Originally uploaded by fifikins
My twitter365 photos from March. I am really pleased that I have been able to keep going. The thing that surprises me the most about this month is there are so many face/head shots of me. Well that’s how it seems to me!
Today is Ada Lovelace Day. A day designed to draw attention to women in technology.
I spent ages trying to work out how I wanted to contribute to the day, because I do, but at the same time wonder how much of a binary we create when singling out days. Yes, it is important to acknowledge women in a predominantly male world (I work in one of those now too after all, but I don’t want a female union official day!) and until we see it as being normal and to be expected I suppose a day like this really is called for!
Through online communities like twitter, plurk, facebook etc I have met many women in technology- coders, bloggers, podcasters (actually there are probably more male podcasters now I come to think of it!) and general techy types. And I got to thinking about all the very capable females I know who I have met through my online networks. And I got to thinking about my online networks and how I got to be involved. And I thought of the wonderful Jo McLeay. It was this blogpost that introduced me to twitter and the community of friends I have found here is amazing.
Which got me thinking! The reason I was reading Jo’s blog was because of her wonderful use of technology in the classroom. The writing she gets out of her students through blog posts is amazing. The higher order thinking that comes through astounds me at times and makes me wish she was my teacher! Well at least my kids’ teacher!
Which in turn got me thinking! To a very dear friend of mine. Mrs Mc! She communicats so well with parents, friends and colleagues through her wonderful class blog. This wonderful use of technology brings what is happening in her classroom to a much wider audience and gives her students a voice.
I have met many other educators through twitter who are promoting learning through technology. People like Lauren, the Interactive Whiteboard Queen! Lauren spends her days teaching teachers about how to integrate the IWB in their classrooms. And is passionate about it too!
I don’t know if any of these three women would see themselves as women excelling in technology, but I do. They are out there just doing and making sure our kids are able to do. Their positive example gives our kids wonderful role models. In previous research I looked at the way kids view scientists- you know, white lab coats, scruffy hair etc! Then we explored what doing science actually is and the types of people that do science every day. These women are just doing technology every day. They may not be ‘roaring’ but I am as I chear them on!
Originally uploaded by fifikins
14th March. Einstein’s birthday, something about steak and pleasing your man (google 14th March and steak!) and Pi Day!
Yes, it is American, but unless we get Irish and take 1st May as 31st April or 3rd Feb as being the 14th month of the previous year, we miss out!
So I baked Nigella’s Chicken, bacon and mushroom pies from Nigella Express. And they were awesome!
Happy ∏ Day!
It has been birthday week chez Fifikins. And that means cake. And lots of it!
We started with cupcakes on the eve of Jasper’s 8th birthday:
The freckles are meant to be like number 8s, can’t you tell? The recipe was the standard Nigella all in one recipe, trebled, but with about 3oz of flour replaced with cocoa. According to now Mr 8 they were ‘divine’ which is one of his standard words of the moment!
Next was his party! He insisted on an Alien Cake. Well he wanted a Doctor Who cake, but not a tardis, more like a darlek and I think he got what I meant by raising my eyebrows! So we went to Google Images and found this:
And yes, they did piping. Not sure what is on top of the cake. But I did this:
And it almost turned into more of a Cake Wreck than it would normally have been. You see I did Nigella’s Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake, which is a great recipe- all in one with sour cream. Makes for a lovely moist cake. Now I smeared it with Butter Cream and did it on the plate. And I did my standard trick of four slices of baking paper under the cake over the edges to catch the icing drips. And I went to pull them out and the cake pulled apart. Can you tell? Lucky I still had some more icing and green sprinkles. And he insisted on candle placement. Once again the kids chomped down the cake!
Then it is Immy’s turn! Miss legs 11! She wanted cupcakes too, but both year 6 classes work together and she said I needed to make 50! Yeah right! So we compramised and made a slab cake! Again it was Nigella’s Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake and apparently it was very well received! Oh and she sprinkled pink cachous all over!
See, pretty! I thought for her Lasertag party she would be happy with another chocolate cake, but no, it had to be a white cocolate mud cake! So I googled and cake across this awesome recipe! What a site too! So last night Immy and I set about trying it out. And we ended up with this:
She asked for the white chocolate raspberry bullets. And wow! What a cake! The recipe is available from the above link. And yes, it tasted fan-fairy-tastic! Very mud like, but also white chocolatey! There may just be a slice or so (like half a cake!) in the fridge still! Anyone for tea?
Happy birthday kids!
Yeah. It’s today. Internation Women’s Day. 8th March. I blogged about feminism 12 months ago. This year, I share this:
And, hey… This is what feminists look like:
We’ve had chats today about men and women and stuff. But we do that all the time anyway!
Askismet is working overtime at the moment. It seems the latest spam comment style is to disguise the comment like a Mills and Boon novel. Not that I read Mills and Boon, but my mother does…
So here goes my attempt at directing my readers to other blogs of note:
Matthias gazed deeply into her muddy brown eyes, and seeing what was missing from her sorry excuse for a life said, “Mildred, I have so much to offer you, for you know that I am made of awesome.”
Mildred did know what he meant. For years she had dreamt of escaping. Of leaving her life of dull monotony. For her, the daily chores reminded her of what she was missing out on. Milking the cows twice a day gave her time to think. To stop and dwell on how she would squeeze the teets of cows for what seemed like hour after hour dreaming of a man with rough, weathered hands pummelling her breasts…
And now she had met Matthias. Ah Matthias, the travelling salesman who had come to sell her a vacuum. He had knocked at her door one afternoon as she was preparing to do the milking and she had tried to fob him off, but there was something about that mouth that intrigued her, and it was not simply when he opened it.
For Matthias he was taken by Mildred’s teeth for at the three previous farms he had called at the farmers had few teeth. Matthias had mused that if these three farmers had pooled their teeth they may have enough for one set to be shared amongst them. Matthias had met Horace, Bert and Gordon and had failed at the vacuum sales pitch with each of them. He felt he had come close with Bert, but then Mergatroid had returned from town and told him where to go in two short words that he had not heard muttered by a woman for quite a while.
Mildred went through her routine of milking the cows that afternoon believing Matthias had hopped in his beaten up van and driven away. By now she believed him to be at the next farm being served tea by the Baker triplets. Since Mrs Baker’s untimely and tragic death in a sheep dip mishap, the Baker triplets had stayed to help their dear father and had vowed that they would not leave the farm until their father was married off again.
Many in the district had believed Mildred should offer herself to free these poor girls from their isolation, but Mildred had been dear friends with Mrs Baker and, besides she saw Mr Baker more as a father figure and deep down she wanted the triplets to stay on the farm and live as she did.
Milking had gone as planned, and Mildred was on her way back to the farm house when she caught sight of his van. He was still there. Mildred mused that perhaps she needed a vacuum after all…
(Not to be continued! LOL! Unless of course you want to continue in this vein on your blog!)
(Oh and edited to include all the foodie blogs that I keep under a separate tab! Oops! Sorry folks!)
MIML™ sent me some lines from Kahil Gibran this evening after quoting them this morning. And it makes sense!
Thought I wuld share them here. In this context they are talking marriage and no, MIML™ and I aren’t talking marriage, but the ideas, especially of the spaces in the togetherness and trees not growing in each other’s shadows are pretty apt!
From The Prophet, by Kahil Gibran
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
I have had a lot of rejection in my life. So much that at times I think I tend to reject myself.
MIML™ and I caught up after the gym this morning and had a cuppa and then he came back here for some scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. And talked about space. Not Mars and Venus and stuff, but more ways each of us can grow as individuals. And you know part of me is all this is cool, it’s not rejection and he still cares for me, and the other part is OMG I am such a failure and stupid and of course he doesn’t want to spend time with me.
Which is wrong! We have so many awesome times together, but realising that we also need to do our own things at times is tough. I have never been encouraged to do things for myself or be selfish or assertive and whenever I have done I have been told that I am so selfish and self-centred. But MIML™ is telling me that this is good and I need to do it. And I believe him. Deep down I do, even if superficially I have a voice in my head saying ‘of course he doesn’t want to spend time with you.’
But what to do in my spare time. I am not used to ‘me time.’ I don’t know how to do it. MIML™ showed me this pretty cool site. And I downloaded this. And now I am working out what I can do for me. So that I can try and put me first.
Some of the ideas most definitely aren’t me! Some of them would stretch the budget too much and some of them MIMl™ and I can do together at some stage. Alone time doesn’t have to equal loneliness.
And it’s not rejection! And I know that. But I just have to convince myself!
Remember Romper Room? I used to want to be a Romper Room kid and would gallop (and gallop, and gallop!) around the lounge room on a broom, thinking it was a horse like they used in Romper Room… Or have a balloon on the end of a string… or sing the Mr Doobee song!
Then they would have a snack. So I did too. But my highlight was the magic mirror. Romper, bomper, stomper boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me, do. Magic mirror, tell me today. Have all my friends had fun at play?
Every so often she would see Fiona, but more often than not she saw my brother. I was furious. He hated the show. Miss Helena must have known and that is why she picked on him. Either that or he has a common name.
But it was the names that got me. Sometimes she would have exotic sounding names. Well names that sounded exotic in the late 70s to a white middle class girl in suburban Melbourne.
Choosing names can be an interesting experience. Imogen was going to be Imogen no matter what. It is lucky she was a girl! Jasper just came sometime during the pregnancy, even though I was convinced I was having an Eleanor!
I suppose if naming a child is hard, then naming a cyclone must be harder. Or that is how it seems when one looks at the Bureau of Meteorology list. I mean, Hamish? Hamish is a nice, quiet child. Well the one in my kid’s class is!
Just look at the list though. Cyclone Imogen and Jasper I can cope with! Cyclone Bruce- yep, that’s an aussie cyclone! Even Cyclone Blanche! But Cyclone Kirrily, Savannah, Tatjana, Odette or Verdun?
I vote TC Hamish should have been called TC Habakkuk. I mean, why not?
It is looking a little ominous here. Hamish is on its way it would seem. Quite a bit of rain and a bit of a breeze. Must ring and check the insurance is up to date…
OK! Maybe I don’t have many, but…
Even though I have been told I can be quick with comebacks and responses, even I have times where I just want to run away and hide and have a little cry.
For lunch today I decided to stop at the major shopping centre and go into the food court. There I grabbed a multigrain sandwich with Moroccan Chicken, avocado and salad. As I was walking out the doors on my way to the car, with the said sandwich in my hand, a group of teenage boys started giggling and one pointed at me and said “Look at the arse on that one would you!” To which is mate replied “Shit, you couldn’t even fuck it could you, not even with a blindfold.”
These were boys talking about me. I was shocked. I was disgusted. I really just wanted to cry. I don’t know if it is because I have had a couple of ordinary weeks at Weight Watchers (I did mention I have joined again, didn’t I?) or becuase of hormones or what, but I couldn’t even bring myself to turn around to them and confront them.
I got in my car, turned on the air con and just felt immense sadness. There was anger, yes, but there was also pity for these stupid kids. I suspect at other times I would have confronted them and asked them to repeat it to my face. Or told them that at least I could diet, they would be ugly for ever. Or something.
But no, I didn’t. I let them get to me. I mean, these were kids. They have received the message that women are pieces of meat with bodies to be ogled at. Whether this is from home, or the ‘media’ or socieity or whatever. It is wrong.
For what it’s worth, I am currently a size 16-18. The average Australian woman is a size 14. I am at the gym 2-3 times per week. I am eating healthily. I don’t smoke and, contrary to popular belief, I don’t drink that much! I stay out of the sun as much as possible. I have regular pap smears and blood tests for cholesterol (which has always been low) and dieabetes. My resting heart rate is in the low 70s and I aim to get it below 60.
And I shouldn’t even feel the need to justify any of this. It is a myth that big is beautiful and in perpetuating this myth we are really saying that there are some people who might assume that big is not beautiful. Everyone has the ability to be beautiful, big or small. Big is big and body shape has little to do with beauty.
I would have thought that the way I act, or the things I say have more to do with my beauty than my fat arse.
Commenting on a woman’s appearance is so not beautiful and so uncool. So if you are a teenage boy who has stumbled here, try not to judge a book by its cover. There are thousands of platitudes about beauty, you know the skin deep, eye of the beholder type things. Beauty is what you make of what you have.
And to my kids- if I ever, ever hear you say something like what was said to me today to any other person, then there will be severe consequences!
Fiona | 
03 31st, 2009| 