The Real Jenty

So, the harder homework has started.  Bradley announced when he came home this evening, that his teacher told them to google sloths so that they can report back tomorrow.  Then while we were on the hunt for sloth information, he also said that they were talking about Pompeii at school and if they wanted to they could look that up too.

Bradley thoroughly enjoyed what we found, and in fact, so did Connor.  And I thought we’d share 3 of the websites that we really liked in our searches… because they ended up being fantastic for all sorts of subjects and I’ve bookmarked them for future projects!

1.  Learning about Rainforests - what a perfect site for kids to learn!! Simple information, that was easy to read with enough information for him to give a full report back tomorrow about sloths.

Pompeii ended up being a little trickier, mostly because the first sites we found were far too complex for a 7 year old to read easily.  After searching with kids in the keyword, I found these 2 sites that I thought were really awesome…

2.  Kidipede – History for Kids.  Very easy to digest information, that told us about Pliny the elder

3. Discovery Channel – just WOW!! The whole history about Pompeii is on the site, and simply written, and it has a video that narrates Pliny’s story (he’s the only guy that wrote about Pompeii fateful day).  The kids just loved it!! We even went and built our own volcano and watched it erupt online!! Very cool, and it illustrated the point so very well.

Then we went from Pompeii and looked at a few of the other things on the site, and under Explore by Subject, we found the Dinosaur channel… awwwssssumm (as Connor said)… there’s a Dinosaur viewer that shows you so much about each dino… just perfect for 2 dino mad kids!!

We’re definitely going back there to explore some more!

Every class in Bradley’s school was given a country to research this year.  Only countries taking part in the FIFA World Cup were used as part of the project. It was done to get the kids excited about the World Cup and it’s certainly worked!

Today is the day that Bradley is going to stand up, with his class mates, in front of the whole school and recite the speech that they’ve prepared about Serbia.  I’m so impressed that he’s even saying a few words in Serbian (apparently the teacher in the next class comes from a country next to Serbia).

Excuse the crap quality again… the only video camera I have is my Blackberry… and it’s shocking quality.
Then first thing Bradley said when he saw the video was “Hey, that’s not my voice, I don’t sound like that” LOL!! I think everyone feels the same way when they hear their own voice.

I’m at home this morning because Connor has a doctor appointment a little later (it’s a checkup after his tonsillectomy) and I’m listening to him chatting to Beauty while she’s making the beds.

Connor: “Look here’s money”  (picking up the coins next to Lance’s bed)

Beauty:  “Put it in your money box”

Connor: “No, you can have it”

Beauty: “Noo, it’s your money, you can save it”

Connor: “Nooooo, I have money already, you don’t have any, you can have it”

Awww

Remember the post on my photoblog the other day about Bradley getting the term merit?  Well, Lance was cornered by the teacher this morning about it.

Apparently it wasn’t just term merit – it was the year’s merit! She said he’s streaks ahead of the other kids in the class academically.  And the cherry on top for her, was the way that he handled the bullying saga a few weeks ago… she’s very impressed with him apologising the next day and making sure that him and the child in question are now OK about it.

I’m so proud of him

Then, I have to tell you about this conversation I had with him in the car yesterday morning.  We’d been discussing the time because we were late for their hair appointments, and I said that the time was the next thing I had to teach him… well, that and tying his shoe laces.

To which he responds “Mom, you know the plastic bits on the ends of shoe laces?  That’s called an aglet”

LOL! He stores the most amazing arb facts in his head!

I did actually go to work today, and while I was there I was quite productive… but I also did the following:

1.  Delivered photos… well, not personally… Lance printed photos for me and delivered them to a client (it’s handy to have him at home at times like this)

2.  Donated blood.  I haven’t donated since the HIV incident, and now that I’ve been the clear for so long, it’s safe to donate again  The blood service actually comes to our offices every 6 weeks and sets up stations for donations.  In fact, to remind their regular donors, we also get reminder emails and phone calls from the SANBS a few days before. It’s very handy, because I used to always forget.

3.  Trekked to the other side of the world to visit Nicole (my SIL) in hospital.  The trip home took forever in peak hour traffic, but I’m very glad I saw her with my mom, and she had some company for the hour that we were there.  My mom and brother have blogged about her hospital stay.  She’s been in hospital since last Thursday.  At first they suspected swine flu, but she didn’t respond to treatment and the blood results came back negative.  Thankfully, she’s doing slightly better now, even though they have no idea what’s wrong yet.  She’s not in high care anymore, and she’s now in the cardiac unit undergoing test after test.  Even the hour we spent there today, tired her out a lot, and she needed to go back on her oxygen canula when we left.  I really hope they get to the bottom of the problem soon, so she can go home.

4.  Saw Bradley ride his bike without training wheels for the first time with help!  That’s HUGE!  I’m so glad I was home to see it.  He’s hates not being able to do something, and it was frustrating him, but today he got it right.  OK, he’s not flying around on his bike yet, but at least he can go a bit without help. I reckon he’ll have it sorted by the end of the week, and then we can take him riding on the road again.

5.  Took the boys to get pizza.  It may seem tiny to you, but I’ve been getting home so late in the last few months that I’ve just got supper on the way home.  The boys love going to get pizza, and watching the guys make it etc, and it was nice to spend some time with them too.  One day I’ll get a job where I can leave the office before 5pm again, these late evenings kill me.

So, all in all, it was a good day

I’m busy compiling a list of banned words, for an arb reason at work, and I came across this gem of a link that I just have to share.  I’ve been in stitches reading it.

http://www.freewebs.com/bannedwords/

There’s actually a book that’s been written about which words are to be banned from textbooks… and OMW it’s so completely arb.  Imagine how boring the task must have been to compile that list!!

Here are a few of my favourite gems:

Boys’ night out: banned as sexist

Dirty old man: banned as sexist and ageist

Fairy: banned because it suggests homosexuality, replace with elf

Heroine: banned as sexist, replace with hero – OH PLEASE!!

Strange: banned when it refers to religious practices or beliefs

She acts like a lady.

Men playing sports, working with tools

Girls as peaceful, emotional, warm

People of color living in poor urban areas

Banned texxtbook topic… Euthanasia

Absolutely bizarrely, a banned test subject is AIDS!! Have you ever?!!

If this list is ever used completely, our poor children will never learn about the darker sides of life, and will only learn about cottonwoolled sterilised subjects.

What do you think when you hear the word photowalk?

Does it sound like it means a chaperoned walk through a pretty place in a small orderly group?

Well, clearly to some people it does.

It doesn’t to me.

To me it means going somewhere with other people who love photography to take photos without being asked to do something else or being hurried along.  It means to make the best of a strange place and to FIND the beauty.  It means to get sore feet and find a spot in your camera bag to put a bottle of water because you know you’re going to get thirsty and there’ll be no time for coffee breaks and heaven forbid you actually find a loo.  It means to get out of your comfort zone and to learn from people that you wouldn’t ordinarily get the opportunity to be with.  And a whole lot more, but I’m sure you’re getting tired of this list by now.

The aim of this tirade is the following…

I’ve been sending information about the Worldwide photowalk to fellow photographers that I think would be interested in the event.    I’ve got quite a few people that have added themselves to the JHB list, and even got some guys in Cape Town and Durban to join those local walks too (via a tweet on Twitter).

Then, I thought… hmm… let me send it to the camera club’s chairlady and get her to send it to the rest of the club.  It would be a great opportunity for people to get out there in the city and to get shots for the monthly meets.  She did forward it, but not before sending me a mail telling me how she went last year and it was, in her words, “awful”.

I’m sorry, but how awful could it have been?  It was in Sandton early on a Saturday morning.  Hardly anyone around. What an amazing opportunity to get photos of the lines and angles etc in the city!  The only thing I can think of why it would have been awful was because of disorganisation.  But please, there’s 50 photographers! How organised can you be?  Who cared about that?  Just take photos!!  That’s what the aim is!

Then I reply, after I think about it carefully, saying that I’m hoping it’ll be good this year.  To which she responds “I hope so too, but I won’t be there!!!!!” Note how many exclamation marks!   I wasn’t asking her to go!  Silly woman.

Anyhoo, I think she needs to get a life.  Not all photo outings are about prettiness and organisation.

OK rant over.  This camera club is irritating me again.

LOL, guess I won’t be inviting any of them to our next inpromptu photo outings to arb places in Jo’burg hey?

… last night, that Connor can count!! Yes, folks… he can count, how clever is he?!!

I was making mashed potato, and he was helping me put the potatoes in the dish.  As he picked them up, I started counting… and he just carried on!  OK, it wasn’t perfect, but I was still damn impressed.

And it sounds so cute too

I said “One”

He said “One… two… tree… bore…”

Me “Five”

Him “Figh… six…”

Me “seven”

Him “Seven… aye…

Me “Nine”

Him “Nigh… teh”!!!

Clever hey?!!

We got up to thirteen in the end.  He lost track every now and then, but what I was impressed with was that as I mentioned a number he knew exactly which one came next!

I’m at a conference (the IAF Africa 2008 Conference) at the moment, and oh man, is it good!!  I’m thoroughly enjoying it, and learning so many new tools and techniques.

It’s the first truely international conference that I’ve attended.  There are about 120 people, yet only about 20% are South African.  It was very interesting this morning learning where everyone comes from – Aus, NZ, UK, US, Canada, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Malaysia, Singapore, Malawi, Jamaica to name but a few.  It’s been fascinating learning what challenges are faced by people in other countries, and then comparing those to my own experiences. 

This afternoon I was sitting next to a person who works for the Singapore Police Force, and in the one session this morning I sat next to a consultant from Nigeria.  Absolutely fascinating! 

The more I get to learn about the art of facilitation, the more I want to learn and grow.  It’s a fascinating career.  I only really deal with such a small portion of it, I really to get more involved. 

One of the sessions I attended today was about Outcome Mapping.  That’s that’s a fascinating process, and very effective.  The facilitator got each of us to map out an action plan for ourselves wrt a personal goal within half an hour!  So…. I now have an action plan to work towards… and the goal… to start earning money out of my photography.  I think I have quite a way to go… but some people here (***eyeing people in the internet world out****) must brace themselves for some questions from me   They’re coming!  I just need to formulate a list

I posted about something I learnt last week, and decided to do the same kind of thing this week. Maybe I should start a new weekly meme actually. I think it would be quite fun to think of something, anything, no matter how small, that people have learnt in the last week. Let me know what you think!

I’ve actually learnt quite a bit in the last week. I went on a management offsite over the weekend and discovered yet again, that I’m apparently difficult to speak to. And that people are not sure how I’m going to react to news, so they’d rather not tell me! I apparently come across very defensive.
Hopefully I’ve managed to convince them that if I’m quiet after they tell me something, it’s because I don’t know what to say yet, but I’ll retaliate once I have an answer.

Anyway, enough about me… and I’ll speak more about the offsite in the next few days when I have more time. What we got told there has sparked some blog thoughts which I just have to think a bit more about.

As far as this week is concerned, even though it’s only Tuesday, I’ve learnt a heck of a lot so far. I’m on a Competitive Intelligence course for the week. Even though I vaguely knew that I’d be learning how to gather information about our competitors, I had no idea the extent to which people go with this science.

Firstly, I had no idea that companies employ teams of people that JUST do that. And they in turn hire external consultants to do the “dirty work” if they can’t find the information themselves. Wow! It’s sure opened my eyes to what is out there.
Secondly, I’ve decided that I’m very naive when it comes to gathering information. I had no idea that military means of gathering data was used. I did know that you get systems that scan and store publications for information, but had no idea how it was really used.
Thirdly, it’s a lot more systematic than I thought it was.

Well, anyway, wish me luck, I’m going to need it. My team (there are 2 of us) have an assignment for Friday. To do an industry analysis on a company’s potential growth into China.