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.