Nuts'n'bolts chess set

What a beautiful chess set! Now if only I can find someone who'll make one for me…

Camp Rapture

Our church camp this year was again at Cape Hillsborough, with a theme this year of “Camp Rapture: Don't be left behind”. This time I had a decent tripod to take along, so I got some nice photos on the beach at night.

I also had another play with my interval timer, making a couple of sequences of dawn and sunrise.

QAMTAC '08

Last weekend (actually Thursday-Saturday) was the annual conference of the Queensland Association of Maths Teachers. I flew down to Brisbane to attend, missing the athletics carnival on the last two days of term.

The conference was held at UQ, based mainly in the Hawken Engineering building. The conference theme was “My Way or the Highway: Reflections on the Distance Travelled in Mathematics Education”. As well as three interesting keynote speeches, there were four elective sessions each day with no less than seven offerings each session—a real smorgasbord of workshops and seminars!

Casio offered us all a free graphics calculator! Not wanting to be out-done, TI began giving away their new multi-line scientific calculator too.

But for me the highlight of the conference was definitely the dinner on Friday night. This was in the Burke & Wills rooms at the Mercure in town. Not only did the chef feed me very well, it was a great night of fun and friends (my cold notwithstanding; I picked up a cold somewhere between Mackay and Brisbane, and it was fairly chilly, so by Saturday I was feeling rather unwell). And the band, made up of conference delegates, were simply fantastic! They played and sang beautifully.

More photos on Flickr.

One Movie …

Like Simone, I'm not that much of a movie person, but this looked like fun, so I'll give it a go.

1. One movie that made you laugh
Amelie

2. One movie that made you cry
It's a Wonderful Life

3. One movie you loved when you were a child
Star Wars (that would be what is now known as “Episode IV”)

4. One movie you’ve seen more than once
Run Lola Run

5. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it
Perhaps Shrek?

6. One movie you hated
The sequel to Clerks. (I hated it so much I didn't finish it.)

7. One movie that scared you
I don't watch scary movies. I was so scared by the opening sixty seconds (all I watched) of Aliens that I couldn't sleep! (Come on, I was a teenager at the time.)

8. One movie that bored you
Don't remember any (so boring I've forgotten them, I guess).

9. One movie that made you happy
Barfuß

10. One movie that made you miserable
In a manner of speaking: Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage

11. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see
I dunno about not brave enough. Not stupid enough perhaps…

12. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with
Laetitia
What? She isn't a movie character? Oh right. Well then, how about Cinderella in Ever After?

13. The last movie you saw
The Black Balloon

14. The next movie you hope to see
Something funny or moving.

15. Now tag five people: I tag Laetitia, Ruth, Allison, Scott, and you!