This one reminded me of arteries and veins crisscrossing their way through an organism.
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The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: That my students only broke one test tube in our lab today - they are a group who find Science challenging and are sometimes not as careful as they should be. They do love doing labwork though - this is why teaching Science is a lot "easier" than teaching Maths. Its way more prep though!
Sometimes it hard to tell if the journey has ended or if its only just began.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Getting to catch up on sleep! The past weeks have been too busy / stressful and I don't cope very well when I'm short on sleep.
Turns out that some ponies are resistant to the cold. This is a good thing.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: That updating my profile with the comment that the adverts at the bottom of the page are not decorative appears to have worked :) I raked in a massive $2.86 after making the change. Not enough to quit the day job but a nice surprise. Given that since I've put adverts on my blog well over a year ago I've accumulated a total of $15.39, the $2.86 is positively huge. So are ads worth it? In my case they don't hurt but at this rate it may take a while to get to the $100.00 required before google pays out.
Turns out that pink clovers are particularly tasty - just ask the pony.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: My students are starting to get the hang of "fair testing". The majority of them worked really in the lab today and nothing got broken. Next week should see more of the same.
From a distance, this could be a face with large eyes and a small mouth. Of course many people will simply see it as being a tree. So what do you see??
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Being *almost* up-to-date on my marking. For a while there I was drowning in stuff but it seems to be mostly under control now - which is something of a relief.
As in psychedelic run. Looks like hard work to me.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Not having to teach my Y7 group. I found out on short notice that the entire year group had something else and whilst I was not thrilled that they missed out on their lesson, it did give me some much needed catch up time.
I really like this one - and don't quite know why.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: That I've done the basic marking of my Y9 exams (they wrote today). I still need to assign grades and write feedback but am feeling less stressed as a significant amount of the work has been done.
In this version of the game, bonus points are scored if one successfully throws the discus deep into the vine vortex.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Managing to learn all the names of the students in the class that I took over today :) All those years of being a relief teacher and being forced to memorise names quickly finally paid off!
When the sun goes Supernova, will you watch, or turn away?
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Getting some really good reference photos for a project that I'm working on. The glare was diabolical so a fair bit of guess work was involved - happily the photos in question came out rather well.
The Sierpinski fractal is one of the most interesting. It makes a good backdrop for my cow image :)
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Cough medication that actually works! Turns out that cough syrup in my case is absolutely useless. Happily, have found some cold / sinus medication that seems to have done the trick.
Looks like it could be painful!
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Four "on demand" downloads from Shutterstock which is doing something to salvage what has been a rather tragic month.
A while back I discovered a whole new side to Fractal Science Kit. Needless to say, said side is rather exciting and allowed me to create this image. I played a bit with the colours in PSP.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Ready made Indesign templates. I needed to get a 3 page brochure to fold correctly and was able to download a template which worked perfectly!
I could have called this one "red hot discus". This image certainly puts an interesting spin on the sport.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Having spare chocolate to give to unsuspecting colleagues who have in some small way made my life easier.
This one took an insane amount of time to create. It was worth it though.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: My dance teacher gave me a really cool black bag (with chocolate inside) as a thank-you for looking after the class whilst she was on maternity leave. It was a sweet gesture from a lovely person.
I had a spare cow image and have been meaning to use it for a while, it fitted nicely with this wallpaper. Just imagine that the stuff on the left is a veggie patch of some description and this image almost makes sense. At least the quote is funny. This one would make a pretty interesting conversation piece.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Discovering that Word Clipart can be copied and pasted into Illustrator and it works - its not particularly pretty, but it will cooperate and for school stuff being able to use Word Clipart saves a lot of time.
As in the colours (and woven design) remind me of Ireland and the boy is competing in the shot put event.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: The "Color Junction" gadget that I've just put on my igoogle page. Its a fun little game that does not take too long to play.
After a nasty experience with IE adding unwanted white space to my perfectly valid html I've come to be less than impressed with Windows. This wallpaper, whilst geeky, is from the heart.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Not having to go to school. Finally got to have a "sick day" and spent at least some of the time in bed where I belong. The best part of this is that I did not have to go through the inconvenience of leaving work for my students (who would not do it in my absence) and I did not need to feel guilty about staying home. This is one of the reasons I love my Saturdays!
Clearly, these ladies have a heart for dance.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Remembering to take my camera to school to take photos of my students for our tutor class page in the year book. The student that was meant to bring her camera to do this for me didn't. Sadly this was not a surprise as said student has proved to be unreliable in the past (insert deep sigh here).
This sphere / spiral pattern reminded me of a weird sort of bird cage. Its very pretty, but its still a cage.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Surviving today. I've managed to pick up something nasty from my students and struggled through school rather than leave my students to do nothing with a reliever. This is probably a character flaw on my part.
These are so much more than simple cogs.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: My dance teacher is back from maternity leave! I'm so happy :) It was awesome having her back teaching the class again and we all really missed her.
I've never really liked poetry - hence the quote.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Not having to do a Physical Education relief! I was scheduled to do it but my colleague in the PE department worked his own brand of magic leaving me free to carry on writing unit plans (which in my world is way more fun then having to look after kids who are playing basketball).
It must be holy, its got a cross in the background. Dedicated to all those Irish Catholics out there :)
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: That at least one of my students is even geekier than I am (it had to happen). Said student conveniently emailed me some stuff to use with our smartboards that is way better than the tools that I had. It was really good that he did that, as I was asked to present in faculty meeting today and discovered that many of my colleagues were missing said stuff. As in they did not have the basic tools, let along the good stuff that my student sent to me. Happily the necessary file was still sitting on my desktop so it was easy to pass around (and install).
As in those shapes remind me of artistic grates. Found the quote on Quote of the Day and liked it. Turns out that some things don't change.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Having a "fractal day". That equates to a day spent creating fractals just for the fun of it.
Sometimes things just work out really well - despite a fair bit of fumbling on the part of the artist. This was one of those times. Dedicated to all those guitarists out there :)
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Completing an example poster on the takahe so that my 6th graders will know exactly what they need to do for an upcoming assessment / assignment.
This image was one of the "reject" backgrounds from my Tisha B'Av graphic. It took three attempts to find a suitable background for that image - this was one of those attempts.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Getting two extra periods of paid relief at school. I enjoyed teaching the one far more than the other - but that's the way it goes.
This image was another of the "reject" backgrounds from my Tisha B'Av graphic. It was the first one that I created and it just did not "work" as I'd hoped it would - thus it got recycled. The author of the quotation is unknown.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: The Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Contest is back. Entries close on the 10th of October so I've got plenty of time to choose the three images I want to submit. This is a great challenge and a useful exercise. Being forced to review past works / create new stuff is a good thing.
Using cows / livestock in place of a lawn mower is a time honoured tradition in New Zealand. I reckon its time to take that kind of maintenance onto our desktops.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: That one of our dancers who has been away for almost a year surprised us all by turning up tonight - it was great to have her join the group again.
Turns out that flying kites is a very popular pastime in Malaysia.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Finding exactly the font that I needed as a free download. I'm still blown away by how much great "stuff" is out there.
This one "just happened". Was not trying to get his affect at all so it was a nice surprise. The lighthouse was created from photos I took when visiting Tiritiri Matangi.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Finding $2.20 on my walk today. Unexpected small change always gives me a happy little buzz :)
I've never visited Mongolia, but with such an attractive national emblem, I'm almost tempted to go.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: Being *almost* up to date. Its meant another late night, but nothing's perfect.
Whilst soccer is probably the most popular sport in Ireland, they play rugby too.
The wallpaper version is available at the preceding link.
Today's Gratitude Item: That my wonderful computer screen was only unplugged as a result of some over enthusiastic dusting on my part, rather than broken. Was freaking out a bit when it did not turn on as it normally does.
