Yesterday I looked at a lot of Peter’s books and also at some of my books. I wanted to make a decision, which books I definitly wanted to keep, just to keep, and then which books I also wanted to read. I came up with a plan! So, my plan is to aim at reading two books every week, meaning over the year I should be able to read about 100 books!

Hopefully I’ll be able to read about 100 books every year that I am still alive!

Recently I already read ‘HOLY SMOKE’: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-7868-6349-5

I do like stories where there is a lot of dialogue to read, especially when it comes to a more meaningful dialogue. There is quite a bit of it in ‘HOLY SMOKE’. The book I just started today, seems also to be full…

by Dr Stewart Hase

Let me state from the beginning that I am not opposed to human rights. I’m a member of Amnesty. I will never complain or even raise an eyebrow to someone’s right to order a quarter strength, half almond and goat’s milk, three quarter decaf, latte in a compostable cup while half an office block of people are waiting in line. 

Apparently, around a hundred anti-maskers invaded Westfield Shopping Centre in Paramatta at the weekend (https://cutt.ly/PjY76hy). The report, complete with video and photos even shows placards stating that Coronavirus is a scam. Clearly, these people have been over stimulated by Craig Kelly’s Facebook page and need to spend more time in the real world.

What I most want to ask these demonstrators is what would be the motive of any government, particularly ours that is obsessed with neoliberal principles. Point the finger at anarchists by…

What defines a blogger? What defines a writer? What is the difference between them and how important it is?

Ok, to get to the bottom of this, we need to go through the hard-core definitions first, so let’s check Wikipedia first:

In the past I stuck mainly to journal or diary writing, or I tried to come to grips with some of my childhood memories. Only occasionally did I resort to fiction writing in the form of a short story. As far as my reading tastes are concerned I must say, in my younger days I always preferred reading novels: Only occasionally would I read a short story.

These days the time I spend  reading novels seems to be getting less and less, even though I still like novels a lot. Today for instance I spent half an hour reading a short story. It turned out I did very much love this story. It was a story I had been reading many years ago and I could still remember the subject of this story since this is a subject that interests me very much: What happens to a mother when she…

2020 what can I say? You have not been my most favourite year of all, that’s definitely for sure. I am so glad that we are now bounding towards the very end of the year and I am more than happy to embrace 2021 in just a few days. I’ll even give it a big fat, juicy kiss. From lockdown hard (as opposed to lockdown light – that was last month!) however, I concede, that that maybe somewhat difficult, given social distancing and all of that. I may just have to snog my husband instead. But I don’t think he’ll mind too much. I mean, I doubt it will be the worst moment he’s had this year.

But first of all there’s Christmas. We plan to eat, drink and be merry. Albeit the eating and drinking will be in separate rooms, as it means removing masks.

Christmas time…
Masks and…

24 December 2020 — Investigating Imperialism

Stop the world I want to get off! – Anthony Newly

Update 3: 24 December 2020

Officially Covid

24 December 2020

So I’m now officially Covid Positive. After my trauma of taking a shower on Monday, yesterday, I got transported to my local hospital’s A&E department to get checked out where I discovered that it wasn’t a heart attack but this bloody Virus wot done it!

I had a wonderful doctor take care of me, bloods done, x-ray, the works and an hour so later, the result; covid positive and pneumonia in one lung. So five days of penicillin and it should be over. And I was discharged, well kind of. I waited, in vain, for six hours for transport that never came, so finally, getting toward midnight, I walked out and caught a cab home (I live 10 minutes away).

So why all…

The story below is from an age of a kind of fading feudalism…an age when position and religion ruled the small villages dotted amongst the Dolomites of Northern Italy. It was told by my father to my mother and then to me. It is from around the turn of the 20th  century, when the church creatures wielded enormous power in the communities. It is a tale that could be told from any number of small village life in those days…the tyranny of power, no matter how small, over those who could be exploited, who can be silenced…perhaps not THAT different from now!..The actions by the criminals can be the same, but it is how the individual overcomes that  bullying that is different. Some run, some succumb, some become violent…the “hero” of our little moment, from the lowest rung in the social ladder of such a community, chose instead, chose deliberately…

This weekend, I decided to have my very own writer’s retreat.

Not a conference.

Conferences feature boring speakers and inedible buffet food—at least the ones I’ve been to.

Seriously, at the last teacher’s conference I attended, I ended up in a lecture where a professor talked for an hour about how to use rubrics.

An HOUR.

This is a rubric I used to grade oral reading when I was teaching. As you can see, it’s self-explanitory:

Name: ________________________________________________

Lesson: _______________________________________________

Listening: 1 2 3 4 5

Mechanics: 1 2 3 4 5

Dynamics: 1 2 3 4 5

Pronunciation: 1 2 3 4 5

Attitude: 1 2 3 4 5

Total score: __________________________________________

Thank you for coming to my lecture.

When I heard we were going to take a last-minute trip out of town, and I was promised some alone time in the hotel room, I decided the time was…