Project music

On Friday I have dinner with Fiona and Kate. And that's lovely! But Fiona wasn't happy with just eating. She wanted added value. And came up with a project. We would each send each other links to three tracks, and listen to the others' tracks before the dinner. Just tracks that mean something to us for some reason. And then we discuss them over dinner. It's quite nice! I don't tend to struggle too much thinking of music to send. I just send the soundtrack of my life in small bits. I have sent music by Tori Amos, 16 Horsepower, The Cure, Sinead O'Connor, New Model Army, Joe Jackson, the Nits, Madrugada and Elvis Costello so far. Enough to still choose from! I haven't even touched the Sisters of Mercy yet, or Placebo, just to name a few. And yes my music isn't very recent. So be it!

Tori Amos; pic by Krissikes

And the others? Most of it is music I didn't know at all, or only barely. I have been listening to Jethro Tull, Tiesto, Andy Partridge, Fleetwood Mac, Frazier Chorus; whatnot! Some music I already know well: Beethoven, Kirsty MacColl, Queen. I'm learning stuff! Some of it I will only listen to for the occasion; some I may listen to more. And I'm broadening my horizon. And sometimes the music sets you on a track! For instance, the Kirsty MacColl track got me wondering about her and finding out more about her life. And I got a bit sidetracked by Billy Bragg as the song had been 'A New England', which he had written. And the Andy Partridge track 'Prince of Orange' reminded me (through the piano work) of 'Sketches of Spain' by the Nits. And that made me wonder if that song had any musical link with the miles Davis album of the same name. I didn't expect so but one can't be sure! So I listened to that too. (And no it doesn't, as far as I can tell.)

It doesn't always work! Kate and I still work full-time so sometimes this extra task can be a bit much. One time she submitted hers late because she had been busy, and then I was too busy to listen to them before the dinner. Oh well! Music doesn't go off. I could listen to it later!

Will we stick with this? I don't know! I think it's the only form of culture of which you could get a reasonable weekly dose. You can't do this with books or films or plays. I can't read three books in a week! Or watch three films. Forget about the plays. And the chances I have read/seen other people's choices are very slim. And the other way around too! My film knowledge is almost entirely based on my time in Amsterdam, and the Tromsø International Film Festival. A bit of a random selection. And many of the books I have read and was impressed by were in Dutch or Welsh or maybe even Norwegian. So that doesn't help!

And in the meantime? I haven't found a new favourite band yet but who knows what will still happen!

Getting the entire university ready for next year

One Tuesday morning I didn't expect anything when an email pinged into my mailbox. It was from a lady who is involved in CELT, the University's teaching team. Celt stands for Centre for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching. She didn't say what it was about but she wanted a chat. And later that day we had that chat.

So what was going on? Well, we will have to do a lot of online teaching, and she was asked to put a document together about what the literature said about how to go about it. And she couldn't really do that alone. So I was one of the people she asked for help! She had made a list of topics and asked us which we wanted to take on. I opted for 'flexibility and inclusivity'. It's important and interesting!

That also immediately gave me a big job to do. I've been browsing through geological literature for decades and I know my way. But I'm not anywhere that at home in pedagogical literature! But I have to dive in head first and deliver. That chat did get me working long evenings. It was bound to happen some moment! And I don't think this will end soon. The marking is pretty much done now. The exam board meetings are imminent. And with that out of the way we need to get our curriculum ready! Incorporate that knowledge that we have gathered. We have to make the shift a lot quicker than ever anticipated; let's make sure we use the knowledge gathered by others as well as we can!

Welsh exam at home

What the students had to do, I had to do! I keep myself in permanent education through Welsh. And that involves exams. And the qualification I was going up for, Welsh in the Workplace 7, included one. I couldn't sit it on campus, but the university was OK for me to sit it at home. I had already had (and recorded) several conversations, and answered questions to my presentation. Now it was time for the written part. And after that, only one conversation was still to come. And then I could find out if I'd passed!

The procedure was: I would be ready at home, and get sent a document at 10AM, with the tasks. I could use dictionaries and the online language checker and whatnot. I would have access to that if I would be using Welsh in the actual workplace! So that was OK. And then at 11:30 I had to send it back.

The written exam had four parts: write an email to thank a colleague about what they had done for an Open Day, translate an announcement about a seminar series into Welsh, respond to an official letter, and correct a text with a given number of mistakes in. The email was easy as I do that sort of stuff regularly; the official letter was sort of OK, the announcement was a bit hard not to translate word for word (which is not the intention) because the sentences given would have the same structure in Welsh unless you would really change them, and I always find finding the mistakes difficult. We'll see how I've done!

First food from the garden

It started in the first weekend of lockdown. I sowed my first vegetables! And from then on I have been steadily tending to my vegetable seedlings. Watering them, spacing them out, moving them outside, sowing more, moving them back in again in the case of the butternut squash, goading the peas into holding on to the provided sticks and not each other, giving up on them (leek), and whatnot. And most is growing nicely. But the end goal was: food! By late May I had still not eaten anything. And then I saw a pea pod on one of my plants. Yay! Peas! I ate that one raw. Was lovely! An after the first one, many followed. They started flat and I should wait until they are a bit more cylindrical. But it looks like I may soon have my first meal out of my own garden!

And the rest? The spinach is slowly growing and one day may be big enough for a meal too. But a small meal. The carrots keep their edible parts (if any) hidden underground. The cabbage is growing well. I have chard seedlings. Some potato plants appeared rather unexpectedly; I had planted some in the first spring but the weeds must have out-competed them. The aubergine plants are still very small. The butternut squash is still recovering from cat mayhem. And the courgette plants are starting to flower; this could be the early start of quite a lot of food!

And there is bonus: last year I planted two walnut trees and there's something budding! I might get my first nuts too this year... 

The first pea pod to appear!

More soon followed

Proto-walnuts!

Long bike ride again

About a month ago I went on a fairly long bike ride. And then that was outlawed! And it seems now that only weeks later that was reversed again. I tend to keep an eye on the lockdown rules but I had missed that one. Maybe because I get a lot of information from radio 4 and the newspaper, and these are a bit England-centric. But I'm glad I found out late rather than not at all. And I had only gone out on one bike ride in the meantime; one run resulted in a bit of a complaining left calf, and I decided to give it a bit of a rest. So the next day, I did a short bike ride, through Mynydd Llandegai and Rachub. It was a busy day so I wouldn't have biked far anyway, even if I would have known it would have been allowed! And I think it did the calf good. I was OK running again two days after the funny feeling occurred.

View on the Carneddau from Mynydd Llandegai

Cute little lane

During the week I'm not likely to bike very far, but when the weekend came and it was allowed again to bike a fair distance, it was time to enjoy that! Even though I could run again, it was time to venture a bit further from home. So I decided to bike to Capel Curig. I had driven that so many times but never biked it. I don't think I'd be keen in normal times; it's a locally important traffic artery and people often drive quite fast on it. But nowadays the roads are empty!

I set off on my old bike. Flasks and sandwiches in the bag. And a puncture kit. And I first took the old road to Ogwen Cottage. And from there on there is no choice: you need the A5. But it's delightful! Barely any traffic. And from Llyn Ogwen it's basically all downhill. What did strike me, though, was the police activity. There were two or three cars parked up at the foot of Tryfan. And a police car was there too! I think telling people to sod off. Why would you park there other than go climb Tryfan, which is not allowed?

When I stopped to take a layer off I saw the police had created a roadblock right behind me. They were clearly checking! But it's a bank holiday, and the English are already free to travel. So I can imagine why! And I saw another police car and a police motorbike on the road as well. I didn't know we had so many of them. And when I got to Capel Curig and got off the road to park my bike, I found out I had a police car right behind me who seemed to have been intent on stopping me. He didn't need to now! He got out of the car and asked me where I had come from and was going to. They really are keeping an eye on where people are going! But my Bethesda-Capel Curig-Bethesda plan was met with approval.

With that sorted I parked my bike, walked into a field, and had my lunch. That was nice! And then I biked back. It's not steep so it was a leisurely ride. And just for the heck of it I went the entire way along the A5. That way I could judge how steep it was! I might sometimes want to bike the A5 to get to the start of a walk, when that sort of stuff is allowed again, and then it's nice to know how steep that route is. And it's ok! So I could see myself walk Ogwen Valley before too long! That will be nice... 

From just outside Capel Curig

Tryfan comes into view

The path to Tryfan. On the way back, I saw no cars there! The police action had helped.

Classic book again; a Welsh one this time

For some people, lockdown is an excellent time to finally get through their 'to read' list. Not for me though! I read even less the normal. The culprit is my new working schedule; I used to do my work at home, and only rarely fire up my laptop in the evening. So after dinner I often had a bit of time to read! But now I tend to start a bit early, work until 4 or 5 PM, then go for a run and a shower, and then often straight into the kitchen. And then after dinner some more work waits. By the time I stop that not much of the evening is left! I suppose I am lacking in discipline when it comes to keeping work and leisure balanced and separated. I might have to work on that. But either way; it took a long time but I finally finished another book. And it is a classic! I had already read 'Un nos ola leuad'; often seen as the best Welsh language book ever. And it's about Bethesda too. But if you dig a bit deeper into Welsh literature you quickly find another book: Traed Mewn Cyffion ('feet in shackles') by Kate Roberts. She was seen as 'the queen of literature' and this is often quoted as her best book. My Welsh tutor Jenny said it was boring so I thought I'd give it a go. I like books in which not much happens! And it didn't disappoint, even though you could argue a lot happens. 

The book starts in 1880 with a young woman who has moved to somewhere not too far from here (the author grew up in Rhosgadfan, so that may be where this is set) from the Llyn peninsula. She's just married a local quarryman. And then you follow her over the decades. They have six children, and the quarry work is fraught with issues. It's dangerous, badly paid, subject to the whims of the foremen and in the course of the book, activity is dwindling. It's not easy to keep the family running. Most of the book is from the perspective of the woman it all starts with, but from when the kids are a bit older, they sometimes take over as narrator.

You don't get a very clear idea of the marriage of the main character. The husband seems a bit taken for granted. The children get more attention, and they are a mixed bag! There is the eldest daughter who goes to sewing school and from there into domestic service. She is not one to get much attention. 

There is the oldest son who, after school, starts work in the quarry too. That's him out of the way; he leaves early and comes home late, and is then so knackered his siblings barely get to interact with him. He later moves south to work in the coal fields there. 

The second daughter gets a lot more attention. She is a bit rebellious. She hangs out with posh boys from town. This doesn't make her popular with her parents! And that leads to her then spending a lot of time with her grandmother instead. And when that grandmother then dies, it's not her son who inherits the modest amount of money, but her. And she promptly marries one of the posh boys and is off. Her relatives can drop dead! 

Karma is at work in tortuous ways, though; she has a child, and when it still is small, the posh boy does a runner. And there she is, with no income. She sells off her last possessions and starts sewing for a living. The kid moves in with the family his mother has abandoned. 

There's also the second oldest son. You see quite some of the book through his eyes. He does well in school and gets a scholarship for further education. He becomes a school teacher. It pays the bills but not much more than that. 

The youngest son does well in school too. He also gets a scholarship! It's not clear if the family can afford to do anything other than send him off to work so he can supply the family income. But school it is. Until the war breaks out and he volunteers for the army. Of course he gets shot. More misery for the family.

The book ends with the second youngest son being all pensive and gloomy. And the cat being oblivious to it all. A generation of struggle in the North Wales countryside. And is anything looking up?

Don't read classic Welsh literature if you're looking for a hoot! I don't think these slate hills have grown that sort of literature. But it was interesting to read. The language wasn't easy; it was written in the thirties. But aside from the language, it felt very current. Not quite literally; things have changed. Girls rarely go to sewing school (do they still exist?). Few people work in slate quarries. Maybe what I mean is that even though the setting was mainly the Victorian age, and the language is dated, the characters could have been written yesterday. I enjoyed it! I think I will re-read this. But maybe now something more recent to not make the Welsh harder than necessary!

Having a psychologist on call

When you are a university lecturer your main job, I suppose, is teaching specialist skills. And the second one is teaching general academic skills. Or the other way around? Well, not relevant for this post. And then, increasingly, it's the somehow supporting students with mental health issues so they have the mental reserves to even get to these general academic skills. It's a stressful world and the students are feeling it! Fortunately, the university supports us; we have a mental health team, and they provide mental health training. But sometimes you can do with more than they can offer. And I am fortunate. I have a sister who's a clinical psychologist!

Some time ago I was trying to coach a student with known issues towards submitting a piece of work before the deadline. And it was a bit of a bumpy ride! And pandemics can make a situation that was already difficult even more complicated. And one morning I woke up to a rather worrying email from said student, that had been sent in the middle of the night, with the deadline being the noon after. Oh dear! I was glad I had my sister. I immediately asked her for advice! And I got a crash course in the mental health issue in question.

I had actually read an entire book about this kind of issue, but there is quite the difference between having read a book and knowing what to do. And how did that book happen? Well, my sister sometimes wants to order books from companies that don’t deliver to Finland. Then she has them delivered to me, and they then find their way to her. And this one caught my attention, and I read it before I passed it on.

Did all that effort help respond to that email in an optimal way? I don't know! The student did submit on time, but I'll probably never know if my assisted response had anything to do with that. Quite possibly not! But I was still good to have that help at hand. I think I said it before; we're hired on the basis of our academic skills, but sometimes what's needed is completely different things! I am so lucky to have back-up.

I did get feedback from the student, and it was heart-warming! It seems I made a difference. With help. Thank you my sister, and hurray to the student. You didn’t let anything stop you from writing that (substantial) piece of work! I take my hat off for that!