Mister Wong Winner

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I won an iPod! I am astounded. It has been quite a while since I’ve won any kind of random thing, like a raffle or such. I want to play with the toy I’ve won.

Mister Wong is a new social bookmarking site that originated in Germany. I received my invite to beta test, I was curious to see how something that started in a different part of the world, worked. It’s also available in Russian and Chinese.

I have found it easy to use and thought it would be useful as an online backup for my ever-expanding and cluttered bookmarks. After uploading them, I deleted a pile that I rarely use, yet couldn’t bear to lose track of since I knew I would need them once I did.

There has been some controversy about the name and stereotype evoked by the use of the name, yet it seems to have been addressed. Mashable wrote a review of the site last month: Mister Wong Launches Social Networking Tools in US, so if you want to learn more about Mister Wong, read it.

In the meantime I’m feeling quite grateful.

Red Haze:Australians & New Zealanders in Vietnam

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Leon Davidson has written a a non-fiction book that has been shortlisted for the Eve Pownall Award for Information Books. Reading Red Hazehas taught me a lot about the Vietnam war and Australia’s involvement in it. I was a toddler when this war occurred and it’s a good insight into the experience of the people who participated in this war.

Different perspectives of the war are shown and there is information the variety of people involved. He discusses each countries involvement, Australia and New Zealand is emphasised, yet the American and Vietnamese soldiers also make comments on their experience of the war. He tells the history of Vietnam leading up to this conflict and I felt I have more insight into the story from reading this.

For teachers the Curriculum Corporation has some notes to use this text for values education that is worth checking out.

Another CBCA Award Shortlist with red in the title. The other book I have read in this category is Queenie. I don’t know how they judge a non-fiction book for older readers against a picture book. They were both excellent works.

Ooops!

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My last post has now become an embarrassment to me for several reasons. Firstly because it’s ridiculous to believe that the Mars could look as big as the Moon. Secondly because there are some silly mistakes in it such as the use of ‘cultivate’ instead of ‘culminate’. Thirdly because today I received an apology email from the person who originally sent me the email saying she was sorry but she had fallen for a hoax. Well me too!
I could make excuses and say it was the sleepless night before and the shooting star that caused me to be a little dazed, yet I’m not big on making or accepting excuses, I’d rather admit I’d made a mistake and grab the learning experience.
I could have deleted the post, and possibly should have, yet I often say I live to make others laugh, so the laugh is on me today.

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