How cool is this!? Mon blog en français.
Your comments are also in French as will be your blog if you click on a link to it from mon blog en français.

Sadly, I do not always make sense in French.

Look! I have mangoes!

What do you give to the brother who has everything?

During a lull in the conversation yesterday I found myself pining for a book. It was not without guilt that I felt this intense longing to duck away from the conversation, bury myself in my room and read. My brother and sister-in-law were over for their birthday lunch and I absolutely love them visiting. They are two of my favourite people in the whole entire universe. Yet, here I was, after a lovely indulgent lunch of rack of lamb on roast provincial vegetables with a warm salad of roast tomatoes, asparagus, rocket, peas and haloumi and a glass or two of champagne, thinking about running away to read.

My sister-in-law would not have minded, she loves books too, but I decided that a better use of my time would be to enjoy my sister-in-law's company, and I'm glad I did. Yet this strange and all to common feeling I have surprised me as being very anti-social and almost obsessive. It has caused me to reflect upon my book reading practice.

In the past my friends have been offended by my practice of carrying two or three books in my bag when I go out places with them.

"What's in your bag, K______? Are you carrying bricks in there or something?"
"No, it's just a couple of books I'm reading at the moment."
"Why did you bring books? Did you think you'd be bored with us, K____?" they ask.

Of course, they never understand that I always carry two or three books with me because I never know when I will have to wait in line for a few minutes or if my car may unexpectedly break down, and I cannot be sure which book I would like to read at that particular time so I have to bring a few options. Imagine breaking down and having to wait for the NRMA for half an hour without a book! That would be pure torture. I have also noticed that I tend to think that a day spent in good company could often only be improved by the presence of a good book and some time to read it. This doesn't mean I don't enjoy the company I am in or that I am bored, it just means I really love books.

After being on prac as a Drama teacher all last term I started to feel agitated and grumpy. I couldn't place what was going on until I realised that I hadn't read a book, not properly anyway, for three months! Three months! I had not realised how completely disturbing this lack of book reading was to me until an English teacher I was working with asked me if I preferred teaching Drama or English. "When I don't read, I feel empty inside!" was my reply which was met with "Ah! Spoken like a true Drama teacher."

It is true though, I do feel empty and unsettled, agitated and cranky if I have not read for a while. It's just because I love books. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not obsessed or anything.

Am I?

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people's grammatical mistakes make you insane.
Dedicated Reader
Literate Good Citizen
Book Snob
Non-Reader
Fad Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

Hat Tip: Waterfall

I guess that explains the twitching and shaking I feel after not having read a book for a day or two.

How obsessed are you?

What Does the Bible Say about Dinosaurs?

I found this question, this passage, and these articles very interesting today. These articles refer to the description of the Behemoth in Job 40 as being a possible reference to dinosaurs in the Bible.

Here is how William Blake imagined the Behemoth and the Leviathan to be.

I had always thought of the Behemoth as a kind of bull-like creature, however, today when reading Job 40 I thought it sounded way more dinosaur-like with its tail swaying like a cedar. How intriguing the Behemoth and the Leviathan are! Blake depicts the Leviathan as a dragon-like creature and from the description in Job 41 it certainly sounds like one. Yet, I had always imagined the Leviathan to be a kind of mythical Loch Ness Monster-like creature due to its sea dwelling snake-like nature described in Psalm 104 and Isaiah 27.

What do you think they could be?

Bushfire Sky, 22 November 2006

If the sky turned orange for any other reason it would be considered beautiful rather than ominous. Yesterday the smoke and ash were thick in the air and the hot wind was blowing strongly from the west heralding the begining of our summer and the beginning of bushfire season. Many of my friends live in the mountains and over the last couple of days the strong winds were pushing the blazing bushfires ever closer to their houses. They would leave their houses of a morning and drive to work as charred leaves fell on their lawns. Fortunately, the southerly arrived late yesterday afternoon putting an end to the threat of fires and subduing the heat - for now.

I saw this at John Dekker's Journal and thought I'd have a go because I am a sucker for quizzes.

You are a Social Liberal (65% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (10% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness. Link: The Politics Test

When the dog bites
when the bee stings
when I'm feeling
sad
I simply
remember my favourite things
and then I don't feel
so bad

These are a few of my favourite things:

The Art of Tea. Ever since I first bought and tasted this tea at Salamanca Markets in Tasmania I have not been able to drink any other without feeling it is terribly inferior. I have become such a tea snob that now I will only drink this tea and have to have it shipped up to me by the kilo every month. I love it! I cannot live without it!


Tip Top 9 Grain + Pumpkin Seeds Bread! Yum!


Hammocks

& books.

Especially books in hammocks...with a cup of Earl Grey Rooibos from the Art of Tea.

The smell of rain, the feel of rain, the coolness of rain after a hot day.

Words. I love words.

and pictures

and poetry

and cats

and many many more things but right now I love sleep too much to tell you about them.

What are some of your favourite things?

From snow to 38 degree heat, the only way I am going to get to toboggan is if I play this game.

Good art is not what it looks like, but what it does to us.
~ Roy Adzak

There is a lot that I love about casual teaching: the pay is great, the flexibility of working or not working on any given day is excellent, the students are enjoyable but mostly I love the variety.

On Friday I was called in to teach Art. I so love art and almost became an Art teacher. In fact, I was enrolled in a Bachelor of Art/Education before I changed my mind and became an English/Drama teacher. The choice was awful! I really wanted to teach English and Art but the combination was not offered, so I went with the practical choice of English/Drama thinking I would always be assured of a job as an English teacher. It was a hard decision to make. Knowing this you can begin to imagine how happy I was to spend a day in the Art classroom on Friday.

With encouragement from the head of Art to join in as the students worked I found myself drawn to a small off cut of lino. It was a little square, about 5cms x 5cms. Perfect for a little botanical, I thought, just the right size for a frog to land on. And so I sketched out a little frog. Remembering my school days and numerous incidents with slipping blades I carefully approached the task of cutting out my little shape and then mixed up my colour and printed him out.

The frog is still a work in progress. I have done the first colour and must now keep cutting away and then print the next colour over the top.

The day's activity left me feeling refreshed and inspired. I hadn't done a lino cut for a very long time and I quite like the feeling of cutting away, the smell of the lino, the pleasure of seeing an image take shape, and the precision needed to capture the form, shape and detail of an image in this medium. My frog is not outstanding as a work of art but I like it because it is mine and because I enjoyed working alongside students in a creative way. It was a great day.

One day I think I will add Art teaching to my teaching methods. I'd so love to. For now, I'm going out to buy my own cutters, lino, and roller.

In keeping with Rebecca's month of Thanksgiving, today I am thankful for casual teaching: for the joy of working creatively with children; for flexibility and variety; for the oportunity to get my hands dirty; for frogs; for lino cutting; for a day off to buy art supplies; and for the anticipation of creating!

I am also thankful that this post pushes the last one down the page a little so I don't have to look at that disturbing picture anymore.

Shoes Off at the Door Please has a great article on Tramplian and Offalist Theology. You really must check it out.


It's not as weird as this picture.
I promise.

Overstepping, Julie Rrap

Eating corriander that has gone to seed is kind of like eating ants, which is fine - if you are a bear.

It's Snowing in Summer!

Today is freezing! After sitting at the cricket on monday in the sweltering heat today is freezing! Our weather here is crazy. Apparently some areas of NSW, Victoria and Tasmania are experiencing snow in November! The icy wind outside blows straight through you. It feels like a Hobart day rather than a Sydney one. Brrr! This is completely strange.

Here are a few news articles I've been reading regarding this strange phenomenon.

Fires Rage and Snow's Falling

Arctic Air Brings Snow and Hail

Snow and Fire Herald Start of Summer

Sitting in class on Tuesday I pleasantly welcomed the daily delivery of the paper by the messengers as my class was working nicely and I thought I might have a moment or two to skim the headlines. You cannot imagine my surprise, horror and sheer panic when I noticed that I, yes, little old insignificant me, had sparked a national debate. My U2 video was smack bang on the cover of the Sydney Morning Herald!

Gasp! was the only response I could give as I nearly fell off my chair. The headline read, "Hold those phones, rockers, soon your recordings will be a crime," and underneath the picture of fans taking happy snaps of Bono was my video (GULP) with a caption stating Arresting image...fan video of the same show already on YouTube.com. My audible gasp alarmed the class who were most distracted by my reaction and thus neither the students or the teacher could concentrate for the rest of the lesson. I barely had the composure to read the word "soon" in the headline and was sure I was to spend the rest of my days behind bars. All I could think of was "what kind of an example have I been to the children!?"

The staff room was greatly amused by my infamy and my dad has been collecting as many copies of the paper as he can - for me to distribute to my friends! It seems that someone at the Herald noticed my little YouTube videos of the U2 concert and thought it would be a great time to discuss the new laws which Mr Howard is wanting to rush through parliament pertaining to copyright and piracy, and my videos were an example of the kind of activity that may result in heavy fines, and possibly gaol time!, in the future.

Apparently, under these new laws, it may even be illegal to upload a video of somone singing Happy Birthday as the Happy Birthday song is not public domain! I was so tempted to record myself singing Happy Birthday to a member of U2 and upload that, just for fun, but I thought it better not to flirt with danger. It is a little ridiculous to try to police the singing of Happy Birthday, I think, and most other people do too. Imagine the trouble you could get into if you recorded U2 singing Happy Birthday and uploaded that to the internet! That's asking for double trouble.

This little issue has now been discussed on the evening news, on breakfast television, on the radio (so people have told me) and at HSC marking centres in Sydney. Apparently I am set to become a case study in Legal Studies classrooms regarding what happens when laws change. The news has even been in Melbourne papers. Apparently, my videos are not illegal - yet. There is no law stating I cannot record a public performance on my phone and upload it to YouTube. U2 could possibly prosecute re breach of copyright but since Bono was encouraging people to take photos of him throughout the concert, I don't think that is likely.

To be sure, I have removed my videos and do not plan on posting them again. I don't usually like to be made an example of, especially when it is because I am engaging in potentially illegal activities, so I think removing the video is for the best. I have decided instead to burn copies to cd and distribute them at a small cost to interested persons, or perhaps not! My dad reckons that while I have a bright future ahead, I should probably hold onto that.

I got the job!

My Mum often says that as a mother her occupation is to 'Raise a Nation,' so I wasn't really surprised when she quoted the following to me:

"When you educate women, they share that knowledge with their children, families and communities, so when you invest in women, almost every other statistic in a society improves."

“When you educate a woman, she teaches her family. Give a woman a micro-grant so she can start a small business in her home and she will buy shoes, milk and books for her children with the profits,”

While I am not one to quote politicians or spout feminist rhetoric, Karen Hughes, U.S. under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, has a point. Generally women do care for their children, desire a better world for them to live in, and seek to make changes so that this may be. Without education does a woman have the power to do this? Does a woman have the power to act locally, nationally and globally to make changes for the better?

Hughes also states that as she "traveled around the world, [she has] seen that "women are increasingly agents of change, arbiters of peace and reconciliation, and advocates of education and health." Considering Hughes' statements, do you think women, because of their care for their children, desire peace, equality, health, justice, mercy and reconciliation and through being educated have the potential to change the world? If so, is the education of women worldwide about more than just a woman's "rights"?

Have you ever had a really narrow escape?


This couple certainly did.

Imagine the sheer panic they would have felt as the train approached. The dread, the anticipation.... will it hit...will it...? Imagine the million questions that may have raced around their heads in the seconds before they made it to the safety of the platform. Imagine how they must have held their breath and wondered if they would ever breathe again. Then imagine the relief as the train passed.

I felt like this today. No, I was not running across the train lines. Nothing that spectacular happened yet I felt the same panic, the same anticipation, dread, fear and subsequent relief. The occasion was mundane, yet I believe, life changing.

I found out today that I did not receive a job I applied for. I had been feeling so nervous going for this job. So anxious, so unsettled. I wondered what I would do if I was offered the job. I agonised over it. I prayed and found found no peace, until I found out that I didn't get the job.

When I found out I was surprised by my response. I was relieved! Relieved. This is a good school I applied for. This school has a great reputation. Yet I was relieved not to get a job there. Am I crazy?

I don't think so. In hindsight, having already taught at the school, I know I would have had numerous difficulties working there. The job would have caused me to neglect other more important responsibilities, would have added stress to my life because of expectations, time demands, and certain politics I am opposed to.

It is really strange to be feeling so relieved at not being offered what most in my profession would consider the ultimate job. I am so glad that God is in control and has a place for me where I can best serve Him. I know it was not this school and I feel so much peace about not getting the position.

Today I am thankful for not getting a job and for good friends - like you - who prayed for me during this process! Thank you all! I feel as though I have just survived a narrow escape with an oncoming train.

I saw this at TulipGirl's site and had to have a go.
What have you done?
01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside outside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone (Methinks this is a little personal. There are some things that should be kept in the bathroom.)
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne (oops)
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk.
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe.
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero (What do you mean pretended?)
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie (Does my own SuperHero movie count?)
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship (Does the Spirit of Tasmania count?)
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised/ing children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication (...still writing)
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school (Uni)
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach (ew!)
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

Your turn: What have you done?

Today is very rainy and overcast and kind of miserable, which makes me happy because I have the sniffles and I like it when the weather suits my mood.

Being sniffly means thatI have been able to stay in bed nice and snuggly all weekend reading. I woke up at 7am on Saturday morning ready to do all the things I should be doing, even though I am sniffly and miserable, and my very lovely mum sent me back to bed saying, "No, missy. You stay home. We'll do that for you." Those words were the best words I could have heard and even though I was up and cold, I felt snuggly already because someone cared enough to do all my running around things for me.

So, when my mum came home later on she had bought me a present - because we are very good present givers in my family, and every occassion is occassion for a present - and when I opened it, it was this book:

Mum bought it for me to stop me worrying about what I should be doing next year: Should I get a permanent job? Should I do an honours year? Should I get part time work and do an honours year? Should I write all my achievements on my cv? How much modesty is appropriate? Should I apply for this school or that school or all the schools and choose later? And why haven't the schools I applied for rung me yet?

Clarice Bean keeps a book of her "Worst Worries - because people say things aren't so bad if you make a list.
And then you can tick things off when they are solved.
So far I havent ticked anything off," says Clarice Bean(p7).

Clarice Bean wants to be a spy lie Ruby Redfort and so she studies lots of Ruby's spy books so that she can Know How to Know Things Without Knowing Things. Ruby Redfort says

"Always remember:
it's the worry you haven't even thought to worry about that should worry you the most."

Thus, Clarice Bean studies Ruby's survival books which are "crammed with useful information, like How to Deal with Alien Life Forms: give them the slip and run like crazy." One of Clarice Bean's biggest fears is "Worry no. 3: change, And how sometimes it comes along when you least expect it. Unfortunately it's not always possible to give change the slip and run like crazy..."

Unlike Clarice, I am not so worried about change. I am worried about no change. There needs to be some change. Then I remember, that if God looks after the birds of the air, surely he will look after me and I am comforted because I really can know things without knowing anything.

I am thankful for sniffles and rainy days and God being in control and me not having to worry. Oh! and mums and surprise presents and words that make you feel snuggly when you are cold.

Kim's Reformation Day Post got me thinking: what exactly does this mean and how do we know it from Scripture?

IV. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in his providence, that it extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering, and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to his own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.

From: The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter V: Of Providence

This excerpt is saying God not only permits our sin but is so in control of it that he guides it wisely and powerfully for his own holy ends yet is without blame. The Bible tells us that God does not tempt man, man is only tempted when his own wicked desires entice him.

So, I ask you, what exactly does this mean and how do we know it from Scripture?

All thoughts are welcome.

Fascinated as I am with beginnings lately, I have started reading At Swim-Two-Birds by Irish writerFlann O'Brien. I have read but a little but I like it a lot.

HAVING placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression. I reflected on the subject of my spare-time literary activities. One Beginning and one ending for a book was a thing I did not agree with. A good book may have three openings entirely dissimiliar and inter-related only in the prescience of the author, or for that matter one hundred times as many endings.

Examples of three separate openings - the first: The Pooka MacPhellimey, a member of the devil class, sat in his hut in the middle of a firwood meditating on the nature of numerals and segregating in his mind the odd ones from the even. He was seated at his diptych or ancient two-leaved writing-table with inner sides waxed. His rough long-nailed fingers toyed with a snuff-box of perfect rotundity and through a gap in his teeth he whistled a civil cavatina. He was a courtly man and received honour by reason of the generous treatment he gave his wife, one of the Corrigans of Carlow.

The second opening: There was nothing unusual in the appearance of Mr John Furriskey but actually he has one distinction that is rarely encountered - he was born at the age of twenty-five and entered the world with a memory but without personal experience to account for it. His teeth were well formed but stained by tabacco, with two molars filled and a cavity threatened in the left canine. His knowledge of physics was moderate and extended to Boyle's Law and the Parallelogram of Forces.

The third opening: Finn Mac Cool was a legendary hero of old Ireland. Though not mentally robust, he was a man of superb physique and development. Each of his thighs was as thick as a horses belly, narrowing to a calf as thick as the belly of a foal. Three fifties of fosterlings could engage with handball against the wideness of his backside, which was large enough to halt the march of men through a mountain-pass.


Carol Taaffe of Trinity College Dublin describes At Swim-Two-Birds as "a comic novel concerning a student who is writing a novel about an author, also writing a novel, whose characters beging to write about him." I am very interested in reading the novel to see how this takes place.

I hopethat the ending is as good as the beginning[s]. However, after reading these comments by Eric Mader-Lin:

I myself feel I've less of a readerly future to look forward to because, alas, I've already read At Swim-Two-Birds. This is to say that the novel is good enough to make me somewhat envious of those who haven't yet gotten to it. Yes, it is that good.

...perhaps I should not rush to the end.

Note of interest:Apparently one of Flann O'Brien's books appeared in an episode of Lost.

"Galump!" said the little brown frog the other day...
About three years ago we had some little pet tadpoles in a fish tank outside. The tadpoles grew, as tadpoles do, into frogs. When they were about 2cms big we released about five of them into the pond at my parents house. Since then, these little frogs have sung to us on summer evenings as we eat our dinner outside in the garden. We are not sure how many frogs we have in our garden. There are at least two because they sing to eachother from different places in the yard, and we know we must have a boy and a girl because we have had more tadpoles since. We know the frogs are there because we hear them but we rarely see them. Sometimes we find them when we are rearranging logs in the garden. It is always so exciting when we find one because then we know they are surviving well. Last week we found this little froggie. I am not sure what kind of frogs mine are but I hope to find out on the Frogs Australia Network site. They have grown so much bigger now!

The frog population is in sad decline in Sydney and indeed the world, some say:

THANKS to our living habits, we may soon live in a world devoid of frogs and their amphibious friends.

Fifty international amphibian experts have predicted a mass extinction of the world's frogs, toads and salamanders due largely to rising pollution levels, climatic change and a killer fungal disease - with its effect being felt in Sydney.

This is one of the reasons we chose to nurture these little frogs in the first place. I like that our garden is a little well functioning ecosystem. In a world where frog populations are under such threat, I am pleased to have a few little frogs living in my garden. I hope we can help them before they croak.

UPDATE: I discovered that our little frogs are of the Limnodynastes peronii variety.
Family: Myobatrachidae
Common names: Striped Marshfrog; Brown-striped Frog; Brown Frog

They are not endangered - Yay! - but this doesn't make them any less special. You can hear my frog's call here. These frogs sound like little dripping taps. It's very cute.