Cruising for classes to take

So many ideas to check out.  I keep cruising for (cheap or free) online classes to take, then get myself side-lined with in-person experiences that sound like fun.

This morning I found a series of writing courses...short term and fairly IMHO inexpensive at the local Community College...have circled several starting in August.  Can't start with any in May, as the first meeting dates conflict with our trip to visit Marcia and Ted in Vancouver .... that in itself, of course, being the BEST KIND of in-person experiences I can imagine !

Next on the list....checking out University of Virginia's fall offerings in criticism (to audit)....I am so out of date that I'm curious to find out what's the latest 'word' in literary crit these days.  Or, maybe once I find out, I won't be so curious....

Ciao for now

April 6th 2012 A whole new 'Moment in Life'

It was Good Friday. It way my birthday. It was my 65th birthday. It turned out to be the day I retired.

I wanted to do it. I needed to do it. I did it. Still amazes me that I did it (not that I needed to or wanted to).

The stress started abating the day I put in my 'notice'. My Datatel/Datatel+SGHE/Ellucian Services colleagues gave me a very nice 'send off'....I got to say goodbye on my terms. And got presents, too.

I have never slept better or felt more me (in at least 2 years !)...Time will tell what comes next. For now, though, I feel as if I have 'me' back again...and that 'me' does not include being a corporate person, a client advocate, or a high salary earner. Fewer Starbucks, more freedom. And I have a good supply of shoes for the next 5 years.

We'll see what's next

Me and Facebook, one year later

So, after a year on FaceBook, where am I and what have I learned

Staying 'in touch' with people (and parts of their networks) all over is wonderful and so easy !

• Thoughts of the moment are better than 'letters and phone calls' just to catch up
• FaceBook is not intrusive, but is interactive when the spirit moves. Perfect for a time-challenged extrovert.
• Phone calls are for the really serious stuff across the miles (or for those great last minute rendezvous arrangements)
• I get impatient with friends who don't use FaceBook (but love them nonetheless).
• There is nothing like weather to make the Internet sing with news and witticisms (and grunts and groans) and that's everything from heat to snow to rain to floods (Australia) to how DC and NoVa STILL can't handle snowstorms.
• Pictures are really fun
• I keep track of things that really interest me (Art Galleries, books, movies, blogs, news) easily. I've 'liked' more pages of interest than anything else.
• Farmville deserves its own blog post, so stay tuned.

Social Networking, Thoughts on Experience, Part Oneth

Five months on Facebook, certainly that's more than a 'fair trial' for social networking? Interesting, though, that my approach, expectations, and even communication strategy has changed several times over those months.

So, who are my friends? Sort of a 60 - 40 split between work colleagues (of all sorts, positions, etc) and personal friends and family (i.e. Mort's offsprings). But not all in any category. I've accepted some 'friends requests', let others lie for a while, then accepted, ignored a few, contacted and explained 'why not' to another one or two. Decided that I wouldn't 'friend' clients, even those who are/were past colleagues.

I started by 'stealthing'....just looking at posts and observing. But with far-flung friends, it's been really neat to read, share, comment upon spur of the moment 'comments and observations.'

I also decided to 'follow' (or, become a fan) of things that interest me. So much better than being on email newsletters, especially for art galleries and museums both locally, and in cities that I either visit often or 'might' get to visit. I like having stuff come to me effortlessly, so I also follow a number of business-oriented sites via Facebook.

Big deal for me was starting to post my own comments, and/or deciding to 'share' items that I found interesting from my subscriptions and fanning. Amazing some things that mean a lot to me seemed not to interest (at least not to the point of making comment) anyone else out there....oh, until I SAW the person or spoke to them on the phone, at which time comments came up. Hummmm. Also, reconnected with an old friend...although we've never actually been out of touch, we're much more conversant with Facebook than we ever were with phone calls and/or emails.

I love looking at colleagues' pictures of their kids...and seeing the flurry of suggestions that one acquaintance gets every time she puts out an APB for dinner suggestions on the spur of the moment.

And Farmville, well, what can I say about Farmville. I'm in my third 'stage' now having overcome my bias against ever 'selling' a gift or 'selling' an animal. Now that I'm over those two hurdles, I've been able to carve out a 'spread' that appeals to me on several levels. Discovered I'm neither particularly competitive, nor large scale. I just like the hobby-farm kind of environment, but pretty regularly visit my neighbours and help them out when I do.

Where it my involvement with Facebook going? I have no idea as I move into month six. But I know that even if I 'de-friend' some and pare down my contacts, I will retain the pages and 'fan groups' I've joined to keep myself informed. Also, I've discovered that some museums (SF MoMA especially) have vibrant Facebook sites and extremely interesting media.

Stay tuned.

So many 'survivors' seemed, initially, strange to me

Reminiscing over the holidays, about our move here 13 years ago (Mort immigrated on 16 December, our house closed on the 19th, etc) in 1996. I'd been 'in Virginia' on my own for three months. One of the first things that hit my 'cultural awareness' was the number of men I'd met at Datatel who were about my age, and Vietnam vets. I kept thinking....wow, so many folks lived through that. It took me a while to wise up to the facts. Of course the men I met who served in Vietnam were 'survivors' ! But my context, having left the US to live in Canada permanently in 1969, was either the number of fellows I knew personally who had died in Vietnam (5 from my graduating h/s class of only 70, was one statistic)...and then the large number of deserters and draft-dodgers I met in Montreal, Toronto, etc. When I started working as an in-course advisor at University of Toronto in early 1970, I kept being amazed by the number of young male undergraduates who easily contemplated dropping out for a while, or changing majors, etc with so much aplomb. It took me so long to adjust to the fact that that generation of guys didn't have to make the hard choices about war, life, etc.

Dystopian Novels.....Female writers rule !

All my absolute favs were written by women: Doris Lessing (but not the Campos ones, the earlier ones), PD James (Children of Men), Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx & Crake, The Year of the Flood) and now, 'The Unit' by Ninni Holmqvist.



Moreso that any of my other favs, "the Unit' does, as one critic said (I read some reviews after not before, I read the novel) ...'create a mental condition and a geographical place.' And, moreso than any of the others, it incorporates the essential gender bias towards the 'longer productivity' of men over women in the marketplace...But more harrowing is the definitive line drawn between the 'dispensable' people (both male and female) and the 'necessary' ones.



If this book had not been written in Swedish, by a Swede, and only recently translated into English and sold in English edition, I would suspect it to have been a fictional commentary the 'logical extensions' of the right/conservative agenda .... but it is much grander in sweep....and therefore much more politically inclusive, focusing as it does on 'what it really takes' when a country and its society take action to ensure that resources and policies focus on achieving productive results.



Read it (Amazon has it on Kindle and paperback) and wonder....even if you can classify yourself among the 'necessary ones' ...if you're willing to go there....or to live in a country that does.

So, it's been a while. I thought long and hard about making an entry when Ted Kennedy died, end of an era, and some comments on my own political coming of age in the 60's, but then decided, no, not enough substance (although certainly a 'moment in life' where i looked at things again).

No what drove me to the keyboard today was the death of Mary Travers. Reminded me of one of those 'out of the blue' moments ........

Several years ago, I was waiting to meet with a client at a Theological Seminary. The waiting area outside her office was also outside the Chapel, and a service was underway. The sermon wound down and a muted trumpet started playing an oddly familiar melody in clear, but soft tones. Soon a guitar joined in, and then in purest, most lyrical and touching tones I'd ever heard, a fine male voice started into a full, all stanza, rendition of 'I shall be released.' I savoured the sound, the words, the guitar and trumpet, the whole nine yards, and was disappointed when the music ended, in the way we sometimes are disappointed when we reach the last page of a fine novel.

As my colleague left the chapel and came over to fetch me for our meeting, I told her how touched I was by the beautiful final 'number.'

Paul Stookey was spending that semester as musician in residence at the seminary....Time passes, music is a gift always......