Archived Site – 2007 to 2011
December 7, 2007 Leave a Comment
We now have a working photo album as part of this website, which you can access at the very top of this page. There is a tab labeled ‘photos’. Click there, and you will find a small album containing 5 pictures of our flat (that’s apartment for you American-English speakers). Enjoy!
December 7, 2007 1 Comment
An added benefit to coming to Bristol is that it is the epicenter of the trip-hop and acid jazz music scene. Sadly, I am showing my age as these styles were all the rage when I was a freshman in university back ’94. However, Bristol has an extremely rich culture of music and art and its history of turning out world famous, albeit niche, musicians continues. It is the home to many world renowned music groups.
Terra and I live a very frugal lifestyle but when a once in a lifetime opportunity comes along, you must take it. This morning we bought tickets for Saturday night when Terra and I will see Portishead which is one of my favorite bands. To see them in the US would be hundreds of Dollars per ticket and it would be in a large theatre but since Bristol is Portishead’s home town, they are coming together for their first show in over 10 years! I had little hope many years ago that this trio would create more music but much to my delight they are launching a new album in the spring of 2008. This will be their first appearance in Bristol in some time. Thankfully the tickets were only 20 pounds each and the venue is about a 5 minute walk from our flat! How perfect is that?
One advantage to going to bands like this is that I am pretty sure the crowd will look a bit more like me. I must admit, I am feeling a bit out of touch with the teenagers that run around the university. When I was at Marist, I am sure I looked and behaved so much older than these kids! *laugh here* The undergrads here amaze me. They are connected to electronic devices at every moment with wires coming out of everywhere. The young men wear their pants around their knees. The young ladies wear outfits that would get them locked in the house if they were my daughters. Both genders spend hours on their hair to make it look appropriately messy. Maybe this is what university is in the US but obviously, I have been away quite a long time. Oh how my poor child will suffer. I am definitely not going to be cool 20 years from now unless they bring back fashion from 1992.
Guess I am getting older! I am listening to “new music” that is 20 years old. I am complaining about the next generation and finding it harder to relate to technology advances such as texting everything on your mobile and using social networking sites.
I will let you know how the concert goes next Saturday. I guess Terra and I have to enjoy this now as once the little one comes in April, we will not be able to go anywhere without the child due to lifestyle choices we have decided upon. If you want any Portishead, Massive Attack, or any other trip-hop or acid jazz, let me know. I have gigabytes of it!
December 2, 2007 Leave a Comment
If you are like me, you do not have time to chase information. You are interested in keeping up with your friends and family by reading their blogs (aka website) but you hate having to visit every week to see if there is new information. In light of this problem, I have ensured two ways for you to keep up with Books n’ Baby in Bristol without having to remember to visit the site.
The first is RSS (real simple syndication) assures that you can use Google Reader, Sage, My Yahoo or some other type of RSS Feed aggregator. JuneSixteen.com supports all types of RSS. If you do not read more than 10 websites a week, then this is probably not worth your time to use RSS. However, if you are like me and you are trying to keep up with information coming from over 150 sources on a weekly basis, RSS is a huge time saver. I have even started doing research via RSS as there are websites that run daily searches for you based on your criteria and then return it to you in readable chunks! It beats going to the library and finding a paper book and photocopying it. It is truly amazing how the internet has revolutionized accessing and using information.
If you use email a few times a week, but are not a heavy web user, then there is the registration which will allow you to sign up for emails telling you of new articles on JuneSixteen.com. If you were subscribed to our previous website, Armenian Adventure, then I have taken the liberty to register you for emails. So, if you are receiving this article in your email, then there is nothing for you to do. To register, simply click the register link Meta section of the menu or the highlighted link in this post.
As always, I highly recommend using Mozilla FireFox for your internet browser. It is a million times better than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. It has a many plug ins, that can help do many wonderful things. I use 39 plug ins that help me do everything from document a resource with one click in my personal database to creating a scrapbook (saved web pages) for later use, for example, recipes from AllRecipe.com.
If you have questions, do not hesitate to send me and email.
December 2, 2007 Leave a Comment
It’s week 22 already! I’m starting to feel my back arching when I walk and sit. The belly is a little ’rounder’ this week – I think that might be partly due to the KitKat bars I recently ate….anyhow, back on track and have lots of fruit in this house now. My hips are also starting to slowly change and I now have to sleep with pillows between my knees. Jason jokes that we need to get two big body pillows and lock me into place for sleeping. Although I laugh at this now, it may well become a reality in time!
December 1, 2007 3 Comments
Hope you can make this out…it’s not so clear since I took a picture of the picture with our digital camera. I didn’t get to a place to scan this week, but hope that you can see this okay. Happy, healthy baby – if you look closely you can see the profile, tummy, arm and hand. Click on the picture to see a larger version.
December 1, 2007 1 Comment
Thought I’d briefly share some information about why I’m here in Bristol and what I’m studying. I searched a long time all across Europe (on the internet, of course) for a perfect university programme that would suit my needs and interests. I was attracted to University of Bristol because of its high international profile, its research reputation in this field, and the course itself.
The programme is one year and I will graduate with a Masters in Education (MEd). The name of the programme is Educational Leadership, Policy, and Development. Within the programme, I am focusing more on the policy and development aspect, while others take courses designed to position them for education leadership jobs such as school headmaster or principal.
This term, I am taking three courses. They are: Introduction to Educational Inquiry, which covers how to conduct educational research; School Effectiveness and Improvement, which covers the concept of school effectiveness, how schools can make improvements and how those can be measured; and International Development, Comparative Research and Education, which broadly covers the agendas in the international education development field and how those agendas impact education systems across the globe.
My professors are very competent, well respected professionals who have done research across the world. My fellow students come from many different countries. I am only one of three US citizens in the entire MEd division, and the only one in my specific programme. We have many students from Africa, Asia (particularly China), parts of Europe and South America. Interestingly, opposed to Jason’s programme, we have very few students from India and the Middle East, whereas those countries are heavily represented in Jason’s MBA cohort.
My classes are only on Tuesday and Wednesday – between 1.5 to 2 hours per class. The UK system of higher education has very little contact time with professors, but is highly demanding of students to spend many out of class hours in studying, and reading what you want within the field. That has been a new journey for me, coming from a US system that provides you textbooks and tells you exactly what to read. Weekly, I have required reading for the classes, but am also expected to be reading within scholarly journals about my interests within the themes of the classes. This will prove useful when it’s time to write my end-of-term assignments.
I have no examinations, but am graded on my academic writings of one 1,000 word, one 3,000 word and two 4,000 word essays. Most are due after the completion of term in January. I must also give some group presentations, but they are not graded.
The study has been very enlightening, and I feel myself agreeing with the positions and research of my professors and classes, which tells me that I have made a good choice and that this programme is a good fit for me!