Guy - Reports Done!

Hrm, with the past month being sleep-work-sleep-work I've just recently rejoined the land of the living. I've decided that the way that my co-workers do things and organise their workload is stupid and I'm going to change it starting next term. Otherwise the kids are still cute and some are slowly coming along as evil super-geniuses and criminal masterminds.

Ben - Skool

Teacher: Okay, so eight plus...
Student: One?
Teacher: Eight plus four.
Student: Noooooooo!

Student: I can't read.
Me: What does this say?
Student: (dismissively) Oh, I can read that.

What else... a bird flew into the classroom and couldn't get out; so a student suggested that he lure it out by pretending to be a caterpillar.

Kit questions environmental credentials

The people in the environmental group here at work have managed to kill two plants on their desk. How does one manage to kill a cactus?

Becstarr : One last licuado!

Our bags are packed for a 4:50am wake-up tomorrow - we opted for an early start from airy San Cristobal rather than head back to Tuxtla for the night. Tomorrow is the big hop: San Cristobal - Tuxtla, thence Mexico City, and finally Havana, Cuba by 4:10pm if all runs according to plan.

San Cristobal has been great. Apart from hummingbird-watching, we managed to get out to two of the local villages, San Juan Chamula and Zincanatan. Both are peopled primarily with the indigenous Tzotzil Mayans, who have blended Catholicism and native beliefs (principles of Mayan medicine, etc) to make for saome interesting church practices, which involve pine needles, soda, many candles and flower petals, eggs, fireworks.... and more that I´m sure we didn´t see or have any clue about.

Heading out for a last Margarita and licuado (juice / smoothie) now. I hope Cuba´s are as good!

Shoshe - baby woodchucks and A BEAR! And rabid classmates.

Today I got to see some of the baby woodchucks that live by my office! They're cute and about half-size, and hide under parked cars when they're scared. They seem to have a cloaking device -- one minute you see them under a parked car, the next minute they're gone. Cute little woodchucks!

Also, there's apparently a bear on campus. A black bear -- they're small for bears, but they're still big. One of the bus drivers saw it on the street that's a block away from me, but I'm not sure how far down the street it was, so I don't know if it was actually several blocks away or just one. Some joggers saw it a few blocks further down a few days ago. And (another?) one was spotted downtown.

And one of my classmates is taking the rabies vaccine. It's 6 or 7 shots, though now they're in your limbs instead of the old horribly painful ones in the abdomen (it would cost about $1000 if it wasn't for the student health plan!). He found a bat in his room the other morning. The health centre said he was the third person that day to start the rabies vaccine.

Dan - nearly half way through WWDC

... and my brain is full! I need to go away and sit down for a week in front of a computer for a week and code before sitting through any more of these sessions. I can see what I'd work on, but my brain is exploding with undigested material.

Went down to Fisherman's wharf last night after I finished for the day, standing on the step of the cable car. Was very pleasant, with a gorgeous sunset over alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge.

Lastly, american servings of food are enormous. Vast. Could feed small villages in most parts of the world. Pretty much every meal I've bought I've not been able to finish, and many of them I've taken the leftovers and gotten a whole second meal out of. And I'm no slouch when it comes to wolfing dwn my tucker. It's frightening.

Jen - Torrents rock

Yay. Finally got the new Lego Indiana Jones and played the first level this evening, but only after doing the dishes and putting out the garbage.

11 more sleeps until Dan comes home.

YL - um big weekend hangover

man that was one big long weekend. 4 day weekend = rocks! I was so busy that I didnt really stop for very long. "Yes" to catching up with friends, going to the pub, socialising, meeting with renovator & doing different things. "No" to getting furniture given to Psych ward, being efficient/productive, sleeping much. Lol.

it was really good to see everyone ....

Jen - Coping

Three sleeps gone, 13 to go.

The weekend was the longest. Took the kids to Lollipops Playland at Fox Studios yesterday - bedlam! Madness! What was I thinking!? Actually, it wasn't too bad, except so very, very crowded.

Lots of screaming happened once we got home but I managed to get the boys to bed by 8pm. But we still managed to get in late this morning.

Kit goes hunting for art

Wow, I check the blog, and it's totally full of new posts I haven't read yet. Yay!

Went 'cave art hunting' yesterday, and having spotted something on the 1:50 thousand topo map, went and found it. Oldest carbon dated set of paintings (I think it was dated to 1000AD), it got mentioned in a 1961 academic magazine. Sadly, only one cave has the paintings still visible. A male and female echinda, a dingo, and a male and female "anthropomorph".

Dan: SteveNote over

Well, the KeyNote is over (yay Oz 3G iPhone with GPS on July 11), and now I'm waiting for the next session (but not in a huge 5200 person queue). Feeling sleepy - didn't sleep well, and was up waaaaay to early.

Managed to get to the Lego shop yesterday, and took advantage of the excellent exchange rate. Also found a shop called "Action Figure Freddy" and picked up some Star Wars Galactic Heroes for the boys. Once I've had some sleep I'll also try to see some of the San Francisco sights as well, in between learning about Mac stuff.

Tancred - multitasking :)

I am home watching Romania v France while reading about the Keynote - Mac Rumours Live.
It's 20 minutes since the Keynote started and neither apple.com/uk or o2.co.uk have details of the new iphone :( Apple are too good at keeping secrets.

Dan: SteveNote

standing in a slow-moving queue for The Steve's keynote. was warned to get here Real early, and thought  they were exaggerating. arrived nearly three hours early to find the longest and nerdiest queue I've ever been in. a truly awesome experience :)

David - NY For 3 Whole Weeks

So, it turns out that "The Office" (US version) is less a cringeworthy comedy and more a documentary. The system that was supposed to be launched in Nov, no wait Dec, no wait Jan, no wait Feb... errr.. Mar... oh we meant Apr... actually May... ummm... June work for you? is still not launched.

In other news I have been in NY for 3 whole weeks - in a row! So this weekend I managed to see a play with Morgan Freeman, get drunk in a bar on Times Square, attend a party in Joisey (which included a slow motion streaker) and a second viewing of Iron Man tonight.

Dan: Made it!

well, it seems they letst me into the country. I'm sitting outside they convention centre using the free wireless on my ipod. Nice people gave me a window seat on the plane and a biggerroom at my hotel. all good so far. can't type properly on the ipod though.