Good times...bad times...

It's been a tough few weeks.

When we came out here, we thought we had a pretty good idea of which one of our two children would be the most challenged by the experience. Anna was always brimming over with confidence and able to find a friend anywhere. George was more reserved and introspective, and took time to make connections with people. We thought Anna would take it in her stride and George might need more support and nurturing.

How wrong we were......

We've spent the last couple of weeks coming to terms with the fact that Anna is desperately unhappy at school. There have been warning signs. More sickness than usual, and many illnesses appearing on Sunday evening and disappearing once she got to school. A lack of interest in how she looked at school. A declining academic and behavioural record.

Then suddenly a big meltdown. Apparently she hates the school, always has - but didn't want to disappoint us. She doesn't feel at home there and feels that she doesn't fit in.

It's desperate when your children are unhappy. After a few weeks of discussions, and taking advice from professionals, Andrew and I had a worry that had been at the back of our minds confirmed. You might remember that when we arrived here, Anna went into Year 4 - which meant she went up from having 2 school years between her and George to only one. Initially this worked very well, and we felt it had been a good decision. However....this year the older of those girls are over 11 and a half. At just 10 and not 11 till next May, Anna has been struggling to keep up with their level of maturity. At the same time, because these children have been at school for longer than her, she has gone from excelling to being very average. This has been confusing for her, and has knocked her confidence.

Anna is just not old enough for Year 5, and certainly not for Year 6 starting in January.

The result is that we are moving her from the school, and placing her at a local school where she will repeat Year 5. This will give her the opportunity to regain some of the confidence and self belief she has lost, and also get her back in a year group with whom she has more parity in terms of maturity.

Since we have made this decision and sorted it all out, Anna has been like a different child at home. Or at least, she's been more like the child we were used to having around. It's not going to be a bed of roses when she starts at the new school I'm sure, but we are keeping our fingers crossed that we've made the right decision.

On a more positive note, there have been other, happier things going on in Anna's life. Her netball team won the Summer Competition (you will remember they won the winter one as well). They have not been beaten by anyone all year! How amazing is that?? Anna is getting quite a collection of trophies! Also, we went to see her dance school end of year show, and saw Anna dance for the first time. Now I know I am a bit biased - but she's rather good! Next year she will be doing 7 dance classes a week, luckily just down the road, and she is very proud that she will be in a performance team.

It now being the 28th November, we have been waiting with baited breath for a glimpse of George's Nintendo Wii advert, as it was released on the 26th in the States. So far, however, after repeated trawling the web and YouTube, I've not been able to find it. Which is very frustrating. I'll keep looking for it, and as soon as I've located it, I'll put a link on here. And if anyone is in the States and sees it, please do let us know!

Perfection

George has just completed his first ever working week. Well - two days. And I suspect that it will be a long time before he earns that much money in so short a time again. We were very proud of him. He worked hard, was charming, was patient and focussed and never complained, although I know at times it was rather tedious.

It turned out that Nintendo Wii adverts are big budget productions. The director hired was Aaron Ruell, who is both a renowned photographer and director of independent films and an actor who has appeared in a number of Hollywood films, most notably 'Napoleon Dynamite'. He is, apparently, the up and coming man of the moment in the film world. It was, therefore, especially exciting when he asked if he could photograph George for his photographic website (www.aruell.com). He likes unusual looking people and takes very detailed photographs. We'll let you know when the photos are on the site, and that's one of his at the top there.

The actual advert will only be shown on American and Canadian TV, and will be released on 26th November, after which time it should be able to be found on YouTube. Oddly enough, there were 3 children in the commercial, of which two were English. So they were filming an American advert with two little English boys in Australia. The world sure is a small place these days.

It was really fascinating being there. It occurred to me that these days we are so familiar with adverts, films, and tv, and yet what goes into its creation is such a mystery to us. What amazed me most was the attention to detail. Everything had to be absolutely perfect - and this often meant doing things over and over and over again (not easy when you are an active twelve year old boy!). They would take a shot, and then start again because they wanted to move a teacup, or remove a person, or change some item of wardrobe because they didn't feel it was working.

Which brings me to the title of this post. We talk a lot these days about the influence of the media in terms of body image and the pressure to be perfect. We are sold the idea that we should aspire to look like women who are 20 years younger than us, airbrushed and injected, and we are disappointed when we can't keep up. But I realised watching this shoot that the idea of perfection pervades our society far more broadly than that. Through the media we are shown homes which have been styled by interior designers and stylists with no expense spared. Every detail of every thing we see on tv and film has been carefully selected, and then carefully placed in the scene. Nothing is left to chance. Throughout the filming wardrobe and makeup flit on and off the set, smoothing hair which doesn't look out of place to the human eye, straightening collars, pulling down hems and generally ensuring everyone looks picture perfect. Other people move teacups, flowers and other items around until the director and the advertising agency are satisfied. At one point, an extra disappeared and another one replaced him, as the agency had decided they didn't like his look (the poor man was only sitting at a cafe table pretending to talk to a blonde woman. Brutal).

All this creates a lot of pressure on us mere mortals, who are not followed around by make up and wardrobe and set hands. The media sends us the message that we must not only look perfect and be perfect, but our homes and our lives must be perfect too.

No wonder we are all going a bit nuts....

Almost Famous

Enormous excitement in the Pettifer household this week. George got the Nintendo job!

Now, of course, Andrew and I have always felt he was especially beautiful and talented, but it's nice to know someone else thinks so too!

Filming is at Fox Studios in Sydney on Monday and Tuesday, so he also gets a couple of days off school (which obviously George thinks is a huge bonus. He won't still be thinking that once I've produced the huge bundle of school work he will be doing to make sure that he keeps up...).

As a result of George telling all his mates at school, I think his cool quotient is on the up and up. It's been a good couple of days for him - he got the Nintendo job, he scored a distinction in a national computing studies exam (performed in the top 11% nationally) and a girl he likes phoned and asked him over. When you are 12, I don't think it gets much better than that.

We've just been to the studios for a wardrobe call. George's cool quotient started to decline when we found out that they were filming two adverts, and instead of being the nephew in ad 1, George was now the grandson in ad 2. The grandson in ad 2 is from the deep south of America, and before we knew it, George was dressed in denim dungarees and a checkered shirt. There goes any hope of being cool. But wait a minute! It's only being shown in the US. Saved! Or he would be if no one had ever invented the world wide web, and no one ever looked at You Tube...

Nevertheless, George did look very cute, and the directors and everyone else involved were very happy. For a child who is not particularly confident, the session today involved a number of moments where I know he felt very uncomfortable - a wardrobe room with two women and the door wide open (we are no longer permitted to see George in his underwear), and then once he was in his costume, about 7 people came in the room, gathered around him and just looked at him for a really long time. They were all American, and eventually he was pronounced to be 'working it' and they left. George and I giggled. Everyone was very friendly, the atmosphere was very relaxed, and I know it is going to be a very interesting experience for both George and me. There was lovely food too...

Whilst all this has been occupying our thoughts a bit this week, we mustn't forget that Anna has been on school camp to Bathurst - a former goldmining area. We haven't heard much about it just yet, as she is still dreadfully overtired and a bit stroppy. On Friday it was 38 degrees here, and only just about bearable, and it is usually far hotter the further inland you go, so I hate to think what the temperature was there. Everyone is telling us that they are expecting a very hot summer, especially after the rubbish one we had last year. I'm not sure whether to be pleased or not. I know we can cope with up to 38 degrees, but I'm not sure about over 40. Good job we've got good aircon in this house!