Tag Archive for learn

Full Day Off

09/09/2011 Joh family, food, gratitude, health, learn, music

Today I didn’t work because I had a job interview booked for the middle of the day. It was a phone interview and didn’t take that long but scheduled smack in the middle of period 2 for all the schools I work at so I couldn’t work. I think it went ok.

I got to watch Darin’s kids play percussion at the Eisteddfod this morning. They were so cute. Primary students bubbling away with excitement, playing their xylophones, triangles and drums. Any kind of music ensemble is impressive to me. They all did so well. The looks of concentration on some of the students faces reminded me what educational experiences are all about.

Darin and I walked down the street in the cold today after my interview. It’s been sunny for a while here and we’ve walked down the street and shopped for dinner ingredients most days in the last two weeks. Today was a real test though because I could feel the icy air the minute I stepped outside. I enjoy walking through the park to the street every day. I feel more connected to my community. You see more and connect with people walking through the park. Cruising the car park looking for a free space is no substitute.

This afternoon I had attempt number 3 at cooking macarons. I tried a different recipe and applied a few things I’d learnt from last time and they were better, but only one out of the 20 odd was near to looking how I want them to and the taste wasn’t as good as last time. I have a few new theories to apply to my next attempt though. I also had a go at making nougat. It’s not that good because I don’t think I cooked the toffee part long enough and it’s too soft. It tastes ok though. I just realised today that these are both gluten-free.

I enjoyed phone conversations with my sister, son and daughter today, nice long chats, not rushed ones.

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Macarons, Friends and other Simple Pleasures

15/07/2011 Joh blogging, Business, food, friends, learn, random, reading

Yesterday Br John came for lunch. He was my mentor when I was a first year teacher 10 years ago. We haven’t caught up for probably 5 years. He has moved to another state and is a Principal there. I reckon he would be a good one because he is both human and organised. He communicates well and continues his learning. I always enjoy hanging out with him because he has interesting stories. He’s recently been travelling around Europe on a Marist brother adventure (there is probably a more serious, spiritual purpose). He had great food stories to tell me and as that is what I am most interested in right now, I enjoyed the tales of food.

I had my second attempt at making Macarons. Just before we left the shop a lovely lady came in for a visit from this business Cupcake Therapy. I am not really into cupcakes. Her sister had come in for lunch and told me they’d been to Paris to learn how to make Macarons. I was captivated. I contacted her on facebook and she brought some samples (rasberry with white chocolate filling). It is my current obsession. They are so pretty and delicious. A fortnight ago I made some for Cath for her birthday. I made about 3 batches and ended up with 6 mishapen things. I made chocolate ones because I am a fan of chocolate. I will experiment with different flavours once I get chocolate handled. The ones I made for lunch yesterday were better but don’t look anything like the amazing creations from ‘Cupcake Therapy’. Her facebook page is one of my favourites.

One of the things I really like about Macarons is that it’s delicious way to use egg white. I use the yolk to make mayonaisse and chocolate/lemon tart. I’ve never been a fan of pavlova or other egg white type dishes. Macaron’s are going to take a lot more practise. I have no clue with a piping bag. They tasted great and I don’t think I would ever create the kind of product with glaze and all the beauty of professional ones, but I would prefer them to look a bit more similar. When I do manage something near decent I will take a photo:) Which leads me to my next simple pleasure…

I have been inspired by Jen from Semantically Driven to start taking a photo a day. I haven’t really taken many photo’s lately. I take them of the kids, but I used to always take my camera with me and I enjoyed it. I am going to publish them on tumblr. I have also been watching a few You Tube photo a day clips and thinking that could make an interesting alternative to journalling for students who don’t like writing. I don’t like taking photos of myself… but teenagers seem to be comfortable with it. I will just take photos of random things that take my eye, still I think they will contain hidden memories.

We shopped today because we have a catering job to do tomorrow night. Two friends are engaged and we are catering for the celebration. I love shopping with Darin. We have a lot of fun and even amuse others. An older woman in the market couldn’t stop giggling when he asked me which box I wanted to carry and I said the lightest one. It really tickled her. I enjoyed being out in the sunshine today. We went to Morwell cause we had to go to a couple of places there. We ended up back here for all the things we forgot on the first trip:). I popped into the Art Gallery whilst I was there and looked in the window of the Contemporary Art Space. I felt quite uplifted by it. We went on a walk this afternoon and went ‘window shopping’ in all the homeware and electrical shops on the highway. We got great service cause we were the only people in the shops. We were approached by many sales people. I looked around at all the heavily discounted stuff and thought ‘What’s going to happen to all this stuff if no one comes back to buy it?’ Where have all the shoppers gone?

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Full Moon in Sagittarius – Total Lunar Eclipse – 16th June 2011

15/06/2011 Joh astrology, Business, learn, love, work

This full moon eclipse is in my sun sign. I have always loved it. The rest of my chart is pretty earthy and watery, so this fire sign gives me the passion and courage to do a lot of things I wouldn’t without it. When I first began learning about astrology, I identified totally with Sagittarius and it didn’t bother me a bit! I loved most of the attributes. Read Mystic Medusa’s take on Haute Sagittarius – Low Sagittarius. I can identify with the good and the bad.

I keep reading that eclipses are nothing to fear, it’s just a time of opening and closing doors. One of the astrologers I ‘like’ on facebook Astrosparkles has written a great note about this eclipse : Getting to the truth (or heart) of the matter. It covers all the essentials you will need to decipher how this eclipse could play out for you.

Tonight Darin is at his ‘Men’s Cooking Class’ he has been teaching at the Neighbourhood House. This week has been quite intense business wise. We have some pressure and decisions we need to make about our lease and we are looking at ways to expand and as always with a business there are many different ways to go and choosing one and committing to it requires head miles. I am enjoying this time alone to think. It’s been an interesting week and all kinds of information has come to me in interesting ways. I certainly know I am alive right now:).

I was a CRT today. I can’t call it teaching because it is a shell of what a teacher does. It’s actually relaxing (sorry to any teachers reading this). I guess it is like that because my heart is not invested in it. I am in and out. I don’t get too involved. My skill level at teaching has more than advanced the ability to manage a class of students, dish out work from their regular teacher, and support that work to be completed in the class. The ease sometimes makes me wonder what the hell I am doing slugging it out in a small business. I guess I am a sucker for a learning curve. That’s not to say I couldn’t learn more as a teacher, but I felt frustrated in that system. I liked the people and the school I worked for. I just don’t believe in that education system anymore. There are a lot of Sagittarian themes right there in that paragraph!

Anyway I will leave you with a quote from another blog I’ve started reading from the post ‘More About The Sagittarius Lunar Eclipse’

“Yes” is the Sagittarian motto. Sagittarius is possibility, options, hope, faith, trust, luck and chocolate (I lied about the last one….chocolate is actually ruled by Venus). Still, you get the idea. Sagittarius is a sign that brims with happiness.

Eclipses have an intimidating reputation but they are really just open doors. And tomorrow the door should open onto something really nice.

and whether or not it is sensible, that is exactly how I feel tonight.

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Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

16/03/2010 Joh learn, reading

Malcolm Gladwell explains what outliers are on his website Gladwell dot com. His audiobook, read by him (bonus) was full of interesting stories to demonstrate why people experience success and how it is not so random or bizarre, but a natural result of practise, their cultural heritage and the times they were born into. He draws on examples from almost every field you could think of. I couldn’t help but be interested in it… even when he was talking about sporting successes.

He is convincing. He tells his stories well and I am reminded that if I practise something for 10 000 hours, I will be an expert. I have recently downloaded ‘The Tipping Point’ and am looking forward to listening to that during the holidays.  His writing facinates and engages me and I find my self thinking how obvious what he says is, and I’m glad he has investigated it enough to prove it.

My favourite quote for my students “Repetition leads to discovery” by Buckminster Fuller remains current. I have been amused at how many year 12 students that I taught in year 7 remind me of it still with a smile on their faces as though they have discovered the truth of it for themselves. I’m not sure if I have for myself though and that could be why I keep learning about it.

 

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Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss

14/03/2010 Joh learn, reading

I love the confident tone of Caroline Myss when she speaks about the invisible. ‘Sacred Contracts’ is about the agreements we made before we came to planet earth. It’s about purpose and is in no way the flakey or soft stuff that I’ve read so many times before. I enjoyed it. I learnt more about archetypes. I have a lot more to learn.

Caroline’s site has a ‘ Gallery of Archetypes’ that I intend to explore. I love listening to the audiobooks, yet they lack the appendices that ‘real’ books have. I’m glad I found the online reference, it makes up for it. There are 70 archetypes listed so I hope I will be able to find the 12 that are working in me if I put the time into it. Archetypes are ancient patterns basically and have both light and dark forms. I’m quite facinated with the idea right now.

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Massage was Great

11/03/2010 Joh learn, reading

Great with a capital G! I have not been so impressed or rejuvenated by a massage for a long time. I haven’t had many this last year though to be honest. I waited until today to sing the praises though because I was waiting to see if I pulled up sore. It’s not always a bad thing to feel a bit tender the next day, but I don’t want to be crippled. I just feel great. I think after my second week of exercising that I’m finally starting to feel good in my body again.

I have to thank my daughter for referring this woman to me. She has been telling me for years to go to her, and I guess when she first told me I had been seeing Lynda for ages and was really satisfied with her. After trying a few other people who were just ok, I was reminded when I bought Asha a gift voucher for Christmas. Here it is March and I’ve finally got around to acting on that intention:-)

I’ve been listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” whilst I’ve been exercising. It is just as gripping as “Blink” was. Each night when Darin gets home from work I tell him another thing I’ve heard. He won’t need to read those books. Did you know it takes 10 000 hours to be an expert at something? I have been trying to think if there is anything useful I’ve done for that amount of time other than sleep and breathe.

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Stuck in the Slow Lane

05/03/2010 Joh family, gratitude

Every time we go to the airport we are too early and have time to kill. This time we left a little later and got caught up in traffic. It was stressful! I take my hat off to people who travel in the city. I nearly stacked into the back of a car that seemed to suddenly stop today, though in truth I was engrossed in conversation and wasn’t paying full attention. We made it in time.

I dropped him off in the departures lane this time rather than parking and going in with him. I hate that walk back from the gate with the tears, it’s awkward, especially for him! I was much better dropping him off in the car and driving on. There were still a couple of tears but it was well and truly over by the time I got to Bolte Bridge and I managed to wait till he was out of the car.

It was a great drive home. I love driving alone. It’s a great space for reflection. I felt really grateful today for so many things in my life.

Tonight’s online webinar thingy for my uni course was good and it put me at ease in a lot of ways. I am excited now about the skills I will have to develop and pleased the ‘lecturer’ although he prefers ‘catalyst’ as a term for what he does, shares my general philosophy about learning. I felt quite self conscious about speaking with the microphone and chose to turn it off rather than hear my voice in that space.

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Pruning

27/02/2010 Joh family, relationships, work

After attending the Cybersafe training day on Thursday I have pruned my facebook of all current students. I was reluctant to do that because I felt that I was a responsible user of social networking, but the implications and lack of control over what others post, creates vulnerabilities for teachers. I like to be socially inclusive. If a person I know requests to be my friend, I would need to have a clear reason for saying no. It’s easier to have no current students than to make judgement calls.

Greg Gebhart the facilitator is very knowledgeable and I highly recommend his site IT Vision for educators. I have completed a few IT courses with Greg over the past few years. He is a great resource to teachers having been a teacher and possessing a practical and grounded view of how to work with IT in schools.

I have also pruned my twitter account on the same basis. I’ve rid my feed of all the people I don’t read or aren’t really interested in as well as students. I don’t read my twitter feed that often though to be honest so I’ve created groups. The great thing about having different groups is that if I only check it once a week or so, I don’t miss as many posts in the areas I’ve created because the fewer amount of people makes it easier to catch up. Does that make sense?

I have also discovered a whole branch of my family on facebook this week. I think social networking is great. I love staying in touch with people who live all over the place. Although I generally have no time for reality TV, a family member is on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ (vote Nick!), so I’ve been keeping up with his progress.

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Cybersmart

24/02/2010 Joh learn, work

Tomorrow I am going to a Cyberbullying course. We had a speaker talk to our year 7s and 10s yesterday and there was not much he spoke of that I wasn’t aware of. I have been attending these kinds of talks for a few years now. I want to keep up to date to keep kids as informed and safe as possible.

Many of the teachers were amazed though. It’s great the whole staff is getting exposed to this information now. The Cybersmart website has a handy red button to report any offensive online behaviour and a counselling hotline.

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Study

22/01/2010 Joh learn

I got my letter today to say I got into the course I applied for last year. I’m doing an ICT Education course at Charles Sturt by distance ed. I have an envelope full of forms to fill out. I feel a bit reluctant about it to be honest. I haven’t found universities to be the best places to learn, but I haven’t done any formal studies since the 90′s so I’m keeping an open mind about it. It may have changed. I’ll let you know:-) I hope it will assist me to be a better teacher in IT, instead of learning from my students all the time.

I went to the senior campus today to get a bit organised but it didn’t work. There weren’t many people about and I just don’t really know enough about the place to be able to do much. I got a map though so I should be able to find my way to my classes.

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