September 2007 - Posts
Here's a thing. Send an email to britspeech@robobraille.org with a text attachment. The email doesn't need to contain any sort of message and the text can be any Word document you have to hand. Wait for a few minutes and you'll get an email back with your attachment being read aloud to you by a synthetic voice. It'll be in an MP3 format so you can play it back on your MP3 player, computer, or whatever. The voice isn't brilliant, and the software can get tripped up by a lot of text boxes and elaborate formatting, but generally the system works extremely well. The implications here are quite significant. If you download a handout from the MLE, or from anywhere else on the web, come to that, you can simply send it off to RoboBraille and then listen to it at your convenience. If you don't want to read it, but you do want it read to you, then that's just what this system offers.
You can find out more about this at the RoboBraille Site, and it's worth exploring. Putting a "+" in the subject line of your email will make it play faster, for example, while putting "++" will make it play faster still. It doesn't just handle Word files either - it'll accept pdf, rtf or just plain text files. Well worth giving it a try!
A very simple and variable recipe, ideal for any occasion where you need a lot of different dishes. It serves cold, so you can also prepare it well in advance.
4 oz Bulgar
Half Onion (finely chopped)
2 Tb Fresh Parsley
2 tsp dried mint (2Tb Fresh)
2 Tb lemon Juice
2 Tb Olive Oil
Eighth cucumber (finely chopped)
Sundried Tomatoes (finely chopped)
1 oz Olives
s & p
Pour boiling water over the bulgar and leave for an hour or so until tender. Squeeze out excess water in a sieve. Mix with finely chopped onions and stir in remaining ingredients seasoning to taste.
That's the basics, but I doubt if I ever prepare it
quite like this - I almost always add more olives for a start, because I like them. Similarly, I introduced sun dried tomatoes into the recipe because I like them a lot too. If you don't, or would prefer to put in fresh ones, then that will be fine. The only thing that really matters is that you get the balance between the lemon juice and salt right - and "right" in this context simply means whatever tastes right to you. If you don't have any bulgar but do have some cous cous, that will do just as well. If only all recipes were like this!
Welcome to everyone who'll either be starting their counselling training with us in the following weeks, or returning for a second year. If you're in the latter group then you'll know your way around the building alright, but there will still be notices up telling you where to go. If you're in the former group then there won't simply be notices but there will also be an information sheet available at the reception desk directing you to the room that you'll initially be meeting in. (A lecture theatre tucked away in the very depths of the builiding.)
If you're coming for the evening certificate there will still be notices but you won't be in the lecture theatre - you'll be in either D7 or D8 at the very top of the building. Just take the stairs or lift as far as it will go, and you'll pretty much be there.
Whether you're new to the programme or a returning student, very best wishes for the oncoming acadmic year - hope it goes well for you!
Just a note to say how great it was to see so many Diploma and Masters counselling students graduating today. I was really sorry not to be able to stay around long enough afterwards to say congratulations to everybody so, better late than never, here it is - Congratulations!
Hopefully everyone will have received letters telling them when to enrol, but in case anybody got missed out this is when it will happen -
Certificate - Tuesday 11th - any time between 9am and 8pm
Diploma 1 - Wednesday 12th - any time between 9am and 8pm
Clinical Supervision - Wednesday 12th - any time between 9am and 8pm
Diploma 2 - Thursday 13th - any time between 9am and 8pm
Enrolment in on the Allt-yr-yn Campus - where you will be attending the course and where you will have been interviewed - and there will be signs up everywhere telling you where to go.