[en] A lovely phrase from a friend that came up in a conversation not long ago.
Au détour d’une conversation. C’est trop joli pour que je laisse passer.
Un corps n’est parfait que pour celui ou celle qui décide de lui offrir son coeur.
Kumquat
Month: November 2004
Blogsome: a WordPress Weblog Farm [en]
A hosted WordPress weblog provider just opened. I’m testing.
[fr] Blogsome est une solution hébergée fournissant à qui le désire un weblog WordPress en deux clics (moins d'une minute).
Check out Blogsome. It looks exciting. I’ve set up a test blog: enter a username, an e-mail address, your blog title, and there you are. 1 minute.
I’m very curious to see how this will scale, especially given my experiences with my school blogs. I’m also curious to see if they will release the code used.
If you’re trying it, please let me know what you think!
[via Ollie]
Chosen Spam Tidbits [en]
Some fun things spammers tried to leave in my comments.
[fr] Quelques commentaires, drôles à mon goût, que les spammeurs ont tenté de laisser sur ce blog.
Now that Spam Karma has been efficiently killing nearly 600 spams during the last 48 hours, here are a few chosen tidbits from the deletion log.
Your website is beautifully decorated and easily navigated. I have enjoyed visiting this site today and hope to visit many more times in the future.
- Easily navigated! Wow. Now that exceeds my expectations. I’m not certain I want you to visit many more times in future, though.
Thank you for opening a wonderfully new sight..I wish you the best of luck with your new venture.
- Er… thanks to you!
Good morning, I am new to this site. I have just learned about this site. I am going to read on and it’s very interesting to know
- Yes, I’m very glad to know that!
I put my step in to your guestbook like I always.
- Hope you didn’t break anything there.
I found your website after I have been surfing the internet to be useful.
- That sounds like a great way to make oneself useful.
Just stopped by to visit and got the crunch on your stuff in here – bravo!
- Did it taste nice?
Which one do you prefer? If you got fun spam lines too, post them in the comments.
Humour enseignant [fr]
Les enseignants comprendront. Petit gag tiré d’un échange véritable.
[en] A teacher's joke about what I'm reading now with my pupils.
– Et alors, vous lisez quoi avec vos élèves, en anglais?
– J’essaie de leur faire lire la consigne.
Correction cérébrale [fr]
Légère commotion cérébrale au judo vendredi. Quelques jours de repos s’imposent.
[en] Mild concussion at judo. Working this week hasn't helped. Seeing the doctor tomorrow and taking a few days rest.
Une “correction cérébrale” — voilà ce que j’ai dit à l’une de mes élèves hier, alors qu’elle me demandait si j’avais corrigé les tests de grammaire. Le pire c’est que je ne m’en suis absolument pas rendu compte.
“Zéro virgule zéro virgule zéro– euh… zéro virgule zéro zéro deux” — ça, c’était durant le cours de maths de la période d’avant.
Vendredi à l’entraînement de judo, alors que je me trouvais au sol après avoir effectué sur mon partenaire un magnifique tani-otoshi (technique que j’affectionne particulièrement), le ciel m’est soudainement tombé sur la tête. Autrement dit, un judoka voisin (pas celui avec lequel je pratiquais) m’a chuté lourdement sur le sommet du crâne.
Résultat: un occiput pas très content, et la boîte crânienne un peu malmenée.
Conséquences concrètes: un mal de tête persistant, de la difficulté à me concentrer, la nuque qui fait “bloc”, des absences, de petits trous de mémoire et troubles de la parole. Plus, bien entendu, l’effet “je me sens assommée” d’une légère commotion. Une fois que j’ai donné mes cours de la journée, je suis dans un état relativement moyen pour préparer mes cours, et surtout (à deux semaines de la fin de la période!) faire mes corrections.
La pile de papiers fait maintenant une dizaine de centimètres d’épaisseur, et malgré ma visite chez l’ostéo mardi, mon état ne s’améliore pas. Au contraire, il empire presque — à force de rester active et de courir dans tous les coins.
Les commotions, je commence à bien connaître. Celle-ci n’est pas très forte, mais le fait que j’aie travaillé toute cette semaine, et que je sois également fatiguée et stressée n’aide pas du tout. Quand je conduis, je me rends bien compte que je ne suis pas en état.
Il a fallu qu’on me pousse un peu (“ah non, la semaine prochaine ils ont plein de tests, je peux pas me faire remplacer, peut-être dans dix jours, ou bien en début de période prochaine?”) mais demain, médecin, et arrêt de travail de quelques jours.
Quick Comment Spam Tip for WordPress [en]
Here are the two plugins you need to fight comment spam using WordPress.
[fr] Deux plugins pour combattre le spam de commentaires sous WordPress: Kitten's Spaminator et Kitten's Spam Words. [Edit 03.12.2004] Ou plus simple, Spam Karma, que j'utilise à présent.
If you want a quick tip to protect your WordPress installation from comment spam, the killer plugin combination is Kitten’s Spaminator and Kitten’s Spam Words.
The second allows you to “delete as spam”, adding keywords and IPs to the filter, and the second gives “spam points” to new comments (ie, for words matching the filter, previous comment posted within the last x minutes, IP matching the filter), deleting those over a certain threshold directly, and queuing the others for moderation. It’s also smart enough to give bonus points if the commentor has already had comments posted on the blog.
Edit 04.12.2004: See the comment, I’m now using Spam Karma rather than the two plugins presented above.
Stress [en]
A few lines on the stressful life of an apprentice-teacher. Don’t tell me we don’t deserve our holidays. Ever. Again.
[fr] Un petit aperçu du stress de l'enseignant. Et qu'on ne vienne pas me dire qu'on se la coule douce, qu'on est trop payés, et qu'on ne mérite pas nos vacances.
I’ve been thinking a lot about stress this week. I’m pretty stressed these days. I didn’t feel the stress much before the autumn holidays. I just felt very tired. Now I’m much less tired, and much more stressed.
Even though my sources of stress are multiple (private and professional, emotional and simply the sheer amount of work to do) it translates into a permanent background of “thinking of my pupils.” I just can’t get them out of my head. I go to sleep thinking of them, I wake up in the morning dreaming of them, I worry about them during the day, and even when I try to relax, they just won’t leave me alone. I’m usually pretty good at “blanking out” and thinking of “nothing”, but it just doesn’t work anymore nowadays.
It doesn’t help that I don’t have much time to do non-school things. Most of the time I have out of school is spent correcting and marking tests, preparing tests and classes, or discussing various school issues (relational or directly educational) with various people (some of whom must really be sick of hearing about all this stuff by now). Oh, and sleeping. Did I meantion dreaming about school? To put it shortly, I’m finding it hard to unwind.
However, even though I’m having a hard (sometimes rough) time, I’m confident that I’m doing what is necessary to improve the situation, and that I’m handling it as best I can. I am surrounded by competent and helpful people, and that helps a lot. It won’t last forever, and things are under control.
Just don’t tell me that teachers do nothing but sit on their arse all day waiting for their undeservedly long holidays, and go on “strike” because they think they’re not being paid enough. It pisses me off ever so slightly.