freshwaterpearls

hmmmmm studying

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:00:10 +0100

So I have decided that I am going to go back to school! Exciting! But first I need to finalise my applications!

1st Choice... Study a BA Education and International Development at Bath (3 years) alongside a distance learning course from LSBU which I can do slow track for 3 years (8-10 hours a week) then increase after the BA. MSc Education for Sustainability. But that is only if I get excepted for either TOTAL 4 Years

2nd Choice BA Education and International Development at Bath ( 3 years) then a 1 years Masters PGCE. TOTAL 4 Years

3rd Choice Sociology at Bath (2 years) then PGCE or Masters. TOTAL 3 Years

I would really like to do the first choice as it loks like a wicked syllabus and I have studied a lot of the sections already either at Sheffield or Galen.

Trying to write a personal statement for all these is not easy though!!

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Mexico and being 26!

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:50:41 +0200

So wednesday myself, N and E headed to Mexico to meet with the investors for the farm. We set off at 5am to Tizimin, although we did stop along the way in Chetumal for breakfast at VIPS. I had chicken and onions and beans etc. The journey to Tizimin took about 8 hours in total (3 to Chetumal and 5 to Tizimin). Mexico is stange some parts of it are so developed, and the general infrastructure is so much better than Belize. The roads and streets are in such good condition. Saying that there are parts of Mexico where the people seem to be living in considerable poverty, especially on the outskirts of the Towns. We finally arrived in Tizimin exhausted after a long day travelling, it took us about an hour to find the hotel after we discovered that Tizimin is ALL one big one way system! Every sign i=either said ALTO or no left turn!

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A break in the clouds

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:56:17 +0200

1. A dream I had last night.....
I woke this morning early as J had to get up at 5 to go to Mexico. Whenever I wake up and go back to sleep for a little while I have the craziest dreams. I dreamt I was at a hotel (I usually have 4 hotels that frequent my dreams). This one was in Swanage a place where I used to spend my childhood holidays. I sat at a table in the restaurant and noticed all the couples happy around me, I was the only person sat by themselves. I ordered a bowl of granola. On table was a toaster and a pile of wheat bread. Yet when the waitress came, I kept trying to order toast from the kitchen... she kept saying no toast was available. Only when she left did I realise that the toaster and bread had been in front of me the whole time. I guess sometimes you miss what is right in front of you.

2. The News.....
The state of the economy seems to be infiltrating everything these days. Money. It seems again as though the tax payers will have to pay for everyones mistakes through government bail outs. I ask myself is this fair? The bank executives spend millions each year etc etc.... and yet when trouble arrives it is everyone that has to pay. On the otherhand if the government doesn't bail them out what then? Sometimes I am glad I live here with little money, no investments and don't have to worry about losing everything. Money, greed, corruption and power the three pillars of the modern world. I feel glad I can sit in my hammock in the evening watching the rain hitting the zinc roofs and know that money doesnt play the role it used to in my life. I think back to how much I used to spend on drinking, eating, clothes...... crazy.

3. My Garden.....
My sunflowers are growing bigger, the basil is taking off and my dill is sprouting (a little crookedly seeing as the cat knocked the flower pot over!) I am sad that my strawberry seeds havent worked yet! I will give them one more week! I hope to plant all the rest of the plants out next week, I hope the "zoo creatures" don't dig them up.

4. Things that made me smile in the last 24 hours....
* Getting my nails painted
* Fluffy pillows
* Eating at the South Indian place in town
* My plants growing
* Ali and Omlette my cats, Poly and Mona, my dogs
* Seeing J in a shirt and smart pants
* Not fighting with John

5. Old paintings.....
I found some pictures of some paintings I did, only copies of some stuff I liked, but it took me back to the days when I had time to paint, and better still somewhere to sit down and paint!

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How to know if you are a student!

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:21:08 +0200

You have ever price shopped for Top Ramen, you might be a college student- mmm chicken ramen, with lime and hot sauce.
You live in a house with three couches, none of which match. what if you have no couch?
You consider Mac and Cheese a balanced meal. along with fried chicken and mashed potato!
You have ever written a check for 45 cents. NOPE! I have paid $10 in shillings though

You have a fine collection of domestic beer bottles. NOPE!

You have ever seen two consectutive sunrises without sleeping. Not in a while.

Your glass set is composed of McDonald's Extra Value Meal Plastic Cups. I only have 2 glasses and 3 plastic cups.
Your underwear supply dictates the time between laundry loads. Thats often the case.

You cannot remember when you last washed your car. Don't even have a car.

You can pack your worldly possesions into the back of a pick-up (one trip). I can proudly say including my dogs and cats and new bedroom it would take 2 trips!
You have ever had to justify yourself for buying Natural Light. ????

The first thing you do in the morning is roll over and introduce yourself. NOPE! first thing I do is roll over and go back to sleep!
You average less than 3 hours of sleep a night. NOPE!

Your trash is overflowing and your bank account isn't. This is a resounding yes!
You go to Wal-Mart more than 3 times a week. NOPE! we don't have one here!

You are personally keeping the local pizza place from bankruptcy. Cant afford pizza!

You wake up 10 minutes before class. Ten minutes before work

You wear the same jeans 13 days in a row --without washing them. Yuck!

Your breakfast consists of a coke on the way to class. Change class for work

Your social life consists of a date with the library I just love reading

Your idea of "doing your hair" is putting on a baseball cap NOPE

It takes a shovel to find the floor of your room NOPE

You carry less than a dollar on you at all times because that's all you have hahaha mostly

You haven't done laundry in so long you are wearing your swim suit to clas that would just be weird
Your midnight snack is microwave popcorn. Homemade popcorn

You celebrate when you find a quarter

Your room is so cold that your toilet freezes over

Your walls are plastered with posters of half naked men or women

You have built up a tolerence for certain beverages (he he he) one barrel

You wear a sweat suit for so long that it stands up by itself YUCK

Your backpack is giving you Scoliosis yes

You get more sleep in class than in your room NOPE

Your idea of feeding the poor is buying yourself some Ramen Noodles YES

You can sleep through your roommate's blaring stereo YES

You live in an area that is smaller than most mobile homes YES

You get more e-mail than mail...... YEP

Well it seems as though I am finally progressing past student status!

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Monday....

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:31:36 +0200

I am feeling a bit better today, have been in pain since wednesday with amoebas but the doctor gave me some pills on Friday which have started to make me feel a little bit better. I am tired of getting sick out here. It is one of the main reasons I don't want to tay. It really gets me down having no money and being sick. Doctors are sooo expensive out here, just the medication and the appointment was $100.00. I don't know how regular people can afford it. I was talking to my neighbour about how her sister had to have an emergency C section for twins and it cost $12,000 ($6,000 for each baby). She did go to a private hospital in Belize city, but even so thats a lot of saving to do. Even a C section here in San Ignacio costs $1,500. Sometimes I am very grateful for the NHS! When I went home last time I saved so much money on medicine and seeing a doctor.

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Homesick

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:30:16 +0200

I am homesick. I am tired of living in a house with no furniture except a bed. I miss my friends and family. The annoying thing is I dont even have my passport at the moment, the British High Comission won't get it for another week. Maybe thats a good thing becuase I am pretty sure I would have left by now if I had it.

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Something Worthwhile

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:00:54 +0200

Sometimes I feel like I just am wasting my life. Well not wasting it, but I have the feeling I could be doing more with it. Thing is by the time I finish work I am tired, and have to go home a cook, and then by the time that is done it is dark and then I am ready to just relax and watch TV! It doesn't help that we don't really have any furniture so if we want to sit down the only place to go is the bed! So I decided to do something productive and plant my seeds on Saturday and they are starting to sprout, I have Basil, Sunflowers, Butterfly flowers and Strawberries. The strawberries dont seem to be growing yet, but I havent given up on them! I am torn between settin up my house here and coming home to study. I really really want to do my PGCE or an educational degree of some kind. I would love to teach over here, or at home. I just have to add all my commitments to Belize into the deal. I have a boyfriend who cannot afford to come with me, I have my two cats and two dogs, I have furniture, I have a job. I want so much to be a teacher and study but am not sure if it is the right thing for me to be doing. Eventually I would like to work for an educational non profit here in Belize, but really that would require me to have my qualifications. I think I will make enquiries about a couple of courses, fill in the application forms and see what happens. Afterall next September is a long way away. But I still could be a teacher by the time I am 28. Then another thing to consideris my job, it could hold real potential for a good career, lots of travel and hopefully the chance to do something good. But as in most things these days money appears to be a motivating factor for the guys up top. I want to make sure that I am working for a company that is helping the local communities, not explioting them. I also want to follow my interests, and not get stuck behind a desk for the rest of my professional life. I love the aspects of this job that include getting out there meeting people, travelling around Belize, being outside on the Farms but there are many thing about it that are getting me down. I wish I just knew one way or the other what the future holds..... I am feeling indecisive about everything. I wish someone could just tell me what to do for the best!

In the mean time....

1. Get a keyboard and practice my piano
2. Spend more time on my Spanish
3. Tutor Sherdrian
4. Write to my friends more
5. Paint
6. Grow some more plants
7. Volunteer on weekends
8. Make curtains for my house

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The Other Bolyen Girl

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:00:36 +0200

I loved the book. Not because it was inspirational or life changing (because it wasn't) but because it was the first book I had really read in this genre. I enjoyed learning about some of the vague history in the Tudor period. I don't really remember much of what I learnt in primary school about the Tudors, except that Henry had a lot of wives. I took this book as fictional because I had read so many reviews that it was inaccurate, but as fiction book it was an interesting story. I particularly liked Mary as a character and her story made me glad that my life isn’t controlled by my family to the extent that hers was. Several themes running through the book struck me, Power, Ambition, Spite, Greed..... Sounds similar to the world we are living in today! In the search for power, ambition, spite and greed, one ends up with nothing, as is shown by the characters of Anne and the King. However I like the fact that Mary choose love over everything and was prepared to deal with the life it brought.
Last night I got the DVD of the movie, a bar of chocolate and prepared to sit down and enjoy the movie, hopefully as much as I enjoyed the book. However disappointingly it was one of the worst films I've seen this year. The characters were portrayed weakly. The hatred and spite Anne showed to Mary in the book was hardly even shown. Huge chunks were missed out including the beheading at the beginning, the birth of Elizabeth, the series of unsuccessful pregnancies, the trip to the wise woman.... most of the good parts were omitted completely! I would recommend completely the book but not this film! It is a shame as this book could have been transformed into a great film.

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The Big Read

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:37:28 +0200

The National Endowment for the Arts has an initiative you may have heard of called the Big Read. According to the website, its purpose is to "restore reading to the center of American culture." They estimate that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.

Here's what you do:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list on your own blog.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - loved this in high school, but don't care for it now.
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - A. S. Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

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The things you want to say... but never do

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:38:09 +0200

Spent this morning browsing through this site looking at peoples blogs. Blogs are strange things, they seem to be full of things people want to say but can only bring themselves to type. Like me, I wanted to write diary, but a blog appeals to me more because I like the idea that someone is taking the time to read it, anyone, but maybe no-one. I read about a guy from New Delhi and the troubles he is going through and realised we share a passion for ripe mangos. I read about a 13 year old girl who was dreams about being an author. I read about a 32 year old guy in London who is debating over taking his children to church because as he put it " shouldn't they be enjoying lollipops and rainbows and not worrying about death and resurrection". Seems that everyone has some in common, no matter how small. The one post I read and thought about was by a young girl who wrote a sentence to each of the important people in her life, without putting their names. Why are we so scared to tell people how we really feel? I'm the same, there are things I would never say.

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Translation: Potlicker

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:30:56 +0200

Belizean Word for the Day: Potlicker!!

Belizean culture is very different to English culture when it comes it animals. Animals generally serve a purpose here, guard dog, hunting dog etc etc. People do not really have too much affection for them. Most dogs are kept outside, chained up or loose. Some of the animals look really maltreated but when you can hardly feed yourself how can you feed a dog too? I got the dogs off of a friend. He got them from the humane society as puppies. He had to leave and so needed someone to look after them, so I volunteered. I got sick and had to go home so the dogs were left at the farm where I work, I came back and it looked like they hadn't been fed. People think i'm soft because I couldn't bear to have them at the farm anymore, and the thought of taking them back to the humane society where they would get put down... well it wasn't an option for me. To cut a long story short they are now living in my yard, which is getting more and more like an animal shelter now with these 2 dogs and my 2 cats. Animals are living things, if you are going to make an animal dependant on you its a big commitment and it is not fair to leave the animal half way through. I can understand the culture here a bit more now and I get embarassed when I see pictures of dogs dressed up with diamonte collars and expensive suits. With so much poverty in the world couldn't that money be better spent? I love animals but sometimes I think people can be over the top in the way they treat them.

How to know if your dog is a potlicker;
It eats leftovers
It is a mix breed
It is skinny (maaga)
It eats anything from watermelon to pampers
It sleeps in the street and digs itself a little hole to lie in
It has a lot of puppies
It likes to spread garbage all over the yard
It spends its day roaming the streets but always comes home at night

My pups are pure bred potlickers, and I love them to bits. They took me on a walk around the field last night and went crazy, acting like real kids, yet every minute or so they would look around just to check that I am ok. They aren't pure bred 'posh' dogs like bulldog or german shepard but that doesnt matter to me. I do get some funny looks though. Here people are so concerned about what people think of them. Walking a potlicker is laughed at. People are ashamed of it! They are just Potlickers, worth nothing. But, I think I'll let them stare I will walk my cute dogs around the field and if anyone tries to attack me I know they will look after me!

Pot Licker (urbandictionary)
A derogatory reference to one's social status... esp. to one's status of being poor and/or starving. If you are poor you would "lick the bottom of the pot" for all of the scraps and leftovers to make sure to get the most out of it while if you were living in opulence you would not need "the bottom scraps" and thus those who were poor were pot lickers.

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Corruption

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:40:38 +0200

Sometimes these days it seems that money and power are more important than the truth. "In this time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act" (Unknown)

Who can you trust, if those who lead you are deceitful? Those in powerful positions have a responsibility, yet many choose to succumb to money and selfish desires. Conditions sometimes force them to choose themselves over others though many times it is just a desire to further themselves, at the expense of others, I wonder if the leaders even realise the effect their deceit has on those watching. A great leader is one who upholds the responsibility of their followers, who holds true to their principles. Who pays the price? It seems to me that those with little pay the price. Those in positions of power so often abuse it.

Extortion and corruption are everyday occurances in this country. One example is featured in todays newspaper.

"There are frequent reports of extortion of Chinese businessmen and today police have one culprit in hand, a health inspector, who was arrested and charged for the crime of Extortion on Friday. Forty-four year old Jerome Gill of the Indianville Area, Punta Gorda Town is accused of extorting money from Chinese businessman, twenty-nine year old Weijun Tan. Tan reported to Police that on August fifteenth, he was approached by Gill who threatened to close down his restaurant and revoke his food handler’s license if he did not hand over five hundred dollars. Tan took caution and gave him three hundred dollar bills with marked serial numbers and following rapid response by police, the money was quickly recovered."

As a Public Health Inspector Mr Gill had a responsibilty to complete his job as a service to the public. He abused his power to his own gain, ironically it ended up he lost out in the end. But then, is Mr Gill really to blame? In Belizes ecomony when everything is increasing in price who knows what kind of financial pressure Mr Gill was under, maybe he had a family to feed or medical bills to pay. When corruption is so ingraved into society is it the indiviuals fault that they conform to the same way of behaving?

Is it down to an individual to make the right decision?
Or can an individual ultimately only react to the way society conditions them?

It is often the harder road to live a "good life". You can earn $100 in a minute in a bad way, or hard work all day at an honest living for £35. Is it any wonder people resort to corrupt ways to get their money?

So who can you trust?

Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true.(Buddha)

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