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Connecting the dots

January 7, 2021 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards”.

Steve Jobs

Yes – it’s that time of year again. Time to look back at the good intentions that I enumerated in the equivalent post last January – ahead of the first year of the new decade – and to determine just how well or how badly we did in our efforts to accomplish them.

Now – I hardly need to point out that 2020 did not turn out the way that it was expected to – for anyone… so, when I look down last year’s list I really don’t expect very much to appear in the ‘tick-done’ column.

The first point of business on last year’s list was actually a reference to the fact that we were – at that point – pleased to be playing host to a very long-time friend (particularly of The Girl’s – they having done some of their growing up together in Kamloops) who had been in urgent need of somewhere to live. It was truly a delight to have her with us, as she was until well into the summer. She is now working in Vancouver and we are delighted that she found considerably better fortune as the year progressed.

I mentioned that I was teaching a new course – an introduction to Computer Science – about which I had been quite nervous. As things turned out it went a lot better than I had expected and I found myself rather enjoying it – in spite of the fact that the shutdown with which we were inflicted in March resulted in my having to teach the last three weeks of the course online. I taught again in the autumn – this time entirely online – for upwards of thirty environmental science students whom I never met face to face. Strange times.

I also mentioned last January that we were going to run away for a week in February to Mexico. This we did – and had a lovely re-charging break there – though the COVID-19 lock-down undid a fair bit of the good work that had been done shortly afterwards.

The pandemic has disrupted so many lives – in some cases, of course, tragically – and The Girl and I feel particularly blessed in that we have been affected way less than have many others. We are very fortunate in that our property here on the peninsula affords us a very benign environment in which to be locked-down. I found teaching online to be less of a challenge than I expected, though it did take a fair bit of work in terms of preparation. The Girl works pretty much exclusively from home and that works reasonably well also. She thought at one point that her new business would have to go into hibernation whilst the pandemic lasted, but meeting clients in video-conferences has proved more effective than she expected it to – and she has found herself with rather more work than she anticipated.

I professed the hope, in last year’s missive, that I might get the opportunity to do some more music-making with The Chanteuse. As regular readers will be aware, things turned out to be considerably better than we feared might be the case – and we contrived to record a whole new album purely working online. I will post more news on that front in just a few days from now.

Naturally all travel plans (post-Mexico) went out of the window, something that we don’t expect to see changing anytime soon.

I rather suspect that the companion post to this one – in which I look forward to the year ahead – will be considerably harder to write and probably also considerably shorter, as it is very difficult to tell how things are going to pan out over the coming months.

I will, however, do the best that I can.

 

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Distance learning

December 9, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

I am, as I write the introduction to this post, invigilating the end-of-course exam for some thirty students (mostly of Environmental Science) who have this term been studying Computer Literacy.

I am doing so remotely here in the comfort and safely of my studio, which explains why I can be tapping away at a blog entry on the left-most screen whilst still monitoring progress and responding to any queries on the other two. There is something decidedly surreal about about the process.

Having said that – there is (and has been throughout) something decidedly surreal about the whole undertaking this term.

I feel as though I know some of these students a little, having assisted them a fair bit throughout the course, responding to questions and observations, sharing the odd joke… and, of course, they have listened to me quite a lot – maybe three hours a week.

We have – however – none of us met. I have spoken directly to some whilst trying to help them – but other than the few who have their pictures as avatars, I do not even know what most of them look like. Students prefer to communicate with lecturers by chat or email. At the most they may enable audio so that we can talk – but they don’t do video with staff (unless prevailed upon so to do) and frankly I don’t blame them. They do get to see me (should they so choose) as they voted at the start of the course for my camera to be on.

It is the lot of the teacher – of course – to meet transiently and then to wish good and prosperous lives to a constant succession of new faces. I guess it is one of the things that attracts people to teaching – the opportunity to make human contacts (and to give something useful and meaningful in return). Doing so without ever meeting face to face, however, seems somehow inadequate.

Given the alternatives in this horrid year I am not complaining. I can scarcely imagine how any of this (and a gazillion other things that we maybe take a little too much for granted) might have been effected at all some fifteen or twenty years ago – let alone back in the mists of time (as when I was a student, for example).

It may be going a little far to suggest that we are the fortunate ones.

“Tell that to the young people of today. They won’t believe you…”

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Fourth quarter

October 4, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

The fourth quarter of the year starts as it always does – with the Kickass Canada Girl’s birthday. There have been times in the past when the celebrations have been really quite elaborate, involving a trip to some splendid resort or reservations at a fancy eatery (or on occasion – both!). We have many happy memories of these celebratory excursions; those to Bath and the Algarve perhaps standing out in particular.

There are other times – however – when something simple at home is the order of the day. In such pandemic-ridden times as these this latter was clearly called for. The Girl seems to have had a good time nonetheless, having seen loved ones and dear friends and having at least been wined and dined on my special homemade pizza accompanied by a rather stonking Chateauneuf du Pape.

Happy birthday to The Girl!

October also means that the first month of teaching is done. We have scampered through the opening laps – acclimatising ourselves to the pace – and we are now digging in for the long haul through to Christmas. There will doubtless be a point – as the climax of the race approaches – at which there will come a moment of truth, when we must needs push through the barrier, discover our true character and determine who the winners and runners up will be.

I think I have pushed that metaphor about as far as I reasonably can…

The nights are – naturally – drawing in (boo!) and the only remotely good thing about that is that, by the time that we are aware of it, we are more than halfway towards the shortest day. Now I know that the winter proper (as Canadians would have it) doesn’t kick in until January and February but – frankly – that is a problem for another time.

I can’t let this moment in time pass without making further reference to Bath Rugby.

Oh dear, oh dear!

Today saw the final round of matches in the Premiership, the which would determine the final four who would progress to the playoffs. Bath needed only to beat the grim Saracens to get through. Naturally, having led for much of the game they contrived to give up several scores as full-time approached – the fixture ending in a draw! This would have been enough to put Bath out, were it not for the fact that one of the other key fixtures – the Sale/Worcester clash – was postponed after Sale suffered sixteen positive COVID-19 tests! That match has been put back until Wednesday, but if further tests are also positive may not take place at all – which would mean that Bath sneak through to the finals instead.

So – three days (perhaps) on tenterhooks and then a hardly satisfactory outcome – whichever way it goes…

Oh dear!…

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Never too busy

September 13, 2020 in Life in BC | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid“Have you noticed that even the busiest people are never too busy to take time to tell you how busy they are?”

Bob Talbert

Well, it has – of course – been busy. It was, after all, the first week of term… the first week of exclusively online teaching (for me – as I did not teach during the summer). As it happened it didn’t go too badly. Fingers crossed that this is a portent for the remainder of the course and that we will sail through it serenely – without alarums or excursions – and that everyone gets an A+ (well – all those who deserve so to do anyway).

On Friday we were also washed – and by ‘we’ in this case I mean ‘the outside of our humble abode’. I mentioned in a relatively recent post that we we finally getting the outside of the house painted; a thorough wash and brush up being the first step in that process. We now wait for a week for the dust to settle (metaphorically, I assume) before the actual business kicks off.

The crew that washed the house were all personable and strapping young chaps and it took The Girl all of about a minute to determine that they play rugby together for one of the Victoria clubs. I can’t tell you how much confidence it fills one with to know that one’s treasured property is in the safe hands of those who participate in that most excellent of sports. The Rugby ethos forefronts the core values of Teamwork, Respect, Enjoyment, Discipline and Sportsmanship – and what’s not to admire about that!

The image at the head of this post marks another development this week. Back at the start of June – in this post – I celebrated the fact that for the first time since the start of the pandemic I had been able to purchase a large container of Lysol disinfectant wipes. At the time I posited that this might indicate a change in the air with regard to the progress of the pandemic. As it turned out that was the last time that I saw the wipes, though not for want of looking. I asked one of the grocery chaps and he told me that they do come in from time to time, but that they usually arrive on a delivery at 11:00 at night and are subsequently and rapidly cleaned off the shelves by the old folk who habitually do their grocery shopping at 7:00 in the morning.

This week – finally – Thrifty (our local grocer) had a consignment that must have arrived during the hours of daylight. I scampered home with my allotted single container, to be met by The Girl who had – naturally – just found one somewhere else. We now have a pleasant surfeit of disinfectant wipes.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidMy very recent post concerning the wildfire smoke from Oregon and California crowed somewhat prematurely at the rapid disappearance of the noxious fumes. Naturally the very next day they returned with a vengeance and have settled in for the duration. We now have no vista at all, though that does not in any way compare with having no home – which is what happened to one of The Girl’s acquaintances from Oregon.

Looks as though this unpleasant stuff is going to be with us for at least a few more days and I feel suitably humbled.

Now what do they call that? Hubris? Amour propre? Smug-bastardry getting its due comeuppance?

Take your pick…

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Busy, busy, busy

August 25, 2020 in Life as we know it | Permalink

There is no Victoria Fringe Festival this year, for reasons which will require no further elucidation. Indeed, fringe festivals are – in this exceedingly difficult time – exceedingly thin on the ground.

In common, no doubt, with other similar organising companies Intrepid Theatre juggled for a while notions of alternative festival forms (online only – local companies in carefully socially isolated venues…) but in the end had to admit defeat. One of the major problems is that many small fringe companies can only make their festival visits work financially if they can hop from one such to another, filling their summers with a brief international tour of fringes. Economies of scale – dontcha know…

Well – no-one is doing international fringe tours this year – so that all went out of the window. Intrepid – like many small companies heavily reliant on grant income – is having to work hard just to survive, without taking on further major challenges. Kudos to them – say I – for keeping the ship afloat.

So – the gentle reader will doubtless be musing – at a time of year when things are normally pretty frenetic, the Immigrant must be able to kick-back and enjoy the dog days sitting on the deck, chilled white in hand, enjoying the late August sunshine.

Not a bit of it! I am busier than ever and cannot frankly imagine how my fringe duties might have been fitted in at all.

The chief source of such busyness is my rapidly upcoming computer literacy teaching. Term starts in a couple of weeks and, because the course is being taught entirely online, all of the course structures and materials must be re-designed and re-written accordingly. It is one thing in normal times for students to slumber gently for ninety minutes in a lecture theatre whilst I drone on about the good-old days of computing (after all, when I am done they can all head off to the cafeteria for cheap sustenance and the chance to ‘diss’ my efforts) but quite another being taught online. In the comforts (or otherwise) of their own homes not a one of them would put up with an hour and a half of a disembodied voice emanating from the equivalent of a Zoom session. They would more likely just go back to bed and do what students do best.

No – the canny lecturer just has to get a whole bunch more canny than ever in order to keep them engaged. I will report back as to how it all goes.

My other busyness is much more fun. Since The Chanteuse and I discovered how to record with each other safely at arms-length we have been rampaging our way through our back-catalog of as-yet unrecorded tracks – trying to complete them before she too has to go back to work in September. Though I say it myself, we have been doing some great work. There is much to do on the mixing and mastering fronts – not to mention all the other bits and pieces that go to make up a release – but we have an album’s worth of material and we aim to get something out into the big wide world this autumn.

Now – that is exciting! 

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Lucky break

July 3, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

I have written before in these pages on the subject of luck, though my first posting on the subject was all the way back at the start of 2012. Later that same year I posted this item – entitled ‘Playing the Odds‘ – which posited the notion that much of what we consider to be good luck, or the consequence of remarkable fortune – or even of pure coincidence – actually often turns out to be considerable less so than it at first seems. You will have to go back and (re)read that article should you wish to explore further, as this current entry simply shrugs its shoulders and draws attention to another fortuitous happening – without drawing any conclusions at all therefrom.

I have not grumbled of late in these postings about the pandemic-related difficulties of sourcing all manner of essential requisites – toilet roll (in the early days), disinfectant wipes (ongoing), bleach and other such important and protective items. That is because it is clearly unacceptable so to do in circumstances such as these; there being many who are considerably worse off than are we and whose need is considerably greater.

I have also certainly not complained about the impossibility of acquiring such important items as a decent webcam! Now – you may rightly cavil at regarding such things in the same light as PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), but the fact is that shortly after the lock-down was announced across the world, supplies of such useful devices (required in particular, of course, for video-conferencing) dried up completely. It became impossible to acquire such things anywhere, with delivery dates being marked as ‘unknown’ and prices in online stores being hiked by 300% – 400% (outrageous!). Such are the ‘laws’ of supply and demand.

Now – I have a really old webcam, but the quality is poor and – though it meets my needs for doing online exercise classes – it is an inadequate tool for delivering decent online lectures (such as I will be required to do in the autumn). I tinkered around trying using the cameras on my mobile devices (which may be effected by using such cool software tools as ‘DroidCam’) but whereas these solutions do work reasonably well it is never a good idea to use a device for multiple purposes. It might seem efficient so to do but in practice having to constantly reconfigure and reconnect the gadgets inevitably leads to occasions when things do not work properly, or one runs into a simple conflict of requirements.

I was thus delighted when the Chair of my department announced to us all by email that she was going to try to source some webcams. When I replied wishing her fortune in so doing I inadvertently sent the email to all recipients. I immediately received a reply from someone who – whilst not wanting to be bothered with my (irrelevant to him) message – did want to let me know that he had seen the very device that I was after for sale on Amazon. I looked – and sure enough there was just the webcam I wanted, available in two days (via Prime) and at the original price. Naturally I immediately ordered one and was delighted to receive it the quoted number of days thereafter – on a Sunday!

I figured that supplies must simply be moving again, but when I looked a few days later the prices has soared again to unreasonable hights and the devices were again in short supply.

What to make of this good fortune? Had I not accidentally ‘replied to all’ I would not now have my chosen webcam – at my preferred price…

Lucky! Lucky! Lucky!

 

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Life long learning

June 11, 2020 in Life as we know it | Permalink

What the heck?!

When I stopped working in London five years ago and The Girl and I upped sticks and scampered across the pond (and a continent) to the west coast of Canada, I firmly expected to be able to spend the years ahead responding to queries as to the nature of my occupation by gleefully announcing that I was happily retired.

And that is pretty much what I did (and was) for the first two and a half years…

Then – for reasons which those who really want to know are directed to the postings of that period to to this online journal – I decided that I needed a job. Not a real, full-time, balls-to-the-wall sort of a job – just something to give me a sense of purpose and to earn a little pin money.

At first nothing suitable (ie, that met my exacting criteria) seemed to be available. Then – at the point at which I really needed to make a decision – the perfect opportunity arose. A position teaching on term contracts at a post-secondary college here in Victoria looked to be ideal; my background in education and a forty-year career in IT (the subject in which I was to instruct) equipped me suitably well for the task and the notion of teaching a single course – two days a week and then only for two terms of the academic year (keeping the summers free for other pursuits) – looked like a gift from the gods…

…which for the next two years, it was!

Then – half way through this spring (winter) term – along came the novel Corona virus.

Along with everyone else I was immediately obliged to effect a rapid transition from the sort of face to face teaching with which I was familiar to a rapidly cobbled-together form of online teaching – for the last three weeks of the term and for the remaining exams. I think that it is fair to say that we just about got away with it.

Now – here we are in the early days of my wonderful summer off and I have myself (along with many others) been obliged to go back to school.

It became very clear that we are not going to be teaching face to face this autumn (fall) term – and possibly not for the remainder of the coming academic year. What we effected in the winter term was just about ok as a stop gap, but rebuilding courses for online-only delivery involves an entirely different skill set to anything that I have learned before – not to mention a great deal of time and effort. I am now attending online seminars, classes and conferences – as well as doing a great deal of reading – preparatory to starting work on converting what was once a quite familiar course structure into something suitable for this brave new world.

It is impossible not to ask myself:

“What the heck am I doing? I am supposed to be retired. Do I really want – and need – to be taking all this on at this time of my life?”

I suspect that the regular reader already knows the answer to that question…

 

 

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All change

March 15, 2020 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Ooooooo-kay!

So – it has been most interesting – and not a little nervous making – watching the walls slowly pressing in towards us. This was not how it was meant to be.

I am of course referring to the ongoing and increasingly immediate COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

It has been hard enough watching the headless chickens (however much one might acknowledge their anxieties) stripping the stores of comestibles, but it is sometimes difficult not to roll one’s eyes. As reports filtered back to me of frantic hordes in Costco loading up their outsized trolleys with toilet paper and emptying the racks in the process I was eyeing up shelves groaning with said same items in our local store.

Of more immediate concern has been the situation at the College. There are but three weeks or so of this term remaining – and I do not teach in the summer term. As governments and authorities have taken each faltering and uncertain step towards total social isolation – shutdown in any other language – so the odds have been shrinking of us getting to the end of term without having to step back from classroom teaching.

Well – now that point has been reached. The College remains open but there is a ban on face to face teaching. What this means is that we have to find alternative methods of delivering classroom teaching materials, running lab sessions and assignments and of handling the all important examinations.

The College is well enough equipped with appropriate technology. We have a slightly eccentric but quite usable learning platform and tools for creating and disseminating distance learning materials. The issue is not with the technology. The problem is with the time and effort that must now be put into converting materials meant for face to face delivery in the lecture theatre to online only form. Given that I had still to finish the necessary items for the last few lectures of this new(ish) course anyway I now have double the work to do.

The likelihood is that not everything will run smoothly. Mistakes will be made. Things will go awry. As the students’ education is at stake – for which they have, of course, paid not insubstantial fees – such things matter.

Finger firmly crossed on all fronts? Here we go…!

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Back in harness

March 4, 2020 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“Happiness is not a horse, you cannot harness it.”

Russian Proverb

A glance at the postings to this journal containing the tag “February” will reveal but two entries – one on the subject of rugby (unsurprisingly) and one – from when we were still resident in the UK – which bemoans the grim nature of said month at a point at which I was obliged to travel a considerable distance to and from work in the dark each and every day.

This latter post contained this observation:

“February is definitely not my favourite month. To those who – like me – are struggling to rid themselves of their ‘winter overcoats’ in this post-Christmas period it will come as no surprise that February took its name from the Latin ‘februum’ – which means ‘purification’. The Roman purification ritual ‘Februa’ – a form of spring-cleaning for the body – was held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman calendar. In my case there is still rather too much purification to be done, I fear.”

Well – the good news is that for this year February is done… over… gone! Here we are at the start of March, the blossom is starting to appear and there is a distinct whiff of spring in the air. “Hoo-bloomin’-rah for that”, I hear you exclaim. Given all of the other ills that currently beset the world a little hint of the positive can be no bad thing!

And, indeed, some things are looking up – and for that let us be grateful. The Girl is well on the way to full recovery from the sinus infection that did its best to take the shine off our recent Mexican sojourn – and has rejoined the world of work. My sniffles and snuffles have decided not to develop into a full-blown ‘thing‘ and if we are both fortunate neither of us will have passed anything unpleasant on to anyone else (washes hands yet again to strains of ‘Happy Birthday’! – not the Stevie Wonder version).

In other positive news The Chanteuse, the Studio and I have been reunited for the first time since last August and work of a musical variety has been carried out. She is still going through some tough times but hopefully this will prove at least a little bit therapeutic. It will hopefully also provide us shortly with some sparkly new tracks to upload to our Bandcamp site, to which the gentle reader could subscribe should he or she care to be notified when said new songs are available.

Anyway – for all our sakes let us hope that the spring is not long coming, that plagues and pestilence are taken on and defeated in short order, that those of all persuasions who would simply ravage this poor planet for their own selfish ends are taken outside and given a damned good thrashing – and that the rest of us get on with making the world a better, more peaceful and more pleasant place to live.

See you there!

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Looking ahead

January 30, 2020 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“Remember, the thing you strive for isn’t perfection; it’s not the easy win or the avoidance of failure. It’s the gift of growth, the opportunity for evolution. Life in a box is not life well lived.”

Jonathan Fields

It may seem a little odd to be posting my regular “What’s in the year ahead?” piece when a twelfth of the year has already slipped away, but the start of this particular one has been a little odd.

For the Kickass Canada Girl and I 2019 was always going to be a tough act to follow. Our first trip back to the UK and Europe since moving to Canada turned out to be a huge production, full of joyful memories and exquisite moments. The rest of the year seemed also to be filled with milestones, be they connected to the completion of The Girl’s studies and launch of her new venture or in relation to my own creative and educational ventures. It was always fairly likely that 2020 would start with a period of entrenchment, during which time we figured out what it all meant.

The start of the year has delivered another unexpected quirk in that it finds us acting as hosts to a ‘waif and stray’; providing temporary refuge for a very old friend of The Girl’s who is in need of a home in the short term. We feel most blessed that we are equipped – in our lovely North Saanich home – to offer shelter to those who need it (and – no! – I am not referring to the ginger prince and his missus!).

I am teaching again, but this time a course that is all new to me… or would be did it not contain many elements that I myself studied when I was at college back in the early 1970s. Funny how what goes around… etc, etc. I was, frankly, not expecting to enjoy teaching this course. Naturally I find myself doing so quite considerably. Sigh!

As for the year ahead… We are taking the opportunity of the College’s ‘reading week’ in February to run away to Mexico for a little sunshine, rest and relaxation. We are going to Zihuatanejo – which name will resonate with fans of ‘The Shawshank Redemption‘ (and which was, of course, actually filmed elsewhere).

No major trips this year but we will probably head for the interior of BC. It has been a while since we visited folk there and one such is undoubtedly due. We are also hoping that we will be entertaining more visitors from the UK during the summer. The more the merrier as far as we are concerned.

One lesson that we have had to re-learn of late is that all good things take longer to effect than one might expect. The Girl’s new enterprise is slowly gathering momentum, but we constantly underestimate how much effort is involved in getting anything this significant off the ground.

I will certainly be aiming to indulge my creative propensities in matters musical this year. Having reached a small milestone in getting some tracks online last autumn the Chanteuse and I had intended to finish off that collection of songs and move on from there. Our efforts have been delayed by a sad and most unfortunate run of family setbacks on her part. Hopefully having the chance to get back to some music-making whenever it becomes possible will do a tiny bit to help normalise things for her.

However the year turns out (and we are expecting it to be a good one) we know that we live a blessed life and that our primary response should be – as ever – much gratitude.

As for the rest of the world?… Sadly – who can tell?

 

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