Managed to go walking one day!

And it was marvelous...took Chuck and went with some friends.  We were supposed to have gone for a long weekend, but that didn't work out, I had too much homework, which they gave us at the last minute.  Poop.

Anyway, we had a lovely day.

See?

Dog had a wonderful time.....

The views were marvelous, and so was the company

It got narrow in spots....

See?

Chuck got on leash for those bits....

Not down the stairs though, he was cool here.

Montseny:

Montserrat in the distance

With the different trees it looks like a quilt.

Sun went down before we finished.  Short short days.

So little time!

I know I am way to busy when I finally get into my photos and realise how gigantic the backlog is!

So, with no further ado,

I start to open that up and show some of what I have been up to, a series of posts.

Way back on November 2nd, or something like that, Youngest and I went into BCN with a friend to get a tour of the Ajuntament (town hall) there, which you can only visit on specific days, and with a guide.  I have to say that overall, the tour was kind of disappointing, with the exception of one room, though in fact we didn't need a guide to see it if we had just gone up on our own.  Here's some pics:

Youngest and I got into BCN kind of early, so we took some photos, I had always meant to take photos of these manhole covers, and finally did.  Pretty amazing, no?

Some random graffiti:

Xurros!!!!!

6 days, 12 hours, 43 minutes and 15 seconds to the vote!!!!

This room was amazing, the Consell de Cent I think it was called.  Amazing.

A painting, it was OK.

Then as the tour was short, we went on to see other stuff.....

For example here we are in the center of a building where three of the columns from the original Roman temple stand...and where they stood originally!  Cool.

This is a photo of a drain.  It has a stone cover and if you look closely, about 2 stories down, you can see a little river running.

Maybe it's easier here......you don't want to drop your keys or your phone down there.

We went on to the Museu de la Ciutat, which are roman ruins again:

You can see they built it up from whatever other bits and pieces came to hand.

And atop it, this amazing room.

Back November 2nd or something.

Nightwalking

I went walking with youngest at night a year or so ago and she loved it, but we didn't do it again. 

Then last week, when she was upset a bit about - I don't remember what - and we couldn't agree on something to watch on the computer, I suggested going for another walk in the mountains in the dark. 

She accepted with alacrity. 

Then she wanted to go last night....and we went....and I was very tired before, but very happy afterwards. 

And she wants to go tonight. 

We talk a lot, well, she talks a lot more than I do, but that is good too.

Nice.

Incidental learning

I'm doing a Master's online, and it is really interesting and really good and I am learning a ton. A ton.

But there is also incidental learning that is going on.  Part of what my incidental learning involves is working in teams, and also working with groups online, both synchronoulys and asynchronously.

I am primarily a classroom teacher, which means that I work alone almost all the time.  I sometimes have a group of fellow teachers and we may confer on things, but I really never ever work in a team.

So that is interesting.  (in both the good and bad sense)

Add to this the online component, and it being in Catalan and you get a little more deeply into this.  When working entirely online there is no facial expressions, it is much more complicated to develop a sense of the other person, partially cause it is easier to cover up your feelings, and also cause it is easy to misinterpret or be misinterpreted as there is no tone of voice.

Add in the cultural element, Anglos are generally shorter and more direct in emails than Catalans or Spanish speakers, and you can have some misunderstandings develop.

It isn't directly what I signed up for, but it is in fact a valuable part of the learning process.  Things we need to learn.

Can't say it's always fun though.

I have to say that I have also had some pretty good laughs at times too.

Youngest on smells

Youngest today, though in fact not for the first time, mentioned how we really should be able to send smells over the internet...and it would be cool.

Then she commented that the reality is that the vast majority of the smells would be farts.

Fartmail.

how does this work?

Just got a linked in account, a couple of days ago, it's a course requirement, but it also seems like maybe it's time, or not.  It's interesting anyway, while simultaneously boring.

What confuses me is the fairly steady stream of people wanting to link up with me, how do they know I have an account?  When I set mine up I was asked to send link requests to any number of people (over 350!!!) - I sent out less than a seventh of that - but folks keep finding me!  And they are people I know.  Are they cruising their linked in account to go through their phone books?  Does Linked in send them a notification?  (this is my suspicion) 

It is faintly creepy, I mean, there is a lot of personal information about yourself up there, seems, well, unwise.

Web 2.0

or the great black hole that eats our time!
For the master's I have to develop an online ID, ok, fine, I get it, it is a course in online education, IT etc etc etc


but he want's us to going 3 different groups for managing content.  ANNOYING!  I already have a system, it's called google docs!

So much duplication and so little time.

This and that

Note to self:  never use an activity based on seeing a crime and the police arriving with adults in some parts of Spain.  Works with teens, but when I (stupidly) did it with the adults, one of the members of the class was old enough to have been beaten frequently by Franco's cops when protesting in the 70s, and the other grew up in the Basque region in the late 70s and early 80s and remembers gathering rubber bullets as a game.  Neither of them have, ah, good associations with cops.

Note to self:  December is going to be a humdinger with the work for the master's, teaching many hours, report cards, marking for Toronto and prepping for xmas! 

Note to self:  on beautiful days, get away from the computer and go do something oustside!

Note to self: uncomfortable chairs are ultimately better to work in cause they make you keep shifting your weight around and getting up. Much better for the health.

Note to self:  Turn of the computer and go do something!!!

81%

Yep,

81% voted to leave Spain.

81%

SO Catalan

Honestly,

There's all this build up, they wanted people there early in case something happened to prevent the polls from opening, or in  case some right wing nut jobs showed up.

Everyone stood around in the sunshine chatting about a whole lot of not very much.  There were a lot of people, the politicians came out, we saw lots of people driving up and down to get into the area to vote.  They opened the polls 10 minutes early (some folks had to go to work!)

I was the first foreigner to vote, which kinda freaked them out, but it was all good.

I VOTED!


I have not voted in I don't know how long, I want to say a decade.  We tried in the Bahamas, I've tried here, never ever ever with success.

This time, yes.

And this is a pretty historic vote.

I haven't done the research on it, but it cannot have happened very often that the people of a country get out, organise a vote and go and vote.  No politicians or governments involved.

This has to be the purest form of democracy.  The people (literally) went out and voted.

They are counting it a victory simply that they got polls open.  The turn out looks like it's going to be HUGE; there are lines down the street to get in, and that in and of itself is a victory.

Lets see how this all shapes up.