Wednesday, 20 October 2004

Book Review : Among Schoolchildren (Tracey Kidder)

The year in the life of a form four group in the States, sometime in the late 1980s, I think. I read this book for uni studies and found it awfully compelling and now I've bought it to read again. The emotional intelligence requried to do what Mrs Zajak does is enough to keep me enthralled with the process.
I recommend to anyone associated with primary education or interested in journeys.

Thursday, 5 August 2004

Important Things 1

Dancing.
Dancing is important. I encourage everyone to try it at least once in public, and often in private. I think its essentail for all bodies, even if its only monthly. Its like singing, it doesn't matter how good you are at it, its good for you. For those who don't know where to start, try here (Melbourne and Sydney) for structured dance with room to move, and here (Melbourne) for more flexible antics.

Book Review - Hackers and Painters

I'm not through this book yet, but its a must read for anyone who has to work in a mangement capacity or with programming. Not that I'm a programmer (though I do get some exposure) but the principals are transferable and essential for anyone who wants to be respected as an efficient and useful part of a team... ... AND its a good enjoyable read, very comfortable language, and even the chapters that discuss code and programming are accessible. :)


13 Aug 04 - I've finished the book now and I still think its very important, but there were some particularly technical paragraphs that I skipped. Still, I encourage all who have any interest in applications or programming to read this one as soon as they are able...

Wednesday, 16 June 2004

National Day of Sleepiness

I nominate this day, June 16th, as a National Day of Sleepiness. Everyone I've met today could be a mascot for this day of attempted celebration. We could message each other about how we intended to catch up and drink cough syrup (or some other drowsy drug), but that we just couldn't get out of bed. We could get other people to call our workplace and let them know we couldn't be bothered making up an excuse and take it off my annual leave if you must. We could watch daytime telly in our pj's. And we could pay homage to those trailblazers who are just too tired to celebrate this National Day when we, as a nation, celebrate our natural state of sleepiness.
(Not to be confused with our National Day of Apathy, June 17)

Thursday, 20 May 2004

Book Review - Philosophy and The Simpsons

by William Irwin (Editor), et al

I'm a fan of this book, but not a raver. It does an excellent job of bringing philosophy to a popular framework, but there are some essays which seem more about media studies than philosophy. Nevertheless, those that are about the latter are good, thorough, and don't patronise.
A good gift for someone else, secondhand for yourself.