Strange Shores: edition number … heck – who’s counting?
Welcome to another blog carnival! The one – the only: Strange Shores! I do believe this is number five, but can’t be sure. I rely on my co-conspirator Paddy to keep count – at least until he runs out of fingers. Just in case you’re new to Strange Shores: this is a blog carnival where we take a look at the world from an ex-pat’s point of view.
As you can see from my photo, spring hasn’t actually got to Sweden yet. Luckily, we got a break from the headlines about snow when Princess Victoria, who will one day be the Queen of Sweden, announced her engagement (at last!) to a regular guy. PaddyK brings you the good news with his tongue in cheek. (Where else would it be? Wait a moment – don’t answer that!)
Someone else who suffered at the hands of the weather gods is the charming Louise of Carmine Superiore. This story shows that she and her family are made of sterner stuff than … say, sugar!
A new friend of mine is the very funny Honeypiehorse. (What is a honeypiehorse anyway?) She’s a Californian transplanted to the chillier climate of Bavaria. Here she takes a look at the four phases of the Oktoberfest – complete with photographic evidence.
Another American is Kelli, who lives in Denmark. She has just started working at Herning High School and this has given her the chance to ponder the differences between education in Texas and Denmark. This will give your little grey cells some food for thought!
An ex-expat is Expateek: an American who lived in Poland but has just moved back to the USA. Trying to give stuff to charity in Poland requires muscles of 
steel. One way of getting those muscles – or dying in the attempt – is to go to the gym. However, if you’re Po from South African visiting a gym in the UK, then anything can happen!
And talking of the unexpected, Brenda in Paraguay takes an entertaining look at driving in Paraguay. In fact, her story reminded me of living in Fiji: the driving there was so exuberant that the buses would drive up onto the pavement and chase us poor pedestrians!
By the way, what do you listen to when you’re riding public transport? This is what Planet Nomad has to say about the music of her adolescence…
Last but not least – my good self. This is how I get buns of steel... on my kick-ass sled! If that doesn’t work, then I just throw myself on the ground and have a good tantrum.
So, all you have to do my friends, is to sit back, grab a cup of your favourite beverage and enjoy these posts! They’ll be up for a few days so that you can always pop back now and then to savour these literary delights.
As for that three-faced horse – it’s been bugging me for weeks. I don’t see why I should be the only who is bugged by it: so here you are! Well, you know what they say about sharing a joy…
Forcing round holes to accept square pegs
This is a kind of rounding up of my ‘A funny thing happened to me at school’ theme week. You see, in some ways, I don’t think school has changed all that much since I was a kid in the 60s/70s. Of course, most teachers are a lot kinder and compassionate these days – but do they really teach things in a different way? Do they open up new worlds and perspectives and encourage kids to be creative … original?
I think that, unfortunately, kids still have to ‘learn’ the right answers at school. They have to fit in and regurgitate what they have read in books. School is still about forcing round holes to accept square pegs. If a child draws a purple apple, then the teacher will point out that apples are red or green – not purple.
Schools should be about imagination, poetry, dance and creativity as well as about maths, languages and science.
Luckily, creativity guru, Sir Ken Robinson, agrees with me. He claims that schools are educating us out of our creativity. That we are squandering the talents of our children.
Watch the TED talk he gave when you have 20 minutes to spare. You won’t be disappointed. He’ll make you think and he’ll make you laugh. This is one funny guy!
By the way, don’t you think he looks like the actor, Kenneth Branagh?
Who says what?