Billy's week 8th May, 2011

Reading: Specky Magee by Felice Arena and Gary Lyon


On-line learning: 2 digit addition at Khan Academy


Programming methodology - we've started watching a series of lectures from Stanford University on basic programming methodology. The first lecture was mostly admin for the course (its an actual uni course that's been videoed), but he's understanding it quite well so far.

Experimenting: Surface tension experiment shown by floating a needle on the surface of water.



Having Fun: Exploring Minecraft, Club Penguin, Webkinz, Lego, playing on the Wii

Creating: Drama class, created a new computer game using RPG Maker XP

Crafting:  Sewing, drawing and crafting to create some unique Mother's Day gifts.

Watching: Mythbusters, Behind The News, Backyard Science

We watched the first episode of a new series on Austar - Tony Robinson Explores Australia.  Brilliant history documentary!

Sporting: Dragons martial arts (twice), AFL training & game, archery

It's hard to be creative when your brain is full..

I feel like I have so many things going on in my life at the moment.  Work, homeschooling, trying to lose weight, keeping in touch with friends and family, dealing with the day to day minutiae of life - making sure there is food in the house to put on the table, clean clothes in the drawers etc; volunteer webmistress and falling way down on the priority list is writing.

Yesterday I spent the day watching some programming lecture videos with Billy, travelling an hour to my appointment at the optometrist, going to the library, calling in to a client to fix a problem with their system, rushing back to get Billy changed, dropping him at footy training, walking 6 laps of the oval because I hadn't had a chance to exercise in the morning, rushing to Aldi to do the grocery shopping, getting back in time to pick Billy up, fixing dinner, answering work emails that had piled up through the day, making some website changes for the RWA, getting Billy to bed - bath, reading with him etc, making a stab at tidying the kitchen, answering some personal emails.  By the time I did all that, I had no creativity left in me to write.

I'm trying.  If I get a spare minute to think - in the shower, washing dishes (if I'm not interrupted) etc - I start trying to think up plot points, character backstory etc.  But my brain is just so full with everything else I'm doing that it keeps getting sidetracked.

I start off thinking "So if my heroine were to do this, how would it change the story?" only to interrupt myself by remembering that I need to book the car in for a service.  Then my thoughts circle around and around and I get nowhere. 

I need to sit down and do a brain dump.  Clear my brain out of all the stuff its trying to remember and make a paper list.  Maybe then I'll feel more in control. Oh, and book the car in for a service..

What do you do?

Tocal Field Day

We braved the weather and headed off to the first day of the Tocal Field Days today.  Its mainly an agricultural show with stands selling all sorts of farm equipment and agricultural talks & displays, but there is also a large art / craft section, food, and educational events.  Plus much more..

So the day was spent -

Admiring the homeschooler's Folk Art around the World exhibition

Taking part in Water testing

Being accosted by strange mascots...

Doing Art & craft workshops (Egyptian cartouche and book making)..

Visiting the historical Tocal Homestead (built in the 1840s)..

Bungee Trampolining..

and camel riding!

Is it any wonder that I'm exhausted??!

Goal, Motivation, Conflict - Deb Dixon

I had a splurge the other day on writing books.  The first of them arrived yesterday - Debra Dixon's GMC (Goal, Motivation and Conflict). 

Debra Dixon was a speaker at the last RWA conference but I joined the organisation too late to go.  From what I've read so far, the book is wonderful.  She talks about how your characters need to have a goal - something they are striving for, motivation - why do they want to reach that goal, and conflict - what's stopping them getting there.  That forms the basis of your character's growth and the plot.

I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of it.

Silver FitPiggy

One of the things I've discovered about the Wii is that it has cute ways of rewarding you for getting to different levels.  The FitPiggy is like a Piggy Bank, but holds a count of the number of minutes you train each day, the calories you've burnt off that day, and the total number of minutes you've trained.  (Photo grabbed from the internet somewhere).

When you reach 10 hours, the FitPiggy turns Bronze.

When you've trained 20 hours, the FitPiggy turns Silver.  I reached my Silver FitPiggy last week.  20 hours of training since we got it at the start of March (about 7 weeks ago).

I started off aiming for 20 minutes / day and have worked up to 40 minutes / day, probably on average 6 days / week.  I've set a calorie goal to burn off a glass of coke each day.  The great thing about that is I haven't touched the stuff for weeks - when you know you have to exercise hard for 40 minutes to burn off one glass of coke, it really loses its appeal!!!

I've lost 2.2kg so far and have another 2kg to go to get down to 'at risk of overweight' rather than 'overweight'.

I lost weight quite steadily for the first few weeks, then had a bad week or two and put most of it back on again.  I've been tracking what I'm eating since then and the weight's coming off again.  yay! 

Hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to report that I've reached my first goal.

School holidays

NSW has been on school holidays for 2 weeks, so we've wound down as well.

Its been nice to have a break from most of the activities.  There's so much more time in the day when you're not running around getting ready for afternoon / evening activities!

We've relaxed the structure - its been nice for a break, but it will good to get back into a routine.

So there's been lots of lego play:

(this was a lego computer he made for the Lego Quest challenge),

Celebrating  - both his cousins and grandfather had birthdays.  He made and decorated the cake for his Pop.

Learning - we caught the train down to Sydney and visited Hyde Park Barracks and the Australia Museum.

Make your own fun - he wanted me to set up an activities course for him one day.  The apple bobbing was his idea :)

Did 'boy stuff' - we visited a friend of Billy's at the friend's grandparent's farm.  They got to do fun 'boy' stuff like trying to catch tadpoles in the creek.

Plus:

He also went to dragons twice a week. 

We helped get most of the art work ready for the homeschool display. 

Our Scouts had a fundraising BBQ and we all worked on the stall. 

We went to an art exhibit opening (his grandmother's & cousin's works are included). 

There's been lots of reading.

And probably lots more that I can't remember.

Bucket List

I mentioned something about my Bucket List a few weeks ago, and Vanessa asked if I wanted to share the whole list.  So in no particular order, here it is.

1.    Meet Helen
2.    Meet Suji - DONE and I hope its not the only time it happens!
3.    Travel back to England, Ireland, Scotland & Wales
4.    Travel back to Italy
5.    See the pyramids
6.    Travel around Australia
7.    See Ayers Rock again
8.    Pat the dolphins at Monkey Mia
9.    Write a book
10.    Go on an Alaskan cruise
11.    Have a short story published
12.    Have a book published
13.    Start martial arts again - I've done two classes so far and ordered my gi, so I can now mark this one off!
14.   Improve my photography skills
15.   Do something silly in public
16.  See the stairway to the moon

I keep adding to it as I think of things.  Its not as exciting as Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman's list but its mine.  :)

Do you have one you'd like to share?

Creating memorable characters

I'm half way through the Creating Memorable Characters course and am realising why I could never get past the first few chapters of a book before.  I just didn't know my characters enough.  I'm obviously not a 'pantser' (one who writes by the seat of her pants) - I have to know my characters well before the plot becomes clear, and I give up if I can't see my way to the end.  Going through these exercises is opening up so many avenues for the plot and making richer, more complex characters.  Or at least I hope that's what's happening :)

I've also realised that you need to treat the setting almost like a character.  I need to really be clear on where they live, work and play - even down to what the house looks like inside and out - before I can add enough detail into the scenes. 

I've been using Google images and Google maps a lot to try and get a feel for both the setting and the characters.  Visual images spark so many ideas for me.  A fellow writer mentioned that she uses collaging to work out plot problems.  Definitely something to try - it seems to be how my brain works.

Hyde Park Barracks

Yesterday Billy & I caught the train down to Sydney to meet up with friends and visit the Hyde Park Barracks.  The barracks were built in 1819 to house the male convicts; now it's set up as a museum about convict life.  It's set up quite well for kids - it has a kid's trail with a booklet to fill in, and plenty of hands-on things to do.  Some of those include:

You can lie in a hammock -

Dress up in convict clothes -

and Try on the leg-irons -

There was a database of the convicts that had passed through the barracks, and much to our delight, we found Billy's ancestor listed.  It makes history far more personal.

Afterwards, we headed to Hyde Park for a picnic lunch.

And then over to the Australian Museum for a couple of hours.  There's not much hands-on stuff to do, but the kids did find some :) 

It was an exhausting day but well worth the visit.

Heaven - for some...

I'm doing another writing course next month and as preparation for it, we've been given a couple of movies to watch.  One is a Richard Gere movie, Shall We Dance, the other is the BBC's Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth.  All 5 hours of it...

To some - this is heaven.  I've borrowed the DVDs from my niece who swears its the best thing ever.  For me - pure hell.  I studied Pride & Prejudice for the HSC back when I was at school.  Hated it.  Hated every single minute of it.  Sitting watching 5 hours of it??!  Arrrggghhhh!

Actually it will be interesting to see if my opinions of it have changed in the *ahem* 20-odd years since I read the book.  How much of my dislike of the book was influenced by my dislike of the teacher who loved anything Jane Austen?

But still - 5 hours??!

Oh, and I'm doing another writing course this month - which luckily does not involve watching Pride and Prejudice :)  Its on Creating Memorable Characters and I'm finding it very useful.  Now if only I could write without thinking 'this is crap'..

Billy's week 10th April, 2011

Writing:

Wrote a great story called The Power of Darkness

Learning:

Learning about chance on Skwirk

Making:

Science experiments - rockets & cartesian diver

Made tea-bag rockets at cubs



Cooking: 

Help out with cooking

Doing:

A fun novelty event at Archery shooting rubber ducks and chickens

Martial Arts, AFL Training, AFL game (PDHPE)

Drama (Creative Arts)

Playing outdoor Lasertag

Watching:


Backyard Science (Science)
Numbers Count, Cyberchase (Maths)

Behind The News (HSIE)
Real Chinese (HSIE)
Food for Thought (Science & Technology)
My Place (HSIE)

Playing with:

Wii Fit & Sports (PDHPE)
Lego
Various websites like Club Penguin & Webkinz

Fun with science

We had some fun with science today.

First up was the cartesian diver.  This turned into quite a trial and error process getting it to work - trying different size water bottles, different pen lids, differing amounts of blu-tac.  Finally we got something to work though!



Not content with that, we then made Balloons rockets.  As you can see from the video, the cat enjoyed this one too!

So damn proud of myself!

In 1994, I very nervously went along to a Self Defence class for women.  I loved it.  I loved the physicality of it, the camaraderie, everything.  It was run by the sensei from the Gojo Ryu karate dojo, so after the 6 week class finished, I joined up at karate.  I was at full time uni at the time, so I had plenty of time to go along to classes through the day.  I just loved that feeling after training of being so exhausted you could barely stand up, battered and bruised, but on such a high.  Yeah I'm weird :)

I continued it for about 18 months and earnt my yellow belt.  By that time though, I was back at full-time work, planning a wedding, getting a house built - you know, all those 'grown up' things.  I stopped karate.

When Billy started doing defendo martial arts 12 months ago, I'd watch the class and all those feelings came back.  I really, really, really felt the urge to try it.  In April last year, I wrote on my 'bucket list', "Start martial arts again".

Last night I did it (12 months later but still)!  I decided late last week that I was going to do it.  I told several of my friends so that I couldn't chicken out.  Which was fortunate because I came close a few times yesterday :)

Sitting there waiting for the class last night, I thought I was going to pass out, I was so nervous.  You know that feeling you get before you go on stage and give a speech..  That's how I was feeling.

Sensei introduced me to the class - several of whom I knew anyway as they are Billy's instructors and others I knew by sight - and he told them to be gentle with me lol.  We did some basic warm ups, blocking & parrying and then the rest of the time was spent doing "close quarters combat" - so rolling around on the ground, groin to groin with strange men, trying to gouge their eyes out :) 

There are only 2 other women in the class as far as I know - only one was there last night and she is uber-fit.  The rest are all big, strong, fit looking guys which is rather intimidating - but the 3 that I had as partners were all really great.

I'm definitely going again.  I'm feeling a bit bruised and stretched in places today but so proud of myself!!!  I think I'll try the Saturday morning class next week - Billy has to sit around waiting for my class to finish at 8pm on the Monday night, so it was a fairly late night for him by the time he got to bed.

Yay, I did it!!

Billy's week 3rd April, 2011

A very sporting week with both a karate grading and his first Under 10s AFL game, but still time for a variety of other fun stuff!



Making:

Non-Newtonian fluid (aka "cornflour goo") (Science)

Check out this cool video with cornflour goo on a larger scale:

Geometrical solid shapes using Klikko (Maths)

More geometrical shapes using paper cutting & folding (Maths & Art)

Geometric art (Islamic style) using a compass (Maths / Art)

Cooking: 


Help with dinner - spag bol
He made a cake from scratch unsupervised!

Doing:

Archery, AFL Training, first under 10s AFL game of the season (his team won!) (PDHPE)

Martial arts grading - he received his orange belt. (PDHPE)

Drama (Creative Arts)


Visiting:

Having friends over to play


Watching:


Backyard Science (Science)
Numbers Count, Cyberchase (Maths)
Being Me (PDHPE)
Behind The News (HSIE)

Playing with:

Wii Fit & Sports (PDHPE)
Lego
Various websites like Club Penguin & Webkinz

I'm a dinosaur :(

I've been putting it off for as long as possible, but I need to upgrade my web programming skills.  Without getting technical, I've been programming in one web language for about 10 years - and well, the web has moved on..  I'm finding that I'm running into difficulties getting stuff to work on new servers.

Its hard to change though - I'm quite comfortable with what I know and its hard to step out of that comfort zone.  Its also hard to find the time to learn something new - when you work for yourself, nobody pays you to do training!

Regardless of my comfort levels, its time for me to hit the books.

Image from http://regalthreads.spreadshirt.com 

Something to ponder

“Creativity is just having enough dots to connect…  connect experiences and synthesize new things.  The reason creative people are able to do that is that they’ve had more experiences or have thought more about their experiences than other people”.  Steve Jobs, President, Apple Computers

“You may think that as you get older you gather more experiences.  The reality is, most of us repeat the same experiences over and over again.  Instead of 20 years of experiences, we’ve had the same one year of experience 20 times.

For children, everything is a new experience.  As children we were passionate and creative; our minds filled with limitless possibilities and wonder.  Numerous studies have shown that 98% of 5-year old children are highly creative, while only 2% of adults are.  How did we go from being creative, passionate, playful children to adults filled with burden, rigidity and stress?

One obstacle is our diminished ability to be creative and to live creatively.  A creative mind is a playful mind, one stirred by passion and probability rather than deterred by fear and obligation – a mind that can develop new ideas and bring those ideas to fruition.  As children we view the world with fresh eyes.  Children are not focused – they are collecting dots.  New experiences.  It all changes once we start going to school.  We are taught to memorize and regurgitate facts; to generate particular outcomes.  Peer pressure sets in and we all feel compelled to wear the same brand of sneakers.  We stop thinking for ourselves.  As we get older, we continue through life planning every step – and eliminate dots.  We go to college, we choose a major, and eventually get the best job we can.  What do we have left?  One dot.  We know that dot – our area of expertise – really well but we have nothing else to connect it to.  Instead of collecting new experiences, we become focused on one area.  We no longer try new things.  We continually choose the same path and use the same approaches to living life, neglecting to check whether we are producing the results we really want.”

Stephen Shapiro – Goal Free Living.

Billy's week 27th March, 2011

It was a good balance this week - quite a social week, but we still achieved lots of learning activities

Learning:


Addition 1, Subtraction 1 and Subtraction 2 reviews using the Khan Academy  (Maths)
Spellodrome (English)

Reading: 

Star Reporter (Club Penguin)
George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt by Lucy & Stephen Hawking

Writing:

Several short stories  (very short in some cases!)  (English)

Making:


A red cabbage acid / base indicator and testing various substances (Science)

Print-making at art (Creative Arts)

Making and flying kites at cubs





Cooking: 


Help with dinner
Jelly slice

Doing:

Archery, AFL Training

Drama (Creative Arts)

Visiting:

Having friends over to play

A family dinner with his Pop, Great-Aunt, aunts, uncles & cousins (on Pete's side)


Fort Scratchley & the Newcastle Maritime Museum with his aunt and cousin (my side)

The really cute thing is that I have a photo almost identical to this from 2 years ago - standing on tiptoes to look in - gee he's grown!

Watching:


Backyard Science (Science)
Numbers Count, Cyberchase (Maths)
Being Me (PDHPE)
Music Moves (Creative Arts)
My Place (HSIE)
Mythbusters Season 1, Episode 8


Playing with:

Wii Fit & Sports (PDHPE)
Lego
Various websites like Club Penguin & Webkinz

I had a night with Tim Minchin

.. we weren't alone though - another 2000+ people and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra were there too!

Pete & I caught the train down to Sydney on Saturday for the weekend.  We'd booked a 'mystery deal' hotel in the CBD - which turned out to be the 5 star Radisson Plaza.  Very nice...

We relaxed in the hotel room for the afternoon - Pete had a nap to catch up on some of the sleep he's missing due to working ridiculous hours lately, I read my book.  Then we headed out to find somewhere for dinner.

Not far from our hotel was the Bavarian Bier Cafe - it was just opening for dinner so we headed in.  The meals we had were yummy - wiener schnitzel with sauteed potato, followed by apple strudel (for me) and lemon tart (for Pete).

Then a meander down to the Opera House for the concert.  We were a bit early so we went out on the deck to see the view.  It was fascinating to see the 'sails' up close..

I knew Libby was going to the concert too, and while we said we'd keep an eye out for each other, I really didn't expect to see her.  After all, there were 2000+ people there.  So I was quite surprised as we stood waiting for our door to be opened, to look around and spot her and Kevin.  Not only were we going in the same door, we were about 6 seats apart in the row in front!  Libby has some cool photos of the concert, so check them out.  It was incredible.  We've seen him perform before but it was so cool with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra backing him.

As usual, he was so funny.  Unfortunately he didn't play my all time favourite Tim Minchin song (Canvas Bags):



but his final encore was my second favourite 'White Wine in the Sun'.



He played a good mix of old and new.

It was 11pm by the time it finished - late for me!  Luckily we had an 11am checkout this morning, so we could have a sleep-in.  Bliss!

We caught the train back to Newcastle - the car was still parked where we left it (yay!) - and headed to my mum and dad's to pick Billy up.

It was only a short break but very appreciated.

Alcatraz

I love it when we explore rabbit trails.  Billy was fascinated by Alcatraz when we visited and even more so when we heard on the TV a few days after we'd visited that they now suspected that one of the escapes was successful.  Previously they had assumed that the three men drowned in the June 1962 escape.  No bodies were ever recovered though.

Billy purchased a comic book from the Alcatraz shop about that escape - called the Dummy Head Breakout because the men made dummy heads to put in their beds to fool the guards and buy them valuable time.  He's read it cover to cover several times.

This led to us discovering that the Clint Eastwood movie 'Escape from Alcatraz' was also about this escape, so I tracked it down and we watched it as a family.

We also found out that the Mythbusters team had tried to replicate the escape in an episode in Season 1, so we've now watched that as well.

I wonder where it will lead next...

Little Gems short story competition - results

Well, the results are in and unfortunately I wasn't one of the top 16 who were chosen to go in the anthology.  Congrats to all those who did though, esp my friends Jenn & Louise. 

I was fairly pleased with how I went though.  All entries were judged by 3 volunteer judges - I received 100% from 1 judge (who was a published author and contest winner, so stoked about that!), but 'only' received 82% from the other 2 judges, to give me an overall score of 88%.  I was in the top half of the 82 entries (no 34). 

A couple of the comments have left me a bit bemused, but others have been quite valuable.  Its given me a push to start writing again.  I haven't written since January - I'm blaming being busy but when I do have time I seem to procrastinate...

Anyway, not bad for my first competition!