "Douglas" but he wants to be called "Doug". | |
| The Exchange | Mar 13, 1997. When I returned in 1993, the school was doing big business with International students paying big bucks to attend. I met Dawn when some of them wanted to email back home. At first I said: "No" I had too much work as it was. Luckily, I changed my mind and got to meet Fabiola, Veronica, Gustavo and the Japanese girls when they wanted to set up emails. | |
| The Sato | Mar 22, 1997. Whites dropped in with Noriyo Sato (American accent from attending uni at Albany, NY). They brought her to Auckland and One Tree Hill. | |
| The Sato II | Mar 23, 1997. Over to Whites to visit with Noriyo and learn more about her experiences at uni in NY and Japan. | |
| The Kokeshi | Mar 25, 1997. Went to school early to meet Noriyo and Kirisyo girls. Brought Noriyo to meet Dawn McIntyre until the Asians showed up for their English lesson. Noriyo gave me a kokeshi made by parents at her school. Yuki and Che were dressed in mufti and they joined their classmates who were in school uniform for a visit to Auckland sites. |  |
| The Daniel | Mar 1997. Found a guy, Daniel, who lived next to the school to help me with the networks. |  |
| The Girls | May 28, 1997. Met Sarah Quizon (Philippines), who joined Ve, Fab and Shaday in B2 at lunch. Took some photos. |  Sarah |
| The Last Day | Jul 4, 1997. My last day at school with David taking over while I was gone for 3 months. Douglas and Matthew brought a cake, cookies and chips for a celebration (photo). I left at 2PM. |  MB-SM-DS |
| The Return | Oct 13, 1997. Term 4 began today and I was given big hugs by Fabiola, Douglas S and Chihiro, but Yukiko almost squeezed me to death. Turns out that Nick didn't quit, but will at the end of the year. A heap of work dumped on me by Des. | |
| The Hugs | Dec 3, 1997. Birthday hugs: Ne, Tracy, Pomme, Fab, Douglas, Christine Giblin, Julie Green, Gillian Ayliffe (kiss), Denise Hastie, Kathy Sanders, Dawn McIntyre, Fluffy, and Melinka. Didn't get much done. Fab gave me a Goofy photo album, a piece of banana cake and a Coke®. I brought chips, Smarties and drinks. | |
| The Gifts | Dec 12, 1997. Yukiko and Chihiro came by and gave us two hagoita dolls. Neither knew that the other was doing so. They leave for Japan tomorrow. |  |
| The Girls | Feb 4, 1998. Couple 7th form girls were trying to get into B6 and when I told them to get lost they told me they were the Journalism teachers!!! | |
| The Committee | Mar 5, 1998. First (and only) IT committee and I almost walked out - each person is only thinking about their department and wants to be my boss. No idea about school-wide issues. | |
| The Saito | Mar 22, 1998. Picked up Hikaru Saito, who was staying with Jackson family at Otoua (goldfish farm). Brought her into Auckland and Lilliput (her first time). Cappuccino at Mission Bay. She gave us a kokeshi. Letter (pg 1 pg 2) from Noriyo with wedding photos. Dawn McIntrye joined us for supper and kept us laughing with many stories. |  |
| The Newbies | Mar 26, 1998. Laure brought Titiana Strang (Brazil), Ong B (Thailand) and Jo Katz (Argentina) in at lunch to get email setup for them. How strange, including Ve Menzel (Brasil), that the most of girls from South America are of German decent. |  Jo |
| The Question | Apr 2, 1998. Bali came to ask why it took 6 weeks to set up the E4 room network. I told him the question was: "How was I able to do it in only 6 weeks?". | |
| The 7 | Apr 9, 1998. Don Rolle went to St Kentigans and after seeing their computer setup he says I am doing the work of 7 people. | |
| The Females | May 7, 1998. Met Renata Vale from Brasil and got her set up on email. Gave her and Jo Katz some Brasilian candy. Rose Chen almost friendly. Another fun session at lunch with Ong. Met Farida, who is an Indian from Fiji. Met the new accountant, Karen Greenhowe and her two daughters. |  R-Jo-Laure |
| The Gang | May 15, 1998. Got to school at 10:40AM just as Krassi was leaving, having returned the file server. Karl, Dumb and Dumber, Jo Katz, Laure and Diego all waiting in my office and complaining that I was away for a week. | |
| The Vamps | May 18, 1998. Liann Gordon came by school to show off her belly button ring. Most of day in front office and library. Ong, Jo, Renata, Diego and Senad all doing emailing. David in at 4PM to help. Dale brought in a share box. Black hair, dressed in black including nylons. So I called her: "Dark Vada". | |
| The Problems | May 19, 1998. Fiona can't print reports and I ended up on phone with Nick (who had set them up while I was away last year) for half an hour. Turned out that when Krassi fixed the file server he had restored from a version before the new File Mgmt system was installed. So I had to update all the programs. But they want the reports changed anyway. So a huge project looming there for me. Dale brought a second share box and this one worked, so I was able to get the front office printing. |  |
| The AFS | May 24, 1998. We were the first ones to St Margarets Angelican church in Pukekohe for the AFS party. So I played basketball and soccer with a 3 year old Sam. Soon everyone had arrived except for Laure, who had invited us. Played a game of Headbanz - I was Elvis. Laure arrived with Ong and Petsch (from Thailand and at James Cook). We played light a candle and blew it out with a balloon. Played pass the parcel. Gail won AFS shorts, AFS spoon, AFS pen and an AFS button (ironic since we were the only family there not associated with AFS). Then it was pass a Life Saver via toothpicks held in your mouth. Keep a feather in the air blowing through a straw (I should have won, my feather got stuck in the winner's face. Supper followed games. Afterwards Mr and Miss Counties AFS handed out awards and we had farewells from each AFSer. Each thanked their host family, except for Laure who said: "her family was probably doing something else (she hadn't told them the purpose of the meeting), but she wanted to thank me, Gail and Renee". Met Ong's host parents, Matthew and Penny Beal. Met Andre from Brasil, Laura from Paraguay and Sonja from Austria. (Excerpt from a letter) | 
 |
| The Intl HQ | May 28, 1998. Jo hits me as soon as I get to school with an email problem. She and Mrs Sanders are not getting along, so I flipped Kathy $5 to cover the library's paper costs of the exchange students. All of them were there so I showed them the photos from the AFS evening. Organized for Penny Beal to talk to Mike Howlett about Ong finding 7th form physics too hard. Meanwhile, Diego stopped in as I requested. I surprized him with a birthday gift of cachacas. Jo and Renata were waiting at the door when John Morrison came in and said: "Looks like International Headquarters". |  Diego |
| The Jo I | May 29, 1998. Jo Katz showed me her photo album of family and friends and during our discussions I found what a solid, well thought out girl she is behind that little girl act. She is very wise for her age. Her father owns factories and is very rich. We showed the photos to the Spanish teacher, Valarie Parker. Laure used digicam to take photos at lunch. |  Senad-Laure-Renata-Jo-Diego |
| The Jo II | Jun 24, 1998. Jo Katz gave me a book on Argentina (note). She told me that I was the only Kiwi friend she made during her time here. | |
| The Resignation I | Jun 26, 1998. Laure and Jo's last day. I turned in my resignation to Don who tried to come up with a solution so I could stay. | |
| The Resignation II | Jun 30, 1998. No solution so I turned in my resignation again. | |
| The Resignation III | Jul 1, 1998. I left a message with Don Rolle that I would stay. He called back to say that Bali had accepted my resignation. | |
| The Resignation IV | Jul 2, 1998. Met with Bali at the end of the day and he didn't want to keep me on in any form. | |
| The Helpers | Students: Renee, Fab, Laure, James Alderson, Matthew Burmister, Steven Munro, Douglas Shank, Scott Paget, Michael Hidalgo, Sam Barnet, Adrian Homewood (1996) and Jason Goer. Stephan Van Der Wal (father had been HOD of Maths) was supposed but didn't want to, so didn't. Non-Students: David, Phillip Du Fresne |
  |
| The Farewell | Jul 3, 1998. Bali and Des farewelled me at morning interval. Told everyone about the Bullen Boomerrang and that I might be back [ed. - Turned out that I did return the following term as a contractor]. They gave me a $40 Whicoulls voucher. Douglas and Matthew in shock. Ong gave me a real hug. Steven Munro called in to say "hi", so I sent him to Don Rolle to see about taking over for me. Des and I hugged. Christine McLeod gave me a hug and cried. But most didn't say anything and just a few wished me luck. | |
| The Contract | Jul 7, 1998. Don Rolle offered me a contract to install the admin, library and transition networks. | |
| The Contract | Jul 15, 1998. Don Rolle in to see me and tell me that he had a mighty row with Bali. He lost and I must do the library network. So I began research and making a plan. | |
| The Start | Jul 20, 1998. Rosehill wearing a three piece suit now that I am a consultant, but doing the same job. Needless to say, everyone surprized to see me, having been farewelled at the end of last term. Interviewed Jill S and Karen McC and got things going on the library network. Don said he would pay me for any extra work I did around the school until they got a new technician. | |
| The New Guy | I spent 3 hours with my replacement, Chi, - he knows nothing (e.g. he re-installed Win95 because a floppy drive wasn't working. I told him there was a piece of metal in the drive. He didn't know how to remove the drive!) | |
| The Meeting | Jul 22, 1998. Meeting with Krassi, Don and Jill. Brought file server specs to Roy, who HAD to show everyone that I was wearing a suit. | |
| The Pod I | Aug 3, 1998. Craig putting in cables. Former pupil, Andrew Forster, brought the pod out - nothing like what we ordered and it will be very difficult to work on the computers. | |
| The Pod II | Aug 6, 1998. Finished unpacking 11 library computers, set them up and tested each one. | |
| The Douglas | Aug 11, 1998. All day in library. Douglas Shanks gave me a retirement card, Goofy figurine and a Goofy mousepad. | |
| The Berhows | Aug 21, 1998. Karen Berhow's (Rosehill accountant) in Manurewa. Met her husband Tony. Had supper and fixed their computer. Got home at 10:30PM. | |
| The Last Day | Sep 3, 1998. I took photos. Nice chat with Rose and Ong at lunch. Spent afternoon training Chi on the network setup. |  Kathy and Fay |
| The Visit | Feb 4, 2004. Brought Yuki to Rosehill College to visit Dawn McIntyre. We also ran into Kathy S. Met Dave Ormandy (now without moustache). The two techs (crammed into a small closet space) showed me the 6 servers where I had installed the first one back in '98. Many changes - no hallways and more buildings. | |
