Linda's Meta-learning Journal

So here I am at the end of the summer holidays, just one day left. It doesn't feel like summer's ready to let go yet, warm and hazy sitting here in the sun in my garden, listening to the birds singing. But late at night and early in the morning there's a bite in the wind. I don't mind, I like Autumn. It's better on the East coast though : cool, bright, crisp September and October days, perfect for walking in woods. Here it will tend to be wet and windy, time to shake out the waterproofs and remind myself I don't have to stay in just because it's raining.

What good things have I done this summer?

Lots of learning about using iPhoto and iMovie (see MacFaq on the wiki)

A potentially worthwhile and realistic Personal Development Plan (written during the summer and covering both work and Ultraversity)

A bedroom almost clear of long hoarded junk

Some insights into what I want for the future.

Less time spent on-line - or even on the computer

Less time spent on the phone

Two weeks in a tent :-)

Some good days out

Meetings with new/old Ultraversity friends

Some lovely memories of summer

Negative things?

No proper holiday - my two weeks on Gower couldn't happen this year.

Too much food and wine

Too little exercise.

Not enough time spent with old friends.

For the new term?

Keep checking and up-dating my SMART targets

Back to a wheat-free diet, no more sneaky croissants!

Back to regular walks

Continue to try to maintain a work/life balance

More fun!!!

More company, more time to be spent with friends, both old and new.

Remember: there is life outside the degree!

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shell»
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.
John Keats

After my last entry I thought I'd try to show what the shore line here is like and how different it is to the Solway. Who ever called this village Bolton le Sands must have had a sense of humour. There is sand but you have to walk over a lot of salt marsh to get there. When you do get there you have to be really careful about quicksand.
It was really windy yesterday but the light was interesting. It's frustrating how much of that the digital camera misses even taking stills . It is good to have movement and sound though so I'm not really complaining.

I tried exporting this video at a larger presentation size as it's not really about fine detail - not sure how well it works. Any thoughts welcome..

I was on the Solway Firth today visiting a beach I knew well as a child. It was strange to be there again and to look across at Criffel. When I was little it was such an important landmark. It was strange to be on the English side of the Solway, to look across and see Annan, to try to work out where SandyHills (my all time favourite childhood beach!) was. Anyway, it was lovely to be there and to walk across the shingle, see wild flowers on the edge of the beach, look at a huge 360deg sky, look east towards the Lake District hills. I know I live by Morecambe Bay but it never feels like the real sea, not like the Solway.

I thought I'd try out this album software. It looks pretty good!

I went for a walk in a local wood yesterday.

This film is bigger than usual - 4.4 MB. is as small as I could get it and keep the definition. I think it must be because of all the movement of the leaves. I got a copy of Quicktime Pro over the holidays so I've been experimenting. I tried exporting it from Quicktime at dsl medium quality first but ended up going back to iMovie and exporting it at web streaming quality. The file size was the same but web streaming plays faster so is better I think.

A few Ultrastudents met up at Hampton Court recently.
The river trip to Kew was a delight - sad that because of the tide we couldn't get all the way to Hampton Court by boat. Still a lovely peacful riverside walk and a train ride later we were finally there.
The kids enjoyed the maze but found it a bit easy I think. I thought the formal gardens were pretty but very, very formal. We headed for the indoors at the first crash of thunder and watched from the Kings chambers as rain lashed down on the Privy Garden. The palace itself left me a bit uneasy. It seems so much an expression of power and as such quite an ugly place. It brought out all my (not very!) latent Scottish republican tendencies. My hackles rose and I could feel the ancestors breathing down my neck!! Ah well, there's a surprise! Once outside again the Privy Garden too seemed all about power and imposing order by dominating. I spent the whole day with the music from "The Draftman's Contract" running through my head. Still it was lovely to see friends and add another face to text.
These face to face meetings are really good. It's like meeting old friends not strangers.I'm wondering about a blogmeet next. Anyone interested?

Stormy Boat Trip

I finally got round to edititng a little video of my boat trip to the Thames Barrier last week. It was quite stormy and you can hear quite a bit of thunder. What I didn't realise till later was that there were floods in West London and torrential rain.
Anyway, it was a good boat trip and I found the barrier itself quite asthetically appealing. The sky and the Thames were wonderful steely grey/blue tones and set it off to perfection. Of course the Dome was a very important thing for a lot of the people at Ultralab and this was the first time I'd ever seen it close to.

Tam O'Shanter

In answer to people's questions in the comments section of the last entry.
This is a poem by Robert Burns (Scottish poet from Dumfrieshire) based on an old legend.
Tam is a drunkard whose horse (a grey mare) takes a short cut home through the woods after the pub one night. Tam happens to see a coven of witches dancing wearing only their "cutty sarks" or short shirts (basically a revealing undergarment like a short loose shirt). The youngest witch is dancing the best and leaping higher than the rest. Entranced by the beaty of this witch Tam cries out "Weel done Cutty Sark!" and thus reveals himself. The witches give chase on broomsticks(!) and Tam's mare flees for her life. The youngest witch is also the fittest and catches Tam's mare's tail but the horse pulls away and the witch is left holding just a tail whilst Tam and his horse escape.

If you want to hear it in all its Lalands glory try this link here where you can download someone speaking it in a broad Dumfrieshire accent. I don't recommend you try to make sense of it by reading it. Too many dialect words! But if you insist the text is available here. (glossary provided).
For myself I prefer his more political poems like In Honest Poverty with its disdain for title or position and its call for a brotherhood of Man.
Though Holy Wullie's Prayer is an old favourite. Burns had no time for hypocrites.

I saw this famous ship yesterday and wondered how many of the people looking at it knew the story of Tam O'Shanter and what a cutty sark actually is - or for that matter that the figure head is a witch and what she is holding is the tail of Tam's "guid grey mare".

I've been trying to find out exactly why the ship was called Cutty Sark but so far have only established that she was built in Dumbarton and her first master was a Scot.

I didn't cheat - honest!!

This lovely little garden is tucked away behind the Storey Art Gallery near Lancaster railway station