The Twitter Trio (3)

This week I'm going to feature three blogs that are new to me. All of them were discovered via Twitter. Here's what happened - someone that I follow tweeted a link to a particular post on the blog, I clicked on the link to read the post, I liked the post and the blog so much that I started to follow the blog.

1. Blogging 'Bout Boys

Since I've been following this blog, Jennifer, a freelance writer and homeschooling mum of four boys, has tackled such topics as Gender Intensification, Life With Boys and Birth Control and Boys. She doesn't shy away from the difficult issues. As a mum of one daughter and one son, I truly appreciate Jennifer's insights. I want to do as good a job as possible parenting both my children. Boys can be difficult for Mums to parent for a number of reasons, especially as we've never been boys ourselves so we don't really know what it's like! Also boys can sometimes seem messy, overly energetic, strong-willed and disobedient! I'm glad to have found this source of support.

2. One Year. 156 Fears. Life Changing.

Joy is also a freelance writer who is using this blog to document how she is facing her fears by trying new things. The post that led me to this blog was Fearing the Worst, I recommend that you read it if you need a little help getting your life into perspective.

3. Montessori for Everyone - Montessori Blog

The post that got me interested in this blog was this one titled The Power of Reading Aloud to Children. I don't know a lot about the Montessori Philosophy of education, but I've always been intrigued by it. I'm sure I'll learn more by following this blog.

So there you have it - this week's Twitter roundup. If you've found something interesting via Twitter, please leave me a comment. Or better yet, follow me on Twitter so we can tweet about it!

Name This Puppy!

Awwww isn't she cute!

This little girl is a Spoodle, with a black Cocker Spaniel mum and a white poodle dad.

We've put a deposit on her and she'll be flown up from Adelaide when we've paid the rest.

What should we call her?

Current front-runners are Lulu, Gypsy, Lucy and Rosie.

We are open to suggestions.

I am becoming an ICT nerd.

I've been having a busy few days exploring some new online applications that I hope will be useful in my everyday life.

First, I signed up for LibraryThing. Do you use LibraryThing? I'd heard of it, but I didn't really know what it was. Then when I visited The University of Technology Sydney's library for my study visit, one of the presentations was about using social networking in the library. They mentioned Facebook, Twitter, and LibraryThing. So I thought I'd give it a try.

LibraryThing is pretty fun! I've started adding books to "My Library", and you'll notice on my blog sidebar I have a LibraryThing widget. If you click on any of the covers, it will open up a window with a catalogue record of the book, including my rating and review if I've written a review. Cool huh!?

Second, I decided that I'd have a go of Evernote. I blogged a little bit about it here, and I decided to take the plunge and try it out.

So far, I LOVE IT!!!

For my MEd, I have to construct a portfolio which contains a critical evaluation of my learning during the course and an assessment of how this learning will enable me to be an effective teacher librarian in the future. I'm going to need to collect a lot of information to write an excellent portfolio, so I've decided to use Evernote to facilitate this process.

Here's a screen shot of my Evernote window:

On the right hand side is the "note" that I was most recently working on, which happens to be a text document. It's some ideas about what themes I will concentrate on when I'm writing my portfolio.

In the centre is a list of all the notes that I've made so far. On the left hand side is a toolbar for managing my "notebooks".

What is super fantastic about Evernote is the simplicity of doing anything that I want to do with just one or two clicks. I emailed my theme ideas for my portfolio to my supervisor straight from Evernote - no middleman needed! I also grabbed the screen shot that you see above in Evernote, right clicked on it and chose "picture" so I could import it straight into this post. And that leads me to my next discovery...

I get a lot of great information via Twitter. I follow quite a lot of librarians and teacher librarians, and I know that I'll be able to use lots of the links and information that they tweet in my portfolio. I needed to find an easy way to grab tweets that I like and store them in Evernote. And along came Seesmic.

Seesmic is a platform for Twitter so that you don't have to use the Twitter.com website to access your timeline. It has the excellent function that I can highlight a tweet, click the Evernote icon on my toolbar, and it sends a copy of the tweet as a "note" to my Evernote account. If the tweet contains a link to a website, when in Evernote I just double-click on the link and it takes me straight there! Sweet :)

Yes, it's been time-consuming to set up these new applications, and yes, I'm still learning how to get the best out of them. But I'm loving it!

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld.

Bought for myself.

**** "Thrilling!"

From the back cover: "Tally has finally become pretty. Now her looks are beyond perfect, her clothes are awesome, her boyfriend is totally hot, and she's completely popular. It's everything she's ever wanted. But beneath all the fun - the nonstop parties, the high-tech luxury, the total freedom - is a nagging sense that something's wrong. Something important. Then a message from Tally's ugly past arrives. Reading it, Tally remembers what's wrong with pretty life, and the fun stops cold. Now she has to choose between fighting to forget what she knows and fighting for her life - because the authorities don't intend to let anyone with this information survive."

I was extremely eager to read Pretties, the second book in Westerfeld's Uglies series. You can read my review of Uglies here.

It took me a little while to get into Pretties. It's written with teens in mind, and I had to get my head back into that space to really enjoy it. Once I did, though, I enjoyed it very much, and am eagerly waiting to pick up a copy of Specials.

Tally is a wonderful heroine, she's flawed, and complex, and a great sympathetic character for girls to relate to. Pretties opens with her trying to negotiate the world of being a "new pretty", but never quite feeling like she fits in. Then she meets Zane, who has some clever tricks up his sleeve to keep them "bubbly", that is, clearminded, so they can remember their pasts and live life consciously and deliberately. Soon Tally and Zane's exploits lead to a mini-revolution in New Pretty Town and more trouble for Tally.

I felt that this book focussed more on characters and plot, and less on the big issues than Uglies. The second half of the book turned into a fast-paced adventure which kept me turning the pages quickly. We also get to see just how big a villian Dr Cable is, so finally Tally is clear on who her nemesis is. The ending of Pretties is quite heart-breaking, leaving me desperate to get into Specials so I can see how the story plays out.

Often trilogies fall down in the middle act, which is often simply a bridge between the opening story and the climactic conclusion. I haven't read Specials yet, so I can't tell you how Pretties stacks up to it, but I can tell you that it's a satisfying follow up to Uglies, and well worth a read.

Sa Wa Di Krup - Exploring the land of all Smiles Part 1

Sa Wa Di Krup! I'm back from Thailand, the land of all smiles, safe and sound. Thanks everyone for your concern =) The situation is not as bad as what you really thought, didn't see any red shirts around. Instead...was welcome by the friendly Thais, and greeted umpteen times of Sa Wa Di Kar...


Traveled with my the German interns from Bosch, stayed in my supervisor's Khun Mi's place... her house was really big, really big.


We reached Thailand time around 4.30pm, and after unpacking our stuff... we were welcomed by Khun Mi with local dishes...


To be honest with you, this was the first time I tried all these fruits... haha, yea, I'm a carnivore... RAWWWWR.


After dinner, was already 7pm...rested for about an hour...and we head on to our long awaited activity... THAI MASSAGE!!! 2 hours of full body massage cost about 500 bhat ... about $23! Sibei shiok....sibei worth it lah! As the curfew was still on, we had to return before 12am... that night, I really had a very good sleep...


The next day, woke up as early as 7am in the morning...to go to floating market. Khun Mi booked a van for us for whole day... from 7am to 6pm...total damage ... $25 per person... we head on for A & W breakfast... wah piang... it was like million years I haven't eaten A & W... the feeling? My tears almost dropped down when I ate the curly fries and root beer... awwwwWWWW. LoL!


Scenes at the floating market...


'Live' at Floating market!


Markus, myself, Khun Mi and her son.


Marco, Markus and myself on boat...row , row, row your boat...gently down the sea...


Stopped by one of the stations at floating market... trying to be funny...hahaha.


After floating market...was our sight seeing sessions... Buddha, buddhas and more buddhas...


Markus, Myself, Christian and Marco


At one of the temple...


Now...this picture you see here, not easy to take yea. We really climb up big steps and small steps... but its worth it lah...


After sightseeing...was already dinner time... Dinner was at Macdonale... look at Mr. Macdonale in Thai... SA WA DI KRUP!


After dinner...we head on to the sky bar and the state tower... the security was quite tight here, many security officers... checking your bags... even our van was being checked...everything in, underneath... everywhere lah...


Reached the 64th floor...sky bar... it's really a good place to chill out... MUST SEE MUST GO! Highly recommended... you can catch the entire night scene of Bangkok from here...


I really like this picture alot... by chance caught the lightning from afar...nice!


Night scene at Bangkok...


Myself, Markus, Christian and Marco at Skybar! Price is not really cheap though... has all those 10% service charge and 7% Tax...like Singapore price... but okay lah, being served by so many people, being greeted like you have never been greeted before...and the ambiance... worth the price!

Alrights... that's all for Bangkok in Day 1 and Day 2!

Coming up... Shopping paradise in Bangkok!

TTT - Have fun like a child

do you think it's more fun to be a parent or a child?

Derrr! (Duh if you're American) Of course it's more fun to be a child! I've never appreciated my childhood as much as since I've been a parent. Oh the marvellousness of not being in charge of the bills or the house or anything else for that matter! Kids hardly even have to be in charge of themselves!

The hardest think for me about being an adult, especially one who is married with a mortgage and kids - the full catastrophe as they say - is the responsibility! Wouldn't it be lovely if someone else had to make the decisions, keep their eye on the time and the budget, and make sure that everyone is healthy and happy for a change?

A lesson I have had to learn is that, believe it or not, I don't make the world turn! (Imagine that!) I can't make everything right all the time, I'm not always in control, and I DON'T HAVE TO BE. As my kids get older, I have to work to make sure that they get a little more responsibility each year with their added priveleges. Alana started high school this year, and I have to make sure that I don't get in her face too much about her homework and assignments. I have to show her the respect of letting her organise herself and take responsibility for her own deadlines. I'm lucky, Alana is naturally a mature and responsible kind of girl. Joshua is more of a challenge, as he's a fun-loving boy who can't see much point in hard work. I'm going to have my work cut out for me letting go of some of the responsibility and turning it over to him.

In order to have fun like a child, I think I need to make time for play. What is play to me? What do I really have fun doing? And how can I fit it into my routine so I don't lose my fun side? Well, guess what? I bought tickets for Alana and I to go and see Eclipse on the day it opens in theatres! Yay! Looking forward to July 1st for some fun :)

If you'd like to participate in this conversation, head over to Shannon's NutHouse by clicking on the button above.

The Twitter Trio (2)

Here's episode two of my new weekend feature in which I let you know about interesting things I have learned via Twitter.

1. Evernote

Found via @ruth_skerricks.

In this post on Ruth's blog Skerricks, she mentioned that Evernote is an application for collecting and sorting information. Now as a student of librarianship, lifelong learner, and lover of anything to do with finding and using information more effectively, I was intrigued. Ruth's post led me to this post on The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled "Take a Minute to Collect Your Thoughts". Written by Shawn Miller, this post is an account of how he uses Evernote to create a "personal database" to use for research, writing and generating ideas.

It seems to me that it might take a while to learn how to use Evernote, but it looks like it might be worth it.

2. Blogging Do's and Don'ts

@dsfunctionalmom shared this great post on Wednesday: "What NOT to do if you want people to actually read your blog!"

On a similar note, @bookladysblog wrote this guest post at The Book Case called "So, you wanna be a book blogger..."

3. Did you know that millions of women and girls in developing countries miss up to 50 days of school or work every year because they do not have access to affordable sanitary pads when they menstruate?

via @miafreedman

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