Snow day! Dia de neu!

I never thought I would have a snow day in Catalonia, but there it is.  Today there was one.

Mai he pensat que tindrem un dia de neu, un dia quan tanquen les escoles i llocs de treball, però avui...ho hem tingut.


We got maybe a cm of snow, as in 1 cm.  That's on the roofs and cars.  Nothing stayed on the ground at all.  Schools closed and my work shut down.  A lecture I wanted to attend also was shut down.  I have to say, that it was fine by me.

Potser hem tingut un cm de neu, vol di 1 cm.  A sobre les cotxes i sostres.  No quedava res als carres i al terra.  Les escoles tacaven, i el meu lloc de treball també.  Una xerrada que volia veure estava anul·lada també.  Sobretot, per mi, cap problema.


Hung out with my still sick kids, walked the dog, enjoyed an utterly snowless snow day.  A little weird, but nice.  My boss at one point asked if we would shut down in Canada for this.  I just looked at her.  What can I say. Clearly not.  That said, they were calling for more snow and if it had gone far enough below freezing the roads would have iced up and no one has winter tires here.

Passava temps amb les meves filles, encara malaltes, passejava el gos, i desfruitava un dia de neu absolutament sense neu.  Una mica estrany, però genial.  La meva cap m'ha preguntat si a Canadà tancarem les coles i tot per aquest quantitat de neu.  No he dit res, només la he donat un cop d'ull.  Que puc dir.  Clar que no.  Igualment, haig de dir que els meteoròlegs deia que tindrem més neu, i si les temperatures han baixat bastant, tot seria gelat, glaçat i ningu té pneumàtics d'hivern.


Now to get some painting down and see if I go in tomorrow.  I'd be surprised if I didn't.

Ara, pintaré i miraré si vaig a treballar demà.  Em sorprendre si no.

Today, maybe, for the first time in ages, I may pull it off!

Avui, per la primer dia fa molt de temps, potser, ho faré


There are a certain number of things I have promised myself I will do every day/ regularly.

1.  Draw for half an hour every day
2.  Paint every day
3.  Run and do Pilates regularly (if I manage three times a week I'm ecstatic)
4. Read every day
5. Blog every day

Hi ha uns quants coses que m'he promès a mi mateix que faci cada dia o sigui, regularment.


1.  Dibuixar per un mig hora, cada dia.
2.  Pintar cada dia
3. Córrer i fer pilates regularment (si pot ser tres cops a setmana, estic super contenta!)
4.  Llegir cada dia
5. Escriure aquí en el meu blog cada dia.



Then there are the things I desperately want to do, basically spend time with my family, that's not too hard to pull off every day, it is my absolute and final #1 priority.

També hi ha coses que són imprescindible, bàsicament, passant temps amb la meva família.  Això no trobo difícil d'aconseguir cada dia perquè és el meu prioritat absolut.  No hi ha cap cosa que sigui més important.


There are other things which I have to do like work, and cook and do errands....they tend to get done as well.  There are also things I'd like to add to the list, like study Catalan and Spanish more formally......

Hi ha altres activitats que haig de fer, com treballar, cuinar, anar a comprar.  Generalment, aquests ho aconsegueixo.  Altres activitats voldria fer cada dia, com estudiar Català i Castellà més formalment, amb mestres i tot!

Lately however, the have to dos, like work and errands have been getting done.  Family time, absolutely.  The activities I've promised myself?  Not so much.  Today though?  Today looks to be shaping up to be a red letter day, one where I get it all done.

Recentment, no obstant això, les coses que haig de fer, com anar a treballar i comprar, ho faig.  Temps amb la meva família també.  Els activitats que he promès a mi mateix?  No tan.  Però avui?  Avui, em sembla, que serà un dia molt especial.  Un quan faré tot.


And a good thing too.

Una cosa molt bona això.

I was about to post

about how annoying it is when you have a fantastic idea for a post during the day, and then you can't remember what you wanted to post about when it comes time to write it.

And then I remembered what I wanted to write about.

Estava a punt de explicar com em molesta quan he tingut un idea fantàtsic durant el dia, però a l'hora d'escriure aquí, no el puc recordar.


Llavors, he recordar el que volia explicar-vos!


I was walking down the street today on my way to work and ahead of me was an couple, grandparents I believe, and a child between them, and they were playing the game we always fondly called 'one, two, three, weeeeeee!!!!'  This involves the child between two adults, holding a hand of each, hanging back a little till, on the count of three, they swing the child forward in a big bound and a WEEEEE and the child lands on their feet with a shout of joy and a cry of AGAIN!!!!

Estava passejant cap a on treballo quan he trobat un parell, avis crec, i un nen entremig.  Estaven jugant un joc que sempre vam anomenar, afectuosament, 'un, dos, tres, weeeeeee!!!!!'  Que heu de fer és, amb el nen o la nena entremig, cadascú agafant un mà, el nen camina una mica enrere i tots compten UN, DOS, TRES....i quan arriben a tres, el nen saltar i els adults li gronxen cap endavant a on arriba als peus, cridant WEEEEE i de seguida, UN ALTRE COP!!!!!


It made me feel so happy to see this child having such a good time, and the grandparents too.  I remember playing it as a child and ADORING it, and playing it with my kids and loving it almost as much, till my arms got tired.  The adults do always tire first with this game, no?

Me'n alegro tant veient aquest nen desfuitant tant, i tan content.  Els avis també.  Recordo jugant aquest joc quan era petita i estava ENCANTADA, i també recordo jugant aquest joc amb les meves nenes i estava quasi tant contenta com quan era jo que saltava, però no exactament perquè els braços els cansent quan és tu gronxant.  Els adultes sempre cansen primer amb aquest joc, no?

Arrived at work with a big fat smile.


Arribava al meu lloc de treball amb un somriu molt gran.

back to the real world

My sister and her family were here for the weekend, and it was wonderful.  Now we're back to real life...kids sick at home, work, blah blah blah...though I have to say that the real world ain't all that bad.  A nap, lovely food, a walk in the mountains (Youngest just accused me of bragging, maybe she's right.)

Either way, here's hoping you're having a good Monday.

.....later......much later.......

can I just say that I am sick and tired of being good and going to bed at a sensible time so that I don't get ill when all around me are failing?  Know what?  I really really want to stay up half the night and paint.

Not go to bed.

Wonder if they could pretend I don't exist tomorrow and I can just go up there and work.

Camp Nou

Went for a visit to Camp Nou today.  That was amazing.  For such an enormous stadium, it really doesn't seem very big. Skydome in TO seems MUCH bigger.  Camp Nou is much more vertical, and that may account for a lot of the sense that it isn't so big.  It just doesn't sprawl out the way that NA stadiums do?

Not so sure.

I am sure that I am ridiculously tired, which accounts for the dearth of posts...and the crappiness of this one.

More later.  My sister and her family are visiting and it is super fun, and super busy!

Hope you're having a good one,

Cheers,

O

This is funny

Sadly, I have no idea of the original source.  If you came up with it?  BRILLIANT!

click to enlarge

Variable ability

Weird isn't it.

One day you can do something very well, and the next?  Meh.

Or vice versa.

I think anyone who has learned a language can attest to this.  Some days, you just can't seem to get it right; others, it just flows along.  Athletes too can certainly agree, there are days when you are just on.  I find the same in drawing.  Yesterday, seems I wasn't able to draw anything competently. Nothing.  Not that I was beating myself up, but really, basics such as proportion and formation were. not. happening.  Running however seems to have been.

This morning?  Drawing, smooth, effortless, easy and lovely.  Not trying running today however, so I'll have to let you know about speaking instead -

Odd though isn't it. Something good for people to recognise consciously though too, we all have our on days and off days, and it is just that way.  Kids too.

If someone could figure out why, and help us get to on days when we need them?  Wouldn't that be great.

I have discovered a great truth

This happened when I went running today.

I know, you read that correctly, I f.i.n.a.l.l.y.  went running again after MONTHS!  Nothing like being surrounded by extreme and not so extreme illness for a couple of weeks to get you focused on maintaining your health!

Anyway,

I have indeed discovered a great truth.  There is a trick to enjoying running and it is this:

Keep your expectations very very very low.  If you go out convinced that you are going to be utterly hopeless and pathetic, you are utterly delighted by anything at all that you do achieve, and you come home with a thrilling sense of your own ability, even if your efforts were kinda sad.

Just keep assuming you're far worse than you could possibly be, and everything else comes as a pleasant surprise.

Neat, eh?

constraint and creativity

A while ago, I was taking this course on Material and Techniques of Post-war Abstract Expressionist Painting from Moma. The instructor for the course spent quite a bit of time talking about studio rules. Yesterday I was listening to this video from Vi Hart.  She talks about 'loose sort of rules' when drawing/doodling.  This morning I was listening to this podcast from 99% Invisible.  Here he was talking about constraints.

By studio rules, the instructor was discussing how art is often made within a self-imposed set of rules. Some of them you can see for yourself, such as in this Rothko painting at Moma; or indeed, any of these.  You could say that his studio rule was for largely rectangular forms created by painting and over paintings with thin translucent layers of paint.  The edges of the forms should be loose, and I am sure that there were also rules about colour choice and order.  For instance I assume that brighter whiter colours formed more of the bottom layers in order to achieve the glow.

A set of rules.

Vi Hart talks about how a set of rules, that are very simple, such as lines from a central point every 100º or every 122º or every 180º.  Or a simple rule that creates the fibonacci series.

The first two numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are 0 and 1, and each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two (from Wiki)

So for example the sequence goes 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21....

What it creates though is spirals, like in the cauliflower below, which is a wildly exaggerated spiral that is normally there, or pine cones, flowers etc etc etc

So this simple rule is a constraint.

In 99% invisible, the question is more of a time and physical space restraint.

99% Invisible-45- Immersive Ideal by Roman Mars

Why, you might ask yourself am I rattling on and on and on about restraint?  I think it is an interesting route to access creativity, to funnel it and to get it to flow.  As I posted a while ago, I feel like my painting this year has not really been moving, it is here and there but unco-ordinated.  I don't have a studio rule.  I have imposed these on myself before, the canvas a day project, the Immigration series...but nothing so far this year, and I think this is what I am missing, although I have temporarily restarted the canvas a day to get ANY sort of rule going.  I have a rule to spend a half hour each day drawing from the Artwork of the day blog/post from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

Still searching for that rule it would seem, though I think this year it is going to have to do with straight lines.

It does make me ponder about the relationship between constraint and creativity, no?

Thinking

The week has indeed begun on a rough note, and looks to continue that way.  Soooooo I bring you a saved post from a few weeks ago.  Hope you're having a good one.

For Xmas, my Dad got a book called Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.  I nabbed it and read the first 6 chapters, but it was a bit of a slog with everything that was going on, and I will have to have another go at it later.  He knows how to flog a dead horse.

Kahneman's basic premise in the book is that we have two basic ways of thinking, the first is a fairly automatic rapid response thought process, what you engage if you look at a piece of art and decide if you like it or not; what you engage when you answer 2+2=4

The second type of thinking actually forces us to engage consciously, for instance when you have to solve 27 x 32 = ???  for example, or when you are analyzing a book.  When you engage with a piece of work fully.

As a teacher, one of the hardest things to do is to get students into system 2.  Work sheets appear to do this.  The students are silent and processing work.  The problem is that this is only one type of system 2 work.  If you think about it, we all know that this is not the highest type of system 2 thought.  Sure, we've all filled out worksheets that test whether we have read the text, that ask stupid questions that require you to look back and reread.  You need some quiet and concentration for this, but it is not truly engaging.  Higher system 2 thought, which I am not sure that Kahneman approaches or differentiates, is that level of concentration that makes time disappear.  When you are engaged in a piece of work and erupt again unaware that hours have passed.  This is difficult to achieve in a class, to set up an atmosphere that allows the students to truly engage 'system 2'.

In the first chapters I read, Kahneman did not distinguish between these different types of system 2 thought, mental business and mental engagement.  When I get my hands on a copy, I am hoping to find that he does.

My second hope is that he will clarify that it is not always such a clear separation.  We can all feel the mental difference as we gear up to solve 27 x 32, as opposed to the snap ease of 2+2.  There is however a sliding scale of engagement.  He uses the example that chess masters will, with System 1, the 2+2 system, play the first several moves of a game in a way that would require the rest of us to fully engage in system 2 if we could even do that.  A reasonable example, but not a wildly accessible one.  Driving a car comes to mind, when you first get behind the wheel, for most of us I would think, it is a full on System 2 highly concentrated, possibly white knuckled (for the passenger as well) engagement.  As your skills improve, more and more of the tasks get handed over to system 1, you no longer have to think about where the brake pedal is, or how to use a steering wheel.  Gradually a sense of time opening up appears as more of the requirements can be completed in an rapid automatic way by system 1.  Eventually, driving becomes so automatic that we barely think about it at all - with System 2 - and therein lies danger, particularly for newer drivers who have shifted the skill to System 1, but do not have a depth of experience there to provide good decision making.

It becomes clearer how much this has happened when you go to drive in another country where the street signs are unfamiliar and the road layout and driving styles are not your own, suddenly you need to engage system 2 to manage what is normally an auto-pilot activity.

Another example is learning a foreign language.  Trying to speak and understand it is, at first, a full on System 2 process, laborious, slow and engaging. As time passes, things speed up, more and more structures and phrases become automatic and things shift down to system 1.  But even when a certain degree of fluency is acheived, like my Catalan at this point, it still requires a higher engagement of system 2.  Even listening to a simple text requires a higher level of engagement than listening to a language either acquired in childhood, or one fully acquired.  But full engagement?  No.  More like system 2 focussing a bit.

These are two examples of thought processes that blur the lines between Kahneman's clear cut system 1 and 2.  I am itching to get my hands on the book and look at whether he explores these regions or not, because I think that these aspects provide more depth and interest than a simple two system concept and also more closely mirror the reality of our thought processes.

Looking forward to reading it.

Hoping he goes rich with this rather than plays it easy.