Blind Side - Spoilers

I am proud to say I Love Sandra Bullock......I have admired her work for years, being an adept actress and endearing comedienne, and I knew one day she would get a film that would blow everyone out of the water.......

That film has arrived.....

Bullock plays 'Leigh Ann Tuohy' in the Michael Oher biopic 'The Blind Side'. Not only was she amazing as the strong-willed and proper Leigh Ann, she picked up an Oscar for Best Actress. Well deserved!

Michael Oher (Big Mike) is a hulking black teen with no education from the wrong side of the tracks who is taken in by the white Christian Tuohy family. The family grow to love the gentle giant and, in his turn, Michael finds himself part of a close-knit family who are determined to help him achieve his untapped potential. The family battle against the school system, racism, bigotry and NCAA interference to get Michael educated to a 2.0 level for admission to college on a football scholarship.
With help from a mad tutor (marvellously played by Kathy Bates) and his adoptive family pushing him to be the best he can, Michael gets his place in 'Ole Miss' (Mississippi University).

With the actual college scouts playing themselves and the real-life family photos decorating the credits, we feel that we have been invited to be a part of Michael's amazing story and happily pointed out Leigh Ann and family members in the photos.

We thoroughly enjoyed the film and really got into the story, cheering on the characters and actually 'feeling' it. At the end we sat back and just said 'WOW'........... :-)

cq

Teacher's Pet

I had one of the biggest days in my burgeoning teaching career yesterday.

While I have been an assistant tutor in the Display Screen Equipment assessment training in our place for a couple of years now, backing up and learning from a consultant with 20yrs experience, yesterday was the first time I have run a course solo - from arranging the scheme of work, designing the day to the presentation of the 'talkee-talkee'.

My class were mostly keen staff, desperate to learn the black art of risk assessment to help their teams and add to their skill base. Out of the class of 12 there were a couple of old friends, a few staff I have spoken to a lot, some new faces and one very reluctant conscript.

After a few minutes of speaking I saw the first moments of clarity begin to dawn and pens began to scratch. I was imparting information, my class were learning!
Everything from the law to the desk, the day long course covered all aspects of assessment of office workstations.

By lunch I was only 10 minutes over - mainly because there were so many questions; which can be good and bad in my book!
The afternoon practical sessions were not as good as I had hoped, but I have plans to change that bit of the day to something more manageable.
By the time we were doing the final test, we were about 15 minutes over schedule - not too bad for a busy, busy day.....including losing a student for about 20 minutes!

Point of order, the individual with the worst results in the final test was the one whose colleague told him that the class were given the answers before doing the paper because she had done the course three weeks earlier with my predecessor.
I pointed out to him that my predecessor and I had very different ideas about the concept of 'test'........he stopped looking quite so smug while the class roared with laughter.

I hope it was a success from their perspective. I haven't looked at the feedback yet, but I did glance at a couple while packing up and the marks were in the 'good' range, so I am crossing my fingers!

Update: I have checked the feedback and it was all positive. A couple of students made some suggestions that I had already thought of to improve the training. Yay me! :-)

cq

Mothers Day

Look at my beeyootiful purple bouquet -just perfect from my Sleepy Pete! :-)

Thank you, sunshine - and have a good weekend with your proper mum!

cq

Smile

(A little thing I picked up from Facebook)

Leave a comment if I've ever made you smile in your life.

Then, put this on your blog and see how many people you have made smile.

Please play along. And I'm glad if I've ever made you smile.

cq