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Below are the 50 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Julie" journal:[<< Previous 50 entries]
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10:24 pm
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I love Saturdays!!!!
Especially when Winter thinks it's Spring!
This Saturday has involved the usual sleep-in followed by the usual noon breakfast of egg on toast while sitting on the outdoor couch on the back patio. The egg on toast is compulsorily shared with both Miffy and Katsuko.
The early cloudy sky luckily smoothed over into a beautiful blue sky for the afternoon, with so much warm wind rushing through that our household got about 3 or 4 loads of washing dry on the line.
Since our backyard was recently cleaned and thus is now usable again we set up the table tennis out there today for the first time in over a year. Much fun and exersize was then had playing Bounce Table Tennis (this is my highly aerobic form of the game where you basically jump everytime you hit the ball!)
More time was spent lounging on the outdoor couches, chopping off some of Miffy's matted winter fur and daydreaming about the future and planning finances on Excel spreadsheets on my laptop.
There was a late afternoon shopping expedition to Coles to fill up the pantry full of good yummy (& healthy) food, and then we all pitched in to prepare and cook a scrumptious dinner of roast vegies (potato, pumpkin, sweet potato, carrot, zuccini, squash, onion, and stuffed garlic-mushrooms) and soy fillets with fresh lemon.
After dinner Josh challenged me to a game of Chess which he won easily, and now we are about to head out for a jog around the block with the dog.
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05:08 pm
[Link] | Today I spent several hours at work getting some sorting done while the kids weren't there, then I came home via the shops and bought myself a soccer ball. This is because I have decided I want to take up soccer. After kicking the ball around with the kids at school lots and having so much fun doing so, I've decided to try to find an adult beginners soccer team to join!! I remember playing for a term when I was a kid and I just adored it!
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01:18 pm
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random - descriptive mood
The wind pounded against her face, her skin enduring the sharp, icy sting, while her mind swirled into action, awakened and inspired. The more she felt the chilling cold bare down upon her skin, she also felt a compensatory warm glow fill her from inside out. A thrill spread right through her body. She felt alive. She could feel the world, and it felt real and powerful.
She walked amongst the tall, lanky, towering trees, humbled by their enormity. Each tree stood alone, independent and strong, yet each was assumed into something greater, a whole far superior even to any of its magnificent parts.
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11:30 am
[Link] | I am in an unexplained good mood today. I love it when I just feel like smiling, and everytime I think happy thoughts (even thinking "Yay, I'm happy"), I get a rush of feel-good chemicals flooding my brain!
Back to work.
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04:06 pm
[Link] | Also, did anyone else watch that show "Kid's Business" on ABC last night? If so, what did you think about it? I was pretty impressed.
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04:58 pm
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Feeling very competent
I had a very rewarding day at work today, a day of praise from where it means the most - from my role model (the AP). She was working in my class with me for an hour in the afternoon to work with 1 of my students as part of our step-up program (extra help for some who really need it), and at the end of the hour she said she liked what I did with the kids so much she wants to video me and use it as a resource to show the other teachers !!! Admittedly, when I heard she was going to be working in my room, I did plan to impress :-P
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04:23 pm
[Link] | Does anyone know anything much about ambidexterity? Especially in linking to poor spacial awareness, writing number and letters backwards and any other learning related matters? I have a parent who is very keen for an educators perspective but I know practically nothing on the matter.
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05:22 pm
[Link] | I remain hopeful that I shall be swimming this weekend.
My holiday reading so far has been a NSW government publication:"GUIDELINES FOR MANAGING RISKS IN RECREATIONAL WATER" http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/publications/synopses/_files/eh38.pdf
with the aim of becoming as informed as possible about the risks associated with cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) blooms, and how these risks and the associated recommendations differ with the varying alert levels.
At present, Edwards River is on Amber Alert which means "the water remains suitable for recreational use". Yay! :) All the same, I think I definitely wont be putting my head under the water.
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10:04 pm
[Link] | Heeheeeeeehaaaaaa.
I can't remember when I have laughed so hard at a movie as I did tonight at the ending of the movie "Knowing".
Olie was cringing because he was taking it seriously, but I just can't think that such an ending can be meant to be taken seriously. The way I see it - it can't NOT be making fun of itself!
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02:23 pm
[Link] | 1 day til holidays!
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12:15 am
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Philosophy of Happiness
I have been thinking much, as I do, on the Science of Happiness. I have been wishing for greater research into mood disorders, self-manipulation/control of moods, and neuro-chemical influences. I have been thinking about feedback loops, and wondering whether feeling happy alters the chemical composition of the brain to further increase frequency of happiness, and likewise for misery.
Then I moved on to thinking about the Philosophy of Happiness:
What is the value of happiness? Conversely, is there any value in misery?
And this led me to my question, which I pose here for anyone with a moment to ponder and share their thoughts upon -
What would be the drawbacks of a world without misery?
eg;
1) reduced creativity? (I know I am most artistically creative when miserable)
2) Less productivity? (if people are less wanting).
3) Increase in reckless, careless and selfish behaviour? If people did not have to feel the misery of guilt, would they do more harm to others?
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11:12 pm
[Link] | All the hype keeps convincing me that I should be out buying things to save the economy.
Then I remember the environment, and the fact that I want people to consume less.
My solution: Spend money by consuming services rather than goods.
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08:03 pm
[Link] | Also, walking the dog in the pouring rain and splashing through puddles is absolutely delightful! Even if Miffy and I did arrive home very very soggy :-) I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to feel rain on my face.
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06:12 pm
[Link] | Only a few days of our holiday left now. Lots to say about travels so far, but too much to say and not enough time, so I'll write about most of it at a later point. Currently we are in Manchester, staying with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) foxe and enjoying the pleasant temperatures that are above 5 degrees for about the first time on the trip. Tomorrow we go to London for our last few days on this side of the world.
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09:20 am
[Link] | Scottish Highlands are very pretty :)
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01:03 pm
[Link] | Gröss Gutt!
Gutten Abend alle personnen!
Ich bin starting to sprechen und think in kleiner deutch und kleiner english, interspersing the two as you can see. It is kind of funny. I´m picking up some of the words, but my word endings, other grammar and sentence structure probably all sound very funny.
Apparently one shouldn`t say "Ich bin Kalt" (I am cold) because it means rather that you are frigid :P Instead you say "To me it feels cold." And no I didn´t find this out by saying it, but rather reading it in the phrase book.
Hamburg
Yesterday we went to see something called the Miniture Wonderland - the largest model railway in the world, also with model cities, mountains, farms, rivers, harbours, even a miniture pop concert and a building on fire (glowing and smoking) with little fire-engines driving up to it with their lights and sirens wailing. I think the road vehicles moved along magnetic strips or something. We spent more than 2 hours just walking through all the different model scenes.
We went to the viewing platform in a church tower (quite high up) and the wind chill factor was such that I felt the cold like I have not yet felt it on this whole trip. It was really difficult to get warm again afterwards, but hot chocolate, over-heated buildings and vigorous walking eventually did it.
Vegetarian food is also very easy to get in Hamburg! :)
Hamburg is not a very pretty city like the ones in Barvaria. It is very much a working city, practical not beautiful.
This morning we went to a museum where I enjoyed learning lots of the 20th century history of Hamburg and Germany, and have been inspired to go and look more up to learn more (in my opinion the best outcome from museum visits).
Olie is now at another museum, but i´ve had enough museums for now so I`m sitting in an internet cafe instead.
This afternoon we are catching a train to Münster, the bicycle city.
It seems that most of Germany is a reconstruction. Most German buildings of any significance were destroyed in the bombing raids of the 2nd World War, then slowly and carefully are constructed to be as close to the original as possible. There are of course exceptions to this, such as the huge stone ceiling of the Würzburg palace with the beautiful fresco, which proved very resilient.
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08:41 pm
[Link] | So far:
Garmisch-Partenkirchen - seemed to be a tourist town, but one for locals (as in it is the Germans mostly who go their for their holidays). Highlights were the mountain scenery and all the snow, and staying right in the mountain.
Füssen - very pretty little town. Lots of snow. A bit touristy, but lovely architecture in the citadel. Neuchwanstein castle (King Ludwik´s fairytale castle) was beautiful, and the scenic views even more so.
München - big bustling city full of people, people, more people, bicycles, plus the occasional car. Lots of turkish people and turkish food (yay for felafel being vego). Fanstastic train system. The most we ever had to wait for a train was about 4 minutes, while usually they came every 1 minute. Also nice trams. The Deusches Museum (a technology museum) is huge and amazing. I particularly enjoyed the model railway section :P We also visited the Speilzeug museum (a toy museum) and the Bayersisches National museum, which I completely ran out of steam for.
Wurzburg - gorgeous little town with a lot of churches, but very pretty ones. Also an awesome palace with the most amazing fresco!! Very relaxed seeming town.
Other observations:
The InterCity Express trains are really really smooth and delightfully comfortable and travel at around 250km per hour.
Beer is usually served in .50 litre glasses (yum).
Alcohol is sold everywhere - seems not to be any such thing as a liquer licence here.
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12:20 pm
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Sylvester
Oh..my..fucking...god. I have never seen people trash their own city quite like the Germans in München did last night for Sylvester (New Year's Eve). Most of the mess was made up of firework packets and firework remnants, along with broken glass bottles, but it was absolutely everywhere.
I have also never experienced fireworks in quite the same way before. I'm used to a finely tuned, controlled display put on by a city. I'm not used to hundreds of thousands of people setting off their own fireworks! On New Year's Eve here fireworks are set off by everyone and absolutely everywhere - on the streets, on the footpaths, in the parks, off the bridges, right in front of you, just behind you, on your left, on your right, where-ever you were about to walk! It's shit scary when you're not used to it, and the smell is quite overwhelming. The city was so smoky from all the fireworks that you couldn't even see the tall buildings anymore.
On another topic, -5 really doesn't seem cold anymore. It's amazing how your body will acclimatise.
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03:09 pm
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Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Thursday
We arrived in Frankfurt at 6am and wandered the city for a couple of hours before anyone else in the place seemed to be even awake. Very eery wandering an empty foreign city.
Caught an ICE train to Munich (3hours journey with train going more than 200kph) which was smooth and scenic. German towns look so different to Australian ones. They are much more compact and all the houses are made in a particular architectural style very different to our own. And so much low rise!!
Anyway, we transferred onto another train to take us another hour and a half south to Garmisch-Partenkirchen (near the southeren border of Germany).
We had an hour of enormous stress because our booked accomodation wasn't on the local map and taxi drivers said they couldn't take us there because its up the mountain and their cars couldn't drive up there. We tried phoning the place but the phone number we had turned out to be wrong. Aaaaargh. It's getting late and its freezing cold and I'm wondering if we're going to have to get back on a train and go somewhere else (but where?). To make things extra difficult, no one seems to speak English, or at least not enough to be helpful. Finally we went into a hotel and found a lady who did speak enough English to help. We found out we could stay there the night (for €140) if we were completely stuck, but thankfully she made a few phonecalls for us and arranged for us to be taken to the place we'd booked :)
Why so difficult? Well it turns out our accomodation is not in the town, but up the mountain!! It is a ski lodge nestled up in the mountain from the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It is delightfully pretty, more than 1 km up in altitude and with snow everywhere.
Friday
There is a shuttle that they run, but this morning we chose to walk down the mountain through the snow to the town. We're nearby to the Zugspittze (the tallest mountain in Germany - 2960metres) and absolutely surrounded by tall beautiful mountains.
Oh, also, going to the toilet at Frankfurt and Munich train stations is expensive. You have to pay money just to enter the bathroom! €0.70 at Frankfurt, €1.20 at Munich.
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11:04 pm
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Wheee!
Singapore airport is a bit like an amusement park! We've been riding the skytrain and the travelators, buying lollies in singapore dollars and sitting to watch the gigantic fish in the indoor pond. Now we've stopped off at the free internet while we wait for our next flight to start boarding.
The first leg of our flight was very pleasant. Olie played mario brothers computer games while I took a 'learn german' course on the inflight entertainment systems. We got fed decent vegan/vegetarian meals (dinner and supper) and I was very snug with the blankie and pillow provided on the plane. The challenge for the next leg will be to see if we can get some sleep on the plane.
I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas day celebrations :-)
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10:43 am
[Link] | Wow, mavisgrizltits's party last night was a bit like warping back in time several years, or going to an oldies MUCS/MonUCS/AiCSA reunion! I was rather surprised to find interstate and international-living choristers visiting even!! It was really nice to see and speak to lots of people who I hadn't seen in quite a while, and Kim was looking healthy and glowing as always. And *squee* for gorgeous baby photos on Benno's phone!
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07:06 pm
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knowledge gap meme
( Read more... )
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07:47 pm
[Link] | Ah, it's good to be back at work. Productive things to focus my restless brain upon!
We got to start the term today with a curriculum day, which proved to be a nice relaxing way to ease back into it.
Our term's theme is Reduce Reuse Recycle, which I've decided to start off tomorrow by tipping all the contents of the class rubbish bin onto the floor (on top of newspaper) and asking the students to share whatever words, facts, questions, associations, feelings etc that come into their minds. It should be fun!
I also have another student teacher in my class for 3 weeks.
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09:56 pm
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philosophising: fear and choice
Disclaimer: This is not about me (in any specific way) . It is just tiredness-induced philosophising.
The more we have, the more we are afraid to lose. We spend our lives scared. We fear loss of objects, people, opportunities and ourselves. If we could choose to wipe painful memories or thoughts from our brains, would we choose to do it or would we be too scared of losing something which we could not get back? Why do we cling so to things that are useless, uninteresting or even extremely depressing simply because we are afraid to lose them? Is it perhaps because we are all scared of making the wrong decisions? So long as we just maintain what we have and take what life throws at us we are not responsible for the outcomes. We can blame the world rather than ourselves. We can take whatever we have and make the most of it. It’s safer that way. To voluntarily give up something that is ours is a decision with unknown consequences. Decisions can be regretted. We are so scared of finding blame in ourselves. We can be tough in the face of life challenges, so long as we can tell ourselves that we did not bring them on through our own choices. We have power and control in this world through our exercise of choice. We are constantly choosing from multitudes of possibilities, every choice affecting change in the world around us and the array of possibilities. But how well are we really equipped to deal with this power? How do we know when to exercise choice and when to go with routine or status quo? To determine whether to make a choice or not to make a choice is itself a choice we are making. And even then, how many possibilities do we take into account to choose between? Choice is inefficient. Choice makes us afraid. Choice is freedom. Too much choice is crippling for the human brain.
Tags: philosophising
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04:04 pm
[Link] | At Melbourne Central Station today a man came and sat right next to me on the seat and proceeded to light a cigarette. Melbourne Central is, as you would know, a completely enclosed station and thus smoking has never been allowed there. Me: ah, I believe it’s illegal to smoke in here. Man: Yeah, so what? Me: So I’m asking you not to smoke in here please. Man: No. Me: It’s illegal to smoke here and I do not want to have to breathe in your smoke. Please put your cigarette out. Man: No, you can move. Me: No, you need to put out your cigarette. Man: (continues to smoke) Me: Gets up and goes to find Connex staff.
Of course, for the next half hour or so I found myself re-running the scenario through my head trying to think of what i could've done that might have been more effective. I have finally decided that the most effective thing I could do in such situations would probably be to make a loud public spectacle of him in an attempt to humiliate him. At least that would make me feel better!
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10:51 pm
[Link] | Tonight I discovered that Tzigas are a pretty awesome band! I love it when you don't have go far from home to listen to live music.
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08:41 pm
[Link] | Northcote Music Festival consumed High St Nortcote today. It was pretty crowded, so seemed to take forever to walk from one end to the other, but it was a nice atmosphere. I find it very interesting just observing all the hundreds of people out on the street - what they're wearing, what sort of groups they're with (family/friends/young/old), how they move, what they do.
We went and listened to a couple of local community choirs perform in the town hall, which involved a bit of good and a bit of very flat :-(
There was an awesome drummer playing on the street at one spot and a keyboard and trumpet joined her in what seemed to be just jamming to make some pretty cool danceable music :-)
We also got a small taste of a little group with a big variety of instruments who play eastern european style music, and though it was too crowded to get much from them today (couldn't get past the entrance doorway), apparently they play there every Sunday evening, so we know where we'll be dropping into next weekend for a larger taste.
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03:22 pm
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Sunny Spring Saturdays
Sleeping in, Spring sushine, bright light and blue sky, clothes drying on the line, sharing breakfast (egg on toast) with puppy and kitten, lying on the front lawn, smelling the pretty flowers, watching the people wander by, walking the dog to the shops, eating a picnic in the front garden - tomato focaccia with avocado, dog happily chewing on her new bone, Josh strumming his guitar, plants sprouting new growth. Sounds of people all about, mowing their lawns, walking their children, auctioning a house up the street, smiling and saying g'day.
I am grateful for the capacity to appreciate the small pleasures of life.
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06:54 pm
[Link] | Dishwashers are great! :-)
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12:49 pm
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mmm...gardening
I was very pleased to discover WORMS in my front garden today as i scooped into the dirt to plant a few leftover braschicomes and goodenias. This garden bed was lawn that I converted to mulched native garden last year and it was seeming a bit sterile back then which is why it's so wonderful to find it all beautifully decomposing and worm-inhabited now.
Speaking of worms, we now have 3 worm farms at my school, to be looked after by the 1/2 grades. The kids just love holding the worms in their hands :-) Yay Worms!!
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06:29 pm
[Link] | The time has now come for me to get a new lease lap-top from work. I have been given 2 options:
1) Windows Vista Notebook
2) Macintosh OS Notebook
So, i would appreciate some advice on what differences there are between the 2 that are likely to be relevant to me?
Ta
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09:30 pm
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La di da.
Reports?
What are they?
I have no such thing as reports to do!
Hooray!
Tags: happy
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10:46 pm
[Link] |
aaaaargh
reports are rotting my brain
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01:15 pm
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My runaway dog
My very clever partner went out shopping a little while ago, and somehow managed to leave both the back gate and the front door open. Inevitably, when I realised these were open, I also realised I no longer had a dog. Very luckily the cat had been sleeping on my lap so had not also escaped.
So then i spent the next half an hour walking around the neighbourhood in the rain calling out for Miffy. The problem is that Miffy likes people so much that if she escapes she will keep on walking until she finds some other people to hang out with. Unfortunately today, being rainy, there were not many people about.
Luckily, when I got back to the house from my search there was a lady at my front door with Miffy (thanks to the very essential tag with our address). Apparently Miffy had made her way to the shops and walked into the Subway take-away store (quite a sensible way to find people and get out of the rain really).
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07:02 pm
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Once more with feeling!
Things that are making me happy today include:
Musical Buffy!
(Well, Buffy the show not Buffy the character cos she can't sing) But yay for musical Tara and Giles! and Tara and Willow as a couple never cease to make me melt - they are soooo adorable!)
Mud cake!
Kids!
and Katsuko is healthy again.
On a funny note, this morning I was taking minutes for our 8am staff meeting but when we weren't finished at 8:45 i had to leave the meeting to go and do yard duty, so i left my laptop for someone else to keep typing on. However, I completely forgot that my computer was set to Dvorak instead of Qwerty and so no one else would have been able to type a damn word on it. Woops!
Tags: happy
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11:47 pm
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Thought of the moment
Could it be that the Cosmos (time and space) does not flow, but flashes? It is not continuous, but made of discrete parts?
Is the concept of movement a construction of our perceptions? Fluidity an imagined conception? If change does not occur through movement, then what/how does change happen? If it is something unfamiliar, could we even comprehend it? And yes I should be asleep.
Tags: philosophising
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04:49 pm
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Squee!
Singing lessons for me!!
I had my first singing lesson with the awesome tigerdenbodu today.
Now I am very very bouncy! Yay for bouncy happiness pouring back into my brain. I love singing!
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06:09 pm
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Storm havoc
Thank goodness the electricity is back on in my house. I have been crazily restless today - i couldn't work cos i couldn't plug in my computer, I couldn't watch tv or go on the internet, and i couldn't even listen to the radio without sitting in my car (i should really invest in a battery radio).
I went down the street today with the plan of eating lunch in a coffee shop on Station street. As I drove down the wind blew debris all over the road, and some especially strong gusts of those tremendous winds blew some power lines together so that they touched and gave off a spectacular but scary spark of lightening. I parked on Gillies street then walked through to station street only to find .... 2 huge trees completely uprooted onto the road (1 on a parked car) + another really big branch sitting partly ontop of a car that had obviously just been driving past (luckily the powerlines caught most of the weight of the tree or else the person in that car may have been is serious trouble. Of course then there were live power lines hanging over the street in 2 places, and all the shops lost power. I got there just as this was all happening so there were still ppl around everywhere, spectating at the catastrophic surrounds, but after a little while police turned up and blocked off the street and it was still blocked off several hours later.
Apart from no power in the shops, there was no power in houses, and no power to traffic lights either. Mostly ppl were going very carefully through the intersection but there's always the exception and it wasn't long before a car accident occured at the intersection with need of tow trucks and ambulances. So I have spent much of today sitting in my car listening to 774 so I could listen to news of this amazing storm.
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10:28 pm
[Link] | To know is to cease contemplation and stagnate.
To never know is to never stop thinking!
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09:09 pm
[Link] | I love being happy! :-)
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09:10 pm
[Link] | Happy International Women's Day everyone!!!
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06:14 pm
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GM
I'm often amazed at how paranoid people are about genetically modified foods. I'm all for plenty of study and risk assessment on such things, but most opponents seem just to be searching for anything to support their idea that 'if its not <i>natural</i> then it must be bad' - bad for people and their health and bad for the environment.
Please people,
Don't be scared of the concept.
Just make sure its done well, and that the details that actually matter are properly adressed.
Disclaimer: This is not in response to my lj friends, but rather the general public.
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10:25 pm
[Link] | I was chatting to someone this evening who was telling me that they do Sirroc (no idea how to spell it) dancing. He was saying he had to try to remember all the signals to give to his dance partner about what moves they would do next. Then...
Me: do the girls get to do some of the leading and signalling too or do only the men do it?
Him: Only the men. The girls just follow the man's lead.
Him: Its really fun.
Me: I wonder if its a bit more boring for the girls, only getting to follow.
Him: Are you a bit of a control friek or something?
So apparently if you are a female who likes to take turns to lead in dancing you are a control friek??
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11:39 am
[Link] | I know a few people who greatly dislike Sartre, but when I studied his "Being and Nothingness" there was something I got out of it which helps to shape my thoughts on a certain aspect of life. Of course, what I got out of it might not be what he intended to communicate. I have probably added my own twist to it by now.
To summarise, there are 3 states in which we exist:
Being-In-Itself
Being-For-Itself
Being-For-Others
The Being-In-Itself is the state of existence all things, conscious and non-conscious, have.
The Being-For-Itself refers to the level of existence in which beings have self-awareness. Our awareness of our own thoughts and our actions upon the world and our own interpretation of the world around us.
The Being-For-Others is the state of existence we have in relation to others, in which we become aware of another's presence as a conscious, perceiving, judging being. In becoming aware of their presence, we also become aware of our own presence as an object in their world, in their eyes.
The latter 2 then present themselves on a battle field in which we constantly struggle to objectify others and the world through our own outlook, and we struggle against becoming the object in another's world (our being-for-others). We struggle against others judging us, against letting ourselves get hung up on how others are seeing us, what others are thinking of us and what they are thinking about us. We struggle to see ourself through our own eyes and our own judgement.
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06:18 pm
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See my vegie jungle and its produce!
( Garden Photos )
For more photos see:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=18119&l=86956&id=722888487
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02:13 pm
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If I make myself a list then I can hold myself to it...
Today
Wash clothes
Hang out clothes
Put away clean clothes
Walk dog
Wash dishes
Go for swim and shower
Tomorrow
Try harder to sleep in
Do some gardening
Plan reading, writing, math, ICT and Integrated lessons for next week.
Wash more clothes
Iron skirt
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09:03 pm
[Link] | I was at work today until 7:30 conducting parent-teacher meetings. That last hour or two really does you in *collapses in exhaustion*.
I am picking heaps of tomatoes from my vegie jungle - about 5 large ones and 10 or more small ones per day!!
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06:32 pm
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Back at school and ... happy
Yes, the little kiddiewinks returned to school today. They all so cute. I have the benefit of already knowing many of the students who are in my class this year, and those who I don't know are quickly making impressions (good ones!).
Teaching is a lot of work and effort, but it leaves me feeling ... good. Really good! The start-up program we have to run for the first 2 weeks sucks but I am being rather flexible with it (sshhh!) so all is good, the kids are not over-run with analysis of abstract concepts and I am nice and relaxed.
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11:47 pm
[Link] | I have come to the conclusion that I dislike housework.
Well Da! you might think. But strangely enough sometimes I enjoy getting really stuck into the sorting and cleaning on holidays. But not this time.
We still have no shower, but most of the bathroom plumbing is completed at least. Next comes the plasterer then the tiler, the carpenter (yay Stretch), then installing the bath and toilet, then the cabinet-maker, electrician and finally the plumber again to fit the taps.
I believe this has been the most socially consumed holidays I have ever had. Whenever I haven't been out with people, I have been glued to the internet chatting with them on msn. Believe it or not, I used to quite an isolate.
My puppy is now whimpering at me cos she thinks walkies time is overdue, and she is right.
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05:39 pm
[Link] | I have been cleaning for a couple of hours now and i have totally run out of umph.
I also got a bit distracted and miserable cos in my cleaning I came upon some information fliers from Animal Liberation somethingorother, and of course started reading them, and they were thoroughly depressing. There were photos of chooks in cages in a battery farm, and info about how they stand in their little cage for 2 years, often with broken bones (weak from lack of exersize)and their beaks burnt off. There was also an article on puppy farms where they breed puppies for pet shops that made me want to cry for the mummy dogs. To tell you the truth, I did have a little cry when I was reading all of this. Sometimes I wonder about the merits of being informed about miserable things when there isn't anything you can do to change them. Any thoughts on this?
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