Spring has sprung

Yesterday I went for a walk around my garden and took some photos of the lovely blossoms that are out.

Nearly cherry time!

And of course my dog, Elias, playing in the cherry orchard.

Tuesday, lets get out of here

Today is teleporting day.
I don't think I want to do anything very exciting today, I think I will just teleport to a mountain hut somewhere with a fire and a good book and spend the entire day there, that would be nice!

Perspective

Steve Jobs died during the week, as everyone knows.  For a whole day and a half there were status updates on so many people's facebook accounts, mostly speaking messages of mourning, some however, not quite so upset.  There was one in particular that caused a great deal of chatter on facebook, it got quite heated for a while there.
All these status updates really got me thinking. 
What is it about such things that get people so riled up?
Now I'm not suggesting that it isn't sad that Steve Jobs died, for his family, or his friends. 
But why would this effect people who've never met him, who don't actually know the first thing about him?  As I wrote on facebook the other day, the only thing I know about Steve Jobs is that he helped make computers that I like to use, I've never met him and so his death is not going to have an impact on my life. 
Now, if there is anyone reading this blog, please don't assume that I am writing this because I am trying to be insensitive, I am not. 
As I said above, of course it is sad for the people that knew him personally.  He was responsible for some great innovations in the computer industry.  I use a Macbook, I like apple products!!
All I am asking for here is a little bit of perspective. 
People die everyday. 
People who are no doubt very intelligent, who no doubt give a great deal to their communities and their families, people who are no doubt as worthy of notice and acknowledgement as any other famous person who dies. 
No doubt many hundreds of Mac employees have died totally unnoticed by the world at large. 
Like for example:
What about the workers from the Foxconn factory in China, where Iproducts are made?  Suffering from such severe stress and overwork that some of them have taken their own lives?*  I don't remember this receiving such airplay and I certainly don't remember half my newsfeed being taken up with notes of mourning. 
So, perspective?



*http://micgadget.com/3793/the-real-truth-behind-foxconns-suicide-cluster/

What would you do if you could teleport?

I have decided that this will be a regular Tuesday entry, well as long as I remember.

So where would you go today if you could teleport?

Today I think I would go and get a good Italian latte then go and watch the sunrise over the Golden Gate Bridge.
Then I would go for to New York and walk around Central Park and have lunch in the park.
From there I think actually I would stay in New York and go to MoMA.
Then Ho Chi Minh City for dinner in one of the amazing vegetarian restaurants they have there. 

Thought I would join the list craze

This is a list of things I am looking forward to, not very original I know, but one has to start somewhere. 
What are you looking forward to?

1. Handing everything in!  But I am also scared of it, so much to do, so little time, better off blogging!!!
2. Finishing my current book.  I am reading Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, I've not had much time to read it lately, looking forward to reading time when uni finishes.
3. The Joel and Sophie swing dancing workshop next weekend.  Despite what I've said above I still seem to make time to swing dance.  Next weekend is a workshop with international swing dancing instructors Joel and Sophie, supposedly this is amazing, very excited!
4. Getting up to Launceston to visit friends, hang out and just generally relax. 
5. My little sisters wedding.  I am a bridesmaid which means an excuse to get dressed up, drink a lot, hang out with family and friends, and swing dance.  What more could a girl want?!
6. My oldest friend coming down to be the photographer for sisters wedding and then us going on a road trip after the wedding.  Excited to see him and hang out and see some more of this lovely state.
7. Christmas, always a fun family time and this year we should have more of the extended family visiting so yay!!
8. Going to Sydney for 3 and 1/2 weeks in January, seeing all my friends and doing fun Sydney summer things.  Hello Coogee Beach and Watson's Bay hotel!!
9. New Years, is always fun, not matter what.  Will see what this one holds for me!
10. Summer in Tassie.  Should be lovely, not too hot, just right.  Thinking lots of long evening picnics are the go!  Woohoo

the amazingness of children

Right so once again, I have not posted for several weeks and again it is due to being caught up with various other things in life like uni and prac and swing dancing adventures and stuff like that.  It occurs to me of course that if I don't up date on a far more regular basis then I will be forced to say things like this all the time when I do get around to updating.  None the less I am apparently not very disciplined with this blog.  A while ago I do recall saying that I would update more regularly, I will really, I will. It is partly down to feeling that I don't have anything of particular note to say.  Not really sure why that would stop me since it doesn't stop me from talking bollocks to people face to face!
So since I went back to uni things have been kind of crazy busy what with prac and assignments to do.  But it has been super fun.  I love my course, it is hard and hurts my brain but only in a really good "yay my brain is no longer atrophying from disuse" kind of way.  Prac was fabulous, I was with a grade 6 at a local primary school.  Now the thing is that this school was in an upper middle class, fairly urban area of Hobart so the school was a pretty well off school in terms of well money, but also community support and parental involvement so I was already at a distinct advantage.  Add to that the fact that my colleague teacher was awesome: enthusiastic, supportive, encouraging both to me a s a student teacher and to the kids.  And the kids, fabulous, smart, sweet, interesting and interested.  So really I managed to have the best prac karma in the world.  I am a little worried about future prac karma, especially after some of the horror stories that I have heard!
Don't get me wrong, the kids weren't angels, there were still your normal behavioural things do deal with, kids calling out, arguing, being generally noisy, off task talking, teasing, but really, if those are the things you have to deal with, you've pretty much got nothing to worry about, I figure!
And what these kids could do, it was incredible.  The school had decided to have a science fair focused around renewable energy which the two grade 6 classes were to run.  Now this in and of itself is no big deal really, but what was amazing is that the teachers only found out a week before this was supposed to happen and the kids only had three days to get everything ready, to learn enough about different renewable energy sources to be able to speak about them confidently, to figure out how to do experiments and to create posters before they were supposed to actually run this science fair for all the other kids in the school.  And they did it!  In three days they organised and ran a really successful, fun and interesting science fair.  I was so impressed with them!
I was pretty sad to leave them at the end of the three weeks, but I have arranged to come back this term and volunteer at the school every fortnight so I will see them again, yay!  I was very concerned about the time between pracs, I thought that I would loose all the hard work that I put into it and the confidence that I gained in the almost 8 months between pracs so I thought that I had better do some volunteer work.
And that is my awesome prac story!  Perhaps I will update in the next few days with another awesome story.  :)

Mona and other adventures

Once again I have been off away from the land of blogs, not actually away from the internet you understand, no, no, just away from posting on this blog.  Why? Well because I have had visitors from interstate who I have been entertaining and doing fun things with.  Like for example going on a long drive with my family and best friend to Bruny Island for a day.  A beautiful day that involved catching a car ferry across the Channel, just off the Derwent River in Hobart to Bruny Island, or more correctly both North and South Bruny Island since they are technically two islands linked by a spit of land with the highly original name of the spit!  It was a beautiful day complete with seeing the tracks of many, many penguins, although unfortunately the penguins themselves were off swimming the ocean and were not around to say hello.  Other adventures included other family drives, trips to Mount Wellington to play in the snow and of course swing dancing.  I dragged one of my visitors along for the fun of 2 nights of swing dancing lessons which she thoroughly enjoyed.  Alas my second visitor was only here for 5 days as opposed to 2 weeks so I was not able to drag her along.
One of the most amazing adventures that I had was going to MONA which is the Museum of New and Old Art in Hobart.  It is an incredible museum, so many interesting, thought provoking, contentious exhibitions it is fabulous, I recommend if any one ever gets a chance to come to Hobart, going to this museum it is truly awesome.
There are so many interesting and inspiring artworks that I find it very hard to say which is my favourite, but there are two artworks in particular that really got me thinking and I think got a lot of people thinking.
The first is a number (can't remember how many) plaster casts of women's vagina's called Cunts and other Conversations.  I think it's fabulous because the casts are not prettied up or anything like that, the models ranged between the ages of 18 and 78 and are of various religious and cultural backgrounds and ethnicities.  I think that vagina's are still taboo for most women, we're not supposed to talk about them, we're not supposed to really admit to having one, when we see one in the media, which is rarely, it is usually airbrushed into presubscribed notion of what would be attractive or acceptable, we're supposed to make it more pallatable to men and I guess the world at large by making it tidy and smell "nice" and represent beauty and sexiness.  The exhibition is not like this, it is raw and it is unapologetic.  I think its fabulous, its confronting the world with something we're not supposed to talk about and saying not only do they exist, but they are beautiful and you know what they are art!!!
The second is, I think far more contraversial but I think just as interesting and thought provoking.  It is a large what appears to be photo of a dog fucking a man from behind.  It is really intriguing and I think forces the viewer to consider the notions of consent and what classifies as consent.  Beastiality suggests to me the idea that animals are not given consent, that an act is forced upon them, but the position of man and dog in this photo makes you really think about this concept.
So, go to the museum, there are loads more that are amazing and thought provoking and interesting!
There were many other adventures over my holidays, this is just a small snapshot.
And now back to uni!!!  :)