Diary of a born-again student

Things are starting to settle down a bit around here. We haven’t had take-outs for supper this week...yet. In fact, yesterday getting groceries and preparing dinner seemed far more attractive than usual. Something familiar that didn't take much thought. I could just cruise through on automatic pilot.

Some days my head has felt ready to burst. A few days ago I sat down with a cup of tea and the Sudoku puzzle - anything that didn't need words. I'm starting to understand why my adolescent son communicates in grunts. With all that is going on with his body, plus school it’s all that he can do to piece together words for food or a lift.

Last night he was doing his Maths homework with a friend, via SKYPE. One of my courses is completely computer-based and has had me waking up nights with my stomach in a knot.  To address my technological inadequacies, I have found someone who is sympathetic to the challenges of the “mature woman” to do some computer coaching with me. 

After three sessions I feel like we have done some feng shui for computers and simplified matters. My daughter was greatly puzzled by the fact that he had whipped out a pen and paper to explain things to me, but that is exactly the level that I needed to start from. 

I have been telling the kids, much to their amusement, that I am going to be sooo clever by June...either that or I’ll be crazy! To put a positive spin on the stomach in a knot part, I am trying to convince myself that, come the end of the semester, I am going to be blessed with a six-pack – which is also one of my son’s goals in life. I am starting to notice a bit of regression on my part...

As time goes by

When I was at university in the 80s, I took notes by hand, and rewrote them at night struggling to decipher my feverish scrawl at the small desk behind the door in the room I shared with my sister. My sister surrounded her bed with a ring of salt to ward off evil spirits which she feared may have come in with the black bag of bones I had brought home for my Anatomy studies.

But I digress. Back in the day, it was acceptable to hand in assignments which were "neatly hand-written" if you didn't have access to a typewriter. Computers were still a dream, like democracy.

My dad owned a small grey Olivetti typewriter. Every evening he would sit at the kitchen table and pound away at the black keys using two fingers to write his reports or exam papers.  The tick-tack-tick-tack rhythm of the machine interspersed with a “cling” and a “swish” as he got to the end of the line, was calming, like a bedtime story, when we were too old for a nightly installment from “365 Bedtime Stories”. Sometimes, when he wasn't busy, I would get to use it for a special assignment, correcting paper at the ready...and carbon paper for copies.

I was thinking about this while trying to decide what courses to do this year, now that I am planning to charge up the brain cells. “You can look everything up before you go to register,” said my daughter. For once she didn't roll her eyes at my technological challenges as she downloaded the faculty handbook and guided me through the 400 pages.

“Are you sure you need to go to orientation all day?” she asked. “You’ll probably find your way around just fine.” Well, having not spent any significant time on the main campus the first time around, I do need a bit of help trying to “navigate the administrative maze of post-graduate studies”. I would hate anyone to have to spread salt to still my spirit if it takes to rambling around the ivy-covered buildings! 

Socialising in the 21st Century

The modern version of having friends around...

The school holidays have whizzed by. My daughter is still at university, so for the first time it has hardly felt like a holiday -  everyone has carried on doing what they normally do, except for my son.

Well, I say hardly felt like a holiday except for the "men" lounging around in our living room, playing games, pretending to be socialising with each other!  They looked up only when they needed to refuel and then actually spoke to each other.

It is an ongoing challenge trying to instil a balance - there is so much interfacing with technology. Granted, they did spend hours playing hockey or soccer followed by hours on the couch...so I guess it does sort of balance out. Plenty of time to think about creative ways of engaging before the bumper end of year holidays...any ideas?

Michelangelo's David - Withstanding Time

On this day in 1504 the statue of David by Michelangelo was unveiled outside the Palazzo della Signoria in Firenze. The statue was originally supposed to be one of many which would adorn buttresses of the Duomo. However, it was not deemed fit for the original commission and it stood outside the Palazzo for hundreds of years, withstanding time and the elements before being moved into the Galleria Accademia.

The David is splendid, as we experienced on a recent trip to Italy.  It's an unusual statue, because the boy is depicted in the moments before he attacked Goliath.  Most statues at the time showed the moments after David had cut off Goliath’s head. Of course we have to remember that any art is merely the artist’s impression. The David of the Bible was a young boy and could not have been quite so god-like in physique. Michelangelo was certainly showing off his knowledge of anatomy.

It was rather disconcerting to discover that the statue is slowly leaning over as a result of the erosion. Movement detectors have been employed to monitor any shift in the statue and plans are afoot to counter any damage. All those years standing outside have taken their toll, but isn't it amazing that something which was created hundreds of years ago is now being rescued by modern technology?

No photographs are allowed inside. “But if you want, you can take a picture of the pink David in the courtyard,” our guide informed us. There was a concurrent exhibition of modern art at the gallery and the garish pink David with yellow hair (including his pubic hair) and blue eyes must be making Michelangelo roll over in his grave. I couldn't bring myself to take a picture.  This photo of Statue of David is courtesy of TripAdvisor.

You can read more about this in today’s edition of the Writers’ Almanac:

http://www.elabs7.com/ct.html?ufl=1&rtr=on&s=fj6,xlbe,dv,5zj0,89j,2jvk,18ki