Various ramblings by the small hobbit

As the end of April approaches, it's time to reflect on how I got on with my goals for the past year.

Goal 1: Continue to write all the things
I have had this goal since I began making annual goals back in 2014.  And it stood me in good stead for most of that time.  This past year, however, I have cut back on writing all the things, and become more selective on what I write, so that it is down to the challenges and exchanges I enjoy rather than making a point of trying different things. So, although I might say I've not really achieved the goal this year, I am quite happy with what I have done, which is what matters.

Goal 2: Do something new every month
Yes, I have managed to do something new each month, although none have been particularly major - but that was difficult due to lockdown anyway.  And I reckon retiring can easily count as something new - I've never done it before.  I've had a version of this goal since 2017, when I was determined not to fall into a rut, and be willing to try new things rather than say 'I can't because I've not done it before'.  Again, I'm moving away from this goal, because it has opened up so many possibilities that, with the overall structure of my life changing, it no longer describes what I want to do.

Goal 3: Do some craft every evening when I'm home
Easily achieved.  Plus if the evening wasn't available there was always time in the day.  It's true this goal was set when I hadn't realised how much time would be spent at home this past year, but on the positive side it did provide a sense that although I wasn't able to do many things, there were all these wonderful crafts to keep me occupied.

I've had all three goals in some version for at least three years, and have achieved a lot thanks to setting them.  Looking at them, though, it does feel right that this year I have gone for three new goals which reflect my change in circumstances.  Which doesn't mean I won't be continuing to write, craft and try new things, just that these are now well established and other areas could benefit from a bit of accountability.

I am enjoying the Imperial Lates run by Imperial College in London.  The theme a couple of weeks ago was the Sun, and again I joined the art interpretation evening.  There was a professor and a third year PhD student talking about research into the first stars and the craft was a mosaic, for which I used very small squares of cut up wrapping paper.  I call this Starburst.



Next month the theme is Wildlife.  I have registered.

Yesterday, we had our first Dare to Dabble by zoom, having been sent the materials in advance.  We were wet felting.  My first attempt, around a small plastic egg, wasn't very successful, but, if you squint, looks like a ladybird.  The mini eggs turned out rather better.

 


I have completed three FutureLearn courses:

Music Moves by the University of Oslo, which covered the idea of people moving either deliberately or involuntarily to music, plus various ways of recording this.  I find it a difficult course, being quite technical, and the peer-assessed assignment was challenging - hardly surprising since this was at undergraduate level.  However, at the end of each week, although the course had been run before, there was a new video looking specifically at questions and thoughts which had been raised during the week, so it became rather more personal and relevant; two of the presenters wrapped up and social distancing outside in Oslo at the end of January gave an additional lift to the course.  (At the end of week 3 they were indoors as it had got even colder!)  The final Friday of the course they ran a zoom session which any participant could attend, so I went along and 'sat at the back of the class'.  There were about a dozen attending, many of whom were professionals or students of the subject, so it was good to get further insight.

What does it mean to be Human: An Introduction to the Humanities, by the University of Newcastle, Australia.  I had been thinking of taking this course for a while.  Because it is an introduction the intention was to look at how we interpret material available, and the necessity of being aware of bias, both ours and that of the authors of the original material.  What struck me most was how I am now much more aware of this original bias, and much less inclined to accept what I see as being truly reflective of events in the past.

Classic Detection Fiction by the University of Newcastle, Australia.  This could have been very interesting as an introduction to the genre, but I felt it was a wasted opportunity.  The first week concentrated on Poe's 'Murders in the Rue Morgue' and yes, set the scene.  But the second two weeks concentrated only on Conan Doyle's 'A Study in Scarlet' and failed to even use the other Sherlock Holmes stories to back up the areas covered.

Much to my surprise I do actually have a couple of new things I've done this month, both of which definitely come under the 'not sure if this is me, but I'll give it a go' category - which really is what this goal is all about.

Firstly, as I've said before (and will no doubt continue to say) I volunteer for a charity called Gloucestershire Bundles, who are a local baby bank.  One of the things they give out is good condition pre-loved toys and games.  As you can imagine they receive a quantity of items as donations, and one job is to check the jigsaws to make sure the pieces are all there.  Recently they were appealling for volunteers to help check jigsaws - a task which can be done in lockdown.  I debated about it, because I already have a time commitment with them, but decided to give it a go.  Which, it turns out, was a good move, because instead of playing online games when I want an occupation at times when I just want to mentally switch off, and then feeling vaguely dissatisfied at the wasted time when I could have been writing etc, I can do something which uses as little brain power and I feel like I have done something useful.  It certainly needs doing - out of my initial box of 10 puzzles, 6 had a piece either broken or missing.

Secondly, I'm a keen follower of Matthew Bourne's New Adventures company.  So when they posted a tweet saying there was an online dance class for the Over-55s being held the following day I thought I'd check out the details.  I wasn't sure, but since it was only £6 for what I thought was a one hour class, I decided it might be fun and there really wasn't much to lose.  It was excellent - and it lasted for two hours plus introduction.  They're running a couple more classes in the next two months and I've already signed up.

Although the main FutureLearn courses don't start until Monday, over the last couple of weeks I've been getting back into the routine by taking two Level 1 Language Tasters for Global Communication run by Kings College, London in French and Spanish.  They were okay and served their purpose in preparation for courses coming up.  It didn't hurt to run through some very basic French and Spanish, just to feel like one day I may use them again.

I also continued with the Open University art courses, covering Art & Visual Culture - Medieval to Modern, Art in Renaissance Venice and Dutch Painting of the Golden Age.  A mixed collection of subjects, but will be useful once we visit art galleries again.

I've wracked my brains to come up with some new things for this month, and all I can manage is I had my first flu jab; I watched a streamed recorded version of Andrew Scott in The Kings, which was reasonable, Andrew Scott's a great actor, but it was still a one-man show and via my laptop; and I led a zoom Advent Group, which would be so much easier face-to-face.

I've completed three FutureLearn courses since I last wrote:

Poetry & the Holocaust by Yad Vasham.  I admit to be slightly unsure about this course when I started, but in fact it was really good.  It began by looking at the role of poetry within traumatic events, so including poetry from WWI.  From there it looked at the events of the Holocaust, and considered some of the poetry, both by those who died in the Polish ghettos and the concentration camps, and those who survived.  I was particularly struck with how the course participants were able to make up their own minds about the poems, and although there were suggestions as to what was being referred to, everyone was free to make their own interpretation of the poems, and pick out the lines that spoke most particularly to them.  I would thoroughly recommend the course.

The Scientific Revolution (Understanding the Rise of Modern Science) by the University of Groningen.  I found this quite a challenging course, in understanding many of the texts, which not only dealt with complicated concepts, but were in the language of 300 years ago.  I posted my assignment elsewhere, and apart from my first peer review, which was positive, I received one which said it was all party political (which, although it was critical of the current government, the point I was aiming to make was that science is still used as it was centuries ago) and another which said that mine was outstanding amongst the posts he had reviewed. 

Many Faces: Understanding the Complexities of Chinese Culture by the University of Exeter.  These seemed to concentrate on the efforts of the modern Chinese government to appeal to the wealthy middle class, and how this was giving a false view of China.  It wasn't really what I'd hoped for.

That was my final FutureLearn course of the year.  I have now followed 59 courses since I began in October 2018.  The next course I'm thinking of following starts the middle of January.

In the meantime, I'm following some Open University courses.  I don't like these as much, I prefer the FL structure, but they can be interesting.  I'm a sucker for online Advent calendars, and the OU had one again this year.  Right at the beginning a music course was their 'interest of the day' so I took 'Discovering Music Through Listening', which was interesting, and I learnt something.  Then, because FL does very few art courses, I decided I'd look at some of the OU ones over the Christmas period, since I have more time.  So last week I took 'Making Sense of Art History', which turned out to be learning how to look at art via various winners of the Turner Prize.  I found it helpful, because it was explaining about the composition of paintings etc, and how certain effects bring about certain responses in the viewer. And  I've found another couple of courses to keep me occupied for the moment :)

Limited opportunity to do anything new this month, but I did sign up for two events as part of the Being Human Festival.  Normally, most of the events are site specific, but this year, for obvious reasons they were online, which meant there was far more opportunity to join in.

The first event I did was a Covid Theatre Café.  The idea was that theatre practitioners, plus those who like the theatre, could chat about what was being done, how easy it was and how much people were missing live theatre.  I hadn't been too sure about it, and had been tempted not to do it (the events were free, so there would be no loss), since it was after a Brownie Zoom meeting.  But I'd not been able to use the booking form and had to contact the organiser to book, so I felt it would be ungrateful after all the help she gave me if I hadn't joined.

I was very glad I did.  There were only between 10 and 12 participants, most of whom were actors, directors etc for small companies.  Everyone was very friendly and shared what they'd been doing and how difficult it was to produce anything and remain within the guidelines.  A few people, living in London, had managed to attend shows when they first recommenced, and shared how they felt about it.  I mentioned how difficult it was for me, because it's not just the going to a performance, it's getting there, maybe staying over, finding somewhere to eat etc, which makes it so difficult.  It was nice to feel that they took this as a valid contribution, and there was the sense of everyone being in it together.  So I felt it was a good couple of hours.

The second event was the one I was looking forward to.  It was billed as a feminist whodunnit, which sounded really fun, with clues to solve etc.  However, it turned out to be an exploration of the writings of Virginia Woolf, and wasn't well organised, so I gave up partway through because I decided I wasn't going to waste my time when I could be doing something more interesting.  I was annoyed, because if I'd known it was about Woolf I wouldn't have signed up in the first place.

I've completed two FutureLearn courses:
History of Slavery in the British Caribbean by University of Glasgow.  I learnt something, although I found some of the presentations tedious, and very much lectures.  I like FutureLearn because of the multi-media format, but if it's all 'here are the facts note them' I might as well read a book.  There was also an element of 'this is what we've found, this is what it tells us', without any acknowledgement of 'this is what we think it tells us', when in twenty years time the interpretation may be different.

A Global History of Sex and Gender: Bodies and Power in the Modern World by University of Glasgow.  I didn't realise until almost the end of this course that they were both by the same institute.  This was predominantly a focus on feminism and women's role over the years, and again more instruction than sharing thoughts.  There were a number of long audio clips, for which I read the transcripts rather than listening.  I found it frustrating that this course was purely considered in an intellectual way, and there weren't more interviews with people directly involved in some of the issues.  The short assignment, looking at women's suffrage in 1910s in the US, was interesting and I managed to write 425 words which sounded reasonable.

We've been out and about quite a bit in the last six weeks, which counts as new in that we've done very little of that for most of the year, although up to 2020 I wouldn't have counted as 'something new'.  And we celebrated our 40th anniversary, with a cream tea with son, his wife, and our granddaughter; lunch out for the two of us on the day - we walked to the restaurant, which meant we managed to drink a bottle of Prosecco while we were there; and then finally a meal out with our daughter (who I last saw in February) at the end of the week. 

story_works Take A Leap challenge this month was to Find a New Destination, so I sat down with a travel brochure and made a collage.  Which, incidentally, also counts as something new, as I haven't done one before:

( collage )
Also in the last six weeks I have completed four more FutureLearn courses:
Discover Chinese Drama: Understanding 'The Injustice to Dou E' by National Chiao Tung University.  I learnt a bit about Chinese drama, and the play in particular, but I didn't find it very exciting, and wouldn't want to pursue the subject any further.  It seemed to be part of an undergraduate course, with references to set text books, which didn't help.

William Wordsworth: Poetry, People & Place by Lancaster University.  This was an absolutely brilliant course.  I'm not convinced I'll ever become a Wordsworthian, and his poetry isn't really my thing, but the course was excellent.  And certainly, if I ever end up in the Lake District again I will be visiting Dove Cottage, where the Wordsworths lived at the beginning of the nineteenth century.  The course had a variety of activities: quizzes, construct your own page of Wordsworth's journal and letter to Coleridge (photo below), and two peer-assessed assignments, so something for everyone.  The tutors leading the course were enthusiastic and didn't just lecture, but talked about the poems in situ, and in Dove Cottage/Jerwood Centre.  At the end of each week they filmed a summary and discussion of points raised during the week via zoom, which got longer as the weeks progressed - and there was so much to cover.  And finally, for this particular course, they added an extra short film to show how Dove Cottage is being updated to give more of a sense of the Wordsworths living there.

( Wordsworth )

Shakespeare: Context and Stagecraft by King's College, London.  A course designed more with A-level students in mind (knowledge of the plays discussed was essential), taking certain aspects of the plays apart and looking at them in more depth than most of the original audiences would have done.  While some explanation of what would have been generally known/believed at the time was helpful, I am not convinced some of the minutiae was relevant. 

Pop Art by Centre Pompidou.  I knew little about Pop Art, and this was a good introduction, and now if I do see some in an exhibition I will have a better idea of what's behind it.  Although again it's not a subject I would be interested in pursuing.  However, it did give me the inspiration for my very non-pop art collage above, as well as access to making my icon, which I'm rather pleased with.

This is my response to this month's story_works Take a Leap challenge.

Firstly, although not technically within the timescale, my work have offered me reduced hours from the beginning of November to the end of March, which is good.  They've also agreed to me using some of my leave to reduce the hours worked for the last two weeks of October, so then come November I'll just drop one day.  Which should indeed give me some space for something new.

To begin with, I looked at social media and reduced the number I'm following on both Twitter and Instagram, because while I want to keep up to date with friends and certain useful organisations (like the county roads) and a few arts organisations, I really don't need any more negative information.  I am on Facebook, but only use it to keep track of the daughter (there are a lot of horse posts), plus Brownies and Bundles use it for messaging.  In addition I've removed a few from my Dreamwidth list, although not, I hope, anyone who comments here or with whom I have regular interaction elsewhere.  (If you think I'm ignoring you, then do shout!)  All of which is designed to free up time I can more productively spend with other people.

I did consider taking an online dance class, but that would mean dropping my daily walk (time considerations) and I much prefer the opportunity to get outside and enjoy the fresh air.  Later in the year I may reconsider.

My big decision though is to cut back on the amount of writing I do.  Again that's more of a streamlining.  I shall be continuing with my favourite challenges fan_flashworks , whatif_au , story_works plus various drabble/ficlet communities but I intend to be more selective with other challenges.  Up to now, I've been challenging myself to write as widely as possible, hence signing up for a wide variety of exchanges, but from now on it will be more a case of 'Do I really want to do this?'  So there will certainly be seasonal challenges, like spook_me , yuletide  and chocolateboxcomm but my intention is otherwise to be cutting back.

Because I want to spend more time on crafts.  There's so many things I want to knit, plus I'm continuing to cross stitch and there simply aren't enough hours in the day to do everything.  I've also discovered that whereas I have to concentrate when I'm cross stitching, if I'm doing some basic knitting I can listen to podcasts/audiobooks.  Which is a decided bonus.

There's still time left this month to continue to get rid of the old - have I mentioned the pile of books I need to sort?  And it's about time for my annual 'I haven't worn this for over a year, do I really need to keep it?' but 'I may come in useful' failed purge.

This month's challenge for story_works is to find a new perspective on something.  Since I've been trying this in various ways, I decided it merited its own post.

First of all, I believe all lives matter and therefore this means BlackLivesMatter, which is why, as I wrote in yesterday's book review, I've just read Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race.

Secondly, as we come to an end of the initial reaction to Covid-19 and realise that we're facing a much longer term problem, which will mean making amendments to the way we've always done things, for me this specifically applies to the church.  There is a tendency to look back and want to simply tweak what we were doing, but I believe it's time to look for new approaches.  Which means, when I was speaking about the Good Shepherd the other week, I was emphasising being led into new pastures rather than going back to the ones which had been fully grazed already.

Another way of finding a new perspective is one I used when asked to write a short reflection on Jesus walking on the water.  Instead of looking from the outside and condemning the disciples' lack of faith, try to imagine yourself as actually there and see how it feels and discover there's rather more to the story.

My third way of finding a new perspective has been on writing.  One of my current FutureLearn courses is on fairy tales, and last week we were encouraged to look at an alternative to Red Riding Hood.  My Tigger Holmes series tends to do just that, so I wrote Tigger Holmes and the Case of the Missing Grandmother.  In addition, there's an interesting story in the book of Joshua in the Old Testament about Caleb's daughter, so for fan_flashworks 'Safe' challenge I decided to expand it a little: Caleb's Daughter

Again, it's still difficult to do something new, since there are limited opportunities.  We saw my granddaughter at the weekend after a gap of four and a half months so it felt new, even if it doesn't fall within the category.

This month's story_works Take A Leap Challenge was to do a new physical activity.  I went back to Sadler's Wells Company of Elders dance sessions, which I'd tried before, but this time did Old School Hip Hop and Funk, Contemporary (Sweden), Kathak and Acogny Technique.  I enjoyed trying them out, and some of them I'd be interested in doing again at some point.

Only two FutureLearn courses this month:
Introduction to Intercultural Studies: Intercultural Contact by the University of Leeds.  This was a two-week course, and there are others in the series.  It was okay, but not particularly relevant to me, since it was discussing living in a different culture for a period of time and the challenges which can be faced, and the further challenges which may occur on return home.

Penshurt Place & the Sidney Family of Writers by Lancaster University.  A new course, and I recognised the names of some of the other participants from other courses I've followed.  Theoretically this would have been an interesting historical course, but it didn't grab me.  The family, both men and women, were writing around the time of Shakespeare and there was obviously a comparison to be made.  But the Sidneys were only writing for themselves and their friends, so they could afford to be self-indulgent with their writing.  It didn't appeal to me.

This month's story_works Take a Leap challenge is:




I would therefore like to send e-cards to as many of my flist as are prepared to provide an email address - comments will be screened.  A few friends have already received a card because they most certainly deserved one.

Alternatively, or as well, if you live in the UK then if you let me have your address I will send an actual card.  Sadly this is not possible for the rest of the world since this would involve going to the Post Office.  However, if you are happy to wait, then at some point in the future I will send you a card.

And if you would prefer not to reveal anything personal about yourself, that's fine and I am here saying "Hi!" to you :)