Julie and Julia

I stole a few moments away the other night to watch Julie and Julia. Most nights the TV viewing only lasts an hour at most, but on that particular night I felt like sitting down to a movie and I knew what I wanted to watch. I had wanted to see Julie and Julia at the cinema when it came out, but it came and went a little too quickly for me to catch it.

via AllMoviePhoto

For me the movie was significant in two ways. Firstly the story is about a blogger and I could relate to that. Secondly, it is also about women re-creating themselves. Finding direction, satisfaction and passion in what they are doing, and I could definitely relate to that.

I love the fact that the internet gives us the freedom to share and involve ourselves in our passion like never before and it amazes me that schools are not taking advantage of this technology more (putting on my other hat). Yes they do "research" on the internet, but I would love for kids to be active contributors of quality content to the internet. Rather they use myspace and facecrack, and what do they contribute .. not much.

I can imagine this movie being studied in Year 10 English and kids are encouraged to start their own blogs on topics that interest them. Taking delight from watching their readership build up and the connections that they make with others, sometimes those connections will last a lifetime. Using the technology in this way is not expensive, but the school does have to unblock their firewalls to blogger. This perhaps is the biggest battle.

I tend to live quite a full life, some say that I do too much, others ask me how I manage to do all that I do. And I tend to respond firstly by saying that it is all smoke and mirrors and secondly, that I tend not to spend that much time sitting in front of the idiot box day after day. I would much rather be in my sewing room creating something than watching something on the box. Most of what I do watch is either taped (so I don't have to sit through ad breaks) or something rented/bought on DVD. I do enjoy sitting down to a good movie or crime show, but in general there are much better things to do than watch TV.