Le mal dans la malle.

His black coal eyes glare.

He takes those books and throws them in the trunk.

A rusted axe, a battered door, a broken lock.

In goes the family silver.

In goes the skeletons.

In goes those shrieks of pain.

In goes his monster frame.

In goes sanctimony.

In goes alimony.

In goes pedophilia, necrophilia, hymns and prayers.

DEAD.

BURIED.

NOT DEEP ENOUGH YET.

Her black kohl eyes glare.

He takes those looks and throws them in the trunk.

A scratched arm, a battered door, a broken plate.

He takes his shame and folds it roughly in the trunk.

He sits on the lid to hold it down.

Climbing down the grave.

I shovel earth.

I beat it down, 

It grasses over.

Sitting on the hummock, we feels their spirit...

We'll be leaving our sorrow.

There'll be sun to morrow.

Le mal est dans la malle.

DEAD.

BURIED.

NOT DEEP ENOUGH YET?

Nomadic ruminance.

Preamble

A multivoiced conversation springs from an afternoon picnic with Terry Elliott, shepherd.

https://vialogues.com/vialogues/play/37391

Amble

I can feel the movement slowing, I concentrate on breathing, I feel my muscles relax.  

I am focused on that field.

My fingers hesitate.

RUMI-NANCE

The page backgrounds.

My attention is fixed on time.

Or heart beat?

Seconds...blinking in a cursor.

A lie?

“The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness. And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.” 

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Now. 

Slowed. 

-N-O-W-

LIFE

S-P-A-C-E

Bird Song

RECORD

ONLY

SILENCE

-N-O-W-

The sheep field has become a means to read?
Or to listen?
Or to see?
Or to hear?

"Each field tells a story." 
Terry Elliott

A means to read?

A means to care?

A means to wonder?

A hollow yearning is that?

No! There is joy.

LIFE


"There's another story there: you live in a system that essentially defies understanding."
Terry Elliott


"I can go out on my farm every day and find a mystery."
Terry Elliott

A reason to mourn reason?

"Around the ninth hour, Jesus shouted in a loud voice, saying "Eli Eli lama sabachthani?" which is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"


"Nature has a way and if nature doesn't want to produce grass you have to get rid of sheep."
Terry Elliott

To throw up one's arms and surrender to the evidence.

"Eli Eli lama sabachthani?"

What counts is not visible, is around us, but beyond us and binds us all.

LOVE

"Nature will make you decide things that you don't want to decide."
Terry Elliott

I decide to do this while I can, while I want.

That sheep field has me write this.

It's the nature of it.

WRITING

"You want a little bit of everything in a field."
Terry Elliott

I am not sure

I pull up a few weeds.

I walk the lines.

LINE

"We have no faith in nature." 

Do you have any faith in human nature?

I have resistant faith.

For if not, what?

It's been raining.

LIFE

I have space to think, to wander, to meander...
 ...to get where I shouldn't be, to vagabond...

FLOW

Je me la coule douce.

VAGABOND

The word breaks up.

"There's another story there: you live in a system that essentially defies understanding."
Terry Elliott

VAGA BOND. 

Vague - Vague - indefinite (English) 

Vague - Wave (French) Sea - Waves - Rhythmic - Tides - Influence of moon - Seasons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide

Animation of Tides as Moon Goes Around the Earth With the Sun on The Right

Animation: Todd  Timberlake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide#/media/File:Tidalwaves1.gif

Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of gravitational forces exerted by the Moon, Sun, and rotation of the Earth. The semi-diurnal range (the difference in height between high and low waters over about half a day) varies in a two-week cycle. Approximately twice a month, around new moon and full moon when the Sun, Moon, and Earth form a line (a condition known as syzygy), the tidal force due to the sun reinforces that due to the Moon. The tide's range is then at its maximum; this is called the spring tide. It is not named after the season, but, like that word, derives from the meaning "jump, burst forth, rise", as in a natural spring. When the Moon is at first quarter or third quarter, the sun and Moon are separated by 90° when viewed from the Earth, and the solar tidal force partially cancels the Moon's. At these points in the lunar cycle, the tide's range is at its minimum; this is called the neap tide, or neaps (a word of uncertain origin).

Va - Go (French) 

Bond - relate to people - make deepening connections (English)

Bond (jump French)

VA-GAGA-  Go GAGA.

Silly; crazy.

Completely absorbed, infatuated, or excited: They were gaga over the rock group's new album.

Senile; doddering.

BOND - James

Charles Dickens, in "The Old Curiosity Shop" has a character say: 

"a gentleman's word is as good as his bond, sometimes better, as in the present case."

"Agriscience and agribusiness is so apposite to agriculture."
Terry Elliott

"There's another story there: you live in a system that essentially defies understanding."
Terry Elliott

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing 
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.” 

Jalaluddin Rumi

Image 

Isle of Skye

Richard Ansdell

1865

Oil on canvas.

183 × 108 cm (72 × 42.5 in)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ansdell_Richard_Isle_of_Syke.jpg

No time lost?

I bend over to blow out the candles.

The horizon once appeared so hazy as to seem irrelevant. 

A whole dream life beckoned...

Not a moment to spare.  

No time to lose...

Rip open the present.

I breathe life into inanimate toys.

No time lost.

I studied my image in the mirror.  

I detected a glint of youth unchanged.

They were my father's eyes pearing out from mine,

A subtle surprise to be thus metamorphosed.

There I had been.

There he appeared.

No time lost.

I spoke with my sister upon my birthday.

They had erased the theatre set of our childhood.

It was nowhere to be seen.

She was sad.

I laughed as provocation to the paultry property developers.

Fuck them all!

"The bastards can do nothing to destroy our play." 

"It was never concrete."

I thought.

No doubt they saw potential for a quick return.

There was no time to lose...

Let them accumulate.

Time is ticking.

No time lost.

Their reality counted for naught.

Our reality lives on despite our loss.  

This dreamt reality is ever present.

While we breathe...

No time lost.

I know I should be doing something "productive".

I was never so disciplined as to give up to should.

Should is no escape.

No time lost.

I breathe in the time's passing.

I feel the tiredness.

I feel the blood throbbing instants in my fingers...rested on the keys.

I hear the clac, clac, and the dog that sighs.

No time lost.

I fell upon an interview posted by Torn Halves.

It featured an author, Darian Leader, of a book entitled: "What is madness?"

Indeed, what is madness?

I should be "productive".

I know that.

It's engraved in my body, this, their madness.

We shall be productive.

We shall tally our time on that blasted spreadsheet...

Were this a blasted heath?

Years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds...tick, tick, tick, tick, tally.

I count up the candles.

No time lost.

I take a long intake of breath, I blow them out.

There it is I am accumulating.

We live to accumulate.

These will be our monuments.

We build for loss.

Were this cumulus?

No time lost.

One last breath, our ashes to the wind.

No time lost.

What I write reeks of cinders.

This is mourning meaning.

There is a joy in abandon yet...

No time lost.

I write, I pause...

I am gone.

This is loss.

There is a clock ticking.

The chest lifts folds in my sweater no more.

The dog is hidden under the sofa.

The cat is wrapped in on itself.

It sleeps.

A clock ticks.

My daughter arrives, her cheek frozen against mine in embrace.

No time lost.

No time lost.

No time lost.

Time is not money.

Time is not money. 

It was this thought which came to my mind after a conversation with Terry Elliott and Daniel Bassill.

I noted a Vialogues of that meeting, entitled "Breaking down walls, opening minds.." here for future reference...to return to.

https://vialogues.com/vialogues/play/27019/

I thought to myself that I would have an hour.

I looked up at the time.

It was way over an hour.

I had the impression that we had been speaking for ten minutes.

I had to go.

"Where did Monday go?"

Part of my childhood had died the week before.

Was there life on Mars?

It was on the radio in that purple painted bedroom of mine.

I might have been ten.

It, a spaceman, had been closed in a wardrobe.

I was fifty three now.

Time is not money.

It is at times a simple calculation.

Poverty is not a state to aspire to.

I looked around the bare walls.

Space swallowed me in a ten metre square.

There seemed little reason to walk from one end of the box to the other.

My head beat against the walls inside my head.

I had to go.

I couldn't stay still.

Life wouldn't let me.

No matter what you or I say.

Time is not money.

I found myself in a one metre square box, selling dreams in printed boxes.

Time wasn't money.

I did what I could to call time on poverty.

Day after day, I sold little paper boxes and received a little paper envelope with little paper money.

There were a few coins.

It was barely better than poverty but it felt like a way out.

I felt I had achieved something.

There was something about freedom about not allowing oneself to think.

Oh, the pleasure of absent-minded, soulless busyness!

It felt like success!

Get high!

It was barely better than poverty but it felt like a way out.

How can those in extreme poverty know joy?

Is it joy to accept our little lot?

A way out. 

There was a reason to redouble efforts to find the way out.

Love was it.

Poverty with sunshine was an improvement.

Of all the very limited choices open to someone who doesn't speak the language, teaching one's language seemed the most attractive.

A choice not open to those with the wrong language.
A choice not open to those without the right education.

(Would cleaning boxes at night and sleeping while the sun shone have felt like an improvement?

Would love be enough?

For how long?)

How long can absent busyness feel like liberation?
How long can absent hedonism feel like life?

Time brings acceptance.
Does time bring acceptance?
Who cares for time - those who don't count?

Time is not money.

This is not the post that I intended to write.

It was to be something quite different.

It slipped out.

Day after day when I want to write nothing...

I end up writing this.

This is madness.

How does one find meaning in one's existence?

Is it by accident?

Is it like this -  an accident?

I am at peace to write.

I glance over at the clock.

Time is not money.

I am just an English teacher.

I should know my place.

"Don't start getting ideas above your position."

I know there are others who seem quite content with such a lot.

Are they lying?

The rest are none of my business.

I am a fragment of their, of my fragmented existence.

Surely not even a speck.

Two hours here, two hours there, make merry, it shall not last.

Time is not money.

While it lasts...

Take your little paper envelope.

"Now hush!"

I shall not just take.

Time is nothing.

So what is money?

I will be at peace.


Timepiece.

"Safety Last!"

Harold Lloyd Clock Scene from "Safety Last!" 

(source  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_Last!)

The film opens in 1922 with Harold Lloyd (the character has the same name as the actor) behind bars. His mother and his girlfriend, Mildred, are consoling him as a somber official and priest show up. The three of them walk toward what looks like a noose. It then becomes obvious they are at a train station and the "noose" is actually a trackside pickup hoop used by train crews to receive orders without stopping, and the bars are merely the ticket barrier. He promises to send for his girlfriend so they can get married once he has "made good" in the big city. Then he is off.

He gets a job as a salesclerk at the De Vore Department Store, where he has to pull various stunts to get out of trouble with the picky and arrogantly self-important head floorwalker, Mr. Stubbs. He shares a rented room with his pal "Limpy" Bill, a construction worker.

When Harold finishes his shift, he sees an old friend from his hometown who is now a policeman walking the beat. After he leaves, Bill shows up. Bragging to Bill about his supposed influence with the police department (when in reality he merely knows that this particular policeman would not arrest either of them for a harmless prank, since Harold is an old friend of his), he persuades Bill to knock the policeman backwards over him while the man is using a callbox. When Bill does so, he knocks over the wrong policeman. To escape, he climbs up the façade of a building. The policeman tries to follow, but cannot get past the first floor; in frustration, he shouts at Bill, "YOU'LL DO TIME FOR THIS! THE FIRST TIME I LAY EYES ON YOU AGAIN, I'LL PINCH YOU!"

Meanwhile, Harold has been hiding his lack of success by sending his girlfriend expensive presents he cannot really afford. She mistakenly thinks he is successful enough to support a family and, with his mother's encouragement, takes a train to join him. In his embarrassment, he has to pretend to be the general manager, even succeeding in impersonating him to get back at Stubbs. While going to retrieve her purse (which Mildred left in the manager's office), he overhears the real general manager say he would give $1,000 to anyone who could attract people to the store. He remembers Bill's talent and pitches the idea of having a man climb the "12-story Bolton building", which De Vore's occupies. He gets Bill to agree to do it by offering him $500. The stunt is highly publicized and a large crowd gathers the next day.

When a drunkard shows "The Law" (the policeman who was pushed over) a newspaper story about the event, the lawman suspects Bill is going to be the climber. He waits at the starting point despite Harold's frantic efforts to get him to leave. Finally, unable to wait any longer, Bill suggests Harold climb the first story himself and then switch his hat and coat with Bill, who will continue on from there. After Harold starts up, the policeman spots Bill and chases him into the building. Every time Harold tries to switch places with Bill, the policeman appears and chases Bill away. Each time, Bill tells his friend he will meet him on the next floor up. Eventually, Harold reaches the top, despite his troubles with a clock and some hungry pigeons, and kisses his girl. She continues to believe that he's general manager of De Vore.

Image Credit. 
http://maudit.tumblr.com/post/8008943407/during-the-famous-clock-tower-stunt-harold-lloyd

Carving out time

Jazz is fed up with driving to Dunkerque.

He's gone to seek refuge at the back of the car. 

I have my hands free.

So how do I carve out time to write?

iPhone. 

I am constantly making notes.

Photos.

Quotes.

Tweets.

Sounds.

I am relaxed in this space.

I am not writing to form, to format, to deadline. 

This is a space of freedom.

I can travel.

I can time travel.

I can take Barbie's dress and put it on Action Man.

I can make Hermes fly Virgin.

How do I carve out time?

I started by ordering my work so I could, so we could function, so that time wasn't stuffed with stuff.

I stopped all time consuming nonsense like photocopying and most meetings.

I have classes which are learner centred. Sometimes I write during classes - while the other learners are busy writing. 

I write before classes after taking the kids to school.

I write while doing the cooking (on phone)

I write while watching TV.

Sometimes I write in the middle of the night. I wake up and have to write (it's a bit like the urge to go to the toilet/loo/washroom/bathroom/John/lavatory/ but worse - it takes longer.

Sometimes I write in the car.

He takes a photo to prove it. 

Sometimes I don't write at all.

I never NEVER EVER think I should write.

I hate should.

I don't think too much unless I am writing thinking stuff, academic stuff, stuff which must be aimed at a particular audience.

You see.

You (blind faith) are my reader.

YOU read this nonsense. 

YOU respond.

Sometimes...

Thank you.

Freedom.

Faith.

Fun.

Fellowship.

Black wholes in time.

What is this madness?

What the hell were we doing watching Luton against  West bloody Bromwich Albion?

I suppose it passed the time.

It took our mind off other things.

There we were watching the most boring game of football (soccer) of recent years (ever) and then with a little change of the rules we were both on the edges of our seats. 

My friend introduced me to the concept of spread-betting.

There are markets for everything. 

You decide how many corners there will be in a match and then you place money on your best guess.

I googled 'spread-betting' and the writers of the page had obviously read my blog.

Football spread betting with Spreadex can turn even the most uninspiring 0-0 draw into an edge-of-the-seat experience. Spreadex offers a multitude of football spread betting markets on hundreds of games played around the world each week.

http://www.spreadex.com/sports/get-started/football-spread-betting/

It was one of the most memorable crap games of football (soccer) that I can remember and the score?

0 - 0 draw.

What is it about numbers, about counting which drives us crazy?

HOW MUCH DO YOU LOVE ME?

Dave Cormier in his week 2 prompt of #rhizo15 asks us to count and my mind is spinning from Schizophrenia to Quadrophenia to Rhizo-degradable tshirts.

What the hell is going on?

 I have already blogged about this insanity.

Here are just four posts which refer in some way to the numbers game, whether it be money, grades, teaching, mountaineering.

Give me money.

Disciplined minds

Mind the gap.

Because they are there.

At heart.

Numbers are infinitely generative of ideas, dreams, energy, games, plastic surgery, homicides...

Why on earth are we so obsessed with our measurements?


I slept on the question.

We escape one black hole to fear falling in another.  The night was long...

THANK YOU GOD I WOKE UP.

I woke up and came to the conclusion that it must be to do with the black holes which await us.

Our days are numbered.

Our fate is singular.

I looked at seventeen generations on my family tree.

Do you know what they had in common?

BLACK HOLES.

Whatever they had done, however many steps they had taken, however many places they had seen, they had all disappeared into some black hole.

My end is nigh.

"Time"

Time - He's waiting in the wings
He speaks of senseless things
His script is you and me boys

Time - He flexes like a whore
Falls wanking to the floor
His trick is you and me, boy

Time - In Quaaludes and red wine
Demanding Billy Dolls
And other friends of mine
Take your time

The sniper in the brain, regurgitating drain
Incestuous and vain,
and many other last names
I look at my watch it say 9:25 and I think
"Oh God I'm still alive"

We should be on by now [x2]
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la [repeat]

You - are not a victim
You - just scream with boredom
You - are not evicting time

Chimes - Goddamn, you're looking old
You'll freeze and catch a cold
'Cause you've left your coat behind
Take your time

Breaking up is hard, but keeping dark is hateful
I had so many dreams,
I had so many breakthroughs
But you, my love, were kind, but love has left you
dreamless
The door to dreams was closed.
Your park was real dreamless
Perhaps you're smiling now,
smiling through this darkness
But all I had to give was the guilt for dreaming

We should be on by now [x5]
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la [repeat]

Yeah, time!

Keeping up. LOL ;-)

I stood in front of the photocopier.

Sorry, I'll start again.

I stood in the queue in front of the photocopier.






Sorry, I'll start again.

I stood in the queue for the photocopier, looking at my watch.

As time goes by.

I might have spent my time learning a new song, practising origami, watching a Humphrey Bogart movie, going for a walk with the kids...

Nope, I was "stuck in a queue" for the photocopier.

With every second passed, my stress level went up.

With every minute passed, my anger level went up.

Hatred is such a destructive emotion.

A triumphant teaching tenant of the photocopier was holding a large ream of copied paper.

The teacher in front of me was also clearly in a hurry

"Do you have many more copies to make? I have a class in five minutes?"

The TTT (triumphant teaching tenant) launched another 40 copies with nonchalance, gave a large smile, waltzed past the desperate queue of professional copiers off into the teacher's room.

Resolutions

As life is short, I made two promises to myself:

1. Search before death all means to eliminate all aspects of my life which I hated.
2. Search before death all means to amplify all aspects of my life which I loved.

Photocopying, came pretty high up on my 'hate list'.  I stopped all photocopying in 2009.

Meeting new colleagues with whom I could have fun teaching was high up on my 'would love to' list.

Connections

As I worked using these two simple principles, extraordinary things started to happen.

1. I was loving teaching as never before.
2. I was experiencing less and less frustration doing what I loved.

Connections

At the begining of 2014 things were going too fast. I decided to slow down.

Trying to build a community can take a lot out of you, I decided to concentrate on having fun. 

I joined Dave Cormier's Rhizomatic Learning Course #rhizo14 for fun. 

The irony of what happened has not escaped me. 

Rather than slowing down my learning, my learning accelerated. 

Rather than having less time to do things, I was finding I had more time to do things. 

I joined #clmooc for fun. 

The irony of what happened has not escaped me. 

Rather than blogging, (I was tired with blogging), I spent my time doing drawing. 

Rather than feeling under pressure, I felt rejuvenated.

I joined Connected Courses for fun. 

The irony of what has happened has not escaped me. 

Rather than learning from #ccourses to develop #clavier, I am beginning to understand that #clavier and #ccourses and #ds106 and the whole caboosh is actually the same thing.

MUSICAL INTERLUDE 

(time to go and buy an ice-cream, look out the window, whatever)

Instant Karma

Back to class.

I arrived in class to find our partner librarians ready to teach our students. 

I had forgotten about the pleasure of this part of our year. 

After the intensity of the start-up for the year, they come into our classes and give us a break and help our students with developing information literacy. 

I was able to take time, to chill out.  

I read Tania Sheko's post 'The art of slowing down.'

I commented leisurely on Tania's post.

I wandered out of the classroom into the nature on the campus. 

I felt the warmth of the Indian Summer on my back, I sat down on the grass.  

My attention was taken by the beauty of the wild flowers and a dandelion swaying in a light breeze. 

I imagined the plateau without the concrete. It must have been a beautiful place for a picnic... before they stuck a concrete university here.

Breakfast with Teresa

Today we were having synchronised breakfast with our partners in Warwick University. 

I chatted with my friend Teresa Mackinnon, that was nice.

It was lovely to smell the toast in a university classroom.  

I love the smell of toast.

Some of the students were busy working out how to extend our CLAVIER networking to all students on the campus. 

I showed them what to do. 

They then went and did a marvellous job, networking for themselves.

As they were busy, I scrolled a little on my Twitter stream for #ccourses,

There was a tweet from Maha Bali about how she wanted to keep up.

There are so many things going on, there is a temptation to feel that one must keep up.

I sent her a gif. 

Go Maha Go!

It helped me to write this post. 

She favourited the tweet. Clarissa favourited the tweet.

Maha replied with a  LOL tweet.

Keeping up.

I remember a few years ago that I had so much energy, I was running up and down mountains. 

I went beyond my physical limits because I had so much energy. 

I was euphoric, I didn't feel the pain.  

The knee injury slowed me down.

There is that adrenaline rush or maybe a dopamine rush which we get when we are caught up in an exciting movement. 

It is rather the opposite of that non-feeling of being undead one can get when one looks at one's watch every two minutes to see when the working day will be finished.

LOL! WE CAN NOT KEEP UP!  THAT IS INSANE!

Imagine for a moment all the beautiful people who are doing exciting things at this moment somewhere in the world. 

Imagine for a moment all the sad people who are doing horrible things at this moment somewhere in the world.

STOP IMAGINING!

There is a beautiful dandelion blowing in the wind.

It is within touching distance. 

Sit down, look, study its complex form.

Seeds in the wind

Each seed may be carried far by the wind.

Each seed may become a beautiful yellow dandelion lighting up a meadow.

Maha, Teresa, Tania and Clarissa et al, you are a beautiful dandelion lighting up a meadow.

Thanks for the inspiration.

The Spaceman Episode.

Where was I now?

I go to the costume shop, and as if by magic, the shop-keeper arrives. Good Morning [afternoon] [evening][night] (choose appropriate) Sir, how can I help you today?


Each day I go into the changing room, I take off my bowler hat, and then all at once I am attired in a new costume.

At the back of the changing room, I open a door and suddenly find myself in a new country/[planet]/[town]/[village]/[landscape] (choose appropriate) and embark on a new adventure in which I will meet the inhabitants and learn to adapt myself to their/my/our? world.

These scenes come from my favourite TV program (or at least my favourite TV program when I was 6) Mr Benn.

Costume changes
Clearly Mr Benn had a big impact on my imagination because, I only had one ambition as a child and that was to be Mr Benn.

I wanted to have adventures, change costumes and live many lives.

I shall attempt to synthesise:

I have been unemployed, a factory worker, a waiter, a salesman (on phone and door to door), a probation officer, a counsellor, an agricultural worker, a labourer, a taxi-driver, a van-driver, a production assistant in the media, a journalist, an actor, a public relations executive, a translator, an interpreter, a writer...(now, I come to think of it, I could say that now, I had never assumed that costume before)

I have been a teacher: of farmers, factory executives, secretaries, technicians, scientists, teachers, unemployed, computer analysts, sports-people, world-record holders, builders, painters, sculptors, soldiers...

I have been a researcher as long as I can remember.
Now they say I am a researcher. (what took them so long to recognise me?)

I have been almost completely British, I am now perhaps half French.

Oh you get the message.

I have indeed succeeded in my ambition, I even referred to Mr Benn in a conference I did in Plymouth in 2011 entitled "In Search of Nomad's Land".

An absolute obsessional identification, I would say. I am Mr Benn's stand-in.

Space changing
In recent months, it has become apparent to me that Mr Benn's world is becoming outdated as a metaphor for my life. It started with my working with the UK for the CLAVIER project, and then it accelerated.

Today as a teacher I am working with the UK, Poland, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Japan, the USA, Brazil, Cameroun.

5 years ago, I was only concerned with a room of twenty five students at one moment, today I am concerned with perhaps something over a 1000 or more students and teachers who are all over the place.

Things are going haywire
As another term starts, after only one week, things are going haywire. First day in class, we had students chatting with a friend of mine working on a Ski Resort in Australia, during the week we had students reading my blog, seeing their snow hat from last winter being commented on by people all around the world and retweeted by Rihanna (a robot - I kept that quiet not to spoil the effect) on Twitter.

Happy Birthday
Then it was Maha's Birthday, why don't we sing 'Happy Birthday' I thought, - well why not?

In thirty seconds, their singing was on the internet winging its way to Egypt, and the USA, and Brazil, and Australia...well wherever.

Pretty quickly, Kevin had remixed their song, Terry had Zeega'ed the birthday meme in Arabic, Maha had blogged on it and sent back a sung response to my students (they are unaware of that for the moment unless the one Tweep has done his job for the masses and sent it viral in Clermont Ferrand STAPS).

Out on the town with mates
Yesterday, I started the day with a blog post entitled 'In the Tribble Valley' inspired by a series of tweets between people who I had never met (I did see @heloukee from afar in Plymouth in 2011, I seem to remember, I detected a familiar accent and demeanor). These people are living in completely different contexts, in completely different time zones, from completely different cultures.

My only way of assimilating what was going on was to imagine a fictional environment in which these characters met, interacted, and played. I am pretty sure that this environment would be completely different for each person involved in my Tribble Valley Saga.

This is clearly not Second Life or the World of Warcraft but a space much more liminal, much more fluid, much more powerful.

It is a shape-shifting space.
Yesterday, I continued the day with a picnic, a #clavpicnic at for me lunch-time. When I arrived at the picnic spot (a hangout) nobody had turned up.

No matter, I was preparing myself for a presentation with my friend and colleague Marcin Kleban in Krakow.

I was in the room with him from my learning space in Clermont Ferrand. I could hear the bad acoustics of the room in which he was/we were?. We were sharing the slides on the screen in Krakow inside the slide share of our hangout on air. which was simultaneously being broadcast to the world. After the first three slides, I chatted noisily (you can hear it on Youtube) to Keith in Florida who had turned up in the picnic.

He told me he would go and get a coffee. He had had a hard night.

(I shall make a mental note for next time not to forget to mute the headset - metaphor to remember - it's just like the translator's cabin that I used to work in for the Short Film Festival in Clermont Ferrand REMEMBER to MUTE)

We had never done that before, we only tried it out the day before.

There will be a few tweaks to be made after a debriefing, but the immediacy of being in a room in Krakow, from a room in Clermont Ferrand was absolute, to the extent that I was able to butt in to respond to questions from the people attending our conference..in Poland.

Connection embodied
Marcin and I's relationship has no doubt been enriched by visiting each other's homes and countries this year, a dream for many people who have extended online personal networks and the ties which bind us I feel are profound - perhaps because of the distance.  There is a part of Poland in me now.

Picnic in space
Meanwhile back at the picnic spot, Terry and Keith had turned up. It was six and seven o'clock in the morning for them and they had dropped everything to spend a little time at a picnic to chat with friends.  The picnic was clearly not in the Tribble Valley as the cockerels, (roosters  as Terry says) were calling in dawn, Keith was sun-tanned in Florida, Terry was all backlit Dutch painting.  I was in a learning space in Clermont Ferrand after having finished my spot in Krakow. I am not at all sure where we can say we are? I have the impression that it is like being 3 spacemen in spaceships on journeys through the universe who are desperate for connection to others who have meaning for them.

Space communication
A light lit up on the Spaceship's dashboard. It was Susan. Could she connect too? I have no means of picturing Susan's space at the moment she asked that. I scrolled through Susans desperately seeking Susan. No time to find Susan amongst the world of Susans. I get back to Terry and Kevin. There was one of my best friends Blaise, in Cameroun who spent last Christmas with us. Could I connect him up? I frantically flicked a few switches on the dashboard. No means of connection, frustration felt and noted.  I shut down the picnic transmission. I noted other Spacemen, Arthur, Ronald perhaps who had been listening in to our conversations, unknown to us while we were travelling through space connected by some virtual, umbilical tube.

Down to earth?
I come back to earth, I look back at Connected Courses home page and look at the blog/twitter feed. I note a talk between Mimi Ito and others I don't know. I start watching that, a bit distracted by my thoughts.  I click around, I see Gordon's Comment grabber. Cool work Gordon! I had seen his fantastic work on Rhizomatic Learning with Dave Cormier. I come back to 'Connected Courses' I click on units 1-6. I suddenly discover that this is really a course. That comes as a bit of shock. There are suggested readings, links, that comes as a bit of a shock. This is a course, I had forgotten what a course was. I make a mental note. Please try harder to remember that this is a Course.

Favourite TV programs
I start thinking about Mimi, and then wonder what ever happened to one of my favourite programs. A pretty recent program with three guys: Click, Link, Embed. Whatever happened to the three guys. I am already missing their program. I followed up their program with investigation of their blogs. I like their blogs. I like their comments. I like Spaceman Howard's hat.

Time-planning
I suppose I have to look up in the schedule to see when they are on.

Crap detection?
I identified immediately with their show. I reckon that this must be like Mr Benn. We need characters who somehow capture our imagination. We need to feel embedded in a culture. We need security of signal in a world of complexity, in a world of noise and nonsense. (Crap detection?)

There is danger here.

Who do children identify with? Superman? Spiderman? Ironman? Barbie? Gandhi?

Star-hopping
I start thinking about how I navigate the blogs, how I navigate Twitter, how I smile when I click on recognisable avatars.

Empathy
I am beginning to extend my circles of empathy, I am beginning to see that I am part of a much wider world.

This feeling fills me with hope for my children.

I am reminded of quotes of Einstein, the ultimate Spaceman:

Wow, how did that happen? 

I don't remember Albert Einstein appearing in the Spaceman episode of Mr Benn. 

Note to self: REMEMBER THIS IS A COURSE.REMEMBER THIS IS A COURSE....

Note to self: Children may need a new Mr Benn.

Spacetimecontinuum...

Something odd is going on.

I never had time to do things. I never had the space in my head to draw, to write. Who did this?

What the hell is going on?

I am meeting people that I have never met, yet wierdly it doesn't feel like that. I forget that I haven't seen people in the flesh, I feel their presence in these fingers.

I appear to be like the amputee who is convinced that his leg is there when his eyes tell him it is off.

I needed to hear people say, it's OK if it breaks. It's OK if you don't know what you are doing. Put your foot here. Put your hand there, see you did it.

They are strangely absent. Spirit-like, their empathetic routine appears embedded. Empathetic habitus.

Something is going on here.

What is it about the people whose minds are young, when their bodies appear old? It appears that they bounce, curious bounds, hops....

Then, I am reminded in an instant of Dorothy Parker.

How did she get here, is she a facilitator in this connected course?

"The cure for boredom is curiosity, there is no cure for curiosity."

I am living in a smaller space and yet it appears that my life is bigger.

I need to get this clear in my head. I didn't eat the 'Eat me.'

What the hell is going on?

Blog posts, and pictures appear to walk towards me. Blog posts don't walk.  Blog posts appear to saunter by.

It happened to me just yesterday, the other day. I was struck by an article by Mariana Funes.

Suddenly it gave me notice, to pay attention. Quite bizarre!

Wierdly, I had already collected the picture of a cat, the first time round.  I found it in my stock.

I notice how connections suddenly come alive, dormant for indeterminate time they suddenly fire and images, words, ideas flow out.

This appears to be learning.

I start to review the tags that I throw unthinkingly on my blog posts, there is no getting around those key words -

COMMUNITY, CONNECTION, LEARNING. 

I virtually never write, I never write what I think, imagine, or foresee I am going to write. I am written.

I can't think this onto a page.

How is it that suddenly my fingers move and something unexpected comes out?

Quite bizarre, quite bizarre.

This learning is surely ordered and yet I didn't order anything, it came at its own command. 

I have the impression that my fingers are picking up waves, spasms of those I have never seen, who in all probablity I will never meet.

No matter. No matter.

This connects.

I no longer feel the apprehension of being on the Edge of Chaos.

Vertigo lessens, vertigo lessons?

This is becoming familiar to me... the little boy asking, 'Are you sure you are wise to say that?' is sulking in a corner behind me.

These edges do not define me, these lines do not give us bodily shape, there is something else much more subtle going on.

It reminds me of learning a language.

Suddenly I realised that I had 'absorbed' more than words, I had become part of a linguistic space. What had appeared insurmountably long, suddenly became a footnote.

A short step....

Words are poor vectors for connection.

A doll's house.

Still from Fanny and Alexander. Bergmann.

Sight came quite unexpectedly to me, late in years, one moment in the early hours.






A model existence...

There it had been. An ideal interior it was, insistent, in intelligent design. Cutesy curtained windows, cottagey feel, it was life in toy-form.

As I dreamt, I was able to lucidly study the space that I had just left.  

It was really quite attractive. It felt homely. While on first inspection alien, it had a strange familiarity. What had fooled me were its interior dimensions.  They were tiny, clearly inadapted to any adult life.

I was certainly outside now, I could stand up.

I had been lodging quite unconsciously until that moment, in a cramped-up bijou habitat.

How on earth could I have been so blind, or small?

"Bloody ridiculous!" I blinked stupidly.

I could just about put a foot through that front door, down there, but no more of my body would now fit in.

Dull for so long to pain, the diagnosis was now apparent.
Looking back, I was there...standing above a wavering light.

I took a deep breath.  The door was behind me. 

I took my bearings, in the darkness.

I felt a slight sea breeze, its perfume filled my nostrils.

I felt no longer the dulling anxiety.

I had changed position. It was over.

I was no longer accessory to someone's play-space.

I felt a sad empathy for the child, the children.

Consumed from inside, hollow, hollow they had been, ever greedy for more...to fill a void.

Shh! Shh!
Listen to a soul.
"What is inside was becoming doubt.  Fear not. There, is your way..."

"For things are things because of mind, as mind is mind because of things."
Hsin Hsin Ming

Epilogue.

“HELMER; But this is disgraceful. Is this the way you neglect your most sacred duties?

NORA: What do you consider is my most sacred duty?

HELMER: Do I have to tell you that? Isn't it your duty to your husband and children?

NORA:I have another duty, just as sacred.

HELMER: You can't have. What duty do you mean?

NORA: My duty to myself.” 

Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House