Marlboro's New Tactic

So I understand why governments made cigarette packets put disgusting images of what happens when you smoke.  I am wondering how Marlboro explained this image, not sure a healthy apple can ever compete with a tumour on a man's throat (ahhh.. maybe that is the strategy, it will not make a good top trump card for the kids..).

When they started putting images on the packets as a  deterrent for teenagers,
some at my school would cut out the images and play top trumps.  They all wanted
the packet with the dead body, this one would be a disaster for them to buy..

Reds 24 - Greens 6

Now as most know I am not overly competitive and it is not all about winning (which was very lucky if you were on the green team, as if my Maths are correct the red team quadrupled you).  Anyways, even with the greens teams massive defeat, I think all enjoyed our first game of American football (any guesses to which team I was on ;) )

Living on the Edge, Lola in the park...(to understand read eariler blogs)

Planning the Red teams winning strategy

Red teams strong defence ready to stomp on green team

A&L Swiss B&B Busy Busy

A&L Swiss B&B had a very busy weekend with Chris (friend from UK) as our guest.  We had a lovely time showing him the Swiss sights and working on his liver damage (that started deteriorating after his 10 weeks living in Bruton).  We are full up again this weekend and looking like a busy beginning to 2012, so get your bookings in!

No trip complete without a day in the mountains

Out on the town, Christmas lights all turned on (more later..)

Our guest

Figured as he is Irish, he probably came all this way to end up in an Irish pub!

Our First Frost :( ...and the Count Down to Barbados Begins :)

Just because she is so cute

Rubber Bands for Brains

Today we had an inset (staff development day) at school, which are usually a combination of department meetings and presentations given to make us more effective teachers, and to be honest most of the presentations I have seen I cannot really even remember and do not always take away too much. This morning we had a presentation by Dr. JoAnn Deak about the make up of our brains and how they evolve and change over time. It was fantastic and I will bring a lot of what i learnt today not only into the class room but hopefully my own life. She was a brilliant lecturer who only gave us absolute facts and not her opinions. I think that many people could benefit from hearing the amazing development of our brains, especially people with children under 20 (or if you are under 20). I do not wish to preach on my blog so will not go into great detail, will leave that up to you to look into if interested. Just a couple of facts I learnt:
- our brains are effectively made up of rubber bands, and each of us are born with bands of all different sizes. For instance my 'maths' band, was probably, at birth much bigger than my 'musical' band. This does not mean I could not have been musical, but I would have had to 'stretch' (practicing very hard and often) the music band mainly before 20. I clearly did not stretch this band enough (along with the band that makes one organised and tidy).
- our brains are not fully formed till we are 40, so still some time for me (can still stretch bands after this but increasingly harder, so Dad would not worry about not having the cleaning gene anymore ;) )
- children exposed to different languages before 8, have a much better chance of being able to speak those languages (making learning German a difficult task, but not impossible as i am many many years from 40)
- and she is an expert on self esteem and the brain (possibly explaning why I  check my stats on this blog one hundred times a day ;) )
Anyways, some really great stuff, very interesting, so if you have a moment look her up.

Yummy! Yummy!

So I am the luckiest teacher in the school to have Ellie in my class.  She presented me with these yummy yummy treats yesterday.  Her blog is so wonderful and I am sure she would appreciate a little look from all of you (for her personal project), and also may encourage her to bring me more treats!
http://elisa-scratchbaking.blogspot.com/2011/11/cake-pops.html?showComment=1321871738686#c2883633163096570535

The Inquiziters, a Disappointing Result

Who knows what it was, the missing William, the pressure of another school team competing or possibly the boozy lunch (seems most likely), but the Inquiziters gave a dispapointing performance in last nights quiz.  I would not even like to mention where we finished (no not last).
However, as most people know I am not competitive at all so this has not bothered me one bit, and I slept fine, and I am not over tired now due to any nightmares all night about it.
See if you can do better:

Bubbly Musical Sunday

Maria hosted a yummy Sunday musical (all there were musically inclined) bubbly brunch, in honour of her lovely friend Gariella who was visiting from Romania.  The food was fabulous, bubbles yummy, and the music was performed magically. 
Now those who know me well may wonder how I got invited to such an event as I a) cannot play an instrument b) turn a tune to save my life, well my job was to be in the audience and drink the bubbles, both jobs I feel I excelled at.

Beautiful Gabriella

The musicians

William be for he fell out of favour for letting the inquiziters down!

My own veggie lasanga, made just for me

It's Ladies Night

An end to a perfect day, yummy sushi, fabulous bar, lovely ladies.

Row Row Row Your Boat

Saturday afternoon I went to watch Patrick's team (they came second) in the Basel Head on the Rhine.  It was such a beautiful sunny day and great to watch.  One week the opera, now a rowing competition, I am becoming so well rounded!

Fernanda Brazil

One of the really nice things about living and working here is meeting so many people from all over the world, both pupils and teachers.  Just the new staff members and partners this year cover the US, Canada, UK, Mexico, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Romania and now we can add Brazil to the list.    Last night I had a lovely evening with the newest member to the ISB community, Fernanda Brazil (not to be confused with Fernanda US/Mexico, who has been here since the beginning).  Fernanda Brazil moved here just over a month ago, after getting married in October break.  Very happy to have her here, not only is she a lovely person but maybe I can finally get South America on my map, and I have always wanted to go to Carnival ;) !

Bit of a Morning Ramble

So like most places or cultures there are many stereotypes about Switzerland and the Swiss.  I was warned when I was moving here that I may be a bit bored and that the Swiss may be a bit straight and unable to let loose.  Well this morning I was thrilled to see this tram go by, any place that has porky pig made into a tram must be able to have a bit of a laugh (now I just need to make a Swiss friend to prove this!).  Either way put a smile on my face during my cold (and getting colder) morning walk :).

Saturday Night

Okay, so lots of people made guesses, and two got it eventually (one person was very disappointed as think he thought it was far more 'interesting').  For those of you who know me very well, most 'cultural' experiences involve tasting wine and possibly (actually can honestly not think of something else!).  Anyways, branching out, so went to the Opera on Saturday night with some friends.  It was in Czech, but subtitles in German (like that helped), so did not really have a clue what was going on.  But got champers at half time (intermission, I think is probably right terminology) and actually thought the music was lovely.

No More Smelling :)

On our walk this morning, Lola was completely devastated to see these all over the streets.  What was she meant to stop and smell every 2 seconds, what reason would she have now to get mummy out of bed at 4am?   I, on the other hand was thrilled, we had our first proper (not stopping every second leaf) walk in weeks :) 

I did wonder how long the Swiss would allow the leaves to line the streets.

My Saturday Night

So here are pictures from my adventure Saturday night, I really never thought I would end up at one of these, but enjoyed it :)

Not that me drinking bubbly is really any clue!

Lordy Lordy, Guess Whose Forty! (and a mystery!)

Happy Happy Birthday to Lola!  She has had a wonderful day full of doggie cake, walks and pressies.  She is now fast a sleep after her busy day and mummy is getting ready to go out.  And I bet if I gave all one thousand guesses of where I am going, no one would ever guess...!!

Yummy Treats!

I have been very lucky this year to have a Grade 10 girl who has not only chosen to do a bakery blog for her personal project (IB major project) but also to share her yummy goods with my grade 10 class (well may not be too great as trying to fit into some bikinis for Christmas!).  Either way Ellie has made everyone look forward to double Maths (I tried to pretend it was my teaching, but who is kidding who!).  Have a look to get some great ideas!

http://elisa-scratchbaking.blogspot.com



These were delicious! (but Ellie it has been a while, where was my waffle?!)



Cheers to Friday

Happy Friday to all!  I am usually fairly happy to see a Friday come, but especially this one after an extra long week.  Have a relaxing wonderful weekend, have a drink for me, and I will endeavour to have one for each and everyone of you ;)

The next 11 hours of my life...

I use to have trouble speaking for 3 hours straight at parents evening at the Gryphon (and I can talk for England), so thinking the next eleven hours here maybe a challenge...

The Inquiziters

So the inquiziters were back in fine form last night, missing a prize by two points.  So below I have posted two of the problems that we did not get correct :(  What sayings do you think these pictures represent?

Health Care

So last Thursday Maria was admitted to hospital as she had a fever that was going through the roof and her kidneys were not working properly (nothing to do with excessive proseco consumption either!).  She is still in hospital, but looking much better and should be home today, thank goodness.

This got me thinking about health care.  I have been so lucky to have lived in countries where health care is free.  I have totally taken for granted the ability to go to the doctors for regular check ups or when I am feeling ill. I knew that if I needed a procedure in the hospital that this would also be taken care of.  Well now I live somewhere that this is not the case.  I even wonder if I was Maria if I would have gone to the hospital in time as I would have been stressed about my 2000 Franc deductible.  She is even very lucky she had her insurance sorted out as many new people do not yet.  And when they do get it sorted, their chosen insurance company will then back date the first payment to the day they arrived (although sure if they got ill now the insurance company would not help them if they claimed they intended to sign up with them).  I also learnt (which I guess should have been obvious) that I have to pay every time I go to the doctor (possibly couple 100 Francs), which I can see as a deterrent for me going for regular check ups etc.  Additionally, insurance is not cheap, in fact it is very expensive, and I am lucky I can afford it, but what if you can't?  What happens to these people?  I just do not know how anyone in the "developed" world can find a case against national health care.   Is it really okay, to let people who are not so fortunate not have access to good health care?
Absolutely Ridiculous.

Looking stunning even in blinking hospital!

Third Times a Charm (although in our case so was the first and second!)

So last night Jen hosted the third successful Basel ladies wine club.  She was a grand hostess, giving the ladies a lovely range of Pinot Noir's to taste and cheeses to nibble.  We had a few new people which is great, we are becoming quite the club.  I hope that all the ladies stumbled home safely, drank loads of water, and popped some pills before going to bed, as I would hate for them to feel like I do today...

Thanks Jen for a great night :)

So Many Leaves, so Many Wees..

So my Grandad has put in a request for a message from me (I have tried to remind Mummy that I am part of this blog too, but you know her always wanting the lime light.  Anyways, finally here I am.  I have been enjoying my time here in Switzerland, I feel very lucky to be such a well travelled dog, been up mountains, seen Roman Baths, visited the land of the resistance, and much more.  

But I must admit right now I am having the best time.  I love autumn here, there are so many millions of leaves in so many thousands of colours.  So many new smells, and places to wee.  There are so many that there is no time in the day to smell and mark them all... So last night I had to wake Mummy up at 2am to take me out so I could smell some more.  She did not seem happy about this (I thought she looked cute in her pajamas even if the men stumbling home had a bit of a laugh). She was even less impressed when I smelt leaves for half an hour and did not even have a wee (was just too excited), but will try to make up for it tonight..

Me smelling them all, looking for the perfect leaf

Few More Pics..

Just found some of these from our adventure on Saturday, trying to entice some more visitors :)

Just love the sky

I know most people claim to be 'great at photography', but really how lovley is this one ;)

We could not get over the cows ears, so soft, never seen anything like it