I should have mentioned this back on Wednesday, but I’m on vacation with my family until Sunday. Regular content will resume on Monday.

This is an attempt to update more often

My biggest problem with treating this blog as my professional portfolio is that I overthink it. Overthinking this means I have abandoned this, and locked myself away with a more diarrheal blog and indulged my already horrible masturbatory tendencies. I solemnly swear that I will at least attempt to update this once a week.

In the last month: Curly Hair and Weddings, oh my!

Let’s do this in pictures for a change.

Look, curly hair!

Styling done by Mahar Mangahas Hair done by Louis Philip Kee Salon, One McKinley Place, The Fort

I have commitment issues, but Philip Kee is one of the few men I remain loyal to. I actually feel guilty when I entertain the thought of getting my hair done elsewhere. In the case of the curls, it was either that or I just get a boring old maintenance cut to my dull, fine hair. While my best friends and very critical styling advisers insisted against it, it was Philip who took the chance. I have no regrets. My hair actually has character now!

Photo by HG Studios

The curls were done in honor of the wedding of one of my other close friend’s, which I somehow agreed to plan for. It was an exhilarating experience, to say the least. Weddings in the Philippines are more about the families involved than the couple, and that formula makes for a double-edged sword. At the end of the day however, it’s all about the union between two people who have found each other. Best wishes, Joy Alano and Honey Chua!

Yes, I can do weddings. If you, or you know of anyone who would like an excellent team of wedding planners and stylists, I can round them up for you. Feel free to email me at myachi at gmail dot com.

In the meantime though, I recover. I also left my more regular job teaching Europeans over the phone, so am in the strange lull at the end of the year. I am on the lookout for new rakets and am slowly organizing my tutorial services to market properly, so here’s hoping that picks up.

On the writing front, I also also been blogging at the Materia Girl tumblr account for less serious, fandom-based musings while twittering haikus. I also have a few articles up at Vibal Publications’ Philippine Online Chronicles. Since I left my more regular job, I’m hoping to focus more on the writing. Let’s see how that turns out.

For the meantime, this is a start.

]]> http://theartclassroom.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/the-wonder-of-brooks/ Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:05:30 +0000 Mr Dunlop http://theartclassroom.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/the-wonder-of-brooks/

The self proclaimed ‘Artist Extraordinaire’ and quite rightly too, Mrs Brooks is a Virginian Elementary school teacher who moderates the blog Wonder Brooks. Her writing style is friendly and involving and I couldn’t help but browse through most of her blog, each post seemed to invite me in to read it. There’s a great range of diversity with some lovely unit examples from pupils including those you see posted. Check it out and maybe even bookmark her, you’ll want to keep going back.

We are starting up again, with a new blog and a new theme. We thought
it was nessisary to include an introduction to the new blog, where we will be dividing between who is to cover the different types of stories.
We will also include, a different view on different kinds of cases, deviating from the former blog. because this is currently a two-man operation, I would also like to say that it is only going to be me (Espen Dyrland), and Ole Henrik Berg ie. the former administratiors from the old site.

to enlighten this; here’s a quick recap on how things will be done:
- We aim to have a greater dept and understanding for a post, and maybe prevent posts being childish and not of the quality we would like to present.
- Diversity in writing is also something we have to take into account, because if we traverse on the same path for quite some time, people will lose interest.
- Thus if you feel like you have something that you would be interesting for this blog; feel free to contact us through the contact E-mail you find on our site.
PS: We promise that we are not going to have any unfinished blogposts without tags and/or categories, terrible image, but we will follow a uniformal writing structure.

Sincerely
Espen & Ole

Hello, my name is Liam Larsen, as a full-time student I have lots of work to occupy my time and this week is no exception.

This blog is not my first, but it is my first WordPress blog. I am excited with the opportunities for self publishing and the chance to get feedback on my writing. I am working at getting the layout and format of this blog to my liking and I hope to post some full entries before the end of the week. I will be posting adapted versions of some of my class assignments and eventually I will also have a variety of reviews up.

Right now the blog is pretty barren, new content is on the way and in the mean time I have provided links to news articles I wrote when I was working on The Pioneer newspaper. Work is progressing, content is coming and the blog shall be up and running.

Most family films (especially animations) are released in 3D now. 3D seems to have re-appeared after a slow demise in the eighties and early nineties. Sure, the technology is slightly more advanced and the picture is slightly sharper, but the idea is still the same. Take two photographs, one from the right eye, one from the left, make them red and blue, merge them over each other at a converging point and there you go; a 3D image.

Channel 4 is running a week of 3D programming, this means that most people in the UK should have a pair of 3D glasses in their home at the minute. I thought that this would be the perfect time to try some 3D images of art pieces in The Art Classroom.

The images might not be as successful as professional ones you usually encounter, though hopefully you’ll get something rewarding from each image. Photographs are taken with an iPhone, then opened in Photoshop to make black and white and merge together.

Let me know if any of these images were successful or unsuccessful for you. I would quite like to try a unit with unique 3D pupil artwork. If you have Photoshop and a camera and you’re wanting to try this yourself, watch the video below:

Monday Mentions is an easy way to share any and all of the fun things you’ve discovered recently, online or otherwise. For more information read this post by the mastermind behind this whole thing, Jen @ Daily Mish Mash. Here’s what I’ve discovered this week…

• These Sesame Street Cake Pops at Bakerella are so cute – I’d love to make them for my son. As I type this, I keep going back to the page to grab the link, etc. and he’s standing over my shoulder saying, “Is that OSCAR?? and ELMO???” He’ll be asking me about them all day now.
• Kottke posted last week about a website called Typekit which “will change the way you design websites. Add a line of code to your pages and choose from hundreds of fonts. Simple, bulletproof, standards compliant, accessible, and totally legal.”
• I had a lot of fun designing the perfect table setting on Oprah’s website. It uses dishes and accessories from Walmart and Better Homes and Gardens.
• Is anyone else bummed about Eastwick being cancelled? Show of hands? I was really surprised by this news, as I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the show.
• Kids Dylan and Ethan give their top picks for Thanksgiving themed kids movies to watch on their movie review blog.
• I liked this article at NPR about the problem with spoilers… and the problem with the problem with spoilers (may contain spoilers).
• I was not so much a fan of this comment by Robert Pattinson saying he (and other actors) work as hard as doctors. The same hours, maybe, but really can you honestly compare the two without feeling like a tool? I’m sorry R. Patz, but you still aren’t saving lives.
• Big props to Matt @ The Playpen for his post about things he wants to teach and expose his kids to in this digital age – anyone up for a game of kick the can?
• I liked Simple Mom’s post about starting your own Christmas Traditions with your family. I’m definitely planning to do the “new pajamas on Christmas Eve” idea – pajamas are already purchased!
• Did you see Stephenie Meyer on Oprah? There are some great videos up with backstage footage answering some big questions (like are there going to be more Twilight books?) and more.

Bismillah Ar-rahman Ar-raheem,

This blog is to be used as a journal to brainstorm, post notes, and plan for stories and/or novels. Ever since I was younger, I had always been an active reader and writer. I wrote many stories, long and short. Although most of them haven’t yet been given an ending, there are some that I finished.

Right now, after reading a few islamic novels, I was inspired to write a novel or islamic fiction story of my own. This blog will be where I will be the birthplace of a new story.

First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who has taken the time to stop by this blog. It’s not a huge blog that gets thousands of comments a day, but I don’t do it for the comments. I do it because dramas are my way of breathing and feeling alive, and they make me happy. And I do it so that the people that do stop by, get a bit of a different flavour of review.

Anyway, I’ll cut straight to the chase: I will be taking a break from modern dramas.

I have been watching 미남이시네요/You’re Beautiful and have realized that my tendency to overthink things and make everything serious gets in the way of watching dramas like this. It’s supposed to be light and fun, but I find myself constantly raging about Hwang Tae Kyung’s verbal and emotional abuse. This drama is popular with middle school students, and it is teaching young men that this behaviour is perfectly acceptable. Meanwhile, young girls are being taught that they must endure such abuse instead of pursuing healthy, stable relationships. [I call this the "Twilight Effect."]

Once I have finished the show, I will only watch and review saeguk/historical dramas. As these dramas are very long (maybe around 50 episodes each), this blog will see fewer updates. However, I will be accepting guest reviews. If you wish to write a review for a drama, please use the following form:

Name/Alias:

Your website/blog (optional):

Drama Title:

Article Title (optional):

Send the above to tacti_sielu(at)yahoo.com or comment on the blog!

Movie reviews will continue as normal. Thanks guys!

♥ Tacti

I have not been updating because i just moved to me new house.

i am late on the goal and plan stages. I will be finishing them both by tuesday and handing in my email.

i have tried to contact the people for interview again, still no reply. I have no idea as to why this is the case but i will have to move on.

THINGS I GOTTA DO:

•  finish time line, then im done and ready to move on to research
• Survey at shinjuku
• User trials after completion.

Almost done with goal / plan

Not so much.

I was going to blog every day for a month. It was going to be awesome. I really couldn’t fathom what could stop me from accomplishing my legendary goal. Fame and fortune? Pretty much mine for the taking. And then…

This happened.

My husband’s server finally died after like 30 years. Which is not to say that we’ve personally owned it for 30 years since that would be impossible, but the tower holding it all together, yeah it’s pretty old. And I guess we finally asked too much of it. So we were faced with the problem of needing to get a new computer. Which isn’t really all that big of a deal – we were planning to get him a new computer next month – and a new desk – or rather, a desk of his own. Or basically, “Honey I’m tired of sharing with you, plus you really, really hate Apple and I really, really don’t.” And it was gonna be awesome. And it still is awesome, it’s just early. And it meant reconfiguring and furniture moving and Linux kernal installations and “oh crap the internet isn’t working.” For like a day. So, the good news is – it only took him several hours last night and a few hours this morning to fix it. The bad news? My fame and fortune won’t be happening this year because I was never able to blog yesterday.

I mean, if I’d known that our internet connection would go down and about all the furniture moving stuff in advance, I’d have planned accordingly. Maybe blogged in the morning or even scheduled a post in advance, you know? I’m clever. But it was all very last minute and Dan was unaware that the latest version of Ubuntu could be compared to Windows Vista as far as reliability and satisfaction go. So now he’s running Gentu or something, I don’t know how to spell these weird non-Macintosh names, but you know, he’s happy as a staring at black screens with white text all day clam and I’m back online and blogging again and despite the lack of fame and fortune, I’m pretty giddy myself, because I’m blogging from a new location!

We moved my desk to the middle of the living room like one of those cool “in the middle of the room” people and put Dan’s new desk where mine used to be (since his computer acts as the main server for the three computers here and provides internet access to everyone and that wall is where the internet pluggy thing is). Also, we took off the hutch since my new location would look kind of strange with a huge hutch-wielding desk and it didn’t make sense for me to take the desk that he picked out and let’s face it guys, I didn’t like that hutch at all. I dreamed of having a tiny little minimalist desk and now, it’s mine. And it was so much cheaper than buying us both new desks. And it looks perfect, don’t you think? Very “Jen’s Blogging Haven” am I right?

So that’s why I didn’t blog yesterday and will not be winning any NaBloPoMo awards this year.

We showed this parody of Twitter at the Local Social Summit before my panel on Local and real-time search, because it’s funny. Although you’ve seen it before, it’s worth watching again:

Monday Mentions is an easy way to share any and all of the fun things you’ve discovered recently, online or otherwise. For more information read this post by the mastermind behind this whole thing, Jen @ Daily Mish Mash. Here’s what I’ve discovered this week…

Recipe ideas:

• Ree @ The Pioneer Woman posted a recipe for buttered rosemary rolls that made my mouth water pretty much instantly.
• I discovered Lifehacker last week (yes really, I know it’s like I’ve been living in a cave) and one thing that caught my interest was this collection of Coffee Shop Inspired recipes.
• These chocolate caramel apples at Blissfully Domestic just look amazing – if it weren’t for the plethora of dental woes I’m in the middle of dealing with, I’d be all over these babies.
• Jen @ Stuff Jen Says posted a recipe for a Halloween-themed Candy Cornish dessert that looks sooo good. I’m already dreaming of ways I can reinterpret the recipe for other holidays.
• This article from the Food Column at the Atlantic shows 12 breakfast ideas for anyone currently in a rut in the mornings – definitely worth a look.

Healthy Living:

• Simple Mom dished up 5 Essential Dieting Tips from Nature like: eating what is in season and remembering to keep hydrated, i.e. Drink Water! Simple stuff, but then she is Simple Mom.
• The London Times had an interesting article about how going vegetarian could help with global warming… Would you do it for your planet?
• This one is diet related but mostly just healthy related – what’s healthy for kids is healthy for adults. Another goodie from Simple Mom.

Home Renovation Revelations:

• The Inspired Room did a little post on pantries that had my creative juices flowing with new ideas on how to make our pantry a little bit less chaotic. One of the very best things we discovered about apartments in Wisconsin was pantries, pantries everywhere. It doesn’t seem to be much of a trend in New England but all the apartments here have them and I love it, but oh lord the chaos… Now I’m dreaming of wicker baskets and wishing they were free…
• Along the same lines is an article about Open Shelving and how to do it right. Maybe I should take the doors off my pantry if I ever get it pretty-fied.
• Another goodie from Lifehacker: Check out this $27 chefs knife that performs like a $100 knife. I want to get this for Dan.
• Loving this homemade play tent at OhDeeDoh – how cute is this idea? I might have to get my engineer hubby to help me whip this up for the kids at some point.
• Lifehacker’s got some cheap winterizing tips for anyone looking to stay warm but not broke this winter.

What Not To Do:

• Loved this blog mentioned on kottke last week: Joel Stickley writes a blog entitled How To Write Badly Well. Awesome. Just awesome. I really liked “Always use a thesaurus.” Really brought me back to my college writing courses round tables. :OP
• I also liked this goodie at Copyblogger: 7 Bad Writing Habits You Learned in School.
• This one isn’t about grammar – it’s about manners. Pretty strict advice but nevertheless I enjoyed One Hundred Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do was written by Your The Boss at The New York Times.

Nifty ‘Net Stuff:

• Similar Images just graduated from Google Labs. This tool just looks soooo… nifty! Just do a regular old image search and when you find something you like, but maybe not quite… search for similar images simply by clicking “find similar images.” As always, google makes it easy.
• Looking for a new desktop wallpaper? Lifehacker posted a roundup of autumn themed wallpapers from around the net that are really lovely. It looks like a regular thing over there so lifehacker should be able to keep your desktop in style year round. Sweet.
• The net likes to be grumpy about stuff and we’ve all read about the people on Facebook that make us go a little crazy, but Brianna @ College Candy recently wrote about the Facebook Characters That We Love. I love the positive attitude here and it definitely is a nice reminder of why we are here on the internet to begin with. Not to be annoyed constantly, but for the good stuff! The awesome people we find out here like YOU amazing people taking the time to read this and comment and be fabulous. (Thanks for that!)

That’s all for this week!

Since I know full well I won’t have time to write a novel (or a novella) in a month, I thought I’d jump onto that other November bandwagon – National Blog Posting Month or NaBloPoMo. The goal is, you guessed it, to write in your blog every day for a month. I’m thinking my chances of completing this challenge are much better as I already post almost every weekday. I’ve heard it’s harder than it sounds, but you know what? Bring it on, blogiverse!

And I’d feel like I was cheating by posting this, except, seriously you know I’ll be back within the hour or something with Monday Mentions, my daybook post AND my monthly menu plan since it’s the beginning of November now. This is just me saying, hey bandwagon. I’m here.

Original picture from here.

Late Halloween post is late.
Maybe it’s because my country doesn’t even celebrate Halloween, and I only realised it was Halloween yesterday after looking viewing the blogs on my blogroll and the tweets on Twitter orz.

But then again, it’s better late than never,so…
Happy belated Halloween~!

A halloween song sung by the Vocaloids. (Except for Gumi)
Apparently,that song was created by the same person who did that creepy stalker song by Hatsune Miku. (Creepy psycho stalkers ftw.)

^This is the same picture I used for my banner. Original here.

I think I’ll end my short post here.

Bookfresh (formerly HourTown) has done an interesting deal with blogging platform Typepad that recognizes many small businesses are simply using blogs as a substitute for a conventional website (I do). According to the press release:

The integration allows small business owners using TypePad to put their schedule online, and their customers to book, and even prepay, for appointments. The integration is yet another step by TypePad to provide the tools that small businesses need to run their businesses online using a blog combined with partner functionality . . . 

TypePad customers can create a BookFresh widget by visiting the TypePad widget gallery, opening a BookFresh account and creating a custom widget, which is installed neatly in the side bar of the blog in one simple click. Customers can then sync their schedule, integrate their PayPal account and set contact preferences.

While the inclination of some of the appointment platform vendors has been to use a performance-based model  (pay-per-booking), Bookfresh CEO Ryan Donahue long ago told me the he thought a flat fee, subscription model would be easier and more successful with SMBs. 

My previous post on Bookfresh: HourTown Rebrands, Now ‘BookFresh’

I got a new web page today.  Therefore, Nucleus will be moved to http://web.me.com/jryant/Site/nucleus/nucleus.html.  It’s an apple supported site!

I will continue to post here for my wordpress readers, and because my new site doesn’t have comment fields.  I like to hear from all of you!  However, http://web.me.com/jryant/Site/nucleus/nucleus.html will be a lot easier to read.

I share all my stuff day after day, the blog is so close to receiving 10,000 hits and being a year old, I feel it’s about time I got something back. I would like photos of your carved pumpkins, your costumes or your Halloween Art to feature on the site. Is it so much to ask? No… So Email them, comment link them or Twitter them to me and share a little over Halloween. (Yes, that is my pumpkin eating an orange.)