Road kill

This morning on the way to marking I drove past some road kill that was still alive and twitching. I think it was a eat, maybe a squirrel, I'm not sure.  It completely freaked me out. I can't even talk about it. Writing about it is the only way I can share it.

In that moment when I drove past, and saw it twitching, I realised how 'human' it was, how mortal. I connected with it in some way. I wasn't sure if it just bad a few broken ribs, so was struggling to get up off the road, or if it was in its death throes. Its little back leg was twitching; it looked more deliberate than just death throes though.

I wanted to stop, turn my car around, and go and help it... if nothing else, put it out of its misery. I couldn't bring myself to do it though. I was so freaked out by it, by the continual replay in my head of that little leg twitching.  I found myself crying over it, praying that God would let it die quickly, not make it suffer more.

Not being one to do drugs, I have to rely on the testimony of others, and they tell me that one of the greatest things about drugs is that they enable you to feel one with the world, with all living things, that they enable you to see yourself in everyone and everything else.

Here's hoping I don't have nightmares about it tonight... it's just the sort of thing I would dream about!

Google search failed me! OMW!

Occasionally, there are times when you need to convert from A4 to A5, but NOT just when you print. I recently had a situation where I'd created an A4 document in Publisher, and but I need it in 3 different sizes - A4, A5 and B5. Given that the document was over 300 pages, I REALLY didn't want to have to go through each page and resize the images, etc. to make them fit, for an additional two sizes.

As I usually do when I'm faced with a technological problem, I turned to Google - but this is one time when Google failed me (or maybe I just didn't scroll far enough down through the search results). Everything I found insisted that I needed to download special software to be able to do this.

This is NOT the case!!

As my heart began to sink at the thought of the hours I would have to spend resizing everything, I suddenly thought of this really nifty PDF reader called Foxit. I've been using Foxit for some time now, in preference over Adobe. I realised that if I first printed from Publisher to an A4 PDF, I could then create a 2nd PDF in whatever size I needed, just by selecting the output page size and then scaling the pages to fit correctly on the output page size.

Foxit is AWESOME! Well done to the team at Foxit for making this niggly little problem so easy to solve. They have literally saved me HOURS of work.

The Ultimate Gift

The book by this title, written by Jim Stovall, is a very quick read, but profound in its content; something worth reading slowly and thoughtfully.

Having read it in just over an hour (and thereby failing to follow my own advice), I find myself left pondering which gifts I could benefit from learning more, and how I can teach my kids these gifts.

The ultimate gift is becoming aware of the gifts you already have, and only one of those are material.

Theses are the gifts you need to learn:

The gift of work
The gift of money
The gift of friends
The gift of learning
The gift of problems
The gift of family
The gift of laughter
The gift of dreams
The gift of giving
The gift of gratitude
The gift of a day
The gift of love

What a great list!

Exam answers

Every year I am alternately infuriated ("why the hell didn't you LISTEN in class and do your work?"), depressed ("I must be such a poor teacher to have kids giving these answers after I know I taught this section properly"), or amused by the answers that pupils give to their exam questions. This year I've decided to share some of the funnier answers I've had.

Before anyone thinks about making a judgement on the kids at this school remember that EVERY school has kids who give answers like these. If they didn't, then every school would have EVERY child getting 70% or more for EACH subject.

When asked about why scientists think the dinosaurs became extinct, the correct answer should be that, currently, the most popular theory is that there was a massive asteroid which impacted the earth, sending up clouds of dust and ash that obscured the light. This, in turn, caused both a decrease in photosynthesis (and hence a decrease in plant growth and plant life), a decrease in the amount of oxygen present in the atmosphere, and an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide present. The fact that the dust obscured the light also resulted in a global cooling and an ice age. Because the dinosaurs are ectothermic (i.e. control their body temperature using the heat from the environment), they were unable to cope with the decreased temperature. This combined with lack of food and lack of oxygen, caused many species to become extinct.

Here are some of the more humorous incorrect answers I got:

• The dinosaurs were killed by a bomb that went off. [OK then.... sure. Why not? That makes sense, right?]
• The asteroid blocked out the sun's light before it hit the earth because it was so big [which means it must have been much bigger than the moon], and so when it hit the earth the dinosaurs were too weak to withstand  the blast so they fell over and died. [I guess they're assuming that all the dinosaurs were in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time....]
• A glacier hadn't burnt up completely and when it hit the earth it whipped out the species. [glaciers? glaciers that whipped? I think I want to live in your world.]
• As [the archaeologists]  found more remains they started thinking there should have been a  more recent occurrence of extinction because they kept finding more fossils that ages well, but not that far back. [Um.... yeeees. Did you read your answer back to yourself? How did this sound in your head when you were writing it?]
• It could be possible [i.e. that the dinosaurs went extinct] but there are no proven facts to back the theory up. [Whatever your personal belief about creation and mass extinctions, kiddo, you still have to be able to explain the Alvarez-asteroid theory....]
• An asteroid decided one day that it did not like the asteroid belt, because it was being made fun of by its friends for being smaller than them, and then it went on a trip to have a closer look at the sun as it was moving it noticed a planet was going to be in its way, it tried to change its course, but the sun's gravity would not let it and it decided that it wanted to commit suicide any way and kill whomever was on that planet. The end. [Notice that that first bit is all one sentence! Phew! Great little bit of creative writing there.] 

'Show Desktop' icon gone?

One of my all time favourite things is my quick launch tray at the bottom of my screen. I don't understand people who don't use it. I mean, why waste time having to hunt for programmes you use frequently? Yes, you can use the 'Desktop' toolbar, and save shortcuts on your desktop, but I have SO many there already, that to find the one I'm looking for can be a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. Instead, I keep the top 10 apps I use in my quick launch toolbar/ tray.

Of those, the most frequently used one is the 'Show Desktop' one. Again, I know visually where my different shortcuts are, so it's quicker for me to find something by looking at my desktop, than looking in a LOOOOONG list of apps using the 'Desktop' toolbar.

Needless to say, I was therefore VERY frustrated to find that one of the teachers using my room accidentally deleted it. Yes, if you right click on the bottom toolbar you have an option to 'show desktop', but that's a WHOLE EXTRA click, and it's hard to break the habit of a life-time.

Today I eventually decided enough was enough, and Googled a way to fix it. I found a really easy way to do it. YAY! I love Google and I love it when technology works so simply. So, for those of you in a similar boat, who have accidentally deleted it, or have had someone else do it for you, here's the solution:

·         Click Start -> Run and type regsvr32 /n /i:U shell32.dll and enter

Happy birthday to me!

Yesterday was my birthday. Although it comes around every year, it always catches me a bit unawares. I think it's the timing... we're already into silly season and in the light of the amount of work I have to do, my birthday seems less urgent, or something.

I was really touched at the number of people who wished me though, through-out the day. (Facebook definitely has it's benefits!) Between the chocolate & banana pancakes for breakfast, chocolate mousse for pudding, and champagne (ok - Methode Cap Classique!) at cell group, even invigilating & marking exams were a complete breeze.

My not-so-little-anymore girl picked out a necklace and handbag for me (from her and her brother) which are very cute. She has good taste (well, improving at any rate!) which I think she must inherit from me ;D

I still wait with bated breath to see what my hubbie is getting me... he hasn't had much chance to go shopping, although he says he knows what he wants to get me. (I believe him. The year he forgot my birthday he was at least completely honest with me about it - yes, I haven't forgotten! Plus, I've seen how hard he's been working the last little while - UNREAL.)

I'm looking forward to the festivities on the weekend. I've planned something fun ... well, I think it's fun - I think my guests might be a bit intimidated at first. I'm finding as I get older that I get more guts to do the things I really want to for my parties. Thus far, they've worked out (on the whole), so I'm hoping this works out too.... Hmm... however, this one has the potential to flop, so I think we need to get lots of cocktails to help ease everyone's nerves (not least mine!)

What I've loved most about my birthday though, is that it was filled with people I love. People don't usually tell each other how much they mean to each other - we reserve that kind of thing till after someone is dead, then eulogise effusively. Some of my friends are really good at doing that in the here and now - and it's SO affirming. I love having the opportunity to tell them how much I appreciate their friendship in return. It's all very warm and fuzzy, and I love it!

But, speaking of warm and fuzzy, it's time to go and bake some cakes. What sort of cake should I have this year? (I don't see why only kiddies get to have fun cakes!) Hmm...

Geocaching

We went geocaching again yesterday. Spectacular fail on two sites, but spectacular success on one.

The one we found was at this fountain in Mowbray. The fountain it's about a century old, and the twin of the fountain in Rondebosch.
Nellie was the hero who found it. She was super-excited, so I let her write her name in the cache list.

I think this could become addictive...