Blogging Meme #2

This is my second blogging meme I was tagged in and I'm finally getting around to doing it.

My turn – I’ve been tagged into this blogging meme by A Keen Reader (@AKeenReader  – blog post here), and there is a Google+ page where it is all linked so click here to get to it, and so here I go…

The blogging task includes:

• Acknowledge the nominating blogger.
• Share 11 random facts about yourself.
• Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger has created for you.
• List 11 bloggers.
• Post 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate to answer, and let all the bloggers know they have been nominated. Don’t nominate a blogger who has nominated you.

11 Random Facts:

1. I love reading books by Wilbur Smith and by Danielle Steel - polar opposites as far as genre go... but I like it like that.
2. I am an underwater waterskier - that means I rarely get on top of the water when skiing... I'm dragged behind the boat, under the water.
3. I do not have a head for heights.  Despite being on top of the abseiling tower at Totara Springs more times than I can count, I have not and will not ever abseil.
4. When I eat a Mellow Puff, or similar biscuit or chocolate bar, I eat all the chocolate off first before eating anything else.
5. I am that annoying person at the movies saying "As if!" and "Actually, he should be dead by now!"
6. I am a tail gating, impatient, road raging driver.... but if someone is up my butt, get lost buddy!!
7. My favourite movies are:  Bill and Ted's Most Excellent Adventure, The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Grease, Shawshank Dedemption, Under the Tuscan Sun and all Jason Bourne movies.
8. I have watched the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth more times than I can count.
9. I Google the plot of every movie as I am watching it so I have few surprises and can spot the differences between the movie and the Wikipedia description.
10. I am obsessed with quiz nights and will hog the mike at karaoke.
11. I was bitten my an Alsatian as a child and I still don't like them.  They are beautiful dogs, but I don't like them.

11 Questions A Keen Reader asked me to conquer:

1. Who has been a colleague (past or present) that you have regarded as a mentor?  Bob Marlow, the third principal I had, who saw I had a passion to teach, and that despite when I have been at my dumbest, has still had faith in me and who still gives me great advice more than eight years after I fled the nest.
2. What is your favourite NZ native bird, and why?  The mohua (yellowhead).  I've never seen one in real life, because they live in the lower South Island, but they are really endangered and seem like really amazing birds from what I've read about them (and there's not a lot on the net about them).  In 2010 I was doing my NZ endangered bird unit with a class, and one of the kids and I emailed someone who knows about mohua.  He sent us a letter and a $100 note (which the mohua is on) to buy some bird books for the class!  How cool is that?
3. What was your favourite book as a child?  Dog House For Sale - I got it from the Lucky Book Club.  I read it so much.  Now I take it to class with me and my classes love it too.
4. Worst job ever!  What was it?  It wasn't the whole job, just part of it.  At University I worked part-time as a day care centre reliever.  The job wasn't that bad except changing poohy nappies and undies and supervising the sleep room, which made me sleepy.  I also worked as a market researcher for a radio company... dead boring.... three cups of coffee every night... I was a mess!!
5. What’s the icebreaker question or activity you use to get to know someone?  I play that game in the class with the kids in a circle and you have to say your favourite food or the like, and as you go around each child repeats all the one's before them and then adds their own.  Of course you can do it with lots of topics.
6. Best person to follow on Twitter for one of your passions?  @boonman - he is funny and insightful.
7. What is your least favourite household chore?  I hate housework full stop - but I'm really not into cleaning the shower.
8. What’s one lesson/activity/unit that you really look forward to teaching?  I love teaching my NZ endangered bird unit.  It's science, social studies, English, art, music......
9. Fly first class to your overseas destination and have a little less spending money, or fly ‘cattle class’ and have a little more in your pocket?  Probably 'cattle class' so I can have more money to play with. 
10. What’s a web tool or app that you’ve come across recently that you’d heartily recommend to others?  Pinterest - I've actually been signed up since November 2012 at Educamp The Tron... but it has only really been in the last few months that I have really gotten into it.  I'm pinning stuff left, right and centre now!!
11. If you hosted a dress-up party, what theme would you choose, and why?   Rockstar/Popstar because then the karaoke would be even more fun.  I did tell you I hog the mike aye.

And now I shall choose 11 really lucky blogsters:
@NStevenson  @mrkempnz  @LinaLepou  @missmatich                        @HeatherGreaves3  @Tim_de_Vries    @nzleeangela   @Kar3nlj   @TeachingJuniors    @SimonAshby2   @nommopilot        

And here are your questions:

1. The movie that will always bring a tear to your eye is... and why"
2. The advert you hate most on tv is.... and why you hate it?
3. You have the opportunity to make what ever dishes you could possibly want to for a special dinner party.  What dishes would you make?
4. Who are the three people at this dinner party apart from you, and why?
5. The musician/band/group who you would most like to come to a venue near you and why you want to see them?
6. Which side of the bed do you sleep on?
7. Your most memorable family pet was..... because....?
8. Someone makes you breakfast in bed.  What would you most like it to be?
9. The worst present you ever received was....?
10. Which place in the world that you have never been to would you most like to go to?
11. The best beach in New Zealand is....?

Thanks for playing.  I hope I have not done any double ups!!

Blogging Meme #1

Thanks Sonya (@vanschaijik) for starting this, Vanessa (@VanessaJC83 check out http://viewsandreflections.blogspot.co.nz/2014/01/blogging-meme.html) for tagging me and Helen (@HelenofTroy01) for starting a Google Doc to track all these enlightening Memes (is that a word?).
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rjscDE0NSPnt1IcZMvthqcjBByAcKKU2hKjgQmqtHbU/edit#
 So this is mine!!
The blogging task includes:

• Acknowledge the nominating blogger.
• Share 11 random facts about yourself.
• Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger has created for you.
• List 11 bloggers.
• Post 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate to answer, and let all the bloggers know they have been nominated.  Don't nominate a blogger who has nominated you.

11 Random Facts about Me:

1. I have an obsession about all the pins being the same colour when I pin a piece of work to the wall.
2. I won't eat a banana whole - it has to be mashed on toast or be in a banana cake.
3. I bought my Def Leppard cassette Hysteria the same day I bought Bros.  Def Leppard are still cool.  No one remembers Bros.
4. I have a very large collection of Cleo magazines.
5. I have moved eight times since April 2002, and my cat Murray has moved eleven times (he had extra moves to his 'grandparents' due to my work commitments).
6. I have two cats:  Murray McFlurray and Ritchie McClaw.  Murray is named after Murray Mexted and the McFlurry dessert at McDonalds; Ritchie is named after Richie McCaw with a play on claws (thanks to my class and teacher aide).
7. I named Ritchie McClaw's brother Dan Catter.  He lives in my parent's shed.
8. I have Ngapuhi (Ngati Manu) ancestry, as well as Prussian/Polish, Swiss, English, Irish, French and Australian convict ancestry - a bit of mongrel.
9. I love going to Whitianga - my family has been going there since the 1950s (when my Dad was a wee lad).
10. I have a Bachelor of Education, Diploma of Teaching, and Graduate Diploma of Information Technology in Education (GDITE) and this is my 19th year as a teacher.
11. I lost weight on my OE in England because I gave up drinking beer before I left NZ because it made me get too many pimples!!

My eleven questions from @VanessaJC83:

1. If you could live anywhere else in the world, where would it be and why?  Possibly Canada.  I really liked the ice hockey game I went to and thought if I couldn't live in NZ and watch great rugby, ice hockey would be cool.  And Canadians are lovely people.
2. What is your favourite holiday destination in New Zealand?  Mercury Bay, Whitianga in particular.  It's my turangawaewae.  When I was overseas, I carried a picture of the view from my beach, Wharekaho, wherever I went.
3. As a child what did you want to be when you grew up?  Wonder Woman.
4. What did you wonder about today?  How nice it was at the beach and if the waves were any good.
5. What did you learn today?  Actually, nothing.  Today is the first day in ages I haven't obsessively googled something to find out about it!  Very unusual for me!!
6. Facebook or Google+ and why?  Facebook - all my friends are on it.  I have no idea if any of my friends even know about Google+ so I don't share anything from it.
7. What do you love and/or hate most about technology?  I love the endless possibilities and the evolution of it.  When I saw my first computer it was amazing, but very limited.  We never foresaw what we have today.  What I hate about it: there's so much to try and do.... I don't have enough time to check it all out, and I've become obsessed with checking my Twitter and Facebook updates and checking what is the latest news... and the matching game in my Talking Cat app.
8. How do you like to relax after a long, hard day at work?  It's cool to catch up with friends over a drink and nibbles..... or die quietly in front of the tv with my laptop and cell phone on hand.
9. What was your highlight of 2013?  Still having my Gran at the end of the year.  She's given us a few frights, and after her brother died in October we've worried about her even more.
10. What is your favourite TV programme or movie and why?  Shortland Street - I can hear your howls.... but it is quintessentially Kiwi and I missed it so much on my OE.  Every NZ actor has been on it or will be on it at some point and for better or worse it reflects NZ society.
11. Please share your favourite children's book and why. Ohhh, this is hard because there are so many good ones.... probably Kiss Kiss Yuck Yuck.  It is a kiwi kids book, about a little boy called Andy whose Aunty Elsie visits every weekend and he hides from her but she always finds him and gives him big kisses and a new endearing nickname.  I like it because my brother is called Andrew and our Aunty Ellen and Aunty Gail always held him down to get their kisses.  I gave it to him for his birthday well before he had kids, and now he reads it too his kids and we trained my nephew Taylor to say Yuck Yuck when Aunty Ellen gives him kisses!!

My lucky chosen eleven bloggers:
@NZAnts  @fuse711 @JaniceWW  @BeLchick1   @simone015  @mrsmoorenz                        @fivefoot3     @MissesArtech           @AKeenReader     @kgilligan           @Novalightning


My questions for my bloggers:

1. What is your favourite movie of all time?
2. Who was your favourite teacher as a child and why?
3. If you could combine any two animals in the world, which ones would you combine and why?
4. If you won Lotto Powerball, what would be the first thing you would do after the money went into your bank account?
5. You're Prime Minister for the day - what one thing would you do?
6. Which food/meal from your childhood haunts you still today?
7. In all your travels, in New Zealand or overseas, your favourite place and why was....?
8. Which song or artist always puts you in your happy place?
9. If your house was on fire, what three items would you save if that was all you could take?
10. As an educationalist, what was one of your most satisfying moments?
11. What do you look for in a leader at your school/education facility?

Thanks for reading and sharing and participating.  I know it's taken me a while to get this done Vanessa, but better late than never!!

And maybe you can adapt this idea for your class at the beginning of the year!