Going back to school…hopefully

Oooh this is exciting! My company offers funding for work-related training and I am looking into doing my NVQ 4 in my field (did NVQs 1-3 about 10 years ago). For any non-UK readers, NVQs are nationally recognised vocational qualifications. Here’s the blurb:

“National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) are work-related, competence-based qualifications. They reflect the skills and knowledge needed to do a job effectively, and show that a candidate is competent in the area of work the NVQ represents.
NVQs are based on national occupational standards. These standards are statements of performance that describe what competent people in a particular occupation are expected to be able to do. They cover all the main aspects of an occupation, including current best practice, the ability to adapt to future requirements and the knowledge and understanding that underpin competent performance.”
http://www.qca.org.uk/14-19/qualifications/index_nvqs.htm

So that’s what I’m looking into. The nearest college offering a part-time course is 50 miles from home, which is a fair old distance for me but the company will hopefully give me a day-release and will pay my travel expenses. There don’t seem to be any self-study options for this subject.

The college in question is sending me course details. I’m to present them to my boss at my appraisal next month, and we’ll see what happens. He’s already agreed in principle so all we need to do is hash out the details.

I’m really excited about this – I’ve wanted to study something for ages, and since my employers are unlikely to fund a degree in philosophy (snort), this will do nicely.

Will keep you updated :o)

On another subject, an acquaintance of mine has a film review website (www.mootfilm.com) and he posted my Superman Returns review that made it’s first appearance on this blog a couple of months ago – and I’ve been asked to do some more, tee hee :oD

Muslim Issues

Well it's an odd title but encapsulates the subject pretty well. Over the last fortnight, two Islam-related news items have caught my eye. Here is the first:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1887967,00.html
"Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, last night ordered an urgent review of a policy that allows officers to refuse certain duties on moral grounds after a decision to excuse a Muslim policeman from guarding the Israeli embassy.
PC Alexander Omar Basha, who is attached to the force's Diplomatic Protection Group, objected to being posted to protect Israel's embassy in central London from possible terrorist attack because he disagreed with the country's bombing of Lebanon." (article continues)

If you are a police officer, firefighter, medical professional or other 'public servant', you MUST be a police officer etc first, and anything else second. To allow a public servant to discriminate who he will protect or aid based on his political, religious or racial affiliations is so incredibly wrong I can't even do the subject justice.

Imagine where we would be if doctors decided who to treat based on the patient's nationality. 'Sorry, you're Zimbabwean and your country has a terrible record on human rights - no antibiotics for you!'

I wonder how it will all pan out.

And the second Islamic story du jour is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5410472.stm

"Jack Straw, the ex-foreign secretary, has angered Muslim groups by suggesting women who wear veils over their face can make community relations harder.
The Blackburn MP says the veil is a "visible statement of separation and of difference" and he asks women visiting his surgery to consider removing it. "

Apparently this came to the media's attention because a particular woman who had come into the minister's surgery wearing a veil which showed only her eyes reported being asked to open her veil so her whole face was visible.

I had a very energetic debate with virtually my entire family about this one. I think Mr Straw was out of order to ask that the veil be removed. My family argued that if a person is in this country they should follow our rules, which I completely agree with. But here's the thing - there is no explicit rule in the UK that covering one's face is impolite. It's not like refusing to shake hands or ignoring a greeting. There is no rule, implicit or expressed, that says covering your face is rude. Therefore the lady was not contravening a rule, therefore Mr Straw had no right to insist that she drop her veil.

One argument made is that it's more difficult to communicate when you can't see someone's face. I suppose that the people making that argument have great difficulty speaking on the telephone then? No. Thought not.

Mr Straw may have felt uncomfortable speaking to a veiled woman, but in the context of his surgery he is in the position of being the host and the Muslim lady was his guest. As such, it is his responsibility to ensure that SHE is comfortable, even if that results in some discomfort for him.

MMMMMM, DANCING (Homer Simpson-esque drool).....

Last night I performed with some fellow bellydance students and our teacher at an Arabic Dance festival thingy. It was held in a school theatre in Salisbury (about 1hr's drive from me) and we were the 3rd of 18 acts. We were doing an Oriental Veil dance, which I personally LOVE - veil work is my favourite 'discipline' within bellydance so far. We were all in full cabaret costume, which means outfits like this:
http://www.atlantabellydance.com/Overview/Costumes.html
(mainly the Cabaret style section, but it's a great little page for a general overview of the different types of dance costume within Arabic dance)

AND we were going to dance on a stage with full lighting being filmed. Which I didn't know before I got there, lol! The result of that was that my makeup was grossly inadequate to the task at hand. I don't wear makeup on a daily basis, and I thought I'd been quite bold - but no! My teacher arrived and immediately pulled me down to sit by her so she could draw on me ;o) After 5mins, my makeup could have shamed a streetwalker, LOLOL! But I'm told that it would only just have shown up on film as even BEING makeup. My teacher has a great deal of experience, having been performing on stage in one way or another since she was about 5. So far, so groovy.

The real nerves didn't hit until we were in the wings. Which is a huge improvement from the first time I performed last December, when it was just for a dozen old people and I still felt I was going to be sick beforehand, lol! But anyway, there we are in the wings, and then - we're on. It all went very well for the first few bars, during which we stand in one place and wave our veils about delicately. But as soon as I took a step, I knew I was in trouble.

Generally one would dance barefoot indoors, but I have these cute little sequinned slippers that go very nicely with my blue outfit (which I was wearing that day) and I had them on. BIG mistake. I took one step and realised that I had no traction with the floor! It was a smooth dance-floor and the soles of my slippers were smooth to counteract rough surfaces eg dancing on grass. IDIOT! I think being constantly worried about slipping affected my performance - I spun the wrong direction at one point, and I'm sure that's going to show up clearly on the DVD *cringe*. But I didn't slip (hurray!) and apart from the spin didn't make any important errors in the dance. My mum was in the audience, so I had someone to make me smile at least, lol!

Anyway, dance ends, off we go. We were not allowed to watch acts in the same half we were in (IOW first-half dancers watch second-half acts & vice versa), so we went to have a look at the souk (pronounced sook), or bazaar. This probably all sounds very big and grand, but it wasn't really. There were about 50 people in the audience, and the souk was four or five rails of costumes and a couple of tables of jewellery etc. All the same, it was the most official event I have yet attended. I was very grateful to see that they had laid on tea and mini muffins for us - I was starved! As I stood there, tea in hand, rifling through the costumes, the first half ended and the audience started to trickle out to the souk. I was still in costume, but I'd wrapped my veil around me in such a way as to cover my previously exposed areas ;o)

Pushed to the side by the crowd, I was leaning against a wall sipping away when a girl in her early 20s accosted me. She complimented me on my top (an unusual butterfly design) and asked me how long I'd been dancing. When I said nearly two years she was amazed. She'd expected me to say 6 or 7! I said 'I love you - you can stay!' Bless. We chatted through most of the intermission. She was a beginner, had only been dancing 3 months so I gave her a couple of tips and we talked about what the dance means to us. I've said it before on this blog, but possibly the best thing about bellydancing is the confidence it seems to give in one's own body. Gone are the pressures to be skinny, nobody cares if you have a belly the size of a house. It's all about how you move it. And as such, a dancer is beautiful no matter her size.

I love it.