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Chloe Grace Moretz on Martin Scorsese, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and the 3D "Hugo"
By Sean O'Connell
Hollywoodnews.com: There's a delicious irony to the fact that Isabelle, Chloe Grace Moretz's inquisitive character from Martin Scorsese's capricious "Hugo," has never seen a movie. After all, the versatile actress already has played a vampire ("Let Me In"), an ass-kicking superhero ("Kick-Ass"), and a socially savvy middle schooler ("Diary of a Wimpy Kid") … all before turning 15.
Moretz gives yet another performance extending beyond her years in Scorsese's period adventure, the director's first foray into 3D storytelling that also waves the flag for film preservation — a passion of the Oscar-winning filmmaker. That's one of the topics Moretz and I explored during a recent sit-down conversation in New York City on behalf of "Hugo." Here's Chloe Grace Moretz:
HollywoodNews.com: There's a wonderful scene of your character going to the cinema for the very first time. Who brought you to the movies for the first time, and what did you see?
Chloe Grace Moretz: One of the most amazing films I ever saw for the first time was "Breakfast at Tiffany's." And I think that was one of the reasons why I wanted to act is because I saw Audrey Hepburn light up the screen. I completely fell in love with her, and I realized that's what I wanted to be.
HollywoodNews.com: Who showed it to you?
My mom did. She loves Audrey, and she loves old movies. My brother does, too. So it was that and "The Wizard of Oz."
HollywoodNews.com: But these aren't films that you are able to see on the big screen, though.
No, no. I watched them at home on our home theater.
HollywoodNews.com: Do you have a specific memory of your first trip to the theater?
That's harder. I don't really know. It was probably a Disney movie. Something like "Mulan" or another film like that.
HollywoodNews.com: Back then, did you anticipate how much work it would be to reach this level?
Yeah. I always find it to be fun, though. It definitely is hard work, but I find it to be a lot of fun. I wake up on set every day and I can't wait to get on set and dress up. I can't wait to be my character and just act.
HollywoodNews.com: Let's talk about this set. I wish I had weeks to simply explore Scorsese's train set. How much of it was actually there, and how much is added digitally?
It was a full-scale train station. It was built in two studios placed side by side, which made it gigantic. And they built, to scale, an actual train station. It truly was one of the most magnificent things I'd ever seen. I walked in and saw it for the first time and thought, "It's really happening." It was beautiful.
HollywoodNews.com: Let me ask you one last thing. The theme of this movie is film preservation, and I'm wondering what's the earliest piece of film you can remember seeing yourself on?
Oh, my brother, Trevor, was always filming me when I was a little girl. He would dress me up in little costumes. At one point, he dressed me up like Snow White. He had me running around the backyard as Snow White. At one point, he dressed me up in like a Princess Leia outfit. Kind of like jeans and a top. And he put me in the pool, on a raft. Then he wrapped the pool scrubber – that thing that moves around and cleans the bottom of the pool – around the raft as if I was being taken under by a sea monster. And my mom walked out and screamed, "Why do you have the four-year-old in the pool?" And he was like, "I'm trying to get the shot, mom!" We would use fake dolly tracks. We'd get on an ATV and try to get driving car shots.
HollywoodNews.com: You really have been immersed in this business from the earliest age.
I have been acting since before I was born! [laughs]
Martin Scorsese's "Hugo" co-stars Chloe Grace Moretz, Asa Butterfield, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jude Law, Emily Mortimer and Sir Ben Kingsley. It opens in theater on Nov. 23.
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Thursday, May 28, 2009
Blast from the Past #182: Jim Lawson "Samurai Turtle"
11 comments:
Hmm... reminds me of Usagi Yojimbo.ReplyDelete
Stop posting this crap!ReplyDelete
Jim, maybe you should draw an updated version to show how far your technique has come since then.ReplyDelete
Personally, I think this is cute :)
-->> Spare the drama !!ReplyDelete
He's make a wonderful Playmates fig.
Heck when was the last Lawson inspired toy produced.
Best i can figure it was the Planet Racers Bike and Nano. anything beyond that i am not sure. Yeh Dan is right, update this so a toy can be made.
Funny thing, today i was reading Tales of Leo!ReplyDelete
*Glomps jim*ReplyDelete
This stuff is awesome, I love seeing this great past work.
Even if it was a pin-up in one of the old comics. ;)
So if you don't mind my asking Jim why don't you like your past work?
-Vaughn M.
I don't know...I've always had issues looking back at my early stuff- material from around the time of the first Tales series. The Turtle's heads seem too squished and the bodies, arms, ankles, feet, fingers all had this sorta bloated look....ReplyDelete
-->> Similar to effect of ' Bade Biker ' ??ReplyDelete
Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!ReplyDelete
Usagi-san better watch out for THIS Leo!
When I was a kid I think I copied this drawing about 5 times. I learned a lot! This is one of my favorites of Jim's.ReplyDelete
On another note, Peter, I don't know if this is old news to you but there was a documentary made about a someone crossing the US on a Segway:
I can see what you're saying Jim, but I think this is a rather good peice anyway. Its very stylized and there's something about the detail of the necklace I like very much.ReplyDelete

subset: commoncrawl


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Deoghar, Jharkhand: At least 11 people have been killed and 20 injured in a stampede near a temple in Jharkhand's Deoghar, a town where similar incidents have taken place in the past.
The stampede took place early this morning close to a temple of Goddess Durga, where thousands had lined up for a ritual.
The police said a crowd started building up at 2 am and snaked through lanes near the temple. In two hours, it had swelled to over one lakh.
Officials at the spot tried to organize the crowd but the surge turned chaotic when at 5 am, people heard that the temple gates were finally opening and started jumping the queue.
The police reportedly used batons to try and control the mass but failed.
Those sleeping in the kilometres-long queue were trampled as others pushed towards the doors, SN Pradhan, additional director general of police in Jharkhand, said.
"Many tried to rush to the head of the queue which led to chaos and as some of them fell, the devotees got trampled," Mr Pradhan said.
Chief Minister Raghubar Das has ordered an inquiry and announced compensation. He denied that police action exacerbated the situation. "There was no lathi-charge. I haven't heard of any such thing," he told NDTV.
Thousands of devotees flock to the area every year in August to offer holy water from the river Ganga to Lord Shiva at the town's famous Baidyanath temple.
The town sees the maximum crowd on Monday; last week around a lakh people had converged at the temple. The district administration had held a review meeting of arrangements on Sunday.
In August 2007, at least five women were killed and 11 injured in a stampede at the Baidyanath temple.
A stampede on the banks of a holy river killed at least 27 pilgrims last month in Rajahmundry, on the border of the southern twin states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.


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WoC now has a members video collection.
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
PS: the designing of the flyers is my handiwork.
Nicely done indeed!
That exhibit is more than the presentation of a thoughtful collection. It is a highly educational invitation to start collecting these coins and learn about Indian history. In that way, it promotes a sense of belonging in spite of the differences in the country, which in turn ought to promote tolerance and peace, thus development, however marginally, but for such a great cause, every nudge is welcome.Peter
Beautifully displayed! Very insightful!! How was the coin fair? Overall response? Any more pictures from the Coin Fair?


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Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) is a great system that is created by Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS). This system is very popular among many business owners in this country. If you are a business owner, you may want to learn about how the PIC scheme works. There are some important things that you should know about this scheme. By learning about these items, you should be able to understand the whole system of the PIC scheme. This system is created to encourage all businesses to invest on the productivity and innovation system.
Who Can Get Benefits from PIC Scheme?
Many people want to know about this scheme. This is reasonable because PIC scheme has a lot of benefits for all business owners. This system is mainly created for all small and medium enterprises in Singapore. All businesses are able to get benefits by getting the cash payout and also tax deduction. If you want to improve your business performance and profit, you may want to learn about this PIC scheme and its benefits. You should know that not all businesses are able to get benefits from this system. There are some activities that are specially covered under this scheme.
Top Activities Covered Under This PIC Scheme
There are top 6 activities that are going to be covered by this scheme, including leasing of the PIC automation equipment, intellectual property acquisition, research and development, intellectual property registration, employees training, and also approved design project. In order to check these activities, you are able to visit the official website of the IRAS Singapore. There are some important information that you can read from this official site. You should be able to find some activities that may be related with the PIC system. If you want to know how to get benefits from this system, you should learn more about some business types that can go well with this scheme.
Benefits for All Business Owners
There are many benefits that are offered by this scheme. Because of these benefits, you should learn about this scheme, so you can improve your profit significantly. Here are two main options that are offered by the IRAS Singapore for all business owners in this country. You should choose the best package that is suitable for your needs.
IRAS PIC Grow SME in Singapore
1. Tax deduction
The PIC system allows you to have up to 400% tax deduction on your expenditure from all eligible activities. This deduction is able to cover up to $400,000 expenditure per year for every activity. You need to read the detailed information about this tax deduction from the official site of IRAS. This tax deduction is very useful to help all business owners reduce the total amount of tax that they are going to pay to the Singapore government.
2. Cash Payout
This is another option that is available for all business owners. You are allowed to convert your expenditure of up to $100,000 from all activities per year of assessment (YAs). All converted expenditure is not tax deductible. You should also know that the cash payout system is non-taxable. In order to get this option, you have to hire at least 3 local Singapore employees. The employees should have Singapore citizens or PRs. The current business should have operations in Singapore.
How to Claim PIC scheme?
a. Tax Deduction
It is not a difficult thing to claim for the tax deduction or cash payout option. You are able to claim the tax deduction to get tax return from your income. All companies should submit the income tax return before the due date on November, 30. The partnership or sole proprietor should submit the income tax return before the due date on April, 15.
b. Cash Payout
Before you can claim for this option, you need to download the PIC cash payout application form. This form is available on the IRAS website. There are some guidelines on how you can fill out this application form. Don't forget to submit the form before the due date.
They are some important information that you should learn about PIC grants scheme. This scheme becomes very important for all business owners. Your company can get a lot of benefits from this system. It is specially created to help all business owners develop their businesses easily. Visit the official site of the IRAS Singapore to learn more about this system.
How it works
Other Grants


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This was another one of the beers that I had out in Ohio that I can't manage to find a picture for. Can you tell yet how much it's irritating me? The Virgo in me is being driven absolutely insane about the fact that the pictures disappeared off my phone.
Style: Kolsch
Trivia: According to the brewery website, "In 1862, President Lincoln signed the Morrill Act into law, giving the American populous the opportunity to seek a higher education. It called for one great state university in each state, and inadvertently led to tailgate parties, marching bands, fight songs and Bowl Games. Our 1862 Ale –a dry-hopped American take on the classic German beer– combines the crisp clean flavor of German Noble hops with the floral aromatics of American hops."
Random: I've been watching a show about women in prison on Netflix while Val is at work.
The beer poured with a half a finger of white head. It dissipated slowly and left a lot of lacing on the glass. The body had a lot of floaties in it. The color was straw-yellow and it had a lot of carbonation. The nose was crisp and clean with grain and not much else. The taste was a lot of crystal malt up front with some mineral water. It also had white bread crust too. It had a medium thick body, which is much heavier than I'm used to for the style, but still had a lot of carbonation. It had a lengthy bread crust and white flour finish. This was a good beer, I just wish that it was lighter.
Untappd Rating: 3.5/5.0


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We highlight major redevelopment of riverfront cities – namely Philadelphia and Wilmington – and the economic boom underway along the Delaware River in Philadelphia and the Christina River in Delaware.
Maybe you've enjoyed Delaware River Maritime Day or floating in "swan boats" at Penn's Landing Marina. PHL 17's Matt Alba also tells us more in his story about the big changes underway for the Cherry Street Pier on Columbus Boulevard. The Delaware River Waterfront Corporation (DRWC), developers of the renovated pier, update us on construction happening inside and talk about the timeline and plans to open it to the public. Joe Forkin, president of the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation (RDC) is with us along with Emma Fried-Cassorla, director of marketing and communications. Executives from DRWC – which describes itself as the "steward of the Delaware River," shares information on what attractions are new and expanding along the river and how they say it's drawing visitors and infusing money into the local economy. And, in our final segment of In Focus – it's more on key riverfront cities in our area. This time, focusing on Wilmington. Joe Valenti, marketing manager for the RDC explains how saving the riverfront in Wilmington after decades of decline, has been the mission of the Riverfront Corporation or RDC – founded 21-years ago. Valenti gives a historical recap of the riverfront there during wartime which was thriving amid the robust shipbuilding industry and elaborates on how transforming the area has been a boost for tourism and local business.
In Focus airs Saturday mornings at 6:30 on PHL17.


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Cape Town – The crisis facing African mining companies, who have fallen behind global peers due to declining productivity and return on invested capital, can be turned around, a McKinsey report released on Monday reveals.
While African companies supply 83% of the world's platinum, 73% of the world's cobalt, and over half of the world's manganese, chromium and diamonds, they have underperformed in terms of value creation, explains the report titled Creating Global Mining Winners in Africa.
The good news is that African mining companies "have access to a range of levers to triple or quadruple their chances of becoming world-class performers".
By taking specific actions in productivity, strategic merger and acquisitions, and allocation of capital, "African mining companies can boost their odds of moving up the power curve by a multiple of three or four", according to the report.
Companies should complement these moves by facilitating access to infrastructure, collaborating on regulatory frameworks, investing in local labour and community development and cultivating a local supplier base, the report proposes.
Doing so would improve companies' odds of moving from the mid quintile to the top quintile on the power curve by up to 31%, according to Lorenz Jüngling, leader of McKinsey's Global Energy and Materials Practice in Africa.
The report was released to coincide with the start of the Mining Indaba in Cape Town on Monday, which brings together over 7 000 mining professionals, investors, executives and government officials in African mining from more than 100 countries.
The meeting this year takes place amid a bleak outlook for commodities, with China's slowing demand for raw materials, a reduction in oil prices and global financial uncertainty.
Michael Kloss, McKinsey director and co-author of the report, said even though there was a global downturn in commodity prices, investors should still spend money in this critical sector.
"A downturn is a good time to buy, and at least half of all African companies have the headroom to fund this growth based on their debt to equity ratio to do it.
"Our analysis shows there are also plenty of targets: 77% of mining companies account for just 30% of the industry's market capitalisation in Africa," said Kloss.
Jonathan Moore, managing director of Investing in African Mining Indaba, said on Monday that the current market forced the African mining industry to take a hard look at how it does business and the aspects that are most critical to its future success.
"Looking ahead, governments and companies are focused on developing strategies to invest in African mining beyond the current mining cycle," he said. "In a capital restrained market, it is notable that we have one of the most influential representations from the investment community that we have seen to date.
"It is imperative to explore the possibilities of big, bold strategic moves that offer the best odds of moving companies from good to great," the report explained.
"The industry will have to go beyond the traditional means of collaboration. As such, mining companies should do everything to create a better business environment - they should support regulators to create the right conditions, collaborate with labour to create a mutually beneficial environment for capability building and labour, work with governments to create a more favourable business climate and with communities to build an environment that creates shared value and productivity enhancements.
"The time for action is now, and by taking action now, we believe that the odds for the future of African mining companies will be on track as one of the most attractive regions for mining globally."


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What is the Carbon Budget?
The carbon budget is the amount of carbon dioxide the planet can release into the atmosphere before global temperatures raise to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (i.e., the year 1870). The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement set this goal of 2 degrees, but also expressed that the preferred goal should be to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees to prevent very undesirable changes to our climate. New research determines that our total carbon budget, beginning in the year 1870, is about 2.75 trillion tons of CO2. This is the total amount the planet can release and still stay below 1.5 degrees of warming. By 2015, we had already released just over 2 billion tons of CO2. And the planet's temperature had increased by 0.9 degrees. The world's annual CO2 emissions is about 40 billion tons as of now. So we have about 750 billion tons of CO2 left to release in our carbon budget, which will last about 20 years at our current rate of emissions.
What Needs to be Done
To end our CO2 emissions sustainably and stay within our carbon budget, researchers say we should cut annual emissions by about 1.1 billion tons of CO2, or 4-6%, per year. Fortunately, the rapid increase in annual carbon emissions has slowed significant and reached a plateau. We still need to improve a lot in a short amount of time to meet keep global warming below 1.5 degrees, however. The only other option is to develop new "carbon capture" technologies to take CO2 out of the atmosphere. These innovations are still a long way off.


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Hello there!
I am finally doing a new book review! It has been almost two months since my last one. In fact I haven't posted anything since my last review in January but I am hoping to post more starting right now. In this post I will be reviewing I Owe You One by Sophie Kinsella. Kinsella is my favorite author so anytime she comes out with a new book I have to buy it and read it right away. That being said let's get into this review.


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Cairns District Court is located at 5D Sheridan Street, Cairns.
Postal Address:
5D Sheridan Street
Cairns, QLD 4870
Phone: 07 4039 8885
Fax: 07 4039 8919
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If you need advice or representation in court simply call our 24 hour crimeline 0488 999980 to speak without obligation and in confidence to an experienced lawyer.


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As The Rain Pours Down
The rain is falling outside and it feels as though it is permeating through my veins and swallowing me up in its relentless pouring. It reminds me of fear, worry, and doubt that takes hold and refuses to listen to reason until you are drowning in it and swept away trying desperately to claw your way back to peace. Satan will use any tool necessary to tear you apart from the love of the Holy Father.
As the days blur into weeks and the weeks into months, you will continue to drown in the self doubting and fears until you cry out to the Father. He will rescue you straight from the pit that is swimming inside of you and swallowing you whole. He cannot help you until you ask. He cannot make you come to Him. You must reach out and cry to Him for He is the only One who can save you from the pain that has come over you.
My Father is my strength. When the world around me feels as though it is caving in and I am suffocating with doubt, fear, pain, or worry, He is the only One that hears me without my saying a word. He offers me His Words right in front of me in black and white – I need only to read them. He offers me the words to say to others rather than using my own. He hugs me when I don't even recognize it. He picks me up off my knees when I can't stand up on my own and my legs are buckling beneath me. He offers me the power in my soul to stand alone if I need to in His name. He carries me in His arms when I feel like my feet will no longer carry me. He wipes away every single tear that I need to cry and replaces it with hope and a reminder that I am His daughter and I matter. I MATTER. Satan would love for all of us to believe that we are just a no one in this world that has no power and makes no difference. But Jesus was only one – and He made all the difference. He gave us life. He gave us the only life that matters – eternal life. He let His body be ripped, torn, and He bled until He died while hanging on some old boards with rusty nails pulling His hands and feet down. He did it for all of us – for ME.
So while the rain falls and my Spirit threatens to fall with it, I will remember His love. I will feel His power and take back from Satan what he threatens to take from me which is my peace and my strength. I will raise my hands to Him and focus on His eyes that are forever on me watching, listening, and loving. I will hold on to all of His promises and live for the day that He takes me home where there is no more pain, no more anger, no more judgments, no more fear, no more worry, no more sin.
Fall into His hands and let Him lead the way. Don't wake up for even one day not reminding yourself of the grace He gives us to always start fresh. As the rain pours, let it wash you clean with only His love in your mind and soul. He wants all of you – every broken and twisted part you have because He can make you whole. What an amazing love He has for me, and I pray that I quit taking it for granted and do more for Him and for others.
"You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You." Isaiah 26:3
"Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." John 14:27
Be The First
There are people in this world who will try to drag you down, remind you of why you're not good enough, and bring you to your knees in pain. We wonder why. We question ourselves. We look in the mirror and find every fault they have pointed out multiplied a hundred times over. Believers are just as guilty as the non-believers. In fact, the guilt should go deeper if you have given your life to Jesus, for your responsibility to others should be greater.
Why do we do things like this to one another? Is it our own inner insecurities that make it so hard to just love, encourage, and support one another? What makes one person not get along with another? I have pondered these questions over and over in the last several years. I don't understand why people like to hurt each other or not get along – especially in our churches. We are to be yoked to Christ, behaving like Him, loving as He does. He has forgiven the worst of offenses, eaten with the poor, saved the criminal, loved the homeless, the drug addicts… why can't we do the same? We are certainly not any better than any of them. We, as believers, should hold ourselves to a higher standard to forgive more easily, love more readily, and serve without question.
We get our feelings hurt and decide to punish by withholding forgiveness. We get angry so we hold grudges. We feel insecure so we gossip. How much sense does any of this make? At the end of the day, you have withheld the love you could have shared, the example you could have been, and most of all, you have disappointed the One who gave you the life you are living and everything in it. And for what? A few moments of personal gratification that is sinful?
Regardless of what everyone else is doing, regardless of your selfish human feelings, regardless of what the world teaches, be the first one to make a move and break the mold. Be the first one to show that Christ is in charge of your life and not you. Be the first to stand up and say, "I forgive you." Be the first to stand up and say, "I'm sorry". Be the first to say, "I love you. I cherish you. I support you." Be the first to pray for the homeless man on the corner instead of trash talking him as you pass by him about how he needs to get a job. Do you know his story anymore than he knows yours?
Be the first to reach out to the quiet person who you assume is a snob or thinks she is better. Do you know what is in her heart anymore than she knows what is in yours? Be the first to speak to the elderly or serve them. Can you just imagine what stories they could share with you from the life they have lived? They look in the mirror and see the child, the teen, the twenty-something, the forty-something… they once were. They look in the mirror with wiser eyes, matured heart, and full of lessons learned. Oh what they could share with us about how to live!
Step out of your comfort zone. Step out on faith. Jesus has never left you and He never will. Every step you take He is right beside you holding your hand with more love than we could ever feel from one another. He will guide you in loving, encouraging, and serving others for it is all for His glory. So go ahead. Be the first!
Why Are We Afraid Of Each Other?
We've all been there…. that moment in a crowded room where all you feel is lonely. You stare at the faces around you and want to run because you know that everyone must see how much turmoil in is your eyes and in your life. Their lives must be so much more perfect than yours. You smile and hide what you are really feeling for fear of feeling ashamed, rejected, or bringing others down with your problems. You walk around in complete loneliness with the fake smile, holding in all of the feelings of whatever you are dealing with in your life that is weighing you down. Why are we so afraid of each other? Have we become so good at covering up our feelings and going through the motions of the days that no one really sees each other's hearts or struggles? Or is that we don't WANT to see each other's problems because we don't want to take the time to be there for one another with a listening ear, a hug, a supportive hug or words of encouragement because we are too wrapped up in our own problems?
If you are suffering and are feeling incredibly lonely in a world of people who don't seem to care, there is One who will never leave you alone. Jesus is with you when you are in the pit and no one else is there. When I begin to feel like I'm alone, or misunderstood, I think of the Apostle Paul. He sat time after time in a prison all alone. There is no other way to explain the love and compassion and determination he exhibited by writing about Jesus and what kind of people we are to be while sitting in a dark, dingy jail cell other than to say that Jesus was with him. He was alive in his heart and breathing words of love into his heart with promises and love that is greater than all of us. He was ALIVE in Paul. Just as He is to be alive in US. He breathed life into us and created us in His image. There is no way we will ever be alone. At times we may feel lonely, but God promised He would never leave us alone. "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." Hebrews 13:5
With Jesus living within us, we should always remember to turn to our loving Father for peace and reassurance. We should not be afraid of each other and of sharing our troubles with one another. It doesn't matter how shameful, how embarrassing, how degrading or even silly it may seem. God put us on this earth for each other. He recognized that two were better than one. So why do we avoid getting too close? Because we all feel we have a story or a secret that may just be too much for anyone to handle or we think that no one really cares about what pain we are feeling because they've heard it already. Nonsense! We are God's people who are called to live a life of humility, forgiveness, and love. We are to count on each other in good times and bad. We should not only celebrate with one another, but grieve with one another as well. These are the things that make our relationships through Him more special and cherished than others. One of the best examples of a friendship that is possible for all of us was shown to us by Ruth. "But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. "Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the LORD do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me." When she saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her." Ruth 1:16-18
Wake up everyday and know that you are never alone. Don't be afraid of one another. Reach out for prayers, love, or a helping hand. None of us live perfect lives with no problems; therefore, we all need each other. Let down your barriers and let others love you and be there for you; at the same time, do that for others. What a blessing we can all be to one another and imagine how much more we will feel Jesus's love for us through our friendships. "Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor." Ecclesiastes 4:9
Aside Posted on
Have you ever just had the feeling that you must have some giant sign on your forehead that says "beat me down some more" or that dreaded sign every kid hated in school on your back that says "kick me"? Yeah… that's me right now. Now don't read this and think, "oh what a pity party she is having!" Nothing could be farther from the truth. There are just some things in life that you come to a point where you just have to let go of things that you know you cannot change or have control over whether it be feelings, monetary things, circumstances, or other people. So where does that leave you? It leaves you as a stronger person. It makes you an incredible follower of God's promises and the faith of a believer who is confident that what God has promised – He will deliver.
Now saying that is the easy part. Letting go is the hardest part of all when every human instinct tells you to hold on to that sadness, that grudge, that loneliness, that urge to lash out in all the wrong ways. For sure this is one of the most difficult things we have to do in this life. But no one knows who you really are on the inside except for our God. No one knows the long hours that the night holds or the struggles behind closed doors. No one knows the deepest longings in your heart to give to others what you don't have yourself. Yes… letting go is hard. But it can be done.
God didn't make His promises and then abandon us. He is working inways we can't see. He is loving us all the while we are feeling unloved. We have to let go in order to SEE. We have to let go in order to FEEL. We have to let go and TRUST that though there are so many things we want to share and want others to understand, they never will. Why? Because it's not their life. And that's okay. Everybody has a story and many of those stories we will never hear. I find it quite a shame, actually. As people of God, we are called to share with one another and to lay out our burdens before God. We are to love each other as brothers and sisters and pray as a family for each other. I have some brothers and sisters in Christ whom I believe are doing just that for me. I know they will stand beside me with thanksgiving and praise our almighty God with all of their might for the blessings and yes – all the hurts of this life.
Letting go of some things (and feelings) in my life are a daily struggle. I don't see it being magically gone with no more worries or heartache. But what I do see is my God easing it day by day because though others may come and go, He will never leave me.
"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28
Humility: Why Is It So Hard?
Have you ever been in that pit of loneliness, self doubt, or guilt knowing you've done things you regret, things you are ashamed of, or have found yourself being distant from God? If you are honest, the answer is yes. We all go through life just going throughthe motions some days and ignore the fact that we are not supposed to be living for ourselves. We are only here because God put us here. Sometimes, the realization that we have ignored God hits us like a ton of bricks when we find ourselves in a desperate situation or at a low moment in our lives. We look around, feeling alone, and the loneliness engulfs us as we are fighting back the realization that we have kept God out of our lives until this very moment when we want Him to come and rescue us out of the pit we have dug ourselves into. We must open our hearts in true honesty – humbling ourselves before God and acknowledging the truth: that we went about life as though we didn't need God and could handle things on our own. "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8)
All around you are people just like you who are Christians and are struggling and trying to balance Christianity with life rather than just realizing that you can't be a Christian and live "worldly". We must cry out to God and ask for His guidance in everything – not just when we are in trouble. Living for Him requires wearing His armor at all times because that one moment, no matter how brief, that you don't put it on, is the one moment sin will creep right in and fester. "Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil." (Ephesians 6:11) We are weak beings without Him. We have no strength on our own and become so vulnerable to others around us and the opening to sin wherever we go.
God alone can lift you up and restore your soul, your faith, your trust. He alone can bring you to joy again when you feel there is no joy left to be found. You must be humble. You must show your broken spirit to God and your hurting heart. Open it with all humility, accepting whatever lesson He may have for you to restore you to who He means for you to be in this life. Let Him envelop you, love you, wrap His forgiving arms around you and embrace the lesson He is teaching you. Even Jesus had to humble himself for the ultimate sacrifice. So why should we find it so hard to be humble if Jesus could do what He did for us? "And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:8)
There Are No Coincidences
I have felt compelled to open my heart and continue to share the many thoughts, ideas, frustrations, blessings, etc. that roll through my mind on a daily basis. We are at a crossroads in our life that has brought us to His complete mercy. I awaken every day to wonder what my purpose is and why I am here. I know that God has a purpose for me. I know that it is by no accident or coincidence that I have lived this life and am still here to do so. But there are always those nagging thoughts of "am I doing enough?" "Am I doing what He wants me to do?" "Did I miss something He has tried to tell me or direct me to?"
Rarely do I find the answer to these questions because God knows and sees everything. He sees when my neighbor goes through a bad day and just needs a friendly face, and I happen to be the one that walks out my door as just the right time for a friendly "hello" and "how was your day?" It is no coincidence. He sees when the lady in the grocery store is struggling to reach something with her bald head under a cap, the signs of chemo and strain in her face, and a man comes along with a helping hand and strikes up a conversation to relieve her burden for a brief moment by allowing her to share. It is no coincidence. He rises the sun, forms the clouds, blows the wind through the trees, creates our babies and allows us to hear their precious giggles or unending curiosity. He breathes life into every facet of the world, every ethnicity, every single glowing soul that needs only to be opened and touched by Him to live forever with Him. Indeed, it is no coincidence.
When I meet the day with these thoughts of my current purpose, I have to dig deep and push my worldly thoughts aside. There will always by the naysayers who have their ideas of what your present and even your future should look like and be, but God is the only One Who knows what my days hold. As I look for strength to meet the day with courage and enthusiasm and patiently wait for my God to give me instruction on what move to make next, I am lambasted with a startling reality that was sitting in front of me all along. God doesn't want me to sit around and wait. He wants me to live in the present and give glory to Him, serve Him, and serve others in whatever way I can in that moment. I don't have to wait for God to tell me to speak to my neighbor, help the lady in the grocery store, or love my children. He has given me these duties and purposes as a Christian living in Him and has given me His love to share. I need only pick up my Bible and the words are waiting there for me:
"Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony." Colossians 3:12-14
As you begin your day looking ahead and doing your daily planning, remember to open God's word and see what His plans are for you. Remember as I will that He sees all, knows all, loves all… and there are no coincidences.
Just Yesterday They Were Babies
As I was looking at my calendar recently, a thought hit me that I often try to avoid thinking about – my children are growing up, and there's nothing I can do about it. I've already watched one leave the nest, get married, and have children of her own. I thought I would surely die when she was gone, but somehow I survived having others here at home that still need me. But I look at my four children that are still here at home and wonder where all the time has gone. I have memorized their sleeping faces in their beds a million times, kissed countless boo-boos, tried to hug away broken hearts, and thanked God for every single second I have with them. It is so hard to fathom how quickly it all goes by. One day you are holding them so close to you as they sleep in your arms and whisper, "Mommy, I love you." Before you can blink, you are looking up at them because they've grown taller than you, and they are offering you a hug instead. The days just go way too quickly and the years pass before you realize. That is why you have to care for them, nurture them, teach them as God has said, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." (Proverbs 22:6 NIV).
I will always pray for my children's health, their safety, and their happiness, but my biggest prayer for them is that they follow Jesus for all of their days. I pray that they don't do as I say or as I do, for I am not perfect. Rather, I pray they do what Jesus says and as Jesus did. For Jesus loves them more than I ever can and He is with them all the times that I am not. I may hurt them with my words when I am angry, when I am tired and don't feel like listening, or when I don't have enough patience with them, but Jesus will never hurt them. He always has time to listen, He is always patient, and He is never angry. He is perfect and is their perfect example when we, their earthly parents are nowhere near it and are struggling ourselves and calling out to our Heavenly Father for guidance.
My prayer for my children is that they always look to their Heavenly Father before they look to me, that they open their hearts and minds to what He is trying to teach them, and that they know that I love them as much as a human heart can love, but that Jesus loves them more.
A Lesson Learned
For every day that I have the privilege of walking this earth, I learn a new lesson that God places in my path over and over until I get the point. When I finally open my eyes finally, I wonder why I never saw what He was trying to teach me long before my lightbulb switched on. My most recent lesson was one that I have known for a long time, but now has an even deeper meaning than it did last year, last week, or even yesterday. God places certain people in our lives at just the right time to stay just long enough for His purpose, and then they move on. We have experinced this many times in the last few years, but the last few months this lesson has been a tough one to swallow because we didn't understand and didn't want to accept the loss of others in our life. But here we are, months down the road, and God is making it clearer by the day that He has a different path chosen for us. We trusted Him, but we still were gripped with fear of the unknown and working through the emotions of starting a new life elsewhere.
That new life is proving to be better than I ever imagined because I am trusting in Him. He is leading the way and opening new doors every day. When the fear begins to creep in, I look to Him for the answer which always comes…. just not always when I want it to because my Father knows better than me. While I am busy trying to solve my own problems, He is quietly taking care of things. Then suddenly, I wake up one day and look back and see parts of the Master's plan that in my own misery I just couldn't see. It is such an amazing feeling when I let Him take over and I just get myself out of His way!
God continues to teach me daily, and I pray to Him that I stay out of His way. I pray that He uses me with whatever I have. I don't have money or fancy cars or many things of monetary value, but what I have I will share with others and use for His glory.
Lord, I pray that I use everything within my heart to share any knowledge I have that may help someone, to give compassion to those who are hurting, to listen to those who need my ears, to share whatever I have with others who need it more, and to give love to those who just need to be loved. My biggest prayer of all is that I do it all with a spirit of humility with nothing to gain for myself. Amen.
Somewhere in the world, another child of God is giving in to greed, substance abuse, jealousy, rage, or some other life altering sin that leads them to commit crimes that land them in a prison. Each one of us started out as a baby, an innocent child with a clean slate. We were all children that had open minds and hearts being molded by what was around us and by the daily choices we made or that were made for us by our parents. What happened in their lives that led them down this path? I can't believe that they woke up one day and decided to just be bad people, though I know that there are some that did just that for whatever reason. Could someone have stepped in and steered them away from these choices? Did someone share God with them and show them He is real by living by example?
If you ever visit one of our states' prison websites and view the names and ages of some of the people incarcerated, it should break your heart. Yes, these people are in prison because they are receiving the punishment given to them for the crime committed. I do not argue whether they belong there or not. I peruse the names and think of all the families that are suffering for that one person's mistake. I grieve for those families – the victim's and the family of the one who committed the crime. None of them asked for this to happen in their lives, but yet they are all suffering. Name after name is listed. Some are so young and should be just now discovering who they are and what they want to do with their lives, but yet they are behind bars and many will never walk outside the walls of a prison again. Yes, it grieves me that sin took hold of these people. I cannot even begin to fathom being locked away myself or having one of my children locked away.
Though I know that each of these people had choices and knew there were consequences, I grieve for the loss of what could have been for them. IF ONLY they had listened to their Moms, IF ONLY they had turned their backs instead of pulling the trigger, IF ONLY they had chosen not to drink that night, IF ONLY…. IF ONLY….. Don't we all live with the IF ONLYs? I praise God above that He is forgiving and that all of us – good or bad, criminal or not, have a chance to be broken and brought back to God where we all started out as babies. God help these people who are sitting in our prisons with lost souls. And God help those who can change their IF ONLYs now and avoid a life behind those walls.
I will do my part. I will pray for these people and for those who are making mistakes right now or are about to…. God help them hear You and run towards your voice – away from a destroyed life.
Have you ever loved and lost?
Teardrops that will not go away and the sound of rain in the distance crying with you. The warmth of a blanket to replace the one you love who is not lying next to you. Your favorite pillow curled under you as if embracing your sorrow. Heavy swollen eyes that want to close in rest, but that is when the dark images come and the teardrops begin again. The world continues as your teardrops fall. You cleanse your soul with your teardrops of love, and reach out from within praying God sees you through another night. "Believe in me…" you hear in your dreams. "Trust in me", He whispers. "I am here." You fight through the darkness of your heart to listen, grasping at any promise that your hurt will be carried away. There in the dark, there is only the beating of your heart, reminding you that life is still present within you. You cry out in the night for all you've loved and lost. You let your heart be torn into over and over… until the healing begins and peace slowly seeps through. It is a journey taken over and over again by people across the world that no one ever intentionally bought a ticket for. Let the teardrops fall, let them run down your face, let them puddle at your feet, let them lead you into His warm embrace. Feel His promises and reach out from the gripping pain to take His healing hand. Stay with Him until He brings you to the ones you love to rest forever with no more pain, no more tears…. only love.


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When a baby cries, the parents can tell instinctively whether it's a hungry cry, a tired cry or a 'I am in pain' cry. The same thing can be said about couples in a relationship or even close friends. They can tell when something is wrong or not quite right. They know when the other person is not feeling well or upset.
This is a skill that one develops from time spent together. If you have someone like this, keep them close because they are a gift. This skill is so often overlooked by the person who knows us the best. Who is this? YOU.
We can tell when someone else is upset or hurting but when it comes to our own health and well being, we simply overlook the signs or symptoms.
Let's look deeper. When you are sick and go to the doctor, what do you tell him? Can you give real clues as to what happened or when it started? Do you shrug your shoulders and say 'nothing changed and now I feel like this'? I am always amused when I hear people say that there computer is not working but 'nothing happened' or 'I did nothing and it just stopped working'. The same relates to ourselves. There are ALWAYS warning signs but we fail to recognise them as what they are. They are WARNING us about something!
Everybody can feel good when life is going well. Every can recognise hiccups and the causes when life is going well, when the bills are paid and your relationships are all in a good place. Its when life hits you in the mouth, that you have to be able to recognise the causative factors. I have found this process to be more successful when you work backwards. I will illustrate with an example. I was in a down patch and things were not going well. After a few days, I felt myself a bit down or depressed and linked the 2 together. I had to recognise that I was depressed before I could see the causative factor.
Most of the time, you cannot join the dots in real time but rather only look back and see how they link up. Hindsight is a perfect science as the saying goes. If you are aware of changes going on in your own life, it will be easier to recognise and maybe even prevent problems in your future.


text: MOVIES FilmBuff, Vice Media to Release 'Prince' 10:39 AM PDT 5/15/2015 by Gregg Kilday FACEBOOK TWITTER EMAIL ME YOUTUBE The movie is the feature debut of Dutch music director Sam de Jong. FilmBuff is partnering with Vice Media to release Prince (Prins), the feature debut from Dutch music video director Sam de Jong. The film, which debuted at this year's Berlin International Film Festival, will be released in theaters in North America and on VOD platforms on Aug. 14. The film concerns a Dutch-Moroccan 17-year-old, played by Ayoub Elasri, as he navigates the first steps to manhood in Amsterdam. It was produced by Gijs Kerbosch, Roel Oude Nijhuis,and Gijs Determeijer of 100% Halal and by Vice Media. FilmBuff and Vice previously worked together to release All This Mayhem in 2014. The deal was negotiated by Samantha Scupp of FilmBuff and Charlotte Mickie of Mongrel International on behalf of the filmmakers. FACEBOOK TWITTER EMAIL ME YOUTUBE Gregg Kilday firstname.lastname@example.com @thr


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Managing HR Compliance in the Age of Technology
Get Hppy
Compliance may not be the rock star of HR tasks, but it is the one that is necessary to keep the band together. For many companies, technology has changed the ways in which they manage HR compliance. This leaves the information open to attack from hackers. Training.


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Contact us
School of Electronics and Telecommunications
Office: Room 405 - C9, Hanoi University of Science and Technology
Address: No 1, Dai Co Viet, Hai Ba Trung, Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel: (84) 43 8692242 * Fax: (84) 43 8692241
Website: http://set.hust.edu.vn
Site Administrator: Assoc. Prof. Vu Van Yem, Assoc. Prof Hoang Manh Thang


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MATILDA's Oona Laurence Joins Indie Drama LAMB
Deadline writes that Matilda the Musical star and Tony winner Oona Laurence has joined the cast of Ross Partridge's upcoming indie drama film LAMB. Partridge wrote and will direct and star in the feature.
Read the original news here.
LAMB centers on David Lamb, "a man on a mission of self-discovery after the disintegration of his marriage and the death of his father. He road trips from Chicago to the Rockies with awkward and unpopular 11-year-old Tommie (Laurence), determined to help her avoid a destiny of apathy and emptiness".
Also in the cast is Jess Weixler. LAMB is based on Bonnie Nadzam's novel of the same name. Filming is set to begin this summer in Wyoming.
Laurence's other upcoming big screen projects include The Grief of Others, I Smile Back and Southpaw. She has also appeared in the TV series Penny Dreadful, Louie, and the film A Little Game.


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Last week, a pilot for Colombia's Avianca airline successfully landed a Fokker 100 on the back wheels only, carefully balancing the nose in the air until the plane had slowed to a safe speed.
The pilot managed to figure out that the front landing gear had failed, so he circled Brasilia to use up the plane's fuel before attempting the landing at Brasilia.
Reuters reports that none of the 49 passengers or the five-person crew were injured.


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"Great doctors, staff, and accommodations! They explained thoroughly about what they were doing and overall, maintained great professionalism throughout. Very happy..."
"Go see Dr. Goldblatt at Shoreline Medical Spa. Very pleasant to go there - not just the aestheticians, but the staff in general are knowledgeable about the services."
"Comfortable rooms, and the staff and estheticians work so well together. Overall, Shoreline is worth my recommendation."


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My Obervations of the Xoom 2 on the Android Operating System
March 21, 2012 Leave a comment
After using the Xoom 2 tablet computer for nearly two months now I have found it has been useful for note-taking in lectures, preparation in seminars, and for completing assessments.
In lectures, I have found the most agreeable way to take notes is to type down the lecture in note form using the app Evernote. I did try to use apps such as EZPDF reader and QuickOffice HD to annotate the electronic versions of the lecture handouts. However, I found it hard to use these apps for this purpose so I preferred to use Evernote, and would refer to the handout throughout the lecture when I needed it.
I prefer using Evernote primarily because as soon as I save anything I have written down, it is synchronised to both my laptop and phone. The ease in which this provides me with being able to access my notes at a later date has been particularly helpful in referring back to lectures at a later date. The ability to tag different notes is another feature of Evernote which I find useful because it means I can archive my notes into their respective modules and topics.
Seminars and Assessments
I have used the tablet extensively throughout all my seminars and assessments this semester. I have found it useful in preparing for seminars using Evernote, and for planning any assessments I have to write. However, I have found I prefer typing any extensive pieces of work on my laptop using the keyboard. This is particularly true for writing word documents as I find the QuickOffice equivalent to be lacking in features and ease of use. Often I use both the laptop and tablet simultaneously, one to do the reading and the other to type notes down.
All in all, I have found the tablet to have had a positive impact on my ability to organize my work and to take down concise notes. It is also helpful being able to read lecture handouts and articles without a paper version or my laptop on me. However, I still prefer using my laptop for many functions such as composing essays or composing emails.


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Access, Retention and Course Choice in Online, Open and Distance Learning
Ormond Simpson
The Open University UK, The Open University in the East of England, Cambridge CB2 1PF
This paper was shortlisted for the 'Best paper award' at the
Third EDEN Research Workshop, Oldenburg, Germany, 2004
Course choice is an important part of the progression of transforming a potential student into a successful undergraduate. Yet the processes and materials of course choice have attracted little attention, it being assumed that the activity will involve an adviser discussing choices and directions with a potential students using course descriptions. Such discussions are expensive and there is evidence that potential students do not always take advice. In any case vulnerable students are often the least able to access guidance and tension between the recruitment and retention functions of course descriptions may make a course appear more accessible than it is.
This paper argues that course descriptions are inadequate to describe a course and that other materials are needed. These other materials are diagnostic, preview or 'taster' materials and students' views. Such materials have a vital role to play in ensuring that students get onto the right course for them thereby increasing their chances of retention. Courses will need such a 'set of competing perspectives' to describe them to any degree of accuracy.
There is also evidence that such materials have a demystifying effect on potential students' perception of courses, enhancing their self confidence in the possibility of their ultimate success
Retention, course choice, students' opinions, diagnostic materials, course descriptions, costs and benefits
Somewhere between a potential student's decision that they wish to re-enter learning and their transformation into a successful learner lies the process of course choice. It is a widely held view amongst advice and guidance workers that that process is an important factor in students' subsequent retention or dropout - see for example McGivney (1996). A student making an inappropriate choice - either the wrong level of course for them or the wrong content - is thought much more likely to dropout than a student who is on a course for which they are suited by both level and content.
There is considerable supporting evidence with respect to full time students where course choice has been found to be a very important cause of dropout - for example Yorke (1999). More recently Gibson and Walters (2002) identified inappropriate course choice as one of the four main reasons for dropout after access courses.
Amongst distance education students the clearest evidence comes from the annual survey of withdrawn students in the OU UK Institute of Educational Technology (2002). In this survey 'inadequate course choice guidance' is the second most chosen item after 'insufficient time' as reason for withdrawn students' greatest dissatisfaction - some 21% are dissatisfied with this aspect of their studies.
Making course choice decisions
There does not seem to have been much investigation into how potential students make their course choice. Clearly there will be students who have a clear idea of both the subject and level of their intended study and who will go on to study successfully. However there will also be students who have a clear choice which is not in fact suitable for them and students who will have much less idea of what they want. Initially such students will be relying on the course title and description for their decision.
Course titles and descriptions
All institutions provide course titles and descriptions to help potential students. But there are a number of issues around such titles and descriptions:
- Length. If descriptions are short then they are likely to be incomplete
in some respects or at least to lack comprehensiveness especially in the case
of long courses covering considerable ground. If course descriptions are long
then they may be relatively impenetrable or fail to give a view of the wood
for the trees.
- Vocabulary. The vocabulary available to course description writers may be
inherently imprecise. Authors often use terms such as 'explore', 'describe',
'advanced', 'elementary' and so on which allow for wide interpretations by
the intending student. Even where the descriptions are written in terms of
outcomes these may not be clear to students who will not necessarily understand
an outcome stated in terms they have yet to learn. It may be little help knowing
that a course will give a 'thorough understanding of vector algebra' if students
have only a very hazy idea as to what vector algebra is.
- Conflict between recruitment and retention (Simpson 2003). A course description
may be written with the subsidiary aim of encouraging recruitment onto a course.
In such cases there may be a conscious or unconscious temptation to emphasise
the accessibility of the course at the expense of its difficulty. This is
not to suggest any dishonest intentions on the part of the writers: merely
that there is a fine line between gently encouraging reasonably well-qualified
but un-self-confident students to take a course and allowing less well-qualified
students get the impression that a course is easier then it actually is.
- Assumed entry behaviour. Course descriptions can specifically address potential
students' entry requirements both in terms of the previous knowledge assumed
and the skills required and this may be one of their most valuable functions.
However, knowing for example that a course assumes that potential students
have an 'A' level in sociology does not tell them that the course is definitely
suitable for them nor does it help students in an open learning environment
who do not have that qualification but who might be able to study the course.
It may not be enough therefore to rely on course descriptions - however long and carefully written - to ensure that students have the best possible view of a course before deciding to take it. There may need to be other elements involved. Some possibilities are course choice guidance, students' comments on courses, preview and diagnostic materials.
Course choice guidance
The most obvious route to ensuring that students get the right course for them is to offer them advice from a course choice adviser. However again there are a number of issues around this approach:
- One to one advice is expensive for an institution to provide, particularly
in mass distance education. For example the OU UK has 35000 new students each
year and a staff of around only 35 trained advisers. So it is inevitable that
most new students will not be in a position to speak to an adviser at any
length if at all.
- Potential students may not find it easy to frame the questions they should
be asking about a course. A skilled adviser should know how to draw out the
appropriate questions and answers from a student about their needs and intentions
but this can be a lengthy process.
- Advisers may have the generic skills to advise on course choice but not
necessarily the detailed knowledge of a particular course to answer all the
possible questions that might be asked. In that case a process of referral
or information gathering may be needed which will add to the cost and length
of the process.
- Students in distance education often appear reluctant to seek advice. For
example the proportion of students seeking course choice advice from an advisor
by any route in the UKOU is probably only about 10% of the students choosing
courses in any one year. It can be argued that this may be a reflection of
the need but it may be more linked to the scarcity of advisers noted above.
It may also be connected to the reported level of dissatisfaction with course
advice from withdrawn students and the link with dropout already cited.
- There is evidence that even where students receive advice that they do not
put it into effect. Johnson (2000) reported on a follow-up of advice given
to a number of OU UK students whose course choice appeared to be unsuitable
for them. Although the advice had the effect of getting students to reduce
the number of courses they were taking it did not usually make them change
their course choice. Once having made a choice students were clearly committed
to that choice. This is hardly a new phenomenon - as Lord Chesterfield remarked
of advice 'Those who want it the most always like it the least'.
- Finally access to guidance may be difficult for some students - as Clayton and Mcgill (2000) note those who could most benefit from guidance are often the least able to access it for reasons of remoteness, unassertivness and so on.
Attention has therefore turned to alternative methods of providing course choice advice 'reflexively' - that is a potential student 'self-advises' as a result of working through different kinds of materials. There are a number of different methods.
Students' Comments on courses
It seems clear that potential students value the views of students who have taken courses previously in much the same way that people buying a car will seek the views of other people on the cars they drive. This is not to say that students will be guided entirely by such views but that they are likely to be factors in students' decisions.
There are a number of ways in which students views can be made available. In the OU UK a selection of students who had recently taken courses were invited to write a short note (100-200 words) aimed at advising new students considering taking the course they had just finished. These were lightly edited (largely to remove comments on aspects of the course such as tuition which would not be common to all students) and collated into single sets for each course.
The comments are now supplied both as hard copy and on the web - www.open.ac.uk/courseviews. Each of about 150 undergraduate courses has a set of comments - usually containing about ten or so individual comments from individual students thereby giving a number of alternative perspectives on the course. It is hard to select typical comments from amongst so many but these are two typical comments [out of ten] for course A210 'Approaching literature, authors, readers and texts':
"A highly rewarding and stimulating course, but demanding in its reading requirement. An open mind is needed to make the most of the course. Those who resist the course's call to approach and explore literature in a variety of ways waste energy and miss out on some of its riches. Those who tackle the course in a positive way will find much that is both challenging and enjoyable, and have their literary horizons permanently widened."
"There is a very heavy workload with this course and a great number of texts; not only the set books, excellent and interesting though they are - but a thesis within the Readers and the Supplement. The Study Guides were on the whole helpful, although the first one seemed rather out of synchrony with the Reader and it was not clear where one stopped and the other took over. However, the range of texts was interesting, and the video performances thought-provoking. I would advise anyone taking this course to read all the texts before you start (except the anthology as only a few works are referred to in this) because it is nearly impossible to do as the guides suggest, to study the next text while completing work on the previous one and prepare the current assignment all at the same time."
There were initially some concerns that comments might be overly critical, negative or simply unfair. This has not turned out to be the case at all. There are negative comments but they are almost always in the context of a balanced opinion. For example it is not at all unusual for students to criticise the work load of a course as very heavy but to add in the same breath that providing one can handle that this is an exciting and worthwhile course. Indeed the overall tenor of the comments is usually very positive whilst realistic about the challenges that the courses represent.
Evaluating the Students' Comments
It is hard to assess the effectiveness of the Students' Comments in terms of ensuring that students make the best course choice for themselves. There are various evaluations, however:
Site usage
The site has steadily increased in popularity and 'hits' are running at around 850 a day.
Student and tutor feedback
The site allows students and tutors to send feedback. This is consistently very positive:
Examples of feedback to the Student comments website:
I found this website an excellent resource. I'll be referring other students to it as well. It's particularly useful for those who are undecided on their course of study.
As a K301 tutor I think this website is a great idea; I shall refer current and prospective K301 students to it.
An excellent idea! I wish it had been in place last autumn, it would have made my choice much easier I absolutely love this page and find it the most useful and interesting way to get a really good feel for the course and what is on offer. I shall soon compose and send my thoughts on a wonderful A103 year.
Great website, I'M going to be starting DipSW in Feb 2003 , it would be nice to see course comments added on these type of courses to give us students like other students a feel for it before we start!!!!!!!
Interestingly, some of the comments suggest that students are using the site for preparatory advice as well as for course choice. This may mean that the Students' Comments have a particularly important role to play for new students.
Students Comments - the political dimension
This has always been a difficult project for the OU UK as - in a typical recruitment versus retention dichotomy - course teams are uneasy with the idea that students' comments on their courses can be seen so widely. Indeed in order to protect the project the originator arranged that it should come under the aegis of the Open University Students Asspcaotion. Nonetheless the comments are still not linked from any one of the OU UK's official course information web pages presumably because of uneasiness that such linking would provide an official imprimatur.
However, the political environment is changing. Last year the Higher Education Funding Council for England and Wales produced a report ['Information on quality and standards in higher education' HEFCE 02/15 March 2002 informally known as the Cooke Report] which recommended that universities in the UK be required to publish information on the quality and standards of their teaching and learning. The information published should include the outcomes of student satisfaction surveys. This in turn was based to some extent on Australian practice which requires universities to place student feedback on the Web.
Subsequent to the report the HEFCE issued a circular to all UK universities in which it announced its intention to pilot a similar activity in the UK which would include student feedback ['Information on quality and standards: pilot of recommendations from the Cooke Report' HEFCE 04/2003, 7 February 2003]. There have been some problems with the pilot particularly the problem apparent from Australia that students' response rates there were sometimes too small - some courses having received only one or two comments thus potentially distorting the judgements. It is not clear how many comments are needed to give a fair judgement but the average number of about 10 comments on each course on the Students' Comments may be a good balance between fairness and overkill.
At the moment of writing this article it is not clear what HEFCE will do in response to these issues but it seems likely that it will press ahead in some way as the developments are clearly important to the government's drive to raise the quality of HE in the UK through consumer pressure.
Students' Comments - the costs
To some extent student comments become now self generating as sites can be designed to allow students to send their own comments to a designated email address. They can then be edited and placed on the site. For the 200 or so courses on the OU UKwebsite the annual costs amount to only about L1500 pa. There is therefore a powerful case both in student support political and financial terms to maintain and develop the Students Comments.
Students Comments - live
The use of computer conferencing can allow potential students to ask questions of experienced students directly on line. There is an interesting example of this activity on the Bart's Medical School Student site which hosts an admissions conference where 'A' level students can post questions which are answered by current medical students.
From Little-Samantha Status: Final Year School pupil (Y11)
Hi everyone,
My boyfriend is interested in medicine, but seems to have a little phobia of the good ol' red stuff. Small amounts are ok (I think), but he watched a surgery programme on TV once and felt sick to his stomach. So to those med students (or anyone with work experience): have you ever felt a little squeamish, and how have you dealt with it? Is it something you all just get used to? Thanks a lot.
P.S. exams over with now. Just a long wait until August 22nd. ;-)
From tig Status: medical student (yr-3)
I can't watch surgery on tv..... in real life.. fine! on tv everything is distorted and I am very sqeamish!
From azy_cool Status: 1st Year Medical Student at Manchester
I was a little squeamish before I started, when looking at surgery on
tv etc, but I used to watch it cos it was intresting and it got 'easier'
to watch the more you watch it .. so he can try that, Operation comes
on the Discovery channel most nights I think? In medicine having to cut
up dead bodies .. that does sound quite bad, but really it was fine, even
the first lesson was fine,
The OU UK has made similar attempts to use its 'FirstClass' conferencing facility to run a course choice discussion but with less success (Simpson, 2002). This may be due to the fact that there are several thousand conferences on the facility and students have little time to explore them all.
Students comments - the limitations
Students' comments are of course limited in value. They cannot tell students that they have the right background for a course and no matter how independent they will always represent partial views of courses.
Course Preview Materials - 'Taster Packs'
Taster packs have a long history in distance education and early examples were produced by the National Extension College in the early 1980's. They were introduced by the author of this article in the UKOU in 1986 for the then foundation courses.
The original rationale was a simple one: students considering a particular course should have the opportunity of surveying the materials and undertaking a short 'test drive' of that course. The reasons for using specifically designed materials for the purpose were two-fold:
- Cost - in theory in distance education all the course materials are available in written form there should be no barrier to potential students browsing through an entire course at leisure to see if it suits them. In practice the cost of sending an entire course would clearly be prohibitive and making them available for loan in some way is impossible in view of the number of potential students for any given course. Even attempts to make them available through public libraries are utterly inadequate given the scale of the need.
- Typicality - a complete OU UK course can consist of 30,000 words or more. Even if potential students could get their hands on a course it is clearly unfeasible to do anything more than read through a few of the pages of one of its constituent units. But that raises the problem that individual units may be untypical of the course as a whole.
It seemed better therefore to select short samples of the course which were thought to be reasonably typical of the course itself and capable of being cheaply reproduced in quantity. Whilst doing that it was also easy to add typical examples of assessment materials such as an assignment with a tutor's comments and grade and a specimen exam paper in order to give students some kind of feel for the level of work they would have to produce at some point in the course.
Originally it was intended to address the issue of the amount of time needed for study [withdrawn students' highest dissatisfaction factor] by ensuring that each pack was about an hour's worth of study. Over the years this has become a difficult criterion to fulfil but it still remains an attempt to give potential students a realistic sense of how long study will take them.
Once again there were recruitment versus retention concerns. For example it was thought that such packs would deter students from studying a course. In order to deal with this each pack came with an explanation of the pack's purpose and a 'health warning' pointing out that the pack was typically less the 0.5% of the course, that it might contain material that relied on knowledge gained earlier in the course and so on.
Of course clearly one of the intentions of such packs is to deter students from taking a course if either the content is not relevant to their needs or at the wrong level. There would be cause for concern if it was found to be deterring students from a course that was in fact right for them in both respects. In fact Adams Rand and Simpson (1989) found no evidence for that belief and student feedback was uniformly positive - see below.
Student feedback on taster packs
These are selected at random from several hundred comments:
Interesting, informative. Challenges ahead thoroughly paraded. Thank you for the health warning!
Excellent resource, certainly helped me in making the right decision for my future.
I found the taster pack both stimulating and interesting. I now definitely want to study A103
Very helpful - assisted in my decision to go ahead with this course this year.
This was very helpful and I shall enrol next year. Couldn't see how it could be improved except by larger print. I struggled with this but am visually impaired.
Many thanks for the taster pack. I found it very interesting, giving an insight as to the work involved. Enough to prepare - enough to scare!
It is always difficult to evaluate such feedback as it may be partial with students who have negative responses not bothering to feed those back. But the uniformity of response is remarkable and it seems safe to assume that at the very least there are few negative perceptions. The feedback also appears to reveal that potential students find the packs reassuring rather than off-putting. It's not hard to see why this might be so. To a potential student a course represents an intimidating unknown and there must always be the question in many students' minds - 'can I cope?' To see a typical selection from a course and realise that although it may be challenging it is not completely unintelligible must help overcome the fear of that unknown.
Course Preview materials - the cost
One of the attractions of preview materials is that because they are derived from existing course materials they are inexpensive to produce. There are costs in deciding what selection of material should be used but these are one-off costs which can be amortised against the life of the course. Thus in the OU UK the editing cost of producing a Taster Pack for a course is around L100 and the reproduction costs are around L1 per pack. Since the course enrolment for such courses can be of the order of several thousand students who will be paying fees of several hundred pounds Taster Packs may represent a cost-effective reflexive advisory method. But further work is needed.
Course Preview materials - the limitations
Like the Students' Comments preview materials cannot tell students that they have the right background knowledge for a course and are limited in that respect.
Diagnostic materials
Diagnostic materials have long been used in open and distance learning to advise students about their study choices. There are essentially two kinds - generic, to test applicants' suitability for higher education and course-specific, to test suitability for a particular course. Both can be either externally- or self-assessed. In addition it is possible to argue that diagnostic materials can assess either skills or knowledge although it is not clear how easy it is to make this distinction in practice.
- Generic externally assessed diagnostic materials range from the massive externally assessed 194 point questionnaires such as the Noelle-Levitz test used in the US to identify vulnerable students, to the simpler test devised by Johnston at Napier University (described in Simpson 2003) which is used in conjunction with an interview with a student's tutor.
- Generic self- assessed diagnostic materials have been less used. An example is given in Simpson (2003) of a test developed from a statistical analysis of the characteristics of successful UKOU students in order to help potential students work out their predicted probability of success and see if they can change those characteristics [such as low entry qualifications] which could increase their chances of success. But this has not been evaluated.
- Course-specific externally assessed materials where a potential student takes a test which is assessed by a member of the institution are relatively simple to apply although for Open Learning institutions they may resemble entrance exams too closely for comfort. The will also be expensive and in trials in the OU UK where they were voluntary it quickly became clear that the potential students who submitted them were the students least likely to need to do so (Ashley 1986).
- Course-specific self-assessed materials appear to be more suited to mass
distance education. However there are still difficult issues. It is relatively
easy to design self-assessed diagnostic tests where the answers are clearly
correct or incorrect as in maths science and technology subjects. It may also
be straightforward to design tests where clear answers can be given such as
in language quizzes where for example simple 'cloze' tests (replacing blank
spaces in sentences with appropriate words) can be used. It becomes more difficult
where more advanced courses with some background knowledge and skills are
needed such as such as courses in higher level arts or social science subjects.
It is also possible that a 'recruitment versus retention' dichotomy can occur. It can be hard for a diagnostic test writer to give 'you shouldn't be taking this course' as a possible outcome when there is pressure to recruit students onto a course. There will be a temptation to argue that a diagnostic test result should be less directive and leave the door open to students by saying something along the lines that 'you will find this course a challenge unless you prepare for it carefully' instead. This may not be as helpful to a potential student. In one of the few evaluations of course-specific self-assessed materials Williams (2001) found that UKOU science diagnostic quizzes which used such rubrics were not as effective as she hoped in persuading students to change their course choice. But that finding may well be specific to the quizzes concerned.
Whatever the type of diagnostic material there appears to have been little work published on their effectiveness in getting students onto the correct courses. And diagnostic materials may not be sufficient in themselves as whilst they may tell a student that he or she is at the right level for a course they may not tell that students that the course has the right content for them.
Thus all the methods described here for course choice have their limitations either in terms of their cost or the partial view of courses that they provide. Perhaps the best route to a satisfactory course choice system is to borrow a concept from social science - that any reality can only be fairly represented by sets of 'competing perspectives' and that a concept as complex as a course needs all the perspectives of descriptions, previews, comments and diagnostic materials in order to describe it completely. How students will react to such a package of perspectives and whether it will be too much for any one student or whether different students will choose those perspectives that give them the best 'feel' for a course remains for further research.
Adams, C. Rand, V. and Simpson, O. (1989) 'But what's it really like? - the Taster Pack Idea' Open Learning 4 (3)
Ashley, C. (1988) 'Testing the Water' internal report Open University in East Anglia Clayton, P. and Mcgill, P. (2000) Access issues in adult vocational guidance and counselling for people at risk of social exclusion, Journal of Access and Credit Studies 2 (1) pp 4-17 Johnson, M. (2000, unpublished) Course Choice Advice Open University in London internal report.
Gibson, K. and Walters, J. (2002) Access and guidance in tutor-student relationships Journal of Access and Credit Studies 4 (1) pp 20-31
McGivney V. (1996) 'Staying or Leaving the Course' National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, Leicester, UK.
Simpson, O. (2003) Student Retention in Online Open and Distance Learning Kogan Page, London
Simpson (2002) Supporting Students in Online Open and Distance Learning (2nd edition) Kogan Page London
Student Research Department (2002), Withdrawal survey UKOU Institute of Educational Technology,
Williams, R. (2001) Science diagnostic quizzes in the UKOU, Internal report UKOU Science Faculty
Yorke M. (1999) 'Leaving Early' Falmer Press London.


text:
I don't want to change the world, start a revolution, or unlock the mystery to world peace. It's not in me. Its not the touch I want on the world. None of these things drive me.
I want to be known as a good friend. A loyal friend. A fun friend. But most importantly, I want to be that friend that you can tell your dirty little secrets too, and laugh about it with together. I want to be the friend that makes you feel like you can kick off your shoes and prop up your feet. I want to be someone that others can chill with, be themselves with, and love themselves with. This is my pleasure in life.
I love hearing about a mishap, a goof, a "let me tell you how dumb I am" story – because they know they won't be judged by unloading this story in my ear. We can laugh. we can learn. we can love. Someone that you can bounce the stupid questions, the irrational fears, the weird feelings you have towards people and ideas off of. Bounce off those things that make individuals feel awful, horrid, abnormal, and psycho. Hash out all these insecurities… maybe even shed some light on things, or just make you feel more comfortable with yourself despite all those things…. or make you feel normal because of all those things.
I want to be the friend that feels like no effort is given. That you feel like you've spent nothing to be around. That you don't dread. That when I'm in need, you want to help, not because you owe it, but because your heart tugs you.
This is all I wish for myself in life. Just this small touch in other's lives.
I just love being that person you can be yourself with. People are pretty awesome, but we sometimes miss that because we are so worried about keeping it together for everyone.
I don't even want to be the friend that you miss so much when you're not around, but the friend that when you see, realize you miss them. Have you ever done that? Gone about life, giving close to no thought about someone, but as soon as you see them your heart floods instantly – bubbles over because you adore and love this person?
I want this for my life. This is my goal.