Summer Plans

Places they are going to / would like to visit
People they are going to / would like to be with in summer
Activities they are thinking of being part of
If they are planning to work/study in summer

240 words

Hello there again everyone!

So today I will be talking about my plans for the summer vacation. 

I think that this summer I would like to go somewhere in the countryside. Probably the South of Chile. Enjoy a little tranquility, lots of lamb and a few glasses of beer or wine (only for the digestion of course). I actually don't have anywhere specific in my mind. Maybe I will just get on a bus and see where it takes me. Something like that. It could be very beautiful and interesting. It could also be the story of a horror movie!!!

Of course, as with every day there are people I would love to be with. Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman maybe, but I doubt that will happen, so I'll probably spend some time with good friends. Maybe even make some new friends, who knows?

Mostly, I will probably go to the South of Chile and teach children from rural communities for a little while. I think it will be a great, fun experience.

The rest of the time I will continue to work on personal projects. Writing reports and analyzing data. It probably sounds boring to many of you, but it's really not so bad when it's something you decide to do and create yourself.

So that's it guys. Tell me what it is you think you will do or would like to do and let's see if it is more interesting than my plans. I hope so!!!

Best as always,
Andy

A Photograph I Like

This photograph was taken by one of my students of PENTA at La Catolica. It shows me with some of my best students in the class that I have known for around 4 years. It was taken on Saturday, two weeks ago. 

I like it mostly for sentimental reasons. I have been teaching on the course for almost 7 years and I have watched my students develop over these years from children to young adults. The students in the photograph have become my friends over this time and I have helped them many times with different personal questions and problems.

Also, this photograph is important to me as this was my last class ever on the course, as I decided to leave to focus on other work. It was a very emotional time for everyone and I will miss them all very much, but obviously I will stay in contact and help them in any way I can for the rest of their lives.

What would I do if I won the Lottery?

Hello again everyone!

Today I would like to talk about what I would do if I won the lottery. When I say lottery, lets guess that it would be around 10 million dollars. Nothing too huge, but significant.

I think that if I had this financial stability, I would probably live a very simple life. Maybe I could but a boat. Nothing huge, but big enough to live on comfortably. I would hire a small crew who could sail and cook and clean (so I didn't have to!), then I would slowly travel around the world. I would like, with time, to visit as many different countries as I could. I could experience each different culture until I wanted a change. Then I could just go back to the boat and sail on to the next place.

Of course, I may find a place where I could live forever, but that's all part of the excitement. You never know what could be found in the next place.

Then again, I may never want to settle down. I don't think that would be a bad thing. I could happily spend my life sailing the oceans and going from country to country on different adventures, every day something interesting and new. Finding hidden islands and meeting people of different places that would be impossible to reach by public travel.

It could be a truly fascinating life. Of course, first I need to play the lottery, but it never hurts to dream.

My future job

Hello again ladies and gentlemen.

Today I will be talking about what job I will have in the future.

Possibly in the future I would like have my own educational research and development business. I can imagine it would be a job full of meetings with interesting and intelligent people. I also imagine it being filled with interesting problems to solve and questions to answer, relating to how you can improve and accelerate educational functionality.

Of course it would most probably be indoors. Most likely in an office, but hopefully a nice one with a great location and beautiful view.

I would love to travel in this job. I would visit many countries throughout the world to investigate the different ways people teach and learn and use this to make many future developments to help everyone internationally, regardless of money or social status.

A lot of the reason for this is that I have studied many different areas of both psychology and education in my lifetime and this has given me a great interest in different ways people use to enhance learning and help people to improve their future possibilities.

I feel that is a great way to minimise the gap in opportunity between people of different cultures and social levels, giving all the best opportunity possible.

Post 2 (Week 4) - The Best Concert I've Ever Been To

There are many concerts I have loved, but I think that probably one of the best concerts I have ever been to was At The Drive In when they played in Manchester. It was so long ago I don't quite remember, but I think it was 2000.

At the Drive-In was an American post-hardcore band from El Paso, Texas, formed in 1993. The band is considered as one of the most influential post-hardcore acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s  Most people these days probably remember them best for being the band that gave birth to The Mars Volta and all subsequent projects.

The atmosphere was electric. The main thing I remember were many signs all around the venue saying that 'mosh pits' were not allowed. At the beginning of the concert, I didn't quite know why.

When the concert started I realised why! Everyone was instantly energised and the audience erupted in adrenaline fueled madness!

I loved it, not only because of the music, also the acrobatics of Cedric Bixler, the singer, as he climbed the speakers to at least 15 feet up, before throwing his microphone, then himself into the air. Madness! 

Sadly, they split up soon after, but in different projects continue to produce good music to this day.

Andrew Higham's Blog: POST 1 (Week 3) >> A COUNTRY I'D LIKE TO VISIT

Hello everyone! In today's post I will write about a country I would like to visit.
 I've always wanted to go to India. I think it's because I love the architecture,
food and history. I am very impressed by how the country has evolved over time, constantly changing in many ways, but staying the same in others. I am also interested in the advancements in the technology that have been made.

When I finally go there, I'm sure that the first thing I will do is eat a huge curry. I think that if I stay there a long time I will get very fat, but very happy! Second, I will visit all the wonderful architecture and learn as much as possible about the rich cultural history of the country.

I would love to possibly live there for a while, but this could be more difficult than many countries, as English is taught in schools. Maybe I could look for jobs as a psychologist? If I could do this I would have more time to travel around the country and try food at every possible opportunity.

Hopefully I will make it to India some day. For this moment I will have to be satisfied with my recipe books!
..

A TV Programme I Saw As A child

Write about a TV programme you saw as a child.

Say;

What it was called,

What it was about,

How often you watched it,

Why you enjoyed it.

Write at least 200 words. Leave a comment on your teacher's blog & on the blogs of at least 3 classmates.

Probably one of my favourite television programmes I saw as a child was called 'Monkey'.

It was about a monkey God who was thrown out of Heaven because he caused too much trouble. Because of this he was imprisoned in a mountain until he was set free by a Buddhist monk called Tripitaka. He then had to help Tripitaka go on a pilgrimage from China to fetch holy scriptures.

However, he was not alone and took with him two other people that had been thrown out of heaven also. These were Sandy, a water monster and Pigsy, a pig monster. Together, they helped Tripitaka on her journey and would fight many extreme monsters along the way.

I would watch this show every week without fail, even if it cost me time when I should have been doing homework!!

I enjoyed it because it was filled with action, strange creatures and lots of humour. It also had a moral message to every episode and also always had a moral message to share that was very interesting, especially to someone young. 

A truly classic piece of television history and interesting to watch something from Asia, years before the explosion of Animated series.

Have you had a good semester?

Hello again ladies and gentlemen. Today we will talk about this semester and how it has been.

This semester has been a very good one. It is the second semester, after 6 years of research and spending every day alone in an office, I decided to return to teaching.

Obviously at first this was a challenge, as it had been a while since I had taught full time. However, this is not always a bad thing and actually worked out very well. I have met many new people and discovered many new places.

However, if everything were perfectly this would be a romantic comedy, not reality. There hasn't actually been anything terrible, but probably the worst thing is changing from a job at a place with a reliable, regular salary, to a little more financial insecurity. Don't get me wrong, it is still not a problem to go to a nice restaurant when I want to, but payment is not always as regular as maybe would be preferred. Not the end of the world though.

Well, probably the biggest achievement so far has been finally finishing the design of my algorithms that I've been working on for quite a while. One less thing to do, but obviously when one thing is finished, there are always a hundred more appear!

Basically that is it so far, but there are a few more weeks to go, so lets see what happens before the end of the semester. Fingers crossed it is all good.

Post 5 - A Photograph I like

This photograph was taken by one of my students of PENTA at La Catolica. It shows me with some of my best students in the class that I have known for around 4 years. It was taken on Saturday, two weeks ago. 

I like it mostly for sentimental reasons. I have been teaching on the course for almost 7 years and I have watched my students develop over these years from children to young adults. The students in the photograph have become my friends over this time and I have helped them many times with different personal questions and problems.

Also, this photograph is important to me as this was my last class ever on the course, as I decided to leave to focus on other work. It was a very emotional time for everyone and I will miss them all very much, but obviously I will stay in contact and help them in any way I can for the rest of their lives.

21/04/15 - Post 4 My Favourite Piece of Technology

Hello again boys and girls!

Today I will tell you about my favourite piece of technology. Well, more machine but something that changed my life.

Many, many years ago, before cellphones or even most PCs, when wolves walked the streets at night and people would hunt with rocks and spears ....................... (only joking!).

Anyway, a long time ago when I was 13 years old I had the chance to buy my first car, a shiny red VW Golf. Now as I'm sure you know, I was not old enough to drive at the time, but it was the idea of my Engineer father that I must know how these machines worked.

Sadly, due to my age I didn't have many opportunities to use it as expected, but more to study, take apart and put back together. This resulted in many hours of 'fun' (cuts, bruises and some victory!).

I liked it as it started my following career as a car mechanic, well, more restorations than mechanics, but this introduced me to a new subculture of people and allowed me an interesting way to make some money, even when at university.

I think that without it, life would have been different, as from this I developed an understanding of how systems work and was certainly an influence on my later career as a psychologist. I don't have or need a car anymore, but I will always have an understanding and appreciation for these machines.

14/0415 - Post 3 - My Favourite Living Artist

Hello again everyone!

Today I'm going to talk about my favourite artist. Obviously for many of you this is a difficult and diverse area.

Why is this so difficult? Well, first you must define art. Is it based in the visual, the physical, the auditory, the spatial, the culinary, the spiritual even. These and more can be considered art. Possibly even life itself could be considered a form of art.

However, just for today we will talk about my favourite contemporary artist living today.

From those living today, I would have to choose the work of Kevin Dalton Johnson to be my favourite, as to me it combines form, texture, history and passion to create fantastic sculptures depicting a multitude of emotions and expressions.

However, it is not only the art, but the artist himself to whom I pay tribute, being possibly one of the greatest influences on my life, not only for my appreciation of form, but my understanding of all people and things, regardless of who they may be or what they may do.

For this I will be eternally grateful.

07/04/2015 Post 2 > Expectations for a New Semester

Hi again everyone!

This term I am mostly doing English, as it is my favourite subject.

I am not taking many extracurricular activities, but maybe literature and some art. Hopefully I will also have the time to do some sport.

At university, I am also a part of, some other activities. The most important additional activities I do are working with children with high intelligence from low socio-economic groups. This is always a very rewarding activity.

I am hoping that this new academic period brings lots of surprises and challenges for me to enjoy. Every semester so far has been better than the last one and I hope that this continues into the future and maybe even for as long as possible.

31/03/15 - Post 1 - A Country I'd Like to Visit

Hello everyone! In today's post I will write about a country I would like to visit.
 
I've always wanted to go to Thailand. I think it's most probably because I like the idea of relaxing on the beach eating delicious food and exploring interesting history. I am also interested in the strong cultural identity the inhabitants have but also the contrast of Western influence.

If I ever manage to go there, I'm sure that the first thing I will do is eat a lot of food! I think that I cannot stay there a long time or I may never leave, but I will be extremely happy! I will also visit all the wonderful hidden treasures and learn as much as possible about the rich history of the country.

I would love to possibly live there for a while, but this could be more difficult than many countries, as English is not a well paid occupation. Maybe I could look for alternative jobs? Hopefully I would have time to travel around the country and experience as much of the culture as I possibly can.

Hopefully I will make it there one day. For the moment I will have to be happy dreaming of visiting this truly spectacular part of the world.