Posts by Jacqui Craig
-
I was in Egypt in 1990, about a month before the Gulf war, when Saddam had SCUDs trained on various places in the region and Americans were bailing out from Europe and places like Egypt (we taught a couple of them to pass as Canadians). I think tourism was down about 60-70 % and it was the best time to be there in a couple hundred years - sounds like you went one better! All my temple photos are devoid of people compared to friends' from years before or after. I remember hiding in our hostel room a day or so after getting to Cairo and refusing to go out because I couldn't stand the constant harassment, but being coaxed out by my friends and by the time we got back to Cairo a few weeks later I don't think I even noticed it any more. But yes, I remember not being happy with how rude I got on occasion although I had the impression that they rather counted on our general politeness to push harder than they might otherwise have been able to! As someone said "they've had 2000 years of separating tourists and their money" so they're fairly adept at it. We met lovely people though, and had wonderful experiences - much like I had in Syria years later and I've heard similar from friends who have visited Iran. The reporting doesn't bother with the regular people who really count.
-
That awful 'Shaddupa your face' or whatever the title is - gets me rather incoherent with rage and make throttling motions with my hands towards the radio. My husband played a whole Bob Dylan album on a car trip once and that was pretty awful but I couldn't start laughing too hard or he would have been hurt. It was like listening to some emo kid's bad poetry set to music. Actually, considering he also likes reggae and 70s music, and I'm an 80s teenager and don't like reggae except for 3 Little Birds, it's surprising we've managed to stay married...
-
Thanks for the great post, it brought tears to my eyes. I was thinking this morning, as I walked my 5 year old to school, that she doesn't know about bin Laden, or the Towers (despite the fact her uncle lives in NY and she's been there twice on 9/11) or any of this, and by the time she's old enough to know things will be so different. They'll be different than they where when I was a kid, and different to before 9/11 and different to before bin Laden was killed. I wonder what I'll be explaining to her, how I'll frame it in the light of events yet to come. I remember as a kid finding out about Vietnam during a decade review on New Year's Eve 1979 - it seemed like ancient history even though all unknowing I'd lived through most of it. Perhaps all this will be more immediate to her, with ongoing consequences. I hope not! If anything positive can come out of this I hope it's that you and my brother get your city back. And that I never ever have to face a situation like those parents did on those planes. I'd have hurt him too, just for that.
-
I didn't really have much of desire to attend a party until I came across Boden's Royal Wedding bingo cards - I might play for myself and the cat tonight.
-
That’s why we have Sky: so we can plonk our under fives in front of the telly for 84 hours a week. Nothing less would do.
I know, it's hard to argue against a decrease in hours kids can watch tv, but my 5 year old is pretty put out about it (just wait till she can vote, watch out National!). We're now at the point where if we want her to watch age-appropriate tv without commercials other than between 6-8am we'd have to get Sky or buy a lot of DVDs. But really burns me is the sheer lack of current Kiwi-produced programs for kids. What TV6 was offering, even if it was mind-numbing reruns of Suzie Cato and Buzzy Bee, was pretty much it for locally oriented programming. Where else are they going to hear Maori - Disney Channel? Personally I'm a little upset that I won't be able to watch Captain Mack, but perhaps that's just a mummy thing...
-
But happily for Prof I., Auckland University appears to be more relaxed about this kind of thing. (Unless Bart's depressing theory has something in it...)
Sadly I think it's right on the money (pun fully intended).
The inadvertent plagiarising is usually dead obvious, it's the smart ones that I'm sure get away with it more than they should. When they've put work into disguising it - like consulting a thesaurus for every second word, moving sentences around a bit, putting in their own stuff in the middle - then it's a bit harder to argue it was down to not understanding how the process works or whatever excuse they want to use.
-
It IS a sinking feeling when you come across that sudden shift in tone or language isn't it? There seems to be a lot of this going around at the moment - high profile people being caught out plagiarising. And nothing happens to them as far as I can tell. Perhaps a small slap on the wrist, a bit of public humiliation and off they go. And the University's response is just disgusting - all the fine words about the seriousness of plagiarism, how awful it is, what dire consequences there will be etc. etc. when you assign essays to students, but if a lecturer does it oh well then, that's ok, must have been inadvertent. If anyone should know what plagiarism is and how not to do it, it should be him. No excuses and no waffling about what he did. It's no wonder that plagiarism is rife in schools and tertiary institutions, if the teachers are doing it and not being punished.
-
Thank you for reassuring me that I can go and not want to poke my brian out with a stick afterweards. I had a massive crush on Spock as a pre-teen and I think I still do oh so many decades later! Of all the reviews I've read yours sounds like something I might write - after I've see the movie of course. I still remember acing some online "how well do you know the original Star Trek?" quiz and my husband of several years looking at me with mingled horror and awe in his eyes, completely unaware of this previously hidden side of me. Gotta keep 'em guessing ;)
-
I felt a little guilty objectifying those poor men like that. I do think, however, that they got the music a bit wrong - I'd have suggested something more in this line: http://www.esnips.com/doc/2a73fcdf-b121-4846-a01e-753be6ac3924/The-Stripper---David-Rose
-
Spike or Angel? (Of course we were going there, it was only a matter of time.)
Definitely Spike. Definitely. And Daniel Craig for sure if we didn't share a last name which I think I would find slightly off-putting.