h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There are so many differences between the educational systems in the US and in Britain. Very interesting. Don't suppose anyone wants to pick which one is more fouled up?

Hypatia -

I think we might even want to speak about whether the US & Britain have educational systems, or are they really in depth vocational training?

My idea of an education is a broad sweep of knowledge, including the arts and sciences. However it appears that starting in the upper grades 11+ there is more of a drive to find your major and just gather knowledge applicable to that narrow aspect of education.

Courtesy - JAVA Developer who enjoys History too

I could only offer my experiances as a survivor of the Slat Lake City school district. We can all see how well they taught me punctuation and grammar. Not to mention speeling.

and now for a slight topic change...

Last night I was sitting on the porch while chatting up a girl I am interested in. I was treated to a massive display of electrical pyrotechnics. Clouds were lighting up as if a flashbulb was just ignited within. Lightning crashing all about and a slow rumble that can hardly be called thunder as it did not cease.

It was an awesome sight.

oooooooh, marv!!!!! i must hear about this girl!!! alas, i do not yet have a computer at job #2, and there aren't really enough comps to go around in job #1, so i am stuck using the ones in the lobby of the student center (listening to the guy next to me read out loud to himself in a thick chinese accent... rather funny, really.)

got to go!

[c]

[]


Got extremely intense toothache.....had a temp filling yesterday and it's just got worse since then. It even hurts just to swallow. Got another appointment Fri am but don't know how I'll cope till then.

s Candi. How did this come on so quickly?

You have my sympathies Candi. Hope that you can make it to Friday with less pain.

Sea, nothing much to report as of yet. Will update as updates are required.

In answer to your question, Amy, I lost part of a filling a few months ago - I should have gone straight away to get it sorted, but last time I'd been to the dentist, he did one of my shallower fillings without anaesthetic - he told me it didn't hurt but it definitely did!

So that put me off going back to him, and for a while I had no pain with this tooth...I knew I needed to find a new dentist, but they're hard to come by if you're an NHS patient. It finally started hurting about a week ago, but apart from some lost sleep and intermittent pain, I could cope.

I managed to get a new dentist, and luckily got to see him quite quickly, but since he put the temp filling in, the pain has soared through the roof. Funny, because he examined it and cleaned it and took an x-ray and didn't seem to think I'd have any problems.....my original appointment for the proper filling was 12th November!

Lucky I got another cancellation so I can have it done on Friday!

Whoops! I went on a bit there, didn't I? But anyone who's had severe toothache knows how you can't think of anything else.....

apart from to say: Amy - how are your eyes now? I hope they're better.

Marv, with all the pyrotechniques are you sure you were just chatting?

Candi, sorry about the tooth.

Hypatia, I was indeed just chatting. We tend to gripe at eachother about our respective days. Me about my job and her about her schooling. She is in college at the moment, majoring in geography with a double minor of geology and teaching both subjects. She also happens to attend the one school in SLC that I *really* want to go to myself.

She is also the youngest girl I have ever dated (two dates thus far). It is a stretch for me as I am used to being with a girl a bit older than I. We will see where things go.

Giving away my age here, but I'm 25 years younger than my husband and we will have been married 30 years this December. And we actually still like each other. Go for it!

Well my soon to be 26 years are nothing of a secret about this place, but I am unused to dating someone who was in junior high when I graduated. The age difference is no more than my parents, but us yunguns note smaller differences in age more eadily I think.

*rolls eyes at the mention of the word "young'uns"*

Sorry to hear about your tooth, Candi. And now that I typed that, I noticed what an appropriate moniker you have for dental problems...

Back to the school system discussion--I am a product of US public schooling, which is much maligned these days. I must say, I don't remember overcrowded classes, uncaring teachers, or dumbed-down subject matter. Yes, I was in the Gifted and Talented Program (and you knew that was coming, didn't you? ) but all in all, if I ever have children I have no qualms putting them in public schools.

I just finished Mark Kurlansky's "Cod: The Biography of the Fish that Changed the World" last night and I would like someone to verify something I read. There was a discussion of Iceland and how commercial fishing brought that nation firmly into modern times at the beginning of the 20th Century. In mentioning various aspects of Icelandic culture, Kurlansky noted that Icelanders (Icelandii? Icelandians??) have no tradition of last names the way other Western nations do--no Smith, Jones, Schwartz, de Gaulle, whatever. Instead, he said, they take on their father's first name with an addition of -son for men and -dottir (daughter) for women. Thus, if you are John son of Erik, you are John Erikson or if you are say, oh, Bjork daughter of Gundar, you are Bjork Gundarsdottir. I know that this is the way many Scandinavians obtained their last names centuries ago--but you don't have the immediate connection between generations of Andersons or Johnsons the way Iceland apparently has to this day. Can anyone verify this?

[not here]

I've heard that, FG, with the exception that women take their mother's first name and add dottir to it, not their father's name.

for Candi and Amy.

Would love to hear the story of how you met your husband, Hypatia, if you feel inclined to tell it.

That's true. The younger you are, the greater the age difference seems. Gosh, I barely remember being 26. We were living in Tyler, Texas in those days. I thought I wanted to be a painter. Did a lot of landscapes and still lifes. I was pretty bad. That was also my political activist period. The rednecks really loved me.

[ili]
if she were here would mention good article about philip pullman in latest issue of Vanity Fair

Witty Moniker - that's one of my favorite names by the way - *thumbs up* - I met my husband in Jefferson City. I went to work for the Secretary of State when I finished college. I was the Assistant State Archivist. Anyway, my title was better than my perks and pay, so I decided I needed a part time job. My husband was the public relations manager for a resort at the Lake of the Ozarks and I went to work for him on weekends scheduling trips to the lake from Kansas City and St. Louis. It was Kismet. We must be soul mates, because there were so many reasons for us not to get married, that it should have been a disaster.

Hypatia, you sound remarkably like my godmother. Didn't go to school with any Hilles, did you?!

Public school....well, when I was in it, we had things like art and music and physical education every day, or at least once a week. My daughter, in one of the richest counties in the nation (not us, just the republicans who live in Newport Beach!), doesn't have art. She has music 6 times a year. And p.e. is basically recess. I'm all for paying teachers what they're worth, but the kids need attention too. I had to buy tissues and glue and even paper this year. I don't remember my mother buying me reams of plain white paper. And I remember using paste....some kids ate it.

Read that article, Lil, and I will be checking out his books the next time I'm at the public library. That and the Lemony Snicket series.

You should mention the PTA meeting time schedule, MR. I'm sure other parents here can feel your pain.

{[caer csd] The talk of downgrading made me go and check No2 son's results sheet and Film Studies, in which he should have got a better grade was also an OCR paper .

It costs £25 per remark, which is not a fortune compared to blighting future careers, he is happy with his History exam being questioned but is concerned at pushing his luck with the other one. Also I think the cut off date has just past.

I have seen a clip from the new Harry Potter trailer, looks good so far.

Candi, I'm sorry to hear about your toothache, mine are coming out in sympathy now! But I always get toothache before a holiday, its psychosynethetic (I know the word I want, just can't spell it )

Hypatia, my husband and I are opposites too, I have no idea how or why we work as a relationship. When he tries to analyse it I tell him not to, if it isn't broken don't try to mend it. }