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.