Posts by Jackie Clark
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they have a better sense of social tone.
Which may, or may not, be such a good thing. I attended a course about "Productive Conversations" yesterday. Really interesting, in that the speaker, Carol Cardno, has spent 20 years researching what constitutes productive conversation, and what are the barriers to it. She was talking about educational settings but, of course, it applies to all relationships. The term applies mostly to spoken dialogue, not written, but I couldn't help feel that it could apply to all our dealings, when she spoke of womens' general need to keep things "nice" and "nonconflict oriented". We don't know how to disagree effectively, it seems. Food for thought.
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it's true you do have have an amazingly large number of highly well informed and intelligent people here.
Scary, scary bastards, is what I think you meant to say, Sue. (And I say that in an entirely loving way).
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I don't use Firefox much -- yes, it's flexible, but Safari 3.0 is faster and funkier and I'm still just an Apple fanboy.
I use Firefox at home on the PC and at work on the applebook. Not so keen on Safari, but I guess it's what you're used to. I well remember when I first discovered puters which was the same time as the World Wide Web really became populist in NZ (about 1995, I think). Netscape it was, indeed and I loved it. But it wasn't a longlived affair. Ah, chat rooms that used HTML. Talk about pregnant pauses in a conversation.
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Who is this mysterious "left"? IMHO, neither major party can claim to be truly left or right of centre. But since the economy is doing quite well, I guess some polarisation of the population is just what Granny Herald and TV3 ordered. Honestly, I'm not reading or listening to any political news at the moment. I just can't be bothered with what, to me anyway, seems to be a systematic undermining of the Labour Party, and the glorification of John Keys. I will never vote for National - for one very simple reason, and it's very personal. Trevor Mallard made sure that kindergarten teachers recieved parity. I don't trust John Keys' party to value my profession in quite the same way.
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I love Auckland Zoo. I love the way you can go right up to the young male tiger, I like watching the spider monkeys, and I could happily spend a whole day watching the sealions from their underwater window. I must admit to feeling a little guilty about that one - their constant swimming and diving in their pool seems to follow the same pattern over and over again. And I thought of the polar bears, as Danielle says, pacing. But then I was lucky enough to catch them going through their behaviour enrichment thingies one morning, and I felt a wee bit better. If someone were to say the sealions are going mad, I would stop watching them. I really would. I swear. Just not yet.
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I've had a little experience of this firsthand. I don't know how many of you remember,but about 5 years ago, a little girl was killed, and her father seriously injured, by a young Chinese man driving off SH 1 at Rangiriri into the petrol station there. Her name was Georgia, and I was her teacher. All of us were grief stricken when she died, and one night, not long after she had died, a TVOne reporter stood outside the kindergarten fence with his camera man. There were families coming to pick up their children and so I went out to see what he wanted and he asked if he could film inside the kindergarten playground. I told him no, and he said to me "If you don't let us in, we'll just film through the fence anyway". I went inside to ring my big bosses, who gave him permission and in they came. I told them to wait until all the children were gone and then, I stayed inside. I was absolutely gutted at his attitude, and found the whole thing really, really distressing. So props to you, Damian. Really.
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Dale, true that.
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A name in speech marks? God, RB, you really are making a splash when you become a quote, eh?
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You're welcome Sophie. I know that all the members of the PA family are wishing you all a happy outcome to this shitty situation.
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I know the kids love it, but could we also have some comprehensive, well-lit exhibitions for grown-ups?
I entirely agree, Russell. The last time I was at Our Place - which was also my first time - I felt more than a bit disgruntled. I kept thinking I had missed bits, and rushed around to find out where the missed bits might be, but to no avail. It's a very attractive set up, but I have to say that the older model of museum - the British Museum, the Auckland War Memorial - suit me alot better.