Michael Morpurgo

The existence of Michael Morpurgo quite passed me by until a few months ago. How did I miss that he got to be the Children's Laureate? How come he got to write over 100 books without my noticing him? I realise that I was actually out of the country when he was doing his laureate thing. So maybe I have a little excuse. And, I have been teaching children who may be a little too young to read his work. There, I have justified my ignorance to my satisfaction.

There I was in a year 6 classroom noticing that several children had books written by him on their desks. I felt a little ignorant that I had not even heard of the man, let alone read anything written by him.

They assured me he was a very good author. I take a year 6 class each Wednesday and this term my assignment for the literacy lessons was to cover narrative texts. The national curriculum suggest the book 'Kensuke's Kingdom' by Michael Morpurgo. So I was very interested to read it.

Well, I was overjoyed to find that he is a very fine author. Better than the other contemporary authors for that age group, in my opinion. Of course I have only read one book, but the way he writes, his plot and turn of phrase was wonderful. In this book he left clues throughout the book that were revealed later on if the reader had not worked them out. As with all excellent literature it needs to be read more than once to get the full enjoyment from it, although there was plenty of enjoyment the first time around. It is just that on the second reading you can savour the writing.

I cannot resist quoting the best sentence I have ever read. You will find it on page 89 of the paperback.

"I looked on awestruck at the power of the vast waves rolling in from the open sea, curling, tumbling, and exploding as they broke on to the beach, as if they were trying to batter the island into pieces and then suck us all out to sea."

Isn't that just a glorious sentence? Can you see it and hear it too?

Well, as I knew nothing about this man, and had to teach using his book I thought it was a good idea to Google him. He has his own website (of course), and I find he and his wife started and run the charity 'Farms for City Children'. I had heard of this charity years ago and so was interested to come across it again with the founder now a famous man.

L M Montgomery Reading Challenge

I was interested to find this reading challenge because Anne of Green Gables is one of my favourite books. However I never really got into the books about her as an adult. But reading the review of 'Anne's House of Dreams' written by Sarah at "Another bend in the road" has persuaded me to try again with it. Read her review here.

I read a few of the short stories from 'Chronicles of Avonlea' online here

It was first published in 1912. It contains 12 stories, 3 of which I have read so far. They are not really about Anne but she does sometimes appear as a minor character in them.

I enjoyed 'Old Lady Lloyd' because it is a testament to pure love and how it transforms people.

Carrie, the originator of this challenge was raving about 'The Blue Castle' so I decided to read it. I found it online at gutenberg.net.au.

I found the first part of the story to be tedious and and depressing and only persevered because of Carrie's enthusiastic recommendation. However, I enjoyed the middle of the book. Once I understood she was working towards an improbably contrived ending, I started to predict how the story enfolded and chuckled as I was proved correct.

Here is a review of the book at tickled orange.com

Although reading the books online was convenient because it was free and instantly accessible, it was not quite so comfortable reading in bed with my Macbook balanced sideways whilst my head was on the pillow. :-)

So now I will get out my series of Anne books and read them with renewed interest.

Almost free EFT Audios to tap along with

I hesitated to post this video today.
What another video?
I know, they do seem to be coming thick and fast at the moment, don't they?

But I wanted to post this because it has several great messages.
Two of which are:
1) It's OK to download as many EFT audio sessions as you can for $1 from Brad Yates. (Good job 'cos i downloaded very many just recently. )
2) Don't hide your light under a bushel.

And another reason for posting is that I want to make some good karma too.

Aimee Mullins the athletic runner with no legs

And here is the confident and inspiring TED talk video of Aimee Mullins talking about her achievement, running and winning on her artificial legs.

I love the way she unselfconsciously changes her legs on stage.

I'm so glad that the people in Bournemouth are now using the skills of those used to make the wax images at Madame Tussuad to make people's lives better.

Life without Limbs - no arms, no legs, no worries.

Here is a video of a guy called Nick Vujicic, aged 25, who was born without arms or legs. He travels 40 weeks out of the year, all over the world, sharing his story and trying to give inspiration and hope to others.

This guy is one happy bloke.

I'm so glad his mother didn't abort him. Now here is a story to tell people who are being pressured to abort a less-than-perfectly-formed fetus. This guy has touched thousands of people's lives and saved at least one from committing suicide.

The power of EFT on toothache

My mouth is a bit of a mess, well it is the state of my teeth really, the rest of the mouth seems to be OK.

I have several fillings missing. I once had gold fillings but they fell out a few years ago. I tried popping them back in but they fell out again. I don't know if I still have them somewhere - maybe with my jewelry. I still have the holes where the fillings should be. The glue that didn't do a good job of holding the gold in place, is now protecting my tooth from further decay.

Anyway, last week I found I had a toothache. It was in a tooth that has an amalgam filling. The filling has been a little loose for a while and so now it seems that bacteria has entered in between the filling and the tooth, causing decay. The pain was most acute when I drank a hot drink, but it would start to pain sometimes for no apparent reason too. Each time I felt the pain I would tap the EFT points. At one time the pain was a 10 on a scale of 1-10 (after a hot drink) but mostly it was around 6 or 8. However the pain would always subside after a minute or two of tapping and most of the time it did not hurt at all. I have had no pain for two days although I can feel that there is a problem with the tooth and have drunk hot drinks through a straw.

Whenever I felt the pain I thought, "Oh I really need to go to the dentist," but I forgot about it all the rest of the time. I'm not actually registered with a dentist, so I would have to find one that could take me onto their books as an NHS patient. Easier said than done in England and it still costs loads of money even on the NHS.

I'm one of those people who put things off until I really have to do something. I pay insurance each month for dental work because I know I have to get so much work done on my teeth sometime, but I still don't do anything about it even though it is not easy to eat with all the holes in my teeth.

I was a little worried about how the dentist would take out the amalgam filling because I have read that it is a skill to take it out without releasing the mercury into the system of the body. A skill that very few dentists posses because most dentists are still denying that amalgam fillings can poison the body with the mercury that they contain.

Anyway that worry was solved this evening when my filling just came out whole. The decay must have loosened it more. It was very smelly. The amazing thing was that I expected it to be very painful now the decayed part is exposed but it isn't. I even managed to brush that tooth and swish it with water and it still gave no pain! It is a little tender but amazingly not painful. It is a 1 on the 1-10 scale, if I lean my cheek on my hand.

I can only assume the tapping has had an effect. Whoopee!!
Thank you God for supplying me with the knowledge if EFT. It is so useful.

UPDATE 27th Jan
No pain in the original site. The tooth is a little precarious due to having such a large hole in the middle of it and one side is a little wobbly, so am drinking soups form a straw.

A Nearly Autonomous Class

I had a wonderful time on Friday. I was standing in for a reception teacher. I had taught in that school a few years ago but not in reception before.

It was delightful because the children were obviously used to getting on with their learning unhindered by the adults in the classroom for the most part of each day.

They came in and just started doing whatever interested them. Some boys were on the carpet in the Lego corner creating, building, imagining and discussing. Some girls were at the craft table creating interesting collages or colouring, and chatting. A few made get well cards for their teacher who had been off work for a few days.

A group of mixed gender were at the large dolls house and some looking at books. One girl wrote a letter to her mum 'cos she was not going to see her as she was going to her dad's.

Unfortunately I had to interrupt this industry to take the register, a gym, and writing numbers lesson and read a story with them, but then they were back to the autonomous learning. I was impressed with the fact that there were no rules like 'only 4 people to play here' etc as there are in many classrooms. And it was normal to leave a half completed project so they could go back to it later after the interruption of the lesson.

This was the most autonomous class I have been in. (Many nursery and reception classes and quite rigid in their rules and lessons.)

It would be wonderful to have a really autonomous class, but I know that in this particular pair of classes I was at on Friday the teachers were continuously fighting off the directives from 'above' and acted as a buffer between what the government required and what was best for the children.

My Brother's Beloved

An eight year old boy came up to me the other day in school and said "I'm going to be an uncle because my brother's beloved is going to have a baby."
I already knew this (but didn't let him know) because he had said the exact same sentence to another teacher a few days before.

I would love to hear more language like that. So precious.

Happy Tapping

This is a poem that I often do with the children at school. They all love it and it really helps them. it is a really easy way to learn the tapping points and a great way to get children to tap regularly.

I did not make it up but I have changed a word or two to improve on the rhythm. I found it on the main EFT site emofree.com. I think Don White is from Australia.

For most of the poem it is obvious where to tap, just follow the words but I model karate chopping on my palm during the first two lines.

Happy Tapping!
By Don White

Happy Tapping is lots of fun
You can do it on your own - or with anyone!
Tap tap tap on the top of your head,
Tap tap tap do just what I said!
Tap on your eyebrow just near your nose.
Then the side of your eye where the hard bone grows.
Now on the bone - under your eye,
Don't poke your eye or you'll make yourself cry!
Now under your nose - but over your lips
Tap tap tap - with your fingertips!
Now under your lip - but over your chin,
Just on the bit where your chin goes in.
Now under your collarbone - but over your chest,
Under the bump of the bone is best!
The last on the list is under you arm,
To make sure you get it right - slap with your palm!

If you still don't feel good - don't go to bed,
Start tapping again on the top of your head!

EFT and being a bee

I just read this article at emofree.com.
I just loved it and because some people may find it a useful idea I thought I would post it here.

The coolest thing happened recently. Here in Hawaii, you get used to various little flying things coming at you once in a while. I was sitting here writing at my desk, and felt a little buzzy thing around my head and absently swatted it away. And again it came back and I swatted it away without giving it much attention. But then it came a third time, and I looked up and saw it was a bee.

Since it was night time when bees are rightly at home in beddy-bye, I had this hit that it wanted to go home but didn't know how to get there. It swerved up to the ceiling light and went around it a couple times, and then came down and hovered right in front of my face, kind of like, "well, are you going to help me out or what?"

I got up and it went back up and started flying around and around the ceiling light again, so I held up my hand for it to land on.

Now, you might think that was kind of nuts to do, but I remembered how Colleen Flanagan, the Animal EFT Expert, had said that animals receive pictures from our minds. So I made up a picture of me *being* the bee, and looking down at this human's hand and landing on it so she would let me outside again, since I couldn't find my own way.

As I pictured this - and let me tell you, picturing a human hand big enough for me to land on was weird! I allowed myself to get really calm, tapping with my other hand on my collarbone to keep away any fears of being stung or possibly hurting the bee, which made me feel even more calm. I tapped for radiating ripples of love out to the bee as well.

Well, it only took about 4 minutes until the bee landed right on the top of my hand and sat there happy as can be(e) as I walked out the door and let it off onto a plant! I did a little happy dance as I went back in, and thought, "cool! Thanks, Colleen!"

aloha,

Angela Treat Lyon