Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

What a moving portrayal of bullying in high school and the possible horrendous outcome. I was impressed how this was written to make your sympathies rise for the shooter and antagonism towards his victims.
There are no winners in this book and anyone who is a parent reading the novel will inevitably find it painful and at times, terrifying. My only fault is the slightly unexpected and not too convincing ending. But this has to be one of my favorite (if not my very favorite) Jodie Picoult novel thus far.
Check it out on Amazon.com by clicking the title above or on Amazon.co.uk by clicking here

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Fight Club for Five Year Olds - Part 2

The other mother and I went into the school to meet with the teacher and the assistant head. We both let them know how upset we were that we were not informed that our children were sent to the office and how much we were against the children being allowed to play fighting games on the playground. I told them I wouldn't allow it at home and I'm really unhappy that it's being allowed at school. They admitted it was a problem and explained that they are planning to introduce a a scheme to teach the children to play in a safe way. They will be calling it 'Super Hero Training'. They plan to give out capes & masks out to children who behave well as rewards at playtime. They will have assemblies where they will teach the children to play fighting games without making contact. I find this to be absurd. The problem has gone on to long and I doubt they will be able to teach little children to change their games when they have sixty other childr...

Attitude adjustment...

It's been a while since I blogged regularly. I guess I've been going by the rule - if you don't have anything nice to say - don't say anything at all. I hate 'woe is me' type entries and for the last month or so, I've been really down and haven't had anything good to say. I think it started with the news that Aniela (my fellow expat girlfriend) was moving back to the US and was exacerbated by the incident with Wayne's cousin and the flare up of my condition (along with a general feeling of homesickness & loneliness). I was really depressed for quite a few weeks there and haven't been doing much more than going to the gym and other random things to keep me busy during the day. I haven't even worked on my web classes (in any serious way) in weeks (probably because I can't concentrate when I'm in pain - never mind get very motivated). I'm not so down anymore. Maybe it's the sunshine. Maybe it's the fact that I'...

On speaking English...

I have had so many new visitors that are future expats that I thought it would be a good idea to offer some words of advise to those coming to live in the UK and learning to speak the language... One thing to keep in mind - Add the word 'Trousers' to your vocabulary to take the place of the word 'pants'. In the UK, 'pants' means 'underpants' and people look at you funny if you ask them if they like your new pants! Last week, I told my trainer that all my pants are too big for me and he seemed a bit confused on why I'd be so forthcoming with such information. Unfortunately, it wasn't until later that I realized what I said! There are a lot of words that take on new meaning when you come to England. You'll soon find out that you don't really speak English - you speak American and you'll soon finding yourself translating in your head before speaking. Examples: Hair - bangs are called fringe & braids are called plaits. Clothi...

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