Scrooges at this year’s Winter Carnival

I just witnessed the most delightful start to this year’s Winter Carnival. After an eternity of waiting, the parade started with the “Princess Carriage”, containing probably the most un-princess-like princess (translate as ugly) I have ever seen. Still, she was throwing out wonderful candy to the spectators, so beggars can’t be choosers.

As is so often the case in these provincial parades, there was a noticeable disparity between the level of regimental rigour on the part of the parade participants. Some managed just fine…

And others do not know the meaning of a straight line…

Yet, considering the minus ten-degree (Celcius) weather, hats off to all.

The funniest scene I witnessed was the city workers (notice bright orange uniforms) grabbing up the candy from under the children’s noses who were standing nearby (can't see the children in the photo). 

The parade participants throw candy from the floats or bags on their waists into the crowds. Initially, I thought the city workers would hand the candy they picked up to the children. But, no, they scooped the candy up and snuck it down the front of their coats. What a hoot. What a bunch of Scrooges! Still, it’s not as if children really need any more candy than they already have…

Sometimes a Gentleman, Sometimes a Bozo

Years ago, a friend of a friend explained how she was walking through Macy’s department store in NYC, and she saw Richard Gere standing at a tie counter looking at some ties on display. She became so flustered at seeing him, “Right Before My Eyes!” All she could think of was how desperately she wanted to find a way to make contact with him. On the spur of the moment, she decided on the Canadian Moose Maneuver, barged ahead, and rammed into him.

Now, we are talking about a Big Gal here. I remember hearing that she played defence on a mixed basketball team. So, when she said she rammed Richard Gere, you have to think of a male moose during the mating season. Apparently, after the collision occurred, she breathlessly apologized to Richard Gere for bumping into him, and he said, “Not at all, the fault was all mine”.

Gosh, wasn’t that a graceful gesture on his part?

Then, I read an article on BBC News about Richard Gere accepting the Havard University Brass Pudding Award. To explain why he even came to pick up the award, Mr. Gere said, "We're really all bozos on the bus. All of us, especially in this world and this country right now, when the biggest bozo on the bus is actually driving it."

Maybe he is not always the gentleman, yet he still manages to get things right.

The Red Tent Blog

Years ago, I read the book, “The Red Tent”, by Anita Diamant. Here’s a part of the Amazon’s book description:

“The red tent is the place where women gathered during their cycles of birthing, menses, and even illness. Like the conversations and mysteries held within this feminine tent, this sweeping piece of fiction offers an insider's look at the daily life of a biblical sorority of mothers and wives and their one and only daughter, Dinah.”

What I was most fascinated by in this book was the concept of women retreating collectively into a place for a few days each month; relinquishing their day-to-day duties and spending the days with other women in conversation and contemplation. The days, in my imagination, must have been spent giving voice to their opinions on a wide variety of topics, medical or marriage advice, or telling stories about their personal remembrances or tribal history. 

After reading the book, I wrote up a concept for a website, a virtual red tent as it were. After discussing the project with a few women, who were full of ideas but had no technical capabilities to offer, I gave up on the idea. I didn't want to be the sole motor in the project.

Yet, recently, I reconsidered (reread) my concept and feel the time is right to execute the project. Mainly because I have been both a witness and (humble) participator in various new trends that are currently taking place on the Internet. They excite me in their technical simplicity, as in their extensive accessibility.

I have always believed that once the Internet underwent an evolution that transformed it from an information medium into a communication medium, as once happened with the telephone *, a revolution would occur. In this revolution, the “small people of the world” will finally be given a voice. Politically, economically, socially, and in the world of media, there are definite indicators (I’ll try to find a few links later) that we are at the cusp of this revolution.

So, I have talked to a few friends about setting up “The Red Tent Blog”. This will be a virtual meeting place for friends, friends-of-friends, or just interested women to exchange ideas, express opinions, give advice, recount past experiences, and reflect upon lessons about how to survive or thrive present social or economic challenges.

Stay tuned. The gods willing, “The Red Tent Blog” will be launched May 8th 2006.

* My convoluted recollection about the development of the telephone goes as follows … The telephone was originally developed as a substitute for the telegraph. This was because many of the post office employees could not decipher Morse code. It was the female post officers using the new telephone services, with their insatiable curiosity for news and their talent for spreading gossip, that instigated the change from the telephone as a device to send news rather than to talk to any person on the face of the earth. What would our world be without telephones!

Busy week

Busy week.

Busting heads. 

Bruised bladder. 

Begging for a return of balance.

Discovering Berlin with Maria

Just to underscore Sara’s impression that her mother (that’s me) is always wandering around lost in the Big City (any city), Maria and I managed to make a simple excursion into the interior of Berlin into a true comedy of errors, mishap, and misdirection.

At one point, we burst into uncontrollable laughter, suspecting we were part of some “hidden camera” program because every person we asked directions from up to that point gave us false or incomplete information. This included an employee of the subway company in an information kiosk, as well as a fellow passenger on a subway train we were thinking of taking.

After following their instructions, we ended up, juxtaposition away from where we were intending to go. The crazy thing was, each time we realised we were astray, we chose a new destination to go to, something closer to our current position.

Finally, after nearly five hours (I kid you not, though there was a break for lunch at a café in-between) of erring, we finally entered our first museum. We did not go to the Museum of Modern Art, the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, the House of Cultures, or the Pergamon Museum, as we intended. Instead, we visited the Ancient National Gallery, which was never on our wish list.

I would have resigned myself to a day of aimless wandering after the first hour or two, but Maria comes from Frankland, an area in Germany which breeds a more resolute we-can’t-possibly-give-up-now type of person. Thank heavens for that because the museum visit was absolutely delightful. My favourites were paintings by Renoir, Monet, and Max Beckmann.

I have never seen so many, and such a variety of, security guards as there were in that museum. There were often two or three standing around in each tiny side room.

The enjoyment of the visit was heightened by an excellent audio guide included in the price of the entrance ticket. At one point, as I was sitting on a bench listening to the audio guide explain some aspect of the painter's technique, I began to wonder what the audio guide would be like if bits of conversation from the security guards were dispersed between the audio recording sequences.

For example, if one security guard gossiped with another guard, telling him that the crazy art lover was over in room 4 was swaying in front of Casper David Friedrich’s Gartenterasse again. (This indeed happened, not the security guard’s conversation, but the swaying/dancing art lover communing with the painting). 

The idea would be for the audio recording to draw the museum visitor’s attention not only to the historical details of the art exhibits, but also to their present environment. Does that make any sense?

Gal's Weekend

Off to Berlin for an extended gals' weekend away. Nothing planned! Just an inclination to enjoy, relax, laugh, eat well, look at art, sit in cafés, and people-watch.

I love travelling. Most particularly, I love travelling on fast German trains. There is something about sitting on a fancy train that makes my mind boil over with ideas.

Satisfaction

Just finished printing out my contribution to the family journal with the new layout. One hundred pages including text and one hundred graphics (photos and collages), what an audacious endeavour this has been? It’s beautiful. Oh, yes, it does look reallyreally fine. I still have to do the journal’s cover and the chapter inserts, but it is unbelievably satisfying to see the document in its present form.

There are still three more documents to rework into the new layout: my uncle’s, and two from my sisters. My sister, in Montreal, has agreed to scan in some photos of the “older” generation on our mother’s side of the family. These photos will go into my uncle’s wonderful document of his, his parents, and his grandparent’s family history.

Learning to Recieve

One of my favourite bloggers, Guy Kawasaki, wrote a blog entry with the title “How to Be a Mensch”. Though thoughtful and interesting, his ideas tend to follow the lines that a true mensch is someone who learns to give freely and generously, which is certainly admirable to practice. Yet, I don’t think the hardest lesson we have to learn about the precarious nature of our humanity is learning how to give, but rather learning how to receive. Especially in times (e.g. life-threatening illness, war, famine) or in circumstances (e.g. a car accident, flood, snow storm) when we know at the very moment we are receiving that we will never be able to give back, I believe that we feel what it is to be a mensch.

In North American or European societies, giving your time, money, charity, road directions, information, etc., to others, though often altruistic acts, presume that you can “afford” to give what you are giving. In a subtle way, the act of giving is a demonstration of strength, and there are even people on this earth who feel superior when they give to those less fortunate. Sorry, wandering…

What I really want to say is that a true mensch is someone who knows how to receive and embrace even the altruistic acts of others in a moment of personal need, even though they know that they might never be able to repay the gesture. We should ask ourselves not only what we have given, but what we have received, and did we do it graciously.

Toppgraphy

About two years ago, I thought of writing a family journal for my children. Not a chronological history of my family but a whimsical storytelling tapestry of past incidents, present challenges, and future dreams. Since my children were born in Germany, and have extended family on the east coast and west coast of Canada, grandparents on two islands in the Caribbean and family in Sicily, Italy (to all the uninformed, don’t ask for details), most of whom have died in the last years or whom they have only met sporadically, it seemed like a good thing to write this journal so they could brush up on what sort of extended family they have, or had at a future point in time.

Then I thought of involving my siblings, their children, my mother, and my two uncles. Their homework was to contribute Anything (e.g. favourite recipe, family joke, interviews, etc.) to the project. Oddly, or perhaps not, very few members of my extended family contributed to the project, even though they seemed very enthusiastic initially.

Still, I finally decided not to wait any longer and set a deadline last fall for submitted material, and I have been working diligently trying to make the documents I did receive into some sort of well-ordered document ever since. Not only are the writing styles very (understatement) different, but I also have a long document (approx. 60-70 pages) that is solely text, as well as another, which consists of 18 photos of my sister’s embroidery work. Who would have thought that a nice layout would be such a difficult thing to achieve? However, maybe the real challenge is trying to make a cohesive document with such a variety of content and writing styles.

I finally hit the bookstores last week to see what the experts say about document topography. I quickly became overwhelmed by the onslaught of ideas from the “experts” who can not agree about even the most fundamental matters… So, I ended up buying one coffee-table book about some family memoirs with a large selection of photos, which I liked, and I am using its layout as the layout of my journal.

Fishing for compliments

A rather hilarious situation occurred this morning. I received an email from a good friend in the States. She mentioned her daughter (perhaps eight or nine years old) has become very timid about doing things on her own and shy about being in places or around people she does not know. 

Some of this has to do with all the “safety” talks she is getting at school, which scare her silly with their insidious perpetration of bogeyman mythology (material for a later blog post). In her daughter's opinion, the other part of her problem stems from a trip she took last summer with her father and younger sister to New York. She was so overwhelmed by the crowds and noise that she could not enjoy the trip, terrified that she might get lost.

I was formulating an email to this dear friend in the States, along the lines of “How can we teach our girls to become independent, confident, strong adventures”, when I remembered a trip I had taken with my daughter to London about a year and a half ago (she was nine years old at the time). I asked my daughter her opinion about what my friend’s daughter experienced in New York compared to her (my daughter’s) experience in London. (My heavens, imagine us country pumpkins raising daughters who travel to NYC and London at such an early age? Sorry, digressing).

Back in London a year and a half ago… When we arrived at the airport, late evening, we had to take a long train ride into the city centre and then walk to my friend’s house, where we would stay. As we waited for the train to arrive at the airport station, my daughter began to cry because it was all so strange. There were so many people; it was dark (way past her bedtime), and… it was all too much. Trying to show her that she didn’t have to worry because, hey, she was with her mom and a world traveller to boot, we had a discussion, which didn’t really seem to help, but at least calmed her to the point that she stopped crying. 

By the end of the journey (five days later), she had had such a Good Time that she said she wanted to move to London when she grew up and study there at the university. Boy, halleluiah, my girl the adventurer… I was so proud of her for making that giant leap of faith over just a few days and so smug about my mothering/guiding abilities that I decided to forego the normal means of air travel back home to Germany and flew home under my own wings instead.

So, you’re asking yourself, where is this story leading? As well you might. We are back at home this morning. I asked my daughter what happened during the trip, which changed the adventure from being scary to fun and something she wanted to go on forever. She contemplated the question for a few minutes. I was thinking she would say something along the lines of “you gave me such a feeling of security”, or maybe “together we can rip trees out of the ground, climb any mountains”… yes, fishing for compliments. 

Instead, she said, “I think it was because I realised that even though you were always lost, we always managed to get to where we wanted to go. 

You would ask all sorts of people (strangers) for directions (admittedly, I can’t read maps), and the people were so friendly and so helpful, and we had such interesting conversations that I realised being lost can be a lot of fun”. 

Talk about out of the mouths of babes. I am so proud of my daughter, but I am no longer feeling smug. No, instead, I feel so humbled to have such a smart daughter.

Off to visit one of my favourite teachers

Just about on my way to visit a teacher. Her class did a blogging and podcasting project, which must be wrapped up. The students went and interviewed the vendors at the farmers market and what their life was like selling produce for the local community. What is their daily schedule? Who are their favourite customers? How do they manage when the weather is bad?

I also want to see whether I can interest another teacher at the school in a geography project, “Navigation over the last 300 Years”: from compass to GPS, from antique maps to smartphone navigation guide.

This is one of those schools which is supposed to be advanced in its pedagogical policies. Still, practically, the teachers don’t seem concerned about using digital media in classroom learning situations. They have a computer room in the school (Linux), and that is supposed to be enough.

The teachers I have dealt with do not see that their students have a significant deficit in media literacy. The students are good consumers of media, but they have not been given any adult guidance on how to use media properly. 

Some of the teachers need to be made aware that there is a difference between media and computer literacy. It’s an ongoing battle to make them aware that they are responsible for teaching their students in such a manner that the acquisition of media literacy is intrinsic in their teaching methods (sorry, very convoluted sentence).

I’m off to the school.

Math Rally

I spent the morning working with my colleague at IMIS , the research institute where we work, on a concept for a math rally. The idea for a math rally originated from a math teacher’s comment about how children nowadays are unaware of their surroundings, such as numbers, geometrical forms, or mathematical formulas.

This comment supports my experience last year in a 3-D project where 13th graders were supposed to create a 3-D representation of their school. At the beginning of the project, the students didn't know how big one room was in comparison to another, how to approximate the size of a room (e.g. measure how big your step is and then "walk" the room), or what proportions, let alone architectural characteristics.

In this project, Math Rally, the 5th and 6th-grade students will have to discover their school as a collection of mathematical paradoxes, parameters and challenges. Example 1: the school auditorium will be changed into a swimming pool. How many cubic meters of water would fit in it, and how much will it weigh? Example 2: the windows on the west side of the school have to be replaced. How many sheets of glass, each 2 square meters, must the contractor order?

The questionnaire is created on PCs and then transferred later for the rally on PDAs. The questionnaire will, hopefully, be produced by a grade 10 or 11 math class. What we need is a math teacher willing to take the lead on the project. My university students and I usually do too much work on these projects. Ideally, it is the students and teachers who are supposed to surge ahead.

Weekend’s Twilight

Don’t you feel there should be a special term just to describe Sunday evenings: Weekend's twilight…? This particular time, with all sorts of hues, both dusk and dawn, to the new work week. There is a feeling of loss, for the weekend gone, of anticipation, or in some cases, apprehension, for all the tasks to be done.

My whole family is occupied with tomorrow, mourning yesterday, and living in the now only as an escape from what they should actually be doing. Such a strange time these Sunday evening hours are.

Favourites

Some of my favourite in-laws are due to come here later on today. I have eight brother-in-laws or sister-in-laws, all with partners (except one brother-in-law) and most with a selection of children. It makes for a wealth of personalities, conflicting dynamics, and a continuing stream of gossip.

It’s nice to have such a vast selection of in-laws because I can pick and nurture Favourites. Yes, from a political point of view or even a Christian point of view, this is just not done. I am well aware of that. But, from my limited viewpoint, it is a delight to be able to pick who I like the best from a slew of candidates. It’s like participating in the television series of “Family Super Star,” and I am the jury, audience, and sole voter. What could be more fun?

Most of my friends have a durst of in-laws: an occasional brother-in-law or a niece living in a city far away. What a pitiful situation this is. Often, my divorced friends continue, through desperation, to nurture relationships with ex-in-laws. And everyone looks on and smiles a frozen smile of insipid sympathy instead of just leading their friend away to find a new life. If they are lucky, they might discover a whole new pool of in-laws where they can choose Favourites.

Personal without being intimate

Yesterday, I realised that there is an aspect of blogging that can be very beneficial to relationships that are in a stalemate. This aspect is that blog entries can be personal without being too intimate, enabling the reader to share the blogger’s thoughts without feeling the necessity to respond in any way to the content matter. If the reader feels inclined to respond, fine, but it is not a prerequisite as it is with one-on-one communication.

My sister wrote that she has been experimenting with blogging and kindly sent me the address. She is not so sure where the blog is going (welcome to the club), but is enjoying the process. She apologised for the fact that her ex-,not-so-ex-, pseudo-ex- partner is still ever present in many of the blog entries.

She also apologised because she and I had no consensus about her relationship with this woman. After seven years, I am just hoping her partner will disappear from the face of my sister’s world. My sister has a much more moderate/naïve (who knows) view. Reading an email from my sister about her struggles concerning her partner is excruciating. Reading a blog entry is not. Instead, it was a liberating feeling to know how much her partner figures into her thoughts or not, … and that I don’t have to think or respond at all.

Freezing our behinds off

We are experiencing a cold front here on the Baltic coast. It swept in from Russia (or do I say ex-Russia?) minus 30-degree Celcius weather.

My children have never felt this type of cold in their lives. And, truthfully, they (we) are really not prepared for coldcold weather. Winter coats are chic alternatives to the autumn fashion line's jean jackets. No one wears boots unless they are of fine leather and can be worn to the theatre with your new black cocktail dress.

I discovered there is no word for frostbite in German. Or at least none of my colleagues knew of the word. We all sat around the water cooker (boiler) this morning talking about the whole process of sending our children off to school this morning in the cold. They were just stunned by my description of all that we learn as Canadian (and presumably American) children about prevention, identification, and the healing of frostbite.

To them, there is just normal winter cold, and then mountain climbers get their black toes cut off after conquering Everest. They have missed all the in-between…. Isn’t that strange? It reminded me about reading somewhere how there is a language (of the Inuit?) in some northern country, where there are 30 different words for snow.

Long hours of musing

I have been home on sick leave this week. Chest rattling, bellowing cough. This is a wonderful opportunity to work on my Talkshow Rivals game concept since lying down aggravates my cough.

There is a BBC radio series called Who Rules Your Life? (WRYL for short… really). Some programs are excellent listening. As far as I can tell, nearly all their regular programs do their own angle on the same question. The Science Discovery program has one about science, the Ticket about the entertainment industry, etc. 

While listening, I am updating text in the script, redesigning graphics, and doing a new layout of the documents. Now, you are talking about someone who normally can not walk and chew gum simultaneously, so the results are dubious.

Embracing the Inevitable

Read this article about the demise of books in the future. It seems such an odd premise to think people will not want to read books, even though they have for hundreds of years.

Isn’t the whole debate about learning to embrace new media to support traditional practices? It really isn’t a choice of books or ebooks/no books, is it; it is more like the issue of choosing to watch a film in a cinema or on a DVD.

They will still continue to produce films even though DVDs have some interesting developments. Film studios and cinemas have rethought their marketing strategies. Having the price of a cinema ticket be half the cost of a DVD is not acceptable to many film viewers anymore.

Why can’t publishers and bookstores just embrace new possibilities of bringing books to readers in all sorts of formats (e.g. print, audio, electronic) instead of making doomsday predictions about the demise of books?

Take in point the new independent bookstore, Crockattpowell & Powell Booksellers* in London. They obviously want to sell books in their store. To do this they have an attractive store in a good location and offer online services as well on their website. Yes, standard stuff, you are saying. Yet, look at their blog*, delightful. The blog is bound to be a great source of indirect advertising to sell some books.

If a good customer wishes for print material in another format (e.g. audio or electronic), they will do their best to serve them. They would still go on selling books, though, wouldn’t they?

There is also the fact that people seem to underestimate how part of the whole reading experience is simply the sensual pleasure of touching and smelling paper, as well as the visual pleasure of good print.

Nothing will replace the joys of reading a nicely printed book.

*Sadly, in 2023, as I was editing this post, it looks as if this bookstore does not exist anymore. It looks to have been well-loved.

Quiet evening

Just off with the family to my favourite Tai restaurant. The only Tai restaurant in this city, I believe. Nevertheless, they have got it right even within their monopole.

The children and I went out and had a delightful lunch with our ex-neighbour. We visited her at her new apartment and discussed the possibility of moving into the apartment across the hall when the students move out.

Whether this happens or not is somewhat secondary. What struck me as special was the idea of living next door to each other again, which struck both parties (children included) as highly desirable after having done so for about four years now.

Phew, that’s over!

Our research institute holds weekly lectures on various areas of research. I had to give a lecture today, which went well. But heavens, was I ever pleased when it was over, and I could get oxygen flowing to my brain again. The thing is, when does an average person get the chance to talk for an hour straight without anyone interrupting or someone getting up from the table and leaving you to your rant?