Soz where have I been? Well, I had a super holiday sleeping mostly on the floor of my sister's and hanging out with her and my baby brother in the UK, watched the fireworks over the Thames on TV, watched endless reality TV and dull comedians... and went to my cousin's wedding in Wales - she was a gorgeous bride! Ate loads of Marmite and Branston Pickle and was dismayed by Cadbury's - hmm, perhaps too long in Europe with real chocolate... was relegated chief chef and fed my family, read lots and lots of throwaway-after-reading-don't-remember-their-names-novels, finally got around to seeing Inception (um, um, what was the fuss about exactly?) and also watched the entire four seasons of Heroes.
Sidebar: Hiro Nakumura was my favorite character so I was totally gutted when the love-of-his-life, Charlie got lost in the space-time continum by the very bad Butterfly Man a.k.a earthmover Samuel Sullivan - wasn't that just awful? Thought Claire terribly naive for coming out to the Brave New World about her superpowers - the world will never accept nor understand them, sigh, and of course wasn't completely convinced of Sylar's final act of goodness.
I mean evil is as evil is. N'est pas? Still, it was a great show...
So, um, aside from pure nothingness in my break (recharging batteries and creativity after 3 years of non-stop work), I've also been reflecting on what's on the agenda for 2011:
- Possibly beginning work on a new coursebook - yeah, dogme me... we'll see tho', so don't start calling me hypocrite just yet - at the moment I'm very much not happy with their offer.
- Started doing some consultancy work for Voxy - remember I wrote about them as being the most impressive mobile learning start-up around? Well, I'll be mainly advising them on the academic side as well as helping build brand awareness and also helping to develop the games aspect of the product. I'm so incredibly psyched to have the opportunity to work with a bunch of young and very tech-savvy entrepreneurs in an entirely new and radically developing area of educational technology - more about this later but in the meantime check out their new i-phone app!
- I've decided that I really must load up more of my SimplyConversationsTM conversation prompts directly on to this blog for free as my website is still down and I just don't seem to find the energy to set it up again!
- I've enrolled for the digital storytelling course with EVO and the Webheads and am very excited to be part of this and to participate in all the activities and learning! Oops, that'll mean homework!
- From next week on, when I'm officially finished with my "vacation," I'll be putting Business English in 5mins back into motion again and I'll also be back to working on my MyEC with the wonderful global students I work with there...as well as returning to face-to-face teaching.
- As much as I can, I also, knock-on-wood, still hope to blog 3 days a week... (Sundays for the SocialMedia stuff, Thursdays LessonTips/Plans & Tuesdays for the rest of my educational musings... except when I get distracted.. and it's also my number one resolution to comment much more too on other people's blogs as lately I've slipped into a pattern of reading and bookmarking them into delicous however, honestly, I really used to like all the global conversations with other teachers and miss the real discussions we used to have there!
- What else? Lemme see.. I'll be at Spain's TESOL (talking on From Ink to I-pads: motivation in language learning) and in the UK in April will be hosting IATEFL's first ELT blog symposium (featuring Tara Benwell, Berni Wall & Peter Ryley) - am very much looking forward to hooking up with you at one of these!
Hmm... there's probably more ahead, and heaps more on my tooooo-do list but in the meantime, let me wish you all a Happy New Year and I truly hope it brings you everything you want and need!!
Best,
Karenne
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I watched all of "Heroes" last Christmas break. And Hiro was my favorite, too. I really missed those characters afterward...
Sounds like a good year ahead, Karenne!
I get scared when I see that someone actually has a plan for their blog!
Health to your hands, as we say in Turkey.
Good to have you back on the block/blog, Karenne. I'm sure you'll fulfill all your goals and dreams.
All the very best in the New Year:-)
arjana
You have energy!
And "energy is eternal delight" as the English poet William Blake noted. Just reading your long list of activities and projects makes me wonder how you sustain just a vigorous agenda of creating, sharing, and teaching.
You go, girl, you go!
Thank you so much Arjana, Adam, Anne & Jo
Adam - yeah, I have a plan but I don't beat myself up when I can't meet a deadline i.e. if something takes longer than I'd thought, that sort of thing..
Jo, my life will never be the same :)
Love that quote, Eric - ta so much! Dunno, either... :)
Yay! I missed you. I was going to bug you with an email last week but then I thought...hmm I bet she is enjoying a much deserved break. Thanks so much for the update. It was fun to read. I guess the countdown begins until we meet in real life. Congrats on all of the new things you are involved in. Sounds like a very interesting 2011!
Yeah, I wondered as well what all the hype was about Inception...?
I'm glad you enjoyed your holidays, Karenne. It's VERY important to get some off time so that your on time remains constructive.
You've certainly cut your work out for yourself, Karenne! Don't forget a few breaks in between :-)
See you soon hopefully!
Claire