Wantirna Campus had no heating in any of its buildings for 2 weeks, 15 – 29 May. Many students and staff wore overcoats, hats, scarves and fingerless gloves inside, just to keep warm. In an effort to keep spirits up I wore a different hat every day. The weather was the typical glorious days that Melbourne turns on in Autumn, cold and often foggy in the morning clearing to sunshine by lunchtime. The Library has a full glass wall down one side and half glass down the other. Many students commented that it was warm when they came in.
I was taking a class of CSWE II (Certificate II in Spoken and Written English) in the Library Training Room. The class content was what is email, who can you send it too, what and where is the internet, sending an email message to me and receiving a reply, setting up an email address book, including the address of the class teacher and sending her a message. Not one student in the class of 20 used email to communicate with their family in their home country. They relied on prepaid telephone cards.
After about 20 minutes I noticed everyone was looking very cold. We stopped and did a multi language version of the “Playschool” song My hands are shaking shaking shaking the students thought it incrediably funny when I was attempting the line my foot is shaking, shaking, shaking. I really had to work my abs hard to ensure that I did not fall over! Once we warmed up we spent a few minutes adjusting the ergo chairs, before returning to the topic of email.
