Between Classes

I like my schedule this year. I have enough time between classes to get a good start on completing assignements after each class. When I am at home I concentrate on reading and studying. The reading we have to do this year is substantialy more than last year. Some of my courses are half courses and we cover the whole text or texts. I have several assignements due most weeks. In some classes and labs there is an assignment or test every week. I prefer that kind of schedule. I do better when I have regular tests and assignments.

A Serious Bunch

I've been back at university for a bit more than two weeks. In some ways it feels like we just got out for the summer. In some ways it is the same place as it was last year but I am in with a different group of students; more studious ones. Last year, I was one of the more serious students in all of my classes. This year most of us are there to learn. A nice change.

Registration

Today I finished selecting my classes and bought some textbooks. I have a decent schedule again. Classes begin at 9:30 or later and finish by 4:30. I enrolled in two full and three half courses in psych, one French and a half course in linguistics. I had wanted to take a psycholinguistics course but had a conflict and could not take it unless I took a three hour evening class. Overall I am quite pleased with my schedule and I got to enroll in almost all of the courses that I had picked.

Where Has The Time Gone?

Last week I received an email to let me know that it is time to select my classes for next term. It is good to get back into thinking about classes and seeing some of my friends again. A few have graduated and one is taking a year off build up her savings. I will miss them. I do know that many of them will be around the , now familiar, haunts. I am a lot more relaxed about heading to class this fall. It is easier with my first year behind me.

Dean's List

It is official. I made the Dean's Honour List. I am surprised because I did not think that I was eligible because of my reduced load of four courses. It is gratifying to be recognized for doing well. It also is an incentive to work hard next year.

My First Year

My first year is finished and I just have to wait and see what I will be taking next year. I am happy with the results. My marks range from a low B to an A+ with an A average. Next year I will be taking one French course, two full courses and four half courses in Psychology.

It was a tough year. I am happy it is behind me and the summer months are ahead. They will go by quickly though. I have some projects around the house and yard and I want to enjoy the nice weather. I am also working on my French vocabulary so I will be busy.

The Lovely Bones: Tragedy Redeemed

The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, is a book that you will not want to put down. This thoroughly enjoyable novel tells us a story in an unusual way. It is not just another mystery novel, although there is a mystery: it is not a whodunit either, even though there is a murder. We find out that a neighbour rapes and murders fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon in the second sentence of the novel. We know what happened to Susie; we know who killed her. We have all of the details that we need to solve her disappearance, but that is not the story that Sebold tells. The novel is about how Susie's family and friends live through the tragedy and how they are changed by her disappearance. Sebold could have wallowed in the gory details of the rape and murder, but she presents just enough detail for us to get the sense of tragedy that surrounds the end of Susie's life.

Susie ends up in heaven that most resembles the high school that she was to attend. It is heaven custom designed for her; it is school with fashion magazines and peppermint-stick ice cream, but no teachers. Her guide, Franny, who was a social worker in life, gets her heavenly reward by helping new arrivals adjust. Sebold uses Susie's being in heaven as a way to keep her in the story and to let us know everything that is happening and yet keep us in the dark. Susie matures in heaven as she watches her family and the changes that they go through after her death. Time becomes less important to her as the years go by. She becomes more detached from her old life and gradually accepts her death and her loss. Susie feels her loss of innocence and the loss of her life itself. She also feels a sense of loss at not being able to help her father and the police find her killer. She also realizes that she is not quite in heaven yet and will not get there until she accepts her death and leaves life to the living. Some people may object to Sebold's depiction of heaven. There is no presence of God or anything religious in Susie's heaven. It is not a religious book, and the heaven in it, is what a fourteen year old might imagine it to be.

    The theme of loss is a common thread and is which occurs several times in the book. There is a sub-plot of Susie's mother, Abigail Salmon's loss; she lost her career after an unexpected pregnancy interrupted her work. She stayed home to make cookies and to be a mother, but she lost herself in the process. After Susie's death, she has an affair and loses herself again. This time her family also loses her when she leaves and finds herself a new, albeit, somewhat empty life. The theme of loss continues with Jack Salmon, who is haunted by his daughter's disappearance. He is less effective at work as he becomes obsessed by the task of finding his daughter's killer and forgets about his two living children.

    Katherine Bouton who reviewed The Lovely Bones in the New York Times says that Sebold "takes the stuff of neighborhood tragedy -- the unexplained disappearance of a child, the shattered family alone with its grief -- and turns it into literature." Laura Miller in her review in Salon.com agrees that "this novel is decidedly literary. But it's also not bleak after the fashion of very "high" literary fiction." The climax of the book may be a bit hard to believe, but if you believe that someone can interact with and follow her family and friends for several years after her death, then it is possible. At some points, Sebold's literature does become fanciful, but it remains literature.

The title comes from a passage near the end of the book. Sebold was raped as a freshman several years before she wrote The Lovely Bones. This passage may reflect her loss of a part of herself after the rape. It may also have come from the rebuilding that she did. There is a parallel rebuilding of lives in The Lovely Bones.

    These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections — sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent — that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous lifeless body had been my life.

The loss of a daughter, sister or friend is profound. We mourn the death of any child; however, we mourn the sexual assault and loss of innocence almost as much. When it is compounded by the sudden disappearance of a child, it is hard to fathom the depth of anguish that family and close friends can experience. Sebold opens a window that casts a ray of light on the shadows and gives us a glimpse of that suffering and of the rebuilding that is possible.

 

Thinking of Next Year

It seems to me that I am less motivated to write than I have been in the past. It could be the crunch of the year end, but I don't think so. At least part of the change, maybe even most, is due to the loss of the need for writing that I had earlier. I am settled in my routine both here and at home. Peace and quiet is good.

I have been going through the process of declaring my major and trying to decide what courses I would like to take next year. My average is high enough, so far, that I could take an honours specialization, but I am not certain that that is what I want to do. I elected to do so when I declared my major and I will think about it for at least over the summer. If I am admitted, I will be able to take the courses that I have selected next year and then change my mind with no negative consequences. I have been busy talking to several students who are a year or so ahead of me about their thoughts on different courses and profs. I am going to talk to our class TAs and our prof in the near future to get their input as well.

I am very happy with the results of both of the tests that I have written since having been allowed to write exams by myself. I will have to wait and see how my finals go as well, before attributing the increase to the accomodations. The study room access helped me quite a lot too. One unexpected result of the changes has been an increase in satisfaction with being here in university. The stress of trying to study while being distracted has been eliminated, so I am enjoying myself more and getting better results.

Hello Out There

It has been too long since I have posted something. I have been consumed with writing and studying for my math and psych tests. I wrote my math test on Thursday evening. It was the first test that I wrote after having been given permission to write my exams alone. The quiet was great. I just do not concentrate very well with all of the noise and distraction of two or three hundred other students, even when they are sitting quietly writing an exam. As well as writing my exams alone, I get to use a private room to study in. I think that that is what I like best of all. I work so much better in the quiet solitude of my room. There is next to nothing in there, and if I do not look out of the window, there is nothing to distract me from my studying. Another great feature is that the room is locked so I can leave my laptop and my other things there when I go out for a break. I feel somewhat like a hermit in my cell when I close the door on the world. It is hard to believe that I am in the middle of a large campus surrounded by several thousand other people.

Saving Lives

"Would you like to save a life today?" That is the question that the woman asked me as I walked by her and her small group. As you may have guessed, she was soliciting money for a worthwhile cause. Just how does one reply to such a question? "No thanks. I've saved enough lives this week." The cause was a worthwhile one. She and her group were raising money to buy mosquito netting to help prevent the spread of malaria. My understanding is that the netting is a very low cost and low tech way of helping to prevent the spread of malaria. I support their efforts to help other people. I just don't know how much of the money any group raises goes to the good works that they support. In general, I like to donate to organizations that spend most of the money that they rise on their work in the field. Many organizations spend a large part of their budget on administration. Just as when buying a product or service, I want to know what I am getting. I would like to say that I gave them some money, but I cannot. I was on my way somewhere and meant to stop by on the way back but I forgot about it. I was too busy to save a life. How about you? Would you like to save a life today?

Good Intentions

Read George Monbiot's recent column about how our good intentions can lead to the most unusual and distressing results. Monbiot is a columnist with the Guardian newspaper and is also the author of Heat: how to stop the planet burning.

Prejudice

I consider myself to be relatively free of prejudice. Several years ago, I took a test that is available here. My results surprised me then, and surprised me even more tonight, when I did the test again. If you want to get a good look at yourself and your attitudes, take the test. What else can I say? Take the test!

Under The Weather

I've been quite sick for most of the past week. It has left me with very little energy or ambition to write. I seem to be run down and more susceptible to bugs than usual. I spend part of each day in close proximity to several hundred people, so I am exposed to lots of new bugs that are happy to take up residence in me. It takes me longer than usual to evict the squatters.

The last two weeks have gone by very quickly. I have been busy with assignments and the usual stuff. The daily workload is higher this term. I didn't think that it would be, but it is. My writing class is demanding and I need to keep up with math as well.

There is not much happening outside of the routine this term. Friends are also busy and we all are beginning to feel the pressure of the end of the school year bearing down on us. It shows in the attitude of some students. There is a mixture of panic and resignation in the air. I overheard one guy talking about his five failures as if he had been talking about the weather.

Last Week

We have been busy; a granddaughter and her mum came to play hockey here yesterday. We had two meals together and we watched a couple of hockey games. The girls play better than they did last year which makes the games more interesting to watch. I was surprised at the rough play because they are only nine years old and no body contact is allowed. Both teams took several penalties in the second game that we watched.

I am also very busy with my regular routine and, of course, with classes and all of the rest. The time is flying by. It is helped by our routine in writing and the general business that is part of my life. We get a writing assignment one Monday and have to bring the draft in the following Monday for our critiquing sessions. The finished work is due one week later when we get the next assignment and begin the cycle again. I enjoy the challenge, but I find that I am spending quite a bit of time writing for that course which takes away from my writing time for this blog. I need to find a way to balance my time better.

We are getting another blast of winter. It is a gentle blast, more of a puff. It just seems wintry compared to the mild weather that we have been experiencing. Spring is not far away now. The days are getting longer and the sun is warmer. The birds are singing more frequently in anticipation of spring.

Spring will bring exams and the end of my school year. Last September seems so long ago. Next September will come around before I am ready to let go of my summer vacation and begin my studies again. It will be different next fall. I will have contacts and friends to see again. The campus will be a familiar place and I will feel comfortable with the familiarity. People will change, but the stage will be much the same. I am, and will be, a very different person than I was last September. And yet, I will be the same in some ways. I will start the new term with the same anticipation and excitement that I felt last fall.

Writing Quiz

I received some nice feedback on my recent writing quiz. We had to rewrite three, very long, complex sentences so that they were clear. I went to see my prof about a draft that I was working on and she asked me if she could read one of my rewritten sentences to the class. I was pleased that she thought it was worth reading to the class.

I Am Back

I'm back from a week of being busy with other things. Last week was hectic in many ways. I had assignments and tests and I also had one or more appointments almost every day. Life is more relaxed this week and I am looking forward to posting more often.

I just came back from another trip north. The weather was not the best for making a six hour trip each way, but I had an excellent reason for braving the winter storm. I left very early in the morning so I missed the worst of the weather. On Sunday morning, my partner and I returned home together.

My Sunday Morning Meditation

Last night’s snowfall dressed up the neighbourhood. The snow was light and fluffy enough to have stayed where it fell, and there was no wind to scatter the flakes. I am enjoying the view out my back window. Even though we live in a city, there is a small wooded area behind our house. Other than a shed or two, there is very little evidence of being in the middle of an urban area. There are very long lots on the two streets that run across each end of the block where we live. Most people do very little with the far end of their yards, which is what gives us our oasis of nature. Sometimes I can even forget where I am, and think that I have escaped to a quiet rural spot. I get up early enough that I am able to enjoy the morning stillness. The solitude and calmness help me quiet my mind and focus on the beauty beyond our back yard.

ADD

For several years I have suspected that I have ADD. Sometimes I look on the possibility of having ADD as a problem and want to fix it. At other times I look at it in a positive light. I have learned to live with the way that I think and learn. Most of the time I am very happy with my brain and we get along just fine. As long as we both know who is in control.

Two things happened this week that reminded me of some of the effects of being the way that I am. First of all, I went for a preliminary ADD assessment to see if it is worth going for a full psychological assessment. The assessor recommended that I have the full assessment. One of the things that clinched it for her, is the fact that I had not had any coffee for two years and drank a cup one day because I was having a lot of difficulty focusing on an assignment and getting started. After I drank the cup of coffee, I sat down and did the assignment in three hours after having spent parts of three days trying to get somewhere and failing. Most people, who had not drunk coffee or any other caffeine containing beverage for about two years, would not have reacted the way that I did. People who have ADD would react the way that I did. I have had a difficult time focusing on my writing lately and this is my third post today. Have you guessed that I started this morning off with a cup of coffee?

My Blog and my Journey

Originally, I started out with an idea that I would just write anything that I thought was of interest to me and to my potential readers. I had also thought that it would be good to be disciplined and write something every day to improve my writing. Very soon after I began, I decided to focus on my returning to university. That decision worked very well last term because there were many new things for me to comment on. There was also the life changing event of September 13 and the aftermath of that. It had a profound effect on me. I looked at my life and what I thought was important. I re-examined every aspect of my life. I put everything on the table. I just dumped it all out and went through everything, asking myself what was important and what was not. I surprised myself. At the end of the day, I had one very small pile and one very large pile. The small pile was the important stuff. In no particular order; family and friends, my relationship with my partner, my health, writing, learning, nature and gardening. That is about it. Most of the rest is either just one possible way of meeting my needs or it is not important. I am committed to staying focused on the small pile but it will take work and constant vigil to keep the insignificant minutiae from taking over my life again.

Reflections on Writing

I am often a person of few words and I find it difficult to part with them in writing. Talking with my family and friends is another matter though. I can talk forever about things that I am passionate about. I just find that the act of thinking about and composing my thoughts for posterity heightens my usual reticence somewhat. I also tend to get self conscious about what I am writing and end up thinking about my readers reactions far too much for my own good. It is one thing to be conscious of my writing and to be aware of possible reactions to it, but I tend to go overboard. I did mention that I am introspective, didn't I?

Math

Our math prof is somewhat disorganized and tends to go off in tangents when he finds something teachable. He was reviewing previous work this morning and found parallels between two different sections of the material and demonstrated how they were related. He was really teaching the material. I understood it much better after he was done. Unfortunately, most students want to be told what formula to use when and don't bother me with showing me how the formula is derived or other hard stuff like that. I happen to love being in a class like his. I love to know why I am doing something instead of just doing it because that is what I was told to do. A couple of students, who sit behind me, were complaining about not being able to take notes because of his style. A third student told them that she just gets notes from a friend in a different section. That prof gives her students lots of stuff to write down. I think that I like my math class partly because I also tend to find interesting things and go off in tangents. I am supposed to be touching up some paint upstairs and decided to have a hot chocolate break, and here I am, off on a tangent.

More About Writing

I enjoyed my day at school. My writing class is going very well and we are learning quite a lot. We spent an hour this afternoon looking at ways to improve sentences. It might sound very boring and dull, but it was not. I love to write and I love to learn. What better way to spend an hour of my time than to learn how to write better. The primary purpose of our writing course is to improve our writing, not to get bogged down in theory. We did spend some time analyzing sentences, but just enough to be able to put the information to good use when we revise our own writing. I feel self conscious about my writing in this post. It is hard for me to learn anything without reflecting on how well I do it. That certainly is not a bad thing but it does get in the way of whatever I am doing at the time. Like, right now.

Writing

We had a two hour writing class today. We brought in drafts of our work and broke up into small groups to critique each other's writing. We spent most of the two hours doing that. I am glad that I dropped by to visit my prof before class. Her comments were very mild and restrained compared to some of the comments that my classmates made. Part of the process of teaching us to write is to have us learn to read someone else's writing with a critical eye and be able to offer suggestions for improvement. The group that I was in worked very well together. We offered our suggestions in good faith. One guy even apologized to me for his choice of words when he commented on a section of my writing. I accepted some of their suggestions and did some rewriting after class. I still have more work to do, but I am happy with the changes.

I Am A Boring And Dull Person

I notice something very interesting a few moments ago. I took a break from working on an assignment for my writing class and checked out my blog stats and found this interesting Google search result. My post Dull And Boring ranks number two for the search term "I am a boring and dull person". Who knew that being dull and boring is something that others would emulate or want to know more about.

Second Term

I am off to a good start this term. I have a routine that works for me most of the time. My schedule is very workable, with enough free time, but not too much that the days are long. I like my two new classes, writing and finite math. I will need to work at both of those and not get behind. Writing is quite fast paced and there is a lot to cover. Finite is slower paced but there is a lot of homework to do. I do not find it very difficult but it does take time. I am comfortable with French and psych and the expectations of each of the profs in those two classes. When I started last fall, April seemed so very far away, but now it is just three short months until classes are done for the year. I am not planning on taking any courses this summer. I have enough other things to do and I want to take some time off and relax.

Preoccupied

I have been preoccupied with personal stuff since Christmas. I think that it is interfering with my writing. At least, that is what I think has been happening. An old shoulder injury has been causing me problems since the first big snowfall here. I've been busy getting it taken care of. I have to get an ultrasound next week then I'll find out what is going on. They have ruled out rotator cuff damage, so that is a relief. I used to be invincible; now I am paying the price of years of wear and tear on my body from running, high jumping and cross country skiing. I have extensive arthritis in my shoulder as well as the after effects of dislocating it twice. Enough of this blather about my aches and pains. Life goes on and I will cope with whatever changes this forces on me.

My partner is well on her way to a full and complete recovery. Actually, she is a changed person. She has worked hard and is much happier, stronger and more independent. I am very happy for her. She will be returning home in the near future. We are counting the days.

Dull and Boring

I asked for a dull and boring year. Other than a few interesting days early in the year, it has been dull and boring. The problem with that is it makes for fewer posts. I do not have as much material to write about and the material I do have is less interesting. School has also settled into a routine. I know a few people in my math class, but I do not know them very well. I may get to know some of my writing classmates because we break up into small groups and work together. It seems to me that I am never quite satisfied. Give me excitement, and I want dull and boring. Now that my life has been dull and boring, I am complaining about it. Actually, I am very satisfied with my life, but I would like to have just a bit more to write about.

My Trip North

I returned, late last night, from a trip north to visit family. The house where I stayed is on a quiet country road beside a lake. We saw four deer eating beside the road. Some of the residents have seen as many as forty deer together. That is something that few of us have ever had the privilege of seeing. On my drive home, I saw three more deer grazing along the highway. They were used to the traffic and hardly looked up as the vehicles sped by.

I spent more than 12 hours driving over the weekend so I was glad to get back home. I drove through several villages along the way. The lights of the houses, peeking out through the falling snow, looked inviting as I drove past. Each beacon of light promising warmth and shelter from the cold and darkness. Each village that I drove through brought me closer to my own home and back into the surrounding countryside. Farmhouses and their beacons of light kept me company until the city lights overpowered their faint glow.

January Thaw

Our warm spell is slipping away. No snow, yet. The first few days of next week may bring us enough snow to cover the grass. In some ways I am happy that it is cooling. My roses would soon be growing if it stayed as warm as it has been. Maybe they are growing. I haven't looked at them for a couple of days. I looked around the yard today and thought, very briefly, about doing some yard work. January is not usually a good time for yard work in our climate, unless you want to shovel snow. I'm not doing any yard work and I'm not shovelling snow either. That sounds like a good deal to me.

More Exam Results

I have gotten the results of my last Christmas exam, another B, in linguistics. The three exams that I wrote recently are separated by only three marks. I'm not sure if that is good or bad. I did sacrifice most of my linguistics study time for stats and that plan seems to have worked. Otherwise, the spread would have been greater. I would have gotten a higher linguistics mark and a lower stats mark. French is my best subject and it will help me keep my average in A territory as long as I keep working at the same level. I've forgotten so much over the Christmas break. A month is a long time to not use another language and expect to stay at the same level of comprehension.

Sleeping In

I can barely believe it, but I slept in this morning until ten. I missed my first two classes. I must have needed the sleep because it was bright and sunny this morning and that would normally have made me wake up much earlier. Maybe all of the excitement of a new term is wearing me out.

I like our math prof's style. He tells us what is important and writes "important" on the board and draws a rectangle around it. My kind of guy, no guessing about what might be worth learning very well. He did a couple of the assigned problems and told us that they were the kind to expect on tests and exams.

I think that I will enjoy the writing course. The prof is very energetic and engaging. We had four more recruits join up today making 11 in the class now. I hope that the class stays quite small.

I'm still having trouble with my writing. No more long breaks for me.

Winter? Term

The winter term began today with the snow melting and winter jackets discarded. There were even a brave few who wore short sleeve tee shirts outside this afternoon.

My New Year's wish for myself was to have a dull and boring year. It has not happened. Things got interesting on the second but they have settled down again, so maybe it will be more dull and boring than interesting.

It has been a month since I attended classes, so the university was a bit unfamiliar in some ways. When I was walking to my locker, I could not remember my combination, but decided to just open the lock without thinking. That worked. Maybe I should try not thinking more often. I also forgot the room number of my first class of the day. I walked along a hallway of an older building looking at a bunch of identical doors trying to remember which one I wanted. At least one other student had the same problem, but he had not slept very much and had just arrived in town after a four hour flight.

I started two new classes today. Math and a writing course. There are about 130 students in the math class and only seven of us in the writing class, which is good, because it is an intensive course. Math got off to a good start. Our prof was trying to explain why you should switch doors on game shows where you select one door hoping to get a prize, then the host opens a door revealing no prize and asks you if you want to switch doors. It seems illogical to switch, but the odds of getting the prize go up if you switch. He could do something like that with our final exam. Do you feel lucky today? Calculate the probability of getting a better mark if you switch doors. Of coruse, probability is irrelevant when you lose.

My schedule is more workable this term. I have enough time between classes to get some work done. I got a good start today and plan on keeping it up.

My writing seems to have suffered from the long break. Writing is something that I have to do regularly. I am finding it hard to get into the flow of writing.

Retirees Returning To University

I had an interesting conversation with a physician today. Whenever I go to see him about my sleep apnea we usually talk more about other things. Today was no exception. We are members of the same parish so we talked about that for a while. After I told him that I had returned to university, he asked me how I liked it. I told him that I loved it and that the other students accepted me quite well. He said that a colleague of his, who retired recently, returned to university and had the same reaction as I had. He went on to say that he has plans to return to university when he retires. Watch for more older students coming to a university near you.

Christmas 2007

In many ways Christmas was a non event for me. I did not celebrate Christmas. Instead, I celebrated life and family. We laughed and told stories, we played games and shared our experiences. We talked about the future and remembered the past. We lived each moment to the fullest. We ate together and played together. Some of us went swimming. I took two of my grandchildren sledding. We enjoyed the simple pleasure of being with each other. Perhaps I did celebrate Christmas after all.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all of you. I hope that you have a good year. My wish for myself is to have a dull and boring year. I have had enough excitement in the last few months to do me for a few years.