Posts by Jane Pearson
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I too want to thank the PA community for being there, as always but this week in particular. Your warmth, wit and wisdom have been touchstones for a time of dizzy reality and fear.
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My niece had been listed as a missing person yesterday early evening. Late last night, my sister was rung by the police to say they had spoken with her and she was okay. Huge relief for us all and a bouquet to the police.
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Following on from my earlier post, my sister has heard that someone saw her daughter outside the building after the quake so we have our fingers crossed that she is indeed okay. Many thanks for the warmth from PAS and we go to bed with Christchurch in our thoughts and hope that many more people are found safe and sound. These are sad days for my home town.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Russell Brown,
Thanks Russell for all the useful links which I have passed on to my sister. We had found that piece of information above which sadly is not particularly reassuring. We will just stand by and hope.
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It may be totally inappropriate to ask this here and apologies if so but does anyone know what has happened to the old Court buildings which I think are near the new court building. I have a niece who has just started working there as a researcher for the judges and we haven't heard from her. It's nervewracking waiting and wondering from far away and even too diffficult for those of the whanau in Chrsitchurch to get any news.
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I recently found two old $25 book vouchers for Whitcoulls lurking in an envelope in a drawer. As they had no expiry date I went to the local Whitcoulls to spend them. My initial search was unsuccessful but after much thought I came up with a book I could expect them to have. I asked a shop attendant to check their catalogue to see if the book was available and was told there was one copy for sale in the store. However both she and I could not find it on the shelf. Several days later I checked again. There was still one copy listed on their catalogue and still no sign of it on the shelf. On this occasion I was told that until that copy sold, no new copies would be sent from the distribution warehouse. As I remarked to the young man, there seemed to be a bit of a catch 22 to that possibility!
Fortunately I thought of another book that I could spend my vouchers on but I still have $15 on the gift card that I was given as change, which at the time seemed very reasonable.
In Nelson we have the independent Page and Blackmore Booksellers which is regularly full of people happily browsing through their wonderful range and getting the good service which goes with it.
I do use the Book Depository for children's books that have long been out of print but which they have available, I think through their own publishing list. And I have learned to look at the book descriptions to check on the book dimensions so that I don't discover I have bought a mini picture book.
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The New Scientist 31 July 2010 has an interview ("Climategate scientist breaks his silence") with scientist Phil Jones and pro-vice-chancellor of research Trevor Davies from University of East Anglia which discusses the email controversy at the Climate Research Unit and gives insight into how the situation arose. In addition there is a letter from Trevor Davies on Page 27.
Another short report on Page 5, "Climategate data sets to be made public", refers to the independent Muir Russell review that said the "difficulties of integrating information from emails and on the servers of the different institutions contributed to the accusations of malpractice at the centre of last November's climategate storm." Only this last short report is available in full on the New Scientist website unless perhaps you were accessing it though your local library.
All this is a bit beyond me and needs someone with the right sort of research and detective skills to track down how all this fits together.
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Thank you Russell for your post and to everyone for the discussion. And thank you to Tim Kong for his post explaining so well what it feels like to be a teacher caught up in this issue.
Back in December 2008 as a newcomer to PAS, I followed the discussion as Parliament debated national standards under urgency and I am thankful that we are again getting the in-depth comment and analysis that is needed to work out what is best for our students growing up in the 21st century.