Week Ten Text Blog Entry Eight - an article about my country in the international press

I'm sure you would have all seen the coverage last week on NZ TV of the British Queen's state visit to the US.

Here is a link to an article in the American press covering the visit and one from the British press. I choose these articles because I found George Bush's gaffe or slip of the tongue rather amusing. As he was recounting previous visits of the Queen, in particular the one in 1976 for the bicentennial celebrations for the country's founding, he nearly said she had been there then in 1776 for the Declaration of Independence, ageing her quite considerably! To his credit Bush acknowledged his mistake and managed to reedem himself by saying 'she gave me a look only a mother could give a child.'
The Queen got her own back later at a dinner at the British Embassy in Washington when she began her toast to the first couple by saying "I wondered whether I should start this toast by saying, 'When I was here in 1776,"

171 words including quotes

Week Nine Text blog Entry - Nalini's blog about the Waitakere Diploma Trip

I really enjoyed our Diploma trip because the students are such a nice bunch! We were lucky not to get wet at the Cascades, and because the sky looked so threatening we just went for a 5 minute walk to see a huge Kauri tree. For a picture of a Kauri tree which looks much bigger than the one we saw, click on this link: http://www.doc.govt.nz/upload/11698/te-matua-ngahere-223.jpg

I have provided a link instead of uploading a photo, because I found out this afternoon that we are not supposed to upload photos onto our blog unless they are our own photos!

Crystal Mountain was the next place we visited. You can find it by clicking here: http://www.crystalmountain.co.nz/

We saw many stunning pieces of crystal and rock, and a funny goat that came to eat lunch with us and scared Grace! I was delighted to try some food that my students gave me - a tasty pie from Nazi, something nice from Zainab which I think was a sort of curry in triangular pastry (I don't know what to call it), some colourful Korean sushi from Kay and some yummy food from Helen which I would call "a wrap" in English, although she probably has another name for it. Also, Margaret made some Afghan biscuits with icing and a walnut on top. In the end I didn't even have my own lunch because everybody kept giving me food and feeding me like the goat!!

I bought a pretty purple crystal inside a rock for just $5 (very cheap!) to give to our secretary because she loves things like that. Apparently the stone is called "agate". If you follow this link: http://www.crystalmountain.co.nz/ShowPage.aspx?page=7 you can see a picture on the left which has a group of gifts and includes a tall grey rock with purple in the middle. This looks like the one I bought for Joy.

Thanks for a wonderful trip!

Modern Manners and Etiquette

I came across this article in a foodie magazine which I subscribe to in my Bloglines account. It's about the new entertaining etiquette and how to be the perfect guest or the perfect host. There's an amusing little quiz you can do to find out which one you are. They both cover issues such as cell phones, gifts for the host, smoking.
Not many modal verbs in the article though!
The content for the article comes from a journalist called Leah Ingram who also has a blog where she advises on common everyday etiquette issues which seem to permeate every aspect of our lives from real estate to sending emails.

Week Six Text Blog Entry Four - a narrative or recount

Last week much of Northland and the Bay of Plenty was hit by severe rain and flooding. Four metres of rain fell in 24 hours!!
Here is a link to an article about a woman whose house was threatened by rapidly rising water from a stream usually 100m away from her house. By the end of the day the water was 20m from her back garden.
Most of the verb forms which explain what happened are in the past simple form. There are two examples of the past perfect simple.
The first one 'had been recorded' is past perfect passive and refers to the time before and up until the continuation of the 'weather warning'. The second one 'had escaped' is used in reported speech.

how to create links in your posts using google maps, wikipedia and flickr.
Here is a link to Unitec in google maps
Here is a link in wikipedia to Unitec
Here is a photo of unitec from flickr

Text Blog Portfolio - Task One - Week Three

Your first blog portfolio task is to write a short post (150 -200 words) about yourself.
Look at Mel's model on EAPL 5022 to help you. If you can, include a photo of yourself . If you do not have any digital photos of yourself tell your text teacher who will lend you the school's digital camera to take some photos.
Key information to include;

• where you come from. If you can try to find links on wikipedia to the village, town, suburb, city, area, region, province, where you come from. Also look at google maps (use the hybrid view and see if you can see your house!) Use the 'Link to this page' to provide a link to google maps in your post
• how long you've been in NZ, PR or citizen
  
• family, pets,
  
• job(s),
• other countries you've been to, lived in
• your interests or hobbies. Provide any links ( in English) which you think will explain more about your interests

When you have posted your first blog entry go and read some of your classmates' posts. Use your bloglines account to access your classmates blogs.