Phlog phonecasting

Auf wiedersehen teacher!

Before...

After...

James, you were so popular, the paparazzi couldn't get enough of you...
James, your students and colleagues will all miss you! Aufwiedersehen und alles Gute!!!

Farewells and memories

Exchange of memories...

Exchange of contact details...

Fahoody!!!

Better than winning the lottery...

Our fabulous triumvirate

We will all miss you!

The compere, comparing notes...

Bird's eye view...

The crowd awaits...

Farewells

Museum of Bristol update

Museum of Bristol work continues...

Bristol's historic dockside cargo cranes will once again be brought back to life when a restoration project re-starts this month. Hoardings have come down in front of the development of the new Museum of Bristol to allow Museum staff and volunteers access to the cranes which have stood still for the last two years.

Work on the cranes will continue the restoration process begun years ago and will involve full cleaning - including the removal of the resident pigeons which have made the cranes their home.
New volunteers are always welcome to help, and they are looking for people to join the friendly team to help look after big working exhibits, including the cranes, steam train and boats. Anyone interested in volunteering should contact Bristol City Council.

The new Museum will open in 2011. For more information visit: www.bristol.gov.uk/museums

Updates from our ASECNA students

Here is a collection of recently received updates from our former ASECNA students. Thank you very much, ASECNA, and we miss you and wish you the best of success!

My trip back home to Cameroon was fine despite a delay on departure from paris
to Douala due to loading operations. i was so glad to be back again in our hot
weather. hey, it's summer!bristol is surely looking different now. you know,i
haven't experienced such coldness in my life before i went to bristol.

I'm trying to use all the OISE school had given us as background in english
in my job with satisfaction.I'd like to thank you once more for all you have
done for us during our training. I hope that we will have an ocasion to meet
again.All the best for the OISE School.

I am very well and i hope and wish the same for you; bests greetings
to ANNA and i hope she is well;

I wish to you best things and specially to Anna Adriana Christine Isobelle
Mr Gaik and your neiboord and all workers .

Hello to you and to all the teachers at OISE Bristol school especially to
Anna.
My family and I are really well here in Cotonou.

After OISE school, I was very Busy with many meetings on ASECNA air space
reorganisation, and many job at office. internet also does not work correcly in
Malabo, so for these reasons I was not so frequent with you, I beg your pardon
for that.
All my family is with me in Malabo only for one month, and I will
start my hollydays on september, and return with them to Libreville. My English
course at OISE has been very benefit in my job, I continue to apreciate the
sweet fruit of the hard work of one month passed at your beautiful School.
Special love to you all, Particulary to you ZOE, ANNA, PETER, LEON, CRAIG,
ADRIANA...., and my host family!
GOD bless you all for ever!...

Hello to all the teachers as Anna, Adrianna and especially Isobell who was
my guide during the London day.
Thank you very much

I'm doing well here even if we are so busy due to Air Traffic Controllers
shortage!
I miss you too,and Great Anna,Adrianna,Graig,Peter Gins,Joanna and
big hug to all of you.

You are a such a wonderfull person that i wish to be hard worker as you
are.Thank you once more and let's say keep in touch.

I continue learning english in American language center et my level is
advenced 2 level6. my final exams are succeful so I 'll start level7 very soon
but OISE gave me the taste to learn more English. Pleased to God I'll go to
France (ENAC) for my masters in satellite based communication navigation
and surveillance in civil aviation domain oviously.Congratulation to your
staff(Leon, Anna,Tony, Peter, Rachel,Joanna) I can not forget rom4.

I really miss you guys and cannot help but keep the hope alive that one day
we'll be back in Bristol again for some other happy moments.
Please send my
best regards to all the teachers out there but especially Anna, Peter, Jo, Leon
and Rachel (I miss our tutorials). Special thanks to Rick, Allan and Jo for
their time taking us to London and Bath...

I am not so bad now in Dakar and my family went on holidays in Ouagadougou for
two months last Monday. Maybe I will join them at the end of this month of
august.

Do you want to know about what i'm doing now ?Well, I'm spending sleepless
nights designing a website for my school. When it will be ready, I'll give you
the adress.Just in case you don't know, i'm preparing a master degree in
computer science, and we are in holidays (school holidays, not asecna's).Let's
keep in touch !

Childhood obesity

Nowadays, it is needless to say that childhood obesity is a worrying issue for European countries. Overall, causes are not only behavioural; but also psychological. Therefore the root of the problem has to be addressed, so that during childhood: it should be nipped in the bud!

First of all, the behaviour of parents towards their children has to change. For example, giving pills such as amphetamines based preparations in a diet purpose is dangerous for children owing to the fact that they become addicted to this 'medicine'. Thus if they stop taking it, they return again to overweight. This is due to the fact that people doesn't know that all children have puppy fat. To sum up parents have to be more careful. They would propose exercise and an appropriate diet instead of medicine in order to tackle childhood obesity.

However the problem comes by the children together, such as the jibs or bullying for fat children. One way to fix this is to implement prevention measures in school about this problem. Obese children suffer from social isolation and a lot of phuysical consequences like diabetes, digestion problem, heart disease and so on. Therefore obesity is a disease and children should be aware of this.

All in all, I think that the moot point is the lack of prevention for children and parents about childhood obesity i.e. advertising to practice more sports.

Author: Arnaud Lessard (NOT the child in the picture)

Ashton Court Balloon Fiesta & Red Arrows

Escape From Fluency: Visit to the Photographic Exhibition 'Exposure'

There are usually only two reasons for finding myself in the old part ofhte city on Corn Street. To me it is famous either for the finest dining experience at San Carlo Restaurant. Followed by a £200 bill or for an adorable bookshop called Stanfords. But this time it was none of these reasons. Turning into a small alley we were advised to keep our mouths closed due to the high risk of swallowing small insects that inhabit this alley. Its other remarkable feature is the double yellow lines on each side, regardless of the fact that you can hardly manage to ride a bike there.

Eventually, we arrived at our final destination feeling very excited. The room where the exhibition was held was very bright and spacious. On the walls, the artwork, which was made by the photographers who had finished a two-year foundation course, was ready to be exposed to the outside world.

Each of them had a display of around six to twelve pieces. All had different styles, messages and feelings. The art sometimes could be about viewers' creativity - what they can see behind a simple image of a flower or a wall of bricks. The first photographs that I caught sight of were by a Ukranian woman called Olena Wills. In her work you could see a nude woman who was just about to eat a raw piece of meat. Another image is of another nude pictured from behind and was covered with printed flowers. There was a real magnifying glass attached in case you wanted to enlarge her stunningly beautiful backside or paintings.

Other eye-catching images with slightly different nature were called Broken Dolls, comprising divine gold frames, girls with make-up like dolls and old newspaper backgrounds. Those works particularly impressed me so that I even wanted to buy one of them, but the prices for the images were exorbitant (that's for you, Peter), which immediately put me off. Rachel Wall's work was also fabulous. Energetic Brazilian dancers with rather impressive breasts were key features of her work, 'Capturing', as she says, 'moments of joy and happiness or sadness in our lives'. She also had a series of landscape images, enhanced with Photoshop. Well done to you, Rachel.

The overall feeling was excellent. Some of the pieces have great potential. So, people, keep doing what you are doing and you will definitely succeed.

P.S. The impression could have been even better with a glass of wine offered upon entrance.

Bristol Harbour Festival 2009

If you weren't in Bristol this time to experience the Harbour Festival, you might want to come next year. Our favourite is the firework display.

Heatwave Leaving Ceremony - July 31st

Men and Women which differences?

Some people are under the impression that men and women speak different languages, which leads to unconscious conflicts and misunderstandings between the two genders. It is also estimated that during working hours, people spend 70% of the time on communication, and 30% of it is talking. Those reasons make understanding communication appropriately so crucial. The way men and women communicate differently results from both nature and nuture. Different genetic brain structure and hormones indeed cause different behaviour. However, physical influences are much weaker than environmental ones. It is estimated that 99% come from the latter. The most significant example could be illustrated by different stereotypical activities in childhood.

Role playing plays an importnat part of a girl's childhood, which results in the collaboration-oriented communication style on females; while boys' activities in playing the Lego, robots, cars and other work-oriented games contribute to a more competitive, aggressive communication style. In addition, because of traditional gender values, ways parents behave towards and talk to their different gender children are also various. Mothers tend to be more controlling whilst fathers usually provide advice and supportive messages.

Referring to what was mentioned above, communication difference in gender are mainly caused by childhood experiences and stereotypical social assumptions. If people can provide a great diversity of no-gender-oriented activities for children, this may help to tackle gender difference problems in adults. Only when differences between men and women are not contentious, then every one can find out the best balanced way to communicate.

Author: Ting-Yen Tsai

Image credit: http://www.thomasthecoach.com/blog/

Letter of Complaint

Dear Mr Cabas

Last week I chose your restaurant to celebrate my birthday, my purpose was to enjoy a succulent meal but probably I was expecting too much.

It took about a century until the waitress came to us so I could not wait more for my paella, but what was put in front of me cannot be described as restaurant food by anybody. Looking at the menu my vision was a tasteful dish of paella, but, unfortunately, I got an amount of totally insipid rice with some pieces of rubbery and underdone meat that was impossible for me to guess from what kind of animal it came.

Finally, I finished that experiment of paella and I asked fo rmy dessert. My hope was to forget the experience by tasting sweet fruit, but it turned out to be horrible. It was like the MRE's I had to wolf down during my training in the army. I cannot understand how anybody can cook food even worse than the food of the MRE's.

Have you thought about making a deal with the army? Today I do not know how I was able to pay for that meal, but now I urge you to refund me my money.

Yours sincerely,

Miguel Carras Miguez

Guess Who?

Congratulations!

Waiting for our names to be called

Professional camera angles

(Audio disabled)

Eek! I've got something in my eye!

Where's my fan club?

Here it is!

Wii R apart!

Huh! Take that!

Listening to our latest podcast...

Can't you hear what I'm saying - that's THREE planes on my runway!!!

Baby Face big guy says 'I didn't do it!'

Swine flu precautionary measures - wear a ball on your nose!

Host family gardens

Now is the time of year that English gardens are looking at their best. British people take a lot of pride in their gardens, and many people spend many hours cultivating plants and mowing lawns. Here are some photos from one student's host family's garden. Such beautiful colour!