Wednesday, May 30, 2007

The Beta mums' backlash against Alpha women

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=458563&in_page_id=1879&in_page_id=1879

This is such a middle class, privileged article it makes my hair stand on end, not all parents have the luxury of not worrying “about their [child’s] future career prospects.”

Many of us mothers know to well what it means to not have choices in education and so not have choices later on in life. We don’t all live in places were the state provides education options, we can’t all move to France either! Working for so many mothers is not a nicety but a necessity.

Often a life dogged with guilt always trying to catch with one deadline or the other,
Fortunately I have bright kids who love me just the way I am. Our life is fast we, are on the move most weekends and during the weeks I get home as soon as I can to make sure we eat and get time with together before bed.
My children read at four, I was happy to encourage this, as it added to their sense of the world it didn’t take anything away. Children are bombarded with information as soon as they start school/nursery. I was not content to just leave it to “the World” to educate them. They now have my love of reading and it has increased their thirst for more, they have incredible imaginations. They make mud pies, get messy and get told off when they paint on the furniture!


I have great expectations for my child, not for me, but for them to have the chance to make their dreams come true, good education opens doors to possibility, so many state schools bullied by government deadlines don’t provide children with opportunities they just make them jump hoops. I don’t want that for my girls and so I will carry several Blackberrys if that is what it takes, to give my kids opportunities to have the education that would be denied them if they went to the local com. These labels are not useful and have a feeling they are invented by journalists who have gone through good schools and have no idea of what is happening in the real world.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

To the woman on the BBC morning news who on National Working from Home Day, said that it was necessary to experience having your head in someones armpit to prepare you for a day at work, that it was essential to be in an office to work. I am sending a hair shirt and whip and a book on a hundred things to do before you die.

Hot and horrid on the trains today.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Trying to think of how to promote a “Love to Learn” campaign at my daughters school. The have recently started clubs for "Gifted" children and I think it is horrible! what is this elite “Gifted” children business and what does that mean about the rest of the class??

I would much prefer a “Smart Kids” Clubs, for children who love learning, is that not more encouraging and more what it should be about?

Tuesday, May 08, 2007




Love this picture, don't know who deserves credit for it. It is being used in a Bulldog wireless add.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007


Figure 1: The distribution of dark matter obtained from a large numerical simulation. Note how the dark matter is clustered into dark matter halos, which are connected by a large filamentary network. It is form simulations like these that astrophysicists have obtained a detailed understanding of the abundance and clustering of dark matter halos. This particular simulation is performed by the Virgo consortium, including scientists from the Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics (see Jenkins et al. 1998, Astophysical Journal, 499, 20-40)

http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/
Taken from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics.
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