Diamonds are a girl's best friend

I got into trouble day and rightly so. I was peering excitedly through the window to see the kids playing outside at Callum's school at UCLA. In contrast, there's an observation room inside which spies on the kids in the classrooms so that we can observe in private and the kids learn to deal with separation anxiety. Outside, they were all down to their pants and diapers playing with manipulatives in water at the sensory table to help with some of the sensory issues the kids have and I haven't seen them use it before, thus my excitement. And bummer, he saw me and screamed the place down afterwards, neglected his chicken lunch and wasn't particularly happy til I picked him up for circle time.

Whoops.

PS I know there are some repetitive themes running through this week's blips. It's too hot to be inspired. I went to bed at 2.30am due to editing and researching and wasn't my best for the school run. I'm also reflecting on a year ago when the only Photoshop I'd encountered was that used by the global ad agencies whose activities I directed in my London days of the 90s. It didn't seem to apply to me then as I shot entirely in film SLRs when I really worked for a shot. Everything I wanted to achieve was in camera. And then came catch up time for me. I've trialled many of the best apps out there this year and have settled on Aperture 3 which fits in nicely with the iMac along with PSE8 and it's lovely when you get to a point where other people's presets no longer cut it for you, you'd rather create your own to give your work its own signature look. So editing on the computer has been a huge entirely self taught challenge for me in the last few months and I'm happy to have learnt something new. Intrapersonal learning, albeit rather insular, is what works best for me and it's the way I accomplished my masters in marketing a long long time ago and how I continue to learn things to this day, tearing them apart into components and rebuilding til it all makes sense.

Backblip: As you are (July)
Backblip: A little helping hand (July) and more on the true significance of hands in my children's lives