I had heard people mentioning wordle in the past but never taken time to check it out. Here is my first wordle !! You paste text into a window and the gizmo creates a word cloud, or wordle, from your words. How thrilling is that !!
A colleague just shared on line a collation of useful websites and links. If you would like to take a look, you need to click HERE.
I recently read a blogpost about how the Work-Life balance should in fact be called the Life-Work balance. I thought a lot about that at the time and I remember that I actually switched off the computer and went to make chocolate brownies with my son instead of spending time reading blogposts ! Here is the photo we took to prove it.
A sharp reminder of how important it is to try to maintain a balance came this week when I learned that a dear colleague from one of my training courses had been a victim of a stroke in his classroom. The news is fairly positive and he appears to be slowly regaining use of his faculties, but what a wake up call !
Like many of us, and like my colleague, I often put my work before other things. How many cinema trips, football matches, films on the TV have I missed beause I have reports to finish, a presentation to tweak, books to mark ? I know that I am a perfectionist and just as I am very demanding of others, I am even more demanding of myself. But this weekend, as I think of my colleague and how things have just had to grind to a halt for him, whether he likes it or not, I think about how I must learn to re-assess too.
While I want my lessons to be as funky and as all-singing, all-dancing as possible, sometimes I just can’t. And while I want my training sessions to be 150%, sometimes they just can’t be. This morning I spent an hour making soup and a chicken pie for lunch. That should be normallity not exceptional. I actually really enjoyed it whereas generally I am not a keen cook. but the sheer normality of it felt relaxing and yet almost extravagant. Taking time out to relax is so important and yet, so hard to do a lot of the time.
A few weeks ago I did the Big Switch Off. I am not going to do that again tomorrow, but I am going to take the time out tomorrow to make a Sunday roast (roast beef and yorkshires any takers?) and to go and clear out the weeds in the front bed before they get out of hand – and to take the time to just enjoy my Sunday. Days off work are not just days given to us to catch up on what we didn’t have time to do in the week work-wise – and it is about time I started to believe that !! Anyone else feel the same ?
A special dedication to Akhésa and Cécilia from my L classes at school this year, who introduced me to the “Cup Song”. Congratulations to the pupils from the Collège Racinay and to my colleague and Twitter friend, Elisa for putting this together. I would so have loved to be part of it. I promised my girls to post on this topic and so here we are, with a little extra, a special tap dancing version too as a bonus.
As I am writing, the number of hits on this blog is 18,374. With three and a half weeks until the Easter holidays, my goal is to reach 20,000 hits before Easter. Can we do it ? Yes, we can !! I know we can. How do I know this ? Because I am confident in the knowledge that my pupils are working hard and using this blog to do so. I can see it on the stats as I follow who is doing what. I see it in their work in the classroom as they re-invest what they have been doing at home.
I know we can do it because I see also the countries that are following my blog too. I check my stats page every day to see which countries are there and I smile to myself as I realize that people around the world are checking out what I have to offer. It is very exciting being part of the blogosphere and to know I am being read around the world.
So, we’re on the road to 20,000 before April 19th. Let’s see how quickly we can get there, everyone.
Dedicated to my sons and their love of Star Wars and our shared love of music and music technology …
Love this music video. Want to go for a new idea. Watch this space.
My wonderful son is 18 years old today.
It makes me feel old to think I have two adult sons now. How is that possible ? I still feel like a quite a kid myself. But hey ho – what goes around comes around, as they say. So a big big big birthday hug to my T, and to all sons (and daughters everywhere). They keep us young.
I am so proud of myself for nurturing this gorgeous Camelia all through the Winter, covering it in bubble-wrap, talking to it, remembering to water it and generally looking after it. Look at the result that was waiting for me this morning as I stepped outside the kitchen door. This glorious plant in splendid technicolour. I am feeling quite green-fingered !!
What do you think of this music ?
My eldest son is studying music in the UK and he was part of this mix. I am, of course, his Number One fan !! Click on LIKE if you like his music. If I get a decent amount of likes, I will link in to his Sound Cloud.
The Big English Blog 